TWENTY-SIX
I am pleased to say that Alice finds nothing. Not pleased because I feared she might, but pleased to have my searching skills pass the test. It’s obvious that Alice has hidden a thing or two in her life, and she spends well over an hour going through my room. She misses the loose floorboard. While she checks the floor, she fails to see the telltale signs, and I show her afterward. Having no plans to turn thief, I’m not the least bit concerned that she knows about Catriona’s best hiding spot. Also, I’ve been drinking, so my judgment may not be at its best. At least I’m not drunk enough to tell her the truth about myself.
She leaves satisfied that I’m not an imminent threat to her family-in-service, and I head to bed. That doesn’t mean I get much sleep. Even if the raven killer hasn’t realized I’m not really Catriona, he still targeted me. He knows I’m Gray’s housemaid. He could come to finish the job. And if he’s from the twenty-first century and thinks I know he is, too? He’ll definitely try taking me out.
I can’t stop thinking about Isla saying Mrs. Wallace only locks the doors at night. Does she ever forget? No one’s likely to know if she did, or if she decided to leave it open for Gray. I last saw Gray at dinner, and I have no idea whether he’s still out.
The point is that whoever attacked me may try to finish the job, and I’m not exactly sleeping in a house with double–dead bolts and a security system.
I put the switchblade under my pillow.
That’s part of what keeps me awake. The rest is this puzzle.
Is it possible that the raven killer is the serial killer who tried to strangle me in 2019 Edinburgh? I itch to grab my phone and start jotting down notes, working through the case for and against that conclusion. I should have taken extra paper from Gray’s office, but I hadn’t wanted to push my luck. I think of the library downstairs, where there must be paper and pens, but I barely avoided being sacked today. I can’t afford to be caught skulking about at night.
Let’s start with potential arguments against my theory. The most obvious is the one I considered earlier. How would he survive in this world? Figure out whose body he inhabits? How would he blend in? It’s not impossible. I managed it. I’m still weathering the bumps, but I am managing. Therefore, he could do the same, especially with the twin advantages of being in a male body and being from Edinburgh.
I struggle to find solid arguments against the killer being from the modern world, so I switch to the other side temporarily. Signs hecouldbe the twenty-first-century killer.
First, the rope. It’d caught my attention the moment Gray lifted it from Evans’s body. Something inside me jumped in recognition. I’d easily explained it away, but it still remains a piece of evidence in favor of my theory. Both that killer and this one like to strangle with rope.
The trap is the next obvious factor in favor of my theory. I’d been lured into a dark alley, following sounds of a woman in danger. Might not Catriona then be pulled in by the even stronger lure of a child in distress?
Then there’s the moment during our fight when he seemed to recognize me. Recognize the real me, as the victim who’d fought back in the modern world. I’d been fighting for my life and not caring whether I was talking or acting like a Victorian housemaid. That modern talk caught his ear, as the modern self-defense techniques caught his attention. A moment of déjà vu for both of us.
Is that enough?
My defense-attorney mother would say no. It’s not enough to convict him of the “crime” of being my modern-day attacker. However, it would be enough evidence for the crown prosecutor to sign off on questioning him. Enough to charge him while I gathered more for trial? Possibly. Butthat doesn’t matter here. Here, my question is only whether it’s enough for me to pursue this theory. It is.
Is there anything in Evans’s murder that suggests his killerwasn’tfrom my time? Fingerprints or other obvious forensic evidence could hint at a Victorian murderer. It’s too late to test that with Evans, but I do recall my attacker last night wore gloves, plus the hood that might keep him from shedding hairs. Still, that was also part of his disguise, so I can’t read too much into it.
There’s nothing in the staging or the method of murder that indicates either a modern or Victorian killer. I’ll have to go through that more carefully once I have paper and pen, but a mental rundown pings nothing.
What about the torture? Nope. The old “splints under fingernails” dates back at least to the thirteenth century, from the book Gray lent me. And I investigated a case six months ago where it’d been used. Nothing there. So—
I bolt up in bed.
The water Gray found in Evans’s lungs combined with the lung damage and restraints suggests waterboarding. I’ve seen that, too, and cops I know say it mostly started after the news of waterboarding at Guantánamo Bay. It’s a bloodless and effective torture method. One McCreadie laughed at. Pouring water on someone’s face? How was that torture? Anyone who has ever been yanked underwater knows how horrible it is. Even if your brain realizes you aren’t going to drown, your body reacts with primal panic.
Gray hadn’t rolled his eyes quite as hard as McCreadie, but he’d dismissed it, too. Does that mean waterboarding is a modern method of torture? Almost certainly not. If there’s a way to terrify another human being, someone found it millennia ago. Yet Gray and McCreadie’s disbelief—combined with everyone who web-searched “waterboarding” after the Guantánamo Bay incident—tells me it’s not like forcing splints into nail beds. Not something they’d have read in a book or a news article. But if you’re a modern killer looking for bloodless torture? Waterboarding would rank at the top of your list.
If this is the same killer, then there’s something else I need to think about. Something I’ve forgotten, being so caught up in the possibility that I’ve brought a modern killer into Victorian Scotland.
I jumped into the body of Catriona, as she was being strangled by her would-be killer. So, logically, where would my would-be killer have ended up?
In the body of Catriona’s killer.
Find him, whoever he is, and I’ll have the raven killer.
The next morning starts as expected. Alice has been charged with taking Gray’s breakfast to him, meaning I remain in that particular doghouse. Then he’s off to work before I need to clean his quarters. Isla leaves before breakfast for some engagement or other.
I’m cleaning Gray’s bedroom, my mind working through the implications of my theory, when his unmistakable footsteps pound up the stairs. He’s in a hurry, and I glance around, feeling the odd impulse to hide, as if I’m about to be caught somewhere I’m not supposed to be. I continue dusting, presuming he’ll run in, grab what he wants, and run out again. Instead, he stops in the doorway.
“You,” he says.
“Yes, I am dusting your room, sir. I was not told I shouldn’t—”
“I have been looking everywhere for you. Come.”