He waves and strides off. I hesitate barely a heartbeat, but it’s enough to have him shouting back, “Catriona!”
“Coming, sir.”
He continues down two flights of stairs, and I think we’re going to the funeral parlor, but he throws open the back door instead. I rack my brain to think of what I might have forgotten to do outside, but that is the domain of Simon and the part-time gardener, Mr. Tull.
When a coach emerges from the stable, Gray grunts and waves me toward it.
“Sir?” I say. “If I’m going out, I need to change my boots and put on a coat.”
His look clearly conveys “Not this again” irritation. As much as I don’t want to wear my indoor boots through the muck again, I’m really balking because the chill creeping down my spine has nothing to do with the weather.
Isla is gone, and Gray is suddenly very anxious to bundle me off on acoach ride. Has he realized that, with his sister away, he can fire me and tell her I quit?
“In the carriage, Catriona,” he says. “Now. We haven’t much time.”
Not much time before Isla returns?
I want to insist on getting a coat, in hopes of stalling, but Gray is holding the coach door, and his expression warns that a two-minute delay will only annoy him more.
I climb in. Gray rattles off an address to Simon, and we’re gone.
As we move from Princes Street into the narrower lanes of the Old Town, I glance anxiously at Gray.
“May I ask where you are taking me, sir?”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even seem to hear. He’s gazing outside, frowning. Then he calls to Simon, telling him where to let us out.
“Dr. Gray?” I say.
He turns sharply to me. “Describe the man who attacked you, please.”
“Wh-what?” I stammer.
His brows knit with impatience. “The attack the other night. Or do you think it could have been the same person who attacked you the first time?”
I hesitate. Yes, it’s the same attacker—in a way—but I’ve already said that I didn’t see my attacker the first time. I want to tell him it’s the same guy, so they’ll know the crimes are connected. But what if he’s testing me? Seeing whether I’ll change my story about not seeing my initial assailant?
I answer slowly. “If I saw the person the first time, I do not recall it.”
He leans forward. “Could it be the same man?”
“I… would not rule out the possibility, sir. I was attacked in an alley and strangled. This man attempted to do the same, with a rope. If it was the same killer, he may have realized that was more effective than manual strangulation.”
He thumps back in his seat and into his thoughts. At least two minutes pass before he says, as abruptly as if we’d never stopped talking, “Describe the recent attacker.”
“He was dressed entirely in black, including a mask of some sort.”
“Like a theater mask?”
I shake my head. “It was black fabric with holes for eyes and presumablyfor his mouth, though the lane was too dark for me to make out that. Also too dark for me to see eye color. He wore a black mask, a coat like a cape, a black shirt and trousers. Male. Between five foot eight and five foot nine. Eleven or twelve stone.”
“That is very specific.”
Damn. Less cop; more housemaid.
I take a deep breath before plowing on with, “I am certain it is the man you seek. The raven killer.”
I expect him to grumble at that, to pull back and even dismiss the rest of my description, clearly influenced by my presumption. I won’t retract that, though. I would rather damage my reputation with Gray than damage the investigation.