Downtime

by Tamara Allen

  I buffeted his fall back to earth with kisses. It was a funny thing, but I didn’t remember ever enjoying kissing so much. Whether it came out of experience or natural talent, Ezra knew what he was doing. Once he got going, I didn’t want to stop. But he had a whole lot more than kissing in mind. “Now that I’ve shown you our heathen practices, you must show me the way of it in your enlightened age.”

  I didn’t expect to spring anything on him he’d never heard of, but it was fun trying. We finally had to acknowledge that heathen practices hadn’t changed much from one century to the next. It was hours before, beat beyond the ability to move, we fell asleep. But the first light of dawn had barely filtered into the room when I woke to the sensation of a soft kiss on my neck.

  “Are you very tired?” he whispered and I couldn’t help a drowsy grin. Bottle up a healthy sex drive too long and you end up with a tsunami on your hands.

  I crawled on top of him and kissed him. “What’re you doing to me, Ezra?”

  “Atoning for ruining your life?”

  “Yeah?” As his hands locked in the small of my back, I tangled my fingers in his hair and kissed him again. “Well, it’s a hell of a good start.”

  Chapter 13

  By the time a subdued autumn sun had brightened the room, we were back under the blanket, a comfortable tangle of arms and legs. “We should sleep,” Ezra said, as if it had just occurred to him that we’d put off that particular activity for a while.

  “Yeah? Nice to be sleeping again, I guess. At least you were,” I added with a wicked grin.

  “Yes, I do sleep when you’re here, don’t I? I wonder why.”

  “The ghosts are scared of me.”

  “I don’t wish to disillusion you, but the ghosts are still about. They do stand off a bit, though. More than they used to. Perhaps they don’t quite know what to make of you.”

  “They’re still around?” An unsettling idea crept into my head. “Were they watching us?” Oh, Jesus…. “Sully wasn’t here, was he?”

  Ezra seemed to find the idea a lot funnier than I did. When he could stop laughing, he kissed my cheek affectionately. “My dear fellow, they’re always about. They fade in and out, but they don’t always stay away.” His lips twitched. “I hadn’t imagined you the bashful sort.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. You don’t mind an audience?”

  He thought about it. “I suppose I’m rather used to one. But….” He shook his head at my perturbed expression. “They aren’t hovering about the bed, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t believe they feel drawn to pay us any mind, in the state they’re in. And no, your Sully hasn’t been around. It took so much for him to visit before. It may be a while before he comes back.”

  Visit….

  Such a normal way to put something that didn’t seem normal in the least. “Mind if I ask you something? What’s it like, over there?”

  “Over there? Ah. There. Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest.”

  “Ezra—”

  “Well, to be honest, I think it’s rather like this.”

  “Like what? Sleeping with someone you like?”

  He smiled. “Yes, rather. It’s being warm and comfortable. Content.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I didn’t know how good,” he said softly, and was asleep in moments. I drifted off again, musing that if someone would just bring us something to eat, we could stay here forever.

  But no one did, and around eleven we reached the simultaneous realization that man cannot live by mind-blowing sex alone. The kitchen was empty, but Kathleen and Hannah had left sandwiches for us. I was relieved no one was around. The grins we couldn’t have chiseled off with a sledgehammer and our shared inability to keep our hands to ourselves might have sparked some curiosity.

  “Whitechapel today?” Ezra asked, in the midst of dumping half the sugar bowl into his coffee.

  “I’m thinking I’d better go to Whitechapel on my own, Ez. Wait, let me explain,” I said as he started an immediate protest. “You’ve got enough ghosts hanging around you already and you’re not very good at discouraging them.”

  “I can’t let you go alone,” he said with an end-of-discussion tone. “Besides, I may be of use. I have been involved in murder investigations before, you know.”

  “Yeah.” I studied him. “That must not have been too pleasant.”

  He sipped the coffee. “Not all ghosts understand right away that they may decide how the living see them. Those that present themselves in the aspect in which they died….” He frowned. “Well, I imagine it’s nothing worse than a detective such as yourself sees all the time.”

  “Getting used to it is not a good thing.” I sighed. “Okay. You’re sticking close to me, though. What about those old clothes?”

  Ezra had nothing tattered enough. It took a trek up to the attic to dig through trunks of clothes left behind by former tenants to find something suitable to wear slumming. Ezra seemed as amused as a kid on Halloween by the prospect of disguises. “We will have to muddy our boots to take the shine off them.”

  I buttoned on a long coat that was short a few buttons and doffed a faded top hat. “Spare a sovereign for a hungry soul, Guv’nor?”

  Ezra’s eyebrows lifted. “Planning to dine at Verrey’s, are you?”

  “Pricey, huh? Taking me there tonight?” I grinned at him.

  “You forget, I am a poor man now,” he said gravely, but nothing could dampen the sparkle in his eyes. “I shall be living in a garret in Whitechapel presently. Now that I think on it, this may be an opportunity for me to hunt up new lodgings.”

  “As if Derry and Kathleen would let you go.” Taking a handful of his coat, I pulled him close and kissed him. He draped his arms around my shoulders and the kiss deepened. We tumbled onto a dusty sofa, then clutched at each other as it threatened to topple. Ezra buried his face in my neck, laughing—and just too attractive to resist.

  It took us another hour, but we finally got out the door. Sparing Ezra’s wallet, we took the train, which might not have been so bad if the compartment hadn’t been choked with cigarette and pipe smoke, worsening air already stunk up by gas lamps. Between the smell and a nerve-wracking dark that made the subway back home seem a luxury, I was glad to get back into the open air—even if that air was nearly as noxious.

  The west side of London might be comfortably nineteenth century, but the east side had some catching up to do. Women stood in line for a turn at a water pump, and if the water was used for anything other than brewing tea, the grimy kids waiting at the curb were no indication. People crowded the sidewalks, eating, drinking, working, and—most alien to my eyes—striking up a conversation with any passing soul.

  I fished out the map Ezra had lent me and the case file I’d started on a scrap of paper—nothing more so far than just a few remembered facts and what relevant information I’d gleaned from newspaper articles bordering on tabloid sensationalism. That was what the murders were to a lot of Londoners: a shocking news story in a part of town they’d never set foot in. As representative as Ezra was of that particular group, his reaction to lively Whitechapel was not entirely what I expected. Sure, he looked a little pensive as he took in the squalor around us, but sympathy and fascination mingled with that uneasiness. He stayed close as I headed into the marginally less crowded roadway. “What trouble are you leading us into?”

  “Buck’s Row.” I handed him the map. “Where Polly was killed.”

  “Polly?” He slowed to look at my rudimentary case file. “Morgan….”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you always become so intimately involved in your work?”

  “Aw, come on. Not you too.”

  He smiled. “You’re rather pestered, I take it. Mr. Sullivan?”

  “Yeah, good old Sully’s one of the pestering legion. But I can’t change the way I work and I’m not interested in trying.”

  “Passion is a very admirable qua
lity. But….” He glanced sidelong at me. “I had the impression from Mr. Sullivan that it wasn’t so much your level of involvement as whether or not there was anything in your life apart from work.”

  “Sully tell you to give me the third degree?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “If he did, he ought to know better.” Even as I spoke, I doubted Sully had said much, if anything. This was Ezra’s initiative. He’d gotten the message early on that I was dedicated to my job and maybe thought all work and no play would make Morgan a dull boy. Why that particular part of my nature should bother him, when he knew it wasn’t something he’d have to put up with over the long term, I couldn’t figure. Nevertheless, I wanted to discourage this line of chitchat before Ezra took over where Reese had left off. “I like my life. Changing it to suit other people’s perception of what I must need is not in the cards. Okay?”

  I could see the thinking going on behind those blue eyes before he finally just nodded. I couldn’t help a breath of relief. I’d gone around and around on that topic one too many times with boyfriends in the past. Whether I was here for another day or a week or a month, I didn’t want to spend it beating a horse that had long since given up the ghost.

  Ezra fell quiet and we traipsed on to the murder site. Buck’s Row was pretty much as I’d pictured it. The buildings were barely twenty feet apart, leaving a narrow road that had probably been, barring a full moon, pitch dark at the time of the murder. From all reports, no one in any of the surrounding houses had heard a thing—which meant Polly had known and trusted her assailant well enough to not realize his intent until it was too late to scream. That, or she’d been too desperate or too drunk to sense the threat about him until his hands were around her throat. I couldn’t imagine a reason for all the potential witnesses lying about having heard anything, unless they were either afraid of someone or protecting him. That was a theory I’d be easier about discarding once I’d had a chat with some of the neighbors, myself.

  I overcame my accent by identifying myself as an American newspaper reporter. The people we talked to seemed pleased at the idea of having their names travel to a world that likely none of them ever would. Even so, I pried no new information out of them. Phantom Jack had done his work swiftly and silently. I kept my eyes open for the smallest hint of a suspicious tone or manner, whispering to Ezra to do the same, in the hope he might sense something I couldn’t. But neither of us came away with doubts about any of the residents of Buck’s Row or the surrounding streets.

  Hanbury Street was as unimpressive as Buck’s Row. It was near dusk when we finally made our way to the next murder site and though I didn’t expect to be able to do more than look around, I wasn’t ready to head back home. We navigated the alley behind the houses which led to the backyard where Annie’s body had been discovered, and found the gate locked, probably for the first time in its existence.

  There was only one thing for it.

  “Morgan, what are you doing?”

  I gave him a look from my precarious position halfway over the fence. “I can’t exactly go asking Scotland Yard for a search warrant.” I dropped to the ground on the other side. It stunk like nobody’s business and I realized that was because I stood next to an outhouse. Indoor plumbing couldn’t reach this neck of the woods fast enough, if you asked me. “You coming over?”

  Ezra wrapped his hands around the iron palings and peered at me, more dubious than ever. “I shall be your watch in case a constable comes along. Do hurry.”

  There wasn’t a whole lot to investigate. The cops had done their job, and I was sure that within a day or two of the murder more than a few curious neighbors had contaminated any evidence left. The yard was smaller than my apartment patio back home and, according to reports, Annie had been found lying beside the door.

  Even if Jack had killed her somewhere else and moved her body, he couldn’t have dumped her without making a commotion. And yet no one had heard a thing. I had to assume noise coming from the alley late at night was so common that the residents would have been able to sleep right through it. God knew I could sleep through Friday morning garbage pickups without any problem. As long as Jack had prevented her from screaming, no one would necessarily think anything of noises resulting from a brief physical struggle.

  For now, I’d have to pin it to that. There were traces of dried blood on the ground near the gate and outside it, indicating she had been moved or had at least struggled mightily to save herself—or that the ensuing investigation by the police and other parties had tracked blood from a single location to different areas of the scene. Gathering samples was pointless, as was a search for prints.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, giving the bleak little plot one last look.

  “Morgan,” Ezra hissed through the bars, just as the door opened behind me.

  I turned to see a short, grandmotherly woman, black skirts hoisted in one hand, heave herself down the steps in my direction and advance on me with energy born of indignation. “Here, I’ve a lock on that gate for good reason. I’ll have an end to this poking about. Back the way you came.”

  “Mrs. Richardson?” I yanked off my hat belatedly and offered her a gentlemanly bow. From behind me there was a muffled, derisive sound and I pretended I hadn’t heard. “Mrs. Richardson, if I could just ask you a few questions—”

  “You’ve got cheek. What d’you think this is, a tour up the bleedin’ Nile? You want a souvenir, help yourself.” She gestured expansively toward the outhouse. “Then get out of our yard or I’ll have the constable in.”

  “I’m not a tourist, Mrs. Richardson. I’m a reporter for—”

  “Morgan,” Ezra interrupted, all the humor fled from his tone.

  “Just a second, Ez. Mrs. Richardson—”

  “Morgan.”

  The urgency in Ezra’s voice forced me around, to trade Mrs. Richardson’s annoyed stare for the scowling visage of the policeman standing at Ezra’s shoulder. If I’d wondered how policemen in London—especially Whitechapel—could maintain order without a gun, I didn’t need to wonder further. This fellow was big and burly enough to haul off a pubful of miscreants without even taking the shine off his buttons.

  Whether he was bright enough to disbelieve the lie I intended to dish out, we were about to discover. But before I could offer my standard caught-trespassing excuse, Ezra spoke up. “Do forgive us, constable. You see, I’ve been taking my friend around town today, and Whitechapel’s been rather in the papers, and as he’s a reporter, well, you understand his interest. I hadn’t quite expected he’d be over the fence so quick,” Ezra added with a baleful look at me, “but then, he’s from America, and they’re rather excitable, you know.”

  “Say no more,” the constable rumbled in a deep, sympathetic bass. “The tourists have been thick as fleas and far more trouble.” He nodded for Mrs. Richardson to come unlock the gate and, as she did so, he leaned over to talk confidentially to Ezra. “If I was you, sir, I’d get him in hand right off and trot him ’round to some proper place he’d fancy—the Tower, say. At any rate, don’t bring him back here.”

  At his mention of the Tower, Ezra lost a little color, but managed a nod and a word of thanks as the constable stepped back and gestured for me to return to the other side of the gate. I was getting a little tired of being considered the idiot American, but I couldn’t deny I’d brought it on myself. I followed his orders, keeping my mouth shut only until we were around the corner and well out of earshot.

  “Excitable?”

  “Yes, rather like one of those—what do you call them? Jackrabbits?”

  “You know, the Tower is still on my list of things to do in 1888,” I growled, futilely poking him in the ribs through the layers of shirt, vest, coat, and overcoat.

  He caught my wrist and gave it a quick squeeze. “You will want to keep me in a cheerful frame of mind, I think, if you want a properly cast spell when Charles recovers a copy of the book for us.”

  “Resorting to blackmail
already?” I shook my head. “Be careful what you ask for. I might drag you into that church—” I nodded at the towering spire, “And into a dark corner to have my way with you.” I slowed to get a better look at the building. “Damn. You Brits can build churches like nothing back home.”

  Stark white stone rose from the huddle of soot-blanketed houses to a crowning steeple that seemed to pierce the storm clouds overhead. It was a handsome church, in a sort of solemn way, impressive but not so inviting. The establishment right beside it, however, was another story. “Ten Bells?” There was something familiar in the name. “Want to get a bite to eat?” The church clock read six-thirty. No wonder I was so hungry.