Downtime

by Tamara Allen

  Chapter 22

  I turned the handlebars, trying to evade the dog without throwing Ezra off the bike, and the wheels lost traction, sending us skidding downhill into the trees. Whatever we hit—my guess was a fallen branch—it flipped us off the bike and into the thick, ferny undergrowth at the bottom of the slope. The ground was soft and damp; still, I landed hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

  “You do realize this will not fall strictly in with Kathleen’s definition of sensible.” Ezra, on his feet, held out a hand to help me up.

  “What did you want me to do, hit the dog?”

  “No, but I’d hoped for rather a different result than hurtling into the bracken. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. How about you?” I hooked a finger in his waistcoat and planted a kiss on him, and he smiled with a hint of reproof.

  “If that was meant as an apology—”

  I cut him off with another kiss and he put his arms around me. I’d always thought of kissing as a way of stoking the fire, not the tender communication Ezra made it. Then again, even the mildest kiss with him seemed to get my fires stoked. Another minute and we’d be stuck in our ferny hideout for a while. He seemed to know it. With a reluctant sigh, he drew back, forehead resting against mine. “It’s raining.”

  “Is it?” I didn’t care if we were soaked to the skin. I wanted to pull him down behind the tallest weeds and see if we couldn’t set the whole park ablaze. But then I realized we were in danger of getting burned in a far less pleasant way, as voices drifted down from the path. One of the ubiquitous nannies pushed a pram past, oblivious to our presence, but the tweedy kid trailing her gave us a curious look as he went by. Ezra pulled self-consciously out of my arms and I threw the kid a grin and a wave.

  “Morgan, for heaven’s sake,” Ezra whispered, choking down a laugh.

  “Might as well make a good impression while they’re open-minded.” I heard my name called out, then Ezra’s. “Hey, listen. Derry’s looking for us.”

  We flagged him down as he hurried past under a damp newspaper. He looked us over in concern. “Take a tumble, did you?”

  I caught the wicked gleam in his eyes and wagged a finger at him. “A literal one, yeah. But don’t tell Kathleen.”

  Derry tsk-tsked as we climbed the path, pushing along the bike. “You’re in need of a chaperone, the two of you—but I’m not sure which of you needs it the more.”

  He led us to the pavilion where the others had gone when the rain started. It was crowded with damp picnickers making the best of it while the band continued to play and a crowd that included Hannah and Tom whirled around the floor. A man with an old-fashioned tripod camera had set up a photo shoot in a sunny corner of the pavilion.

  “Shall we have a likeness taken?” Though Ezra made the suggestion with an air of nonchalance, I had a feeling it meant more to him than he let on. Figuring I couldn’t do much more damage to history than I had already, I agreed; and hatless, coatless, damp and disheveled from our biking escapade, we got into line. When our turn came, we took a seat on a wrought iron bench in front of an ivy-covered trellis, sunlight warming our faces while the rain continued to fall behind us. As the photographer warned us to be still and I wondered if Ezra would mind me putting an arm around him, he slipped his hand into mine and the moment was captured.

  I knew what he was trying to hold on to with that handclasp and I felt a stab of guilt. I might have opened his eyes to a few things, but I was fast becoming the albatross keeping him from finding someone on the proper Victorian wavelength, someone who fit him and his world. His life was on hold as much as mine until we found that book. It didn’t look like the Theosophical kooks were going to come through for us, so maybe it was time to resume book hunting on our own.

  But just as I was going to suggest it, Ezra turned to me with dawning dismay. “The funeral,” he blurted out, pulling me out of the path of the dancers as more of them crowded the floor. “I quite forgot.”

  “I didn’t.”

  He looked confused. “You did say you wished to attend?”

  I put my arm around his shoulders then. “I did exactly what I wanted to do today. And, you know, it wasn’t half bad, really.”

  “You left off investigating for my sake? But if you believed the Ripper might have gone to the funeral—”

  “There were probably a lot of people at that funeral. I had a slim shot at finding him, assuming he showed up for it. Anyway, Sully’s right. One agent alone, even with a smart psychic at his side,” I added with a grin, “doesn’t have a hope in hell of nailing this guy. I got caught up in the idea, yeah, and I shouldn’t have. It put people that I care about at risk.” I gave his hair a muss. “I pretty much dragged you through hell and back the last couple of weeks. And if you think that’s bad, imagine what it’s like living with me.” Little wonder Reese had wanted out. Little wonder they all had.

  Ezra was quiet again and I knew he had come to a far more generous conclusion than I deserved. “Stay here,” he said, and took off into the crowd before I could ask why. I wondered if he was hunting up a proper female dancing partner for each of us. But when he came back, it was with our coats and hats. Without a word of explanation, he took my arm and hustled me down the steps.

  “Clue me in on where we’re headed?” I asked, with a sneaking suspicion I already knew.

  “To the street for a cab.” And we did, with Ezra refusing to answer another question until he provided the cabbie with directions and climbed in beside me.

  “Did you hear a word I said?” I asked in exasperation.

  “Yes indeed. And it will haunt you most egregiously, if you do not go and at least look about.”

  “The funeral’s over by now.”

  “Perhaps. We shall find out.”

  “I’m not dragging you through any more investigation. You were locked up in that asylum because of me.”

  “My detention in St. Andrews was inevitable,” he said calmly. “But I would never have escaped, if not for you.”

  “Always trying to see me in a good light, aren’t you?” I said with a rueful smile.

  “You stand in one of your own making.” He gave my hand a squeeze. “Come, Agent Nash. What do you say to another go? We’ll steal a march on the villain yet, if we keep our wits.”

  He was something else; that I’d been right about all along. “You’ll wait in the cab, won’t you?”

  “I will come with you,” he said, and before I could object, added, “I do not find graveyards as distressful as you might think. I suppose the majority of souls laid to rest are truly at rest.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but I could keep an eye on him, so I decided not to worry about it. If I’d known how far the cemetery was from our neck of the woods, I would have vetoed the idea altogether. By the time we arrived, the funeral was finished, the place deserted like only a cemetery can be. In the hazy afternoon light, we found an open grave and, in it, an austere wooden casket only partially covered with dirt. The grave-diggers were nowhere in sight. “Think she scared them off?”

  “Quite possibly,” he said seriously. “If there was something here she wanted us to see.”

  “Is she around now?”

  “I’m not certain.”

  I heard the tension in his voice and looked across the pit at him. “You okay?”

  “There’s an—agitation.”

  “Not feeling too welcome?”

  “No, it’s all right. We’re in greater danger from the rain, I think.”

  A brisk wind had rounded up more rain clouds, and I suspected the diggers would be back soon to finish their work before they were stuck shoveling mud instead of dirt. In the soft earth around the grave were a number of fresh prints. I circumnavigated the pit to get a look at them. “At least she had a good crowd,” I noted. The sun broke through the clouds, and I saw the flash of something metallic atop the casket. “What’s that?”

  Ezra leaned over to look. “A penny, I believe.”

>   “Yeah? Is that some sort of custom?” I hopped into the grave and, ignoring Ezra’s uneasy protest, brushed away some of the dirt on the casket. A penny it was, and not just one. I found four in all and bagged them. Ezra had gone quiet, and I glanced up to see him at the edge of the pit, his attention drawn to some spot beyond my view. “Ez? What is it?”

  “Something’s disturbing them,” Ezra said, looking pretty disturbed himself.

  “Them?” I didn’t like the idea of a mob I couldn’t see. Maybe they viewed my poking around as a desecration. Did the dead look after the dead? I pocketed the coins and moved to the foot of the pit. “Give me a hand up.”

  Nothing among the moss-covered headstones hinted of ghostly activity, apart from the stark anxiety in Ezra’s face. “When have you been in a cemetery before?” I asked as we climbed to our feet.

  “Frederick’s funeral. And my mother’s.”

  “Okay, so basically cemeteries where most of the inhabitants died of old age or sudden illness. Not one where a portion of the dead got that way by violent means.”

  The realization that dawned in his face confirmed it. I prodded him in the direction of the gates. He wasn’t reliving his experience at St. Andrews if I could help it. “Let’s go.”

  I thought he was about to argue for the sake of the investigation, but then he went a shade paler and let me grab his hand to pull him along. Unnerved by his expression, I kept him moving. I couldn’t look back myself. I knew I wouldn’t see anything, but then again, I was half-afraid I might. The wind rattled the trees, and dead leaves swept down like impatient hands ushering us on our way. “Don’t these people know we’re on their side?” I was way too old to be spooked by shit like this and it was pissing me off.

  “They want us to go. Just to go.” He chanted the word with soft urgency, arm upraised to shield himself against the onslaught. Tree roots tripped him up, and as I turned to help him, he shrank back against the trunk and covered his head with his arms.

  Goddamn it, I wasn’t putting up with this. Planting myself in front of him, I drew my gun and swung it in a wide arc. “Back off!”

  Ezra clutched at my shoulders and I heard something between a gasp and a laugh. “Just whom do you intend to shoot?”

  “Hey, sometimes the threat is enough. Can you run?”

  He nodded and we left as requested, not slowing to a fast walk until we reached the street. Then we kept going until Ezra, upon looking back, could report that our pursuers had given up. Whether they were protecting their territory or had just exhausted their energies, I didn’t know. I was just relieved to be free of them. And I wasn’t the only one. Ezra slumped against the door of a closed shop and exhaled a grateful breath. “Thank you, Morgan. They would not be reasoned with.”

  “Mob mentality. Not a whole lot you can do, unless you can get your hands on a fire hose. Not that it would have done us any good in this instance. You think he might have shown up? And set them off somehow?”

  “Perhaps. She was there, but they were around her, shielding her.”

  I sighed. “If she couldn’t give us his name, an accurate description would be good. Even some unique physical detail. Everything we’ve got so far, it’s too vague. Brown hair, moustache, more or less respectable appearance….” I shook my head. “That covers almost every guy walking the street.”

  “Sidney,” Ezra said.

  “Yeah, Sid, and Jem if you slapped a moustache on him. Hell, even I fit the description to a degree—”

  Ezra grasped my arm, to shut me up I figured, then gestured down the street to the corner where a familiar figure was climbing into a cab. He was dressed even more soberly than we’d seen him at the Ten Bells, right down to a black armband and an uncharacteristically glum expression. I snorted. “He gets around, doesn’t he? You think he knew Liz, too….” I trailed off as a possibility that had never occurred to me swept into existence so rapidly I could hardly catch my breath. Sidney Dasset. Shallow, simpering, harmless Sid. I might be able to believe all that was an act, but sleeping with men wasn’t part of the act—was it? No, Sid was gay. I was sure of that. But the inescapable fact that gay serial killers virtually never killed women gave way to a gut feeling that demanded investigation.

  Ezra seemed to have reached his own epiphany. “They weren’t chasing us from the graveyard. They were hurrying us!”

  “Goddamn. Come on.”

  Unfortunately, the way was hampered by a line of black-draped carriages heading past. By the time we reached the corner, Sid’s cab was deep in traffic. “Ez, you got any money?”

  He got out his wallet and shuffled through a few bills and coins. “Twelve, eight and—”

  I plucked a five pound note out of his hand. “That’ll do.” I flagged the closest cab and motioned Ezra into it. Hopping on after him, I waved the note at the driver. “The cab ahead of us, the one driven by your colleague in the red shawl? There’s a fiver in it if you stick with him to his destination, no questions asked.”

  Ezra grabbed a handful of my coat. “Dear God, Morgan, don’t—”

  Our cabbie gave an unintelligible shout to the horse, snapped the reins, and took off like a shot, leaving me to hang on to the cab roof for dear life. Ezra dragged me down beside him—which became on top of him as the cab careened around a corner. Only when the cabbie caught up to Sid’s cab did he slow down and stick to a relatively sane pace, at least until the traffic threatened to take the other cab out of sight. Then he took off in a fashion that would have left New York cabbies in admiring awe.

  Sid appeared to have haunts all over town. The dizzying ride came to an end in a quiet street lined with middle-class homes. Climbing out, I looked around to get my bearings and saw the dome of St. Paul’s in the distance. We were still a ways from home, but the environs had improved. Ezra looked a little motion-sick and rested a hand on my shoulder while he caught his breath. I grinned. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “We’re still alive. I shall count that a success and hope you’ve learned the folly of overpaying cabbies.”

  He’d be loads of fun on a rollercoaster. “Hey, it was worth it. There’s our boy.” Several yards down the street, Sid emerged from his cab and ascended to the door of a house. We were halfway across the road when Ezra grabbed my arm to keep me from proceeding another step. At my questioning glance, he shook his head. “You don’t want to go in there. Nor do I. Let us wait until he comes back out.”

  “Why? You know who lives there?” The uncomfortable twist of his mouth piqued my curiosity. “This isn’t some deep, dark secret from your past I haven’t heard about yet?”

  “Dear fellow, I beg of you. There’s a cafe down the street where we can wait.” He tried to hold on to me as I wriggled out of his grasp and moved closer to the house. It looked the same as all the others on the street, but for the closed drapes keeping out what little late afternoon sun still shone.

  Then it hit me. The drapes weren’t closed to keep out the sun. “It’s a brothel?”

  He seemed to realize he wasn’t protecting me from anything I hadn’t seen before. “It does provide that sort of accommodation, yes.”

  “Well, I don’t want to wait for him to come out. God knows how long that’ll be.”

  Ezra, after a moment’s hesitation, agreed to go with me. My knock at the door was answered by a white-haired gentleman in a coat, tie, and gloves. He mildly gave us the once-over, then let us in with a short bow. As dusky as it had been getting outside, it was a whole lot darker inside, the gas turned so low that we had to stand a minute in the foyer to adjust. The butler showed us to the parlor, where the inhabitants lounged around what was probably a perpetual get-acquainted tea—only most of the guests appeared well past the stage of acquaintance. Two men exchanged lazy kisses as they slumped comfortably in front of the fire. Two others sat at the piano, plinking out a halting rendition of a now-familiar waltz, something in the top ten of 1888, I guessed.

  A heavyset man with a prim smile almost hidden un
der a salt and pepper beard introduced himself as the lord of the manor, Mr. Bernsey, and invited us to make ourselves at home. Ezra eased past the smooching couple to perch uncomfortably on a nest of fringed sofa pillows. About to join him, I saw Sid bounce into the room, arm slung across the shoulders of a younger guy with a yellow thatch of hair and a bashful grin. Catching sight of me, Sid lit up and he tossed the smaller fish back, baiting his hook for something a little more challenging.

  “My dear fellow! Have you run out of respectable sights to see already?”

  I tolerated the hug, taking amused note of the annoyance in Ezra’s face as Sid looked me up and down with marked interest. Sid and I squeezed in between the smoochers and Ezra, who was studiously ignoring the come-hither smirks of a fellow sitting across from him. “Something stronger than tea is called for,” he murmured as I sat beside him.