Lay Down Your Hand

by Cherie Mitchell

  Just as she’d promised, Ramona knocked on the door a few minutes later. Elliot wrenched it open, delighted to see her. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Here it is.” She handed him the era decoder as she brushed past him. “We’ve fixed the strap. It’s highly unlikely you’ll lose it again.”

  He couldn’t get the band on quickly enough, sighing as the feeling of abundant knowledge again flooded through his brain. “That’s better. You have no idea how terrible life here is without it.”

  She chuckled. “Trust me, I do know. Other people have explained it in great detail. Are you ok?”

  “Yes but mostly I’m relieved to hear that Jayne didn’t come to any harm.”

  Ramona nodded gravely. “It was a close call but we pulled it off. Luckily you gave me enough time to get it organised.” She walked across to the kitchen and lifted the kettle. “Coffee?”

  “Thanks.” She looked so at home here, as if she knew the apartment well. As if she’d once lived here. “Someone came here looking for you.”

  The colour drained from her face and she hastily set the kettle down, where it hit the side of the metal sink with a disconcerting clang. “Who?” she whispered.

  He was surprised by her reaction, by the raw fear he saw in her eyes. “He said his name was Jason. He thought you lived here.”

  She briefly closed her eyes before fluttering the lids open again and efficiently returning to her coffee making activities. “I thought you meant someone else.”

  “Is he a friend of yours?” Elliot persisted, wondering about the reason behind her initial frightened response.

  She shook her head but didn’t look up. “Not really. He shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Was he the man that you shared the bottle of wine with?” Her reluctance to tell him more had only heightened his interest.

  She gave a forced, false laugh. “You’re asking too many questions. Don’t worry about it. Everything is under control and there’s no need for you to concern yourself about Jason or anyone else. I’ll make sure he doesn’t come by here again.” She opened the cupboards and searched through them, moving packets, cans, and boxes out of the way and standing up on tiptoes to peer over the back. “Do you have any chocolate biscuits?”

  “There should be some there. Look in the next cupboard along. The cupboards were well stocked when I moved in and I’ve barely touched most of it. My stomach isn’t used to the dearth of food available here.”

  “I know. We all eat too much, myself included, although chocolate doesn’t count.” She stopped searching for the biscuits and made the coffee instead. “This afternoon’s sudden change of plans were irritating but not impossible to manage. In some ways, it was a blessing as it gave us the chance to test our contingency plans, which went off without a hitch. However, it will be better for everyone if it doesn’t happen again.”

  He encircled his wrist with his fingers, closing them snugly over the era decoder. “I don’t ever want it to happen again. I can’t remember any other time when I’ve felt so foreign to my surroundings.”

  “Luckily you had gained enough experience here to be able to get yourself home.” She sat down at the table with her coffee cup and indicated that he should pull up a chair. “You have a few days to yourself now. The Knave won’t be meeting his next target until Thursday evening. I’m busy with another part of the project but I’ve arranged for Amy to spend some time with you. She’s one of our best agents and she’ll make sure you’re ready for the next assignment.”

  “Amy? The woman I spoke to after she caught me following her?”

  “Yes.” She wrapped her hands around her cup and smiled at him over the rim. He decided that a small bond of friendship had sprung up between them, despite her general aloofness and cool manner, and the thought warmed him through. “Amy volunteered for the role. It seems she took a liking to you. You must have used your wily charms on her.”

  Elliot ignored the implication behind her words. “Amy reminded me a little of my grandmother, at least in the way that she summed up a person and frankly spoke what was on her mind.”

  “You’ve talked about your grandmother before. Were the two of you close?”

  “Very close.”

  “How did you lose her?”

  The era decoder buzzed and he knew she was asking about the cause of her death. “The colour green killed her,” he said simply.

  A perplexing combination of confusion and compassion skittered across her face. “How can a colour kill a person?”

  “Scheele’s green.” He watched her closely but she showed no sign of recognising the name. He went on to explain further. “It was a beautiful colour, nothing like anyone had seen outside of nature before. The fine lords and ladies of London adored it. My grandmother was a flower maker, responsible for creating glorious fake blooms to decorate and enliven Victorian parlours, and she was very good at her job. A true artist. Unfortunately, the depth of colour in the pigment was created with poisonous arsenic, the horrors of which weren’t discovered until too late.”

  “That’s awful! Elliot, your life has been crammed with so many terrible events.”

  “I’m not any more unlucky than the next man.” Call him superstitious, but he wasn’t prepared to say otherwise for fear of turning the tables on himself.

  She nodded, understanding his meaning without him needing to explain himself further, and they sank into a companionable and friendly silence.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Amy arrived at Elliot’s apartment the next morning at 10am, as arranged by Ramona. He opened the door to see her smiling face, her hazel eyes twinkling with merriment and her cheeks rosy in the early warmth of the day. “Good morning! Isn’t it a beautiful day to be alive?”

  He offered her a lazy grin of his own, completely at ease with these kinds of lightly flirtatious interactions. Elliot Cinder and light flirtation went together like a loaf of fresh-baked bread and a wedge of yellow cheese. “Indeed, it is very beautiful.”

  She cocked her prettily unnatural eyebrow into a mischievous arch, letting him know by her gesture that she knew exactly what he was up to. “Are you going to invite me in?” She was wearing a green summer dress in a light fabric and leather strappy sandals today, in keeping with the blue skies and sunshine, and a wide-brimmed hat with a ribbon that made Elliot instantly homesick for the days when a hat was an item as essential as a pair of shoes for anyone stepping outside their front door.

  “Come in and have a look around. There’s a lovely view of the river from the living room windows.”

  “I know. I’ve been here before, when Ramona lived here.” She clapped her hand over her mouth and widened her eyes comically. “Ooops. Big mouth Amy. Sorry, I wasn’t supposed to mention that.”

  “I already know. A man called in to see her yesterday evening. He thought she still lived here.”

  “That would be probably be Jason. He’s sweet on her but it’s all very one-sided. She should’ve told him she was moving.” She disclosed this information easily, as if it were no big secret, quite unlike Ramona’s cloak-and-dagger approach. She walked across to the window, her hips beneath her short skirt swaying in a mesmerizing motion, and gazed out across the river. “The view is spectacular.”

  “It is.” Elliot dragged his eyes away from her hips. “Why did Ramona move?”

  “We all get moved around. It happens a lot and we don’t usually get a lot of warning.”

  “Why? Why is it necessary for you to move so often?”

  “It’s all part of the ploy to keep any observers on their toes. There’s lots of that kind of stuff going on. I call them toothless red herrings.”

  “What does that mean?” He could already tell that he was out of his depth with this conversation and he would be more than happy if she stopped talking and walked across the room again.

  “They’re false leads tossed in to throw anyone who might be taking too much notice off the trail. They suck because they’re usua
lly an inconvenience to everyone involved. Suck? Toothless? Do you get it?”

  He didn’t get it and his era decoder was of no help at all, lying flat and still without any hint of a buzz or hum. He had no idea what she was talking about. She noticed his confusion and laughed. “Just ignore me. I have a warped sense of humour.”

  He couldn’t resist. He lowered the tone of his voice and allowed a hint of seduction to sweeten his smile. “I’m afraid you’re impossible to ignore.”

  “Ah, you’re good, Elliot Cinder. I was warned about your charming manner.” She wrinkled her nose adorably and waggled her finger at him. “But you’re not my type so I’m immune to your compliments, and I’m sure I’m really not your type either. Are you ready to go?”

  “I’m ready but where are we going?” On Ramona’s advice, he’d dressed for the day in a t-shirt, long sleeved sweatshirt and jeans. She’d explained that Amy had plans for a casual day out to introduce him to more of the sights of modern London, along with a briefing in regards to his next assignment.

  “I’m going to take you for a ride on the London Eye and then we’ll have a picnic lunch at the pleasure gardens, where I’ll give you the details of your next assignment.”

  “Kew Gardens?” He knew this place. He’d promenaded through the pleasure gardens with Annie on his arm on a number of occasions, as proud as punch to show off his pretty young sweetheart and show the world that her fond gazes belonged to him alone.

  “Yes. I thought you might like to see something from back in your own time. It hasn’t changed a lot, although the views from the gardens definitely have. The London skyline is nothing like it once was.”

  “I can agree with that. Will we drive?” He was already reaching for his car keys, keen to get away from the confines of the apartment and spend the day with the captivatingly loquacious Amy.

  “Ramona told me how much you like driving but no, we’ll take the tube.” She gazed at him seriously now, her eyes dark with commiseration and sympathy. “I’m sorry. About what happened to Annie. I’ve read the notes on your personal history and everything you’ve been through horrifies me.”

  He started to speak but his words caught in his throat. He turned away, struggling to contain his emotions and unwilling to let her see his struggle. His sorrow over Annie’s death still had a way of creeping up on him when he least expected it, leaving him feeling vulnerable and shattered.

  Amy was astute enough to notice his change of mood. She laid her hand on his arm and left it there for several seconds, long enough for the warmth of her palm to reach his skin through his shirtsleeve. “Let’s go,” she said kindly. “We’re going to have fun, I promise.”

  He blinked away his tears and strode across to the door, injecting a note of joviality into his tone and determined not to dampen the upbeat atmosphere of the day with his regrets. “I hope so, because I will hold you to that promise.”

  As it turned out, Amy made promises that she was easily able to keep. The London Eye, an enormous ferris wheel with views in all directions, both thrilled and terrified Elliot. The swinging capsule that carried them skyward felt unsafe and unsteady, especially to a man with a natural wariness of heights garnered from his former career as a chimney sweep. Amy gently mocked him for his fear before admitting that she felt safer on solid ground too. Her confession allowed him to do the gentlemanly thing and drape his sweatshirt over her shoulders in lieu of a coat or another more robust item of clothing. He held her hand to help her step out of the capsule afterwards too, and she’d smiled her appreciation while peeking at him coyly from beneath the brim of her hat. He was pleased to see that beneath her brash exterior she still remembered how a woman should act.

  Amy made for an interesting companion, chatting away happily about recent and current events in London, pointing out places that fascinated her, and asking Elliot questions about his life in the 1800s. Her comment that she had a warped sense of humour was also true, and she made several jokes that made him stare at her in surprise. He spoke up after she’d made a vaguely crude comment about the cylindrical shape of the 180 metre tall tower they called the Gherkin. “Some of the jokes that amuse you aren’t as delicate as I would have supposed, given that you’re a young lady of obvious refinement and breeding.”

  Amy giggled. “Ramona did tell me that your era decoder overrode the gender equality function. Elliot, if you plan on staying here you’ll have to get used to the idea that women can speak their mind just as well as men can.” She gazed at him thoughtfully as they walked through the sunlit streets. “Queen Victoria ruled England during your time. I’m amazed that women’s voices weren’t given more credibility because your monarch was a female, just as our current ruler is.”

  “Royalty is different. Queen Victoria was born to the role and she received special moral and intellectual training from the time she was a small child.”

  “That’s a backward way of looking at it. Just because she was royalty, it doesn’t mean she was any smarter or more capable of learning than any other woman. She was lucky enough to have the privilege of education, whereas most women in that time weren’t.”

  “I don’t agree,” he said stiffly. “You can’t possibly understand because you weren’t there.” It was a weak argument but all that he could think of on the spur of the moment.

  “Fair enough, but women’s rights have made enormous strides over the past century. Don’t you think there must be a reason for that?”

  “Perhaps modern men have allowed their female counterparts to get away with too much,” he suggested at last, after giving the question a few minutes thought. He was wading into muddy territory here and he wanted to be sure he didn’t take a misstep. He had the impression that blunt speaking Amy would not let him get away with putting a foot wrong.

  Amy snorted loudly, gaining surprised looks from two elderly women with a clutch of shopping bags hooked over their arms. “I think we have to agree to disagree otherwise we’ll spend the rest of the day arguing. You can get another view of the Gherkin from here.” She stopped walking so he could take in the criss-crossed domed top that towered over the surrounding buildings. “They uncovered the grave of a young Roman girl during the building’s construction. Her bones rested at the Museum of London and she was reburied at the base of the tower with the appropriate ceremony and blessings once the construction work finished.”

  “This era never ceases to amaze me. If unknown bones were found during my time, they were generally thrown straight into the Thames. The unclaimed dead bodies of tramps and beggars were quickly carted off to a pauper’s grave.” He’d seen it happen himself, especially amongst the homeless or disadvantaged citizens who crowded the streets of the more impoverished areas. The nameless ones.

  Amy shuddered and moved on. “Thanks for that cheerful thought. Come on, we’ll catch a tube to the Gardens, buy some sandwiches, and forget about dead bodies while we eat our lunch.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dead bodies came up again after their lunch, or at least the prevention of dead bodies, which was the reason why Elliot was here. Amy brushed the crumbs from their lunchtime sandwiches from her lap and then leaned back with her hands on the grass and her tanned legs crossed decorously in front of her. “Did Ramona tell you anything about the next assignment?”

  “No. She said you’d give me the details today.” He’d eaten too much again but it was difficult not to when there was so much delicious food within easy reach. He lay all the way back on the grass and gazed up at the puffy clouds scudding overhead. The pleasure gardens were subtly different than they’d been when he strolled here with Annie but the serene atmosphere was the same. He’d enjoyed today, despite the brief disagreement with Amy over the absurdity of women’s rights, and he felt languid and relaxed.

  “The Knave has arranged to meet a woman named Louise Morton for a cocktail tomorrow night. Louise is a little different from the type of women he usually chooses so he’s acting out of character on this one.”


  Elliot rolled over so he could see Amy. She wasn’t looking at him but instead she was gazing out over the portion of the London skyline that they could glimpse from where they sat. “Different in what way?”

  “For one thing, she’s older. She’s a divorcee in her late 30’s whereas the Knave generally demonstrates a weakness for younger women. The corporation believes he has chosen Louise because she reminds him of someone. We’re not sure if that makes this assignment more or less dangerous.”

  “How could it be dangerous? Isn’t it my role to ensure she makes it safely home?”

  “Yes, but remember you haven’t completed a genuine assignment yet. The last assignment was aborted because of the lost era decoder and someone else took your place in the role of protector.” She shifted position, pulling up her legs to fold beneath her and straightening her back as the conversation took a more serious turn.

  “Who was it that replaced me? One of the other candidates?”

  She didn’t give him an immediate no, or rebuff his question as Ramona would’ve done. She bit her lip and studied her fingernails and Elliot could see she was weighing up how much she should tell him.

  “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “It was someone who is heavily involved in the operation but who usually has a different role to play,” she said at last. “I might leave it at that, if you don’t mind.”

  He did mind, but it was clear she’d said all she was prepared to say on that matter. “Do you know who Louise reminds the Knave of?”

  She sighed and twisted a stem of grass around her fingers. “The Knave had a difficult childhood, which is a common denominator in a large percentage of serial killer cases. These men are mentally unstable and while some have an inborn issue with their brain and thought processes, or a chemical imbalance, others have become irrevocably damaged through early neglect, abuse, or cruelty.”