A Buried Past

by Alexandria Clarke

  When Evelyn and I were both at home, Dad let his guard down. He worked from his laptop, teaching classes over a teleconference and grading papers that were emailed to him. One morning, while I was in the bathroom, I overheard him talking to his wife over the phone.

  “Not yet, honey,” he was saying. “I want to make sure Jack is over this Ripper phase of hers. If she gets arrested, I might not be able to bail her out a second time.” There was a pause as Grace responded. “No, I’m working from here. I don’t have any vacation days left. I told my boss I had to leave the country for a family emergency.”

  As I left the bathroom, I let the door loudly drift shut on its own to announce my presence in the room. Dad glanced over at me.

  “Jack says hi,” he said into the phone. “Gotta go. She needs my help with something. Love you.” He hung up and smiled, unaware that I’d overheard. “What’s for dinner tonight?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” I collected my coat and headed for the door. “I’ll let you know.”

  He rushed to follow me. “Where are you going?”

  “The market. Maybe I’ll get inspired.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  I grabbed his jacket before he could and held it behind my back. “Dad, you can’t keep this up forever. I know what you’re doing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re babysitting me,” I accused him. “You’re scared I’m going to go back to investigating the Ripper. I’ve learned my lesson, okay? I’m not going to get arrested again.”

  “You heard.”

  I hung his jacket up again. “I’m going to the store. Don’t follow me.”

  I felt relieved to leave the flat without him tagging along. You’d think five years of no contact would provide us with plenty of conversation material, but I’d recently discovered my father and I had less in common than I thought. For one thing, he watched golf with an unwarranted amount of enthusiasm. A sport played so slowly did not merit the cheers and whoops he emitted whilst viewing a game.

  For another thing, he spoke so languidly that I began to guess the end of his sentences out of impatience for him to finish them. When I returned to conversations with Evelyn, I cherished the pace at which her mouth moved and was glad to speak with someone who said more than ten words every thirty seconds.

  My father and I had spent exactly fifteen minutes trying to catch up on each other’s lives before giving in. All his stories had to do with Grace and his two stepchildren, Hunter and Hailey, who I didn’t particularly want to hear about. Alternatively, I’d spent the last five years of my life running a blog about serial killers and interfering with other investigations before this one, so my dad wasn’t too keen on listening to me either.

  He liked politics. I hated them. I liked symphony music, but he couldn’t identify a tuba if one hit him in the face. He preferred nonfiction books geared toward religious commentaries while I liked mysteries and thrillers. Even our tastes in movies and TV were different. He watched inaccurate historical retellings with unbridled rapture, while I would take a science fiction or fantasy show any day of the week instead.

  Our differences left us with little to nothing to talk about, which made it all the more awkward when he dogged me from place to place. I relished the relative silence as I walked through the cold drizzle to the nearby market. It was the first time I’d been alone with my thoughts since Evelyn’s hospital stay.

  Despite my arrest, I hadn’t completely forgotten about the Ripper case. Thanks to good old Officer Stowick, my picture popped up on the news at least once a day. Half of London was convinced I had something to do with the attacks. The other half still thought the police needed someone to blame things on. Though Chief Investigator Baker had since announced I was not the main suspect, I received such strange, lingering looks in the streets that I’d gotten into the habit of wearing a cap in public.

  As expected, the police had not made any more progress on the real identity of the Ripper, even with my description and the stolen files back in their possession. As long as the real killer was out there, I couldn’t help but wonder who I had almost caught in Mitre Passage that night.

  At the market, I rented a buggy and perused the aisles with intentional sluggishness, determined to spend as much time as possible away from my father’s company. I decided to make Mom’s homemade curry recipe, which I’d memorized long ago. Evelyn had finally gotten over her curry aversion, and it was comfort food for me. Dad, I remembered, didn’t care for the dish.

  As I browsed the baking aisle, searching for the best flour with which to make naan bread from scratch, another customer accidentally bumped their buggy into mine as they tried to pass me.

  “Whoops,” I said, steering away from the center of the aisle. “Sorry about that—”

  “Miss Frye?”

  I looked up from my cart and found the owner of the opposing buggy was William Lewis’s mother, Linda. By the set of her thin lips and furrowed brow, she was none too pleased with me.

  “Mrs. Lewis!” I said, doing my best to keep my tone and expression cheerful. “How are you doing?”

  “How am I doing?” she demanded. “I haven’t heard from you in weeks! Then I see your picture on the news in conjunction with the Ripper case. You’re not a private investigator at all, are you? Just another scam artist trying to take advantage of an old woman.”

  “No, Mrs. Lewis, I had no intention of scamming you,” I insisted. “I really was trying my best to get to the bottom of your son’s death, but some complications arose—”

  “Don’t try to swindle me again,” she said. Her increase in volume had begun to attract other shoppers. They lingered at both ends of the aisle to watch our confrontation. “I want my money back!”

  After our initial interview, she had wired me two hundred pounds as an advance for my investigative services—two hundred pounds I had already spent on taking care of Evelyn.

  “I don’t have your money, Mrs. Lewis,” I said weakly.

  She boiled like a kettle, her cheeks red with rage. Without warning, she whacked me with the plastic box she kept her coupons in. “You—disgust—me—terrible—woman!”

  I fended her off as best as I could until I accidentally knocked the coupon box from her grasp. When it hit the floor, the box popped open and spewed coupons across the aisle. Mrs. Lewis cried with fury.

  As Mrs. Lewis repeatedly rammed my buggy with hers, one of the concerned onlookers summoned a market employee. The manager—a stern woman with curled gray hair, wearing dungarees with the name of the shop embroidered on the front—grabbed hold of Mrs. Lewis’s buggy.

  “Enough of that,” the manager said firmly. “What’s going on here?”

  Poor Mrs. Lewis, in her fit of anger and grief, pointed at me and announced, “She’s the Ripper!”

  Pandemonium ensued. Mothers and fathers abandoned their groceries to carry their children as far away from me as possible. Others closed in around me, shouting insults and threatening to “take care of me.”

  “It wasn’t me!” I said hotly. “The police released me! I saved Eira Kent.”

  Nothing I said helped the situation. The manager couldn’t keep the angry shoppers at bay. Someone pushed past her and grabbed my arm. Another onlooker seized me around the waist. As they yanked me away from my buggy, a voice boomed over the crowd.

  “Out of the way! Move! Get away from her!”

  My father, all five feet and ten inches of him, pushed the shoppers apart. When he saw the two men who had me in their grasp, he froze in place. The look on his face was terrifying, as if he intended to rip out my captors’ throats with his teeth.

  “That is my daughter,” he said, his voice rumbling at the back of his throat. “Let her go, or I will break your fingers off and shove them up your arseholes one by one.”

  The men released their grip on me and ran off, as did the other shoppers. Dad pulled me into a hug, the first one we’d shared in many years, and I gratefully sank into
his protective embrace. Over my head, he addressed the manager.

  “She is not a criminal,” he said. “The police have said so themselves. You should not allow those people to continue shopping here.”

  The manager babbled an apology and scurried away, though I doubted she would heed my father’s word. If anything, she was about to call the police and inform them of the scuffle.

  “This is why I haven’t let you go out alone,” Dad said, finally letting me go. “I was afraid something like this might happen. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just shaken up a little. Can you stay with me while I finish shopping?”

  “My pleasure.”

  Like the other shoppers, Mrs. Lewis had disappeared. Though it was her fault I’d been manhandled, I didn’t blame her. She had her reasons. She was a mother in mourning, and I hadn’t helped her in the way I’d promised. I either owed her two hundred pounds or the identity of her son’s killer. Unfortunately, I had little money and no new leads to go on.

  “Evelyn needs hand soap,” I said, turning down the aisle of cleaners. “She likes lavender. Is that okay with you?”

  “I’m confident enough in my masculinity to enjoy lavender,” Dad remarked.

  As we passed an array of perfume bottles, shampoos, and other bathroom supplies, I caught a whiff of a familiar flowery scent, one that automatically triggered a memory: that of racing into Mitre Passage and facing the cloaked, fair-haired figure.

  I followed my nose, sniffing like a dog until I found a bottle of cheap perfume on the shelf that smelled much like what I remembered from the alleyway that night. The scent wasn’t quite right, though. It was lighter and fruitier than the Ripper’s perfume. What kind of killer was stupid enough to wear perfume anyway?

  “Is that for Evelyn?” Dad asked.

  “I thought I recognized the scent.”

  I set the bottle back on the shelf.

  Though the potent smell of curry filled every corner of Evelyn’s loft, the only scent that filled my head was the one from Mitre Passage. It wasn’t Eira Kent’s perfume. I hadn’t smelled it after the Ripper was gone or in Eira’s hospital room afterward. That scent must have come from the killer.

  One day, while Evelyn was napping and Dad was holding court for one of his classes from the living room, I slipped out of the flat with the car keys. I knew one place that would be perfect for sniffing out the killer’s scent—Harrods, the biggest department store in London, had a wide selection of perfumes.

  Half an hour later, I perused various displays of pretty glass bottles. I had no idea where to start, so I picked perfumes and colognes at random, hoping to happen upon the Ripper’s signature smell.

  “Can I help you find something, miss?” A young woman in a black pencil skirt and eyeliner winged two meters past her face approached me from behind. She looked fresh out of secondary school. “I’d be happy to provide you with some samples.”

  “Actually, yes,” I said, grateful for any kind of guidance. “A friend of mine wore a new perfume to our book club the other day, and for the life of me, I can’t remember what the name of it was.”

  “Might you just ask your friend?”

  She had me there. I leaned in, and she automatically drew closer. “All right, it wasn’t a friend. It’s the woman trying to steal my boyfriend. He mentioned he liked what she was wearing, and I’ll be damned if I let a bottle of perfume break us up.”

  My helper grinned wickedly. “You came to the right woman. I’m Sophie, and I’m well versed in the art of keeping your man. Can you describe the perfume for me?”

  “It was flowery,” I said. “But not too sweet. More of a light, natural floral.”

  Sophie tapped her chin. “Hmm, we have a lot of florals. Any idea what kind of flower it might have been? Or not been? For instance, if it wasn’t rose, we can rule out a lot off the bat.”

  “It wasn’t rose,” I said, sure of it. “Rose is too heavy. It wasn’t lavender either.”

  Sophie drew invisible X’s across several perfumes on the shelf. She chose a bottle shaped like an oversized diamond, spritzed it across a sample paper, and wafted it through the air. “What about patchouli?”

  I took a whiff. “Not it.”

  We operated like this for several minutes. Sophie strategically narrowed down the options while I sniffed samples like my life depended on it. The number of perfumes available was shrinking rapidly.

  “This is my last guess,” Sophie said, spraying a final bottle. “Jasmine.”

  I inhaled deeply as she set the sample under my nose. “That’s it. That’s the flowery scent,” I said, “but it’s not quite the same as I remember.”

  “Are you sure it was perfume?” she asked. “Not another beauty product like shampoo or conditioner?”

  “Do you have jasmine-scented hair products?”

  “Sure, follow me.”

  I trailed after Sophie as she led me to a wall full of shampoos. She started pointing them out as if she were a game show host.

  “Those four are artificially jasmine scented,” she rattled off. “Those three have jasmine absolute essential oil in them, which is why they’re so expensive. That one and that one are mixtures of jasmine and something else, like ylang-ylang or sandalwood.”

  My eyes fluttered from one bottle to the next, overwhelmed by the number of choices. Sophie sensed my discomfort. She stepped in front of me and grabbed my hands.

  “Close your eyes,” she ordered.

  For some odd reason, I did as she asked.

  “Don’t think about it,” she said. “Point!”

  My index finger shot out and steadied. I squinted at the bottle as Sophie pulled it off the shelf and popped the cap.

  “Jasmine and ylang-ylang,” she said, using her hand to waft the smell toward me. “Familiar?”

  When the shampoo scent washed over me, the memory of that at night in Mitre Square manifested in my mind. It was the exact same smell as when I’d raced into the alley to stop the Ripper from killing Eira.

  “That’s it!”

  Sophie beamed. “Excellent! Well, that brand is exclusive to Harrods. You can only buy it here.”

  “Even better.” I pulled the bottle from Sophie’s grasp. “Listen, I need a list of every person who’s purchased this shampoo within the last six weeks.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Why?”

  “It’s about catching the person responsible for the attacks in Whitechapel,” I admitted. “Do you want to help me do that?”

  “Are you with the police?”

  “No, but—”

  Sophie’s triumph at finding the shampoo faded as she realized how much I’d lied to her. Her face and tone hardened. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can’t give out customers’ information like that.”

  “Sophie, please. You didn’t spend twenty minutes with me for no good reason.”

  “I work on commission,” she said hotly. “I was trying to get you to buy something.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  Two hundred pounds later, I left Harrods with a bag full of expensive perfume, a bottle of the shampoo in question, and a list of names that Sophie had printed on receipt paper. Once in the car, I cast the heavy bag aside and scanned the list.

  In six weeks, over a hundred people had bought the same brand of shampoo as the Ripper. My excitement died instantly. I had no way of narrowing down the potential suspects, unless I called each person individually and pretended to be—

  A single name caught my eye, ending my thought spiral of ridiculous plans.

  Henry Alcott.

  17

  On a foggy Monday morning, someone rapped on the flat’s door. When I opened it, a woman waltzed in with an overnight bag as if she’d been invited. She was impossibly tall, thin, and willowy. When I saw that her face matched Evelyn’s, I realized who she was.

  “Marie?” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  The only physical difference between Evelyn and her old
er sister was the way they were built. While Evelyn was broad and muscled, Marie was light and airy like a fairy princess. She was two years older than us, and I’d come to be acquainted with her when we all attended the same boarding school. However, Marie’s strict Head Girl attitude and flair for drama interested me less than Evelyn’s down-to-earth nonchalance. We had never become close, and I hadn’t seen her since she moved to the States to be in the same country as her soon-to-be husband.

  “Where is she?” Marie demanded, dumping her bag on the floor and scanning the flat. “Where’s Evelyn?”

  “She’s resting in her room,” I answered. “Did she know you were coming?”

  Marie rounded on me. “Did you know? About her job? That she was some bodyguard instead of a writer?”

  “I, uh—”

  She spun away. “Why am I even asking? Of course you knew. Evelyn tells you everything. Not that she would spare the same courtesy for her own family.” She stomped toward the bedroom.

  “She’s asleep,” I said hurriedly.

  “I don’t care!” Without knocking, she stormed into the bedroom. “Oi, tosser! Wake up!”

  I hurried in to find Marie smacking Evelyn repeatedly with a pillow. She paid no mind to the enormous brace keeping Evelyn’s shoulder still. Evelyn groaned, yanked the pillow out of her sister’s grasp with her good hand, and threw it across the room.

  “What are you doing here?” Evelyn grumbled sleepily. “Don’t you have a life?”

  Marie burst into tears, leapt onto the bed, and engulfed her sister in a hug. “You would have told me not to, stupid.”

  Evelyn rolled her eyes and patted Marie’s back. “Because I’m fine and you live thousands of miles away.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were fine for myself,” Marie said. “Besides, it’s been too long since I last saw you, and I wanted to ask your opinion about some wedding things. Hi, Jack,” she added, wiping her eyes and flashing me a bright smile. Now that she’d seen Evelyn was okay, she wasn’t so scary. “It’s good to see you again.”

  I’d forgotten Marie could switch from terrifying to bewitching in a matter of seconds. Her soft gaze made me feel like a small toad in the presence of an ethereal elf. “You too. I promise I’ve been doing what I can to take care of Evelyn.”