The Business of Blood

by Byrne, Kerrigan

  Say what you will about the press, they were often very brave. Or reckless.

  “What did I just say?” Croft inched closer. Were Leventhorpe a woman, one would surmise that as close as Croft’s nose was to his, they were about to kiss. However, anyone with eyes could see that the editor was in imminent danger of learning just how hard-headed Grayson Croft could be.

  As he squared off with Mr. Leventhorpe, I sidled past them both and let myself into Thaddeus Comstock’s office.

  “You won’t find him in there, miss,” Leventhorpe called after me. “He’s yet to come into the office today.”

  “He’s not at home, either.” Croft followed me into the dim square box that passed for a star reporter’s office at The London Evening Examiner. He opened the heavy damask drapes, revealing an untidy mahogany desk that took up half the meager office, and a beleaguered leather chair. No other furniture ornamented the room, certainly nothing that invited one to stay. No art adorned the walls, but several plaques, diplomas, and trophies were strewn on and about the desk as though Comstock had only just taken possession of this office and meant to set it to rights at any moment.

  “Must be in the field.” Leventhorpe made a valiant effort to protect the chaos of Comstock’s desk from Inspector Croft’s curiosity. But alas, he was swept aside with as much ease as the damask drapes. “You are not privy to that. Everything in this office is privileged information protected by the integrity of the free press.”

  “Since when did the press have integrity?” A humorless scoff escaped Croft’s throat as he scanned a hand-written list. “In my experience, you lot are the most unscrupulous of rabble-rousers, who are regularly bought at great expense and with astounding regularity.” He tossed the list onto the desk and retrieved a letter to which the seal had been broken. “The free press. Don’t make me laugh.”

  I tried to remember if I’d ever heard Croft laugh and came up with an absolute blank.

  I did my best to distract the sputtering, red-faced editor with questions of my own. “When was the last time you were in contact with Mr. Comstock?” I found a gas lamp and lit it when I noted Croft squinting in the pallid light provided by the window.

  Leventhorpe leveled me a distasteful look, obviously considering whether or not he felt beholden to answer a woman’s inquiries.

  “It would behoove you to not make me repeat the question,” Croft threatened without looking up.

  “Two mornings ago. After he turned in his article.”

  Croft glanced over at me. “Do you know where he was the night prior? At say, four a.m.?”

  “At home asleep, I would assume. Like I was. What’s this about? Just who is this woman?” He eyed us both suspiciously.

  I avoided the question. I’d already introduced myself, and if he couldn’t remember, that wasn’t my concern. “What can you tell me about Mr. Comstock’s…um…vernacular?”

  Leventhorpe’s eyes became narrow slits of distemper. “I don’t intuit your meaning.”

  He gathered every bit of my meaning, it was all over his priggish face. “Would you say his dialect is rather…” Feminine, anemic, waspy… “Does he have a lisp?”

  “What a ridiculous question.”

  “Perhaps, but I’d like the answer.”

  Scowling, the editor crossed defensive arms over his chest. “It’s not a lisp, per se, it’s more like a—oh, I don’t know—a serpentine pattern of speech. A sign of sophistication, I’d say. Half the nobility is affected, utilizing a similar dialect.” He plucked one of Comstock’s plaques out of my hands, a trophy for excellence of some kind or another.

  Afflicted was a more apropos word than affected, especially where the aristocracy was concerned.

  “This is empty,” I tapped on a rectangular glass case with pronged pillars upon which something should be displayed. “What goes in it?”

  “A bayonet, if you must know. From the Crimea.”

  “Do you know where it is?” Croft met my eyes once more. Some believed Martha Tabrum to have been stabbed over and over with just such a weapon.

  “How long has it been missing from this case?” Croft set down the papers and drifted toward it.

  “Why ever would I know that?” The editor’s brows drew together. “Just what are you looking for?”

  “You may see yourself out, Mr. Leventhorpe.” Croft held the door open for him.

  “You-you cannot dismiss me from my own—”

  “If I have to tell you to piss off one more time, I’ll take you to Leman Street for questioning.”

  Off he pissed.

  “I’d give my eyeteeth for that bayonet,” Croft grumbled once we were alone.

  “You’re not alone in that.” The first few drops of rain plunked against the window as I joined Croft back at the desk and leafed through a few papers, bills, article notes, and a heavily used datebook. I checked the journal. Comstock was supposed to meet someone here in his office today. A half hour ago. Someone with the initials of DRP. The letter had been traced with an idle pen a number of times and thrice underlined.

  He’d missed his very important appointment.

  Just then, a bothersome thought struck me. “Don’t you find it odd that Comstock, a self-proclaimed Ripper aficionado—”

  “Was nowhere to be found near Katherine Riley’s murder scene?” Croft finished my thought to the letter, as though he’d plucked it out of my head.

  “I unexpectedly find myself more worried for him than for myself. He’s missed two days of work and a clearly important meeting this morning with the mysterious DRP. Also, Katherine Riley’s murder was reported by five papers, The London Evening Examiner, not among them. Are you quite certain he wasn’t at home? What if he…couldn’t come to the door?”

  “He wasn’t there.” Croft looked down over my shoulder, and a strange, heady awareness of him lifted the fine hairs all over my body. This is what Grayson Croft inflicted upon me. Ire and goose pimples.

  At my raised eyebrow, he said, “His door was unlocked.”

  “Was it, now?” I turned the page of the datebook back to the night of Frank Sawyer’s murder.

  And found nothing. He’d no appointments on that night, social or otherwise.

  “I’ll have to ask that loathsome Leventhorpe if he knows who DRP is,” Croft lamented. “Comstock’s script doesn’t match the Ripper’s. Though I suppose that could easily be altered.” Croft reached past me to pluck a folded piece of paper from the crease of the datebook. His chest brushed my shoulder, and the aroma I always associated with Croft coiled through my senses. Clove cigarettes. Clean linens. And…something else. My nose twitched. Something like sharp vanilla. Was Croft wearing cologne?

  “What did you find?” I wanted to put the desk between us, but it was all I could do to inch to the right and turn to face him.

  From behind dark lashes, his eyes scanned the document. Quickly at first, then snagging on a word here. Rereading a phrase there. Before long, the paper began to crumple beneath the increasing compression of his grip.

  “Dash it, Croft. What is it?”

  He finally looked up as though he’d made an important discovery. “You weren’t lying. About what happened in Crossland Alley.”

  I couldn’t tell you what my expression was in that moment. Somewhere between incensed and astonished I would guess. “You thought I lied about being accosted by a man claiming to be Jack the Ripper? That I cut my own throat? Why the bleeding hell would I do something like that? Just who do you think I—?”

  His hand clamped over my mouth with a hiss. “Not. Here.” Just as I opened my lips to bite him, he shoved the paper in front of me, and my mouth remained open for a multitude of reasons.

  FM: Near Wych. Armed. Unconscious. Prostitute? Possible JR association?

  FS: Castrated. Disemboweled. Redressed. No organs taken. Hanged. JtR or imitation?

  MK: Childhood friend. Different than other victims. Research history. FM: Lovers?

  Moisture caused my lips to cl
ing to Croft’s skin as he finally pulled his hand away. I shook with anger, Croft’s slight all but forgotten beneath this new outrage. Here was proof Comstock had been my assailant. I was obviously FM. Crossland Alley was off Wych Street, where I’d been found unconscious by Aramis Night Horse.

  “He thought I was a prostitute?” It’s unclear if I whispered this or shrieked it. Perhaps both. “Well, he’s obviously possessed of the journalistic ability of an illiterate guttersnipe.”

  “That’s the detail you selected for emphasis?” Croft lifted a caustic eyebrow.

  “He underlined it.” I stabbed the word with my finger. “Twice!”

  That blasted dimple appeared in his cheek again, the one that only materialized when he was laughing at me internally. “Didn’t you relocate to London for that very vocational purpose?”

  I’d only confessed that to Aberline whilst giving my statement at H Division after Mary’s murder. And then again to Comstock when I thought the moment might just be my last.

  So…how did Croft know? Had he read Aberline’s report? My statement? Why would he have done that?

  “I changed my mind, obviously.” I glared an Arctic blast in his direction.

  “Is it worth it?”

  “Pardon?” I wasn’t certain I’d heard him correctly.

  “Most people would argue what you chose as a profession is a great deal more unpleasant than that of a whore.”

  “Most people are imbeciles.”

  He cocked his head to the side, regarding me intently. “So, in your opinion, blood and death are preferable to sex?”

  I wouldn’t know, but I’d die a thousand times before admitting it to Croft.

  I hissed an irate breath through my throat. “There are two reasons I won’t dignify that question with a response. First is that the query is vulgar and discourteous. Second, because I believe the answer should be evident by which profession I ultimately chose.”

  “Fair enough.”

  My fingers itched to claw the dark glint of salacious speculation from his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was mentally placing me in some alternate reality. One in which I’d made the opposite choice.

  Did Croft ever pay for pleasure?

  I snuffed the offending question like a match, lest it start a fire I couldn’t put out. “If we could focus on these ludicrous notes, please.” I made to snatch the paper from him, wishing I could rip it into shreds.

  His fingers tightened as I clutched at it, and the thin paper slipped right through my gloves. At least I’d succeeded in wiping whatever ridiculous thoughts he’d harbored from showing on his features.

  Argh. Men.

  “The initials are especially significant.” He pointed to each with a square finger, returning to the task at hand. “FM. Fiona Mahoney, of course. FS, Frank Sawyer. MK, Mary Kelly. But look here. JR and JtR. Why do you think he made a distinction? Was it a mistake, or a coincidence? Do you know anyone else with the initials JR?”

  I took a moment to flip through my very limited list of connections. “None that I can think of. And what a bog-licking blighter that he should even speculate that I’d be linked with such evil as Jack the Ripper. Why would he suppose any such thing?”

  “That’s an excellent question.” He ran his finger down the paper to caress one word near the bottom of the note.

  Lovers.

  “Were you and Mary…?” He let the word draw out as his cavernous voice darkened. Lowered. As though the thought of Mary and I carrying on didn’t revolt him.

  Quite the opposite.

  “No, you rank pervert, and if you ever say different, I’ll blast you for libel.” This time, I really did put the desk between us. “I told Comstock I loved Mary, not that I was in love with her. She was my friend. My only friend at the time. That’s the extent of it.”

  He held his hands up as though the finger I jabbed at him were the dangerous end of a pistol. “All right. Stand down. I believe you.”

  “Do you? Do you believe me, Inspector? It’s about bloody time!” I hoped the ice in my glare frosted his nethers as I turned and stomped out of Comstock’s office.

  The clacking of typewriters froze as I stormed away, clutching my umbrella like a cudgel. I dared not meet the stunned gazes of any number of newspapermen, lest they take the opportunity to question me.

  Croft caught up with me two flights down, but I couldn’t stand to look at him, so I didn’t acknowledge his presence.

  Once I escaped onto Brompton Road, I didn’t find any hansom cabs in my immediate vicinity. I wrenched my umbrella open, determined to walk the several blocks back to Tite Street. My temper was so sweltering, I was sure the rain would simply steam off me.

  “Miss Mahoney, where are you going?” Croft demanded.

  Home sounded like too tolerable an answer. “That’s none of your business, Inspector.”

  “It’s raining. Let me at least hail you a—”

  “While your powers of deduction are astounding, I’m also aware of the weather, and I came prepared.” I pulled my umbrella low over my hat, knowing the edges would poke him in the neck should he attempt to come any closer.

  “Dammit, Fiona—”

  “You may call me Miss Mahoney, I’ve not given you leave to be so familiar, sir.” I sniffed my prim disdain, hoping to drive him off with what he would consider obnoxious female behavior. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “You have to admit, your claim of surviving a Ripper attack was more than a little—”

  “I have to admit nothing, as we found I’m neither a suspect nor a victim. Good day, Inspector.”

  “But you are a victim. Comstock did accost you, held a knife to your throat. He cut you and knocked you unconscious.” His temper seemed to build, as well, as he listed the atrocities performed against my person. “His notes prove that, don’t they? And now we don’t know where he is. Don’t you realize—?”

  “Perhaps you should use your astonishing deductive skills to find him, then, and leave me in peace.” I could hear Croft—feel him—pacing behind me in the rain, looking for a place safe from my umbrella whilst dodging the rest of midday foot traffic.

  “I’m trying to protect you, woman. You could be grateful rather than giving me grief.”

  “What would you know about grief?” I scoffed.

  “More than you think!”

  I chewed on his dark response the entire time it took Brompton Street to turn into Fuller, where I promptly veered down Elystan Road toward the Thames.

  Who did Croft mourn? Who did he grieve? What suffering had he endured? Enough to turn him insufferable, that was for certain.

  I listened to his heavy footfalls as he trailed me like a faithful sentinel. Somehow, I managed to retain my ire, even though my lesser instincts pitied him for the very thing I’d wished upon him only hours prior.

  He was probably wet, and cold, and miserable. Not that it was my fault. I wasn’t responsible for the rain, for his absence of foresight or lack of umbrella, nor had I invited him to escort me home.

  And yet…

  “I…should have believed you.” The words were stilted, as though he fought to keep them inside.

  I paused. Lifting my umbrella high enough to glance back at him in order to ascertain if I’d heard him correctly.

  I would have caught him under the chin had he inferior reflexes.

  “Pardon?”

  His eyes glittered hard and bright as gems against the grey afternoon. His midnight hair clung to his scalp in slick gathers as rain sluiced from his jaw to the collar of his shirt. “My profession doesn’t lend itself to trust or confidence. I’m trained to be wary of extraordinary stories.”

  I confess I found his reticence to meet my eyes endearing. He was such an unflinching man. Except, it seemed, when blundering his way through an admission of fault.

  “I’d forgotten, Miss Mahoney, that you are an extraordinary woman, with a tendency to experience extraordinary things.”

  I was al
so a woman cursed with an intense sense of stubborn pride, and a bevy of Irish brothers, so I immediately recognized the moment for what it was. An apology.

  We stood in the rain for several uncertain moments. Each of us, I was quite sure wishing Croft hadn’t humbled himself enough to melt my disdain.

  Something about a penitent, almost forlorn gleam in a hard man’s eyes unstitched me. I lifted my umbrella, silently inviting him to join me. He ducked beneath and relieved me of the burden, sheltering us both.

  People regarded Croft differently with me by his side. Gentlemen nodded and met his forthright stare with a sense of congeniality. The more unsettled he became by this, the more delighted I found myself. He was not a man inclined to give his trust. Did he have anyone in his life upon which he relied? Or who relied upon him? He’d been a part of the most defining moment of my life, and yet, I didn’t even know which borough he resided in. I’d always assumed he lived in Whitechapel, but on an inspector’s salary with no wife or family to support, he could afford someplace grander.

  “What made you decide to work for the Metropolitan Police, Inspector Croft?”

  He looked at me as though I’d grown horns and asked for his soul.

  “It’s just a friendly question.” I sighed. “Pardon me for attempting to be amiable. I’d forgotten for a moment in whose company I found myself.”

  He heaved a sigh of his own before answering. “It was steady work, and I fit the requirements.”

  “Which are?” Lord, I hoped the revelation wasn’t too taxing.

  “I was tall and fit enough. Young enough. Strong enough.”

  I rolled my eyes, my good nature toward him quickly evaporating. “Stubborn enough? Offensive enough? Relentless enough?”

  “That’s how I became an inspector.”

  Had he just attempted humor? Merry and unexpected laughter bubbled into my throat, and even his eyes and mouth crinkled at the corners.

  Oh, I thought. There he is.

  Grayson Croft, the boy. I had to recant what I’d supposed earlier about being unable to picture him as a child. I could see it now. Transposing a face round and smooth over what had become square and grizzled. His hair would have been wild instead of slicked down. But his eyes, his emerald orbs would be just as they were on that Chelsea road. Pleased. Surprised. Quirked with a smile and not a smile.