Page 64 of The Business of Blood
“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,TheLondonEvening 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. Whatisit?”
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 Iliedabout being accosted by a man claiming to be Jack the Ripper? That I cut myownthroat? 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 causedmy lips to cling 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 aprostitute?” 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.
