Page 5 of The Business of Blood
“My employee’s origins do not give you leave to be so inconsiderate,” I admonished. “If you use the pejorative again in his presence, I’ll be taking it up with your superior.”
Hurst muttered beneath his breath, “I’m not like to be in trouble over a bloody immigrant.”
“Iama bloody immigrant,” I reminded them, glancing at Hao Long, who stood patiently behind the cart in his silk vest and apron, hands clasped behind him.
The truth of it was, I didn’t have any idea how much English he understood. In the several months he’d worked for me, we’d miraculously communicated in gestures and looks. The only time we had trouble understanding each other was when we attempted to use language. So, we avoided it whenever possible.
He didn’t seem to be paying the uncouth constables any mind. Turned out, Hao Long watched Inspector Croft, who glared atmefrom beneath his felt hat as though the entire conversation were my fault.
I fought the urge to fix my untidy mahogany hair by rummaging in my things for the sleeve covers I used to protect my dress during such messy jobs. I tried to keep my movements unhurried as I pulled them on over my black frock.
“I’ll thank you to keep your paws off my things,” I snapped, grabbing for the bottle Fanshaw had extracted from its case.
He swung it high and out of my reach.
Even the taciturn Hao Long cringed perceptibly.
I planted both my hands on my hips, wishing my spectacles didn’t hinder my withering glare. “Have it your way, but that’s my concentrated hypochlorite powder. If any of that so much as touches the ammonia Hurst is currently mishandling, the fumes will melt the lungs right out of your chest, and you’ll drown in your own blood whilst struggling to cough it onto the stones.”
“We’re doing no’fing but inspecting it,” Fanshaw dismissed me. “Shew us the smelling salts in case you give over to hysterics?”
I did my best to ignore his jibe at my sex. “That vial is more likely to explode than I am. But if you break it, it’ll take a month’s wages to replace.”
“Look at her,” Hurst pointed. “Ears are the color of pickled beets.”
“Calm down,” Fanshaw put up a hand in an exaggerated gesture. “No need for a bird to get ‘er feathers in a ruffle.”
If there was anything more infuriating than a condescending male instructing me to remain calm when I am, indeed, already calm, I hadn’t found it yet.
It’d taken me twenty years and six brothers to learn, but I’d discovered how to school most of the emotions a man could use against me out of my countenance. What I didn’t have control of, however, was my skin. I blushed and flushed with alarming frequency. When emotions were high, my ears and my chest turned red as Robert Burns’ rose, and the crimson melted up my throat and down my cheeks in a splash of damning color.
“Put. Them. Back.” Croft’s command was immediately obeyed by both abashed constables. I couldn’t tell if I was more relieved that they’d minded him, or irritated that they’d heeded him over me.
Either way, I decided to mark this night as a ready example for the next time someone asked me why I wasn’t married at nine and twenty.
Marching up to Inspector Croft, I noted in my periphery that Hao Long had gathered the things we’d need to lift the bloodstains from the aged wooden floor. I tried not to smile when he snatched the hypochlorite powder from Constable Fanshaw’s hand as he trundled past.
“Has the photograph of the corpse been taken?” I asked Croft.
“It has.” From this vantage point beneath the dim light of the gas lamp, his felt hat shadowed his eyes. That didn’t stop me from sensing the darkness in his gaze.
“And the doctor’s made the post-mortem report?” I made a show of searching our vicinity. “I don’t see him about.”
“He has.” A cloud of smoke erupted from his mouth at the curt words, and I waved it away, pretending that the smell of cloves and chicory offended me.
“And you’ve conducted your murder scene investigation, then?” I pressed impatiently.
“I have.” The nettle in his voice grated at nerves already raw.
I picked up the scraper and pail I’d leaned against the stoop and stood against him as he blocked my way into the house. “I’m trying to figure out why you haven’t cut the body down yet to send to the mortuary.”
He lifted his head to pierce me with a level stare. “I’m waiting on Aberline.”
I must have looked like a right idiot blinking at him for as long as I did. “Aberline?” I echoed like a daft parrot. “Inspector Fredrick Aberline? He’s cominghere? To Whitechapel?”
“He is.”
If you were anything like me, you’d likely spend most of your time wanting to slap a proper response out of Inspector Croft, and I’d not blame you for it. I’d worked around him enough to know that if the preponderance of his answers contained two syllables instead of one, it meant he was feeling downright chatty.
