A Rip Through Time (A Rip Through Time #1)

by Kelley Armstrong

Murder? That surprises me. Yet McCreadie had mentioned an intellectual puzzle. Is this more than a body snatching?

“My preliminary assessment is that this part seems to have been inflicted postmortem.” “You’re certain of that?” A low growl from Gray. “No, Hugh, I’m not certain at all. That’s why I called it a preliminary assessment. You will get a proper ruling from Addington.” “If I expected a proper anything from him, you wouldn’t be here.” “I would certainly be here. It is my laboratory.”

“I meant, why do you call him a prop?” “Because all this is clearly staging. One does not do this to a body unless one has a message to convey.” “Or unless one is a madman.” “Madmen still have messages, perhaps more than those in possession of their faculties. I have no opinions on the mental state of this killer. My interest is the body, which isn’t all that interesting.”

“The staging is interesting. My concern is the murder, which is terribly pedestrian. Simple strangulation.” Gray lifts something out with what looks like tweezers. “You’re looking for woven rough cord. Hemp, I believe. Likely rope.”

a length of rope wrapped around the victim’s ankles. So he didn’t go into rigor while sitting. That would be difficult—he’d need to die seated and somehow not fall out of the chair. Rigor mortis is a temporary condition, starting about six hours after death and dissipating around forty-eight hours.

I have no idea what they signify, but that would be your job. Lack of bleeding suggests they were also inserted postmortem.” Inserted? Feathers? I’m barely able to stand still now, and I keep reminding myself that this has nothing to do with me. I’m a housemaid in this world, which I hope to exit tomorrow.

“Archie Evans. Came up from London a few years back. Fancied himself a proper journalist. Reported on crime for the Evening Courant.”

“The feathers belong to a pigeon. A pigeon carries messages. A scribbler spreads the message of the news.” “There was also a single raven feather.”

The young man has been staged to look like a bird. Legs bound up and feet broken into a perch pose. Elbows wide. Hands affixed to the torso so the arms form wings. It all looks postmortem. That hardly matters. It’s still grotesque. Rows of feathers protrude from the young man’s shoulders. They’ve been poked through the shirt and inserted into his shoulders. Then there is the beak. It looks like a mask from an old play. By old, I mean old-fashioned, in the sense that it’s carved from wood rather than plastic formed in a 3D printer. There’s a string for fastening it, but when I nudge the beak with my knuckle, it stays fixed. Glued on?

Presuming they are pigeon feathers, the symbolism is simple. As Gray said, pigeons carry messages. A reporter spreads the news. As for the raven feather near the body, well, ravens prey on pigeons. Corvids have a reputation for being the smartest birds. That’s how our killer sees themself. They’re the smartest person in the room.

“You’re up to something,” she says, setting down her wooden spoon. “Don’t think I cannot see that. Talking so prettily. Doing all your work.”

I just walked in on him wrestling with an autopsied corpse, the poor guy’s chest cracked open and roughly sewn. I should have dropped the tray and run screaming. Little late for that.

“I spent time on a farm,” I say, which is true enough. “I’m not squeamish.” “I appreciate that. I could use your assistance. I lost my apprentice last month. He decided undertaking was not the profession for him. I have no idea why.” Gray doesn’t smile, but his eyes do sparkle with enough self-awareness to tell me this is a joke. Huh, didn’t think you had it in you, Gray.

But while I wouldn’t call Gray dour, he’s certainly not trying out for stand-up comedy any time soon. If I had to cast him in a period drama, it’d be somewhere between “mad scientist” and “brooding lord with his wife locked in the attic.”

“May I bank the extra hour, sir?” “Bank…” he murmurs. “That is a clever use of the word, Catriona. To put the extra hour into the bank of your time off, yes? You appear to have picked up many odd phrasings and pronunciations.” He’s barely paying attention now, having walked across the room to fetch a notebook. “It must be the injury to your head. I’ve heard of such a thing. A form of aphasia.”

After the third round of vague instructions and random gestures followed by a snap of frustration, I say, “Fine, here. You do this, and I’ll take notes.” He stops. Looks at me. Then he turns his notebook around. “Read the top line.”

Really? That’s where he’s drawing the line? Forget the fact that his nineteen-year-old housemaid didn’t blink at a grotesquely staged corpse or at handling said corpse, he’s suspicious because she misremembered who hired her? “Yes,” I say. “All the more reason for me not to want to look as if I’m getting above my station. The lady of the house might not wish to hire an educated girl.”

To modern police, matching weapons to wounds is as obvious as dusting for fingerprints or gathering DNA. None of that exists in the Victorian world. Oh, I’m sure police have started matching weapons and wounds, but still, it is the early days of it, which makes Gray a pioneer in my favorite science. This is why McCreadie snuck Evans’s body in. So Gray could get a look before the coroner started carving it up, and presumably so Gray could give his friend insights that McCreadie might use in his investigation. With that, Duncan Gray becomes a thousand times more interesting.

He’s relaxed and comfortable, absorbed by his work and forgetting that his student is a mere servant. A female servant, no less. Or maybe that’s unfair, and it’s not so much forgetting as not caring. I’m interested, and that is all that seems to matter.

What would it be like to be a person of color in Victorian Scotland? Worse than being one in modern Vancouver, I presume, and even that’s not always easy, as I know from friends. How does the outside world treat him? How did Catriona treat him?

I lean forward to peer at dark bruises where the nails have separated from the beds. I wince. “He was tortured.”

“I am aware of your background, Catriona. My sister told me the full story. I understand that you may, in your felonious circles, have encountered such a thing, so there is no need to dissemble.” Felonious circles? Well, well, you do have an interesting past, Catriona.

And so he continues, quite merrily examining the victim and theorizing on how the tooth may have been removed. I take notes, make appropriate noises, and send up yet more apologies to poor Catriona, who is about to return and discover that not only is she expected to be able to read and write, but to listen to her employer speculate on methods of torture without batting an eye.

“There are two reasons to torture a person. One is sadism—the torturer enjoys inflicting pain. Two is the, well, practical purpose. Extracting information. This particular type of torture suggests the latter. The killer only damaged three fingernails and took one tooth. I probably shouldn’t say ‘only’—they are still terrible things to do—but the point is that he did not do more, which would argue against sadism as the motive.” And now Gray is openly gaping at me. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?” “It … does. What was that term you used? Sad … ism? Related to the Marquis de Sade, I presume?”

“The point is that this is not a random murder.” “In which case, the staging could be more significant than I presumed. I thought it was simply for shock. To garner attention.”

Tell Detective McCreadie your theory.” “I think it’ll hold more weight coming from you.” He frowns at me. “But it is your theory.” Having worked in several environments where men were quick to take credit for my theories—or restate them right after I did and win the credit—I find Gray’s genuine confusion refreshing, especially given the time period.

“If I say ‘germ theory,’ what do you hear?” He frowns. “A new theory from Germany?” At my expression, his eyes glitter. “I am teasing, Catriona. I am well versed in contagion theory as well as the arguments of those who prefer miasmic theory. I lean heavily toward the former. I am quite fascinated by the work of Dr. Pasteur. There is also a new theory from Dr. Lister in Glasgow regarding the use of carbolic acid.

“When I was a medical student, my classmates would fairly clamor for the privilege of wearing the apron of a retired surgeon. It had never been washed and was quite stiff with blood and other bodily fluids. They thought that proof of his long and storied career, but I always found it…” “Horrific, repulsive, and utterly terrifying?” “I was going to say ‘somewhat unwholesome.’” My kingdom for a bottle of hand sanitizer.

“I asked James to hold the body down while I wielded the ax. The first blow was rather messy. It had to be a fresh cadaver, you see. Decomposing tissues would have reacted in an entirely different way. Also, in my zeal, I may have severed the cadaver’s arm, which may have shot up and struck James.”

The genteel women wear skirts more bell-shaped than my own and … is that a bustle? Are they coming into fashion or leaving it? Leaving it, I hope, with a shudder.

When I look around, I see an Asian couple selling from a battered street cart. Otherwise, the only people of color I recall were back in the New Town, and not residents but staff—a Black coach driver and an East Asian butler opening a door for a matron. That is the true difference then. There are people of color, but I’d guess most are in service or working menial jobs. They are not doctors or undertakers, and not imposing and confident men wearing a gentleman’s attire.

Looks of confusion, paired with frowns. I realize I’m the only woman there and edge closer to Gray, in explanation. Why, yes, I am here with this distinguished gentleman. A pretty bauble for his arm. Pay me no heed, good sir.

“They have put a more senior officer in charge. Detective McCreadie will answer to him. But Detective McCreadie will do the work.” Huh. Some things don’t change, apparently.

what are you doing here with Duncan?” “She was helping with my laboratory observations,” Gray says. “I daresay she did a sight better than James. Perhaps it’s not only his coat she shall take over.” I expect McCreadie to laugh, but something in his face tightens.

“So you’ve discovered a sudden interest in Duncan’s scientific inquiries?” “As I said, they are interesting.” His face hardens. “Do not take me for a fool, Catriona, and do not forget who took you to Isla. I believed you could be redeemed, and you have done nothing but prove I am a very poor judge of character.”

“Do not mock me, Catriona. You tread on very dangerous ground here. If I told Isla the rest of your story—and if Mrs. Wallace stopped shielding her from the worst of your misdeeds—you would be out on your arse. You have set your cap on Duncan. You are a pretty girl from a decent family, and Duncan is a very busy man with no time to look for a wife. You see an opening.”

Gray isn’t a lord or an earl and, from what McCreadie is implying, Catriona didn’t grow up in tenement housing. She’s a girl from a good family who made poor choices, one who might be looking to climb back up to her old status.

his blood cast a pattern on the wall. He began sketching it and comparing it with the wound and the angle of the blow. When a young lady evidenced great interest in what he was doing, he quite happily explained it to her, never once realizing that she was not interested at all in the blood pattern and was rather more interested in his—” He coughs. “In his ability to pay for her services.” “Ah, she was a sex worker.” “A what?” “Lady of negotiable affections?”

Yet the point is that he was oblivious. He is always oblivious to attention from the fair sex.” “Because he prefers men?” McCreadie’s eyes round, and he sputters incomprehensibly before saying, “No, he likes women.

“Yes, I see an opening here. An employment opening. Dr. Gray is in need of an assistant, and as I am not squeamish, I see no reason why I should not angle for the position. Yes, that might require exaggerating my interest in the subject. It is, however, vastly more interesting than scrubbing water closet pots.” He eyes me, and I can tell I have made a valid argument. I only hope Catriona thinks so when she returns.

“Will you tell me where it happened?” I ask. “I will take you there.” I shake my head. “You have better things to do, sir.” “I do not at the moment. Also, as I said, it is not the neighborhood for a young woman. I insist on escorting you.”

As I theorized, it’s the same spot where I was attacked in the modern day. Ironically, in that period, this is a picture-perfect tourist street designed to make you feel as if you’ve stepped into lovely Victorian Edinburgh, when the reality is that it’d been a street no Victorian tourist would set foot on.

This is true squalor, with the stench to match, the kind of place that reminds me how, only hours ago, I’d acknowledged that some people would happily take Catriona’s job. Now I see those people, for whom a daughter in service would be “the one who got out”—the pride of the family, sending home whatever shillings she could spare.

“You were in there, having a drink.” “It’s a pub?” He clears his throat. “It passes for such, but Hugh—Detective McCreadie—says it is a known den of…” “Iniquity?” He looks startled. “No, not at all. There’s nothing of a salacious nature about it. I was going to say den of thieves, and then realized my phrasing might be offensive.”

“You were not discovered for several hours. When you were, it was by a passing constable. He recognized you—having seen you once before with young Findlay.” Constable Findlay? Detective McCreadie’s assistant?

As a detective, I’d start there. Former—or not-so-former—thief gets attacked leaving a black-market dive bar. While it’s possible it was a random attack, it’s more likely connected to her criminal endeavors. She pissed someone off. Double-crossed someone. Or even just refused a gig, that classic “one more job.”

“I’ll look you up when I get home, Duncan Gray,” I murmur as he bends over the cart of old books. “I expect you did some amazing things.”

Which is like saying that if I tap my ruby slippers three times I can go home again. I am basing my entire theory on the imagination of fiction writers. Not scientists, because there is no science. People can’t travel through time. Therefore, writers don’t need to worry about “getting it right.” They make up whatever they want.

Can such a thing be undone? I can’t even contemplate a negative answer. The despair would swallow me whole, and I might find myself taking the most desperate action to get home again. To put myself in those exact conditions. To die on that spot and hope that took me home because I cannot imagine being trapped here forever.

It’s a woman, maybe in her late twenties. Dark-haired, with a scar across her cheek and a narrow-eyed look that dares anyone to ask her how she got it. “Well, look at the little kitty-cat, slunk back to see what’s left in the cream bowl. I thought you’d never show your face here again, not after last week. I heard someone taught you a lesson. Much overdue, it was.”