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

by Kelley Armstrong

Male. Between five foot eight and five foot nine. Eleven or twelve stone.” “That is very specific.” Damn. Less cop; more housemaid.

I stop myself before saying it looked like a peacock feather. “It was cut short. To fit inside his jacket, I presume. Less than a foot of quill. It was mostly the eye, and it was kind of ragged. But the colors were really bright.” “Describe.” “The colors?” I pull up an image from my mind. “Green and blue with an orange eye. It looked unnaturally colorful. Garish.”

Dear God, don’t tell me this is a crime scene. My left eyelid starts twitching as I watch people tramping about. It takes all my strength not to order them aside myself. Has no one heard of crime-scene containment?

A display in a wax museum. A chill runs through me, because it is exactly the right description. That is why I stop short. I have seen this tableau before, and it takes only a moment to identify the source. Yet another of those macabre museum exhibits Nan had taken me to.

A woman lying at the gate leading to a stable. A row of what looked like once-decent residential town houses now decayed into tenement housing. The museum exhibit said she’d been there all night, with people later admitting they’d passed and presumed she was drunk or sleeping rough.

There is a split second where I think what I saw in the twenty-first century was a re-creation of this very murder. No. This isn’t the same murder. It just looks like it. Rendered in as much detail as the killer could manage. Re-creating a murder that will not occur for another twenty years. That museum exhibit had been on Jack the Ripper. The woman lying dead in Buck’s Row? The first of the canonical five victims.

Before me lies an exact replica of Polly Nichols’s murder. Twenty years before Polly Nichols will die. Here is the final proof I need. Proof that the guy who tried to kill me two nights ago is from the twenty-first century. He decided to copycat the most famous serial killer of all time. You bastard.

No one had cared. Not really. A journalist strangled and staged to look like a bird? Next, please. So he decided to do next. The next level. You want more? How about a pretty housemaid, slaughtered in an alley? But I thwarted him, and this is my reward.

What will happen in Jack the Ripper’s time now? Will he still kill Polly Nichols in the same manner? He might, if news of this killing never reaches London, but if he does, it will not take long before someone sees the connection and paints history’s most infamous serial killer as a mere copycat. This killer will be the original.

“Don’t let the lass see this,” a voice says, and I look to see McCreadie bearing down on us. “The poor woman has been savaged.” “And Catriona could see that before she wished a closer examination,” Gray says placidly. “She has a keen eye and an iron stomach. If she wishes to look, let her.”

His gaze travels to the left, and I follow it to see a feather wedged under her shoulder. A peacock feather. “The same?” Gray murmurs to me.

Her throat hasn’t just been slashed. It’s been cut right to the vertebrae. That’s the most obvious thing, and I need to see past the horror of it to examine further. After a moment, I murmur, “Hesitation marks.”

Strangled and then her throat cut?” I reach to check under her eyelids before stopping myself. “What were you about to do, Catriona?” “I, uh, I think that book mentioned something about seeing signs of strangulation in the whites of the eyes.” A hint of a smile as he nods.

“Examine the edges of the wound, and you’ll see they’re quite bloodless,” Gray says, still working on the abdomen. “My preliminary assessment would be that she was killed elsewhere, by strangulation, and then brought here, where the knife work was done. The blood, as you noted correctly, would have settled by that time, causing a lack of it here at the scene. Hugh? Can you show Catriona how to check for that?” McCreadie pulls down the shoulder of the victim’s dress, as circumspectly as possible, and points out the lividity, indicating the blood has settled.

“Try not to think of the body as a person,” I say. “You’ll need to, when you investigate her death, but for now, put that aside if you can.” Findlay peers at me intently, obviously not expecting these words from Catriona, and I’m wondering whether I went too far when Gray says, “Catriona is very astute. The object behind us is a piece of evidence. The person within is gone. You honor that person by solving her murder, and you needn’t worry about causing insult by examining her remains.”

I shrug. “I have traveled in the circles of criminals. I know their minds. It’s just another way to do detective work. It seems to me that the killer wishes to call attention to himself, first with a bizarre murder and now a horrific one. If that is the case, might he not be here to see his handiwork admired?”

Male eyes, many angry, as if affronted at my presence here, front and center. That would include most of the other officers, unfortunately. Get used to it, boys. The women at your crime scenes won’t always be lying on the ground with their throats slit.

So this is how Gray gets away with examining bodies. They have an arrangement with Addington, who lives in the New Town and wants the prestige of being the police surgeon but not the inconvenience of carrying out autopsies in an actual police station. Cleverly done.

“Ah, right. Hard to find peacock feathers just lying about, so he made do with a peacock-feather pen. Would the dyeing make it cheap or expensive?” “Cheap,” he says. “A substandard feather, dyed.” “Also ragged,” I say. “Probably not a new pen, then. Where would one purchase a used peacock-quill pen?” His lips twitch. “Now you wish to take poor Findlay’s job, too? Shall I lose you to Hugh?”

“Tell him you are a consulting detective.” One brow arches. “Sherlock Holmes?” I say. His expression tells me that, once again, I am ahead of my time. Or behind it. I’ve lost track.

“There’s been a second murder. It is different.” “Different how?” McCreadie pauses and then blurts, “Bloodier.” “How bloody?” She waves off her own question. “Never mind. I am determined to join this meal and this conversation, whatever happened to the poor man.” “Woman,” McCreadie says. “Possibly a prostitute.”

“Is she a sex worker?” I ask when McCreadie finishes explaining. McCreadie chokes on a bite of goose. Isla clears her throat, obviously trying hard to keep from laughing. “I know your vocabulary has been disturbed, Catriona, but we do not generally use that word in company, polite or otherwise.” “Worker?” I say, catching her eye with a look that makes her lose control of that laugh.

to avoid the stigma that is associated with “prostitute.” The exact same stigma, I realize, that is attached to “sex” in this time period. Of course, judging by what I read of Lady Inglis’s letter, Victorians are having—and enjoying—sex. They just don’t talk about it. How terribly Victorian of them.

Here stands the proverbial crossroads. I can stay behind and work with Gray. Or I can convince McCreadie to take me along to witness—and maybe help with—the interview. I do want to help examine Rose’s body; I just want to postpone it until after the interview. That isn’t possible. Pick one, Mallory.

“I think he strangled her because that’s how he likes to kill. Come up behind a victim and strangle them with rope. It means they don’t see him, but it also means he doesn’t see them. Doesn’t watch their face as they die.” Gray pauses to look at me. “Interesting. You believe he is affected by their deaths?” “Mmm, I don’t think so. I would imagine that only applies in cases where you regret needing to kill someone. He’s choosing to kill. It isn’t about caring—it’s about not caring. He isn’t doing it because he enjoys the act of killing. He enjoys hunting his victims and the victory of success and any notoriety that comes with it, but he doesn’t care about the act of killing. He does it quickly and efficiently.”

“I am not surprised at the unit of measurement but at the speed of your assessment. You are quite good at that.” “I used to work in a carnival, guessing weights.” His eyes spark with interest. “Did you?” “That was a joke, sir. Is there such an occupation?” “Of course. It is extremely popular, primarily as a way of discovering one’s weight if one does not possess a scale.”

“How much do you weigh?” he asks. I raise my brows in mock horror. “A gentleman never asks a lady such a thing.” His look of confusion tells me that’s not the invasive question it will be in a hundred and fifty years.

By no means, then, did the Ripper need to be a surgeon to remove organs from human bodies. And there’s no surgical skill displayed with Rose’s death. Two slashes to her throat, one twice the length of the other. One long, savage slice to the abdomen and several smaller stabs, plus two to the groin. It’s butchery so basic that I suspect an actual butcher would take offense at the comparison.

Five children. The only two who survived infancy both died in the cholera epidemic of 1856, along with her husband. The doctor prescribed laudanum to help with her “nerves”—shockingly, the death of her entire family within a week had sent her into a depression.

Who would want to murder Catriona? I think “who wouldn’t” might be the easier question to answer. She stole from those who tried to help her, like Isla and Gray. Fought with those who trusted her, like Simon. Betrayed those who wooed her, like Findlay. Bullied Alice. Gave Mrs. Wallace endless grief. Double-crossed her allies, like Davina. And those are just the people in her life that I know.

We’d been checking out Evans’s housemates trying to determine what the killer wanted from him. What he’d been tortured for. It had seemed connected to his housemates’ anti-immigrant efforts. Except that wouldn’t interest a modern-day killer.

Where am I? What year is it? What day is it? Hell, he could get those answers by finding a newspaper stand. What couldn’t he find as easily? Who am I? The man whose body the killer inhabits knew Evans. He was connected to him in a way that meant he had the information the killer needed. Who am I? Where do I live? What do I do for a living? He wouldn’t need to torture Evans for that. Fake a blow to the head and ask, and if Evans got suspicious, then he could kill him. Torture meant he needed more.

The killer had two choices. Live as the person whose body he inhabited or start over. Living as that person meant having a home and belongings and a job, but it also meant understanding that person’s life in a way I’d skipped with Catriona. This is what he wanted from Evans. Not just “who am I?” but the crux of that question—tell me everything about myself so I can fully inhabit this life. Where am I from? What do I like? How do I act? Who do I know?

Is that the Victorian equivalent of inviting me to his room to see his etchings? “I don’t think I need to see your stick,” I say. “Not tonight.” “See my stick?” he sputters. “How hard was that knock on your head? I mean I have a penny stick of opium.” I blink before I manage to say, “No, thank you.

A link shimmers there, between Evans selling his group’s secrets and Catriona selling Findlay’s police information. Could they have been selling to the same person? Or connected in the same underground web?

I also notice something else. Her discarded drawers might also be crotchless, but they button between the legs. I stare in wonder at this marvel and decide that pockets are all well and fine, but I have a new Victorian fashion goal. Crotch buttons.

“When we were growing up, our mother always called Duncan’s brain a boisterous puppy. Give it a toy, and it will attack with vigor. Wave a brighter, shinier toy in front of him, and it will abandon the first to pursue the second. It is something he has struggled with all his life. He must force himself to focus on one at a time and not be lured away by the promise of another.

She looks at me and smiles. “You do require a half day off, do you not, Miss Catriona? A half day that only the lady of the house can grant?” “You’re blackmailing me into taking you along?” “I am, indeed. Now gather what you need, and I shall inform Mrs. Wallace that I require your assistance with my shopping today.”

The “cosmetics” aren’t mascara and lipstick, though. From what I’ve seen, there’s little of that. Instead, they have tiny vials marketed as beauty aids, like mercury for your eyelashes. Or you can lighten your freckles and sunspots with lead sulfate. Isla points those out and assures me that she also avoids them—the advantage to being a chemist.

It’s a jotted list of five addresses. The top two have been crossed off. Beside the next one is a date—several days ago—with a question mark. I’m folding the note when I see writing on the back, too. I smooth it out. It’s written in an entirely different penmanship,

Catriona Mitchell. Born 1850, Edinburgh. Family name probably false. Ignore any criminal record under Mitchell, dating back to 1865. I have that. I want something I can use to repay the wench for her backstabbing.

the note was hidden. The information on Catriona hardly seems something his housemates would care about. I think he was hiding the addresses, which would suggest he wrote them first. Also, it was folded with the addresses inside, and there’s no sign of it ever being folded the other way.”

It suggests that he jotted down these addresses and then spoke to someone about them. That person wrote the information about Catriona on the opposite side, which meant Evans had to keep the note.”

“I’d like to check out this address,” I say, tapping the third one, with the question mark and a date beside it.

I have a friend whose grandfather fled Russia after the execution of Gregory the Fifth. As she says, he escaped one kind of persecution to discover another, but at least this one seemed fifty percent less likely to get him killed. The point is that this is an established business operating under an openly foreign name, and thus it may have attracted the attention of Archie Evans’s friends.”

As for the shop being on Evans’s list, we know the group is anti-immigration. We know he was selling information on their activities to someone. If this place was a target, that might be what he was selling.”

“They were most certainly immigrants. Did you not hear her accent?” “They’re Irish. That’s not the same thing, right?” “It is most certainly the same thing.” She tucks the loaves into my shopping bag. “We may have some immigration from Eastern Europe and other parts of the world, but the Great Hunger sent the Irish here in droves, and many Scots were not happy to see them.”

“Yes, something is being done. They are clearing the slums. You will see notices here and there. The buildings being knocked down, the people sent on their way. No reparations. No assistance. Driven out as if they were rats. For their own good. To convince them to better themselves, because all they need, obviously, is motivation.” Bitter sarcasm drips from her voice.

To me, being a child like that, adopted into a well-to-do family, would be a dream come true. The stuff of novels. Yet Alice would have run away had I suggested it. She wants to earn her keep, and anything else smacks of charity and obligation.

“It was Simon. When he saw me looking, he retreated fast.” Her brows furrow. “That is most odd.” “Does he have any connection to this area? A reason he’d be here?”