Page 19 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)
Chapter Ten
L eo stood on the front step of the morgue, her hand up to shield her eyes from the glaring sun.
At the end of Spring Street, a young messenger boy in short pants and a patched newsboy cap, with a large leather bag slung across his body, was collecting a letter from a man in a business suit.
Matty was one of the many messenger boys traversing this street and the others around Trafalgar Square nearly every day, waiting to be hired.
Leo signaled him now, waving her hand high above her head.
In her grip were two manila folders; one held the postmortem report for the John Doe found in Gavin Seabright’s room, and the other was a detailed description of the deceased.
The first would go to the CID at Scotland Yard, and the second, to the editor of the Police Gazette .
No word had come from the Yard regarding the identity of the dead man, so Leo presumed his photograph had not been found in any of the convict albums. For several months, she’d been providing descriptions of John and Jane Does to the Gazette in the hope that they would be recognized by police in other stations throughout London.
Well over a dozen entries in the publication had led to successful identifications, so she figured it would be worth a try with this John Doe too.
Connor had performed the autopsy that morning, concluding that the cause of death had been lethal impalement to the temporal lobe.
The deadly object would have been pointed and triangular in shape.
When Leo described the bloody finial on the top of the coal stove in his room, Connor had nodded. “That sounds right.”
“Might he have struck it while falling?” Leo suggested. “If he were to have tripped?”
With details of the small room sealed into her memory, she noted that the braided rag rug on the floor had been flipped up at the corner.
“He would have needed more momentum than a simple trip and fall to inflict damage this severe to his temporal bone,” Connor said without reservation.
“So, he was pushed. That would align with the state of the room. There had been an obvious scuffle. Though, even if he’d been given a push, his death still might have been an accident.”
The new city coroner had pursed his lips, looking as though he wanted to say something more. But he’d turned back to the body, preparing to restore the organs to their rightful places before closing with sutures.
Leo had let it go. Connor had either been going to remind her to include only medical findings, not theories, in the postmortem report. Or he wished to ask about her summons to the lodging house the day before. Granted, it had been a first. So had Jasper’s request that she speak to Esther Goodwin.
Last evening, after arriving at 23 Charles Street to deliver her report of the interview with Martha Seabright’s sister, her refusal to wait for Jasper in the study had made Mrs. Zhao suspicious.
Leo had thought the cold and unwelcoming front sitting room might keep them from discussing the kiss when he arrived. But it hadn’t.
Her pulse continued to stutter whenever she indulged in the vision of Jasper, stalking across the sitting room, intent on kissing her.
Of how fiercely she’d wanted him to. A full month of indecision on the matter had been shattered effortlessly.
Countless times since leaving his house last night, Leo had envisioned how Mrs. Zhao would have found them if she’d entered the sitting room just a few seconds later than she had.
An electric skittering along her skin both distracted and thrilled her as she dug into her pocket for the twopenny bit Matty would charge for delivering the report to Scotland Yard.
“To the Gazette office?” the boy asked as he took the other folder from her.
He’d delivered numerous descriptions of John and Jane Does to Constable Murray there in the past. “The top one, yes. The one on the bottom goes to Inspector Reid.”
Under different circumstances, Leo would have gone herself.
But she didn’t want to see Jasper. Not because she was upset about the night before or his blunt confession that he wished to kiss her again.
On the contrary, the promise of it the next time they were alone together kindled an acute flame in her chest. No, the reason she didn’t want to see him was because she feared he would somehow read her mind and know what she was planning to do.
Back in the postmortem room, she found Connor lifting the gray tabby cat that lived at the morgue from where it had curled up to sleep—on the chest of a dead man. The fact that the corpse reeked of fish had drawn Tibia from her usual contented sleep on an empty autopsy table.
She complained with a yowl as Connor set her onto the floor. The cat swatted his ankle with her paw before dashing for the office.
“Must we keep that animal?” he asked dolefully.
“Yes, we must,” Leo replied. “Give Tibia time to get used to you.”
She didn’t mention that the cat had never taken to Jasper.
But it wasn’t all men she objected to. Tibby adored Claude, though perhaps that was because he’d been the one to permit her inside one cold winter.
He’d noticed the skinny, distrustful stray haunting the dirt lane behind the morgue and lured her inside with dishes of cream and sardines.
Once she’d ventured in, he’d fixed her a box in which to sleep next to the cottage range in the office.
Since then, she’d grown round and content.
Tibia would nap on Leo’s lap while she typed reports, and whenever she was feeling particularly needy, she found her way onto Leo’s shoulders, stretching across them like a furry mink wrap.
Connor indicated the next corpse for the day. “I’d like to get the fishmonger here finished as soon as possible, for obvious reasons,” he said, scrunching his nose.
Leo clasped her hands together before her. “I know I was out most of the day yesterday,” she began, feeling even more guilty now. “But I have another errand that I was hoping to see to.”
He bore her a look of inquisitiveness rather than annoyance. “What errand?”
She couldn’t tell him the truth, nor could she lie. So, with a remote shrug, she replied, “It’s… private.”
Connor puckered his brow and smoothed his neatly trimmed mustache as he gave her request thought. Three corpses had been delivered to the morgue overnight, not to mention the backlog from the previous day.
“Well, as you are not strictly employed here,” he began, “I suppose you don’t need my permission. Yet .”
Connor sighed and continued, “I plan to speak to my grandfather tonight and make the official request to bring you on as my assistant. If that is still what you want?”
Leo released the stranglehold on her clasped hands. “Yes. Very much.”
It would mean the world to her to finally be employed officially because of her ability and talent, and not just at the behest of the late Gregory Reid.
She’d forever be grateful for the Inspector’s support and for his belief in her, but knowing that she was valued and wanted by someone who had no stake in her happiness felt inordinately more consequential.
Connor nodded and, with his hands resting on his hips, looked at the fishmonger’s corpse. “I suppose I can manage here alone for a little while.”
She thanked him and, promising to return as soon as possible, removed her apron as she hurried to the back office.
The morning had dawned with clear skies, and the bright sunshine didn’t hint toward another temperamental rainstorm, so she left the umbrella in the urn by the door and set out with just a wide-brimmed hat to block the sun.
With her handbag tucked into the crook of her elbow, Leo walked to Charing Cross Station, where she boarded the District Railway train.
Hailing a cab would have been simpler, but at a dearer cost, and so she settled on a hard bench and endured the slow, crowded rail ride to Moorgate Street.
The letter from the orphanage that Leo had found in Mrs. Seabright’s handbag had been stored within its original envelope, a posting address printed on the front. A key had also been inside the handbag. Before sending the woman’s possessions to the Yard that morning, Leo had taken the key.
Jasper had said her home was searched by constables, with nothing of importance found, but Esther’s comment about Martha as a young girl, hiding the things she’d stolen from Esther, had given Leo an inkling.
It had prickled at the back of her mind all night and into morning, however dully in comparison to her more stirring thoughts of Jasper.
The detective inspector would not have responded well to her suggestion that he have constables search the house again. As it was, it had been on the tip of his tongue last night to tell her to stay out of the inquiry.
So, she’d made up her mind to have a look for herself.
Leo stepped off at Moorgate Station, the barest reservation tingling through her.
From Fore Street to Cripplegate, she kept a steady pace, slowing only when she found Well Street.
A row of red-brick, terraced housing lined each side of the street, numbered brass plates on the front doors of each.
She came upon No. 19, which belonged to Martha Seabright, but didn’t stop.
Glancing up and down the street, she failed to see any constable in a blue uniform and hat, but she was still wary.
So, she continued to the end of the street, turned the corner, and then, after several strides more, turned again to enter the narrow alleyway behind the terraced row.
She was grateful for the sunshine as she walked along the alley.
Laundry lines were strung overhead, creating a warren of long underwear, petticoats, dresses, shirtwaists, and cloth diapers.
She passed a few women bent over washbasins and shouting at little tots playing.
A few peered suspiciously at her but said nothing as she passed.