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Chapter Fifteen

A fter leaving Leo at Trafalgar Square and returning to Scotland Yard, Jasper tried—and failed—to forget the return carriage ride from Holloway Prison.

The boxes of items collected from Niles Foster’s rooms provided a good attempt at a distraction, but as he joined Lewis, who’d been sorting through the clothing, legal texts, ledgers, and folios that Foster had presumably brought from Parliament to his rooms, Jasper’s thoughts continually crept back toward his conversation with Leo.

He didn’t know if they’d made any strides toward a truce or if he’d only pushed her further away.

She hadn’t missed the way his attention slipped to her lips.

And he hadn’t missed the blush staining her cheeks.

What they’d learned from Mrs. Stewart about her sister-in-law should have been of more consequence than those few beguiling moments in which Jasper had suppressed a crushing desire to move across the carriage and seat himself next to Leo.

She would have been appalled, he supposed.

So, he tried to pretend the urge had not tempted him at all and instead kept the disconnected threads between his own case and Inspector Tomlin’s foremost in his mind.

“His handwriting is something awful,” Lewis complained, paging through papers in one of Foster’s folios. He slapped them onto the desk and shoved them aside. “I can’t understand half of what he writes, can you?”

Jasper had put away a stack of papers and started to go through a box of clothing. The hemlines of Foster’s trousers pointed to them having been purchased secondhand. The cuffs and collars he’d attached to shirts were frayed from overuse, and his stockings had been darned several times over.

“No, but I was hoping for a financial ledger of some sort. You’ve seen nothing?” Jasper asked. Lewis shook his head.

The laborers had left a short while ago, the rain having slowed their progress on rebuilding the corner wall, and other officers in the CID had also started home for the evening. Lewis was likely eager to return to his family too.

“Foster must have kept a desk outside Sir Elliot’s office at Parliament,” Jasper said. “Go there tomorrow and have a look. I’ll work on hunting down Olaf to inquire about the altercation at Bloom’s club.”

That would mean approaching Barry Reubens. It wasn’t an enviable task, and the crinkling of the detective sergeant’s forehead spoke to it. “I should come with you for that. Me and a few constables.”

He wasn’t wrong. “I’ll take Drake and Price with me. Go on home, now. I’ll finish with this box.” Jasper lifted out a black frock coat showing signs of wear in the threading around the shoulders.

Lewis stood and stretched his back as Jasper turned out the pockets. A scrap of crumpled paper fluttered to the floor. Retrieving it, then flattening it out, he read an address: 7 Lisle Street, Leicester Square.

The writing resembled Foster’s own from what he’d seen among the man’s belongings.

Jasper turned the scrap of paper over, but there was nothing else written upon it.

Leicester Square wasn’t far; it was likely nothing, but to disregard it would be madness, especially when they had so few other leads.

He decided to go by the address before heading home for the evening.

Jasper rummaged through the boxes until he found the framed photograph he’d seen earlier. In it, Foster was standing behind a man and a woman, presumably his parents. He took the back off the frame and slipped the photograph into his coat pocket.

Jasper went north on foot from Whitehall Place. The tapering rain didn’t bother him; Mrs. Zhao might complain that he was damp through and through, but her scolding would bring some normalcy back to the day.

The visit to Holloway Prison had only further muddled the connection between Niles Foster and Constable Lloyd.

Inspector Tomlin hadn’t been in when Jasper returned to the Yard that afternoon, but he would be there tomorrow.

He couldn’t avoid bringing up the possibility their cases were linked for much longer, but at least his temper had cooled somewhat regarding Leo being held overnight without cause.

At Leicester Square, carriage traffic moved in spasms. Gas jets within the lamps surrounding the park square reflected off wet pavement and glistening cab roofs.

Once residential, the square was now populated with shops, hotels, and entertainment, including a few museums and theatres.

When Jasper came upon Number 7 Lisle Street, north off the square, he felt an itch of interest. The etched windows read Seale and Company Bank.

Jasper tried the door, but it was after hours. The place was closed for the night.

He stared at the exterior a few more moments, considering why Niles Foster had the address for this bank in his pocket.

How long ago had he stuffed it there? If it had been his own bank, why write down the address as if he might forget it?

He might have been running an errand for Sir Elliot…

but the MP had been clear that they did not associate outside chambers. A banking errand seemed personal.

The spitting rain regained some of its strength, and Jasper turned back toward St. James’s Square.

There was nothing more he could do with the bank lead that night.

Exhaustion pulled him forward, as did the promise of warm, dry clothes, a liberal pour of whisky, and whatever Mrs. Zhao had created in the kitchen for his supper.

He felt spoiled at times. She cared for him as if he was family, and he did not believe that was merely because she was paid to do so.

The first wrong thing he noticed as he approached the house on Charles Street was the darkened upstairs windows.

At this time of night, the brackets and lamps in the study should have been lit.

He’d never arrived home to find that room, or his own bedroom, unprepared.

Jasper held still on the pavement an extra moment, then went to the front door.

He used his key to enter, but as he did, he felt a chilly absence.

The gasolier overhead was lit, but there were no sounds of approaching footfalls.

Mrs. Zhao’s ears could detect the click of the front door lock from the kitchen.

She should have been here by now to greet him, as was her custom.

He pocketed his key, his concern mounting. She was an older woman but not in ill health. That wasn’t to say she was invincible.

“Mrs. Zhao?” he called into the quiet. No answer came.

He started for the kitchen but pulled up short of reaching for the knob.

Light reached under the base of the door, fanning out over the wooden boards and the tips of his boots.

A prickle of premonition lifted the small hairs along his arms and the back of his neck.

Jasper reached for his Webley revolver, smoothly drawing it from the leather holster.

Pushing open the door, he entered in a swift lunge, his revolver raised.

In a chair directly in front of him, Mrs. Zhao sat bound and gagged.

Her muffled cry of warning came in tandem with the shove of a body slamming into his back, taking him to the floor.

Jasper landed hard on his side. A foot connected with his wrist, dislodging the Webley from his grip.

A sharp kick to his temple, and pain exploded in his head, wiping out his vision.

The blows continued against his ribs as more boots assailed him from all sides.

The unrelenting scream coming through Mrs. Zhao’s gag paired with the grunts of the men standing over him, as they repeatedly kicked his prone body.

And then, the attack ceased. He heaved for breath, his ribs searing as a man’s grating hiss burrowed into his ear: “Quit asking about the Angels.”

It was all he heard before another strike to the face brought an impenetrable cloak of darkness.

The dabbing of a cloth against his cheek stung.

It pulled him from an endless, spinning abyss of nausea and pain.

Fragments of a fever dream lingered in his head.

Mrs. Zhao’s whimpering cries. A cold stretch of darkness.

Leo’s strained voice, fraught with worry, as she called to him through ever-shifting shadows.

Jasper opened his eyes. Or rather, eye . The right one refused to budge.

“Leo.” Her name clawed along his dry throat. When he tried to move, every muscle, every joint and rib seized in pain.

“No, don’t move, Jasper. Please.”

Through his foggy vision, he saw her, perched over him. He might have thought he was dreaming if not for the bloodstained cloth in her hand. His blood. Christ .

The men in his kitchen. The attack.

“Mrs. Zhao.” He grimaced as he tried to lift himself up from… a sofa? He was on a sofa. In the front sitting room of his house on Charles Street, a room that usually collected dust.

“She’s perfectly fine, I promise.” Leo gently pressed her hands against his shoulders to try and keep him down. At the news, Jasper released his tightened muscles. He fell backward against the cushions, and a deep throb pulsed through his body. It was somehow both agonizing and pleasant.

“They didn’t harm her?” Jasper asked, his swollen bottom lip tugging painfully. It seemed to have its own heartbeat.

“No, they only frightened her,” Leo answered. She was backlit by the dim gas jet of a wall bracket. “They cut the rope from her wrists before leaving, so she came to Spring Street for my uncle. He’d already left, but I was still there. I’ve sent for him. He should be here any moment.”

Jasper closed his eye, grateful Mrs. Zhao hadn’t been hurt. They could have killed her. The Spitalfields Angels . Damn it. He took shallow breaths, his ribs complaining with each one.