Fearless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 1): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series (18 page)

“Four hours. No less,” I said.

Kelly huffed out a breath of air. It was hard to tell if he was incredulous or just surprised.

Carriage wheels sounded out from the entrance to the park, then, breaking our silence. The inspector’s horse throwing its head back and whinnying in welcome.

“The cart is here, Anna,” Kelly advised softly. “We’re removing her to the Station Surgery forthwith.”

I nodded. Unable to say the myriad of words,
demands
, that were on my lips.

“Let them take care of her,” he pressed gently. “I’ll see you from this place. See you warm again.”

The care he offered with his soft tone and kind words only made it more difficult not to break down and cry. I nodded my head again, aware I was in shock. Aware this was more an emotional reaction than a physiological manifestation of anything untoward. But no matter my understanding of what I was feeling, I could do nothing to ward off its effects.

“Come, Anna,” Kelly murmured, his hand wrapping around my bare one, his thumb stroking in a fashion similar to what I had just done to Helen.

He led me over to the curricle, the space now swarming with uniformed officers going about their duty without uttering a word. They had their instructions, just like Drummond would have his as well. What did they know of Helen? How would they care for my friend?

“I want to do the post-mortem,” I said, once Kelly had made sure everything was in order and climbed up beside me again.

“I don’t think that’s wise,” he said without inflection.

“Because of Drummond?” I argued.

“Because it’s Helen,” he replied succinctly.

I felt lost, so lost. For the first time in close to a year I wanted my father dearly. The need to have him comfort me, as if I was a little girl again, was too great. As the curricle left the park grounds I succumbed to the weight of his absence and began to weep. My shoulders shaking, my body aching, inside and out. I didn’t make a sound, but God, I felt
everything
.

Kelly’s hand came over my side of the curricle and he quietly wrapped his large gloved palm around my still gloveless one. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t look at me or make a sound. He just held my hand, the hand that had touched Helen’s heart, and kept it warm.

The rest of me was frozen solid.

I was surprised when he brought the curricle to a stop before the police station. I’d expected him to run me home, and then return here. He handed the reins off to the stablehand, and then turned to help me down the buggy’s steps. His eyes met mine and must have seen the questions lurking there. He let his gaze flow over my face, my hair, my state of dress, answering the query without having to say a word.

I looked a mess, and could hardly be brought before Wilhelmina in such a fashion.

Oh, good Lord. Wilhelmina. How was I to tell my cousin of this?

“You can rest in my office for a short time,” Kelly declared, as we made our way in through the rear doors. The Station was busy, even though the hour was late. News of another murder bringing officers out of their beds. Drummond would be awoken in short order, as well. I dreaded crossing paths with the man, but the thought of returning home just now did not come easily.

I nodded my head at Inspector Kelly’s words and followed him inside.

The old familiar smell of oiled wood met my nose. Lemon and vinegar, used liberally for cleaning, mixing with the nicer scents of time worn wood. Uniformed officers were hurrying from one side of the vast entrance room to the other. Those behind the desk pulling out sheafs of paper and giving out orders to the men. I walked like a ghost across the space I had once called my second home and finally found myself in a small room, a cot in the corner, a desk with bookshelf across the back, soft leather chairs on either side of a pitted table. The sounds of a waking station swept away as Inspector Kelly shut the door behind us.

“Say something,” he ordered, his words tentative not demanding. “Your silence is beginning to worry me.”

“I…” I started, but couldn’t find adequate words to fill the void.

Kelly looked at me, from where he stood several feet away. His shirt slightly crinkled, his jacket removed, long gone. His cravat askew, from when I’d clung to him.

He had never looked so desirable.

His eyes, though, were tired. Exhausted. Not from the late hour, but from, no doubt, another death to wear on his conscience.

He had no such worries. The blame was all on me.

“Anna,” he said softly, crossing the small space between us, his intent obvious. And much welcomed. His body heat already stretching out to reach me. My heart already leaping at the prospect of his touch.

A loud bang sounded on the door at my back, and in walked Superintendent Chalmers.

“What have you got for me, Kelly?” he demanded, and then spotted me.

He stalled in his forward motion, but his eyes travelled from my startled stance to the position of the inspector. No more than two feet away from me.

“Am I interrupting something?” Chalmers queried politely. Too politely, I think.

“Not at all,” Inspector Kelly replied immediately. “Miss Cassidy was with me when we found the body.”

The body. Already Helen was being relegated to one of many.

“Was she now,” Chalmers drawled. “I thought you were investigating the pugilist rings tonight?”

I refused to fidget, but neither could I come to Kelly’s rescue.

“We did, indeed, sir,” Kelly announced. “And have identified a suspect.”

Chalmers ignored what should have been the promising news of a suspect and turned his attention on me.

“You like the rings, Miss Cassidy?” he asked.

I merely blinked. I still wasn’t quite sensible enough to talk.

“You like your men rough and ready?”

“Superintendent,” Kelly reprimanded in a firm voice.

Chalmers held up a hand to hold him off. “Find your patients in the illegal arena of prizefighting?” he said instead. “Is that how it goes?”

“Superintendent,” Kelly pressed, ignoring the man’s second attempt to cut him off. “Miss Cassidy was a witness aiding in the identification of a Militia Guard from the Margaret Thorley scene.”

Chalmers swung an angry glare at Kelly, then abruptly turned and opened the door. He held it ajar and stared hard at me, then indicated I should walk through it with a stiff nod of his head. I forced my legs to move, even though I was sure at any moment they would buckle. Kelly stood by silently, his eyes averted from my face, his glare all for the superintendent.

The door slammed shut at my back, but the voices within were loud enough to carry as far as Wellington. I looked about the space, spotting a seat to the side, against a wall, and gratefully lowered myself into it. Then listened to the argument the rest of the Station all heard as well.

“What the hell is all of this, Kelly?” Chalmers demanded. “She’s a woman!”

“I’m well aware of that fact, sir.”

“I bet you bloody well are. Think with your head, man. Not your…”

“She is an accomplished surgeon,” Kelly rushed to say.

“She is unqualified and too big for her boots.”

“I disagree.”

“Of course you do. You’re no doubt tupping her!”

Silence for a beat, my cheeks flaming as officers about the room all turned their, until then pointedly distracted, attention to me. I lifted my chin and my brow, challenging them.

“I will have you apologise for that,” Kelly said in a low and ominous voice that somehow still travelled through the walls of his office. “Miss Cassidy is a lady of good repute.”

“Then perhaps you should think more on that, Inspector, and save the chit unwanted embarrassment.”

Silence again, and if more words were spoken, I could no longer hear it.

At some point Constable Mackey appeared with a cup of tea. I gratefully took it. And some long minutes after that Sergeant Blackmore walked in. He took one look at me sitting outside the inspector’s office, then at the closed door to the room, and crossed to sit himself beside me.

“All right, then, Miss Cassidy?” he asked.

“Fine, Sergeant. And yourself?”

“Fit as a fiddle,” came his overly cheerful reply.

“You have found nothing of note,” I surmised.

He smiled, then shook his head. “But don’t be telling the inspector I told you first, now,” he ordered good naturedly.

We sat in silence for a while longer and then finally the door to the inspector’s room opened and Superintendent Chalmers stalked out.

He took one look at Blackmore and demanded, “Don’t you have work to do, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir!” the sergeant announced, jumping up from his chair.

Chalmers stared at me for a suspended moment, and then turned on his heel and stormed off.

I was up and in Kelly’s office in the next heartbeat, the sergeant appearing at my back, no doubt for support.

“Well?” I said, most ineloquently.

“Miss Cassidy,” Inspector Kelly began, and I didn’t need to hear any more.

Miss Cassidy.

“I’ll have a constable see you home.”

I stared at him for a moment longer; disappointment, frustration, anger fuelling my veins.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I can make my own way.”

“Out of the question,” he insisted, his face set, his cane tapping the side of his foot in agitation.

“Very well,” I said quietly. There was no battle to be won here.

I was a woman. And this was men’s work.

“Will you be all right?” he enquired, once I’d turned my back and started to walk out. Blackmore’s eyes met mine from the doorway; a wealth of compassion within.

I offered him a small smile.

“I’ll be fine, Inspector,” I said, then kept walking, back straight, head held high.

“And Wilhelmina?” Kelly’s voice sounded out from just over my shoulder.

No. He didn’t get to concern himself with my cousin. Not when he’d all but abandoned me to the wolf.

“We’ll manage,” I whispered. We always managed. We always would.

“I’m sorry,” I thought I heard him say, but my ears were ringing and my heart was breaking and I knew I still had a mountain left to climb this day.

And I simply did not have the energy to spare to climb Inspector Kelly’s mountains, as well.

Sixteen

This Had To Stop

Inspector Kelly

“Another murder, sir?” Blackmore asked after the silence had stretched too long post Anna’s departure. I glanced up from where I’d been staring at the floor blindly and saw him looking back out toward the main office. Men hurried from here to there, instructions held in tight fists, dour looks on tired faces.

Another murder.
Now we’d had three.

“It would seem so, Sergeant,” I said, returning to my side of the table and taking a seat. Blackie walked farther into the room, but didn’t assume his own chair.

“No one was able to identify the Guard for us,” he advised, shifting focus, thankfully. “And as for the Swan. He’s not a regular, so no luck there.”

“Your delay not their undertaking?” I enquired.

“Hard to say, sir, but at a guess they was none the wiser.”

“So he moves in a pack, but isn’t affiliated with the Swan Hotel or the pugilist fights held there.”

“Other than the fact he was eyeing the bookie and knows how to do down a man.” I eyed the bruise on his left cheek, the cut above his left eye. Blackie had indeed been taken unawares, it seemed.

“You said, you thought he was about to rob him?” I asked, not bringing attention to his wounds. He would not have wanted such.

“Looked like it, sir. I interrupted the job, so to speak. His team was all crows, spotted me in a thrice, they did.” He shifted on his feet, hat in hand, embarrassment obvious to see. “I missed ‘em.” He shook his head in agitation. “Hadn’t even thought he’d have back-up, as such. Not like that. Not so tuned into their surroundings.”

I leaned back in my chair and steepled my fingers, thinking.

Four hours ago someone was murdering Helen Nelson. By the looks of it, in Albert Park itself. He could have easily had his men on lookout, ensuring no one crossed the grounds towards the fountain and his stage for the night.

But who would do such a thing?

“Our latest victim was killed in-situ,” I advised.

“Albert Park, sir?”

I nodded. Killed, displayed and then left, all so he could go rob a bookmaker at a pugilist fight. It didn’t make any sense.

“Why would a Militia Guard, who happened to be in his uniform coat at the ring, kill Suffragettes and then attempt a robbery?” I mused aloud.

“Does seem a bit strange, sir. But then, when do bludgers like ‘im actually make any sense?”

I stood up abruptly, straightening my cuffs and realising my jacket was missing. No doubt still in my curricle. Where Anna had been wearing it.