Fearless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 1): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series (3 page)

I hated it.

I glanced back down at Margaret, for fear the tears in my eyes would be discernible in the low lamp light. I cleared my throat.

“Will you give me a moment with her?” I asked. “She was a close friend.”

“I am aware, but this is a crime scene.”

“And you think me incapable of such restraint? I was taught by the best, Inspector.”

“That too I am aware of.”

“Five minutes,” I countered, becoming desperate. “Two,” I offered as a final concession.

“One,” he threw back and then shook his head in bemusement. “You could talk a beggar out of his rags, Anna Cassidy.”

“Hardly,” I offered with a small smile.

He looked away. “One minute and no longer.” He began to move off, his cane coming down in loud thumps, mirroring his disquiet. “And if you tamper with a thing in this alleyway, I will have you thrown in the cells.”

I huffed out an amused laugh. Kelly was yet to follow through with that particular threat, and I’d heard it a time or two by now.

I didn’t wait for him to fully disappear, but crouched down again beside my fallen friend and began to investigate her positioning and overall state more clearly. Fourteen stab wounds, one of which would have ended her pain in ten seconds flat. The rest caused unmentionable agony.

“Oh, Margaret,” I whispered, rolling her over and checking her back.

I settled her on her side again, having found nothing of interest, and noticed for the first time that she had bruises on her neck. I reached for the lantern, kindly left me by the inspector, to illuminate the marks. They were the size of fingertips, ringing her throat, the largest pressing in above her hyoid bone. I studied the site; it could well be broken, adding strangulation to the myriad of evil committed in this forgotten alleyway.

Margaret faced her attacker. She fought back against a blade and superior strength.

Her murderer looked her in the eyes, while he held her by the throat, immobile, desperate. She’d scratched,
clawed
at him, I should say. I glanced down at the ground, lifting the lantern high in order to detect faint marks.

There. A scrape. Another. Scuff marks, all centred in the one place.

I moved to her feet, checking her shoes.

She’d hanged by his hold on her neck, while her feet sought purchase and her nails sought release.

And while he’d stabbed her fourteen times.

I was reaching for her clothing when I heard Kelly return. Blood would have stained my gloves by now, but I pulled them back in time to hide them from his sight.

“I must insist now, Anna,” he declared as he came alongside me. I didn’t look up. I knew what I’d find. Not only concern and compassion, but his hand offered to aid me to my feet.

Ordinarily I’d refuse the assistance; I am not incapable of rising to full height on my own. But my soiled gloves were the dominant reasoning for pushing up from the crouch without his aid, and not making eye contact.

“I wonder sometimes,” Kelly remarked, moving off from the body, as though that would be sufficient to draw me away. “If you are in fact a lady beneath that independent façade.”

“Does dependence indicate a lady?” I asked, offering Margaret one last grief filled look.

By the time I turned to face the inspector, my eyes were dry and my chin was lifted.

“Or does the simple fact I retain certain anatomical differences signify my sex?”

“Anna,” Kelly said in a pleading tone. “If you will not act a lady, then please attempt to curb your tongue.”

I looked up at him, wondering if his words were in fact true. Was that why? He didn’t see me as a lady. He never had. I may dress like one, but to Andrew Kelly I was nothing more than a meddlesome woman demanding acceptance in a man’s world.

Just like the banker.

“Very well,” I said, looking down at the ground and frowning. “Thank you for the moment alone with my friend.”

“Did it help?” he asked, as I began to walk away. The care in his tone was almost my undoing.

“More than you’ll know, Inspector,” I said, without turning back around.

The bright light of the wharf blinded me for a moment, as I walked out of the darkened alley, back into civilisation. But not necessarily a world untainted by evil. I’d seen too much of it in my twenty-six years. I’d worked beside my father at some of the most heinous crime scenes there were. Witnessed atrocities. Marvelled at man’s unkindness to man. And then dissected it all afterwards on the sterile environment of a doctor’s slab.

Drummond’s surgery had not always been his.

“All right, Miss Cassidy?” Sergeant Blackmore’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Need an escort somewhere?”

I glanced across at the burly man; his beard a few days past needing refinement. His suit jacket stretched across broad shoulders, hard fought for in pugilist rings. His crooked nose a testament to those activities. A gentle smile curved his lips.

“He ain’t been too hard on you, has he, miss? The inspector,” he added, as if I hadn’t known who he’d been referring to.

“I can handle the Inspector, Sergeant,” I offered in way of reply, a smile added to soothe the sting of my words.

“Aye, that you can, miss,” Blackmore said with enthusiasm. “But can he handle you?”

The smile froze on my face; unsure how to take that statement. Unsure if I was meant to have heard it.

I shook my head and glanced around the now cleared area. One thing to be said for the Auckland Central Police Force, they knew how to contain a crime scene.

“I believe I’ll walk,” I announced, my eyes stuck fast on the makeshift stage. It appeared most impressive for one single election speech. “How long do you think it took them to make this, Blackmore?” I asked, shifting closer to the behemoth and running a hand along the edge of the ruffled fabric draping its sides.

A noise sounded out from beneath the raised platform, the fabric curtain shifting as though in a breeze.

“Back, Miss Cassidy,” Blackmore said with authority. “Back now, you hear.”

I stepped back and allowed the sergeant egress. Looking around the bulk of his shoulders as he pulled his billy club free and lifted the curtain at the side. Two bright shining eyes stared out at us. A hiss followed and then, in a thrice, short legs carried the startled child away.

“Be gone with you!” Blackmore shouted, taking a few cursory steps in the direction of the ragamuffin, but not offering pursuit. “Damned orphans,” he spat and then doffed his hat in apology. “Forgiveness, miss. Them street urchins been causing all kinds of havoc lately.”

I watched the child dodge pedestrians as though he’d done this sort of thing a time or two. He scampered over the canal and headed towards the Mechanics Bay dockyard. An area I was certain a child should not roam.

“Shall I walk with you, Miss Cassidy?” Blackmore offered, no further thought of the orphan in his mind.

Kelly chose that moment to stride out of the alleyway, his limp barely present today. He spotted Blackmore and myself immediately; the sergeant’s arm out in offering of an escort. A frown marred the inspector’s face, his eyes homing in on Blackmore.

“I fear your time is better spent here, Sergeant,” I offered, lifting my skirt and starting to walk away.

“Never think so, miss,” Blackmore offered, only to be spoken over by Inspector Kelly.

“Miss Cassidy,” he called, forcing me to halt in my escape. I turned slowly to look up at him, but his eyes weren’t on my face.

My hand fisted tighter on my skirt.

His eyes narrowed.

“What part of tampering with the scene,” the inspector announced in a dark voice, “did you not understand?”

I glanced down at my gloved hand, noting the brightness of the blood against the whiteness of the linen in the sunshine.

Kelly’s own gloved hand reached out and released my grip from my skirt hem.

“You leave me little choice, Anna,” he said, voice low and angry. It was not anger at me, as such, I was sure.

It was anger at having to finally follow through with his threats.

“At least I’ll be close to the surgery,” I managed to quip.

“Like hell,” Kelly snapped back. Turning on his heel and dragging me towards his curricle.

Blackmore stepped forward, mouth open, some form of reprimand for his superior on his tongue. I wished he wouldn’t.

“Not a word,” Kelly snarled and received a curt nod of the sergeant’s head in reply. Thankfully.

I let a small breath of air out as Kelly assisted me up the steps of his buggy. Only to suck it back in again, when he pressed against my side as he sat on the bench, taking up too much space in the vehicle for my liking.

“Secure the scene, Sergeant,” Kelly ordered. Hands on the reins, eyes forward already. He looked fit to kill.

“Right you are, sir,” Blackmore replied, offering me a small, sad shake of his head.

“Right you are,” Kelly repeated, snapping the reins and making the curricle lurch forward.

I gripped the edge of my seat, my heart in my throat, the breeze rushing past and blurring my eyes.

At least, I told myself it was the force of the wind that made me cry.

And not the man sitting next to me, who I trusted above all others.

And who, more than once now, had let me down.

Three

I Have Grave News To Impart

Anna

Not a word was spoken as Kelly navigated the busy traffic on Queen Street. A dog ran across our path, another barked in warning. A phaeton had lost a wheel outside the Imperial Hotel, teetering precariously on its three remaining feet. Ladies promenaded past the Auckland Art Gallery, gentlemen doffed their hats in greeting.

My memories of London are those of a child’s, but in my mind’s eye, Auckland was the fairer city.

I held my gloved hands still in my lap as we approached the police station; nerves having got the better of me, making my fingers entwine and my thumb rub repetitive circles above the stains that had given me away. Kelly’s eyes did not venture downward, but I was sure he was aware of the evidence. Not much got past the inspector.

His grip was tight upon the reins, his jaw set; making a hard platform for his features. I stole a glance from the corner of my eye; his lips pressed into a thin line. Anger had been Inspector Kelly’s companion for only a few short years. But it had made itself at home within him.

It wasn’t until the curricle had moved beyond the Cook Street Station that Kelly actually spoke, jarring me from my musings. Severing me from memories we both attempted to forget.

“You wear it well,” he said, not making eye contact. His attention, for all intents and purposes, appearing solely on the horses and our now undetermined route.

“And what would that be, Inspector?” I asked, holding my breath.

“Scarlet,” he murmured. “Red.” For the blood?

I stared down at my gloves; Margaret’s life so carelessly lost upon them. It wasn’t my hand that had wielded the knife, but it might as well have been. She’d only joined the Suffragettes at my behest. Only been at that stage because of her involvement in a movement I backed with all my heart.

What had I done?

“I only wish,” Kelly continued, but his words were hard to hear. A hum had started up inside my ears; a persistent accompaniment to my pounding heartbeat. “That it was crimson silk or burgundy taffeta.” Not blood.

Not Margaret’s blood.

I let a slow breath of air out, lifting my head and gazing unseeing for a moment to the side of the road. Traffic was more sparse here, the neighbourhood one of homes not businesses. We travelled up Franklin Street in silence, my father’s house a beacon in the dark.

“It is a difficult thing to avoid,” I finally said, as Kelly pulled the buggy up outside my refuge and home. “My profession is doused in it.”

Kelly lowered the reins and turned slightly in his seat to look at me. His expression one I had long ago committed to memory.

“If you would only allow…” he began, but I raised a hand, a blood covered hand, to stop him.

“This is my life, Inspector. Mine. I will not have a man tell me how to live it.”

“I am not just any man,” he argued, tearing at my heart and making breathing difficult.

“You are one of many,” I replied and proceeded to alight the vehicle.

Kelly rushed to aid me, but his injury did not allow for quick movements. I was on the footpath before he’d skirted the horses, his expression now one I chose to forget on occasion.

“You vex me sometimes, Anna,” he murmured, offering me his free arm.

I stared at it. He made a disgruntled sound.

“Your cousin watches from the window,” he ground out.

I took his arm and looked for Wilhelmina through the curtains. She hid her observation well.

“No doubt wondering why you continue to try to refine me,” I replied. “Mina has long since given up her attempts.”

“Wilhelmina is too sweet natured to discipline you. I am not.”