“Not just any woman. Leonora Spencer,” Chief Coughlan spat out her name. “She has been a pox on this department, and don’t think I haven’t read the little story about her in theIllustrated Police News. Assisted in an investigation, did she? Do you know how that makes us look, Reid?”
Next to him, Lewis shifted his footing and tucked his chin.Christ. The detective sergeant probably wished for Jasper’s sacking too.
After Carter and his thugs disappeared with Terrence Nelson, Lewis had drawn his cart to a stop, demanding to know where the devil their prisoner had gone. The only thing Jasper could think about then was how to mitigate the disaster. But that would be impossible. There could be no fixing what had happened.
Nelson was a deranged murderer who’d wanted his revenge so fiercely he’d lost all perspective, all sense and logic. He deserved to die—but at the end of a rope after a judge sentenced him to death. Andrew Carter had usurped the law, taking it into his own hands and delivering his own justice.
And it had made Jasper look like an incompetent police officer in the process.
“A warrant for the arrest of Andrew Carter has already gone out to all divisions, although, unless we find Nelson’s dead body in his presence, we’ll never be able to prove he did more than interfere in an arrest,” Coughlan scoffed. “You’re off this case, Reid. You as well, detective sergeant. I’m handing it over to Timson.”
Jasper withheld a groan, though just barely. The Special Irish Branch detective was a pompous ass and would gloat over his appointment to the case.
“I will not warn you again,” Coughlan went on. “Unless you cease associating with Miss Spencer, you will be dismissed. And not just from the C.I.D. There will be no place for you anywhere within the Met, Reid. Am I understood?”
With a rock settling into his gut, Jasper jerked his chin in a nod.
Coughlan dismissed him and Lewis, and they exited his office into the department room. There, looks of sympathy mixed with cold glowers.
“I’m sorry, Roy,” Jasper said to his detective sergeant, who had taken the chief’s verbal thrashing without a single word spoken in his own defense. “You didn’t deserve to be in there. This is all on me.”
Lewis shrugged, scrubbing a hand along the back of his still-tender head. “I figure Carter could’ve just as easily held me or another officer at the end of his blade, and you would’ve made the same choice.”
It was true.Hypothetically. Though Jasper doubted he would have felt the same precipitous plunge of his stomach as when Andrew’s knife was pressed against Leo’s cheek.
“She’s smart, your Miss Spencer. Smart and plucky, I’ll give her that,” Lewis said. “But the chief’s right. She’s a liability, and if you’re not careful, she’s gonna get you sacked one of these days.”
Jasper made no reply. Lewis deserved to give his opinion without challenge, especially after today. He hadn’t suffered bloody gashes from the explosion at the factory as Jasper had, but he’d taken a wallop on the head from pieces of the falling ceiling. Such an injury could have been deadly.
Besides, Lewis wasn’t entirely wrong about Leo. She was untrained, intractable, and reckless. Yet, she had also been unquestionably integral to deciphering who had poisoned Gabriela Carter and why. Without her, Jasper might not have solved the Jane Doe case or discovered Andrea Geary’s true identity.
“I owe you a pint at the Rising Sun,” Jasper said to Lewis.
He laughed. “Make it two pints and another night, guv. The only place I’m for is home and to bed.” Lewis started away. “And you should have your back looked at.”
Jasper nodded, waving him on toward the department exit. The blood from the gash along his shoulder and back had dried, sealing his shirt to the wound. It pulled painfully, but there hadn’t been time at the hospital to allow the nurse to finish tending to it. Certainly, Mrs. Zhao would be willing to help once he returned home. It was the least of his worries right then.
The other officers were beginning to file out of the Yard for the evening, none of them making eye contact with him as they went. He didn’t mind. He’d never cared to be popular. But he did care to be respected, and there wasn’t any question that today, there had been a setback in that area for him.
He was on his way to the lobby when a familiar officer emerged from a stairwell, coming into Jasper’s path. It was theGazetteconstable, Murray. The man saw Jasper and halted, standing to attention as he had outside Leo’s home the other evening.
“Detective Inspector,” he said.
“Constable,” Jasper replied. He wasn’t inclined to say anything more and merely wished to carry on and go home. But apparently, Murray didn’t feel the same.
“I hope it wasn’t out of line for me to walk Miss Spencer home the other evening,” he said.
Jasper drew a long breath, his instant dislike for the man doubling. “Why would it have been, Constable?”
He floundered, color touching his lily-white skin. Did the man never step foot outside his office to see a blasted ray of sunlight?
“I know that you and she are close. Like family. Or at least, she and your father were close, and…” He floundered some more, and Jasper found he didn’t mind seeing the constable discomfited. He merely arched an eyebrow, waiting for him to complete his thought. “And now from what I hear, she is assisting with some investigations, so?—”
Jasper sharpened his stare. “Where did you hear that?”
He expected to hear that the article had given him the information. But it wasn’t that.
“From Miss Spencer,” he answered quickly. “We dined out a fortnight ago.”
