“A lot of people don’t like me,” he remarked. “I’ll be fine. Tell Claude he can release the body to the victim’s family.”
He started for the back door, where a dirt lane ran behind the morgue, dividing the old vestry from the church’s burial ground and gardens. This door was where the bodies were delivered to the morgue, providing greater privacy.
“You should also question Dita,” Leo called after him. “She had a better view of the Carters’ table and might remember more today than she did last night, what with all the commotion.”
Jasper faced her again. “I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job, Leo.”
She flinched.Hell.He hadn’t meant the statement to bite as sharply as it had.
Leo turned and sat back down at her desk. “Very well. I’ll have the report to you by the end of today.”
He exhaled and softened his voice. “I shouldn’t have barked at you. I apologize.”
“No need.” She fed a piece of paper into the typewriter and avoided looking at him.
“Thank you for your statement,” he said, folding the typed sheet she’d given him and sliding it into his pocket.
He opened the back door to leave but was detained once more.
“Would it be a bother if I stopped by the house later this evening?” Leo asked.
Jasper pulled up short, lingering in the threshold. He didn’t know what to think about the catch in his pulse.
“No bother at all. Why?”
“I’d like to collect the file the Inspector wanted me to have.”
Jasper nodded, his pulse returning to normal. “Of course.”
He’d noticed it was still in the desk drawer in his father’s study. The thick file held everything Gregory Reid had ever collected regarding the investigation into the murders of Leo’s parents, brother, and sister. Jasper had hoped she would leave it alone. That damn file would just drag up old demons.
Something he suspected this case was going to do too.
Chapter Three
Just before noon, Leo finished the postmortem report on Gabriela Carter, enclosed the papers in a manila folder, and started on foot for Scotland Yard. The walk there took only a few minutes, and as Jasper had said he’d be out interviewing Eddie Bloom and the victim’s husband, she was willing to bet he wouldn’t be in his office when she delivered the report. After his acerbic attitude earlier that morning, she intended to avoid him.
Jasper had always been prickly, but that morning, he’d flared from hot to cold with more alacrity than usual. He was grieving, of course. Losing the Inspector, who had been his father in every way but in blood, must have set him adrift. She grieved the loss of the Inspector too, but Jasper’s absence had also left her feeling a bit wayward. A part of her had been, dare she say it,happyto see him that morning. A sentiment he hadn’t reciprocated.
Just outside the Yard, Leo stopped at a vendor’s cart, entering a sweet-smelling cloud of baked sugar and currants. She purchased two still-warm Chelsea buns and continued toward police headquarters, where Dita would be on duty as a matron.
Dita had been out of sorts after seeing Gabriela Carter’s dead body on the dance hall floor. She’d always marveled at Leo’s ability to work with the dead. Corpses, even the idea of them, made Dita feel ill. Her distaste was so acute, she had never set foot in the Spring Street Morgue. Not even into the lobby. However, with the benefit of a night’s sleep between herself and the event, it was possible Dita would recall more details about the Carters’ table. It had been in her direct line of sight, after all, and she had been actively watching the crowd.
Since Jasper might not bother to ask Dita about what she’d seen last evening, Leo would.
Holding the packet of buns in her hands, she greeted the front desk receiver at the Yard, Constable Woodhouse. The constable never gave her a difficult time and always allowed Leo to carry on into the building freely. So, when he held up his palm to indicate that she should hold, Leo was startled enough to trip to a stop.
“Who are you here to see, Miss Spencer?”
Her lips parted in surprise. She couldn’t recall the last time he’d asked her that. “I’m here to see Miss Brooks on the matron’s floor and to deliver a report to Inspector Reid. Why do you ask?”
He cleared his throat, looking bashful. “Just protocol, miss.” He tipped the brim of his hat, and she took it as a sign that she should carry on. She did, though strangely disconcerted.
Constable Woodhouse had never been one to treat Leo with disdain or suspicion, unlike many others tended to do at the Yard. She was well known there, thanks in part to her family’s infamous murder, but also due to the late Inspector’s affection for her, and his support when she eventually expressed an interest in working alongside her uncle at the morgue. Because Gregory Reid was so beloved, and because he’d been the former Police Commissioner’s closest friend, no one complained about the odd arrangement. Now, however, both the Inspector and SirNathaniel were gone, and she wasn’t sure for how much longer her uncle would be able to keep his position.
Leo took the first flight of stairs, her destination the uppermost floor. There, several former bedrooms, in what had once been a royal residence, were now used as holding chambers for women and children brought in under arrest or for questioning. She and Dita would take tea there rather than go across the street to the Rising Sun public house where many of the officers gathered. Most of them were still skeptical that matrons were needed on the force at all. The eight women currently employed by the Met as citizen volunteers were all related in some way to a police officer; Dita’s father, Sergeant Byron Brooks, was a longtime, upstanding officer in the Carriages Department.
Despite those family connections, the officers weren’t comfortable around the matrons. In Leo’s experience, most felt the same discomfort when around her too. Things had been even worse for her since the events that had unraveled with the former police commissioner. There were many at the Met who would have preferred to let Sir Nathaniel get away with his misdeeds rather than face another cycle of bad press in London’s newspapers. But Leo refused to let her unpopularity at Scotland Yard prevent her from going about her business.
