Jasper clenched his fists. “Did this man see you?”
“I don’t think so. That’s not the point. I’m saying there might be other people behind Constable Lloyd’s actions.”
He trusted that she’d indeed seen someone there besides Lloyd. In the recent past, during a few other investigations in which she’d been involved, she’d proved herself to be remarkably perceptive. Her deductive reasoning was sound, and if Jasper were being honest with himself, she would have made a damn good detective had she been born a man. Some women were employed in civilian positions at the Met, like Miss Brooks, and in smaller constabularies, the wives of station chiefs would sometimes assist their husbands. Right now, however, the criticisms and excuses for why women were not employed in any official capacity by the Metropolitan Police as officers weren’t the only reasons why Leo could not be involved with this case.
“Your closest friend has lost the man she loves, and he is being accused of something truly horrific and dishonorable. You have an agenda. You want to prove his innocence,” Jasper said.
“That isn’t what I’m doing,” she insisted. “You didn’t see John’s face. The man was terrified. It wasn’t the face of someone with deadly intent.”
He stopped himself from asking just how often she’d seen the faces of men with deadly intent. As he well knew, she had, and on more than one occasion.
“The fact remains that Constable Lloydwascarrying a bomb toward Scotland Yard.”
“But don’t you want to understand why?” she asked, her bad mood seeming to intensify.
He returned to the decanter of whisky and poured himself another. “Of course, I do, but for the last time, Leo, it is not my place to interfere with Tomlin’s investigation. He’ll read the postmortem report, and he can deduce for himself if the bruising and ligature marks are related to the incident or if they are not.”
Silence ensued, hinting at her displeasure from being thwarted. Turning around, he saw that she did look disappointed. Inhim.
She cast her eyes away from his. “I’ll go then.” The fire had been snuffed from her tone. Instead of storming toward the door, she merely walked.
“Can’t you stay?” he heard himself asking. It was what he wanted, though he hadn’t known he was going to voice it.
Leo stood stock-still by the door without looking at him. “We’ll only shout at each other,” she murmured.
“Good.”
She spun to look at him, flummoxed.
“I want you to shout at me,” he explained, walking slowly toward her. “Scream at me. Hell, if you want to hit me, I’ll stand here and let you. I just need you to talk to me, Leo.”
She peered at him with skepticism, as if he’d lost his mind. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“Bollocks. You have plenty to say. You must have a thousand questions scuttling about in that brain of yours.”
Her eyes, a striking fusion of pale brown and gold, flared. “Even if I were to ask you questions, how can I trust you’ll answer with the truth? You’ve done nothing but lie to me for sixteen years.”
“Trust me or don’t, Leo, but I have nothing else to hide from you. Now, stop running away and face me, dammit!”
The tenuous hold on his temper had slipped, and when she stared at him with seething resentment, he expected her to turn and leave.Again. Her chest rose and fell with angry breaths. But she held still.
“Did he know?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “Did the Inspector know?”
Jasper exhaled. “He knew who I was, yes. A few weeks after I met the Inspector, my aunt came to the Yard, searching for me.” He gazed into his whisky glass, remembering his father’s confession shortly before he’d died. “She had a photograph of me.”
Gregory Reid, knowing the Carters for who and what they were, had not wanted to send Jasper back to them. Considering the way he’d arrived at the Yard, battered and bruised, the Inspector had correctly assumed the beating had been inflicted by Robert Carter, his so-called uncle. They were, in fact, second cousins, but he’d insisted Jasper address them as Uncle Robert and Aunt Myra. It hadn’t mattered. No label could have erased his hatred for Robert or the subsequent repulsion he felt for Myra.
The Inspector had shown Myra the body of a drowned young boy about Jasper’s size and age, though bloated beyond recognition. He’d deceived her by placing Jasper’s old clothing and the rosary Myra knew to be his with the corpse. However, Jasper told Leo none of this now. What she really wanted to know was if the Inspector had known the Carters had killed her family. That Jasper had been there in the attic with her.
“He didn’t know it was the Carters at your house that night. I never told him.”
His father had suspected the East Rips were involved, of course. They were known for violence. But he’d never spoken to Jasper about it. In all their years together, he never indicated that he knew who Jasper’s blood relations were at all. Not until that last confession, just prior to his death.
“Why…” Leo squeezed her eyes shut and released a tremulous breath. “Why did your family kill mine?”
It was one of the questions he’d anticipated if she ever did speak to him again. It was also perhaps the easiest to answer.
“Punishment for a betrayal,” he replied. “I don’t know what your father did; I wasn’t old enough to be privy to that conversation. But he betrayed the East Rips somehow, and they wanted to make an example of him.”
