“She was a horrible woman, but to murder her…” Felix sighed heavily, head shaking.
“Have you any idea where Gavin might have gone to lay low awhile?” Jasper asked.
Mrs. Blickson shook her head, as did her cousin. “As I said, we’re not close,” she replied. “I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could do to help.”
She went toward the office door, and Jasper stood from his chair. Apparently, she was ready to conclude the interview.
“One last thing,” he said, thinking of what Sir Eamon had told him the day before at the Law Courts. “Do you remember a Nurse Radcliff from the orphanage?”
Mrs. Blickson went stone still for a moment and then whirled to stare at Jasper. The glistening of her eyes was visible through the lace veil. By her startled reaction, it was evident she did remember the nurse.
“I haven’t heard that name in…in years.” She gasped as emotion swarmed her again. Standing next to her now, Felix Goodwin touched her elbow. Mrs. Blickson blinked rapidly, appearing to battle more tears.
“Your mother mentioned the nurse to someone the evening of the dinner,” Jasper provided. “Do you have any idea why she might have been asking about this Nurse Radcliff?”
Paula Blickson lifted her chin, her gloved hands curling into tight fists. “She was the nurse who was caring for my baby brother when he died. I don’t know why my mother would have been curious about her now, all these years later. Forgive me, Inspector, but I’m finding it difficult to think. I’ve spent so long trying to put that place behind me.”
Felix wrapped his arm around her shoulders, which were now trembling as fresh tears cut down her cheeks. Paula appeared to sink inward, as if trying to escape the memories Jasper had dragged up for her.
“Of course, my apologies,” he said. He could understand the desire to keep the past firmly in its place. “The Spring Street Morgue will release your mother’s body to you or to whatever funeral service you choose.”
Paula and her cousin turned to leave without comment, and Jasper wondered if they would even bother to claim the body. Felix’s arm was still holding her steady, and as Jasper watched them go, he felt no closer to answers. Paula had despised her mother, just as he’d already known. She had not attended the dinner, as he’d already known. And the distance between her and Gavin would give Jasper little to go on in his search for her brother.
He went to stand in the doorway of his office, agitation threading through him at the lack of progress. Looking into the department, the stirring of tension amplified when he saw he had yet another visitor.
Chapter Twelve
Traversing on foot from Bloomsbury Square to Scotland Yard in the full light of day wasn’t nearly as wretched as being taken from the benefit dinner by masked robbers and then dropped off in Battersea Park on a dark and stormy night. But by the time Leo reached Scotland Yard, she was perilously close to tears of frustration.
Without a farthing in her handbag, she’d been made to walk a near half hour to Met headquarters. The heat and humidity of the June sun had baked her as she’d trekked toward the Thames, and her short lady’s boots proved unserviceable as the blisters that had formed on her heels while chasing the cab to the Hayes residence earlier grew untenable.
Leo tried to distract herself from her painful feet by piecing together any plausible reason why the Hayes family would be involved with the murder of Martha Seabright. Jasper had once mentioned that Constance’s family had a home on Bloomsbury Square. As such, the caped and hooded woman had to have been either Constance Hayes’s mother—or Constance herself. But why would either of them have been snooping inside Martha’s home?
Jasper had ended his courtship with Constance in May. At the time, Leo had felt slightly guilty for the delight it had brought her. Not so any longer.
The Hayes family was rich and powerful. What connection could they have with the widow of a police sergeant, dead nigh on fourteen years?
Hot, thirsty, and inordinately frustrated, Leo at long last crossed the threshold at Scotland Yard. She sighed at the cool shade of the lobby, closing her eyes in relief.
“Are you well, Miss Spencer?”
She collected herself and met Constable Woodhouse’s concerned stare. “Well enough, Constable, thank you. Is Inspector Reid in?”
“Far as I’m aware.”
Leo hesitated, looking in the direction of the CID. “And what of Detective Chief Inspector Coughlan?” It was half two in the afternoon. Too early for him to have gone home for the day.
The receiving desk constable chuckled, interpreting her caution. “He’s left for a meeting with the superintendent.” Constable Woodhouse winked, and Leo shot him a grateful smile before heading to the detective department.
There, however, her reception wasn’t nearly as hospitable. Constable Wiley was at his desk, a bored expression turning down the corners of his mouth. When he saw her, his sneer only increased.
“He’s busy interviewing someone important,” the constable said before Leo could even step foot into the room. “You’ll have to wait.”
Leo expected him to say more, perhaps call herLeoMorga, as he too often did. But he only slumped in his chair, his round cheek pressed into his fist as he leaned an elbow on the desktop. He fell back into his thoughts, ignoring her completely.
Before Chief Inspector Coughlan had turned serious in his threats to sack Jasper, Leo would have bypassed Wiley’s desk and proceeded to Jasper’s office, usually with the complaining constable on her heels. However, such an action now would only reflect poorly on Jasper, so she gathered her patience and stood still.
“Who is Inspector Reid interviewing?” she inquired.
