“What? No. I never said?—”
“You said you’d bet on it.”
She waves away my coin as breakfast arrives. Then she digs in as Gray and I sip our tea. He’s quiet, as he often is when I interview women. We aren’t in a time where men can’t address unmarried and unrelated women—and that has never applied to working- and lower-class women—but like many men of his time, he is less comfortable speaking to women. Add in a general reticence to speaking at all, and I can carry the conversation without worrying that I’ve left him out. If he has something to say, he’ll say it.
“We will speak to the children,” I say. “And we will assess their story. As for your complaint that we have found nothing, we have only been on the case a half day. A dog has vanished without a trace. All we can do is speak to people until someone reports having seen something.”
She grumbles and cuts into a slice of baked ham. “While I am losing money every moment that dog is missing.”
“Which you would have been regardless of whether you hired us. We are not costing you anything.”
More grumbling as she chews the ham.
“Moreover,” I say, “Dr. Gray has now paid for your supper and your breakfast, and you provided next to no information to help launch our investigation. Perhaps Annie is not the one trying to scam us.”
“To what?”
Her expression tells me “scam” isn’t a word yet. “Take advantage of us.”
She straightens. “I would not.”
“You sold Catriona out to a man who tried to kill her.” Gray’s voice is so soft, one might think he didn’t intend for us to hear him. But Davina knows better and stiffens, her gaze darting his way.
“That was a mistake,” she says. “I told you that I had no way of knowing what he would do.”
“But you just said that you would not take advantage of Mallory,” Gray says. “I was pointing out that you have, in the past, and so we must be on guard for that. I do not mind buying your supper and breakfast. I will mind if you do not give Mallory what she was promised. I would suggest you begin now.”
Davina blanches. Part of her complaint about us “finding nothing” was a preemptive strike against this. She says I haven’t found anything useful, and then I’ll ask for information on Catriona, and she’ll point back to the aforementioned lack of progress. I wasn’t going to press her for details yet, but I’m quietly pleased that Gray has done it for me.
“How did you meet Catriona Mitchell?” he asks.
Silence.
Gray says nothing. He just sits there, waiting, his gaze heavy on Davina until she finally says, “I caught her going through the pockets of a fellow passed out drunk. She had no idea what she was doing, and he was a heartbeat from waking up and catching her. I finished the job and took my share, and she complained. So I smacked her and told her she was lucky I did not take it all. She flew at me. Said no one was going to rob her and hit her like that. She got in a few good blows before the man woke up. Then . . .” Davina shakes her head. “It happened in the blink of an eye. One moment, she’s a snarling wildcat, screeching at me about hitting her, and the next, she’s a sobbing little girl, telling the drunkard that she caught me trying to rob him. One look at her, and you can imagine which of us he believed.”
Another shake of her head as she sips her tea. “If I weren’t such a Christian woman, I would have tracked her down and made her pay for that. Instead, after I escaped the lout, I found her and offered to teach her how to live out here.” She looks at Gray. “I have a heart. I took that girl in, and how did she repay me? Betrayal after betrayal.”
“What exactly did she do to you?” he asks.
Her gaze flicks my way, and her lips tighten. “This and that. The point is that she could not be trusted.”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure neither of them could be trusted. Catriona used Davina to get what she wanted, and Davina did the same to her.
Davina didn’t take Catriona under her wing out of the goodness of her heart. She saw what Catriona could do—that quicksilver change from street fighter to sweet schoolgirl—and she saw someone useful. Catriona accepted her tutelage and paid her price, and a toxic symbiotic relationship was born, the two of them allies and rivals at the same time, each constantly knocking the other down when they feared the balance of power was tipping.
Davina looks at Gray. “She has fooled you as thoroughly as she did that old drunkard. You sit here and talk as if Catriona is not right beside you, as if I am speaking of a stranger. She is a clever little actor. I always said she should have been on the stage. She fooled your sister into hiring her, and now she fools you into treating her like a proper lady, buying her pretty clothing and acting like you’ve found treasure in the muck.”
“You fear Mallory is plotting to betray me,” he says.
She laughs. “I do not ‘fear’ it. I know it. People don’t lose their memories like that. Perhaps, if they are deep in their cups, they forget the last day, but not their entire lives.”
“It is called ‘amnesia,’” he says. “Caused by a blow to the head. The afflicted retain memories for how to do things, such as walk and talk, but lose their personal memories. Would you like me to bring you medical journal articles on the subject?”
She sniffs. “Articles written by fancy doctors like you, who’ve been fooled by clever little lasses like her.”
“Perhaps,” he says, casually spreading a thick layer of jam on his scone. “I did not know Catriona well. I suppose you would say that this seems like her? Mallory’s face looks like her, and her voice sounds like her, but the rest? How she talks? Her words? Her manner of speaking, of moving, of acting, of thinking? That is all Catriona to you, yes?”
Davina’s flush says he’s made his point.
