CHAPTER 18

In the carriage, I sit beside Sir Gerald, who gazes straight ahead as if he’s watching a bomb explode in the distance and knows the damage is bad. Hugh shivers in the cold, Mick wipes his bloody nose on his sleeve, and I smell a foul odor—our clothes have absorbed the reek of Amelia’s corpse. I’m glad Sir Gerald’s guards rescued us, but the dark frown on his face portends trouble.

“I’m terminating your employment,” he says.

Hugh and Mick stare at him in surprise, but I’ve always known that as soon as I ran afoul of him or outlived my usefulness, he would jettison me. On top of losing Barrett, I’m losing my job—the job that I let come between us. Sir Gerald wants to put the blame for the fiasco on someone other than himself, and while I’ve no hope for myself, maybe I can save my friends.

“Hugh and Mick had nothing to do with Mrs. Fry’s tip or what happened today,” I say.

Unmoved, Sir Gerald says, “I no longer need their services.”

“With all due respect, you’re not being fair.” Hugh’s pale cheeks redden with anger. “Sarah reported Mrs. Fry’s tip, but you decided to print the story. Without giving her time to corroborate it, I might add. She doesn’t deserve to be punished, and neither do Mick and I.”

I should have quit the day Sir Gerald started the contest, said no when he assigned me to photograph crime scenes, or never accepted employment with him in the first place. But it’s too late to refuse the glass of milk that’s now been spilled.

Sir Gerald regards Hugh with scornful pity. “Life’s not fair. I need to clean house at the newspaper to save its reputation.” And his own. “Miss Bain has to go. And so do her friends.”

“So we’re the scapegoats,” Mick says. “After all we been through because of you!”

“You chose to work for me. You accepted the terms. You knew there were no guarantees.”

This is but a reminder of everything I already knew: He’s not a generous patron; he’s a hard-hearted businessman. I knew we were living on borrowed time, but the rejection hurts nonetheless.

“The business about your father is another problem,” Sir Gerald says to me. “It didn’t matter when it was under wraps. I hired you in spite of it. Even if he’s guilty, you had nothing to do with the girl’s murder. But now that it’s come out, having you at the paper is a liability.”

Shock renders me speechless. How did Sir Gerald know the story about my father before Reid made it public? He must have investigated my background.

The carriage stops outside St. Paul’s station. “You’ll be paid through the end of the month,” Sir Gerald says.

“No skin off your nose,” Mick mutters.

My pride tells me to refuse the money, but we need it.

“What about the contest?” Hugh says.

“The contest is off.”

“Don’t you care about solving the murder?” Mick says.

“I’m leaving that to the police.” Sir Gerald’s voice contains a rare note of defeat. I sense that he’s thinking of Robin rather than Harry Warbrick, realizing that the justice he craves is a shining, elusive quarry beyond his reach. “Remember, the confidentiality agreement still holds.”

“Bugger the confidentiality agreement!” Mick says.

Menace darkens Sir Gerald’s expression. Hugh says quickly, “Our lips are sealed.”

We climb out of the carriage and unload my photography equipment. Now I’m too numb to feel anything but a desire to go home.

Mick gives Sir Gerald a bitter look. “I used to think that underneath everything you were a good man. I was wrong.”

Sir Gerald regards Mick with a blend of pain and reproach, as though he’s the injured party. He says to me, “Develop the photographs. I’ll have them picked up tonight.” He shuts the carriage door and rides away.

*   *   *

At home, in our rooms, Hugh, Mick, and I shed our stinking clothes. Fitzmorris bundles them off to the laundry before they can contaminate the house. We take ice-cold baths instead of waiting for water to heat. When I’m done, I’m shivering so hard that my teeth chatter. I dry my wet hair by the fire, then go to my darkroom to develop the photos of Amelia Carlisle’s exhumation. Transferring negative plates from one tray of chemical solutions to the next in pitch darkness, my last job for the Daily World, I’m not glad there won’t be any more summonses to crime scenes or grisly sights to photograph. We’ve lost our livelihood. Enlarging and printing the images by the light of the red gas lamp, I think of Barrett, and tears burn my cold cheeks. I hang the damp prints on pegs on the string stretched over the sink, wishing I didn’t have to leave the darkroom and face the world.

Hugh and Mick are waiting for me in the dining room. It’s four thirty, already dark outside. We’ve missed lunch, but not even Mick is hungry. Fitzmorris pours cups of scalding tea, which we sip gratefully. His somber face says that he’s been told the bad news. Hugh asks the question that’s on my mind.

“How long can we stay afloat?”

We all turn to Fitzmorris, who manages our finances. He sits down, looking glum. “About three months.”

That’s even less time than I thought. Mick puts on a cheerful face and says, “Don’t worry—I can get a job in a factory.”

I don’t want to seem unappreciative, but I can’t pretend that’s a viable solution. “It won’t pay enough to support us.”

“We can revive our detective agency,” Hugh says.

We need to face reality. “After the news about today spreads, who will hire us?”

“You still have your photography studio,” Fitzmorris says.

Although he could find another position, I know he doesn’t want to leave Hugh, who’s as much a beloved younger brother to him as his master. “I haven’t any clients,” I say, vexed at myself for letting Sir Gerald monopolize my time. It was easier to coast on the salary he paid us than to get a fledgling business off the ground. “And after today, I’m not likely to get some.”

As we sit drinking tea that soon grows cold, contemplating our uncertain future, the doorbell rings. “It must be Sir Gerald’s messenger, come for the photographs.” I go downstairs. When I open the front door, there stands Barrett.

Surprise is only one of the emotions that strike me speechless. I’m relieved to see Barrett, hopeful for a chance to make up with him. But he’s in ordinary clothes, not his uniform, and his grim expression seems to confirm my fear that he’s been fired and disgraced. Dread squeezes the air out of my lungs as I let him in the door. The studio seems too small to contain both of us and the tension that crackles in the air. My hands tremble as I light a lamp. Then I face Barrett and say the only thing I can say.

“I’m sorry.” My voice hitches on a gasp. “I should have told you.”

“You should have.” Barrett’s gaze is sober, unforgiving.

I’m afraid to ask, but I need to know. “Why aren’t you in uniform?”

“It’s at the laundry. I’ll put on my spare one tomorrow.”

His uniform must have reeked as badly as the clothes I wore to the exhumation. He hasn’t lost his job. Cautious relief trickles into me as I think of his parents, so proud of their son who followed in his father’s trade. If his police career were to end because of me, they would dislike me more than they already do. But the worst would be the fact that I had caused the downfall of the man I love.

“Then Inspector Reid didn’t—?”

“Fire me? No.” But Barrett’s humorless smile is cold water dashed on the small flame of my hope that all will be well. He pauses as if reluctant to voice the rest of what he came to say. “Sarah, I need to warn you.”

“Warn me about what?”

“Reid is serious about finding your father. He’s put five men on the case and started a full-scale manhunt.”

My father’s past is gaining on him. It’s no different from what I could have expected, so why should Barrett make a point of telling me?

He takes a deep breath, exhales, and says, “Reid gave me a choice—I take charge of the manhunt, or I hand in my resignation.”

Incredulous shock thumps my heart, opens my eyes wide. “Reid put you in charge of the search for my father?”

Barrett nods, unhappy. “You can probably guess why.”

Reid is using Barrett as a weapon against me, getting revenge on two birds with one stone. “And you’re going along with him?” No matter how angry Barrett is at me, surely he won’t spearhead Reid’s effort to punish my father.

The look in Barrett’s eyes is apologetic but resolute. “That’s what I came to warn you about.”

I moan with the pain of betrayal. “How could you do this to me? If it were the other way around, and your father was the fugitive, I would never—”

Barrett grasps my shoulders. “Sarah, listen.”

“Don’t touch me!” Writhing, I try to push him away.

He holds tight. “Let me explain.” His eyes plead with me.

“What’s to explain? I know you’re doing it to save your job.”

“My job be damned!” Barrett seems angry that I would think him so selfish.

“Then you should have resigned.” I seethe with hatred toward Barrett because I think I know why he didn’t quit. “Instead, you’re getting back at me for keeping secrets from you. That’s not fair! No matter what I’ve done, my father doesn’t deserve to be punished for it.”

“I’m not doing it to punish you or your father,” Barrett says, adamant. “If I quit, Reid will just put somebody else in charge. It’s better this way.”

“How could it be better?” I demand.

“I have some control over what happens. If we find your father, I can prevent him from getting hurt when he’s captured.” Barrett adds, “Police don’t go easy on men they suspect of murdering little girls.”

The thought of what might happen to my father if he’s captured is so awful that I’ve blocked it from my mind. That he would be hanged afterward was unbearable enough. To picture the police torturing him makes me so ill that the fight drains from me.

“So you understand.” Relieved, Barrett drops his hands. “Now you have to help me find him.”

“Help you?” I gape in fresh disbelief.

“Yes. If you’ve any clues to his whereabouts, you need to tell me.”

Thoughts of Sally and Mrs. Albert come to mind. Again, I wonder if Mrs. Albert knows something she’s not telling me. I force myself to hold Barrett’s gaze so he won’t suspect that I’m concealing anything. “Why?”

“We need to convince him to turn himself in. That way, there’ll be no rough stuff when he’s arrested.”

Barrett seems to think there’s a real possibility of finding my father. Hope lifts my heart at the same time that the thought of my father being arrested horrifies me. Should I tell Barrett about Lucas Zehnpfennig? If I can convince him that Lucas is a better suspect in Ellen Casey’s murder than my father is, maybe he can make Lucas the target of the manhunt. But I quickly discard the idea. Reid won’t change course based on my say-so. He’ll only suspect me of trying to trick him and be all the more determined to punish me through my father.

“You know something, don’t you?” Barrett says, his eyes narrowed.

He knows me so well that I can’t fool him into thinking I’m not hiding anything.

“Hiding from the law makes your father look guilty,” Barrett points out. “Turning himself in will make him look more like an innocent man who wants to clear his name. Which might convince the jury to acquit him.”

The argument sounds logical, but I balk as I realize that Barrett hasn’t said whether he believes my father is innocent. Perhaps he thinks Benjamin Bain is guilty and therefore will try his best to deliver him to the gallows. My old habit of distrust braces me. Folding my arms across my chest, I say, “This is a trick to make me help you trap my father.”

“My God, Sarah!” Barrett throws up his hands in indignation. “Don’t you know I would never do that to you?”

Just because Barrett has never deliberately hurt me doesn’t mean he wouldn’t. Everything that’s happened since Hugh, Mick, and I decided to catch Jack the Ripper has taught me that anything, no matter how improbable, can happen. Less than two years ago, I was a solitary woman with no worries except making ends meet. Now my situation is so different that I feel as if I’ve stumbled into foreign territory and found myself among people whose motives I can’t understand. Maybe Barrett isn’t the kind, decent, loyal man who loves me; maybe he’s just a policeman who would stop at nothing to achieve his ambitions. I live a life of subterfuge and deception; maybe he’s no different. I don’t know what to believe. Nerve-wracked by today’s events, I clasp my hands around my head, afraid I’m losing my grip on reality.

“Sarah?” Barrett is watching me with concern. “What’s the matter?”

I know he has a job to do, and he’s more objective about the situation than I am. But in this moment, all I’m absolutely sure of is that he’s chosen his job over me, and I must choose between him and my father. My first loyalty is to my father, the first man I ever loved. That makes Barrett, who’s determined to hunt him down, the enemy. My thinking may be irrational, but it’s overpowered me.

I lower my hands, square my shoulders, and level an icy stare at Barrett. “Get out.”

Barrett’s mouth drops. “Sarah—?”

Furthermore, I believe Lucas is the magic ball of string that will lead the way through the maze to the Minotaur—my father. I mustn’t give Barrett an opportunity to wrest the ball of string from me.

I point at the door. “Get out!”