A Kiss Across Time Read online

  It was an effort to keep my voice steady. But this man was James’s friend and I had to do my best to find the truth for him. ‘He strangled, he didn’t break his neck. The drop wasn’t far enough for that.’ The head was tipped to the side away from the knot and I remembered a really important fact. ‘Look, there are the stains from saliva on his shirt front. They are in the right place for him to have died of hanging in that position. If someone put him up there to die he would have struggled and we’d see signs of that. But if he had been knocked out, or drugged unconscious first and had lain for any time on the floor while they set things up, the stains wouldn’t be in the same place.’

  Luc circled wide around the body. ‘His hands are not tied and there is no sign of a struggle in here.’

  ‘I agree. Let him down and try not to touch his hands.’

  I moved the lamp from the table to make room for them to place George there. There was a tumbled pile of clean sheets on the floor by the door – I guessed Mrs Kentish had been bringing them in when she found him. I spread one over the polished surface in time for James and Lucian, breathing heavily, to lay him down.

  ‘He’s very stiff,’ Luc said as he tried unsuccessfully to arrange the limbs in a dignified manner. ‘Almost rigid.’

  ‘Then he possibly died almost twelve hours ago,’ I calculated out loud, wishing I’d got a clinical thermometer. ‘Look at his hands.’

  ‘No signs of a fight, no signs that anything has tied his wrists and there are hemp fibres caught in the nails,’ Luc said after a moment.

  ‘Which means he probably put the rope up there himself. And the lamp was placed on the table carefully. If someone else had done this, would they have bothered?’

  James ran his hands over his friend’s head, the touch gentle. ‘No bumps, no wounds I can feel.’

  We took off the noose and could see evidence of no other means of strangulation, only the mark it had left. ‘I think it was suicide,’ I said. ‘Unless he was drugged and they were very clever.’

  ‘We must put the rope back around his neck,’ Luc said, doing just that. ‘James, cover him up, we’ll replace the chair where we found it for the constable to see. Now, we search.’

  There was no note in any obvious place, then James, hunkered down by the side of the desk, stood up with an unfolded sheet in his hand. ‘It must have blown off in the draught from the door.’ He passed it across for us to read.

  Oh, God. Philip – what have I done? George. The nib had torn through the paper at one point.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ James demanded as he folded it carefully and put it in his pocket book. ‘We’ll have to give it to Philip,’ he said. ‘Poor devil.’

  ‘What have I done?’ Luc repeated slowly. ‘I do not like the sound of that.’

  ‘You think this can get worse?’ James demanded.

  ‘Oh yes. Very easily indeed.’

  Chapter Two

  The men began to search the room more thoroughly, rolling back the rugs, prying at the underneath of drawers in grim silence.

  ‘I’ll go and talk to the landlady,’ I said. ‘Mrs Kentish, isn’t it? What’s the time?’

  James glanced at the mantelpiece. ‘Just past ten. See if you can keep her from coming up – we need to search the bedchamber as well.’

  I thought about timings as I went downstairs. After ten last night, I guessed, not long after midnight, but there were far too many variables – temperature, George’s health, how quickly he’d died…

  The door was ajar onto the hallway and I could hear the landlady’s sniffles and a young woman speaking rather loudly. I tapped and went in. ‘Mrs Kentish? I’m Miss Lawrence, Lord Radcliffe’s cousin. From Boston in America. May I come in?’

  The American pretence had worked before to explain my accent and my ignorance of London life and etiquette – and it still should, provided I managed to avoid the American ambassador.

  ‘You’ll have to speak up, Miss. She’s a bit hard of hearing. Come and sit this side.’ The young woman looked about seventeen and, from her clothes and her chapped red hands, was the maid of all work. ‘I’m Dora, Miss. Would you like a cup of tea?’ She scurried out before I could answer and came back with a cup and saucer. ‘It’s ever so sad, Miss. He was a lovely gentleman, Mr Coates. Always said please and thank you and kept his hands to himself.’

  A polite male lodger who didn’t prey on the female help must have been popular. I sipped the strong tea and asked, raising my voice a little for the landlady’s benefit, ‘When did you last see Mr Coates? Either of you?’

  ‘Last night, when he came in,’ Mrs Kentish said immediately. ‘It would have been about nine because I’d just finished my supper and Dora was clearing up. And you said, There’s the door, didn’t you, Dora?’

  ‘That’s right, and I looked out and he was just climbing the stairs,’ the maid confirmed. ‘Which was odd, because he usually taps on the door if he’s that early and calls out something, like, I’m home, Mrs K!’

  ‘Did he say anything when you came out?’

  ‘No, Miss. Didn’t even turn. He just lifted his hand, to show he’d heard me when I called out Good Night to him and carried on trudging up. Looked tired, I thought.’

  ‘You’re sure it was him? And he was alone?’

  ‘Yes, Miss. He was holding his hat and I could see the back of his head and he’s got this funny little bald patch, heart-shaped. And then I took his hot water up at six and I knocked, like I always do, and set it by the door. He’s the last one I do – I take the cans up to the attic floor first, then the next one down, then Mr Coates – so I didn’t notice he’d not taken it in. I was busy laying up for breakfast after that and I didn’t see him, but I never thought nothing of it because when he’s busy at work he often left really early and had a bite to eat in a coffee house.’

  Mrs Kentish gave herself a little shake, as though coming out of a dream. ‘I took his sheets up,’ she said, her voice toneless. ‘And opened the door and there he was.’

  ‘Who else came in last night after Mr Coates?’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’ She frowned into her tea. It was becoming scummy and cold so I took it from her and handed it to Dora who poured fresh and added sugar. ‘Thank you, dear. You see I’m a little bit deaf and I don’t always know who it is. I can hear the bells and the door and people on the stairs, but not always who is speaking.’

  I glanced upwards. George’s sitting room must be directly overhead but I could hear neither footsteps nor voices. There were those thick rugs on the floor, I reminded myself. ‘But visitors would have to ring?’

  ‘Each apartment has its own door bell. I’ve a very nice class of lodger here, Miss Lawrence. Professional young men with good references. They like their privacy and they all have keys. I don’t mind if they give a key to a reliable friend or two, I’ve never had reason to regret it and it saves us answering the door every time. No ladies, mind you. Not upstairs. If they want to have a young lady to tea I let them use this parlour and either Dora or I sit in the corner and knit quietly. This is a respectable house.’

  ‘I can see that,’ I assured her. And it clearly was – clean, orderly, comfortable. ‘And did Mr Coates have ladies to tea?’

  ‘No.’ The spoon rattled in the saucer and she put the cup down. ‘A very quiet young gentleman that way, he was. Very steady. I don’t think he was the marrying kind. Or, rather, not yet. He’d his way to make in the world first, I’m sure.’

  Yes, she knew, I thought. Or suspected. But she liked him so she pretended not to know. ‘But someone did come in after him?’

  ‘Oh yes, Miss Lawrence. Several people. I heard them on the stairs, they run up and down so fast, the young gentlemen.’ She was silent a while and I let her brood. ‘There was someone… Not one of the young gentlemen. The footsteps were heavier, slower. I wouldn’t have noticed, but I was just locking my door so I was right next to it. He was going up and I didn’t hear a doorbell ring. I didn’t hear him come down
but I was off to my bed by then.’

  ‘What time would that have been?’

  ‘A bit before midnight, it was.’

  ‘But the person you heard might have gone up to another apartment? Who else lives here?’

  ‘He might, that’s true. There’s Mr Dettmer, he’s German, in the piano business. He has the rooms above Mr Coates, the ones Mr Coates had until he could afford better and moved down. That’s the best set of rooms, you see, the ones he has... Had. Nice high ceilings and mouldings and bigger windows. Then there’s the attic at the top with three bedchambers and a shared sitting room. That’s Mr Edwards and Mr Dawkins and Mr Terrington. They all work in the City for a trading firm and they are good friends.’

  ‘And they all got on well with each other, your tenants?’

  ‘Oh yes. Very convivial at breakfast and those who took their dinner here always made conversation. They tell me in the morning if they want their dinner in, you see.’

  She seemed quite open about it, there was none of the reserve I’d sensed when she spoke about George and women callers. ‘But Mr Coates wasn’t his usual self last night?’ I prompted.

  ‘No, Miss. It wasn’t like him not to have a pleasant word with us, But he hasn’t been quite right, not for a week or so, I don’t think,’ Dora said from her place on a stool at Mrs Kentish’s side. ‘Worried, he seemed. But then, he’d taken on the better apartment and he must have had more responsibility at work, don’t you think? To pay for it, like.’

  I wondered about these new responsibilities. Was this as simple as stress at work, some bullying, perhaps a mistake made that had assumed monumental proportions in George’s eyes?

  ‘You didn’t think to call the Constable when you found him?’

  ‘No, Miss Lawrence.’ Mrs Kentish shook her head vigorously. ‘I didn’t know who to send to at the Home Office, but I thought they ought to be the first to be told. And Mr Franklin is brother to the Earl and he’s an Honourable, isn’t he? He is the most important person I’d met who was a friend of Mr Coates, you see. He’ll talk to the right people.’

  I wasn’t convinced. In the first shock and panic of the discovery anyone’s first instinct would be to call for the Constable, surely? If she had known about George being gay, did she know about James too? And how dangerous was that? ‘Very wise,’ I said briskly. Perhaps I was applying twenty-first century values. Possibly the deferential attitudes of this time, and Mrs Kentish’s anxiety about her respectable house and nice young gentlemen, made perfect sense of her decision.

  Luc tapped on the door and came in. ‘Mrs Kentish, my brother has gone for the Constable and to alert the Coroner or the Magistrate, whichever he can find first. Mr Coates is lying decently covered in the front room, but you should leave everything as it is until the Coroner tells you what to do.’

  ‘Is there someone who can help you?’ I asked. ‘There are the other tenants to look after and you’ve had such a shock, both of you.’

  ‘I’ll send to my sister in Hampstead,’ the landlady said, visibly cheered by the thought. ‘Jenny, her eldest, will look after the children if she comes here for a day or so. It’d be a comfort, I can’t deny it.’

  I took Dora aside as Luc talked to Mrs Kentish, suggesting she write a note and he’d have it sent by messenger to her sister with a carriage to bring her back. ‘If you remember anything at all about who might have been here last night, or anything that Mr Coates said or did earlier that might give us some idea of why this happened, you’ll let me know, won’t you, Dora? You’ll find me through his lordship’s Albany address.’

  ‘Yes, Miss, thank you, Miss.’

  We finally got away just before the arrival of a plain black carriage. Luc looked back from the corner of the street. ‘That will be the Coroner or his officer and the Constable.’ He hailed a hackney. ‘I told James to meet us back at Albany.’

  ‘I hope the twins are well. And your mother,’ I said when we’d settled into the musty interior and Luc sat opposite me, silent, staring out of the window. ‘I’ve just realised, I don’t know their names. They are two, aren’t they?’

  ‘Are you making conversation, Cassie?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ I admitted. I didn’t know how to feel now I was alone with him and I had no idea what he was thinking at all. We hadn’t been lovers, but we were, almost. The fact that we weren’t wasn’t through any reluctance on Luc’s side, but my own inability to deal with having a relationship with a man from the past. Relationships with older men, eh? Always difficult…

  ‘They are just three. Charles Trenton Franklin, Viscount Cheven, my heir and Matthew James Anthony Franklin, his brother, are very well, thank you. As is my Mama. I saw them all last week.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said, inanely. And then I was in his arms. I don’t know how it happened, who moved, but we came together with an inelegant thump, limbs tangling, mouths mashing. And then… Then for a moment it was perfect. Right. Coming home in the best way.

  The hackney turned a corner sharply, lurched, I fell back on the seat and we stared at each other in the poor light that penetrated the dirty glass. ‘You are still not certain, are you?’ Luc demanded.

  ‘That I want us to be lovers?’ I snapped. ‘Yes, I’m quite certain of that. But do I think it would be sensible – ’

  ‘Sensible?’

  ‘It isn’t just the sex, is it? There’s more than that, we both know it. I can’t risk it, not when I might never see you again. I can’t risk becoming attached to you.’ Oh, who am I fooling? I couldn’t risk falling in love with the man, although I had more sense than to use the word love. If I did, Luc probably couldn’t run fast enough.

  ‘Damn it, Cassandra. You know I have feelings for you.’ The fact that he swore at all showed I’d shaken him.

  ‘I know that there are, in this time, women you might marry, women you might sleep with and women who are off-limits. And I understand that few of those women have any personal control over which category they fall into. And I know you find it difficult that when I come from, in my culture, women have that choice and that marriage is only one option. But it is difficult for me too, that freedom. Choice isn’t easy, choice has consequences.’

  ‘I am not in the habit of carelessly leaving by-blows,’ Luc said stiffly.

  I’d lost him. ‘That is not the kind of consequences I was talking about.’ I was on the Pill and I’d got a more than adequate supply of condoms. ‘We can’t talk about this now, Luc.’ I glanced out of the window as the hackney drew up in front of the Albany steps. ‘Certainly not here.’

  ‘No.’ He climbed down, then held out his hand for me. ‘But we will talk,’ he added as he paid the driver. ‘Soon.’

  The porters, as usual, didn’t exactly ignore me, but didn’t quite acknowledge me either. It was as though the Earl had walked in with a large and exotic wild bird sitting on his hat and they were too polite to mention it.

  We went through the main building to the path bordered by pleached lime trees that ran north with the two wings of apartments on either side. ‘How much are you paying them to pretend I don’t exist?’ I asked as Lucian turned off to his own front door. ‘I can’t believe for a moment that females are encouraged in here.’

  ‘They aren’t. On the other hand, we are being exceedingly discreet, you are clearly respectable and the porters value their tips far too much to create an issue. If the committee doesn’t take an interest, then they will turn a blind eye.’

  Right, no yoga in the lime walk at six in the morning then. No singing in the bath and no hanging out the undies to dry…

  I had my simmering hormones under control – my goodness, but that man could kiss – by the time Garrick appeared from the kitchen area. Garrick isn’t a gentleman’s gentleman in the Jeevesian mould, more a battered domestic god with a side-line in blunt instruments and probably a knife in his boot. I’d take him over any virtual personal assistant yet invented – and no-one could hack into Garrick. Or they could try, then limp aw
ay afterwards.

  ‘Luncheon at noon, my lord? Will Mr James be joining you?’

  ‘Yes, and I expect so,’ Luc said and filled Garrick in on the morning so far. I added what I had gleaned from Mrs Kentish. Garrick seemed to operate like a sergeant to Luc’s major when there were some underhand dealings underway and sometimes he just behaved like a friend. One day I’d get to the bottom of that relationship.

  ‘Distressing, my lord. Most unpleasant for you, Miss Lawrence.’ The man was a master of understatement.

  ‘Worse for Mr Coates,’ I said as the door to the service area closed behind Garrick. ‘Luc, is there any risk to James in this? The landlady knew George was not the marrying kind and her first thought was to send for James. I’m frightened for him. I don’t like the joined-up thinking there.’ Oh dear, and there was another phrase I’d added to Lucian’s vocabulary. I could only hope he never used any of them in writing, to the confusion of future dictionary compilers.

  ‘I sent him to the Coroner and magistrate with my cards with notes on them. I think he will be seen as my messenger. Mrs Kentish has been discreet so far, there’s no reason to think she will be careless once she’s over the initial shock.’

  The clock struck twelve and I could hear Garrick moving about laying the dining table. ‘I’m starving. I skipped breakfast because I wanted to go to the library with my sister and then all I had was a sticky cake in the coffee shop.’

  ‘You have coffee shops? For ladies?’

  ‘For anyone. They are very popular.’ I was careful what I told Lucian about the future because I still had no idea what it might be dangerous for him to know. What if he invented something after I’d been careless and that changed the entire course of history? Last time I had never quite got over the chilly feeling that I might blink out of existence at any moment because I’d done something that resulted in my so-many-times grandmother missing meeting the man she should have married or made some other minuscule but disastrous change. Still, coffee shops seemed harmless enough. ‘Anyone goes in to them, including parents and children and a lot of people pick up coffee to take with them on the way to work. In fact – ’