“My relief that you were safe after those silent, anxious weeks was …” Julia shook her head. “I know I didn’t sound relieved. More like a mother who shouts at her child for nearly running under a carriage.”
He took a step, closing the gap between them. “Forgive me.”
Julia looked into his gray eyes framed by dark lashes. When she first knew him, Julia had called them “granite eyes.” But the emotions that flickered in them were new to her.Relief? Somethingmore?she wondered. Eyes that had once seemed cold looked lit from within. Seconds passed, and the office that felt chilly earlier seemed warmer.
He offered his hand, palm up. “It’s a new year,” he said. “Shall we begin again?”
Julia placed hers in his. Her voice caught when she said, “Yes, Richard. Please.” He seemed in no hurry to take his hand away. Neither was she. Julia turned it over, traced the scar with her fingertip, and smiled. “This has healed, too.”
“Yes. Mended.”
Julia released his hand. “You said you had a question about the postmortem.”
“It relates to the man’s height.”
“He was about average for an English male. Five feet, six inches.”
Tennant asked, “Are you certain?”
She sat back against the edge of her desk. “Within an inch or so. All the man’s bones were present, so it’s not hard to ascertain. The broken teeth all along the left side of the mouth will be useful for identification. They resulted from a fight or an injury. They’re not from natural wear or poor nutrition.”
“Something is wrong,” Tennant said.
“What is?”
“Sir Lionel called the arsonist ‘damnably clever,’ the way he disguised himself to gain access to the grounds. And the man who murdered Brigid and the cabbie was a cold-blooded killer, careful to an extreme.”
“True.”
“Yet, we’re meant to believe the same man who killed them made a careful plan to torch Marlborough House but burned himself alive by mistake?”
“When you put it that way …”
“O’Malley located a sharp-eyed sweeper who saw atallman with Brigid Dowling. Someone over six feet got into the cab with her, not a man of average height.”
“So, the dead man at Marlborough House—”
“Is too short to be Brigid’s killer,” Tennant said.
“But her cabbie and the milkman in the back of the wagon were killed in the identical way.”
Tennant nodded. “By a tall man, wielding a thin blade, thrust under the chin. He’s still out there, Julia, committing murders linked to the royals. And he’s added paraffin to his arsenal.”
Raucous laughter erupted from the men’s ward. Julia and Tennant exchanged glances and walked into the foyer.
A burly man wearing the gaiters and leather apron of a brewer said, “Look at him, Tim. Blushing like a bleedin’ maiden.”
Nurse Clemmie said, “You’ll have to remove those trousers if the doctor is to take a look.”
The sandy-haired young man gripped his waistband, scowling. “I’ll ruddy well wait for him then.”
“The doctor is a ‘her,’ so there’s nothing for it.” Clemmie hooked a finger under one of his braces and pulled it off his shoulder. “You best get on with it, lad.”
“Come on, Freddie,” the brewer said. “Drop your drawers. Someone’s got to sew up that gash on your arse.”
“My cue, Inspector,” Julia said, smiling. “I’d best get on with it, too.”
“So must I,” Tennant said. “I’ve been summoned to a meeting at the Home Office.”
