Ian’s expression changed from a man on the hunt for clues to one of confusion quickly dissolving into distress. He dropped the Courier Times and asked to see her Gazette. While he studied the illustration, she flipped through the morning edition of the City Journal, searching for any new information.
“Well, isn’t that odd,” she said. “This paper has Henry Elvanfoot listed as the latest victim.” Beside her, Hob poked his head out of his jacket, ears twitching. “Could they mean the son, George, instead? Is that why he’s gone missing? How dreadful.”
Edwina covered her mouth with her hand as she read, almost afraid to continue. “But that would explain the connection of your case to the murders, wouldn’t it? You were right.” When Ian didn’t answer, she glanced up to see he’d gone deathly pale. “Whatever’s wrong?” He drew a hand over his face as if he might be sick. “Are you ill? Should I fetch some honey for a tea spell?”
Hob jumped on the arm of her chair. “I can get that for you, milady.”
Ian shushed him harshly. “Never mind that, Hob. I’m not ill. I’m simply seeing shadows.” He tossed the illustrated newspaper on the table between him and Edwina and pointed. “I’ve been there before.”
She turned the paper around and read the description beneath the picture. The victim depicted had been found facedown in Wickham Lane. “A winding walkway between buildings connecting the two main streets of Flint Street and Queen’s Road,” she said, as her intuition began to tingle in warning. “That’s near where I picked you up this morning.”
“Nae, it’s exactly where I was when I sent that boy after you.” He sat back, eyeing her with what she took for suspicion. “I was there. Stumbling as though I were drunk. Hit on the head by a man I’d passed in that alley,” he said, touching the back of his head as if visualizing the attack. “I fell to the ground, only to have the man lift my head up by my hair and slice my throat open in one jagged motion.” He clutched at his throat again, swallowing as if it pained him to do so, then looked up. “It’s where I remember being murdered.”
“You know that’s not possible,” she said, hoping he would see the illogic of his statement. “You haven’t been murdered.”
“Nae, of course not.”
“You did get hit on the head yesterday, but it wasn’t in an alley.”
“But after that. The memory you implanted, the one you thought was mine . . .” He picked up the newspaper again. “You gave me the wrong one. I think it belonged to this man,” he said, pointing at the drawing. “This is what I experienced. I lived his memory of that moment all over again. I know what it felt like to have my throat cut, ye ken? I relived this victim’s last breath. I remember what he suffered.” He stood, too agitated to sit while he thought it through. “Your sister removed the man’s memory from me this morning, aye, but first she took it from him the same way she took mine at the river.” Ian paced so that he stood behind his chair, gripping the back of it. “She was there.”
Edwina took a second look at the illustration. The brutal rendition of a man’s demise cooled her blood but also stoked her denial. “No, she couldn’t have,” she said, sliding the paper back toward Ian. “There has to be some other explanation. Some corruption of the spell, some manipulation—”
“But she must have. How else could I know what this man went through?” He stood back and held up his hands. “He had a silver match safe in his pocket. With a mermaid on the cover. Does it say anything in any of the papers about what was stolen from him?”
Edwina scanned all three papers while Ian paced. She found a list of missing belongings mentioned in the Gazette, items family members swore the victims had on them before they died. She trailed through the mentions of rings, keys, buttons, and even a pair of reading glasses. Then her finger landed on a silver match safe described as having a mermaid on it. Could he have read ahead and seen that part already?
“What is it? Did they mention the match safe?”
She folded the newspaper closed. “There must be an explanation.”
“Aye, there is. You gave me a dead man’s memory; that’s why my mind rejected it. Now, how and where your sister obtained the memory in the first place is another matter.”
The instinct to protect Mary from incendiary accusations rose inside her yet again. “Speak plainly, Mr. Cameron. What are you saying?”