“Hi, my friend was just attacked near Henriques Street.” She rolled her eyes. “No, not by the Ripper. Well—” She glanced at the unconscious man in the gutter. “I suppose he could be the Ripper, but I suspect he’s just drunk and stupid. Come arrest him, yeah?”
Not long after, the police questioned Evelyn and me about the nature of the attack. They kept us for far longer than I would have liked, and if it weren’t for Evelyn’s warm coat, I might have fainted from the cold and exhaustion.
As Evelyn spoke to the police, explaining her role in his broken nose, she cradled her injured shoulder in her good hand. With the smallest of movement—a shift in her step, even—she winced. I replayed the attack over in my head; she’d used both arms to pull the drunk man off me and both fists to persuade him into unconsciousness.
Officer Davies, a plump man with golden curls that made him look more like a cherub than a policeman, approached me for the third time. He had already taken my statement twice.
“What?” I asked sharply.
“Sorry to badger you, miss,” he said. “But we have to make sure we’ve got all the stories straight. You said you came from the Lazy Licker, yeah? What were you doing there all alone?”
“There was a new DJ there,” I answered, yet again. “This guy hit on me at the bar and got offended when I rejected him. When I left, he followed me into the street. I tripped, and he got on top of me.”
“Then your friend saw you and came to help?”
“Yes.”
Officer Davies uncapped a pen and wrote, at the slowest possible pace, my statement on his notepad. “He didn’t pull a knife on you?”
“No.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect he might be responsible for other crimes?”
“I can’t imagine this is the first time he’s gotten too drunk and attempted to force a woman to sleep with him,” I retorted. “If you’re referring to the recent murders, then no. He’s a drunk asshole but most likely not a killer.”
“We’ll be taking him into custody anyway,” Davies said. “Can’t be too sure about these things, you know? Sometimes, it takes a professional eye.”
“Sometimes, it takes the police to be good at their jobs,” I replied shortly. “Don’t you already have a suspect in custody? Henry Alcott?”
Davies shifted uncomfortably. “He was released.”
“On what account?”
“He had an alibi,” he answered. “Seven different people confirmed he was at a study session in Oxford at the time of the attack.”
“In other words, you need another scapegoat.”
Evelyn called me over, and I sidestepped the stumped Officer Davies to join her. I caught sight of the drunk man—who was now awake—in the back seat of the police car. I strongly suspected Evelyn had given him a concussion. His face was pressed to the window, and his dried blood smeared across the glass, but he seemed not to care.
“We’re good to go,” Evelyn told me. “They have everything they need.”
“Are you going to get in trouble for punching him?”
She shook her head. “It was self-defense. The police agree he had it coming.”
“Need a ride, ladies?” Davies asked.
“We’re just around the corner,” Evelyn answered, wrapping her good arm around me. “Cheers, though.”
We set off into the night. Evelyn’s casual manner faded as we left the police behind. Her posture dropped, and she started shivering. I unwound her coat from my shoulders and put it around her instead.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
Evelyn looked confused. “For what?”
“Going to the party when you told me not to.”
She smirked. “Did you think you had me fooled? I set an alarm for midnight because I knew you’d sneak out. How do you think I found you so quickly?”
“Oh. Well, thanks. Is your arm okay?”
“Pulled it a bit. I’m sure it’s fine.”
Near dawn, it became apparent that Evelyn’s shoulder was not fine. She shook me awake, her face paler than the moon.
“I think something’s wrong,” she whispered. “I can’t feel my fingers.”
I flicked on the light, pulled the blankets back, and reined in a gasp. Evelyn’s shoulder had swollen to twice its normal size. The skin was bright red.
“I’ll get your clothes,” I said, rolling out of bed. “We’re going to the hospital.”
They admitted Evelyn at once. The doctor who originally treated her shoulder wasn’t on duty that night, so they gave her a bunch of painkillers while we waited for him to get to the hospital. Sweat poured down Evelyn’s face. The patterned clinical gown made her look like a small child. For the first time since I’d known her, she appeared weak and exhausted.
At last, the doctor rushed in, cleaning his glasses on his white coat. “Evelyn, we meet again.” Gently taking Evelyn’s shoulder between his hands, he glanced toward me. “Who’s this?”
“Jacqueline Frye,” I answered. “I’m her friend and caregiver.”
“I’m Doctor Evans,” he said. To Evelyn, he asked, “Do you want her to stay for this?”
“Yes,” Evelyn gasped, tears streaming. She reached out to me with her good hand, and I grasped it tightly. “I want her here.”
“All right,” said Doctor Evans. “I’m afraid your shoulder’s pulled out of the socket again. I’ll have to maneuver it back in. Then we’ll do some scans and determine how to proceed. Sound good?”
Evelyn nodded, not able to manage much else. With help from a student doctor, Doctor Evans cleaned the skin on Evelyn’s shoulder and injected some kind of medication into the joint with the biggest syringe I’d ever seen in my life.
“All right, try to relax,” he told Evelyn, taking her elbow in a firm grip. “Miss Frye, you might want to brace yourself.”
“For what?”
He ignored me. “Big breath in, Evelyn.”
She pulled in a deep breath.
“And out.”
She complied.
“In again. Out—”
He externally rotated her arm, and as the joint popped back into place, Evelyn released a pained grunt. Doctor Evans felt around her shoulder, making sure it had returned to its regular spot.
“There we go,” he said. “Stay still.
