Mortsafe

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  A what? Feeling her mouth drop open, Jean snapped it shut and nodded agreement. “Yeah, you gotta defend your principles.”

  “Ta.” Amy seized her coat from the next table and fled.

  Jean and Alasdair stood up simultaneously. He picked up Amy’s pound coins. “Not enough, I reckon.”

  “Let me.” Jean tucked away her notebook, paid for the food and drink, and once again buttoned up her coat.

  Outside, the restaurants and bars of the Grassmarket hummed with activity. The open area had once been an animal market. It had been a place of execution. It had been a slum, hunting grounds for Burke and Hare. But time had flowed on, transforming agony into the romance of yesteryear.

  Above the lights and the voices, the Castle loomed against the cloudy night sky. One window formed a glowing rectangle. A guard room, Jean supposed. She wondered what it was like, being a night watchman in a place as evocative as Edinburgh Castle. You wouldn’t have to be sensitive to ghosts. Like Robin Davis’s test subjects, just expecting them would make them appear.

  Pagano would get to the Castle, too, she was sure.

  “Was Sara,” asked Alasdair, “an apt pupil for Davis, then? Or did she come round to his way of thinking for admiration of him—or more?”

  “Speaking of talking to Knox …”

  “I’ll ring her soon as we get home.”

  “Sure, but I mean, what Amy said as she was leaving. Is that what’s up with Knox and Gordon? He’s been harassing her?”

  “None of our business, Jean.”

  “Well no, but …”

  Alasdair’s hand, firm in the small of her back, guided her toward the West Bow. “Sorry to be signaling you beneath the table, but you’re seldom staying with the subject at hand.”

  “Or what you think is the subject, anyway.”

  “The subject is Sara Herries’ murder.”

  “You always say yourself we never know what’s relevant and what isn’t.”

  “We?” he repeated, the light of a shop revealing his thin smile.

  “Right.” Huddling into her coat—after the stuffy restaurant, the night seemed even colder—Jean saved her breath for the climb to Castlehill and home.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jean stood in the dining room window contemplating mortality and the flesh. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, darkness to darkness, never mind Mr. Edison and his light bulbs, which accentuated the shadows as much as lifted them.

  She remembered last summer, evenings lingering like a man with a slow hand, when she could read a book in the Princes Street Gardens until her solitary bedtime. She remembered Texas, where mid-February was almost spring, and you could find forsythia in protected corners putting on yellow blossoms like confetti.

  She was no longer in Texas, she was no longer solitary, and, speaking of the flesh, very soon now she was going to have to suggest something for dinner. But first … Lifting her phone, she pressed Rebecca Campbell-Reid’s number.

  “Hullo, Jean,” came her fellow ex-pat’s voice.

  “Hey there. How was the concert?”

  “Nice and soothing. Linda fell sound asleep. Michael and I are having our tea in peace and quiet for a change.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt, then.”

  “No, no, they were saying on the evening news that a constable had been attacked—that’s your case, isn’t it? Tell all!”

  By the way Rebecca’s voice went hollow, Jean gathered she’d been put on speaker phone. Not quibbling with “case”, she told all, getting in return both munching noises and expressions of interest. Finally Michael’s voice said, “Mind you, seems to me someone was putting it about The Body Snatcher that one Fringe show—could’ve been Davis’s—was aiming for shock value, pushing the envelope and all, but that was likely no more than marketing. In any event, nothing came of it.”

  “Unless it was Sara’s disappearance that came of it,” suggested Rebecca.

  Jean shrugged, even though she knew they couldn’t see her. “It’s all connected somehow. It’s just it’s all pretty murky.”

  If not in the apartment, where every light blazed. And not just for her light-adapted eyes. The child of Fort William and Inverness, Alasdair probably found Edinburgh a bit oppressive—if his comment about the buildings frowning down was any indication. She’d been the catalyst, not the cause, of him leaving the police, but the only reason he was living here was because of her.

  She went on, “That’s the update. Michael, if you remember anyone from those days named Chris …”

  “Man or woman?” asked Rebecca.

  “A man. Sara’s boyfriend.”

  “There was every name you can imagine,” Michael replied, “up to and including ones from Timbuktu. If I’m thinking of any particulars, I’ll be in touch, all right?”

  “Sounds like I missed some good times,” Rebecca said. “How about a stroll down memory lane, dear?”

  “Oh aye, dear. Bye, Jean.”

  “Thanks. Bye.” Jean looked around to see Dougie sitting in the kitchen door, paws primly together, head cocked to the side, perhaps less in contemplation of appetite than listening to the music filtering through the wall. A master of the fiddle, among a variety of other instruments, Hugh was now zipping through a set of jigs so cheerful Jean laughed out loud, and danced rather than walked to the kitchen.

  Food, drink, dance—some true believers looked askance at them all. But it seemed perverse to assume God had given such pleasure to humanity as no more than temptation, an excuse to exercise denial.

  She realized she’d been hearing Alasdair’s voice from upstairs, providing stereo sound. “ … the father was saying he’d failed her … lad named Chris is all … the father didn’t half like her mates at the university … oh aye, Amy might could have been telling you all this herself, but she took a scunner to you … no, don’t be wasting your time doing her for perverting the course of justice …”

  Flapping her ears like Dumbo didn’t do Jean any good. Neither did formulating editorial comments she’d never deliver. She couldn’t hear what Knox was saying, even though Alasdair was probably holding the phone a foot from his ear while she responded. Ah well, all in good time.

  Jean added to the cacophony by opening a can of food for Dougie. He expressed both gratitude and greed by twining around her ankles, then transferred his affections to the odoriferous plop in his dish.

  “Robin Davis, social anthropology,” said Alasdair, and after another pause, “The original interviews, eh?”

  They could stir-fry some vegetables and serve them over rice noodles, Jean told herself, just to continue the Asian theme of the evening. That would be quick and easy to cook, eat, and clear away.

  “Well then,” Alasdair said. “If that’s the way of it, then … No, no problem at all. Good night.”

  Assertive footsteps came down the staircase. Was this the point where Knox told him to bug off, that the official force could handle it just fine without him? Would he start fuming about being cut out of the case?

  Jean turned on the burner beneath a pot of water, threw some vegetables onto the cutting board, and started chopping. The music from next door stopped abruptly, then continued with a series of tentative plinks and smooth swoops as Hugh worked out a passage.

  “Right.” Alasdair strode through the doorway, picked up an onion, and started peeling it. The pungent scent overwhelmed that of Dougie’s meat products but made no impact on the icicles gathered on Alasdair’s face like on a granite statue on the Castle Esplanade.

  “Right?” Jean asked.

  “Gary Delaney was the original investigating officer in the Herries case.”

  Jean opened her mouth but nothing issued from her vocal cords. She remembered D.I. Delaney only too well. His combative attitude toward Alasdair, colored with the sickly green of jealousy, had made a difficult situation even worse. Not that he and Alasdair hadn’t come to terms in the end, but still … She tried, “Well, even if Lothian and Borders is a big organizat
ion, you’d expect the detectives to talk to each other.”

  “When Knox went contacting Protect and Survive, she recognized my name from Delaney’s report on the Ferniebank case. She’s had the cheek to ring him up, asking how she should be going on with me.”

  Cheek? Or the good sense to check references?

  Alasdair seized a bell pepper and ripped out the seeds. “He’s telling her I’m good but I’m not knowing when to stop. She’s telling me she’d rather have me with her than against her.”

  “Which is what you told Amy about Knox.”

  “Knox aye, and Delaney as well, but me, I’m not against anyone.” He handed Jean the onion and the pepper and leaned back against the doorway.

  You’re against criminals. You’re against fools. “Oh would God the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us,” Jean quoted from Burns. Or misquoted. Her mind was overstuffed with trivia, but she made no claims about its accuracy. “A reputation can cut both ways, you know. We’ve all got history. We haven’t gotten here without having been there first. None of us. If you’ll excuse my teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.”

  Slowly the ice melted from his features, the fissure that was his mouth softened, the lines around his eyes unclenched. In repose, his face wasn’t so much nice, in Amy’s word, as unthreatening, the regular features nothing remarkable. An undercover face.

  It was the mind behind it that would leap out of hiding with blinding brightness and fearsome will.

  Jean pushed the cutting board down the work top and handed over the knife, trying not to think of the role a larger one had played in the Ferniebank case. “Here, finish the vegetables while I slice some chicken and get the noodles on. I got hold of Hugh before I called Rebecca and Michael, and he says he’ll stop in for a few minutes on his way to tonight’s gig.”

  Alasdair went to work, producing cubes of onion and pepper identical to a millimeter.

  “As for Amy,” Jean said, “or, more properly, as for Sara, are you thinking what I’m thinking, that Robin Davis is a major player in the case? What if Sara refused his advances, and he got angry? Would she have filed a harassment complaint with the university? What if she told him his play or pageant, whatever they called it, sucked Twinkies, and ditto?”

  “No joy, Jean. I was trying something similar on Knox, but she’s skimmed the original interviews and is saying there’s no suspicion at all attached to Davis. He was at an awards dinner in Stirling the night Sara went missing, and was seen there the next morning as well.”

  “Stirling’s not that long a drive. And it’s not as though we know the exact instant Sara went down … Well, I expect Delaney double-checked Davis’ alibi.”

  “Aye, no fool Delaney. Still, no harm in your talking to him, eh?”

  “Delan—? Oh, Robin Davis.”

  Alasdair glanced up from beneath his brows. “You were already going on about his new book. An interview with an eye to reviewing it in Great Scot would go down a treat.”

  “Oh yeah, he’s definitely in my territory. I’ll have Miranda him a call tomorrow morning, set something up. After I drop by The Scotsman and check up on that play. Michael says word on the street was that it was pushing the envelope, an over-used idiom if ever there was one.” Jean threw chicken and vegetables into the wok and noodles into the boiling water. “You know, Alasdair, what we’re not asking is who the man in the vault is. Kazmarek says he was hanged, right?”

  “Oh aye.” Alasdair gathered cutlery, napkins, and plates. “Between the religious artifacts and the clothing of the ghost, you’re thinking he was a Covenanter.”

  “Oh yeah. The ghost isn’t evidence, just an indicator arrow, in a way. But surely the Bible or even the buttons—can you tell time period from buttons?”

  “Sara might have done, with her historical costumes and all.”

  The music from next door stopped, leaving the bubble of water and the hiss of oil to fill the silence along with the neverending murmur of traffic and voices from outside. The aroma of onions, peppers, and garlic wafted upwards, nourishing in itself. Jean started slicing the bok choy. “There’s still no accounting for the old body getting into the vault, never mind Sara’s. It’s a locked-room mystery.”

  In the dining room, Alasdair made a noise between a laugh and a snort. “It is that.” He wandered over to the window, where Dougie was now licking himself down, and took up a stance indicating deep contemplation—probably less of mortality than of police procedure.

  Jean dished up their meals. Beneath Dougie’s benevolent gaze, they settled down to eat. Five minutes passed before Jean went on, “Plans of the vaults. You said the ones with the bodies don’t exist.”

  “Not according to any schematics in P&S’s files, no. Blocked off early on, I reckon. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  “As Amy said about Sara.”

  “Sara’s in Lothian and Borders’ sights now. And ours.” Alasdair used his knife to mound vegetables and noodles onto the back of his fork.

  Jean had yet to develop that sort of manual dexterity. You had to be raised British. “The vaults beneath Lady Niddry’s have to continue on to the west side of bridge, beneath the Playfair Building. That’s how the place was built. Didn’t you say you walked to either end of the new—I use the word advisedly—vaults with Gordon?”

  “They’re likely part of the vault network at the end closed off by a masonry wall. The other end might once have been a cave in the steep ground between the High Street and the Cowgate. Gordon’s torch wasn’t the brightest …”

  “I think the dark is just darker down there,” Jean murmured.

  “… but the walls look to be natural rock, tied into the corridor with bricks and masonry. There’s rubbish lying about, bits of wood and metal and pottery and the like. What archaeologists would be calling a midden, more or less.”

  “But you didn’t see any sign of another entrance.”

  “No.” Alasdair inserted a forkful of food into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “What I was seeing was the ghost, the lass, standing there, hands folded and head bent like she was praying. The light of the torch went past her one way, and the other, and here’s Gordon not noticing a thing, whilst I went locking my knees to keep on my feet.”

  “Oh. Well. It’s like she was praying for Sara.”

  “More likely she’s praying for the man whose body was with Sara’s. Husband? Father?”

  “Yeah,” Jean said, for lack of anything better, and let the image settle beneath a few more bites before speaking again. “If push comes to shove, you can always get some geophysical equipment in there, looking for cavities and so forth, although I don’t guess there’s all that good a reason to trace the floor plan.”

  He swallowed. “As for pushing and shoving, Knox is thinking Bewley coshed the constable, having some reason to be looking at the crime scene. They’ve not found the weapon, though. Likely it was cleaned and put back with the other tools.”

  “Bewley would have to have had a stronger motive than mere curiosity. But then, if he’s the killer, why open the blocked door … Oh. To make points with Vasudev. And now he’s worried about some bit of evidence left behind at the scene.”

  “Sara’s gold cross, could be. Or the second pendant or charm, the one Amy’s thinking Sara was wearing as well.”

  “What do you think? Is Bewley the killer?”

  “He’s telling Knox he never knew Sara. Even if he was knowing her, even if he went smashing her head in, seems to me he’d have many an opportunity to get down into the vaults without committing assault and battery on P.C. Ross. Could’ve locked the chap in the loo, claiming the door was broken, and had himself a recce whilst the tradesmen were brewing up.”

  “Good thing you’re not a criminal,” Jean told him, and swirled the last noodle onto her fork.

  Alasdair gave her his best—or worst—we-are-not-amused expression. “Whether or not Bewley’s the killer, I’m thinking the killer’s still in the area, no matter the years tha
t have passed.”

  “There’s a comforting thought. And here’s another one. How involved are you going to get with this? This time the victim’s not someone we know, or at least met while alive. And—sorry, Amy—thank goodness for that.” She picked up the plates. “Tell me you’re not trying to compete with Delaney again. Or with Knox.”

  “I was never after competing with Delaney, and Knox looks to be competent, never mind the bad blood with Gordon.” He took the plates from her hands and headed toward the kitchen, his expression even less amused.

  The doorbell rang.

  Jean sent an okaaay toward Alasdair’s retreating back. Let sleeping dogs lie. Saved by the bell. And whatever other clichés she was more at ease using in her thoughts than in her writing.

  Yes, the Fairbairn/Cameron household—not a term she was quite used to yet—knew the problems of getting planning permission. It had taken string-pulling by Miranda’s unwed but still significant other, Duncan Kerr, to get the go-ahead on combining two apartments into one at Ramsay Garden, which, despite its relative youth, was a historical site. For one thing, since they’d been obliged to leave the exteriors unchanged, they now had two front doors. One was permanently locked and barricaded with a bookcase, making the original entrance hall into a small library—combining their households had meant combining their book collections. Fortunately removing one of the two staircases hadn’t been an issue.

  Passing the closet that now occupied the footprint of the vanished staircase, Jean opened the functioning front door. Hugh Munro stood on the porch, a fiddle case in one hand, a guitar case in the other, the box holding his concertina tucked beneath one arm. “Hullo, Jean.”

  “Hi, Hugh. Come on in. Do you have time for drink?”

  With his bald head fringed by white hair, a white beard, and a stocky body led by a round belly, Hugh resembled a garden gnome. But very few human beings, let alone lawn sculptures, had blue-gray eyes translucent with a perception both keen and wry. “Afraid not, Jean, thanks just the same. The lads and I are having an early start the night, so as to practice for our debut at Lady Niddry’s tomorrow and Saturday. Here’s us, moving up the social ladder. No more busking by Waverley Station.”