Mortsafe

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Gesturing in frustration, Ryan walked across the patch of floor—just black and white tiles, no bloodstains—where Grizel had lain and headed for the drawing room. Making a precise about-face, Knox followed. “Mr. Ryan.”

  “Yeah,” he said over his shoulder.

  “The woman in the doorway, Nicola MacLaren. Was that Sara’s Chrissie?”

  “No way. Chrissie was, well, just a girl …” They disappeared through the doorway.

  Rats, Jean thought.

  Exchanging sneers rather than the names of seconds, Davis grabbed his arm candy and Pagano gathered his troops, and they, too, moved off.

  Alasdair shook his head. “That was never Sara Herries.”

  “Nope. It was Grizel, still walking buildings that didn’t exist when she was alive. More like a guardian angel than a haunting ghost.”

  “Not a ghost of Pagano’s sort, at the least.”

  Vasudev was frowning up at the chandelier. Jean followed his gaze. The almost transparent filament swaying in a slight draft was definitely fishing line. Someone had thrown one end over a curving brass arm, then looped the other around one of the banisters along the staircase. When Liz ran up the steps, she’d used her toe to give the line a pull.

  “I’d have expected something a wee bit more sophisticated from Pagano,” said Alasdair.

  “Spur of the moment, I bet,” Jean returned.

  Sighing heavily, Vasudev stepped forward. “Jean, Mr. Cameron—I beg your pardon, I never introduced myself properly, Vasudev Prasad—if you’d be so kind as to come downstairs with me, ahead of the rest of our guests, I, well, I have a confession to make.” Without waiting for a reply, he walked off into the drawing room.

  “Confession?” Jean asked faintly, just as Alasdair said, “Right.”

  Side by side, they followed Vasudev through the open doorway. There was Bewley again. Alasdair took the opportunity to leave their empty glasses with him—his tray was now empty and, Jean noted, his breath was no longer minty fresh.

  There was Pagano, chatting up Nicola, who offered him a slow smile. There was Davis preening and handing out cards or bookmarks. There was Knox, her phone to her ear, and Ryan beside her looking like a dishrag that had been wrung out and hung up to dry.

  Vasudev opened one of another set of double doors and motioned Jean and Alasdair through. With a glance at the faces turning their way—who were they to merit special treatment?—Jean stepped through and stopped dead, Alasdair piling up behind her.

  She stood on a spacious part-landing, part-balcony overlooking a vast underground space that was to the vault below the Playfair Building what St. Giles Cathedral was to a Covenanter’s cave. The stone walls were scrubbed clean and supported myriad small candles, making the room swim in a golden glow. The arched ceiling receded into the distance—aha, there at the far end were Hugh and Billy and the others, setting up on a stage under hidden electric lights. Between the door and the stage, servers tweaked crystal, silver, and red roses atop linen-draped tables. Cool! While Jean would have preferred a room with a view, this space was open enough to work for her.

  Alasdair stepped up to Jean’s right and Vasudev to her left. “This was a double-height vault to begin with,” the owner said. “During renovations, we had the original stone flags flooring the vault removed. That exposed the medieval alley or wynd beneath, and the foundations of the houses on either side. We shifted the rubble, evened the floors, filled potholes with an acrylic substance, all to make a safe walking surface. Now our guests can dine on the finest twenty-first century cuisine while seated in structures hundreds of years old. Please go on down.”

  Jean passed a swinging door that no doubt led into the kitchens, and went on down first one flight of stairs, then, doubling back at a landing, a second. Her hand ran lightly along an elegant wrought-iron railing no original dweller in the vaults would have recognized. Arriving on the clear surface topping a medieval cobblestoned street, she tried not to think about the archaeological knowledge destroyed by the renovations. Like ghosts, Edinburgh had a surfeit of archaeology.

  Hugh waved. Beside him, Billy looked up from some arcane operation on his pipes and his rawboned face lit with recognition. He beckoned. She made a just-a-minute gesture and turned back to Vasudev. Confession?

  Vasudev’s dark brown eyes moved from Jean’s inquisitive expression to Alasdair’s impassive one and back again. “I was not quite forthcoming with you and Miranda yesterday morning. Jason Pagano did not ring me and ask for permission to film here. I heard he was planning a program here in Edinburgh and I rang him—well, I actually spoke with his assistant, Tristan Ryan—and told him the tale of the ghost on the staircase in the entrance hall. I was hoping the popularity of his work would translate into customers for Lady Niddry’s.”

  Aha, Jean thought. “Do you know the name of the waiter who says he saw the ghost to begin with?”

  “No. He’s long gone. I never spoke with him myself. The story is no more than a rumor amongst the staff, one intended to frightened the newcomer, I expect. In any event, I only meant it as a lure for Mr. Pagano. I sweetened the deal by offering an unopened vault, the one beneath the Playfair Building.”

  Alasdair nodded. “The vault turned out to be holding an even greater attraction.”

  “It was, yes.” Vasudev grimaced. “Please understand, I had no intention of opening up a very recent missing-persons case along with the vault. If I’d known this would mean injury to a policeman and to yourself, Jean, I’d never have pursued the matter. I must ask your forgiveness.”

  “Well, I, ah,” she stammered, thinking that no problem was too blatant a white lie. And asking what Vasudev’s silent and exceedingly circumspect partner, Miranda’s Duncan Kerr, thought of all this was too blatant a question. “I know you didn’t mean anything bad to happen.”

  Vasudev bowed in acknowledgment. “We do go a bit overboard with our marketing schemes, don’t we?”

  Nicola appeared on the landing two stories above and peered over the railing. Now there, Jean told herself, was a “we”.

  Alasdair, too, gazed up at Nicola, a still figure at the fulcrum of two columns of servers marching up and down the stairs like ants. He lowered his gaze to the array of candles, the multiple flicker reflecting in his eyes. February, thought Jean. Not Ground Hog Day but Candlemas, the Christian gloss on an old Celtic fire festival closing out the darkest time of the year. Valentine’s Day, buds bursting into bloom, shoppers at Pippa’s Erotic Gear.

  Of course Alasdair’s train of thought pulled into a different station entirely. “Mr. Prasad, I understand you also own the Cowgate Bake Shop.”

  “Why yes. Duncan and I own quite a few properties in the area. I’m not sure the Bake Shop is quite up to Protect and Survive’s standards, however.”

  One of Alasdair’s brows quirked. Oh. Smoothly, he switched from policeman to head of P&S. “It was once a historic property, though. The Deacon’s Throat …”

  “Neck,” Jean murmured.

  “ … Neck Theater. Wasn’t that damaged in the 2002 fire?”

  “Yes, sadly, it was. The front part of the building was a total loss, but what had been the backstage areas were still standing, if as little more than a shell. They abut the hillside there, mind you, which protected them.”

  “But I imagine there was a good deal of smoke damage, still.”

  “So there was. Witnesses tell me smoke was even eddying from the back of the building, hillside or no hillside. Strange the way smoke will behave, isn’t it?”

  “Very strange.” Alasdair’s glance at Jean added, Strange the way smoke will go leaking even through hidden passages and sealed doorways, eh?

  “May I show you an interesting feature of the upper landing?” Vasudev asked. “We re-used original materials as best we could, and I believe we found mason’s marks dating back to William Playfair’s day.”

  “Of course.” Alasdair nodded toward Billy—carry on, Jean—and followed Vasudev back up one set of steps jus
t as Nicola ushered two waiters carrying wine chillers down the other.

  Jean nipped down the room to the stage. Donnie’s fingers drew a trill from the keyboard, Jamie set down his guitar and thumped on his bodhran, Hugh tightened a fiddle string, and Billy produced a squeal from his pipes that had half the people in the room looking around in alarm—someone had undoubtedly stepped on a cat’s tail.

  Jean leaned across the bank of lights and speakers. “Billy?”

  “Oh aye, Jean, that stunner coming down the stairs, wearing the black glove …”

  Every one of eight male eyeballs turned to Nicola. She halted on the landing and consulted what had to be a PDA, although where she was keeping it in that outfit, Jean couldn’t imagine.

  “… she was bringing us down here,” Billy went on, “having us fed, making sure we were properly lubricated …”

  Hugh indicated an empty glass that, judging by the foam remaining around its edge, had contained beer. “Fine local brew, mind you. They do things up properly here.”

  Billy angled closer to Jean. The long drones bundled beneath his arm clattered together like dry bones. “She was a friend of Sara Herries’. Plain little thing then, brown hair, but quick, very quick. I was half an hour identifying her just now.”

  Whoa. No wonder Ryan didn’t recognize her. “She was Chrissie then?” Jean asked.

  “Never knew her name. What I’m minding is the row she was having with Sara, the afternoon of the night Sara went missing. Something about Robin Davis, something about jealousy.”

  “They were arguing in the theater?”

  “Oh aye. Back behind the stage whilst they were pasting glitter and glam on the scenery. They saw me coming and shut up right smart.”

  “Thank you, Billy. That’s really helpful.”

  “We’re aiming to please,” Hugh said and turned to the band. “‘The Mucking of Geordie’s Byre,’ lads. One, two …” The cheerful music rang out.

  Jean started back down the length of the floor. That tune seemed appropriate, considering how the gutters of the old wynd would once have smelled, in the days when waste disposal meant emptying chamber pots out the window. If passersby were lucky, they’d get a shout of warning.

  Jean hurried up the right-hand steps and arrived on the balcony just as Ryan did, too, propelled from behind by Knox. Jean went so far as to pluck at Knox’s sleeve, pulling her ear closer. “Billy Skelton,” she whispered. “He’s identified Nicola as Sara’s friend, said he heard them having a major argument the same day Sara went missing.”

  “All right then,” replied Knox, thank you apparently being superfluous, and again directed Ryan’s attention to Nicola. “Have yourself a long look.”

  He glanced at her, then, in a double-take, had himself a long look. Astonishment filled his face and he spun back to Knox. “Chrissie. It is her. Damn. Who’d have thought?”

  A waiter carrying several wine glasses walked past them, then stopped behind Vasudev and Alasdair. Bewley again.

  Ryan went on, “Okay, you’ve got your ID, my team’s moving the equipment in here, I need to …”

  “… be helping them by setting up another trick?” Knox asked.

  “No, no, I slipped that guy Bewley five pounds to fix the chandelier, thought it would help. Amateur effort, though.”

  He didn’t realize, Jean told herself, that Bewley was standing right there, listening. Scowling. By the angle of her head and the glint in her eye, Knox did.

  Alasdair and Vasudev inspected a stone block set into the floor by the balcony railing. That is, Vasudev pointed to the block and spoke. Alasdair might have been standing over it, but Jean could tell by his body language he was listening to Knox play with her suspect like a cat with a mouse.

  Nicola swanned by them all as if they didn’t exist and opened the other half of the double doors into the drawing room.

  “You’re quite sure you never met Bewley in your student days here?” Knox asked Ryan.

  “I’ve told you again and again, there were lots of people hanging around back then.”

  “And was there a row between Sara and Chrissie, the night she went missing?”

  Ryan went so pale the color seemed to fade even from his hair. He took a step toward the door. Knox’s hand on his arm drew him back. Another waiter—funny, he looked familiar, too—slipped by. This is the stage, Jean thought, not down there where the lads were playing.

  Nicola stiffened and turned slowly toward Knox. In the doorway loomed a black thundercloud with a white dress at its side. Pagano and the inappropriately dressed—to be the house ghost, anyway—Liz. On his other side, Amy Herries pushed forward.

  “I’ve just had a word with Sergeant Gordon,” Knox told Nicola. “One of our constable’s found a wee silver skull with the initials SAH in your flat, in your jewelry box. Sara Anne Herries, I’m thinking.”

  “I knew her,” Nicola said coolly. “We were both Robin’s students. I kept a memento.”

  Now Davis himself was peering through the doorway, his companion forming a buffer between him and Pagano. Knox’s forefinger targeted the skull at the girl’s throat. “Gordon’s found an identical one in the vault, black with tarnish, looking to be a bit of gravel next the mortsafe. This one’s got the initials NCM. Nicola Christine MacLaren.”

  Nicola’s cheeks went from porcelain to pasty. Without blinking, her gaze switched from Knox’s face to Ryan’s. Ryan stared at her, slowly shaking his head, his lips forming the words, “I never told anyone. I swear, I never told anyone.”

  Bewley took a step back, toward Alasdair and Vasudev, the glasses in his hand clinking. Alasdair spun around.

  Knox focused on Bewley, her smile utterly without humor. “And you there, Bewley. One of my colleagues has been interviewing the folk gathered at the bus stop outside the Playfair Building this afternoon. You were seen stepping out and walking up the street, then joining the queue waiting for the bus, the queue that collapsed into a scrum soon as the bus came along. Tired of working, were you? Wandering about the neighborhood? Thinking of going home early? Or were you keeping an eye on Miss Fairbairn here, thought maybe she was asking a few too many questions?”

  Jean’s nervous system dripped ice water. That’s who she’d seen looking at her from the South Bridge, and later through the window of the coffee bar as she talked to Davis. That’s who had tripped her up.

  “I’m hearing from the hospital as well. Your old chum Constable Ross is growing positively coherent, is saying the last thing he’s remembering before being knocked unconscious is the smell of drink. I’ve never spoken with you that you didn’t reek of it.”

  “Damn you,” Bewley said. “Damn you all.”

  “Here,” said Vasudev, stepping forward, perhaps to remonstrate, perhaps to stop the scene until all the reporters could watch.

  Alasdair blocked him with an outstretched arm. “Bewley …”

  In the instant Alasdair moved, so did Bewley. He dropped every glass but one. The sound of smashing crystal blanked out that of the band. Leaping forward, he swept Alasdair back and halfway over the railing. The remaining glass cracked against the iron and Bewley was holding a shard like a small dagger against Alasdair’s throat.

  Time stopped. Jean saw the glittering sharpness press against the fair skin. She saw the blood well up and trickle down into the white collar. She saw Alasdair’s face, very still. She saw one of his hands grasping the railing, white-knuckled, pushing back—a inch further and he’d fall two stories onto a stone floor—his other hand rose slowly behind Bewley’s arm. The shard cut deeper.

  A woman screamed. No, Jean realized, it wasn’t her. She wasn’t even breathing. Her heart was a lead weight in her chest. It must have been Liz. Screaming was her specialty. Unless it had been Amy.

  Davis’s voice—it had to be Davis—said reverently, “Oh my God.”

  Knox’s voice was acid-etched contempt. “What’s the good of this, Bewley?”

  Alasdair’s blood was the color of the red squar
es in his tartan. He was dressed to kill, Jean’s mind shouted, not to die.

  “Bewley, you’re making matters worse.”

  The music died away, echoing down the vault. Vasudev’s rich brown skin turned gray. Knox was gathering herself for a leap—no, no, he’ll cut Alasdair’s carotid artery—other bodies were pressing forward …

  “Des, you poor sod,” said Nicola’s modulated tones. “If you’d only kept quiet. If you’d only left well alone. Let the man go. It’s too late now.”

  A curt if infinitesimal nod from Knox, and the waiter who looked familiar—oh, P.C. Wallace, of course Knox would have back-up—discorporated and reappeared with his arm around Bewley’s throat. He jerked him backward. Pagano grabbed Bewley’s arm just as Alasdair pushed it away. Knox herself twisted his wrist until the glass fell to the floor and shattered.

  Jean’s feet didn’t touch the balcony, didn’t crunch on the broken glass. She flew to Alasdair’s side and pulled him upright, away from the railing, away from the drop. Great, now she was going to be acrophobic, too.

  His arm wrapped her waist so firmly her bones creaked. With a shaky exhalation, he accepted a starched white handkerchief from Vasudev and pressed it to his throat. “I’m all right, Jean.”

  Lights flickered—oh, all the periscope-like cell phones were extended again, getting the scoop.

  Pagano and Wallace held Bewley between them. Knox grasped him by his lapels and leaned in. “Des Bewley, I arrest you for …”

  “No!” someone shouted.

  Jean looked around. So did Alasdair. Everyone froze.

  Tristan Ryan stepped forward. “I did it.”

  “Did what?” asked Knox.

  “I murdered Sara Herries. It was me. I did it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Having obtained Knox’s permission to carry on with his plans, Vasudev had organized his guests into the dining room downstairs, ordered the servers to begin bringing out the food, and asked Hugh to create music. Now the chime of intact glassware and the clink of silver applied to china filtered up into the drawing room, and the chatter of voices discussing the evening’s exciting events rose and fell. Jean imagined Pagano holding court on one side of the vault while Davis handed out plastic glow-in-the-dark skulls on the other.