Edinburgh Midnight

by Carole Lawrence

  “As ye wish, sir,” Dickerson said, but something in his regard for the detective had snapped. A sour cloud of disillusion settled over him; he felt miserable and restless. He looked out the window, where even the sun had given up on the city of Edinburgh, which lay in a winter darkness as complete as any he had ever seen.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  By the time Ian left the station house, the evening shift had arrived. Dickerson had left early, ostensibly to go to rehearsal, but was obviously irritated and out of sorts. Ian was sorry the sergeant disapproved of his methods, but that did not dampen his resolve. Throwing his cloak round his shoulders, he headed out into the clear, cold night, stopping to buy another handful of watercress from the poor ragged girl in front of Bell’s Wynd.

  “Oh, it’s you, sir,” she said, smiling shyly.

  “Hello again,” he said, pressing some coins into her hand.

  “It’s still a farthin’ for one bunch, sir,” she said, looking at them.

  “Please take it. It would make me happy.”

  “Oh, thank ye, sir.” Her pale eyes welled with tears as she handed him her finest bunch of cress. “God bless ye!”

  “God bless you, too,” he murmured, though he had no belief in such a being.

  He turned toward home, past the bravely flickering lamps in front of St. Giles. They were often the first lamps to be lit on the High Street, the leeries climbing the rungs of their tall ladders to give light to Edinburgh’s High Kirk, named after the patron saint of cripples.

  As he passed the church, Ian’s shoulder throbbed, as if to remind him of his own disfigurement. Ignoring it, he lowered his head and bent into the wind. Burned in the fire that killed his parents seven years ago, his shoulder still bothered him. Nerve damage, Donald had said. It was an obvious physical scar, but he had come to think of everyone as damaged in some way. Donald was broken in one way, Ian in another. In what way was Lillian broken, he wondered, that led her to seek the guidance of shady mediums in stuffy sitting rooms, surrounded by other desperate, lonely souls?

  And who had deemed it necessary to take the life of one of those wretched souls? What sort of person had so violently ripped poor Elizabeth Staley from the ranks of the living, so intent on her death that they were willing to risk the hangman’s noose?

  Rounding the corner onto George IV Bridge, Ian caught a glimpse of the castle on its perch high atop the dark rock overlooking the city. The spot was an obvious one for a fortress—indeed, there had been a royal castle there at least since King David’s reign in the twelfth century, and a fort of some kind for many millennia prior to that. But though easy to defend, parapets were lonely, removed from the everyday hustle and bustle of humanity—the price of safety was remoteness and isolation. Drawing his cloak closer to his body, Ian contemplated his own impulse for solitude. Had he made a bargain that was no longer viable? Humanity was messy and untrustworthy, but by isolating himself, was he not turning away from life itself?

  Crime solving was seldom glamorous. Much of the time, it was merely sad—an overworked husband turning to gambling or stealing, first out of desperation to provide for his family, later just for the thrill of it. The more he got away with, the more invincible he felt, until he made the mistake that landed him in jail. Ian knew it all too well—the shocked looked of recognition, eyes narrowing like a cornered animal’s as the detective strode in accompanied by a brace of uniformed constables. That was followed by an unconvincing plea of innocence, which soon gave way to a snarl of defiance as the suspect was placed into custody. Later, in court, there was the defeated sag of the shoulders when the man was sentenced to his fate—invariably leaving behind a family in worse shape than before.

  Then there were the career criminals, thoroughly degraded human beings who had lost all sense of honor or shame. Ian was intent on bringing these miscreants to justice. They had no care for others, no sense of moral responsibility. He did not like to think such creatures existed, yet knew better than anyone that they walked largely undetected amid the swarm of humanity that was Edinburgh.

  These cheerless thoughts were interrupted by his arrival at his flat on Victoria Terrace, and he opened the door to the friendly smell of beef and cabbage. His brother appeared in the foyer, an apron tied round his bulging middle, hands covered in flour, his face flushed. Bacchus sauntered in behind him, tail swaying languidly.

  “I say,” said Ian, hanging up his cloak. “You’ve been busy on your day off.”

  “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” Donald said, wiping his hands on a tea towel. “I’ve just put the pie in the oven, so it’ll be a while till supper.”

  “It smells brilliant.”

  “Beef and cabbage, peas and tatties—good hearty Scottish fare.”

  “I bought some cress,” Ian said, handing it to Donald.

  “That will do nicely,” his brother said as Ian followed him into the parlor.

  Ian looked around for signs of Derek. “Where’s—”

  “Master McNair decided he’d had enough of my company and set off to poach chickens, pinch apples, pick pockets—whatever young scallywags do.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “I was gentle as a lamb. He was just restless—you know how young people can be.”

  “Still, it’s a cold night.”

  “I’ll wager he’s endured colder.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Ian said, pouring himself a brandy and sitting by the fire. Bacchus crept onto his lap, purring loudly, turning circles until he was satisfied with his perch. The cat’s weight was comforting, the flames mesmerizing, and Ian felt his eyelids grow heavy. The next thing he knew, he awoke with a start, Donald’s voice in his ear.

  “Dinner is served.”

  Ian rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry—I fell asleep.”

  “And here I thought you were just ignoring me,” Donald said, spreading a linen cloth on the mahogany table. “You were out cold.”

  “‘He that sleeps feels not the toothache.’”

  “Dear me, have you a toothache?”

  “I was quoting—”

  “Ah, yes,” Donald said, heading for the kitchen, Bacchus trotting after him. “Your penchant for quoting the Bard doesn’t annoy me nearly as much as it does DCI Crawford. You really should take pity on the poor fellow,” he said, returning with two steaming plates of food. “Now come along, before it gets cold.”

  The meat pie was mouth-watering, though Ian’s hunger certainly played a role in his appreciation. After several minutes, he put down his fork and regarded his brother.

  “Where did you learn to cook like this?”

  Donald flicked a bit of meat toward the cat, who picked at it delicately. “I spent some time in Glasgow during my rambles. Learned it from an old salty dog who liked his drink as much as I did—fat lot of good it did him.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “His liver finally decided it had had enough. I was with him at the end—not a pretty sight. And yet I kept on, telling myself the lies all drunkards do,” he added with a sigh.

  “Never mind,” Ian said. “You’ve sorted it now.”

  “Have I? I often feel I’m a step or two ahead of my demons, and sometimes I can feel them breathing down the back of my neck.”

  “Conan Doyle’s father suffers from the affliction.”

  “Ah, yes, so Arthur has said.”

  Ian felt a pang of jealousy knowing his friend had confided the same things to his brother as he had to Ian, then chided himself for such petty thinking.

  “Amiable fellow, isn’t he?” Donald said, a bit of cress hanging from his lower lip.

  “Very. I’m a bit surprised by his interest in crime.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my travels, it’s that people are full of surprises.”

  “Does that include our parents?”

  “Especially our parents. Do you know why I eat more than is good for me?”

  “I’ve a feeling I’m about to
find out.”

  Donald shrugged. “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “No, it’s important I learn the truth.”

  His brother stared into the fire’s glowing embers. “I don’t wish to tarnish our father’s memory even further, but . . .” He heaved a sigh that seemed to reach to the bottom of his soul. “You’re aware he treated me rather differently than he did you.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “I believe he found me disappointing.”

  “I am sorry to hear it.”

  Donald dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

  “It’s not your fault, though it was many years before I accepted that. His treatment of me shaped so many things about me, including my attitude toward food.”

  “I always felt you enjoyed food more if it wasn’t yours.”

  Donald rose and put another log on the fire. “That’s because I was forced to steal it when I was a child.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Father felt I was too plump, so he did his best to deprive me of food.”

  “Good Lord. Why on earth—”

  “He thought my appearance was . . . unmanly.”

  “Why didn’t Mother—”

  “She did what she could. But his will usually prevailed.”

  “Now that you mention it, I do recall one or two incidents, and I remember sometimes thinking I had been served more than you, but . . . I hardly know what to say.”

  “Start by saying you’d like another helping of beef pie.”

  “Yes, please,” Ian replied, even though his appetite had evaporated when he heard his brother’s confession. Donald rose and went out to the kitchen, and Ian gazed into the fire, as if the answer lay in the rapidly flickering flames.

  “You know,” Donald said as he came back into the room, “I often wondered if you knew. But now I see that you didn’t—not really.”

  “I’m sorry—truly I am.”

  “You could not have changed anything. He took no one’s counsel but his own.”

  “He was a respected policeman, though, so surely he—” Donald’s look stopped him cold. An icicle of dread pierced his heart. “What is it?” he said.

  “It’s late, and I have morning rounds with Dr. Bell.”

  “Please—you cannot just leave me wondering.”

  “This is too delicate a subject to delve into without—”

  “Without what?”

  “I was going to say without warning, but the truth is . . .” Donald walked over to the sideboard and grasped the bottle of brandy.

  Ian’s heart jumped into his throat. “Donald—”

  “Calm yourself,” he said, refilling Ian’s glass. “You have more need of it than I.”

  Ian drained the snifter in one gulp. “I implore you—”

  His brother lowered his bulk into the wing chair in front of the fire, and Ian took the matching one opposite. Donald turned to him, his face shiny in the yellow glow of the fire. “Can you recall a single day when our father did not have a drink?”

  Ian thought about the many evenings they spent at home as a family, the summertime trips to the coast, the holidays with Aunt Lillian and Uncle Alfred in Glasgow. In every one of them, he could picture his father with a glass in his hand.

  “And yet I don’t recall seeing him drunk,” he said finally.

  “Not in front of us, perhaps.”

  “Are you saying that—”

  Donald held up a hand. “I am not suggesting my problem is anyone’s fault but my own. However, it is instructive, don’t you think?”

  Ian looked at his brother, who sat, head cocked to one side, a strand of blond hair falling over one eye. The cat, curled next to him, looked on impassively. “You need a haircut,” Ian murmured, unable to focus on what now struck him as a monumental lack of observation on his part. Donald did not reply. Ian stared at the fire, the embers glowing blue beneath the red and yellow flames.

  “Well?” said Donald finally.

  “What does it mean?”

  “In my experience, one often drinks in an attempt to escape unpleasant thoughts and emotions. And if one finds it impossible to go a day without imbibing, it seems logical to infer that one is trying to avoid rather a lot of unpleasantness.”

  Ian looked longingly at the bottle of brandy on the sideboard.

  “Go ahead,” said Donald.

  “It’s not fair to you.”

  “I’ll enjoy it vicariously.”

  “No. I’ve had enough.”

  Donald studied his fingernails, then looked at Ian. “What do you remember of what he was like as a father?”

  “Stern, firm, disciplined . . . strong willed.”

  “A typical Scottish father, then?”

  “What are you implying, exactly?”

  “Over time, alcohol seeps into your soul. It changes you—what you care about, what you are capable of. It rots you from the inside. It can alienate you from love itself.”

  “I always had the feeling he loved Mother.”

  “She was easy to love,” Donald said, his voice soft. “But I fear at some point she stopped caring for him.”

  “When she took a lover, you mean.”

  “Did you not notice the chill between them?”

  “Now that you mention it, they did seem more distant.”

  “But being a typical Scottish family, of course we did not speak of such things. And now you may be on the trail of their killer,” Donald continued. “What do you intend to do?”

  “Find this Nate Crippen fellow, for starters.”

  “And then what?”

  “Shake the truth out of him, if need be.”

  “Have a care, Ian. You always were too impulsive for your own good.”

  “Time has tempered us both, I think.”

  “Perhaps.” Donald stretched and yawned. “Tempered or not, it’s time for this medical student to slip off to bed, or I shall be useless tomorrow.”

  “It’s strange to hear those words,” Ian said. “To think of you as a medical student. What I mean is that it’s easier to think of you as a physician,” he added hastily in response to the look on his brother’s face.

  “From your lips to God’s ears.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “A Hebrew friend of mine in Glasgow used to say it. You know,” Donald added, “you’re still a long way from solving what happened all those years ago. I suggest you be prepared for more unpleasant surprises. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Donald padded off to his bedroom, Bacchus trotting close behind. Ian sat gazing at the fire for some time, struggling with facts he thought he had made peace with years ago. The world was not a fair place, there was no guarantee of justice, and evil often prevailed over good. He knew these things, yet tonight he could not help feeling oppressed by the stark reality of it all. The thought that he had not seen his father clearly rankled him most of all. He was aware his father was stern, but always felt he was treated fairly. Obviously Donald had an entirely different experience. How was it he had not seen this? His forehead burned with shame at the thought that he had been so involved with his own comfort and happiness that he missed what was right under his nose. What kind of a detective was he that he could not even perceive his own brother’s misery?

  The fire had long died out when at last he rose and retired to his bedroom. Wrapping himself in the comforter Aunt Lillian had given him last Christmas, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Major George Fitzpatrick was uneasy. Pacing in front of the study window in his well-appointed flat on Royal Terrace, he ruminated on his life, the mistakes he had made, and what to do about the situation now facing him. He had fought in Afghanistan with the Gordon Highlanders and seen action in the Bhutan and Second Ashanti Wars, and his shoulder still carried a piece of the bullet that felled him in Kandahar. Yet the disquiet he felt was paralyzing—a threat was apparently headed his way, but he knew not
how it would present itself, nor where or when. He wasn’t even certain there was any real danger at all. And yet . . . he broke into a cold sweat as he fingered the letter in the pocket of his dressing gown for the hundredth time that day.

  He had memorized it by now, the words etched starkly in his brain.

  You will pay for your crimes

  I’ll come for you when you least expect it

  Since receiving it earlier in the day, he had languished in a torpor of indecision. He thought of going to the police, but what could they possibly do about such a vaguely worded threat? He could imagine them ridiculing him—and he would be half inclined to agree with them. What on earth could they do, indeed?

  No, he thought, better to collect his wits and come up with a plan. He was no stranger to battle strategy and resolved to treat this just like another campaign. Analyze the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, and act accordingly. But the letter writer had the advantage of anonymity—how could he create a defense against an unknown enemy? His mind searched vainly for a foothold of some kind, anything to tip the scales in his favor.

  The letter had given him one advantage. It had put him on his guard, no small thing for a seasoned military veteran, he thought as he poured himself a glass of whisky from the crystal decanter on the sideboard. Outside, the sky was rapidly losing light, as the sun slunk off to a long December slumber. A shiver slithered down his spine as he contemplated a sleepless night alone in the empty flat. His son had gone back to school, his wife long dead—how he yearned for her company on this cheerless and lonely winter’s eve.

  Downing the tumbler of whisky in one gulp, he tightened his hand around the pistol in the pocket of his dressing gown. The feel of the metal against his fingers calmed him—the gun was a familiar friend, his only ally in the upcoming struggle with this mysterious foe. He settled in the wing chair at the far end of the study, where he could see through to the parlor and foyer beyond. The dining room and bedroom were invisible to him, not being in his line of sight, but it was the small kitchen in the back of the flat that worried him most. He had double-locked the door leading to the alley behind the building, wedging a chair beneath the door handle, but a determined assassin could surmount that defense. And so he leaned back in his armchair, resolved to spend the night awake, the gun at his side.