Edinburgh Midnight

by Carole Lawrence

  Ian told him, and Doyle nodded solemnly. “I’m terribly sorry about your friend. It’s a bad business, finding him like that.”

  “Then you can understand why I’m keen to find the person responsible for his death.”

  “Let me just finish up some paperwork for Dr. Bell, and I’ll accompany you to the morgue.”

  “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

  “I rather think a glass of decent port should do the trick.”

  “Perhaps you would dine with me afterward, at the place of your choosing.”

  Doyle’s blue eyes crinkled at the edges. “I can’t refuse such a handsome offer. The life of a medical student is not terribly flush. If you don’t mind cooling your heels in the waiting room for a bit, I shall join you shortly.”

  As he reached to open the door, a groan escaped Ian as his injured shoulder shot a bolt of pain through his body.

  “Are you quite all right?” said Doyle.

  “I had a bit of a kerfuffle with a pair of gentlemen yesterday evening.”

  “I’d say they were hardly gentlemen if they caused you such injuries. It would appear you are in need of medical attention.”

  “My brother patched me up last night.”

  “Still, why don’t you let me—”

  “Thank you, but you’ve done enough for me already,” Ian said, and left the office before his friend could protest further.

  Lost in thought, he walked down the long corridor toward the front of the building. Turning the corner toward the waiting room, he came face-to-face with none other than Fiona Stuart.

  “Good afternoon, Detective Hamilton,” she said evenly. “It would seem your efforts to avoid me have failed at last.”

  He stared at her as if she were an apparition. Clad in a snowy-white nursing uniform, her head framed in a cloud of auburn curls, she was indeed a vision. The hazy afternoon light streaming in through the tall windows created a kind of halo around her, softening the edges of her corporeal form, so she did appear to be almost floating. It took him several moments to find his tongue. Meanwhile, she stood, arms crossed, gazing at him as coolly as if he were a laboratory specimen.

  “P-please accept my abject apology,” he stammered finally. “You must think me an utter cad and a bounder.”

  “On the contrary, I think of you as neither. I do, however, think of you as someone who is overmatched—though by what, I cannot say.”

  “I am indeed over my head at the moment,” he said, relief spurting like sweat from his brow. “But that does not excuse my unforgivable behavior toward you.”

  “Nothing is unforgivable—certainly not lapses in social decorum.”

  “You are kind to say so.”

  “If one were to keep score of every slight in life, one’s friends would be few indeed.”

  He stared at her again, momentarily speechless.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Forgive me. I am unaccustomed to such wisdom from one so young.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “There must be a way of saying that without appearing condescending.”

  “Your presence makes a fool out of me,” Ian said, astonished at the words that shot out of his mouth. It was as if he had no control over them.

  “You speak of me as ‘so young,’ but I can’t help but think we are much the same age.”

  “Perhaps, though I surely lack your wisdom.”

  “A fault you can remedy by taking me to Le Canard this evening. My shift ends in two hours.”

  “The maître d’ there loathes me.”

  “Then this is an opportunity to correct his erroneous impression. It is now three o’clock. I shall be waiting for you there at five o’clock.” And with that, she turned and swept away, the skirts of her uniform skimming across the polished floor with a swooshing sound.

  Ian stood watching her, dazed and distracted, nearly jumping out of his skin when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun around to see Conan Doyle, wearing a topcoat and hat.

  “It’s only me,” his friend said, smiling. “Were you talking to Nurse Stuart just now?”

  “Yes,” said Ian. “I’m afraid I owed her an apology.”

  “Which no doubt you remedied.”

  “I hope so. Oh, blast!” Ian said. “Would you mind terribly postponing our dinner engagement?”

  “Not at all. I’m not nearly as pretty as Nurse Stuart.”

  “It’s not that. I—”

  Doyle laughed. “She only looks intimidating. She’s only flesh and blood, after all.”

  Watching the retreating figure of Fiona Stuart, Ian wasn’t entirely sure his friend was right.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Half an hour later, morgue attendant Jack Cerridwen having been duly placated with a bottle of whisky, Ian and Doyle stood over the prostrate form of Brian McKinney as he lay in the cold and dank chamber where the recently deceased awaited the next stage of their journey. The room was eerily silent, save for the steady drip of a leaky pipe overhead. Ian held a lantern for better visibility, while Doyle selected a pair of tweezers from his medical kit.

  Carefully lifting the dead man’s eyelid, Doyle peered at his eye. “There is our first clue as to the manner of death,” he said. “Have a look for yourself.”

  Holding the lantern closer, Ian bent over to see what Doyle was looking at. The clouded eyes were unevenly dotted with spots of blood.

  “Petechial hemorrhage,” Ian murmured.

  “So you know what that points to, then?”

  “Strangulation. Could it also indicate smothering?”

  “It could. Why do you ask?”

  “I found a feather on his face, and a pillow next to his body, yet there was none under his head.”

  “Since your friend was blind, there was already some pathology to the eyes, so I’m going to check one more thing.”

  “What are you looking for?” Ian asked as his friend made a shallow incision in the dead man’s neck.

  “Fracture of the hyoid bone, which would be an indicator of strangulation.”

  “There are no marks upon the neck.”

  “True enough, though that is not conclusive. Aha,” he said after a moment. “The hyoid is intact, but look what I found lodged in the windpipe.” Carefully lifting them with his tweezers, Doyle held up two goose feathers. “I think your initial suspicion was correct. If I am not mistaken, the murder weapon was indeed a pillow.”

  An hour later, Ian and Doyle were in a hansom cab on the way to Le Canard. Taking no chances, he was a full ten minutes early. Doyle had suggested dropping Ian off before continuing on to his rooms near the university.

  “I’ll wait here just in case,” his friend said as the driver pulled up in front of the restaurant.

  “In case of what?”

  “In case Nurse Stuart decides to teach you a lesson.”

  “What do you mean?” Ian said, alighting from the cab.

  “Just come back out and tell me if she’s there.”

  “We’re early.”

  “All the same,” said Doyle. “Go on, and close the door, would you? It’s bloody freezing out there.”

  The maître d’ favored Ian with one raised eyebrow when he entered, but managed to convey a remarkable range of emotions in that single gesture. Flashing a broad smile, Ian breezed past him into the dining room. A survey of the room failed to locate any sign of Fiona, and he was about to return to the lobby when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning, he saw the maître d’ holding a folded piece of paper.

  “Mademoiselle left you a note,” he said, his French accent even thicker than before, and Ian wondered if it was fake. He waited until the man returned to his post before opening it. The familiar handwriting was firm as ever.

  Emergency at hospital. My apologies—another time, perhaps? (No, I am not trying to teach you a lesson, no matter what Mr. Doyle may say.)

  Ignoring the maître d’s inquisitive stare, Ian strode out of the restaurant and into the
street, where the cab was waiting, the driver huddled against the cold, his breath visible in white wisps in the frigid air. Ian couldn’t help thinking what a thankless job it was, especially in such weather, resolving to give him a generous tip.

  “I was hoping I was mistaken,” Doyle said after Ian explained the note. “But how the devil did she know what I was going to say?”

  “Evidently she knows you better than you think,” Ian replied, slipping the note into his waistcoat pocket.

  “It’s easy enough to confirm her story about the emergency, so I imagine she is telling the truth. Even so—”

  “We’ll speak nae mere on it,” Ian said, imitating his aunt’s Glaswegian dialect. “Are you thirsty?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Opening the roof hatch, Ian called out to the driver.

  The man’s face appeared in the opening. “Where to, sir?”

  “The White Hart, please.”

  “Right you are, sir,” he said, and the cab rattled off into the night.

  Edinburgh taverns were hardly temples of propriety, but the White Hart was one of the more respectable ones, popular with university students and professors alike. It also catered to a somewhat rougher crowd, and late-night carousing was not uncommon. The evening was young when Ian and Doyle arrived, and the rowdier elements had not yet arrived. They selected a table in the back, and as they walked toward it, Ian caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned just in time to catch Terrance McNee, a.k.a. Rat Face, slipping out the back door.

  “Excuse me a moment,” he said to Doyle, darting back through the front entrance and down the narrow close along the side of the building. Short of climbing the fence behind the pub, his quarry was trapped. As McNee turned the corner into the alley in his attempt to escape, he could not hide his expression of astonishment at seeing Ian.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” he said with an unconvincing smile.

  “Would you like to explain yourself?” Ian said, barring his way.

  McNee cleared his throat and looked around nervously. “Ah, yes, sorry about that. I found myself with a second engagement the other night, and no time to contact you.”

  “Why don’t you save us both time and tell me what really happened.”

  The little man swallowed nervously. “Perhaps another time. I really must—”

  “I’m afraid I must insist,” Ian said, grasping him by the collar. “The two gentlemen who did show up gave me a beating, and might have done worse had I not escaped.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Rat Face. “That is most unfortunate.”

  “Why did you not show up for our meeting?”

  “As I said, I was overbooked—”

  “It was your idea in the first place.”

  “Alas, something pressing came up at the last minute.”

  “Did you know I was to be attacked?”

  “I swear I didn’t.”

  “What, then? What frightened you so much that you decided not to come?”

  “Please,” Rat Face said. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  He looked around furtively.

  “No one is watching us,” said Ian.

  “The walls have ears,” Rat Face said weakly.

  “What is it, Mr. McNee? What has happened?”

  He licked his thin lips. “There is . . . how can I say it? A change in the criminal community, a new . . . presence, I suppose you would call it, that no one seems to be able to identify, and yet its effect is felt everywhere.”

  “Is it a person?”

  “No one knows. It seems to be a unifying force of some kind that knows all, sees all, and is bent on controlling what happens in the criminal world.”

  “Is there a new gang in town? One of the Glasgow crews, perhaps?”

  “I think not. It would be impossible to hide an entire group of people.”

  “A man, then?”

  “It could hardly be a woman, but as I said, no one seems to have actually seen him. And yet his effect is felt everywhere—he gives orders, instructions, warnings.”

  “He must have lieutenants.”

  “They all claim never to have actually seen him.”

  “They are lying. Someone has seen him.”

  “If they have, they are not admitting it.”

  “So why did you not come to our meeting?”

  “I received a warning not to show.”

  “How did you know it was from him?”

  “I knew.”

  “Do you have the warning note?”

  Rat Face shook his head. “There was no note. The message was whispered to me as I walked along a narrow close such as this one, but when I turned to look, there was no one in sight.”

  “Do you believe he was responsible for the attack on me?”

  Rat Face squirmed uncomfortably. “Please don’t ask me anything further. I could be in danger just from speaking with you.”

  “You have Jimmy Snead to protect you.”

  “He’s no match for—”

  “For what, McNee?”

  “A Glasgow smile wouldn’t be very becoming on me, I’m afraid,” he said with a nervous little laugh. Ian could smell fear oozing like sweat from his pores.

  “So he’s behind Nate Crippen’s death?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What about Brian McKinney?” said Ian.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  McNee’s eyes widened. “What? How?”

  “Smothered in his own bed.”

  He gave a rodent-like squeak. “I know nothing of that, I swear.”

  “Why did you want to meet me yesterday? What did you intend to tell me?”

  “I really must be off,” Rat Face said, wrenching himself from Ian’s grasp.

  Realizing the man would tell him nothing further, Ian stepped aside to let him pass. As he watched him scurry down the street, he pondered what or who could terrify an entire community of thieves, blackguards, and rogues.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The girl was a mistake. He knew it moments after it happened. He had lost control, which was something he had vowed never to do. He had succumbed to anger, his privacy violated by her nosiness. Ordinary human emotions were his enemy, something he had foolishly forgotten in the heat of the moment. He would not make that mistake again. He did not enjoy killing—or so he told himself—but he had an overwhelming need to maintain control, a drive so deep he could not separate it from other, more basic needs like eating or sleeping. Years ago, he would have included women in that list, but he had weaned himself from them, training himself away from the pull of sexual attraction. Not because he was without desire, or even because it had proved disastrous in his life, but because it was another step away from total control. To desire a woman was to become vulnerable, to put oneself in her power, and that was a step into chaos.

  He would have weaned himself from food and drink, if he could, but as that was impossible, he ate sparely and drank only occasionally. As for sleep, he had never needed much of it, fortunately, and had conditioned himself to function with even less. Tobacco was the one pleasure he allowed—it sharpened his mind and senses. He was as close to a purely cerebral being as was humanly possible, he thought as he closed the heavy drapes just far enough so he could peer out of the flat’s tall windows, but no one could see in.

  He gazed down at her, lying on the floor, so tranquil and peaceful looking, save for the imprints his fingers had left on her tender white neck. He sighed. He must rid himself of her body as soon as possible. He knew how to dispose of a body, best done under the cover of darkness. He would wait until the wee hours of the morning, when the leeries had finished prowling the city with their long ladders and tapers tucked under their arms.

  Night had fallen over the city, and the great unwashed masses had sequestered themselves behind closed doors, locked and bolted against the criminal elemen
t always lurking in the darkened alleys and winding wynds of the city. But there was no bolt sturdy enough to keep the citizens of Edinburgh safe from him, no door so thick that he could not penetrate it sooner or later, if he wished. As the unsuspecting inhabitants slept, thinking themselves safe and sound in their beds, he would sit throughout the night and scheme how to consolidate his already growing riches and power.

  The séance murders had been pathetically easy to set in motion. It was all a matter of timing—his stooge had motivation; all he had to do was provide the opportunity and watch the dominoes fall. And Ian Hamilton would be too preoccupied to concentrate on what was really going on, who was really behind the slaughter. Like a master magician, he had provided a convincing distraction while consolidating his power in the criminal underworld. Hamilton had gotten too close to solving the one crime that could bring him down in an instant—he had managed to arrange Nate Crippen’s death just in time, but it was a close call, one he did not care to repeat.

  The people he preyed on were mere sheep—docile, domesticated, and dull. They had become weak and complacent, unable to see past their own immediate needs. He was an entirely different creature altogether.

  He was the Watcher.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The next morning Ian rose before the sun, venturing into the predawn stillness as the city paused to catch its breath before the start of another workday. He arrived at police chambers, well before his shift was due to start, to find Jed Corbin leaning against the building, smoking a cigarette.

  “You’re up bright and early,” said the reporter, tossing his cigarette stub into the gutter.

  “I could say the same of you,” Ian replied, opening the door to the station house.

  Corbin followed him inside. “Any autopsy results yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the cause of death?” he asked as Ian started up the stairs. When Ian didn’t respond, Corbin followed him.

  “If you spend much more time here, we’ll have to start charging you rent,” said Ian.

  “I helped you out yesterday,” Corbin said as they reached the landing. “I would say you owe me, wouldn’t you?”

  Ian turned to face him. “But it’s up to me how to repay you.”