She smiled and began threading another needle. “And you—are you a believer?”
“The whole question strikes me as irrelevant.”
“What about the existence of good and evil?”
“I don’t see why God should enter into it. If you are being virtuous only to enter into heaven and avoid damnation, then aren’t you just thinking of yourself?”
“Does your brother share your beliefs?”
He looked at her sharply, but she was concentrating on her work—perhaps to avoid meeting his eye. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“He was such a brilliant young man,” Aunt Lillian said, cross-stitching the hem of the tablecloth.
“He’s a bloody genius,” Ian muttered. “That doesn’t excuse him.”
“Must you be so harsh on your brother? He suffered so when the fire took your parents.”
“And I didn’t?”
She laid down her sewing and put a hand on his arm. “Donald doesn’t have your strength of character. He was always high-strung, overly sensitive. He has your father’s darkness in him. You’re more like your mother—she was the rock in the family.”
“Donald’s far cleverer than I am.”
Lillian smiled sadly. “Sometimes being clever makes it more difficult to be happy.”
“It’s not about being happy—it’s about doing what needs to be done.”
She put down her sewing and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps Donald is doing what needs to be done right now, for him.”
He looked into her clear blue eyes, so full of concern and compassion, and sighed. “Oh, Auntie, if only everyone in the world were more like you.”
“Well!” she said. “I’m glad you finally realized that. And you can tell your boss that I should be delighted to work for him. Now then, how about some more tea?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The man standing alone in the darkened street gazed up at the lighted turrets of Edinburgh Castle, glowing dimly through the fog. His left hand tightened around the silk scarf in his pocket. Sunday, not a good night for hunting—and the rain pelting the city for the past week had left everything soggy and damp and smelling of mildew. Weary of battling the inclement weather, people were staying home. Instead of venturing out to the pubs, they were bundled up in front of their fires, sipping tea laced with whisky or hot buttered rum. Useless sods, he thought as a fat rat scuttled out from behind a trash bin and down a sewer grate.
He stepped into a covered alley as the rain began to spit from the sky again, coming down in thin, sharp shards. Standing next to a rain barrel filled to the brim, he shook the droplets from his coat and leaned against the cold stone wall of the near building. He fingered the scarf in his pocket with longing. Plying his trade on a night like this was too risky; the city was too quiet, and someone was likely to spot him. When the streets were filled with roaming hordes of revelers, he was much less likely to stand out or be remembered. Discretion was part of his code, being very much the better part of valor.
If someone were by chance to see a prostrate form lying in some deserted wynd or close, it might at first appear to be another drunken hoodlum, hardly worth a second glance. He liked to keep a vigil near the corpse, reliving his triumph. And when somebody took the trouble to look closer, he would be there to see the expressions of astonishment and horror as his handiwork was discovered. But by the time the police were summoned, he would be well away—no point in pushing his luck.
He sighed and rested his head against the wall, thinking of the last one. Not nearly as pretty as Stephen Wycherly, but fresh and sturdy and so very strong, like a young ox. Not strong enough, of course—none of them were, in the end. Brimming with anger—oh, how the young man had wanted a fight! He closed his eyes now, feeling the muscular flesh against his as the victim struggled. His groin tightened at the thought of the taut, firm body he had held the power of life and death over. One more twist of the ligature, and he could extinguish that life as easily as blowing out a candle. He almost felt regret, recalling a fleeting impulse to let this one live—not from pity or compassion, but from a desire to prolong the experience.
His groin swelled, pressing against the cloth of his linen pants, his breath deepening as his grip on the scarf tightened. With his other hand, he liberated his engorged flesh, stroking it as he contemplated his latest conquest. He thought about the young man’s breath, so hot and hoarse in his ear, and how he pressed his face against the fellow’s cheek as he twisted the scarf tighter around his neck. Just as his victim was about to lose consciousness, he released his grip, allowing him to breathe for a while before pulling the ligature taut again . . .
Sweetness flooded his limbs, and he shuddered with spasms as his seed spurted out, mingling with the rain as it fell upon the already drenched cobblestones. He watched it trickle into the gutter, to be carried into the city’s underground sewer system to mingle with the sins of an entire populace. A smile lifted the corner of his mouth as he splashed his hands in the water gushing from a spout above the rain barrel.
He closed his eyes again, but this time his father’s voice rang in his ears.
“Useless! How can anyone be so weak and useless?”
His forehead burned with shame at the memory, and he tried to shake it from his brain, but that just made it burrow in deeper, like an evil parasite.
“Why can’t you be a proper man like your brother? What are you? A weak old woman! Pick yourself up and come at him again!”
The alley he was standing in vanished, replaced by the fenced-in yard behind the crofter’s hut of his childhood. He could feel the sod beneath his feet, soft and slippery, so hard to get a firm footing in. He saw the white plumes of his father’s breath in the damp air, heard his brother’s wheezy breathing, as he inhaled the sour smell of his own terror. Wiping the sweat from his clammy forehead, he staggered toward his brother, fists flailing. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of his mother’s white, terrified face peering out from the kitchen window.
He was eight years old, his brother two years older.
He moaned like a wounded animal at the memory, clutching his head as the darkness threatened to swallow him. Oh, there was so much evil in a man, one hardly knew where to begin . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When Ian arrived at the station house early Monday morning, he was greeted by Constable Bowers.
“Boss wants to see you, sir,” he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Crawford’s office.
“What about?”
“The letters, I expect,” Bowers replied, buttoning his overcoat.
“Letters?”
“You haven’t heard?”
Ian looked around the room. Everyone was staring at him expectantly. “Apparently I’m the only one who hasn’t,” he said. “Thanks, Constable.”
“Good luck, sir,” Bowers replied before ducking out through the double doors leading to the main staircase.
Ian’s knock on Crawford’s door was greeted by a muffled grunt that might have been “Come in,” “Come bin,” or “Corn bin.” Crawford evidently had a cold—not a good sign.
The chief inspector was seated behind his desk, staring disconsolately at an untidy pile of correspondence in front of him.
“Bowers said you wanted to see me, sir?” said Ian.
“Close the door behind you,” said Crawford, blowing his nose into an enormous white handkerchief.
“You seem to have caught a cold, sir,” Ian remarked as he closed the door.
“Your stunning powers of observation have not been exaggerated,” Crawford muttered, stuffing the kerchief into his breast pocket.
“Sir?” Ian said, beginning to lose his patience but intent on not showing it.
“Well, what are you standing there for? Here they are,” he said, grabbing a fistful of letters. “Come have a look.”
“What are they, exactly?”
“Letters from every crackpot in the city purporting to be the strangler. And a
few useful suggestions on how to improve our job performance.”
“Could any of them be authentic?”
“That’s for you to decide—you’re the lead detective,” Crawford said, pushing the pile toward Ian. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like my desk back.”
Ian threw open the door and called out into the main room. “Sergeant Dickerson, would you bring me a box?”
Moments later the sergeant appeared with the requested item. Scooping the letters into the box, Ian left Crawford’s office and returned to his own desk.
“Blimey, sir,” said Dickerson, staring at the box full of correspondence.
“Roll up your sleeves, Sergeant,” said Ian. “They aren’t going to sort themselves.”
There were dozens of letters, all shapes and sizes, some just scribbled notes on bits of scrap paper, others carefully penned on good-quality paper. Some were typed. Several were from women; one wanted to meet with the strangler, claiming she could mend his evil ways. Another offered to marry Ian.
One letter stuck out from the rest. Written in a firm, masculine script, with good-quality blue ink, it was on Waterloo Hotel stationery and said simply, Catch him before I kill him.
There were no other identifying marks of any kind—it was unsigned and undated.
“What do you make of this?” Ian asked Dickerson.
The sergeant frowned and scratched his chin. “How can he kill t’strangler unless he knows who t’is?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“D’you s’pose this fellow is stayin’ at the Waterloo? It’s a fancy place.”
“It’s possible—but equally likely he used this stationery to throw us off the track.”
“So is there anythin’ we can do?”
“Not at the moment, I think,” Ian said, but he folded the letter carefully and slid it into his vest pocket.
Ian spent the rest of the day chasing down leads in the death of Bobby Tierney. His attempts met with failure—Tierney’s sister was not at home, and the neighbors were either away or uncommunicative. He hoped Sergeant Dickerson had met with better luck, having been dispatched to the other end of town to ferret out information in the Wycherly case.
Ian turned up at the station house shortly after five, disappointed and weary. The shift had just changed, but he found the ever-faithful Dickerson at his desk, working. A smile crossed the sergeant’s freckled face when he saw Ian, but a frown quickly replaced it when he saw the detective’s expression.
“Bad day, sir?”
Ian flung himself into the chair next to Dickerson’s desk. “‘I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.’”
“That’s very . . . poetic, sir.”
“Shakespeare has that reputation, Sergeant.”
“I were just puttin’ down a few remarks. Miss Harley weren’t t’home, but I told her maidservant we’d call again tomorrow.”
“Ah, yes, the niece who was in love with young Wycherly.”
“Come again, sir?”
“Wycherly’s employer, Eugene Harley, thought his niece was sweet on Stephen.”
“That could give matters an int’resting twist, sir.”
“Have you managed to locate any stationery shops in Edinburgh selling playing cards with that unusual design?”
“Not as yet, sir. Per’aps we should look at some specialty shops.”
“Good idea.”
Ian looked out the window. Night had fallen, and a blank-faced moon was already rising in the eastern sky.
“Let’s examine the elements of the crimes. What is one constant in both cases?”
“Assumin’ the two dead men are victims of the same killer, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I s’pose it’s that both victims are men.”
“Write that down—make a column called ‘Victims.’”
Dickerson complied, biting his lower lip in concentration. His handwriting was precise and small, the letters perfectly symmetrical.
“Good,” said Ian. “Now, what is the other constant in both cases?”
“The fact that they were both killed th’ same way, y’mean?”
“Ah, not just any way—they were strangled. The constant is method, Sergeant. That’s another column. Use capital letters.”
Dickerson wrote M E T H O D and drew a line beneath it.
“This tells us something about the relationship between victim and murderer.”
Dickerson’s bland face went blank. “Sir?”
“Strangulation is a very personal method of killing someone.”
“I’m ’fraid I don’ take your meaning, sir.”
“It’s not the easiest way to kill. What if the victim fights back, or manages to escape? It would be far simpler—and more reliable—to simply shoot someone, or knife them, or even bang them over the head.”
“But if there’s no weapon t’hand, might it not be a killer’s only choice?”
“Young Wycherly was pushed off the cliff after he was strangled, when the fall alone surely would have killed him. As you yourself said, why not just push him and be done with it?”
Dickerson smiled. “I did say that, didn’ I?”
“More often than not, the killer will have a personal relationship with a victim he chooses to strangle.”
“So y’think Stephen Wycherly knew his killer, then?”
“I think it quite likely.”
Constables on the evening shift were shuffling into the station, stamping snow from their boots, chatting and laughing as they headed for the tea caddy. It was the kind of bitter cold that made a hot cup of tea seem positively medicinal.
Ian leaned forward and lowered his voice.
“For some time now, Sergeant, I have made a study of certain . . . deviant personalities, people who are different from the average run-of-the-mill criminal. They are not different in degree, but in kind—they are a subspecies, as it were, not motivated by mere greed, jealousy, or revenge. Their deeds spring from a darker place.”
Dickerson’s eyes grew wide. “Are you sayin’ the killer is mad, sir?”
“He isn’t a raving lunatic—he might appear quite unremarkable to most people, perhaps even forgettable.”
“What I don’ understand is why some’un would trudge all the way t’top of Arthur’s Seat just to—”
“Perhaps because the place had some special significance to him.”
“I don’ follow, sir.”
“Mountaintops are symbolic places. If he lured Wycherly all the way up there, he may have had a reason.”
“Per’aps Wycherly encountered ’im by chance.”
“I don’t think so. He wasn’t dressed for a hike. I think the killer lured him up there with the express purpose of taking his life. And by doing so, took a tremendous chance. The two men might have been seen together, he might have failed to kill Wycherly, leaving him alive to testify against him. Wycherly was a strong young lad, and might even have managed to turn the tables.”
“So why take such a chance?” Dickerson said, chewing on the tip of his pencil.
“Exactly! I’m convinced that’s a key element to finding our man.”
“Beg pardon, sir, but we are sure it’s a man?”
“A woman of such Amazonian strength? Possible, but unlikely, I think.”
“Or two men—what if th’bloke has an accomplice?”
“Well done, Dickerson. Always question assumptions—that’s Hamilton’s First Rule of Investigative Procedure.”
“An’ what’s the Second Rule, sir?”
Ian stood up from his chair as the castle clock struck six. “Always make time for a pint or two.”
Dickerson grinned. “That’s more like it, sir—first round is on me.”
Just then, Constable Bowers approached Hamilton and Dickerson, accompanied by a stringy little man with lank gray hair and an oily complexion, dressed in a yellow sou’wester and thick-soled Wellingtons.
“Beg pardon, Sergeant, but Frank here says Mrs. McG
inty’s pig’s broke out of its pen again.”
Sergeant Dickerson frowned. “Not my problem, Constable—I got more important fish t’fry.”
Bowers shifted his feet and coughed. “Frank here says you have a way with the pig—that you, er, know how to talk to it.”
The fair skin on Dickerson’s neck flushed a mottled red. “An’ just how does one talk to a pig, Constable?”
The stringy little man stepped forward. “Ach, ye jes whisper in her ear, and she’ll do anythin’ ye want—I’ve seen ye do it!” His voice was rough as a metal grate.
Several of the other constables snickered, and Ian glared at them. Dickerson flushed a deeper red and sprang from his seat.
“Come along—let’s get this over with! I’ll join you shortly, sir,” he told Ian, “after I deal wi’ this wretched pig.”
Hamilton smiled. “‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,’ Sergeant.”
“It’s all very well for you t’say, sir,” Dickerson grumbled as he shoved on his hat. “You might feel different if it were you herdin’ a bloody pig.”
He stomped out of the station amidst stifled laughter from his colleagues. Throwing on his cloak, Ian mused that even Edinburgh’s police force needed a good belly laugh now and again. He didn’t much feel like laughing himself as he followed the others from the warmth and light of the station house into the waiting night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sergeant Dickerson looked around uncomfortably as he pushed open the thick front door of the Hound and Hare later that evening, nicked and scarred by centuries of kicks, cuts, and fists. He didn’t protest when Hamilton suggested they meet there—he knew it was pathetic, but he desperately wanted the detective’s approval.
William Chester Dickerson—Billy Boy to his friends in Lancashire—was of meek disposition. Places like the Hound and Hare intimidated him. It catered to rough trade, the sort of fellows who bullied him at school, putting nettles in his trousers or hanging him upside down from the nearest low tree branch. One sadistic Irish hooligan by the name of Charlie Higgins liked to pour treacle into his desk, drowning his books and papers in the sticky stuff.
Edinburgh Twilight (Ian Hamilton Mysteries Book 1) Page 10
