Edinburgh Twilight (Ian Hamilton Mysteries Book 1)

by Carole Lawrence

  What did it mean, this wretched life, if one had no power to right what was wrong, no matter the cost? Henry had no illusions about what it would mean to his career if he went to the police. He lit another cigarette with trembling fingers. Inhaling deeply, he savored the harsh tobacco as it slid down his throat, followed by the calming rush of the drug, which both sharpened his reasoning and relaxed his anguished spirit. Until now, the killer had taken the lives of strong young men who were capable of defending themselves—but this! Surely this latest outrage demanded retribution in this life, if not in the next. He could hardly bear to look at the newspaper sprawled upon the coffee table, where he had flung it when he first read the terrible news.

  He took a last drag from his cigarette, then stabbed it out in the crystal ashtray, pressing so hard, he nearly burned his fingertips. He took a deep, ragged breath and straightened his spine. He had come to a decision. He wheeled about and strode to the coatrack, grabbing his coat as his hand closed on the front-door handle. When he pulled it toward him, he was astonished to see the man standing before him in the hall.

  “How long have you been standing here?” Henry croaked hoarsely; his voice seemed to have deserted him. “Have you been spying on me?”

  His tormentor smiled. “Going somewhere?”

  “I need to buy cigarettes,” Henry muttered, avoiding eye contact.

  “That’s strange,” the man replied, looking over his shoulder at the fresh pack on the coffee table. “You have a newly opened box right there.”

  “I need to take some air. Let me pass!” Henry replied tightly, trying to push past him.

  His opponent stood his ground, the smile fading. “What’s the rush?” He grasped Henry by the wrist, twisting it behind his back.

  Henry ground his teeth as the pain shot up his arm. “Let—me—go,” he rasped, but the other man was stronger, and forced him back into the room.

  “I say, you’re not in a very friendly mood,” his adversary said, locking the door behind him. His glance fell upon the newspaper on the coffee table and he frowned. “Dear me, have you been reading the paper? You really should stay away from upsetting news—remember your delicate constitution.”

  Henry attempted to light another cigarette, but his hands shook so violently, he dropped it on the floor.

  “You don’t look well at all. Are you still having trouble sleeping?”

  “I am sleeping quite well.”

  “You always were a rotten liar,” his antagonist replied, advancing toward him. “And you really shouldn’t believe everything you read in the paper.”

  Henry took a step back. “Keep away from me.”

  His visitor smiled, and in that smile all the evil of the world seemed to reside. “Relax. What are you so afraid of?”

  “Just keep your distance.”

  “I thought that you might react badly to all that lurid newspaper coverage. It appears I was right.”

  “I have no idea what you mean,” Henry replied, but he knew the look on his face gave him away.

  “Pity you never learned to lie well—I could have taught you. I am quite good at it.”

  “Very well,” Henry croaked as panic closed off his throat. “Why don’t you teach me?”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that now.”

  Henry backed away, knocking over a Chinese vase, which tumbled from its perch, shattering on the parquet floor.

  “I’m disappointed in you,” his tormentor said, advancing toward him with the measured stride of a tiger stalking its prey.

  Henry’s instinct told him to avoid turning his back on his opponent, but he also knew he couldn’t fend him off barehanded. Remembering the steel letter opener in the desk drawer, he spun around, pulled the drawer open, and clawed through its contents frantically.

  His fingers clutched the pearl handle just as he felt strong hands closing around his neck.

  As his breath deserted him, Henry closed his eyes, letting his body go limp and leaning into his fate, inevitable as it was. The last thing he felt, as the darkness overtook him, was relief—relief that it would all soon be over, and at last he would be able to rest.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  As the heavy wooden door of the High Street police station closed behind him, Ian Hamilton stepped from the building to see Derek McNair waiting on the other side of the road, leaning against a tethering post, arms crossed. There were stains on his cheeks where tears had scraped vertical lines through the dirt and grime. Derek’s eyes were swollen and red, and his chin, though firmly clenched, threatened to give way any moment.

  “You’ve heard, then,” Ian said.

  “Aye,” the boy replied.

  “Who told you?”

  “It’s in all th’ papers.”

  “I’m so sorry. I know Freddie was your mate.”

  “Yeah,” Derek said, compressing his lips tightly. “Right.”

  “He seemed like a nice boy.”

  “Lot nicer ’an me, which is pro’bly why e’s dead.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “In the Grassmarket, the day afore he were . . . found.”

  “Approximately what time?”

  “About ten in th’ morning.”

  “Did you see him with anyone suspicious?”

  Derek shook his head. “Naw. We was . . .”

  “Working the crowd?”

  “Don’ know what ya mean.”

  “For God’s sake, I’m not going to haul you in for pickpocketing!”

  “We was workin’ the crowd, yeah.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Derek kicked at a stone in the road. “That’s when me an’ Freddie had a fight, and I went off an’ left him there.”

  “Anything else you can remember? Was the Grassmarket crowded?”

  “Aye. It were market day, an’ there were lots a folks out and about.”

  “Very well,” said Ian, heading off down the High Street in the direction of Edinburgh Castle, black and solitary on its slab of rock. Derek fell in beside him, scurrying to keep up with the detective’s long stride. They walked in silence before Ian stopped, in the shadow of St. Giles’, its Gothic arches hovering over them like great stone arms.

  “Well?” he said. “Why are you following me?”

  “’Cause you obviously need help.”

  “Do I?”

  “Well, ye need sommit, don’ ye?” the boy cried, releasing a torrent of tears and anger. “Else ye would’ve caught ’im by now—but ye haven’t, ’ave ye?”

  “No, we haven’t,” Ian replied. “And since you’re so keen on helping me, I have a question for you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you tell George Pearson about the playing cards?”

  Derek cocked his head to one side. “Don’ know what ye mean, mate.”

  “You did tell him, didn’t you?”

  “Wha’ if I did?”

  “It’s privileged police information.”

  “I’m the one what foun’ the card on that poor bloke an’ gave it ye.”

  Ian frowned. “In the future, please refrain from divulging such information to anyone.”

  Derek kicked a stone out of his path. It skittered across the cobblestones and into the gutter. “Ye coulda told me earlier. But like it or not, I’m in it much as you now.”

  “Look, I’m really sorry about your friend,” Ian said.

  Derek shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Fellas like him an’ me aren’t missed much by anyone.”

  As they passed the National Gallery, a couple of toffs in their Sunday best strolled by. The younger one, a slim, black-haired fellow with an arrogant swagger, raised an eyebrow at Derek, flicking his ivory-handled cane toward the boy.

  “I say, Rodney, there’s one of your typical Scottish ‘raggediers’ now.” His accent was British, exaggeratedly well-bred.

  “Why, so it is,” replied his companion, a striking fellow with a neatly trimmed silver beard and ironic blue eyes.
“Here you go, lad—here’s a shilling for you,” he said, tossing a coin at Derek.

  It landed at his feet, and both men laughed.

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Pick it up,” said the one with the raven hair.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t catch it before the rats could come and carry it off,” the other one remarked.

  Ian was unaware of having moved at all until he found himself grasping the black-haired man’s elegant frock coat by the lapels.

  “He doesn’t need your stinking charity!” he hissed, his Highland accent thickening as it did in times of stress. He pulled the man’s face closer to his, inhaling the lavender pomade wafting from his hair. “If he wanted to, he could take all your money without either of you neeps being any the wiser.”

  “Look here, my good man,” began the silver-bearded one, but Ian wheeled around and shoved his police badge in the man’s face.

  “If I so much as catch a glimpse of either of you around here again, I’ll have you hauled to the police station for disturbing the peace!”

  “Now see here,” said the other man, but Ian silenced him with a glare that could have burned paint off metal.

  “Be on your way—now,” he said, “unless you fancy spending the night in a cell.”

  Red-faced, the men sputtered and spewed a feeble protest, but soon took to their heels, striding rapidly away and throwing glances behind them from time to time to see if Ian was in pursuit.

  “Guess you showed them,” Derek observed when they had gone.

  “They had it coming,” Ian muttered, resuming his journey along the High Street.

  Derek scrambled after him. “Wha’s a ‘neep,’ anyway? I thought it meant a turnip.”

  “It’s Highland slang for ‘idiot.’”

  “Good one,” Derek said, brightening a bit. “Callin’ someone a turnip. Gotta share that one with Fred—” He broke off and took a long, ragged breath.

  Ian laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll catch him. By God, if I have to throttle him with my own two hands, he will pay, I promise you that.”

  Derek dug something out of his pocket and held it out to Ian. “Here, I wan’ ye ta have this.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s me lucky stone. Ye might need it.”

  It was hardly more than a pebble, perfectly round and polished to a sheen from being in the boy’s pocket so long. Ian slipped it into his jacket pocket. “You know,” he said as a tear snaked its way down the boy’s filthy cheek, “it wasn’t your fault. It could have happened to anyone—to you, for example.”

  “It wouldn’t a happened ta me ’cause I’m not like Freddie! He were always too trustin’ by half—I always told ’im so. I tried ta look after ’im, like, but I weren’t there when he needed me.”

  “Sometimes people have to learn to look out for themselves.”

  “Is ’at what you think, mister?” Derek said, squinting up at him in the bright, cold-afternoon light.

  “Yes,” Ian said, but a little worm of doubt began to gnaw its way into his ear as he turned south on Bank Street. He wondered what his brother was up to, and where he was, as guilt burned a little hole in his heart.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Ian wasn’t surprised when Lillian insisted Derek join them for Sunday afternoon dinner, and even less surprised when the boy eagerly accepted. He was more surprised when Lillian agreed to DCI Crawford’s request to fill in for the absent sketch artists.

  “It might be fun to get out my charcoals again,” she said. “Ever since dear Alfie died, I’ve been meaning to get back to my art. And I would like to help—this has gone on long enough.”

  “Can you be available at a moment’s notice?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “The witness said he’d come by after church today. If the boy doesn’t show up at the station house by tomorrow, I’ll haul him in myself,” Ian said as his aunt handed him three warmed plates from the oven.

  “I think we’ll eat in here,” she said, laying out three places on the round table in the parlor. “It’s a chilly day, and I won’t have to light the fire in the dining room if we dine in here.”

  Derek looked around the room reverently, as though he had entered a fairy palace, touching the polished ivory keys on the piano and running his hand over the marble fireplace mantel.

  “You can wash up through there,” Lillian said, pointing the way to the lavatory.

  He obeyed, treading carefully on the hall runner carpet, as if he feared he might plunge through it. While he was away, Ian explained to Lillian that the strangler’s latest victim was Derek’s friend.

  She crossed her arms and frowned. “Do you not have room for him to stay for a while? He’s just a wee thing.”

  “Physically, perhaps, but hardly in personality.”

  “Ach, Ian, would it be so much trouble?”

  “What if Donald comes back?”

  “Then he can sleep on the sofa. Are you not afraid the boy himself may be the next victim?”

  “I suppose it’s possible, but—”

  “Very well—it’s settled, then.”

  Ian sighed. When Lillian was determined to prevail, there was no point in arguing. He felt overrun by uninvited guests of late—Donald, the cat, and now Derek. Solitary by nature, Ian did not appreciate sharing his space with anyone, let alone a pickpocketing street urchin. The British fop had called the boy a “raggedier,” and in spite of his loathing of everything those men represented, Ian had to admit it was a felicitous description.

  His heart softened a bit when the raggedier, face scrubbed, appeared in the hallway, surveying the feast Lillian was setting on the table.

  “Now then,” his aunt said after they had seated themselves, “will it be sausages or fried fish—or both?”

  “Both, please, mum,” Derek replied, eyeing the food hungrily.

  Lillian beamed at him. “I thought so.”

  “Much obliged,” Derek mumbled through a mouthful of bread smeared liberally with sweet creamery butter.

  Lillian regarded the boy with fond satisfaction. Ian knew how she loved feeding people, remembering with a pang it was a trait she shared with his mother. “You’d best have a bit o’ tatties as well, laddie,” she urged the boy, who didn’t need to be asked twice.

  His aunt had a way of sprinkling her conversation with Scottish words and phrases, as though trying to reinforce her identity. Edinburgh was undoubtedly the country’s most cosmopolitan city; at times one could almost forget it was Scottish at all, so filled with visitors from every part of Europe and beyond.

  “Do you remember the hypnotist I saw at the Theatre Royal?” Lillian asked as she tucked her napkin under her chin. No one in Edinburgh’s polite society would think of doing such a thing—but she was a Glaswegian, born and bred.

  “How could I forget? You gushed on about him for days,” Ian said, helping himself to boiled potatoes and fried cod.

  Derek let out a snicker, which he attempted unsuccessfully to smother in his napkin.

  “Young man, it’s unseemly to mock your elders,” Lillian reproached sternly.

  “Sorry, mum,” he mumbled through a mouthful of mushy peas.

  “Monsieur Le Coq, wasn’t it?” said Ian. “Or something similarly preposterous. He’s still playing there, I believe.”

  “I was thinking of going again—that is, if you’d like to join me.”

  “Hang on a minute,” said Derek. “Was he stayin’ at the Waterloo Hotel?”

  “I have no idea,” Lillian replied. “Why do you ask?”

  “I passed by there on me way t’meet you,” he said to Ian.

  “I suppose their clientele offer choice pickings?” Ian remarked.

  Derek ignored the barb. “I were passin’ by and I ’eard some fellas what worked there standin’ jes’ outside, sayin’ as how this fancy performer had jes took ’is own life in ’is hotel room, like.”

  “What—how?”

  “These blok
es said ’e was found hangin’ from the rafters in ’is own room.”

  “That can’t be!” Lillian cried.

  “And you’re sure this was at the Waterloo Hotel?” Ian said.

  “Yep, ’at’s what I said.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me,” Ian said, rising suddenly from the table.

  His aunt looked alarmed. “What’s the matter?”

  “I need to assure myself of something,” he said, hurrying out to the front hall.

  Lillian scurried after him, her napkin fluttering beneath her chin like an oversized clerical collar. “What is it, Ian?”

  “Don’t worry, Auntie—I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said, kissing her papery cheek. “But I must be certain.”

  “But your dinner—”

  “I’ll return later. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “It will get cold,” she said forlornly.

  “Then I shall have it cold.”

  “Kin I come?” Derek said from the doorway.

  “No,” Ian replied firmly, throwing on his cloak. “Stay here and take care of my aunt—and mind you help her tidy up.”

  He was out the door before either of them could utter another word.

  Seated in the back of a hansom cab rumbling over North Bridge, Ian pulled from his vest pocket the letter he had so carefully plucked from all the others. Beneath the elegant crest of the Waterloo Hotel stationery were the words that had so struck him at the time. Catch him before I kill him.

  Perhaps at last, he thought, all the disparate story elements were finally coming together.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  All around him, the city lay in Sunday evening stillness, a great sleeping beast at rest before gathering itself for another Monday morning assault. The cab took the turn onto Princes Street, passing the Duke of Wellington statue, gleaming cold and dark in the moonlight, the Iron Duke captured in bronze, forever a young warrior on a charging stallion.

  Waterloo Place, the eastern extension of Princes Street, was the city’s premier shopping venue, with its elegant stores and well-dressed denizens. The neoclassical architecture of Edinburgh’s New Town had no better example than in the Waterloo Hotel, with its grand arches and magnificent view of Holyrood Park.