Cold Vengeance

CHAPTER 13

Inverkirkton

JUDSON ESTERHAZY SAT AT THE SCUFFED BAR of the Half Moon Pub, nursing a pint of Guinness. The pub was tiny, befitting the size of the hamlet: three seats at the bar, four booths, two each built into opposite walls. Currently it was empty save for him and old MacFlecknoe, the barkeep, but it was almost five PM and that would change very soon.

He drained his glass, and MacFlecknoe bustled over. “Will you be having another, sir?” he asked.

Esterhazy made a show of considering this. “Why not?” he said after a moment. “I don’t suppose Dr. Roscommon will mind.”

The barkeep chuckled. “Sure, and it’ll be our secret.”

As if on cue, Esterhazy saw the doctor through the large round window in the front door of the pub. Roscommon walked briskly down the street, stopping at the door of his practice, which he unlocked with a deft turn of his wrist. Esterhazy watched as the man disappeared inside the building, closing the door after him.

While pretending to have a heart attack the day before, Esterhazy had a clear image in his mind of what the local doctor would look like: bluff and red-faced, aging but muscular, as accustomed to grappling with sick cows and horses as with people. But Roscommon had proved a surprise. He was thin and fortyish, with bright alert eyes and an intelligent expression. He had examined his new patient with a cool, relaxed professionalism that Esterhazy could only admire. Quickly determining that the chest pains were nothing serious, Roscommon nevertheless recommended a few days of rest. Esterhazy had expected this, and in fact welcomed it: now he had an excuse to hang around the village. And he had met the local doctor: his main purpose. He’d hoped to befriend the doctor and extract some information from him, but the man had proven the very picture of Scottish reserve, with little to say beyond what was necessary for medical advice. That might be his nature — or he might be hiding something.

As he sipped the fresh Guinness, Esterhazy wondered again what a man like Roscommon was doing in a one-horse town like Inverkirkton. He clearly had the ability to open a lucrative practice in a bigger city. If Pendergast, against all odds, had survived the mire, Roscommon was the man he’d have gone to; he was the only game in town.

The door to the pub opened and a woman came in — Jennie Prothero. Already, Esterhazy felt like he’d met practically the whole damn town. Mrs. Prothero ran the village’s curio-and-souvenir shop and — since that business wasn’t exactly lucrative — took in laundry on the side. She was plump and amiable, with a face almost as red as a lobster. Despite the mild October day, her neck was heavily swathed in a wool scarf.

“Hullo, then, Paulie,” she said to the bartender, settling onto one of the two free bar stools as demurely as her two hundred pounds would allow.

“Afternoon, Jennie,” MacFlecknoe replied, dutifully wiping the scarred wooden counter in front of her, drawing a pint of bitter, and placing it on a coaster.

The woman turned to Esterhazy. “And how are you today, Mr. Draper?”

Esterhazy smiled. “I’m quite better, thanks. Just a pulled muscle, it would seem.”

She nodded knowingly. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“I have your Dr. Roscommon to thank.”

“He’s a fine one, and no mistake,” the bartender said. “We’re lucky to have him.”

“Yes, he seems like an excellent doctor.”

MacFlecknoe nodded. “London trained, and all.”

“Frankly, I’m surprised there’s enough here to keep him occupied.”

“Well, he’s the only medical fellow for twenty miles ’round,” Prothero said. “At least, since old Crastner passed away last spring.”

“So he’s quite busy?” Esterhazy asked, taking a casual pull from his pint.

“That he is,” said MacFlecknoe. “Takes callers at all hours.”

“All hours? I’m surprised to hear that. I mean, with a country practice.”

“Well, we have emergencies here, just like everywhere else,” the bartender replied. He nodded across the street toward the doctor’s practice. “Sometimes you’ll see every light in his house ablaze, well after midnight.”

“You don’t say,” Esterhazy replied. “When was the last time that happened?”

MacFlecknoe thought. “Oh, maybe three weeks back. Maybe more. Can’t say for sure. It isn’t all that common. I remember that time, though, because his car came and went twice. Late it was — past nine.”

“It might have been poor Mrs. Bloor,” Jennie Prothero said. “She’s been poorly these past few months.”

“No, he didn’t head toward Hithe,” the bartender said. “I heard the car going west.”

“West?” the woman said. “There’s nothing that way but the Mire.”

“Maybe it was one of the guests up the lodge,” said MacFlecknoe.

The woman took a pull of bitter. “Now that you mention it, there were some linens from the doctor’s practice sent in for laundry around then. Bloody as you please, they were.”

“Really?” Esterhazy asked, his heart quickening. “What kind of linens?”

“Oh, the usual. Dressings, sheets.”

“Well, Jennie, that’s not uncommon,” said the barkeep. “Farmers ’round these parts are always having accidents.”

“Yes,” said Esterhazy, speaking more to himself than the others. “But not in the middle of the night.”

“What was that, Mr. Draper?” Jennie Prothero asked.

“Oh, nothing.” Esterhazy drained his pint.

“Would you care for another, then?” the barkeep asked.

“No, thank you. But please let me set one up for yourself and Mrs. Prothero.”

“I’ll do that, sir, and thank you most kindly.”

Esterhazy nodded, but he didn’t glance toward the barkeep. His eyes were trained on the circular window in the pub door, and the cream-colored office of Dr. Roscommon that lay across the street.