The Edinburgh Dead

The Holy Land

Superintendent James Robinson was propped up in a chair with a high, curved back of solid oak. Cushions and pillows were packed in behind him, and under his arms. He looked a touch wan, a touch red around the eyes, and as tired as Quire had seen him in a long time. His wife was an intermittent, solicitous presence, drifting in and out of the room and each time casting a surreptitious glance of concern her husband’s way. Quire suspected that she did not entirely approve of his presence in their apartment atop the police house, but it had been Robinson who had asked to see him.

“The gout still afflicting you?” Quire asked.

“That, and a fair herd of other things,” Robinson replied. “Most of them nothing to do with the failings of this carcass of mine. The board find some new petty fault to charge me with every week, it seems. The Provost has never much liked me, truth be told, nor I him. He relishes every chance to prick me. Including that offered by dead kirk elders in Duddingston. And now there’s this complaint.”

“Complaint?” said Quire, and then, realisation dawning: “Against me?”

Robinson gave a curt nod of his head.

“It’s a serious charge. Not one I believe a word of, and I’ve made that clear, but it’ll take a bit of tidying away. A Mr. John Ruthven has reported that you tried to sell back to him some stolen property of his that you recovered. A silver box. Says when he refused to pay, you let him have it only after lengthy dispute, and that you’ve now accused his man of involvement in body snatching by way of revenge.”

Quire snorted in contemptuous disbelief.

“That’s a lie.”

“Of course it is. You’ve your fair share of faults, Quire, but stupidity and venality are not amongst them. But still: when you were drinking and keeping the wrong kind of company, those charges I could quiet easy enough; this is a different sort of thing.”

Quire sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down on the thick rug. These rooms were in sharp contrast to the police house at the summit of which they perched. All carpets and cushions and homely understatement. Soft. The place felt comfortably inhabited, in a way no abode of Quire’s had ever achieved. It was all entirely out of tune with the mood now taking hold of him.

“That bloody bastard,” he growled.

“Sit down, man,” Robinson muttered with a placatory wave of his hand. “It’ll go no further, if I have my way. But you need to keep your wits about you. Ruthven’s not the kind of man you’re used to dealing with. I gather he went straight to the Sheriff Depute with this, favoured him with a lengthy discourse on the shortcomings of the city police. The Sheriff was not best pleased.

“It’s a cosy little fellowship that occupies the heights of our city’s society. They are a collegiate body of men, few of them inclined to think themselves fit subjects for police enquiry. I’m not sure you have ever entirely understood that, but you would do well to give it some thought. Goad one, and that one can make sure plenty of others feel it.”

“I’ve done nothing but what seemed right,” Quire said, still standing.

“I know that. And I know you: you’ve a rare affection for justice—or what you decide is justice, at least—and the stubbornness of an ill-tempered mule. Laudable attributes in many ways, and neither of them as common beneath this roof as they should be; which might be, in part, why you’ve not made yourself quite as many friends and allies here as you could do with now. But if you mean to hold your course on this, you will need to learn discretion.”

“Will you take some tea?” the superintendent’s wife asked from the doorway. “There’s no better poultice for the nerves.”

It was a genteel but pointed suggestion. Quire understood her desire to swaddle her recuperating husband in calm. He shook his head, and forced himself to fold his tense limbs down into a chair.

“No, thank you. No.”

She nodded and retired once more.

“I’m curious, though.” Robinson sniffed, pulling a blanket from the arm of his chair and settling it across his knees. “You must have shaken something loose, to drive Ruthven into making false accusations. This started with that man dead in the Cowgate, did it?”

“Edward Carlyle. Yes. He was in Ruthven’s employ, so there’s been one of his men torn to pieces in the Old Town, and another digging up graves in Duddingston. Whatever’s happening, Ruthven’s at the heart of it.”

“You’re sure of that, are you? That it was this fellow Blegg in the graveyard?”

“As sure as I can be. It was dark, and I only had a glimpse of him. It’s nothing I can prove, though.”

Robinson sniffed again.

“Makes no sense. There’s not enough coin in the corpse trade to interest a man like Ruthven. Still, he’d hardly be trying to pull you down if there was nothing to it.”

“I’ve had someone break into my home, too,” Quire muttered bitterly. “Might not be part of it, but it was like no housebreaking I’ve seen. Nothing taken but a shirt.”

That put a frown on Robinson’s brow. He leaned forward a little.

“You be careful, Adam. Could be that you’ve made yourself some bad enemies here. They’ve already killed at least one man, and that’s not the sort of folk you want knowing where you live.”

“I’ve had the same thought. Bad enough someone trying to kill me out on the ice at Duddingston, without them digging around in my home. And spreading lies about my conduct. I don’t take well to being the hunted.”

“Yet that’s what you are, it would seem.”

“If so, they’ve made themselves a worse enemy in me than they could ever be, and I know fine where Ruthven lives. If he wants to make it a personal matter between him and me, that’s a game I can play.”

“Steady, steady,” Robinson muttered. “This isn’t some street brawl or army grudge you’re mixed up in now. Needs a bit of discretion, as I said. I recommend the cultivation of it to you, one old soldier to another. You need to keep yourself clean and quiet for a bit, or the Police Board’ll have you, no matter what I might say.”

Quire ground his fingers into his temples, staring blankly into the middle distance. There was a rare ire burning in him, unlike anything he had felt for years. It had taken him a long time to get his life on to some sort of steady path, and his eyes clear enough to see it. He despised Ruthven for threatening that, and for making him angry enough that he might even threaten it himself.

“What do you mean to do?” Robinson asked quietly.

“Baird wants me to leave the Duddingston thing to others.”

“That’s good sense, for now at least. I don’t suppose he’s saying it for your good, but it’ll do you no harm to keep out of sight on that matter.”

“Ruthven told me he’d had some falling-out with the Society of Antiquaries. Might be they know something of his habits. And there’s still Edward Carlyle. I’m not ready to believe there’s nothing more to that.”

“Dogs, I hear.”

Quire gave an unguarded, derisive snort.

“When did dogs ever kill folk in the Old Town? The man breaks with Ruthven and he’s dead inside a few weeks. It’s not coincidence that stinks of. I’ve got the name of the woman he was passing time with before he died. She might be worth the talking to.” He glanced apologetically at the superintendent. “I’ll need to pay a visit to the Holy Land.”

Robinson rolled his eyes.

“Did I not just explain the merits of discretion to you, Quire? Of keeping yourself clean? You and the Holy Land don’t mix well. Was almost losing your job once before not enough for you?”

“I’m not about to start digging myself back into old holes,” Quire said quickly, anxious to reassure his patron. “I’ll be quiet about it. Quiet’s often better in the Holy Land, anyway.”

“Quiet’s always better, Adam,” Robinson grunted. “I’m glad you know as much, though the knowing and the doing seem the most distant of cousins in your case.”

The Holy Land stood shoulder to shoulder with the Happy Land and the Just Land in Leith Wynd, a narrow roadway running north from the High Street. Of the three ill-reputed tenements—each of them named with the dour irony that was the natural tenor of the city’s self-regard—it was the Holy Land that bore the foulest stains upon its character. Before ascending the common stair, Quire spared a moment to check that his baton still hung securely from his belt.

He climbed the spiral stairway, every step of which was bowed by the wear of decades. Even now, with the daylight seeping in from a few infrequent windows, he had to watch his footing. To describe the little square openings as windows was to glorify their ruined state, in truth. The glass was long gone, as were the wooden frames, all stripped out for sale or use elsewhere. Now they were nothing more than holes in the skin of the building, by which weather and a miserly ration of light were given admittance.

The first landing was deserted, which did not surprise Quire. The rest of the city might be about the day’s labours, but those who called the Holy Land home kept a different routine. Most of them would not be found out and about before midday; some were owlish creatures, rarely stirring from their lairs until the day neared its end.

From above, drifting down the gloomy stairwell, came the faint and indistinct sound of someone singing. A woman, with a sweet voice. She was drunk, of course, but still: sweet. Quire paused, just for a moment, and listened. The passing thought that here was some intoxicated, and apparently quite happy, siren calling him on to whatever rocks lay above put a wry smile on his face. Then the song collapsed into fading coughs, and the stair was silent again.

He ascended, and found two figures waiting in the shadows of the next landing. They stirred themselves and straightened as he arrived, and held their arms loose and ready. Though it was difficult to be certain in the muddy light, Quire did not think he knew either of them by sight or name. Their demeanour, however, told him all he needed to know.

“I’m not after any trouble,” he said promptly. “Just visiting a friend.”

“Is that so?” one of the men—the nearer of the two—grunted. He had big hands, and an accent fresh from the heather. Men from the north, then. A bit desperate, like as not, and thinking the sort of customers frequenting the Holy Land stair of a morning would be easy pickings.

“The thing is this,” Quire smiled, “it’s police business I’m on, and you, I would guess, might be new in the town. Now maybe you don’t know that the Widow won’t take kindly to strangers disturbing her house, and you certainly don’t know that I’m having the sort of day as’d put a saint in a foul temper, so let’s just say you go along, and we’ll not be troubling one another further.”

It was never likely to work, not with men who had encountered neither him nor his reputation before, so Quire was unsurprised when the man moved. Those big hands came up, and reached. It was slow and obvious by the measures Quire put on such things. He kicked the man, hard, in the crotch and, as he squealed and folded down, broke his nose with a rising knee.

“Don’t be stupid,” Quire told the second of them, and that was all it took to put an end to it.

“Pick him up and get him downstairs. I don’t suppose you’ve the sense for it, but I’ll tell you anyway: there’s not much room in this town for newcomers to squeeze themselves in to the sort of business you’ve chosen. Find yourselves a less perilous occupation.”

The fallen man spluttered bloodily and moaned as his comrade hauled him to his feet and helped him hobble off down the stairs. Quire stood patiently listening to their unsteady descent, just to be sure that there would be no sudden resurgence of courage or vigour. He felt sorry for them: Highland men, probably evicted from their lands, destitute, short on options. He, or his colleagues in the police house, would likely be coming across them again.

Quire turned to the nearest door. It was battered and split, clinging to its hinges with no more firm a grip than a swaying drunkard in the street might apply to some convenient railings. Disrepair was the permanent condition of most doors in the Holy Land; there was no point in mending that which the police, or the inhabitants themselves, would soon unmend. He pushed gently, advanced across the threshold and was greeted by smiles.

Emma Slight was bent over a low table, pouring whisky from an unmarked bottle into a china teacup. She was wearing only a loose, long nightgown of thin white material that did nothing to hide the weight and contour of her breasts. Catherine Heron—who was a great deal better known to Quire than was Emma—sat upright on a rickety bed, light from the narrow window above giving her limp auburn hair a hint of life. She was clearly naked, though she concealed that nakedness beneath blankets that she had drawn up almost to her chin. Her presence, entirely unexpected, discomfited Quire, and he felt a hot blush rising in his cheeks.

Cath was the younger of the two women, her features not yet dulled or slackened by the years of hard living that had taken their toll on Emma. But she followed the same path, towards the same end: the disordered mounding of the bedclothes did little to mask the presence of another in her bed.

“Sounded like you had a wee bit trouble on the stair,” Emma said placidly.

“Nothing to worry about,” Quire said.

It was a struggle to shake off the unsettling effect that the discovery of Cath here had had upon him. And to dispel the confusing, confused tremble of past and present desire it engendered.

“Will you take the morning dram with us, Sergeant?” Emma asked, extending the teacup, a healthy measure of amber liquid within it. The cup was finely painted with flowers and briars. It was chipped and cracked, but once no doubt graced the table of a grander house than this, before being liberated by some light-fingered visitor.

“No, thank you,” Quire said. “I’ll take a look at whatever that is Cath’s got hiding under her bedclothes, though.”

“Ach,” said Catherine with a pained expression, “you’ve not forgotten what it is I’ve got down there, surely?”

“Hush. I’ve no time for games, Cath. I’d not thought to find you here this morning—it’s Emma I was after a word with—and though I’m not minding you listening in, your shy friend there’s not welcome.”

“No games?” Catherine gave a disappointed pout. She was allowing the blankets to slip a little lower, revealing more pale skin. “Well, you’re not the man you used to be. Anyway, my friend’s only a wee bairn. He’d be of no interest to you.”

“Show yourself, man,” Quire snapped.

A crestfallen face shrugged its way out from beneath the bedding. Smooth and fair skin, tousled hair youthfully thick. Eyes bright with trepidation.

Quire arched his eyebrows.

“Let me guess. One of our university’s finest?”

The young man bit his lip dumbly, but Quire did not need to have his question answered to know the truth of it. He growled in irritation. The student sat up straight beside Catherine, averting his eyes, distractedly toying with a little amber bead strung on a thong about his neck.

“I see Cath’s gulled you into buying one of the Widow’s charms,” said Quire. “Comforting, to know the nation’s future rests in the hands of those who find their pleasures in the Holy Land, and think some magic trinket’ll keep them safe from the consequences.”

He took some unworthy satisfaction from the embarrassment—perhaps even shame—that put a rosy tint in the man’s cheeks. The feeling did not linger, though. He was hardly entitled to much in the way of self-righteousness on the subject of Catherine Heron’s company.

“Speaking of the Widow, does she ken you’re here?” Emma asked pleasantly. “She does like to know what’s happening before it happens.”

“You can have the pleasure of telling her yourself, Emma, after I’m done with you. It’s only a few questions I’ve got in mind.”

“Can’t help you, Mr. Quire,” the older woman said as she lifted the cup to her cracked lips.

“You might at least let me ask before brushing me away,” Quire said, and returned his attention to the bewildered youth in Catherine’s bed. “Are you a student of the sciences, or of medicine perhaps?”

He received a hesitant, faintly alarmed nod of the head in response.

“You should know better than to think that bead’s got the magic to keep you free of the pox, then.”

“He’s safe enough with me,” Cath Heron muttered, affronted.

“Oh, I know that, Cath,” Quire said quickly. “I didn’t mean…”

He took Cath’s dark frown as a warning, and abandoned the topic.

“You get yourself off, back to your books or however it is you’re supposed to be spending your time,” he snapped at the student.

Quire, Cath and Emma watched in silence as the young man hurriedly, clumsily dressed himself. Humiliation enough, perhaps, to keep him away from the Holy Land for a while.

Once he was gone, Quire turned back to Emma, who had settled on to a chair and was sipping with incongruous delicacy from her cup of whisky.

“Edward Carlyle,” Quire said.

Emma scratched the side of her nose and pretended intense interest in whatever residue her fingernail collected.

“I’m told he was keeping your company of late,” Quire persisted. “Did you know he was dead?”

She did not trouble to conceal her surprise at that, but still said nothing. Cath was less circumspect.

“Oh, that’s a shame. He seemed decent enough. Did he not say, though, that he feared for his life?”

Emma greeted the question with a scolding grimace of displeasure, but Cath was unperturbed, and shrugged her bare shoulders.

“Well, he did say it.”

“You knew him as well?” Quire asked, his heart sinking.

Finding Cath here had been dismaying enough; if she became a more central part of all this, he would find himself having to navigate treacherous waters, both personally and professionally.

To his relief, she shook her head.

“Not in the way you’re thinking.” She said it with a hint of rebuke that Quire supposed he probably deserved, for he had indeed been reaching for the easy conclusion. “Just to speak to, when he was visiting. Once the drink was in him, he always ended up fretting about what might happen to him.”

“All right, all right,” Emma interrupted. “You’ll only tell it wrong. Truth is, he talked all manner of silliness when he was in his cups, and I can’t see you making any more sense of it than I did, Mr. Quire.”

“I’ve nothing more profitable to do with my time,” Quire replied, to Emma’s evident disappointment.

“It’s your time to be wasting, I suppose,” she sniffed. “He was always on about how he’d got himself tangled up with bad folk. Evil, he called them. Never said who or why, before you ask. But he was frightened, right enough. Frightened of them, frightened of what they were doing and where it would all end, with him along for the ride.”

“Said it was the Devil’s work,” Cath observed from the bed.

“Maybe he did,” Emma continued. “Didn’t do much for his humour once he got out of it, though. Turned up here drunk as a lord, saying he was done with it all, never going back. You’d think that’d settle him some, but he was weeping like a bairn. Said they’d never let him go. He was scared as any man I’ve seen, right enough.”

“He never gave away any names?” asked Quire.

The mention of Devil’s work put him at once in mind of that strange symbol left hanging upon the door of his rooms by his uninvited visitor. The mere thought of it, and of the intrusion that it had accompanied, made him uneasy.

Emma shook her head.

“Never a name, not that I heard. Are you sure you’ll not take a dram?”

She carefully refilled her own cup as she asked the question. The death of one of her customers was not a matter to disturb the rhythms of her day.

“Let me have some of that, would you?” Cath asked, and Emma brought another teacup down from the sagging shelf upon which it rested.

Quire watched the two women sharing their whisky out into fine china. A strange, distorted mimicry of refinement. A habit that put a shape into their day just as the civil, sober ritual of tea drinking did for the kind of people who must have first owned those cups. Quire found that a melancholy thought, but it was a tangled kind of melancholy, for not so very long ago it had been him sharing the whisky with Cath, just as he had shared her bed.

“Have you not got your own rooms any more then, Cath?” Quire asked quietly.

“Roof’s leaking,” she said with a faint smile. “Emma here had a bed to spare.”

Quire nodded, and held her gaze for just a moment or two. Cath had been chief amongst those matters that had almost ended his career in the police before it was properly begun, for consorting with such as her carried the penalty of instant dismissal. Superintendent Robinson had saved him from that consequence, and Quire was glad of it, but had never freed himself of regret at the loss of her companionship. His affection for her—if that was all it could be called—had proved a stubborn thing. He had thought the passage of time might diminish it. Standing there, watching her, he learned anew just how resilient it was.