Anne Perry - The Sins of the Wolf

He walked slowly, staring around him, interested in spite of himself. The buildings were largely of stone, which gave them a dignity and permanence, and nearly all were four, five or six stories high, ending in a jumbled mass of steeply inclined roofs, dormers and fine crowstepped gables, like numerous flights of stairs amid the slates. On one gable he saw an iron cross, and then craning upwards to see the better, he noticed another, and another. It was certainly not a church, nor did it seem to have been a religious establishment of any sort.

Someone bumped into him sharply and he realized with a jolt that he had not stood still while gazing upwards, and was thus causing something of a hazard.

“Sorry,” he apologized peremptorily.

“Aye, well watch where ye’re goin’ an’ stop gaupin’, afore ye knock some poor soul into the gutter,” came the reply, in a voice so strongly accented it barely sounded like English, and yet so distinct was the diction it was understandable without effort. “Are ye lost?” The man hesitated, detecting a stranger and forgiving error because of it. Strangers were half-witted anyway, and one should not expect normal behavior from them. “Ye’re in Templelands, in the Grassmarket.”

“Templelands?” Monk said quickly.

“Aye. Where are you making for, do you know?” He was now disposed to be helpful, as good men are towards those they sense cannot care for themselves.

Monk was obliged to smile to himself. “I’ve been looking for lodgings.”

“Oh, aye? Well ye’U find a good, clean room at William Forster’s, down there at number twenty, and there’s McEwan the baker’s, next door. Innkeeper and stabler, Willie is. Ye’ll see it written up on the wall. Can’t miss that, if ye’ve eyes in yer head.”

“Thank you. I’m obliged.”

“Ye’re welcome.” He made as if to move on.

“Why Templelands?” Monk asked quickly. “What temple was there here?”

The man’s face registered amusement and mild contempt. “No temple at all. The land used to belong to the Knights Templar, long ago. You know, Crusades, and the like?”

“Oh.” Monk was surprised. He had not thought of Edinburgh as being of such age, or of the Templars so far north. Dim memories of history came back to him, names like Mary Queen of Scots, and the Auld Alliance with France, and the Stuart kings, battles on the moors above Culloden, Bannockburn, massacres in the snowbound steeps of Glencoe, secret murders like the death of Duncan, or of Rizzio, or perhaps Darnley right here in Edinburgh. It was in a mist of stories and impressions he could only dimly recall, but it was part of his northern heritage, and it made these streets with their towering houses more familiar. “Thank you,” he added, but the man was already moving away, his duty discharged.

Monk crossed over the street and walked on until he saw WM. FORSTER, STABLER amp; INNKEEPER written right across the front of a large building, between the second and third stories, and the name of McEwan’s Bakery at one end. It was a four-story building; the first two were of cut stone blocks, and the windows were large, indicating generous rooms. Several of the high chimney pots at the spine of the roof were smoking, a hopeful sign. Since he had no horse, he did not bother going through the archway into the yard, but knocked hastily on the front door.

It was opened almost immediately by a large woman, busy drying her hands on her apron. “Aye?”

“I’m looking for lodgings,” Monk replied. “Possibly for a week or two. Have you a room?”

She glanced at him rapidly, summing him up, as was her trade.

“Aye, I have.” Evidently she approved of him. If he had more clothes in his case of the same quality as those he was wearing, they alone would pay his rent for a month or more. “Come in and I’ll show ye.” She backed away to allow him in, and he followed gratefully.

Inside was narrow and dimly lit, but it smelled clean and the air was warm and dry. Someone was singing in the bowels of the kitchen, loudly, and every so often a little sharp, but it was a cheerful sound, and he felt it welcoming. She led him up three flights of stairs, puffing and blowing noisily and stopping on each landing to regain her breath.

“There,” she said between gasps when they reached the top floor and she threw open the door to the room he was to occupy. It was clean and airy and looked out over the Grassmarket and the roofs opposite.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “This will do very well.”

“Ye up from England?” she asked conversationally.

She made it sound like a foreign land, but then strictly speaking it was.

“Yes.” It was an opportunity he should not waste. There was certainly no time to spare. “Yes, I’m a legal consultant.” That was something of a euphemism, but advisable, and better than suggesting he was from the police. “Preparing for a trial concerning the death of Mrs. Farraline, up at Ainslie Place.”

“She dead?” the woman said with surprise. “How’d that happen? Still, she was getting on, so little wonder. Contesting the will, are they?”

There was interest in her face, and her assumption certainly caught Monk’s attention.

“Well, it really isn’t something I should discuss, Mrs. Forster…” He took a chance, and it was not contradicted. “But I daresay you won’t need me to tell you everything anyway?”

Her smile broadened knowingly. “Money ain’t always a blessing, Mr…?”

“Monk, William Monk,” he supplied. “Lot of money, is there?”

“Well, ye’d know that, wouldn’t ye?” Her eyes were bright brown and full of amusement.

“Not yet,” he prevaricated. “But I have my guesses- naturally.”

“Bound to be.” She nodded. “All that big printing works, been there ever since the twenties, getting bigger all the time, and that fine house up the new town. Oh yes, there’s a lot of money there, Mr. Monk. Well worth fighting over, I should think. And the old lady still owned a fair piece of it, or so I heard, in spite of Colonel Farraline being dead these eight or ten years.”

Monk thought rapidly and took a gamble.

“Mrs. Farraline was murdered, you know? That is the case I am concerned with.”

Her face was aghast.

“Ye don’t say so! Murdered? Well I never! The poor old soul. Now who in the good God’s name would have done a thing like that?”

“Well, there is suspicion it was the nurse who accompanied her on the train down to London…” He hated saying it, even in so slight a way and without naming Hester. It was almost like an admission that the idea was possible.

“Oh. What a wicked thing to do! Whatever for?”

“A brooch,” he said between his teeth. “Which she gave back, and before anyone missed it. Found it in her own baggage, by accident, or so she said.”

“Oh yes?” Mrs. Forster’s eyebrows rose with delicate skepticism. “And what would a woman like that be doing with the sort of brooch Mrs. Farraline would wear? We all know what nurses are like. Drunken, dirty and no better than they should be, most of them. What a terrible thing. The poor soul.”

Monk felt his face burning and his jaw tightened as if he would grind the words between his teeth.

“She was one of the young ladies who went out to nurse our soldiers in the Crimea-served with Miss Nightingale.” His voice was rasping and without any of the control he had sworn he would keep.

Mrs. Forster looked nonplussed. She stared at Monk, reading his face to see if he had really meant what he had said. It took her only a glance to assure herself that he did.

“Well I never,” she said again. She took a deep breath, her eyes wide and troubled. “Perhaps it was not her after all. Had ye thought o’ that?”