Anne Perry - The Sins of the Wolf

Eilish leaned towards him to give him physical support, which seemed necessary to keep him upright in his chair, and immediately Baird rose and came around to him, half lifting him up.

“Come on, Uncle Hector. Let me take you to your room. I think you had better lie down for a while.”

A look of fury crossed over Quinlan’s face as Eilish and Baird between them helped Hector to his feet and led him, shambling erratically, out of the room. They could hear their footsteps lurching across the hall, and Eilish’s voice in encouragement, and then Baud’s deeper tones.

“I’m so sorry,” Oonagh apologized, looking at Monk. “I am afraid poor Uncle Hector is not as well as we would wish. This has all struck him very hard.” She smiled gently, tacitly seeking Monk’s understanding. “I am afraid he sometimes gets confused.”

“ ‘Not as well,’ “ Quinlan said viciously. “He’s blind drunk, the old ass!”

Alastair shot him a look of warning, but refrained from saying anything.

Deirdia rang the bell for the servants to clear away the dishes and bring the next course.

They were finished with dinner and back in the withdrawing room before Oonagh found her opportunity to speak privately with Monk. They were all in the room, but so discreetly that it seemed unnoticed by anyone else, she led him farther and farther from the others until they were standing in front of the large window, now closed against the rapidly chilling night, and out of earshot of anyone. He was suddenly aware of the perfume of her.

“How is your errand progressing, Mr. Monk?” she said softly.

“I have learned little that might not have been expected,” he replied guardedly.

“About us?”

There was no point in prevaricating, and she was not a woman to whom he would lie, or wished to over this.

“Naturally.”

“Have you discovered where Deirdra spends so much money, Mr. Monk?”

“Not yet.”

She pulled a small, rueful face, full of apology, and something else beyond it, deep within her which he could not read.

“She manages to go through enormous amounts, quite unexplained by the running of this house, which has been largely in my mother’s hands until her death, and of course mine.” She frowned. “Deirdra says she spends it on clothes, but she is exceptionally extravagant, even for a woman of fashion and some social position to maintain.” She took a deep breath and looked at Monk very squarely. “It is causing my brother Alastair some concern. If… if you should find out, in the course of your investigations, we would be most grateful to learn.” The ghost of a smile curved her lips. “We would express that gratitude in whatever manner was appropriate. I do not wish to insult you.”

“Thank you,” he said frankly. He was obliged to admit, his pride could be quite easily offended. “If I should learn the answer to that, which I may do, I will inform you directly I am certain.”

She smiled, in a moment’s candid understanding, and a moment later fell back into ordinary, meaningless chatter.

He took his leave shortly before a quarter to eleven, and was in the hall waiting for McTeer to emerge through the green baize door when Hector Farraline came lurching down the stairs and slid the last half dozen steps to land clinging to the newel post, his face wearing an expression of intense concentration.

“Are you going to find out who killed Mary?” he said in a whisper, surprisingly quiet for one so inebriated.

“Yes,” Monk replied simply. He did not think rational argument or explanation would serve any purpose, only prolong an encounter which was going to be at least trying.

“She was the best woman I ever knew.” Hector blinked and his eyes filled with a terrible sadness. “You should have seen her when she was young. She was never beautiful, like Eilish, but she had the same sort of quality about her, a light inside, a sort of fire.” He gazed across the hall past Monk, and for a moment his glance caught the huge portrait of his brother, which until now Monk had noticed only vaguely. The old man’s Up curled and his face filled with a vortex of emotions, love, hate, envy, loathing, regret, longing for things past, even pity.

“He was a bastard, you know-at times,” he said in little more than a whisper, but his voice shook with intensity. “The handsome Hamish, my elder brother, the colonel. I was only a major, you know? But I was a better soldier than he ever was! Cut a fine figure. Knew how to speak to the ladies. They adored him.”

He slid down to sit on the lowest step. “But Mary was always the best. She used to walk with her back so straight, and her head so high. She had wit, Mary. Make you laugh till you wept… at the damnedest things.” He looked regrettably close to weeping now, and impatient as he was, Monk felt a twinge of pity for him. He was an old man, living on the bounty of a younger generation who had nothing but contempt for him, and a sense of duty. The fact that he probably deserved nothing more would be no comfort at all.

“He was wrong,” Hector said suddenly, swiveling around to look straight at the portrait again. “Very wrong. He shouldn’t have done that to her, of all people.”

Monk was not interested. Hamish Farraline had been dead over eight years. There could be no connection with Mary’s death, and that was all that mattered now. Impatience was gnawing inside him. He moved away.

“Watch for Mclvor,” Hector called after him.

Monk turned back.

“Why?”

“She liked him,” Hector said simply, his eyes wide. “You could always tell when Mary liked someone.”

“Indeed.”

He could not be bothered to wait for McTeer. The old fool was probably asleep in his pantry. He took his own coat off the hall stand and made for the front door just as Alastair came out of the withdrawing room, apologizing for McTeer’s absence.

Monk said good-night again, nodded towards Hector on the stairs, and went out of the front door. He had refused the offer of assistance to call a cab, and had set out to walk southwards when he saw an unmistakable figure pass beneath the lamplight so rapidly he almost missed her. But no one else could have quite that ethereal grace, or that flame of hair. Most of her head was covered by the hood of her cape, but as she turned towards the light her brow was pale and the copper red clear above it.

Where on earth was Eilish Fyffe going alone, and on foot, at eleven o’clock at night?

He waited until she was well past him, across the grass of the circle to the far side of Ainslie Place, where she was about to disappear either east into St. Combe Street or south into Glenfinlas Street. Then he ran quickly and soundlessly after her, arriving at the corner just in time to see her pass under the lamp at the beginning of Charlotte Square.

Had she an assignation? It seemed not only the obvious conclusion but the only one. Why else would she be out alone, and obviously wishing not to be seen?

She was moving rapidly past the square. It was only two very short blocks before it ended in a big junction with Princes Street and Lothian Road, Shandwick Place and Queensferry Street. Where on earth was she going? He had never cared much for her, but now his opinion took a rapid and decisive turn for the worse.

She crossed the junction without a glance either way, still less behind her, and continued at a fast walk along Lothian Road. To their left were the Princes Street Gardens, and looming over them, brooding and medieval, the huge mass of the mound with the castle clinging to its top.

Monk kept an even hundred yards behind her, and was almost taken by surprise when she turned left and disappeared into Kings Stables Road. He was familiar with the way. It was his own route home, were he to walk. Not long and it would lead into the Grassmarket, and then Cowgate. Surely she could not be going that way? What would these dark, crowded buildings and narrow alleys possibly hold for a lady like Eilish?