“Hold on a minute,” said Ian. “Just exactly where are you sleeping?”
“I let him use your bed,” said Donald.
Ian frowned. “I never suggested—”
“You weren’t usin’ it, were ye?” said Derek. “An’ don’ worry—I took a bath.”
“He can move to the couch when you turn in,” Donald said.
“He most certainly will,” Ian muttered as the boy trundled off to bed, the curiously passive Bacchus hanging limply in his arms.
Donald leaned over to put a log on the fire. “This wood is wet, but it’s all I have at the moment.”
Ian took the pearl earrings from the pocket of his waistcoat, where he had been carrying them all day, and laid them on the small mahogany table by the sofa.
When Donald saw them, he went pale. “How did you get these?” he asked quietly.
“So you recognize them.”
“Of course I recognize them! How did they survive the fire?”
Ian lowered himself onto the sofa. Lacing his fingers together, he leaned forward and fixed his gaze upon his older brother. “If you know something you haven’t told me, now would be the time to say so.”
Donald took a seat across from him. “Do you really think I would hide anything from you?”
“You hid the fact that our mother had a lover.”
“But I told you!”
“Not until two months ago. Why did you wait so long?”
“You were so young at the time—”
“Too young for the truth?”
“It would have just upset you.”
“What else are you hiding from me?”
“Nothing—I swear.”
Ian looked at his brother’s face, shiny with sweat and sincerity. Ian had no idea what secrets might still be lurking in family closets, and perhaps Donald was as much in the dark as he was.
“So where did you get these?” his brother repeated.
Ian told him of his meeting with Rat Face. Donald listened closely, and when Ian had finished, was silent for some time. The only sounds in the room were the soft hissing of the damp wood in the grate and the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.
“Then the fire was set deliberately?” Donald said finally.
“It appears that way.”
“By whom, and why?”
“The obvious answer would be some vengeful miscreant from Father’s past.”
“He did put away a fair number of criminals.” Donald leaned back against the couch cushions and sighed. “You will never understand this, but I have never wanted a drink so much since I gave up alcohol.”
“I do understand. I could do with one myself.”
“Please don’t abstain on my account.”
“It won’t make you—”
“I would be a sorry specimen if that were all it took to weaken my resolve.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Allow me some vicarious pleasure.”
Ian went to the sideboard and poured himself a generous tumbler of whisky.
“I just want to smell it,” Donald said, leaning over the glass and inhaling deeply. With a sigh, he pushed the medical textbooks to the side and sat back down on the sofa. “Now then, what are you going to do about this new information?”
“I’m going to track down this Nate Crippen and wring the truth out of him.”
“Mind how you go, Ian. These are murky waters.”
“I mean to get to the bottom of this,” he said, taking a drink of whisky, feeling the welcome burn as it slid down his throat.
“There are evil forces in this godforsaken town. I should hate to lose my landlord in a violent way,” Donald added with a sly smile.
“I have no intention of dying.”
“I am glad to hear it, but if you delve deeper into this, there may be others who have a different notion.”
At that moment the wind picked up outside, hurling a sheet of freezing rain at the window. It slapped against the panes before sliding to the ground.
“‘Hell is empty, and all the devils are here,’” Donald murmured.
The quote from The Tempest seemed appropriate, given the onslaught of weather outside. Ian shivered, unable to shake the thought that perhaps his brother was right.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ian did not fall asleep immediately. The storm gathered in volume as it swept in from the sea, carrying more freezing rain and hail, shaking the window frames and rattling the panes. He lay awake listening to the howl of the wind, imagining the creatures out in the fields beyond town, huddled miserably against each other in wet masses, waiting out the storm. He was glad to have a warm bed and a fire to come home to, but could not escape thoughts of Edinburgh’s unluckier citizens, with little more shelter than sheep or cattle out in cold, comfortless pastures.
When he finally fell asleep, he drifted in and out of disturbing dreams before finding himself in his parents’ house before the fire. Somehow vaguely aware he was dreaming, Ian drifted from room to room, looking for other members of his family, when he heard raised voices coming from behind a closed door.
His parents were arguing, though he was unable to make out what they were saying. He put an ear to the keyhole but could not distinguish actual words, though it was clear they were both agitated. His mother rarely expressed anger, and it was startling to hear the edge in her voice. As he listened, his dog, Rex, pushed his wet nose into Ian’s palm. Ian stroked his head absently, but the dog poked his muzzle more insistently into his hand, as if trying to get Ian’s attention.
Turning away from the closed door, Ian smelled smoke, terror filling his being so completely he was unable to move. He tried to knock on the door, but his body would not obey his commands. His throat was equally unresponsive to his frantic attempts to call out, frozen, as if panic had drained the air from his body. The smoke thickened, filling the hallway, and he could hear the hiss and crackle of flames coming from behind him.
He finally managed to turn around, and through the gathering smoke, he saw a figure coming toward him. It was a human form but seemed to be made of fire. As it approached Ian, he saw that it was wearing a long, gleaming white robe. From its head sprouted a single flame, like the head of a candle. Neither the age nor the sex of the creature was evident, and as it came closer, it stretched its shimmering arms toward him.
He awoke with a gasp, the smell of smoke still in his nostrils. He tiptoed through the silent flat to see the fire smoldering feebly in the grate. His brother lay fast asleep on the sofa, a discarded medical textbook on the carpet next to him. Bacchus had reclaimed his spot on Donald’s stomach, glancing sleepily at Ian through half-closed eyes. The ticking of the hall clock was the only sound apart from his brother’s light snoring. The freezing rain had abated, leaving a moody, starless sky as a sliver of moon struggled to break through the clouds.
Since Donald was on the sofa, Ian wondered what had become of Derek. The last he remembered was his brother ushering the sleepy boy from his bedroom. Tiptoeing into Donald’s room, he found Derek fast asleep in his brother’s bed, nearly obscured beneath a mountain of quilts. Had the cold the boy endured day after day seeped into his bones, so that no amount of blankets could warm him? He wondered if Donald had given up his bedroom out of sentiment, or simply fallen asleep before reclaiming it. He knew Donald well enough to know that if questioned about it, his brother would claim he had merely surrendered to exhaustion while studying.