“I see.”
“She said ye were the best detective in Scotland.”
“Did she indeed?”
“She said ye had a gift for seein’ things others might miss.”
“I hope I can live up to my aunt’s flattering report. Good day, Miss Sullivan.”
“Good day, sir, and thank you, sir.”
After she left, Ian looked around for Sergeant Dickerson. Not seeing him, he set off in the direction of Greenside Row. He was about to hail a cab when he heard a voice behind him.
“You’re not angry wi’ me, are ye, Guv?”
He turned to see Derek McNair, hands in his pockets, a look of contrition on his grimy face. He appeared sincere, but with Derek, honesty was a matter of convenience rather than policy.
“Why should I be angry with you?”
“I haerd the meetin’ didn’ go so well.”
“Just exactly what did you hear?”
“Ye were ambushed.”
“Then you heard right.”
“I didn’ know nothin’ ’bout that, I swear on me mother’s grave.”
“Last I heard, your mother is still alive.”
“Then I swear on—”
“I don’t blame you for what happened.”
“Are y’all right, Guv? Rat Face tol’ me it were two blokes wha’ attacked ye.”
“I’ll live,” Ian said, raising his hand to signal a passing hansom cab.
“Where y’off to now?”
“I’m going to investigate a disappearance.”
“Kin I come?”
“I think not. It might be dangerous,” Ian said as the cab pulled up in front of them.
“Derek’s my name, danger’s my game,” the boy said eagerly.
“It’s official police business,” Ian said, getting in.
“When has that ever stopped me?”
“It’s about time that it does,” Ian said, and closed the door. The cab rattled off down the High Street, leaving a very disappointed Derek McNair watching as it swerved to avoid a couple of inebriated toffs staggering out of Old Fleshmarket Close.
Ian looked out the window at the pair of young men weaving heedlessly down the High Street. He guessed from their clothing that they were law clerks, on their way from the Advocates Library just around the corner, though he didn’t know why they were so obviously in their cups at this time of day.
As the cab turned onto North Bridge, he thought about Derek McNair. He was genuinely fond of the boy, but hardship had molded him into someone for whom morality, as defined by polite Victorian society, was a luxury. What mattered was to survive, and if that meant lying, stealing, and cheating, then so be it. He didn’t blame the boy for this any more than he blamed a fox for stealing chickens. He sometimes worried that allowing Derek to help him in his cases put the boy in danger, though he knew only too well that life on the street had its own perils.
Ian gazed out the window as the cab turned onto New Street, leaving the squalor of Old Town behind as it headed toward the steep rise of volcanic rock known as Calton Hill. High atop the hill, Ian could see the Nelson Monument, listing tipsily to the side. Built to honor the vice admiral who lost his life defeating the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar, it was designed to resemble an inverted telescope, an appropriate design for an admiral. While Edinburgh had its share of military statues, it boasted an equal number of memorials to literary luminaries like Walter Scott and Robert Burns.
Poets and generals, Ian thought as he watched the pale sun glinting off the tower’s windows, opposites in life’s journey, just as he was the reverse counterpart of the criminals he pursued. What accident of fate had led them down the path of crime, he wondered, while he was consigned to pursuing them? Did the same flick of time’s arrow create their inevitable destinies, or were they free to choose their lot in life? The more he saw of Edinburgh, privilege living cheek by jowl to the most abject poverty, the less he believed men were captains of their own destiny.
Such thoughts swirled like the gathering mist in the streets as the cab rumbled toward its destination. High atop Calton Hill, the tepid December sun still poked feebly through the clouds, but on the cobblestones below, a haar fog was rolling in from the Firth of Forth, blanketing the ground in thickening white wisps. Still the horse trotted briskly onward, urged by his master, no stranger to the changeability of Scottish weather.
Greenside Row ran along the northwestern border of Calton Hill, and after the long stretch on Calton Road, they turned onto the narrow lane. Number 41 wasn’t far, and after paying the driver, Ian stood facing the five-story building, its stone façade gray from years of soot and smoke, like so many of its kind in Edinburgh. Behind him was parkland, the increasingly steep cliffs cutting off the buildings from view. The trees were bare, though a few gnarled gorse bushes along the edge clung stubbornly to their leaves.
Looking up at the darkened windows, Ian felt a shiver slither down his spine. Though just like its neighbor on either side, there was something uninviting about the building, an air of invincibility, as if it was a fortress rather than a perfectly respectable New Town tenement housing with no doubt rather expensive flats.
Shaking off his feeling of foreboding, Ian rapped the lion’s head knocker smartly against its black iron base. He was met with silence. A dove cooed softly from the gorse bushes across the street. He knocked again, with no response. Just as he was turning to leave, he heard footsteps from inside, then the sound of several locks clicking in their tumblers. The door was cracked open, and Ian saw a sleepy-faced young man peering at him.
“Can I help you?” he asked in a plummy voice. His accent was educated, probably central London, and Ian noticed the fingers holding the door open were well cared for. His manner and grooming suggested money and privilege. Judging by his expensive silk dressing gown and patrician air, he had no plans to alter that status in the near future.
“Detective Inspector Hamilton, Edinburgh City Police,” Ian said, doing his best to peer at the hallway behind, but the man’s body blocked his view.
“What’s this all about?” the fellow asked, scratching his head. He had a long, pink-cheeked face, high forehead, and very light-blue eyes. He would have been handsome except for his fleshy lips, which gave him a rather fishlike appearance. From the disheveled look of his hair and beard stubble on his chin, it was evident he had just awakened from a deep sleep.
“I’m investigating a case,” said Ian. “And who might you be?”
The question did wonders to jolt him into a more alert state of consciousness.
“Nigel Metcalf,” he said, his pale-blue eyes wide. “I say, I haven’t done anything wrong, you know.”
Shaking off an impulse to reassure him, Ian decided it was better to keep Mr. Metcalf a little off balance. “Is this your place of residence, sir?” he asked sternly.
“Yes—I live in the ground-floor flat,” Nigel Metcalf said, opening the door so that Ian had a good view of the foyer.
“Would you mind answering a few questions?”
“Not at all—come in, please.”
The flat had the look of university student digs—a football jersey tossed over a chair, textbooks open on the table, exam books on the sideboard.