“Are you a student, Mr. Metcalf?”
“Yes, I’m preparing to enter the medical school next autumn.”
Had this been a casual conversation, Ian might have mentioned his brother, but he merely nodded.
“I was up all night studying for an exam,” he added.
“I won’t keep you much longer,” Ian said, looking around the flat. A pair of women’s kid gloves lay on the mantelpiece.
Seeing Ian’s gaze on the gloves, Metcalf took a step forward. “Those belong to my girlfriend. She left them here two days ago.”
“I see,” Ian replied, sounding as if he didn’t. In fact, he thought the gloves far too expensive to be the property of a poor charwoman, but wished to keep pressure on Metcalf as long as possible. People said things they didn’t mean to when they were on edge, betraying themselves in all sorts of little ways.
“I say, would you care for some tea? I could do with a cup,” Metcalf said, nervously rubbing his hands together.
“Thank you,” Ian said, realizing that he was a bit faint from hunger, having had nothing to eat or drink since before dawn.
He was glad when Metcalf reappeared with raisin scones and plenty of fresh butter. The student listened carefully to his questions about the upstairs tenant, then shook his head.
“I can’t say I’ve ever met him. I do hear the front door opening sometimes, in the middle of the night.”
“And you hear him go upstairs?”
“I’m usually too sleepy to notice.”
“What about last night, when you were up studying?”
He shook his head. “I heard nothing all night—mind you, I was fairly engrossed in my anatomy textbook.”
“And you have lived here how long?”
“It’ll be just over a year this month. I had rooms nearer the university, but saw this advertised for an even lower price, so I took it.”
“And no one moved in or out during that time?”
“Not that I’m aware.”
“What about the flat below the top floor? Who lives there?”
“Used to be a nice old lady, but she moved out a few months ago, and no one’s come to take her place.”
“And your landlord?”
“Away on the Continent somewhere. I send my check in every month to a law office in Lyons. I can give you that address if you like.”
Further questioning brought no useful information, and when Ian knocked on the door of the top-floor flat, there was no response. As he turned away from the door to the flat, Ian felt a sudden bone-chilling cold, but there was no source of drafts that he could see. He headed back down the stairs, anxious to leave, though he could not say why.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Metcalf,” Ian said, putting on his cloak.
“I wish I could have been more helpful,” he replied. “Hang on a minute. There was one thing. I don’t know if it will be of use, but—”
“Yes?”
“Once as I arrived home from studying, I saw a policeman leaving the building.”
“When was this?”
“Perhaps a month ago.”
“Had you ever seen him before?”
“It was late at night, and I didn’t get a good look at him, but he wore a uniform.”
“Is there anything you can tell me about him?”
“He was slim—like you, only not so tall.”
“Anything else, such as facial hair or hair color?”
Metcalf bit his lip. “I’m not certain, but I think he may have had bad skin.”
“How so?”
“Pitted—you know, pockmarked.”
“Thank you, Mr. Metcalf,” Ian said. “You have been very helpful.”
Wrapping himself in his cloak, he left the building.
From a perch high atop Calton Hill, unseen, a pair of eyes watched as he turned onto Greenside Row and toward the city below.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
After a bite to eat at a public house near the base of Calton Hill, Ian headed toward his next destination, the Royal High School. The building was hard to miss, rising from its stone terrace on Regent Road, with its heavy Doric columns and neoclassical architecture. Modeled after a temple in Athens, it was a much-praised structure, but Ian had never cared for it. The sun was fleeing a darkening sky, and fog wrapped itself around his ankles as he trudged up Regent Road.
Upon informing the hall monitor of his arrival, he was escorted into the office of the rector, James Donaldson. A tall, long-faced man with a receding chin and keen, gentle eyes, Donaldson was a prominent citizen—a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, classical scholar, and theologian. When Ian entered, the great man rose from behind his desk and came around to shake his hand. He did not appear pleased to see Ian.
“Please, Detective Inspector,” he said, “do sit down.” His voice was educated, but with remnants of the twisting, narrow vowels of the northeast—Aberdeen, perhaps.
Ian complied, taking a chair opposite his desk, while Donaldson remained standing, leaning against the front of his wide oak desk. “Now, then,” he said, “what can I do for you?”
“I’ve come about a former student of yours, Jeremy—”
“Fitzpatrick?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“What’s he done now?” Donaldson asked with a sigh.
“I take it he has a history of problems, then?”
“He’s a bully, a real ne’er-do-well. Surly fellow. If it weren’t for his father, I would have expelled him, quite frankly.”
“Major Fitzpatrick?”
“The fellow’s a decorated war hero. Took a bullet in Afghanistan. We made . . . allowances, you might say. Terrible business about his death. Have you caught the culprit yet?”
“That’s why I’m here, sir. Do you think his son is capable of—”
“Killing his own father? Good Lord, I hope not. He’s an unpleasant boy, but—good Lord,” he repeated. “That’s just unthinkable. Why, it’s inhuman.”
“I see a lot of things in my line of work you might find inhuman, yet all of them are committed by people.”
Donaldson shook his head. “Your faith in the human race must be stretched rather thin at times.” He returned to sit behind his desk, and Ian noticed an ornately carved cuckoo clock hanging on the wall over him. At that moment the doors to the clock swung open and a wooden bird duly appeared, chirping the hour in its eerie mechanical voice.
“Ah,” said the rector. “Four o’clock. Time for my constitutional. Will you join me in a wee glass, Detective?”
Ian hesitated. He rarely drank while on duty, but the bottle Donaldson pulled from his desk drawer was Glenkinchie, a single malt he was especially fond of.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, licking his lips.
“It’s a bit of an oddity, that clock,” Donaldson said with a smile. “It was a present from an especially devout Jesuit monk who found something of value in my writings. Made it himself at his monastery in Switzerland.”
“I understand you are quite a renowned theologian.”
“I dabble in theology,” Donaldson replied, handing him a tumbler of whisky. “Education is my true calling.”