The Edinburgh Dead (33 page)

Quire said nothing, but he felt the tremor of confession in his own face.

“I see it’s true. How enterprising of you. Evidently I have misjudged you from the very beginning of our unfortunate acquaintance.”

Still Quire said nothing, hoping that Dunbar would have the sense to keep Durand out of sight. Ruthven pursed his lips.

“Look at you,” he said. “Not even on police pay any more, and
still you’re nipping at my heels. Why don’t you just go home, Mr. Quire? Alone.”

“The difficulty I have with that is I’m thinking I’ll not be long above ground, now you know I’m still paying you some attention. Am I right?”

Ruthven smiled thinly.

“Do you know,” he said, “I think you might be. There, now: we all know where we stand. What have you done with Durand, by the way? I don’t see him.”

Ruthven peered over Quire’s shoulder, eyes narrow and questioning.

“I’ve not seen him, so I couldn’t say,” Quire said.

“Oh. I really did think I was paying sufficient attention to his whereabouts, but once again you have managed to surprise me. What a pity the police decided to dispense with the services of such a resourceful fellow.”

Ruthven sniffed in dry amusement at his own barbed humour. He glanced around, taking in the traffic of gaudily dressed celebrants, like a parade of exotic birds.

“There’s been about two things in my life I was any good at,” Quire said levelly. “Soldiering and policing. Maybe I can’t help but be one or the other of those, paid or not. I’m ready to try the policing line, if you are. Are you going to come along to a judge with me and tell him all that you’ve done?”

Ruthven smiled, almost pityingly.

“No, Mr. Quire, I am not.”

“No. You’re not. Then maybe it’s the soldiering line for me after all.”

“I see. I see. You know, I think you have the advantage over me, for there is only really one thing I have ever been good at. I have attempted a number of roles in my life, but the truth is I found no great success in any of them: farmer, merchant, investor. Husband. I was not suited to any of them.

“But, do you know, I have done things in the last few years that
men will one day wonder at. I have tapped into the well at the very root of life, and made the vital forces flow at my command.”

“And how many deaths have been caused by your miracle-working?”

“I do not suppose you could be expected to understand,” Ruthven said, almost sadly. “There is a price to be paid for revelation, Mr. Quire. For revolution. Knowledge is not always paid for solely by the sweat of the brow. A hundred years from now, the knowledge, the wonders will persist. The price paid for them will be forgotten. Forgiven.”

“You buy it with blood, I say it’s not worth the having.”

“You’re wrong. I can say nothing more than that. Well, I must return to my wife. There will be talk, you know, if I seem to be neglecting her.”

He slipped the turban back on to his head, and with a last lingering look down the length of the lobby towards the doors out on to the street, he turned back and sank into the costumed host of his kind.

Quire blew out a long breath and went slowly towards the cloakroom, casting many a backward glance to ensure Ruthven did not reappear. He found Dunbar and Durand in a secluded corner, just inside the main entrance, and dropped his now useless mask to the floor there. Durand had been stripped of his distinctive wig and enclosed in the overly capacious cape. A plain and rather shapeless soft hat was pulled down over his head.

“Can we go now?” Dunbar asked with a rather plaintive hint to his voice.

“We can, and the sooner the better,” Quire said. “I’m not sure how this is going to go, mind. There might be a problem or two.”

Dunbar rolled his eyes.

“Do you know where Blegg is?” Quire demanded of Durand.

“No,” the Frenchman said. “Outside somewhere. Beyond that, I cannot say.”

“I was going to get us straight into a hackney cab outside, but it’d be too easy to follow us. We’ll get down on to Princes Street.
There’ll be plenty of hackneys down there, and it’ll make Blegg show himself if he’s about. We either shake him off, or deal with him a bit more roughly.”

Durand looked downcast.

“You are a capable man, but I rather doubt you can deal with Mr. Blegg, as you put it.”

“We’ve not exactly got a whole host of choices,” Quire muttered.

There was quite a crowd on the pavement outside the Assembly Rooms. Many of them were the drivers of the hackney carriages which, as Quire had predicted, were lined up on the street awaiting the custom of departing guests. The drivers leaned against the pillars of the portico, smoking pipes, quietly trading gossip. There were quite a few casual onlookers too. Those who would never be invited to such a gathering, and were curious at the light and music drifting out on to the street, and hoping to get a look at some of the elaborate costumes.

Quire and Dunbar moved their companion briskly away from the throng, keen to get a bit more space around them. They went from one pool of gaslight to the next along the street, the gentle whine of each lamp growing louder as they approached it and fading away behind them as they passed beyond it. It was late, and the fine shops were closed, most of the great houses quiet.

They turned down on to the sharp slope of Frederick Street and Quire looked back as they moved around the corner. A single figure was separating itself from the shadows beneath the portico of the Assembly Rooms, moving smartly after them.

He pushed Durand into a trot as they descended towards Princes Street.

“Is there going to be trouble?” Dunbar asked as he jogged along at Quire’s side.

He was entirely serious now, any notion of the evening’s events as some kind of game discarded. The soldier in him came to the fore less easily than did Quire’s, but it was there nonetheless.

“Maybe,” Quire said. “I don’t know. Should’ve brought a pistol.”

“They’d hardly let you carry such a thing into the Assembly Rooms. You’d have had trouble hiding it in that clown’s outfit, anyway.”

Quire glanced down at his motley dress, and was struck by what an absurd, and obvious, figure he cut, hurrying along the New Town streets like a fugitive from some wandering theatre troupe. He had vaguely thought he would have the chance to shed the disguise before leaving, but that, in hindsight, had never been likely.

They emerged on to the broad expanse of Princes Street with the soaring dark mass of the castle before them, like a vast umbrageous thundercloud detached from the night sky and settled down to rest atop the crags. It was dotted, though, with points of light: the windows of its huge barracks, and lanterns burning here and there along its meandering walls.

There were no buildings along the south side of Princes Street—none save the Royal Institution, a short way further east—just a long run of black, spiked railings and beyond them the sweeping gardens that plunged down and across to the base of the castle’s huge rock. Those gardens were a black, blank void, obscured by the glare of the tall gaslights lining the street.

Quire looked back. Blegg—he was almost certain it was him, though he could not make out his features at this distance—was coming down after them, walking quickly.

“We need to shake him off,” Quire muttered.

Directly ahead of them, opposite the foot of Frederick Street, a gate broke the line of the iron railings. It would be locked—the gardens were a private pleasure for the residents and shopkeepers of Princes Street—and was, like the railings themselves, head high. But it had no spikes atop it.

“Into the gardens,” Quire said promptly. “No light there. We can lose him, or spring a little trap of our own.”

“Right,” Dunbar said.

He did not sound entirely convinced, but responded without hesitation to the taut urgency in Quire’s voice.

Dunbar darted forward, set his strong hands on the top of the
gate and swung his legs up and over with a great heave of his shoulders. Quire put his hands to Durand’s waist even as they drew near the gate, and lifted him from his feet. Dunbar reached over and hauled the Frenchman into the gardens. The two of them fell in a heap, crunching down on to the gravel path.

Quire did not need to look around to know what Blegg was doing. He could hear running feet, pounding closer. He flung himself at the gate, hitting it hip high, folding himself over the top of it, landing on his back on the path beyond. He rolled and scrambled to his feet, glimpsing Blegg’s dark form rushing down the last of Frederick Street’s slope, coming into the pools of light cast by the chain of streetlights. The man was fast; unnervingly so.

Quire ran after Dunbar and Durand, already disappearing into the profound darkness of the gardens. He could hear them clearly enough, though, for the gravel path was not made for silence.

“Get off the path,” he called softly, and followed them as they veered off over the manicured lawns.

They crouched into one of the big thickets of ornamental shrubs. Most of the bushes were foreigners; evergreens with thick, heavy concealing leaves. Durand was gasping for breath.

“Be quiet,” Quire whispered.

Blegg appeared, up there at the railings. Peering down into the gardens. Seeing, Quire hoped, not much more than they had: just the inky, lightless nothing. Blegg moved slightly to one side. His head was framed by the glowing lantern head of one of the gaslights, like a radiant halo.

“There’s three of us,” Dunbar murmured. “We could sort him out easy enough, couldn’t we?”

“Maybe,” said Quire. He was reluctant to trust any assumptions regarding Blegg’s capabilities. “In any case, there’s only two of us worth the counting, I’d guess.”

“Quite true,” Durand whispered. “And he would kill both of you, most likely.”

“I didn’t sign up for getting killed, any more than I did killing,” muttered Dunbar.

Blegg carefully, deliberately, set both his hands atop the gate and vaulted it in a single leap, swinging his legs up high and clear. A manoeuvre that Quire could not have matched.

“Shit,” Dunbar whispered, evidently reconsidering the advisability of confrontation.

They eased themselves further back amongst the bushes. Quire had never been inside the gardens before, and could remember precious little of any use as far as their layout was concerned, even though he had often enough looked down over the railings and thought it a pleasant view. One thing he did remember, with something approaching certainty: the only other gates were further along to the west of them, down towards St. John’s and St. Cuthbert’s, the chapel and church that dominated the far end of Princes Street.

“Right, well I’ll draw him off, and you get your little French package here away,” Dunbar said suddenly.

“No,” hissed Quire.

Dunbar was already shifting his weight, settling himself on the balls of his feet.

“Hush. It’ll be easy enough. I’ll just take him off into a corner somewhere and slip out over the railings. Once he sees it’s just me, he’ll leave off pretty sharp. It’s you two he’s after, you poor buggers.”

“No, you don’t…” Quire said desperately, but he was saying it to Dunbar’s heels.

Dunbar went crashing away, thrashing through the shrubs with abandon, and pounding his feet on the turf as he plunged into the darkness.

“Christ,” groaned Quire.

They heard Blegg ghosting past over the grass; a much lighter tread. Quire’s heart hammered away, and his legs trembled with the desire to throw himself out and after Blegg. He struggled with the instinct, and stifled it.

Dunbar was quick on his feet, and nobody’s fool. He could take care of himself if he had to. That was all Quire could hope as he dragged Durand hurriedly but quietly away in the opposite direction.

Durand shook. Not from cold, that was certain; which left fear or fever. Quire suspected it was both.

The Frenchman had a sheen of sweat across his brow, and his eyes were red-rimmed, looking sore. Sick, then. It had come on quickly and without warning, within an hour or two of his arrival in Agnes McLaine’s house. Now, as the morning advanced, it had a firm grip of him. The fear had preceded it, and persisted still. Durand might be reconciled to his change of allegiance, but he was still quite clearly most fearful of its consequences. Neither the sickness nor his terror had yet silenced him, though.

“When I went into exile from my homeland,” he said, “I was forced to abandon most of my private collections. Too heavy, you see. Too difficult to transport. What I did bring with me to your country was only the best, the most significant.

“Clay tablets, in particular. Ancient texts. Magical texts, from Babylonia, Ur, Akkad. Mesopotamia. The oldest of old times, you understand, when Man lived in a wholly magical world?”

He looked questioningly from Quire to Agnes. Quire offered no response. He was standing by the window, holding the blanket just far enough away from the glass to give him a view out on to the narrow, crowded street. He was listening intently to what Durand said, but his eyes were mostly on the good people of Leith. He
absently scratched at the cuff of the overly tight shirt he wore. Agnes had found him some clothes to replace the harlequin costume, but they did not fit him well.