The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [141]
“You were there tonight,” Quire said, calm and level. “I know it, so don’t deny it. All you need to do is tell me what she wants with Hare, and what you’ve been up to tonight. Tell me that, and we’re done.”
Rutherford recounted to him in great detail the events of the evening. He could see nothing in the business with Hare that could outrage Quire any more than the injuries that had been directed against his own person, so there seemed only gain to be had from trying to keep the brute happy.
“In the West Bow,” Quire said with unusual precision and clarity. “Through a short arched passage into a yard that looks like it’s not had a scavenger go through it in years. An empty apartment, at the back of the yard, foul and falling down. You’re sure of all that?”
Rutherford nodded.
“And someone waiting in there, for you and her to bring Hare?”
“Aye. Never saw who it was, and it was only Hare came out, like I said. He was acting a wee bit odd, right enough, but he’s not exactly what you’d call an ordinary man, is he? Can’t be, to have done the things he done. Look, can you let me up off these steps, Adam? It’s a damned uncomfortable bed you’ve got me lying on.”
“How do you mean, odd?” Quire asked. “What was odd about Hare?”
“I don’t know,” muttered Rutherford, almost as much irritated as afraid, now that the ardour of Quire’s violent passion seemed to have cooled somewhat, to be supplanted by a thoughtful intensity. “He was fiddling about with strange gloves he’d got from somewhere. Talking a bit different. Still a cocky bastard, mind. He just sounded different, like he’d changed his accent or something. All right?”
Quire at last tucked that pistol into his belt, and Rutherford felt a wave of relief washing through him. If he got out of this with a split lip and a bruise on his belly, he would count himself blessed.
“And you put him on the coach,” Quire said.
It did not sound like a question, but Rutherford chose to make it such, eager to display his compliance.
“Dumfries, that’s right. He’s gone to Dumfries, on the mail. I put him on the coach, in Newington.”
And then suddenly Quire’s fists were darting in again, both of them one after the other, battering Rutherford on either side of the jaw. Quire took hold of his hair, and lifted his head by it, pulling so hard that Rutherford feared a handful of it would be torn from his scalp.
“The thing of it is,” Quire murmured with chill contempt, “you’ve cost me more than I can easily pardon, Sergeant Rutherford. My employment’s bad enough, but it’s not the worst of it. You told them I was going to the Assembly Rooms, and by that telling you put a good friend of mine in a great trouble of deal. Trouble that’s still got him walking about with a stick. I don’t hold much with forgiveness, Rutherford. Not these days.”
Rutherford heard what was coming in Quire’s tone, and kicked out at his crotch. Quire was too alert for that, and turned to take the blow on his hip, then batted Rutherford’s leg aside and closed down upon him in a flurry of blows.
XXXIII
The Annan Road
There was rioting in Dumfries when Quire staggered out, aching and stiff and weary, from the black coach that had brought him south. It had done so at remarkable speed. Remarkable, and punishing for any passengers, of which Quire had been the only one. His conveyance was the well-appointed funereal coach of the Widow, Mary Coulter, and it was as comfortable as any of its kind might be, but the road was rough and long, and no coach could make that a pleasant experience. He did not feel himself ready to confront the raw vigour of a mob run wild, but that was what he found.
Dumfries was not a large town, nor one with a reputation for much in the way of trouble. Despite that, Quire guessed there were well in excess of five thousand people besieging the jailhouse when he stepped down on to the main street. They were waving sticks