The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [35]
“I saw Catherine Heron in the street the other day,” Dunbar said, setting a pair of brimming tankards down on the table.
“Did you?”
Quire was taken aback by the unexpected turn in the conversation.
“She’s a good lass, for what she is,” Dunbar observed as he sat himself down.
“She is,” Quire agreed. “Have you a point beyond the flattery of someone who’s not here to listen?”
“Ballast, that’s my point. For a while, I thought the two of you might be going to set each other on an even keel.”
“And I thought you’d decided to keep quiet on the subject of ballast for tonight. You know fine well why that broke off. I’d not have my work now if I’d kept on down that path.”
Dunbar shrugged, and made a show of looking around the smoky tavern.
“Just a thought,” he said lightly. “Never you mind it. How about this, then: I’ll educate you in the fine art of making kites. I’ve been fashioning a pair for my boys, and you’d not credit the time it takes to do the thing right.”
Quire listened patiently to Dunbar’s disquisition on the subject. He noted—not for the first time—the miraculous transformation that marriage and fatherhood and the passage of years had worked upon his friend, turning as capable and willing a soldier as Quire had ever known into a model of domestic affection. For all his truculent instincts, Dunbar carried within him a kernel of peace that Quire could only envy. He had nothing in his own life to which he could hold quite so firm, save perhaps his work, and his doing of it.
The night subsided into gentle sloth as Dunbar’s company worked its gradual charm. Inconsequential talk and the steady flow of beer put just enough of a distance between Quire and his worries to soften them, and blur their outline.
The two men were the last to depart from the tavern. Mrs. Calder permitted Quire a latitude few other of her customers could hope for, so they finished their last tankards at leisurely pace, with empty tables about them. In the close outside, the two of them paused, looking up at the cloud-flattened sky.
“I could see you home, if you like,” Quire said, the words rumpled by drink.
“You’re hardly fit to find your own home, for all that it’s just up the stair,” Dunbar snorted.
“Fair enough.”
“Get yourself some sleep, that’s my advice.”
Quire swayed only a little as he climbed the narrow stair into the body of the tenement. He steadied himself with a hand against the wall. The darkness was absolute, and the steps uneven, but he needed no light for such a familiar journey.
The nebulous contentment that had settled over him did not long outlast his arrival at the door to his rooms. It took him a puzzled moment or two to realise that something was amiss. The door stood fractionally ajar, and as he fumbled at the handle, his fingers encountered splintered wood. It had been broken in.
That realisation sharpened his senses and cleared his mind. He reached instinctively for his baton, but he had left it inside. He pushed the door gingerly, and it scraped open.
He waited on the threshold, squinting into the gloomy apartment, straining to catch the slightest sound. There was none. That someone had been there, though, was undoubted. Quire had few possessions, but they still made an impressive mess, strewn about in disorder as they were now. He advanced cautiously, stepping around and over the clothes scattered across the floor, the shards of broken wash bowl and jug, the toppled chair.
He went to the bed, and knelt beside it. He reached underneath and felt about with splayed fingers. They quickly found what he sought: a hard, smooth box. He withdrew it, set it on the bedding