The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [67]
“I was glad of your visit. It was good to see you again, Adam.”
“You thought so?” he said, a touch more briskly than was needful.
“I did think so. Been a long time.”
“I didn’t know you were sharing rooms with Emma now. It was her that brought me there.”
“Aye, you said.”
Out here, amidst the bustle, her manner had none of the brazen confidence she carried within the fortress of the Holy Land. She spoke softly and held her arms close, as if to pass unnoticed.
“I wasn’t sorry to see you,” Quire admitted, softening.
He could not sustain the pretence of indifference. He was tired, and aching, and as beset by threat and animosity as he had ever been. Cath brought good memories, and the warmth of old but unforgotten affections; a seductive comfort in hard times.
“We were short of the means to start the day,” Catherine said, giving the whisky bottle a little jiggle by way of explanation.
“I thought it was early for you. I can’t tarry, Cath.”
Quire stretched his stride a fraction to make the point blunt. However that affection might cling to him, he knew it could be a trap of sorts. He had troubles enough without courting afresh those he thought had been laid to rest some time ago. It cost him more pain than he would have guessed to set that cold armour about his heart, though.
“Such haste,” Cath said, gentle reproach leaking into her tone.
“I’m sorry. You know I can’t be seen consorting with you. You know that.”
“My sort, you mean,” she said, already falling behind him, letting him go.
“I’m sorry,” Quire repeated sincerely. “If it had been my choice, I’d never have broken off with you, Cath. But there are rules, and I’d not keep my…”
But she had stopped, and stood in the middle of the street watching him as he strode on.
“You were glad enough to break them before,” he heard her say with sad resignation, and he came to a halt, arrested by guilt and sympathy. But the traffic of bodies and barrows was already closing between them, and Catherine had turned away. He might have called after her, and wanted to. The certainty that picking away at a wound was the surest way to keep it from healing held him back. He caught a last fleeting glimpse of her turning down into Leith Wynd, and was left in the company of only his own failings and indecision.
The encounter put him in a black humour, and he advanced upon the police house with head down and brow furrowed. He paid little heed to those about him, who now included sternly dressed advocates on their way to offices or court, men of the cloth making for the austere bulk of St. Giles’ Cathedral, rich merchants in grave discussion as they headed for the coffee houses. There was wealth aplenty still in the Old Town, and it mingled intimately, indifferently, with poverty and sloth just as it had always done.
Quire’s absorption in his own inner world meant that he was taken unawares by the sudden appearance of Jack Rutherford at his side. His fellow sergeant had a buoyant gleam in his eye, in sharp contrast to Quire’s mood.
“Is it true what I’m hearing about dogs?” Rutherford asked, full of excited, disbelieving curiosity.
“Aye,” said Quire.
The man could not know what it had been like, Quire supposed, but a little more concern and less enthusiasm might not have been out of place.
“By Christ, Quire, what is it you’ve got yourself mixed up in? It must take some doing to get yourself bitten by a dog in the Canongate of a night.”
“I didn’t get bitten,” Quire grunted. “And there were three of them.”
Rutherford shook his head in amazement.
“So what do you mean to do about it?” he asked as the two of them drew near to the police house at Old Stamp Office Close.
“Kill them,” Quire said quietly, and even he did not know precisely to whom—dogs or men—he was referring.
“I am dismissed, Adam,” Superintendent Robinson said, with a calm and quiet that at first disguised the meaning of the words from Quire.
“Sir?” he said blankly.
“The Lord Provost has seen fit to dispense with my services, forthwith.”
Quire slumped down on to the bench