The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [82]
Quire held his tongue. He clamped his hands together, squeezing hard, to keep his anger and frustration locked away within. It was not only that he refused to let Baird see the extent of his dismay; it was that he feared what his hands might do to the man if he let them free.
“It’ll all need to go to the board,” Baird was saying, sinking back in the chair, cuddling his satisfaction about him. “That means you’re relieved of your duties, on half-pay, until the decision’s made. Barred from the police house, barred from speaking with your fellow officers. Do you understand?”
Still, Quire did not respond.
“I’ll need your baton, too,” Baird said.
“I lost it,” Quire told him.
“Lost it?” Baird was incredulous. “What are you talking about, man?”
“I lost it while I was trying to keep myself from getting drowned in a ditch on Ruthven’s farm. Do you want to hear the tale? I’ll tell it if you do. Give you a chance to remember what it is we’re supposed to do here.”
“Ruthven, Ruthven,” muttered Baird. “Have you learned nothing? There’s no evidence against the man, Quire.”
“There’s my testimony. And if you sent a dozen men out to Cold Burn Farm, like as not you’d find something might count as evidence. The dogs that killed Carlyle, and almost killed me. And worse, much worse. If you’d seen the things I have…”
“I can’t charge a dog with murder, attempted or otherwise, Quire,” Baird said wearily. “And henceforth, I think you’ll agree, any court might find your testimony more than a little tainted. Get out. You’ll be told of the outcome of the board’s deliberations, but I’d not be holding your breath if I was you. I’d not be expecting a happy result, either. I’ll be recommending they dismiss you, and making sure they know of your past infringements. I imagine they’ll be only too happy to start cleaning away the mess Robinson left behind him.”
Quire went leaden-footed down the stairs, hearing nothing of the banter and chatter of the police house, seeing nothing. He passed out into the High Street, and the bustle of it caught him up and swept him away down towards the Canongate, helpless flotsam on the current.
Wilson Dunbar sang to his children that night in their little house at Abbey Hill. He sang them songs he had heard in Spain, twenty years ago. Sang them the tunes, at least; he did not remember most of the words, and those he did were not fit for the ears of children, so he made up nonsense ditties to ride along on the melodies. Silly things, childish things, which were to him the sweetest things of all.
Ellen, his wife, sat quietly in the corner with her embroidery, a constant smile upon her face as she passed the needle back and forth through cloth stretched over a round wooden frame. A hundred times this scene had been repeated, since Angus—the older of the boys—had been a mewling babe in his cot. Dunbar sang then because the sound of it soothed and softened the child; he sang now because it was what he did, part of the pact between him and his boys. They expected it of him, and he obliged them gladly. It was as much a part of the fabric of their home as the stones in the wall, the slates in the roof.
And when he was done, and those Spanish tunes were spent, and the boys were asleep, he sat with his wife by the sinking fire. They did not talk much, and did not need to, for they shared in a single, swaddling contentment that required no expression beyond their presence there, together, and the sound of their children, shifting lethargically in their sleep. All was right with the world, within the walls of that house, and in that company.
Old Acquaintance
There was no older tavern in Edinburgh than the White Hart on the Grassmarket. Lined by inns and low houses and shops purveying every kind of provision, dominated by the castle and the craggy cliffs atop which it stood just to the north, the Grassmarket had been a place