The Sins of the Wolf (27 page)

Had Mary been like that? That was what the drink-sodden Hector had suggested. Why would anyone murder such a woman? Greed for the power she exercised, or the purse strings? Jealousy because she had the innate qualities which would always make her the natural leader? Fear, because she knew something which was intolerable to someone else, that threatened their happiness, even their continued safety?

But what? What could Mary have known? Did Oonagh know it now, albeit without being aware of its danger to her?

Mercifully Hector was absent, and so, as far as Monk could see, was Kenneth. There was nothing to be gained remaining alone. Reluctantly, more tense than he could account for, he straightened up and went down the steps into the throng.

At dinner he was seated next to a large woman in a burgundy and black dress with skirts so huge no one could get within a yard and a half of her. Not that Monk wished to. He would like to have been spared the obligation of conversation also, but that was more than he was granted.

Deirdra was sitting opposite at the farther side of the table, and several times he caught her eye and smiled. He was beginning to think it was a waste of his time, although he knew at least one reason why Oonagh had invited him. She wished to know if he had progressed in discovering where Deirdra spent her money. Did she already know, and was she only looking for him to provide proof so she could confront Deirdra, and perhaps precipitate the quarrel Mary had been killed in order to avoid?

Looking across the table at Deirdra’s warm, intelligent, stubborn face, he did not believe it. She might be what some people would refer to as immoral, apparently she was extravagant, but he did not believe she had murdered Mary Farraline, certainly not over something as easily curbed as extravagance.

But he had been wrong before, especially where women were concerned.

No—that was unfair. He had been wrong as to their strength, their loyalty, even their ability to feel passion or conviction—but not their criminality. Why did he doubt himself so deeply?

Because he was failing Hester. Even as he sat there eating a sumptuous meal amid the clatter of cutlery, the chink of glasses, the blaze of lights and murmur of voices, the rustle of silks and creak of stays, Hester was in Newgate Prison awaiting trial, after which, if she were found guilty, they would hang her.

He felt a failure because he was failing.

“… most becoming gown, Mrs. Farraline,” someone was saying to Deirdra. “Most unusual.”

“Thank you,” Deirdra acknowledged, but without the pleasure Monk would have expected her to show at such a compliment.

“Charming,” the large lady next to him added with a downward turn of her ungenerous mouth. “Quite charming. I am very fond of those lines, and jet beading is so elegant, I always think. I had one very like it myself, very like it indeed. Cut a little differently around the shoulder, as I recall, but the design of the stitching was just the same.”

One gentleman looked at her with surprise. It was an odd thing to remark, and not altogether polite.

“Last year,” the large lady added with finality.

On a wild impulse, a flicker of thought, Monk asked an inexcusable question.

“Do you still have it, ma’am?”

She gave an inexcusable answer.

“No … I disposed of it.”

“How wise,” Monk retorted with sudden viciousness. “That gown”—he glanced at her ample figure—“is more becoming to your … station.” He had so nearly said “age”; everyone else had, in their minds, said it for him.

The woman turned puce, but said nothing. Deirdra also blushed a light shade of pink, and Monk knew in that moment, although he could not yet prove it, that whatever Deirdra spent her money on, it was not gowns, as she had claimed. She bought hers secondhand, and presumably had a discreet dressmaker alter them to fit her and change them just enough that they were no longer completely identifiable.

She stared at him across the salmon mousse and cucumber and the remains of the sorbet, her eyes pleading.

He smiled and shook his head fractionally, which was ridiculous. He had no reason to keep her secret.

When he encountered Oonagh later, he met her eyes and
told her he was investigating the matter but as yet had found no conclusive evidence. The lie troubled him not in the slightest.

In the morning post there was a letter from Callandra. Monk tore it open and read:

He stood in the bitter autumn sunlight with the white paper a blur in front of him; his body was shaking. Rathbone could not defend her. He had never even thought of that—but now that Callandra wrote it, it seemed so obvious. He had not realized until now just how much he had been counting on Rathbone’s skill, how the lawyer’s past victories had weighed unconsciously on his mind, making him hope the impossible. Now, with one blow, that was ended.

It was minutes before his mind cleared. A dray stopped in the street outside. The cellarman shouted and the driver swore. The sound of the horses stamping on the cobbles and the rattle of wheels came up clearly through the window ajar.

Someone in the Farraline house had tampered with Mary’s medicine, with the knowledge it would kill her. Someone had put her pearl brooch in Hester’s bag. Greed? Fear? Revenge? Some motive not yet guessed at?

Where did Eilish go down the Kings Stables Road? Who was the rough, uncouth man who waited for Deirdra, and whom she met with such intense and secret conversation before running back into the house? A lover? Surely not, not in such clothes. A blackmailer? More probable. Over
what? Her extravagance. Did she gamble, pay off old debts, keep a lover, a relative, an illegitimate child? Or was the extravagance simply to pay off a blackmailer? One thing, it was not to buy fashionable dresses. She had unquestionably lied about that.

It was an ugly resolution, but he decided he must follow her, or the man, and find the truth of it, whatever it was. And he must follow Eilish too. If it was a love affair with her sister’s husband, or with anyone else, that also must be known, and beyond doubt.

The first night was totally fruitless. Neither Deirdra nor Eilish appeared. But the second night at a little after midnight the man in the torn coat came again, and after lingering furtively beyond the arc of light from the streetlamp, and again looking at his watch, Deirdra appeared, creeping like a shadow out of the side gate. After a brief, intense exchange, but no overt gesture of affection, they turned away from the house and, side by side, walked rapidly across the grass and down Glenfinlas Street south, exactly the same way Eilish had gone.

This time Monk kept well behind them, which was not difficult because they moved extremely rapidly. For a small woman, Deirdra had a remarkable stride, and did not seem to tire, almost as if something lay ahead of her which filled her with energy and enthusiasm. Monk also stopped and turned around several times to make sure he was not being followed. He still remembered with pain his previous foray along here after Eilish.

He could see no one, apart from two youths going in the opposite direction, a black dog scavenging in the gutter, and a drunk propped against the wall and beginning to slide down.

There was a light wind with a smell of grime and damp on it, and overhead thin clouds darkened the three-quarter moon. Between the pools of the streetlamps the spaces melted into impenetrable shadow. The great mound of the
castle towering above them and to the left showed a jagged, now-familiar line against the paler sky.

Deirdra and the man turned left into the Grassmarket. The pavement was narrower here and the five-story buildings made the street seem like the bottom of a deep ravine. There was little sound but that of footsteps, muffled by damp and echo, and the occasional shout, bang of a door or gate, and now and again horses’ hooves as some late traveler passed.

The Grassmarket was only a few hundred yards long, then it turned into Cowgate until it crossed South Bridge, running parallel to Canongate, and turned into Holyrood Road. To the right lay the Pleasance and Dumbiedykes, to the left the High Street, the Royal Mile, and eventually Holyrood Palace. In between was an endless maze of alleys and yards, passages between buildings, steps up and steps down, a thousand nooks and doorways.

Monk increased his pace. Where on earth was Deirdra going? Her pace had not slackened at all, nor had she glanced behind her.

Ahead of him Deirdra and the man crossed the road and abruptly disappeared.

Monk swore and ran forward, tripping over a cobble and all but losing his balance. A dog sleeping in a doorway stirred, growled, and then lowered its head again.

Candlemaker Row. He swung around the corner and was just in time to see Deirdra and the man as they passed the beginning of the graveyard to the right, stop, hesitate barely a moment, then go into one of the vast, shadowy buildings to the left.

Monk ran after them, reaching the spot only minutes after they had gone. At first he could see no entrance. The street walls and high wooden gates were a seamless barrier against intrusion.

But they had been here, and now they were not. Something had yielded to their touch. Step by step he moved along, pushing gently, until under his weight one wooden
gate swung open just enough to allow him to squeeze inside and to find himself in a cobbled yard facing a building something like a barn. Yellow gaslight streamed from the cracks around an ill-fitting door which would have let through a horse and dray, were it open.

He moved forward gingerly, feeling every step before putting his weight down. He did not want to brush against something and set off an alarm. He had no idea where he was, or what manner of place to expect, or even who else might be inside.

He reached the door in silence and peered in through the wide crack. The sight that met his eyes was so extraordinary, so wildly fanciful and absurd, he stared at it for several minutes before his brain accepted its reality. It was a huge shed, big enough to have built a boat in, except that the structure that crouched in the center of the floor was surely never intended to sail. It had no keel and no possible place for masts. It would have resembled a running chicken, but it had no legs. Its body was large enough for a full-grown man to sit inside, and the wings were outspread as if it fully intended to take off and fly. It seemed to be constructed primarily of wood and canvas. There was some kind of machinery where the heart would have been, were it a real bird.

But more incredible, if anything could be, was Deirdra Farraline, dressed in old clothes, a leather apron over her gown, thick leather gloves over her small, strong hands, her hair scraped back out of her eyes. She was bent forward earnestly laboring over the contraption, tightening screws with delicate, intense efficiency. The man who had come for her was now stripped to his shirtsleeves and was pushing and heaving at another piece of structure which he seemed to be intending to attach to the rear of the bird, by which to extend its tail by some eight or nine feet.

Monk had little enough to lose. He pushed the door open far enough for him to squeeze through and get inside. Neither of the two workers noticed him, so engrossed were
they in their labors. Deirdra bent her head, her tongue between her teeth, her brow drawn down in the power of her thought. Monk watched her hands. She was quick and very certain. She knew exactly what she was doing, which tool she wanted and how to use it. The man was patient, and skilled also, but he appeared to be working under her direction.

It was fully five minutes before Deirdra looked up and saw Monk standing in the doorway. She froze.

“Good evening, Mrs. Farraline,” he said quietly, moving forward. “Pardon my technical ignorance, but what are you making?” His voice was so normal, so devoid of any criticism or doubt, he might have been discussing the weather at some polite social function.

She stared at him, her dark eyes searching his face for ridicule, anger, contempt, any of the emotions she expected, and finding none of them.