William Monk 05 - The Sins of the Wolf

neither right nor left, but ate steadily, and then sat with impatience plain in his face while he waited for the maid to clear his plate and the main course to be served. Twice he looked up sharply as if to speak, and Hester felt he would have asked for his portion to be served separately, ahead of the others, had he dared.
    Hector ate very little, but emptied his wineglass twice. Before filling it the third time, McTeer glanced up and met Oonagh’s eyes. She shook her head minutely, and it was only because Hester was looking directly at her that she saw it at all. McTeer removed the bottle in its basket, and Hector said nothing.
    Deirdra made some mention of an important dinner which was to be held and she wished to attend.
    “For which, no doubt, you will need a new gown?” Alastair said dryly.
    “It would be nice,” she agreed. “I only wish to do you justice, my dear. I should not like people to think that the Fiscal’s wife made do from one event to another.”
    “Little chance of that,” Quinlan remarked with a smile. “You have had at least six this year … that I know of.” But there was no rancor in his voice, only amusement.
    “As Fiscal’s wife, she goes to far more of those events than most of us,” Mary said soothingly. Then added, “Thank goodness,” under her breath.
    Baird McIvor looked at her with a smile. “You don’t care for civic dinners, Mother-in-law?” He spoke as if he already knew the answer, his dark face conveyed both amusement and considerable affection.
    “I do not,” she agreed, her eyes bright. “A lot of peopleonly too aware of their own importance, sitting around eating too well, and giving portentous opinions upon everything and everyone. I often have the feeling that anyone caught making a joke would be fined immediately and then dismissed.”
    “You exaggerate, Mother.” Alastair shook his head. “Judge Campbell is a bit dour, his wife is more than a little self-important, Judge Ross tends to fall asleep, but most of them are well enough.”
    “Mrs. Campbell?” Mary raised silver eyebrows and her expression assumed a sour severity. “Ayv’e never heeard anything layke it in all may born days!” she said in heavily affected accent. “When aye was a geerl, we didn’t …”
    Eilish giggled and glanced at Hester. It was apparently something of a family joke.
    “When she was a girl, her grandfather was selling fish on the Leith docks and her mother was running errands for old McVeigh,” Hector said with a twist of his lips.
    “Never!” Oonagh was incredulous. “Mrs. Campbell?”
    “Aye—Jeannie Robertson, as she was then,” he assured her. “Two brown pigtails down her back, she had, and holes in her boots.”
    Deirdra looked at him with new appreciation. “I shall remember that, next time she looks me up and down with a sneer on her face.”
    “The old man was drowned,” Hector went on, enjoying his audience. “Took a dram too much, and fell off the docks one night in December. Twenty-seven, I think it was. Yes, eighteen twenty-seven.”
    Kenneth’s impatience finally overcame his caution and he told McTeer to bring his dessert ahead of the others. Mary frowned; Alastair opened his mouth as if to say something, then caught Mary’s eye and changed his mind.
    Oonagh made some remark about a play that was on in the city. Quinlan agreed with her, and Baird immediately contradicted him. The matter was totally trivial, and yetHester was startled to hear in their voices an animosity which sounded acutely personal, as if the subject were one of intense importance. She glanced at Quinlan’s face and saw his eyes hard, his lips tight as he stared across the table. Opposite him Baird was brooding, his brows drawn down, his hands clenched. He looked as if he nursed within himself some deep pain.
    Eilish did not look at either of them, but down at her plate, her fork idle, food ignored.
    No one else appeared to notice anything unusual.
    Mary turned to Alastair. “Deirdra says they are going to reopen the Galbraith case. Is that true?”
    Alastair raised his head very slowly, his face set in a hard, wary expression. “Gossip,” he said between his teeth. He looked down the table at his wife. “It is repeating such things that gives ignorant people to start speculating, and reputations are ruined. I’m sorry you did not know better than to do such a thing.”
    Mary’s face darkened at the insult, but she did not speak.
    The color rushed up