William Monk 05 - The Sins of the Wolf

vaguely. The old man’s hp curled and his face filled with a vortex of emotions, love, hate, envy, loathing, regret, longing for things past, even pity.
    “He was a bastard, you know—at times,” he said in little more than a whisper, but his voice shook with intensity. “The handsome Hamish, my elder brother, the colonel. I was only a major, you know? But I was a better soldier than he ever was! Cut a fine figure. Knew how to speak to the ladies. They adored him.”
    He slid down to sit on the lowest step. “But Mary was always the best. She used to walk with her back so straight,and her head so high. She had wit, Mary. Make you laugh till you wept … at the damnedest things.” He looked regrettably close to weeping now, and impatient as he was, Monk felt a twinge of pity for him. He was an old man, living on the bounty of a younger generation who had nothing but contempt for him, and a sense of duty. The fact that he probably deserved nothing more would be no comfort at all.
    “He was wrong,” Hector said suddenly, swiveling around to look straight at the portrait again. “Very wrong. He shouldn’t have done that to her, of all people.”
    Monk was not interested. Hamish Farraline had been dead over eight years. There could be no connection with Mary’s death, and that was all that mattered now. Impatience was gnawing inside him. He moved away.
    “Watch for McIvor,” Hector called after him.
    Monk turned back.
    “Why?”
    “She liked him,” Hector said simply, his eyes wide. “You could always tell when Mary liked someone.”
    “Indeed.”
    He could not be bothered to wait for McTeer. The old fool was probably asleep in his pantry. He took his own coat off the hall stand and made for the front door just as Alastair came out of the withdrawing room, apologizing for McTeer’s absence.
    Monk said good-night again, nodded towards Hector on the stairs, and went out of the front door. He had refused the offer of assistance to call a cab, and had set out to walk southwards when he saw an unmistakable figure pass beneath the lamplight so rapidly he almost missed her. But no one else could have quite that ethereal grace, or that flame of hair. Most of her head was covered by the hood of her cape, but as she turned towards the light her brow was pale and the copper red clear above it.
    Where on earth was Eilish Fyffe going alone, and on foot, at eleven o’clock at night?
    He waited until she was well past him, across the grass of the circle to the far side of Ainslie Place, where she was about to disappear either east into St. Combe Street or south into Glenfinlas Street. Then he ran quickly and soundlessly after her, arriving at the corner just in time to see her pass under the lamp at the beginning of Charlotte Square.
    Had she an assignation? It seemed not only the obvious conclusion but the only one. Why else would she be out alone, and obviously wishing not to be seen?
    She was moving rapidly past the square. It was only two very short blocks before it ended in a big junction with Princes Street and Lothian Road, Shandwick Place and Queensferry Street. Where on earth was she going? He had never cared much for her, but now his opinion took a rapid and decisive turn for the worse.
    She crossed the junction without a glance either way, still less behind her, and continued at a fast walk along Lothian Road. To their left were the Princes Street Gardens, and looming over them, brooding and medieval, the huge mass of the mound with the castle clinging to its top.
    Monk kept an even hundred yards behind her, and was almost taken by surprise when she turned left and disappeared into Kings Stables Road. He was familiar with the way. It was his own route home, were he to walk. Not long and it would lead into the Grassmarket, and then Cowgate. Surely she could not be going that way? What would these dark, crowded buildings and narrow alleys possibly hold for a lady like Eilish?
    His mind was still turning over the contradictions and impossibilities of it when suddenly he was engulfed in sharp, numbing pain and a black hole opened up in front of him.
    He regained his senses, still on the pavement, propped up against the wall, his head aching abominably, his body cold and his temper volcanic. Eilish was nowhere to be seen.
    *  *  *
    The following day he returned to Ainslie Place in a vicious and desperate frame of mind, and set up vigil as soon as it was dark.
    However it was not Eilish he saw, but a