William Monk 05 - The Sins of the Wolf

had better look into it,” he said with a curtness totally unwarranted by the conversation.
    Baird looked reluctant.
    “That would be better than sending in auditors,” Monk went on.
    It was a threat, and Baird recognized it as such.
    “Oh certainly,” he said too quickly. “By all means. That would be expensive, and make people anxious that we have cause to think there is something wrong. Yes, you look into it by all means, Mr. Monk.”
    Monk smiled, or perhaps it was more of a grimace. So Baird was quite happy that Monk could find nothing wrong in the books, or if he did, it was not Baird who had put it there. And yet he was afraid. For what?
    “Thank you,” he accepted, and turned to go back out into the corridor again as Baird rose from his desk.
    He spent all the rest of the day at the Farraline printing company, and found nothing whatever that furthered his cause. If the books had been tampered with, he had not the requisite skill to find the evidence of it. Tired, his head aching and his temper extremely short, he left at half past five and went back to his lodgings in the Grassmarket, to find a letter from Rathbone awaiting him. It was devoid of good news, simply informing him of his own progress, which was woefully little.
    Monk spent over three hours of that evening standing in Ainslie Place, growing colder and more wretched, hoping Eilish would make another sortie to wherever it was she visited, somewhere beyond Kings Stables Road. But midnight came and went, and no one stirred from number seventeen.
    The following night he took up the same position, bynow sunk into an icy gloom. And at a little after midnight he was rewarded by seeing a shadowy figure emerge, cross the open area of the center, pass within ten feet of where he stood motionless, his body trembling with cold and excitement, and once again walk rapidly along Glenfinlas Street, past Charlotte Square towards the crossroads.
    He moved after her, keeping thirty yards’ distance between them except close to junctions where she might turn and he lose sight of her. And this time he also looked back over his shoulder at regular intervals. He had no intention of being struck from behind again, and ending up senseless on the ground, with Eilish vanished into who knew where?
    The night was colder than last time, a rime of frost forming on the stones of the pavement and making the air tingle on his lips and in his lungs. He was glad enough to move quickly, although the speed and ease of her pace surprised him. He had not expected so languid and lazy a woman to have the stamina.
    As before, she went past the Princes Street Gardens along Lothian Road and turned left along the Kings Stables Road, passing almost under the shadow of the castle, tonight its massive, rugged outline only a denser black against the cloudy, starless sky.
    She crossed Spittal Street, making towards the Grassmarket. Surely she could not have a tryst with anyone who lived in such an area? It was full of tradesmen, innkeepers and transients like himself. And what about Baird McIvor? If the emotion he had thought between them was in fact only one-sided, then he had been more profoundly misled than ever before.
    No, that was not true. His ability to be misled by women, beautiful women, was almost boundless. He remembered with chagrin Hermione, and how he had believed her softness of word and deed to be compassion, and it had proved to be merely a profound desire to avoid anything that might cause her pain. She chose the easier path, in anything, because she had no hunger in her soul that would drive herbeyond hurt in order to win what she wished for. There was no passion in her at all, no need either to give or to receive. She was afraid of life. How more grossly mistaken could he have been in anyone?
    So was Eilish deceiving the gullible Baird every bit as much as her sharper, more critical husband? And Oonagh? Had she any idea what her beloved little sister was doing?
    Had Mary known?
    There were still people around the Grassmarket. The sparse gas lamps casting pools of yellow light showed them standing around or leaning idly, staring about them. An occasional burst of laughter, jerky and more than a little drunk, gave indication of their state. A woman in a ragged dress sauntered past and one of the men shouted at her. She called back in a dialect so broad Monk did not understand her words, although her meaning was plain enough.
    Eilish took no notice, but she did not seem