William Monk 05 - The Sins of the Wolf

afraid and her pace was steady as she passed them and continued on.
    Monk remembered to look behind him, but if there was anyone following, he did not know it. Certainly there were others about. One man, black-coated, was ambling along about thirty feet behind him, but there was nothing to indicate he was following Monk, and he did not take any notice when Monk stopped for several seconds before going on again. By now the man was almost up to him.
    They were approaching the corner of Candlemaker Row where Deirdra had turned off, and then the towering, cavernous slums of Cowgate, and all the steps and wynds between Holyrood Road and Canongate. Eilish had walked almost a mile and a half, and showed no signs of slowing down, still less of having reached her destination. What was even stranger, she seemed to be completely familiar with the surroundings. Never once did she hesitate or check where she was.
    She crossed the George IV Bridge, and behind her Monk glanced up towards the beautiful Victorian terrace with its classical facade, like the old town from which they hadcome. He had thought perhaps she would turn and go up there. It was the sort of place where a lover might live, although what manner of lover would expect, or even allow, a woman to come to him, let alone walk it alone, and at night?
    At the far end, only a hundred yards away, was the Lawnmarket, and the home of the infamous Deacon Brodie, that portly, dandy figure who had been a pillar of Edinburgh’s society by day, sixty years before, and a violent housebreaker by night. According to tavern gossip, which Monk had listened to readily in the hope of learning something about the Farralines, Deacon Brodie’s infamy rested in the duplicity of a man who in daylight inspected and advised on the security of the very premises he robbed by night. He had lived in the utmost respectability, in the Lawnmarket, and kept not one mistress with an illegitimate family, but two. He had escaped capture when his accomplices were arrested, fleeing to Holland, only to be caught by a simple trick and returned to Edinburgh, where he was hanged with a jest on his lips in 1788.
    But Eilish did not turn up towards the Lawnmarket; she continued on and plunged into the filthy cavernous gloom of Cowgate.
    Monk followed resolutely after her.
    Here the lamps were farther between and the pavement in places only eighteen inches wide. The cobbles of the street were rough and he had to go carefully to avoid turning his ankle. Huge tenements reared above him, four and five stories high, every room filled with a dozen or so people, crowded in without water or sanitation. He knew it from long familiarity with London. The smell was the same, dirt, weariness and all-pervasive human effluent.
    Then suddenly the darkness was total and he fell into a violent sensation of pain, both before and behind.
    When he woke up he was numb with cold, so stiff he had difficulty in making his arms and legs obey him, and his head ached so badly he hated to open his eyes. Therewas a small brown dog licking his face in friendly and hopeful curiosity. It was still dark, and Eilish was nowhere to be seen.
    He climbed to his feet with difficulty, apologizing to the dog for having nothing he could give it, and set off on the short, bitter walk back to the Grassmarket.
    However, he was all the more determined not to be beaten, least of all by a shallow and worthless woman like Eilish Fyffe. Whether her midnight trysts had any relevance to her mother’s death or not, he was going to find out exactly where she went and why.
    Accordingly the following night he waited for her, this time not in Ainslie Place but at the corner where the Kings Stables Road ran into the Grassmarket. At least he would save himself the walk. During the day he also purchased a stout walking stick and a very well constructed tall hat, which he jammed on his still-throbbing head.
    During the day he had taken the precaution of walking the length of Cowgate so he would know every yard of it in the semidarkness of its sporadic gas lamps. In the shortening autumn light it had been a grim sight. The buildings were in ill repair, crumbling stonework, battered, half-obliterated signs, walls stained and weatherworn, gutters shallow and running with water and refuse. The narrow wynds leading off it up towards the High Street were crowded with people, carts, washing and piles of vegetables and rubbish.
    Now as he stood in the doorway of an