Chapter 2
Chapter Two
In the modern day, Greyfriars is Edinburgh’s most famous cemetery. When I’d visit my nan, we’d often zip through on our way from the Grassmarket to the museum, and it’s always thronged with tourists.
Greyfriars Kirk started life as a friary, as the name might suggest. The friars left centuries ago, and the building was used for “this and that”—according to Gray, who’s as bad with history as I am.
At some point, the city was storing gunpowder in the tower, a choice that never fails to end with a very large kaboom.
The kirk underwent both reconstruction and a fire earlier this century, and it’s only recently been re-re-constructed.
The kirkyard is bounded by Grassmarket on the north and Candlemaker Row on the east. To the west, the wall is part of the old Flodden Wall, which once marked the boundary of Edinburgh.
To reach the cemetery, we need to cross the Mound marking the New Town and Old Town boundary. Then it’s up to High Street and down Upper Bow to the Grassmarket.
Gray and I enter Greyfriars through the north gate and head up the hill.
I spot Davina right away. She’s standing beside what might be the most famous Greyfriars grave, both in this time and mine.
Famous not for its occupant—a night watchman who worked for the police—but for the mop of fur lying in front of the stone.
A small brown terrier, whose likeness will one day grace a thousand souvenir coffee mugs and postcards.
Greyfriars Bobby. Of course, I know the story.
In my day, if you visit Greyfriars, you can’t miss the plaques and statue and the nearby pub bearing his name.
According to the legend, he belonged to the man buried here, and after his owner’s death, Bobby guarded the grave until his death, which is . . . well, probably soon.
My knowledge of this time period is mostly informed by my father, an English lit prof.
That means I arrived with a vague idea of Victorian life, but it was a muddled mess of sixty-odd years all condensed in my head.
I had no idea when Greyfriars Bobby lived, and I’d been delighted when I first saw him here.
He’s an old dog now, which is why I suspect he doesn’t have many years left before he passes into legend . . . and becomes a souvenir goldmine.
The question has never been whether Bobby existed. He obviously did—the Victorian era isn’t that long ago. But did he belong to the man in that grave? Or was he just a stray dog who’d found a nice place to hang out, and then people started petting him and feeding him, so he stayed?
As we approach the grave, I notice the name on it. I’d never paid that much attention to it before. The fact he worked for the police interested me, but his name did not.
Now I slow as I read it.
John Gray.
I stop and turn to Gray walking alongside me. His gaze is fixed on Davina, and he gets a few steps before realizing he left me behind and circling back.
“John Gray,” I say. “Any relation?”
His dark brows rise. “It is a very popular Scottish name, Mallory.”
“So no?”
He sighs and tears his gaze from Davina, clearly annoyed that I’ve stopped him from bearing down on his prey.
“Second cousin,” he says. “Or third, perhaps.”
“Wait. So the guy buried here was related to you?”
“I did not know him well.”
“Did he have a dog?”
A pause. Then, “Yes.”
I peer at him, that pause having not gone unnoticed. “Did the dog look like Greyfriars Bobby?”
“I decline to answer.”
“On the grounds that you know I love a good story, and you don’t want to spoil this one for me?”
“I decline to answer,” he repeats.
I curse under my breath. So John Gray had a dog, and it did not look like Greyfriars Bobby.
“As I said,” Gray says. “I did not know him well. He may have had multiple dogs.”
“Nice try,” I mutter.
“All right, Davina,” I say as we approach her. “What’s this theft you want us to . . .”
I slow as I get a closer look at the dog curled up in front of the grave. Bobby is an elderly Skye terrier—or some similar breed. This is a young white terrierish dog that seems to have been dusted with dirt to make it look brown.
Also, this dog is tied to the gravestone.
“That’s not Greyfriars Bobby,” I say.
“Of course it is.” Davina crosses her arms. “Look at him, all curled up on his master’s grave.”
“Tied to it.”
“For safety.”
I glare at her. “That is not Greyfriars Bobby.”
She peers at me. “Are you sure, kitty-cat?”
“Yes.”
“I believe we know what was stolen,” Gray murmurs beside me.
I turn to Davina. “Where’s Bobby?”
“If I knew, I would hardly be hiring the likes of you, would I?”
I bend to untie the dog. When Davina squawks, Gray presses a pound coin into her palm.
“For your assistance,” he says. “Thank you for alerting us to the mistreatment of this poor beast.”
She continues squawking, but I ignore her as I untie the rope from the dog’s neck and pat its matted fur.
“You can go now,” I whisper as I straighten and step away. The dog edges closer.
“Don’t you have someplace to be?” I say.
The dog presses into my skirts.
“Apparently not,” Gray says with a sigh.
“Fine, you’ve bought yourself a mongrel,” Davina grumbles. “But that doesn’t solve my problem.”
“We are not buying the dog,” I say. “We’ll find it a home after we’ve cleaned it up.”
She peers at me and snorts a laugh. “Oh, yes.” She turns to Gray. “Catriona was always a soft-hearted lass. You are lucky to have her. Butter would not melt on her sweet tongue.” She winks at me and then waggles her hand, indicating that she expects later payment for participating in this charade.
Gray shakes his head and puts out his elbow for me to take his arm. “It is time for us to go. If the dog follows, we will ask Simon to clean it up.”
“You have not solved my problem,” Davina says.
When I turn, slowly, she waves at the grave. “Even you knew that one wasn’t Bobby. I need Bobby. Or a proper likeness.”
“For what?”
She straightens, chin lifting. “I give tours. I take people about the kirkyard and tell them all the stories. But they all expect to see Bobby.”
“Uh-huh.”
I’d love to believe Davina has found honest work, but I can’t imagine anyone paying her more than a shilling for a “tour.” Which means she’s also picking their pockets while they’re busy cooing at the dog.
“It’s true,” she says. “I have found God.” She fumbles and pulls out a crucifix. “He has shown me the error of my ways, and I have dedicated my life to bringing joy into the lives of others.”
I manage to keep a straight face, but I’m more shocked that she’s able to keep one.
“We don’t find lost dogs,” I say. “Or replacements for lost dogs.”
Gray says, “I fear Bobby has likely gone somewhere to die. The last time I saw him, he seemed to have a tumor on his jaw. He is very old.”
If the current Bobby is even the original one, which is another matter that’s up for debate in my time.
“With any luck, someone took him in,” I say. “Giving him comfort in his final days.”
“Then find him and bring him back,” Davina says. “He has work to do.”
“Not very Christian of you,” I say.
She glares at me. “I take care of him. I bring scraps every day, for the people on my tour to feed him.”
So she charges a pittance for the tour. Then charges for the meat scraps to feed Bobby. Then picks their pockets while they do. I’m kinda impressed.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “This has nothing to do with us.”
Gray holds out another sovereign. “We are done here, yes?”
When Davina tries to take the coin, he keeps hold of it.
“I appreciate that you were concerned about the dog,” he says. “However, I would ask that you do not contact Catriona again. She really is very busy.”
Davina snorts. “I’m sure she is. Busy warming your bed.”
Gray’s eyes narrow, but Davina doesn’t have the sense to take the warning.
“Everyone knows she’s not really your assistant,” she continues. “Clever man that you are, you have found a way to keep a mistress under your own roof, and you think no one’s the wiser, but they are. They know exactly what you are doing, doctor, and they’re laughing at you for it.”
Gray’s jaw tightens, and I bristle. Davina has hit a tender nerve. I am Gray’s assistant. I’m also his friend. And while I might like there to be more to it, there isn’t. Yet that’s not what people see, and it’s becoming an ever-greater problem.
Gray might be a very successful man—runs the prosperous undertaking business he inherited from his father, has degrees in both medicine and surgery, and is an increasingly respected forensic pioneer—but he’s also illegitimate.
And not white. That can lead to the misconception that he might have trouble finding female companionship, which he absolutely does not.
Yet for many people, it makes perfect sense that a “brown-skinned bastard” might resort to hiring a pretty girl as his “assistant” while having her assist in satisfying other needs.
Last month, he’d come up with a solution. We’d get married. Yep, clearly that would fix everything. Initially, I’d been . . . I don’t even know what I’d felt. How do you react when the guy you’ve fallen for offers to marry you for purely practical reasons? Not well, is the short version.
We’ve backburnered the idea, in hopes of finding a better one, but with McCreadie finally wooing Isla, our time is running out. McCreadie will propose, and I can’t stay in the town house once Isla leaves it.
“Davina,” I say, my tone steady. “I do not care whether you believe I am actually Dr. Gray’s assistant. If you are trying to threaten us, then I don’t see the point—as you said, people already suspect it.”
“Threaten Dr. Gray?” Her eyes widen. “Never.”
“So you are threatening Catriona?” Gray says, his voice a low growl.
“I am asking for her help, sir. One friend to another.”
“You tried to have me killed,” I say.
That stops her short. She stares at me in what looks like honest confusion.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean,” I say. “I found the notes you wrote Constable Findlay. You said I’d betrayed him and promised—for a fee—to lead me into an alley so he could take his revenge. Which he did by strangling me and leaving me for dead.”
Gray goes very still, and I realize I’ve made a misstep. He didn’t know this part. I was the one who found the messages in Findlay’s room. But I’d never told Gray that I knew who’d written them.
“You did what?” he says to Davina, enunciating each word, and she finally has the sense to step backward.
“It— It was not like that. How was I to know he’d try to kill her?” Her gaze shoots to me. “You sold his trinkets and his police information, but he should not have killed you for that, just . . .”
“Knocked me around?”
“Yes.” She jabs a finger my way, missing my sarcasm. “He is supposed to be a policeman, and he tried to murder you?”
“One might argue,” I say, “that a constable is even more likely to kill a woman who betrays him. Do the police always treat you well, Davina? Never handle you roughly? Never smack you around?”
She goes very still, and I know my barb struck harder than I intended.
It’s still the early days of law enforcement, but I can already see the divide that will plague us into the modern world.
The split between the idealists who want to serve and protect, and those who found a way to parlay schoolyard bullying into a professional career.
In this era, it doesn’t help that the training, as McCreadie not-jokes, consists mostly of “Can you swing a cudgel? You’re hired. ”
“I—” Davina swallows. “You always spoke well of the constable, Catriona. You said he was kind. I did not expect . . .” She seems to find herself and straightens. “But you survived. He didn’t kill you.”
“We’re done here,” Gray says, gently taking my elbow. “Miss Davina, I would strongly suggest that I never see you again. I would even more strongly suggest that Catriona never sees you again.”
“Wait!” She moves quickly into my path. “You said you had lost your memory and wanted information on your past. You were going to come back when you had money.”
“I don’t need that anymore.”
“Don’t you?” She walks backward in front of me as we head down the hill, which really is a feat in Victorian garb. “Have you regained your memories? You may not know all, and you really ought to know all. You made enemies, Catriona. Would it not help to be warned against them?”
Gray stops sharply enough to make her step back.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” she says. “I did not mean—”
“How much?” he says.
“Sir?”
“How much are you asking for this information? If the price is reasonable, I will pay it. If not, we are leaving. Consider carefully.”
“Last time, she offered twenty minutes for a sovereign,” I say.
“Fine,” he cuts in before Davina can answer. “I will purchase one hour of your time for five pounds.”
Two passing male tourists stop abruptly and stare from Gray to me.
Then they realize he was offering the money to Davina, and they stare more.
Five pounds for an hour of her time? One shakes his head at the cost of sex workers in the big city, while the other eyes Davina with speculation, as if wondering what delightful tricks she must know for that price.
As usual, Gray notices nothing beyond the scope of his laser focus. “One sovereign now for twenty minutes, and the remainder after we have ascertained that you are telling the truth.”
“Telling the truth?” she huffs. “If it’s lies you’re looking for, Dr. Gray, I suggest you train your gaze in the direction of your pretty young ‘assistant.’ She’s the expert. And I do not want your money. I want the dog.”
“I am offering a sizable sum.”
She strokes her crucifix. “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. That is what the good book says.”
“The ‘good book’ says nothing of the sort,” Gray snaps. “Those are the words of a Chinese philosopher.”
“I want the dog,” she says. “It’s my golden goose, and I like having my eggs every day.”
Gray opens his mouth, and I know he’s going to increase the offer, because that’s Gray. This is a problem that needs solving, and it is most efficiently solved by money. He has little use for his family fortune, so it might as well solve problems.
“Dr. Gray,” I murmur. “Might I speak to you a moment?”
He hesitates. Then he nods abruptly and follows me.