Chapter 3
Fleshmarket Close was like so many other places I had known in the past in Edinburgh, including the brothel known as The Church. Places where others lived in the shadows of taverns and pubs, and old tenements.
These places hardened a person, particularly a child, where trust didn’t exist, and the only thing that was left was survival.
That was how I thought of it when I left Edinburgh years earlier for a different life.
A chance for an education beyond my ability to count out an evening’s earnings for the ladies at The Church.
For a roof over my head that wasn’t crawling with rats, or where thirty children were crowded into a room, a nun watching over with a cane if anyone should cry out.
A chance for a different life than the one I had known. Dory had persuaded me to take that chance.
“A place like this...? It will kill ye,” she told me. “Ye have a chance now for something better, the ability to take care of yerself with an education, and not be livin’ hand-to-mouth until the next man comes along, hopin’ he doesna beat ye. Or worse. Ye have to go. It’s the only way out of here.”
There was one other way for far too many…a police van and an unmarked grave.
“Are ye all right, miss?” Sergeant MacKenzie asked.
I realized the coach had come to a stop and glanced out the window at the entrance to the Close, and the stone steps that led inside that passage.
Past two pubs, a leathermaker’s shop, an assortment of entrances in the narrow space like the one from the day before—shadows inside tenements where people slept on cots and the floors.
Tenants included workers who earned coins for a meal or that cot, those who begged on the street, others who lifted a woman’s reticule or coins from a man’s pocket.
It was a world I understood far too well. And now, returning to Dory’s room, I was taken back to that.
“The constables were here early,” the old woman snapped as she met Sergeant MacKenzie at the entrance.
“Collected the body, they did. I been hard put cleaning the place. Now I need to find another tenant, one that will pay on time.” She glanced to where I stood beyond his stout height.
“I know ye. Ye were here yesterday. Took ye away, they did, aye? Wot might ye be wantin’ now?”
“We’ll be seein’ the room,” Sergeant MacKenzie informed her. “Either provide the key or show the way.”
“Didna arrest ye, did they?” she said with snort. “With yer fancy clothes and proper way of speakin’. It will cost ye to see the room, as it will put off anyone hopin’ for the place.”
That did seem most unlikely.
“We’ll have none of that now,” he told her. “Or I’ll have the driver call for a van and have ye taken in.”
“And wot might be the charge?” she demanded from the top of the stairs with a confused look at her face.
“Extortion,” he announced. She had no idea of the meaning.
“Ex...? Wot is that?”
“Attemptin’ to get payment for somethin’ by crookery or threat.”
“I’m entitled to compensation for me trouble!” she retorted.
“Is yer establishment licensed with the city?” he demanded.
“Licensed?” she replied as we arrived at Dory’s room.
“I’ll be pleased to check that for ye before we leave, ma’am.”
Her response was a glare at him.
“And open the room, if ye please. It seems to be locked.”
She opened the room without further comment, although her expression indicated exactly what she thought of Sergeant MacKenzie.
We entered the room.
It was as I remembered it, except that Dory’s body was no longer there. I stepped farther into the room.
A partially eaten meal remained, as well as the few clothes Dory had, still on the hooks along the wall. So much for the woman’s claim that she had cleaned the place.
I slowly walked around the small room, something about it different from the day before. It was a cold, uncomfortable feeling that ran along my skin.
“Someone else has been here.”
“If there’s anythin’ missing it could be them constables wot was here this mornin’,” the landlady snapped. “They mighta taken something.”
It was something else...a feeling that grew stronger as I moved about the room.
“Dinna ye be speakin’ against the police,” Sergeant MacKenzie warned her. “Next ye’ll be wantin’ them to save ye from the Night Hawks when they come fer the protection money ye pay them.”
“I do no such thing,” she snapped and there’s been no one else here! I would know! I’ll leave ye to yer business. But let me know when ye leave. As I said, I keep a respectable place and I dinna want rumours startin’.”
As if a murder in one of her rooms was not something that would cause rumours.
“Such a charmin’ woman,” Sergeant MacKenzie commented. “One can understand why there is no husband about. She no doubt drove him off with kindness,” he added, with no small about of sarcasm.
I heard only part of what he said as I continued around the room. I pushed back the curtain that hung in front of the bed and then inspected the shelf above in the alcove.
“I’ll be just beyond,” Sergeant MacKenzie informed me. “Standin’ guard if the old witch should return.”
He stepped out of the room, and I continued my search, then returned to that alcove and the shelf at one end above the narrow bed.
Dory had written about it in one of her early letters, a place where she put things to hide and keep them safe from the old woman.
She spoke of things that had gone missing in the past—a handful of coins that she kept in a jar that was now empty.
A hair comb found on the street that looked as if it might have been made of silver, that had also disappeared.
And a book dropped by its owner in the marketplace that Dory could only read a few words of, ironically written by my guardian, Mikaela Forsythe.
In one of her recent letters, she had mentioned a secret hiding place in the room where she kept things of value—coins from her gentleman friends and what she earned at the pub, along with the money I sent her.
I had a sudden thought and took out the knife I carried. I pulled out the blade from the handle, then used the tip of the blade to probe the edges of each of the narrow wood planks in the wall above the shelf.
I was able to pry one open, not unlike the secret place she had kept at The Church years before, and discovered her secret place.
There was a handful of coins, well hidden, that the landlady had not confiscated before the constable arrived that morning, along with a bundle of the letters I had written to her, tied with a piece of twine.
“Oh, Dory,” I whispered. “I miss you, my friend. I wish you could tell me what happened.” Not that I expected an answer, still they were things I would have told her, if she were there.
The letters had no importance to anyone except me. I took them and the other envelope and tucked them into my bag. I left the few coins that were still there, then replaced that small panel of wood.
I looked about the room once more, my gaze falling on a dried rose in a chipped vase on the small table.
Dory liked flowers. She said they were innocent things, simply sharing their beauty with whoever came their way.
I had no way of knowing if she had picked it or if it might have been given to her by one of her ‘friends,’ as she called the men who found their way into her life. Most eventually disappeared, but she had spoken about one that came round whenever he could.
Who was he? Did he know what had happened? Had he perhaps read my letters to her, then written her replies, and sent them to me in London?
“I promise I will find the person who did this.” As I turned to leave, there was a breath of air that stirred in that stagnant room.
Sergeant Mac was waiting for me as I stepped out into the hallway.
“The ol’ bat has been sniffin’ around,” he said with a nod toward the stairwell. He looked at me.
“Are ye alright, miss?”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t. What had happened would never be alright, yet I knew what I had to do. I owed it to Dory.
Mikaela would understand, I thought, as we left the tenements of the Old Town. She had rescued me from the poverty, squalor, and certain death just as Dory had in her own way years before.
I couldn’t rescue my friend, but I could find the person who had killed her.
I paid little attention as we returned to Princes Street, then the High Street just beyond and those imposing austere stone offices that filled Albany Street. And only became aware that we were no longer near Fleshmarket as the driver stopped the coach.
“Inspector Landry said as how ye needed to meet with Sir McQuarrie after,” Sergeant MacKenzie announced as he stepped down and held open the door of the coach.
“Do ye want the driver to wait?”
I replied that it wasn’t necessary as I had no way of knowing if I would need to wait to see Sir McQuarrie, and I was determined that I would see him.
It was late in the day, very near evening. Still, in spite of the late hour, I was determined to visit the morgue where Dory’s body had been taken with the hope that I might be able to learn something, dreadful as that prospect was.
Inspector Landry had assured me that Sir McQuarrie could make arrangements for that. He seemed to have considerable influence in such matters with those he knew.
I thanked Sergeant MacKenzie, then crossed the street to the entrance of Sir McQuarrie’s offices.
It did seem there were others out and about late in the day, possibly for an appointment with the lawyer, a rented coach with that metal license waiting nearby.
I stepped into the office and was greeted by his clerk.
“Miss Montgomery. I was informed you might be returning yet today.” He smiled, congenial as before.
“Sir McQuarrie is presently with someone. I will let him know that you are here.”
I didn’t sit in one of the finely upholstered chairs while I waited. Instead, I paced about that elegantly furnished office and pressed my fingers to my temple against the headache that had begun.