Chapter 5 #2
In spite of the fact that it was not late in the day, the overcast sky cast a darkness over the streets and the front of businesses along Princes Street, much like nighttime.
We arrived in short order. I stepped down and paid the driver, then began the long walk up the alleyway known as Fleshmarket Close.
At one time, it had been known for its slaughterhouse, butcher stalls, and meat market. But the slaughterhouses had been relocated to Fountainhead, with only the meat market remaining.
Vendor stalls had changed as well. A good many had disappeared altogether, leaving boarded-up doorways and windows nearest the Market Street entrance near Waverly Station, with a handful of other entrances to upper floor tenement flats and rooms that were let, like the one Dory had occupied.
Along with a handful of pubs that had taken those vacant places and lined the alley that climbed the steep steps and cobbled alleyway up to Cockburn Street.
The pub where Dory had worked from time to time when she needed rent money was at the top of the Close, the room she had rented across the way and not as far.
I wanted very much to speak with the building matron where Dory lived. In spite of her demeanour, the night we met and then again the following day, I sensed that she was a crafty old bird.
Yet a handful of coins might loosen her tongue about what she knew or might have seen the night Dory was murdered. Particularly with the clues Munro had discovered upon seeing Dory’s body—very likely a short man who was left-handed.
It was not something that would go unnoticed. I reached into my bag, my fingers wrapping around the knife that Munro had given me after one of my adventures out and about London.
I passed more than one person huddled in the shadows of the Close, either from too much drink, or perhaps seeking shelter from the rain with a coat collar pulled high about the neck and ears. There was another possibility and I quickened my steps.
As I neared the entrance to the tenement where Dory had lived, there was a furious flutter of wings overhead as a crow swooped near.
A warning?
It disappeared down the alley as a hand reached out and grabbed my arm.
“What might be the hurry, miss?”
The man’s grip was very near as strong as the cloud of whisky fumes that swept across my face and choked my throat.
I could have said that I was surprised. I was not. I had spent the first part of my life in places like the Close, dodging men just like the one who clamped a bony paw of a hand on my shoulder.
I had learned to escape those encounters, much like this one. I fought back and as that face bent over me, I brought up the knife I always carried, and in the struggle pressed it against his throat.
There was a sound of surprise, a laugh then a crude comment.
“Wot will ye do with that, miss?”
I pressed the blade harder. “I will separate yer head from yer neck!” I spat back at him. He roared with laughter.
His expression suddenly flattened, followed by a curse and a tangle of arms and legs as I was suddenly released and fell back against the stone wall of the Close.
“Leave off ye bloody wanker! Or I’ll cut ye meself!”
My attacker scrambled to recover where he’d fallen on the cobbles, cursed, then lurched away as a boot connected with his backside. I stared at the person who belonged to that flood of curses and the boot.
It was a boy!
He must have been no more than nine or ten years with scraggly long hair that hung about his shoulders from beneath a worn cap. A layer of filth disguised most of his features, except for dark eyes with a serious, determined look. My rescuer was a boy!
“Ye, reckless little bampot!” I told him. “Ye might have been hurt!”
That serious expression turned to one of curiosity.
“I never heard no lady speak like that!” he exclaimed. “Nor seen one carry a blade. Who might ye be and wot are ye doin’ here?”
An amazing observation for one so young, I thought.
Or perhaps not, by the clothes he wore that hung mostly in tatters on his too-thin body.
And those boots, several sizes too large and anchored about his ankles with pieces of rope.
One of Edinburgh’s lost children who wandered the streets, though few of those survived.
I had some experience with that. But this one, with his self-confidence and brash demeanour in spite of his clothes, stared back at me almost defiantly.
“I have business here,” I explained, but said nothing further, fully expecting him to disappear as suddenly as he had appeared.
“Business? In the Fleshmarket? A lady?” he laughed. “There is only one kind of business for a woman here!”
“Nevertheless,” I replied, determined to question the matron of the building where Dory had once lived. “Be on yer way.”
He fell into step beside me as I climbed the alleyway toward that tenement.
“Savin’ yer life should be worth somethin’.”
Saving my life? If not for my intervention, he might have ended up lyin’ bloodied on the cobbles. Still a coin might provide a meal. I pulled a coin from my pocket and handed it to him.
“Now be on yer way.”
I might as well have shouted into the wind.
He took the coin, bit it to make certain it was real, then pocketed it.
“A lady as fine as yerself needs protection in a place like this.”
Protection? A bit of a child that could have weighed no more than four stone. Still, he had managed quite handily with bluster to make up for the rest of it.
“My business is here,” I informed him as I reached the entrance to the tenement.”
“With old Meggy? Be sure to hold onto yer purse with that one, and watch yer back.”
This from a street thief.
“Wot might yer business be? Are ye lookin’ fer a room? Best look elsewhere. A tenant got her throat cut two days ago.” That dark gaze narrowed.
“Might ye be the one the police found bendin’ over her? I heard she was a lady, fit yer description.”
I refused to respond to that.
“Goodbye.” I told him.
“I best come along,” he announced, much to my disagreement. “Fer yer protection.”
It was like trying to shake off a bothersome insect that kept buzzing about.
“Good day,” I insisted as I climbed the steps to the tenement and opened the door at the entrance. That should be the end of it, I thought.