again, doesn’t she? Maybe we’ll put her back in her case.”
“Have you told the Prof yet?”
“I sent him an e-mail this afternoon.”
“An e-mail? He’s twenty yards down the hall . . .”
“Nevertheless, that’s what I did.” Curt started to rise to his feet.
“You’re scared of him, aren’t you?” Siobhan teased.
Curt did not grace this remark with a reply. He held the door open for her, head bowed slightly. Maybe it was old-fashioned manners, Siobhan thought. More likely, he just didn’t want to meet her eyes.
Her route home took her down George IV Bridge. She turned right at the lights, deciding on a brief detour down the High Street. There were sandwich boards outside St. Giles Cathedral, advertising that evening’s ghost tours. They wouldn’t start for a couple of hours yet, but tourists were already perusing them. Farther down, outside the old Tron Kirk, more sandwich boards, more enticements to experience “Edinburgh’s haunted past.” Siobhan was more concerned with its haunted present. She glanced down Fleshmarket Alley: no sign of life. But wouldn’t the tour guides love to be able to add it to their itineraries? On Broughton Street, she stopped curbside and went into a local shop, emerging with a bag of groceries and the final printing of the evening paper. Her flat was nearby: no parking spaces left in the residents’ zone, but she left her Peugeot on a yellow line, confident that she’d move it before the enforcers started their morning shift.
Her flat was in a shared four-story tenement. She was lucky with her neighbors: no all-night parties or aspiring rock drummers. She knew a few of their faces but none of their names. Edinburgh didn’t expect you to have anything more than a passing acquaintance with your neighbors, unless there was some shared problem to be worked out, like a leaky roof or cracked gutter. She thought of Knoxland with its paper-thin dividing walls, letting everyone hear everyone else. Someone in the tenement kept cats: this was her only complaint. She could smell them on the stairwell. But once inside her flat, the world outside melted away.
She put the tub of ice cream in the freezer, the milk in the fridge. Unwrapped the ready meal and popped it in the microwave. It was low-fat, which would atone for the later possibility of an urge to gorge on chocolate mint chip. There was a bottle of wine on the draining board. Recorked with a couple of glasses missing. She poured some out, tasted it, decided it wasn’t going to poison her. She sat down with the paper, waiting for her dinner to heat up. She almost never cooked anything from scratch, not when she was eating alone. Sitting at the table, she was aware that the few pounds she had gained recently were telling her to loosen her trousers. Her blouse, too, was tight under the arms. She got up from the table and returned a couple of minutes later, in slippers and dressing gown. The food was done, so she took it through to the living room on a tray with her glass and the paper.
Judith Lennox had made it to the inside pages. There was a photo of her at the entrance to Fleshmarket Alley, probably taken that afternoon. Head and shoulders, showing voluminous dark curly hair and a bright scarf. Siobhan didn’t know what look she’d been trying for, but her lips and eyes said only one thing: smug. Loving the camera’s attention and ready to strike any pose asked of her. Alongside was another posed shot, this time of Ray Mangold, arms folded proprietorially as he stood outside the Warlock.
There was a smaller photo of the archaeological site in the grounds of Holyrood, where the other skeletons had been uncovered. Someone from Historic Scotland had been interviewed and threw scorn on Lennox’s suggestion that there was anything ritualistic about those deaths, or about the manner in which the bodies had been laid out. But this was in the story’s final paragraph, most prominence being given to Lennox’s claim
“Have you told the Prof yet?”
“I sent him an e-mail this afternoon.”
“An e-mail? He’s twenty yards down the hall . . .”
“Nevertheless, that’s what I did.” Curt started to rise to his feet.
“You’re scared of him, aren’t you?” Siobhan teased.
Curt did not grace this remark with a reply. He held the door open for her, head bowed slightly. Maybe it was old-fashioned manners, Siobhan thought. More likely, he just didn’t want to meet her eyes.
Her route home took her down George IV Bridge. She turned right at the lights, deciding on a brief detour down the High Street. There were sandwich boards outside St. Giles Cathedral, advertising that evening’s ghost tours. They wouldn’t start for a couple of hours yet, but tourists were already perusing them. Farther down, outside the old Tron Kirk, more sandwich boards, more enticements to experience “Edinburgh’s haunted past.” Siobhan was more concerned with its haunted present. She glanced down Fleshmarket Alley: no sign of life. But wouldn’t the tour guides love to be able to add it to their itineraries? On Broughton Street, she stopped curbside and went into a local shop, emerging with a bag of groceries and the final printing of the evening paper. Her flat was nearby: no parking spaces left in the residents’ zone, but she left her Peugeot on a yellow line, confident that she’d move it before the enforcers started their morning shift.
Her flat was in a shared four-story tenement. She was lucky with her neighbors: no all-night parties or aspiring rock drummers. She knew a few of their faces but none of their names. Edinburgh didn’t expect you to have anything more than a passing acquaintance with your neighbors, unless there was some shared problem to be worked out, like a leaky roof or cracked gutter. She thought of Knoxland with its paper-thin dividing walls, letting everyone hear everyone else. Someone in the tenement kept cats: this was her only complaint. She could smell them on the stairwell. But once inside her flat, the world outside melted away.
She put the tub of ice cream in the freezer, the milk in the fridge. Unwrapped the ready meal and popped it in the microwave. It was low-fat, which would atone for the later possibility of an urge to gorge on chocolate mint chip. There was a bottle of wine on the draining board. Recorked with a couple of glasses missing. She poured some out, tasted it, decided it wasn’t going to poison her. She sat down with the paper, waiting for her dinner to heat up. She almost never cooked anything from scratch, not when she was eating alone. Sitting at the table, she was aware that the few pounds she had gained recently were telling her to loosen her trousers. Her blouse, too, was tight under the arms. She got up from the table and returned a couple of minutes later, in slippers and dressing gown. The food was done, so she took it through to the living room on a tray with her glass and the paper.
Judith Lennox had made it to the inside pages. There was a photo of her at the entrance to Fleshmarket Alley, probably taken that afternoon. Head and shoulders, showing voluminous dark curly hair and a bright scarf. Siobhan didn’t know what look she’d been trying for, but her lips and eyes said only one thing: smug. Loving the camera’s attention and ready to strike any pose asked of her. Alongside was another posed shot, this time of Ray Mangold, arms folded proprietorially as he stood outside the Warlock.
There was a smaller photo of the archaeological site in the grounds of Holyrood, where the other skeletons had been uncovered. Someone from Historic Scotland had been interviewed and threw scorn on Lennox’s suggestion that there was anything ritualistic about those deaths, or about the manner in which the bodies had been laid out. But this was in the story’s final paragraph, most prominence being given to Lennox’s claim
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