The Burning Glass by Lillian Stewart Carl

independently wealthy? The one thing Alasdair had ever said
about her was that he was not paying her alimony, not that any
alimony a policeman could provide would buy more than a doll’s
house.
    “Ciara’s right,” Jean said. “This is a piece
from a gravestone. Hic jacet is Latin for ‘here lies,’ as in
‘here is buried,’ not ‘here someone isn’t telling the truth.’ Hic jacet someone. Not Wallace.”
    That elicited a fissure of a smile. “It’s
from Isabel’s grave. A second bit of that inscription was found in
Wallace’s pocket, the ac , fittingly enough.”
    “In his pocket?”
    Alasdair made a tight gesture that from
anyone else would have been a flail of frustration. “Gary Delaney
at Lothian and Borders Police sent me the report of the inquest, it
being a matter of public record and all. The ruling was that
Wallace was elderly, he had a heart condition, he died. Slam the
file. Close the case. I’m guessing the inquest on Helen Elliot
ruled the same.”
    “But the answering machine tape is evidence
that Wallace’s case shouldn’t be closed. And there’s a connection
between the two deaths, sort of.”
    “I left a message on Delaney’s voice mail
soon as I found the recording, but he didn’t ring me back. Why
should he have done?”
    That was a rhetorical question, but Jean
answered anyway. “Because it’s not your case. Any more than the
theft of the clarsach is your case.”
    “And because I’m a civilian now.”
    A glimmer of light rose above Jean’s eastern
horizon. That was it. Despite protesting he had no regrets,
Alasdair was feeling left out, unwanted. His status emergency was a
lot more complex than Derek’s. So was his reaction. “Alasdair, you
didn’t quit your job for me. You didn’t even quit it because of me,
not really. I’m just the catalyst.”
    He looked at her incredulously, his eyes
glinting doubly blue and doubly chill in the lamplight. “Eh? What
are you on about?”
    He thought she’d changed the subject, and for
once couldn’t keep up with her. Or refused to try. No need to pick
at scabs, after all. Jean called a truce by gesturing toward the
castle. “You were going to lock up, weren’t you? It’s past dinner
time, and when I get hungry I get irritable.”
    Despite that opening, all he said was, “Aye.
Time to be locking the doors,” and marched back up the steps. The
harsh yellow light framed by the arched entrance winked out,
leaving only the queasy blue-tinted light caught by the ancient
walls, and a wash of silver on the sky above—clouds were moving in,
seeing off the last rosy gleam of sunset and veiling the stars and
moon. The delectable odor of peat smoke was coming from the farm
across the road. Jean imagined Roddy offering Zoe tea and bannocks,
and she rejecting them for a Coke and a bag of crisps.
    With a reverberating thud the thick, wooden,
iron-ribbed door slammed shut. A jingle, like ice cubes in a
bucket, must be Alasdair wielding a ring of keys.
    Skeleton keys? Jean imagined particles of
bone, chalky fingertips, turned in the keyholes of walled-up doors.
The facade of the castle looked even darker and more dour, with
only the two dim squares of light in the lower corner, the front
windows of the flat, to indicate that the place was not a natural
cliff face. She thought of all the shadowed rooms behind those
thick walls, and wondered to what sort of step the floorboards
creaked.
    Walking rather than marching, Alasdair locked
the door of the shop, too, then returned to her side.
    “The kids were going to find their way up and
down those staircases with no more than a penlight?” Jean asked.
“And let themselves be locked in?”
    “They were playing at goths and vampires, I
reckon, the way Ciara plays at auras and ley lines. Might explain
the fossilized condom I cleared away from an upper room.”
    “Gross! That’s hardly the sort of place I’d
choose for a romantic encounter.” She could sense Alasdair’s wry
gaze on the side