“Hush! Come along, children!” their teacher hissed, herding them like so many gray-and-blue-clad sheep. She was a sturdy matron in a thick woolen suit—sans corset, Lillian noted with disapproval. They followed her, whispering and stifling laughter, their leather soles clacking on the marble floor. A couple of the older the girls stared at Lillian in a way she found most impolite, and she glared back at them.
Lillian knew she was old, but she couldn’t abide people dismissing her because of her age. She was still a lively woman with a keen mind and the energy of folks half her age, and it galled her when a young shopkeeper’s assistant spoke more slowly to her, or raised his voice, assuming she was hard of hearing.
“Lower your voice,” she would snap at him. “I’m not deaf!” She enjoyed the startled expression that came over his face, but it didn’t make up for the indignity inflicted by the careless arrogance of the young. She remembered being that age, thinking the grace and ease of youth would last forever—getting old was something that happened to other people.
Lillian Grey was a curious combination—the spirit of a revolutionary affixed to the stern sensibility of a conservative Scottish matron. She was aware of her oddness, but proud of it, too, in the contrary way of a true Scot. She shuffled to the rear of the nave, with its soaring stone arches, her movements hampered by the large basket on her arm. She stared up at the crosshatched, stained glass window on the western end.
Lillian had studied art as a young woman—it was said among the family that she had “an artistic soul.” After Alfie’s death, she had taken up photography, rather by accident, having acquired a bulky wooden camera at a jumble sale. She gave her neck a cursory rub with her strong fingers as she stood beneath the depiction of the archangel Gabriel wielding his flaming sword. Lowering her head, she breathed a silent homage to her dear departed Alfred (she wouldn’t use the word “prayer,” because that would imply a faith in God she was proud not to have).
When she was finished, she drew a small gold watch from her skirt pocket and peered at its face. She was astonished to see it was nearly five. She had half an hour to get home and put the kettle on before her sister’s son Ian, her favorite nephew, arrived at her flat. They had always gotten on, but now that dear Emily was gone, they had a special bond. The sausages in her basket were for him—she was making bubble and squeak for tea, one of his favorites. After Alfie’s death, she insisted on giving Ian a yearly stipend—she had more than she could possibly spend—and though he could have lived on that alone, he continued working as a policeman, bless him.
She scurried from the church onto the High Street. As she passed the kirk’s western entrance, a couple of boys in school uniforms loped past, pausing to spit energetically on the heart-shaped mosaic built into the cobblestones. Known as the Heart of Midlothian, after the nickname for the infamous Tolbooth prison, the mosaic marked the former entrance to the building, now demolished. The prison figured prominently in Sir Walter Scott’s nationalist novel, The Heart of Midlothian, and was also the place of public executions. Spitting on the Heart was considered both good luck and a sign of Scottish patriotism—though Lillian considered it merely an excuse for boys to spit in public.
She charged uphill on her sturdy legs before turning south toward her home near the university, passing students and professors on their way to Thursday evening classes, long gowns flapping behind them in the wind like great black wings. Arriving at her spacious town house, she shoved the sausages into the icebox next to a nice bunch of cress she had bought from a street vendor near the Lawnmarket. The doorbell chimed as she was pouring the cream into the bone china pitcher her sister had given her. Poor Emily, she thought as she hurried down the long hallway to the front door. She could see the outline of her nephew’s lean form behind the smoked-glass panels.
“Hello, Auntie,” he said, kissing her on the cheek as she closed the door after him. He handed her a bunch of greenhouse carnations, and she inhaled their sharp cinnamon smell, reminiscent of spring breezes and hope.
“Ach, ye shouldn’t have,” she said, her Glaswegian accent thickening in his presence.
“You’d never forgive me if I didn’t.”
She swatted him affectionately and bustled him into the front parlor, where a steaming teapot perched upon a lace antimacassar on the round rosewood table. She arranged the flowers in a vase and put them on top of the upright piano that had belonged to Emily. Lillian didn’t play, but she was determined to learn—the piano had been spared in the fire that killed her sister, which she took as a sign. Though she didn’t believe in a Christian God, Lillian saw no contradiction in being heartily superstitious. After putting the sausages and potatoes in a skillet over a low fire, she joined her nephew in the parlor.
The gas lamps were turned low, and a fire blazed merrily in the hearth. A lump swelled in her throat as Lillian thought of all the tea she and Alfred had shared together at this table. Still, she had had forty years with him before the heart attack ripped him from her. Lillian was inclined to focus on the positive, a trait that ran in the Grey family—though not, alas, in the Hamilton clan.
“Shall I be mother?” she asked as she reached for the pot.
Ian inhaled the aroma of steaming tea. “Hot and strong, just the way I like it.”
“You’re on a case,” she observed, handing him a cup.
“You never did miss much, Auntie,” he said, reaching for a raisin scone.
“Mind you don’t spoil your appetite for the sausages.”
“No fear of that,” he said, biting into the scone, sending crumbs tumbling onto the carpet.
“Who’s the lead detective?”
“I hope I am.”
“Oh, Ian—your first proper case!” she said, clapping her hands like a schoolgirl.
“It’s not official yet—”
“This calls for a celebration!” she said, ignoring his protestation. “We’ll have to break out something decent with supper.” She stood and reached for the empty teapot, suppressing a groan as her aging joints protested. The damp weather cut through layers of woolen clothing, making her knees swell and creak, but she was not about to let her nephew see that. She picked up the pot and headed toward the kitchen, doing her best to straighten her stiffening spine. She turned the sausages and potatoes, and returned with a bottle of single malt and two brandy snifters. After pouring them each a generous amount, she settled back into her chair. “All right—I want all the details.”
“Did you happen to read about the young man who was found in Holyrood Park yesterday?”
“One would have to be blind and deaf to avoid hearing about it—it was in all the papers.” She leaned toward him. “So it was murder? I thought as much!”
“You never cease to amaze me. What made you think that?”
She smiled. “If I give away all my secrets, I won’t surprise you anymore.”
He took a sip of whisky. “Perhaps you should be a member of the constabulary instead of me.”
“Well,” she said, “we both know why you joined the force.” She saw his lips tighten, and veered away from the subject. “Do you have any promising leads?”