It was just Tom and me. I’d never seen the streets of Edinburgh so quiet. It wasn’t because of the weather—it was cold out, but the snow had stopped. It was the Monster. The streets of my new city, the city of my heart, were unusually quiet because of the New Monster.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the news today, but apparently it had been filled with authorities cautioning citizens to be careful, be aware. Shelagh O’Conner still hadn’t been found; each time she was mentioned, the potential outcome only sounded more dire.
There were discussions of setting a curfew, requiring everyone to be off the streets by seven in the evening. No one wanted that, but from what I could see, not many people wanted to be out either. Whatever was safest was probably the best, but none of this was good.
And I couldn’t help but think I knew something that could assist the police in solving all these mysteries. I couldn’t decide if I’d been in the orbit of everything or if everything that had happened had nudged itself into my orbit. Either way, I couldn’t let go of the sense that I must have missed something, that the events and I were somehow tied together.
Tom’s pub was quiet enough that he could take the night off again; the few customers in the place were in Rodger’s capable hands.
I’d picked my husband up and asked him if he wanted to go for a walk before we went home, just to show the man (or whoever it was) under the monster costume that we weren’t afraid, as well as to pay a visit to someone. Tom had agreed—I probably wouldn’t have braved the dark streets by myself if he hadn’t.
We walked up Victoria Street toward the Royal Mile, hoping to find the typical crowd there. As we reached the top of the steep road, I was pleased and relieved to see more foot traffic—not as much as normal, but more than in Grassmarket. Although this was the hot tourist spot, it was more than that. It was a thoroughfare, a place brimming with history, an important road for everyone who lived in Edinburgh as well as those who visited.
We strolled downhill toward the sea and Inspector Winters’s police station. I wanted to talk to him one more time today, just in case there really was something I knew that could help the police solve the crimes, find Shelagh.
“You think it’s something to do with the horses?” Tom asked as we passed in front of the building housing the office that handled the city’s business licensing. I’d visited the office a few times recently and currently wondered about the people inside. I hoped all was well with them as Tom and I continued on.
“It’s a possibility. I thought about trying to find Findlay and Winston’s flat to talk to them, but that felt like stepping way out of my bounds.”
“Aye.”
A high-pitched voice came from the open door of a gift shop we were walking by. “Look! A monster!”
Tom and I zipped to alert. What was happening? We hurried to the door.
A woman and a little girl, who must have been about seven, were looking at a circular display of key rings dangling on hooks: tartan designs, bagpipes, even swords and dirks. But the little girl had zoned in on one key ring in particular. The charm was in the shape of a hunchbacked man wrapped in an old brown coat.
I went inside, excused myself around the mother and child, and grabbed one. “How in the world did they get this put together so quickly?”
Tom shrugged. “Probably had the charm for something else and just made it work.”
“How about that,” a man said as he came from the back of the store. “Our very own monster.”
Normally I liked the touristy parts of Edinburgh. I liked the small pocket-size souvenir shops. But this sort of marketing left a bad taste in my mouth. I rehung the key ring and nodded at that shopkeeper before Tom and I left the shop. Maybe if I weren’t so close to everything that had happened, maybe if I’d never met Shelagh, I’d have distance enough to find it all intriguing.
“The key ring was in poor taste, lass. I’m sorry it bothered you,” Tom said.
“I’ve seen plague masks for sale, and I thought they were fascinating. Maybe it’s just what it is. I’m sorry I left so quickly.”
“No need to apologize.” He grabbed my hand.
The bird-beaked plague masks had been a part of doctors’ costumes. The beak in the mask was stuffed with burning herbs and perfumes to fight off the plague, which at one time was thought to have been brought on by foul-smelling air from all the waste that was dumped outside. The costume was also worn so that sick people would know that the person treating them, was in fact a plague doctor.
“You know the plague doctors weren’t actually real doctors, real scientists,” Tom said.
“I didn’t know that.”
“And those suits—the long coats, the masks—didn’t protect most of them very well either. Many of the ‘doctors’ attending to the patients didn’t live long.”
“Not surprising.”
“Aye. And they could be wicked cruel too. None of them knew what they were doing. Everyone was just trying to figure out how to get rid of the plague. All methods were attempted. Bloodletting, et cetera.”
“That’s why it’s called ‘practicing’ medicine, huh?” I smiled.
“It’s part of our history, I suppose. It was a terrible time, just because of some fleas on rats. Vicious creatures, those fleas.”
We’d made it to the bottom of the hill, and Tom reached for the police station’s door. The station was in a stone building with a wonderful old short clock tower projecting up from its middle. As I looked around, my eyes landed on the grounds of the Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s official residence in Edinburgh. Tonight, though, there was something about it—it rung some sort of bell in my mind. Why did it suddenly seem like something I should pay attention to?
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
The bookish voice came from Mark Twain—a voice I had heard before, in recordings of course. It came to me the way I remembered his slow Missouri twang. Why was he talking about lying as I was trying to figure out why the Holyroodhouse suddenly seemed pertinent?
“Lass,” Tom said.
I looked at him. “Yes, sorry, what?”
Tom smiled knowingly. “That was one of those moments, wasn’t it?”
“It was.”
“Aye, it’s charming.”
“Hope you always feel that way.”
“Care to tell me what it was about?”
“In my head, I heard a quote about lying as I was looking at the grounds of the Holyroodhouse.”
Tom’s eyebrows came together. “So, the voices, they’re not clear communications?”
“No, not really.”
“I wish I could help you.”
“Me too.” I looked toward Holyrood again and then back at Tom. “Maybe it will come to me. Let’s go talk to Inspector Winters.”
“Aye. I look forward to seeing how they greet you tonight.”
“I do have a reputation.”
Tom smiled again. “Nothing wrong with that.”
The officer sitting at the front podium did a double take when his eyes landed on me. I hadn’t seen him before. He was cute and fresh-faced and younger, I thought, than any officer I’d yet to meet in Scotland.
“Uh-oh,” he said as he reached for the phone in front of him. He kept his eyes on us as he pushed some buttons. “She’s here, Winters. Yep, that Delaney woman. The redhead from America.”
“Delaney woman?” I said to Tom.
The officer hung up the phone. He smiled nervously at me, which was weird. “Winters is on his way up.”
“Thank you.”
“Delaney and Tom,” the inspector said a moment later as he came around a wall that hid a hall that led to offices and interview rooms. He was still in his uniform. “Hello, and welcome. Derek here treat you right?”
“Derek was perfect,” I said, making the young man smile in relief.
“Good to hear. Come on back.” He turned and started down the hall, but he peered backward at us. “We’ve debated naming this room after you.” He stopped outside the police interview room I’d been inside many times, the first occasion being very shortly after I moved to Edinburgh.
We were there again.
“I feel like I should be able to tell you something that would help,” I said after we were all seated around the old dark wooden table.
“How?”
“I don’t know, except that I’ve seen more than anyone has seen, at least collectively. I’d like to just rehash every single thing, just in case,” I said. “Talk it out, if that makes sense.”
Some police officers or inspectors would roll their eyes and tell me they had everything handled, but Inspector Winters was a friend. Besides, he knew I wasn’t exaggerating. He understood what I was feeling.
“Tell me everything,” he said.
I went over every detail, from the messenger, to Shelagh’s meeting, to her beautiful library, to the clues. Everything I could possibly think of. When I finished, I took a deep breath. I hoped I hadn’t forgotten something.
“Have you guys discovered any other reason to talk to Findlay again?” I asked.
“No.”
“May I ask why specifically he was arrested?” I said.
Inspector Winters nodded. “We found some of Shelagh’s blood in the backseat of the car he drives her in.”
“What did he say about that?”
“He said that Shelagh cut her finger the week before, that the two of them tried to clean it up.”
“You must have believed him.”
“Not at first, but we gained footage of him on errands to the grocery store and the automotive-parts place. His alibis during her abduction were airtight and caught on cameras.”
“No one has seen Shelagh anywhere?”
“Not that we know.”
“Have you searched all her employees’ homes?”
“We have, but thanks for asking.”
“Sorry.”
“So what about the book? Was the last clue really the Starbar?”
“Yes. The copy of the book we have isn’t telling us anything. Hopefully, as with a couple of the other clues, something will just come to one of us. We’ve visited lots of pubs.”
“Tell me which pubs again,” Inspector Winters said.
As I listed them, his eyebrows came together. He pulled out his notebook and had me again repeat the names of the pubs so he could write them down. He excused himself and told us not to leave.
He was back a moment later with a copy of a newspaper, the one Brigid worked for.
“Look.” He spread the newspaper on the table and pointed at an article that Brigid had written a couple months back. “This is from a little while ago. We keep old yearly files of copies, and I remembered reading this one, thought it was interesting.”
I leaned over and read the headline: EDINBURGH’S MOST HAUNTED PUBS.
There was a list of six, according to Brigid at least. Birk and I had visited five of them. The only one we hadn’t been to was called The Banshee Labyrinth.
The article’s introduction promised that visits to the six pubs in the article were sure to chill patrons to their bones. Each pub was also described in a separate paragraph or two. The description for The Banshee Labyrinth read:
This venue proves why Edinburgh is truly a Jekyll & Hyde city. Apparently at one time one of the richest and most respected men in Edinburgh lived next door to where the pub is located. At night he brutalized his wife. Some say he was one of the inspirations for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It was said that Stevenson knew the violent man and followed his trial closely. Listen with your ears perked and you’ll hear yells and screams. It will terrify you, in the best way possible. You’ll need a map just to explore all the crannies and crevices. Here’s one that will do.
The sketch of a map was underneath.
“I know this story. I read about Eugene Chantrelle,” I said. “Shelagh’s … assistant is … That’s the part I unintentionally left out! I mean, I don’t know if it matters at all, but maybe there’s more than one killer with that last name. Or a version thereof, like—”
“Louis Chantrell,” Inspector Winters finished.
“His last name is spelled differently, without an e at the end, but yes, that’s it.”
I looked at Tom and then at Inspector Winters and then back at Tom. “I can’t believe Brigid hasn’t put together that she might have written the article that gave Shelagh the idea of what pubs to use, but I think this is wonderful. Even if Louis’s name isn’t important, I bet we just figured out another clue in the treasure hunt.”
In the history of The Banshee Labyrinth, I bet it had never closed for “routine maintenance.” But tonight it was dark and quiet inside, the sign on the door telling us that indeed there was some maintenance going on, even if we couldn’t spot anyone doing anything.
“I think the sign is code for ‘The owner needed a night off,’” Inspector Winters said. I’d never seen him as aggravated as he’d been when we came upon the pub’s locked doors.
“Could you get it open?” Tom asked.
“I could, but I’d like to get a hold of the owner to do it instead. The potential clue isn’t really probable cause. I need to get all the officers and inspectors on all the cases here too. And I really do believe this is more about the book than about Shelagh, but what if the book leads us to Shelagh?” He grumbled some curse words and pulled out his phone. “I’m going to try to get in touch with people.”
As Inspector Winters worked to reach someone who might open the pub without the need for breaking down doors or windows, Tom and I tried to peer inside the darkness.
“It is Tuesday,” he said a moment later. “Not a terrible night to be closed.”
I glanced at the time. It wasn’t that late, only about nine. “I’m going to text Brigid, ask her more about her article.”
“All right.”
I sent her a text stating that I wanted to talk to her, but there was no sign that she got the text, no dots moving across the screen. I frowned at the phone before I slipped it into my back pocket.
“She’ll respond,” Tom said.
“At some point.” I peered inside the window again.
Inspector Winters rejoined us. “I’ve got officers working on things. I really don’t want to break the door down unless we have to. I’m going to stay here awhile, until I hear from someone. You two can stay as well, but it could be a long night. If we get inside, I’ll let you know what we find.”
After a few minutes and the arrival of other officers, Tom and I somewhat reluctantly (it really was cold, so not too reluctantly) left, catching a bus back to Tom’s pub. I kept checking my phone, but Brigid didn’t respond.
“Call her,” Tom said.
“No, I just want to ask about her article. She’ll get back to me. I’ll call Birk.”
He answered on the first ring, and I told him how we’d put things together to come up with what we hoped was another clue.
“Oh, I hope they find Shelagh,” he said. “And figure out who murdered Ritchie John. The book is the least of my worries.”
“We can only hope.”
“Keep me up to date, lass,” Birk said.
“Will do.” I ended the call. Brigid still hadn’t texted back.
As Tom and I disembarked from the bus on the edge of Grassmarket Square, we looked toward Tom’s pub. It wasn’t crowded, but the customers inside seemed to be having a good time.
I glanced around the market, fully expecting to see the Monster, for him to jump out and try to scare us. Maybe laugh at us. Joke’s over! There wasn’t a murder, and Shelagh gets to go home unharmed. This was all just a setup. None of it’s real, just the product of Shelagh’s crazy imagination.
But though it seemed he loomed even more than before, the Monster wasn’t there. There were no shabby coats flapping in the breeze, no scary person lurking in the shadows. It was just my wishful thinking.
It was real. The murder was real, and Shelagh was missing. None of this was a setup. It was one tragedy after another.
We remained alert as we stopped by the pub to see if Rodger needed anything. He didn’t, so we made our way to Tom’s car and went home to our cozy, blue, and hopefully safe house by the sea.