“Can’t afford to look into a potential murder? Is that what you were going to say, sir?”
Crawford sucked in a mighty lungful of air, ready to blast this irritating flea of a detective across the room. Then he exhaled, releasing all his rage in a single breath. The expression on Hamilton’s face was so serious that Crawford had the unfortunate impulse to giggle. The urge to laugh often hit him at inappropriate times, especially when he was exhausted and anxious. He tried to suppress it, emitting a strange squeaking sound, like a frightened mouse.
“Sir?” said Hamilton, frowning.
Crawford gazed at his neglected mug of tea and sighed. “What precisely do you expect to find, Hamilton?”
“I don’t know, sir. That’s why I’m requesting an autopsy.”
Crawford bent down to turn up the gas in the grate. Nothing seemed to ease this blasted chill in the air, which seeped into his bones. The chief inspector sniffed and wiped his nose. He hoped he wasn’t getting a cold. “The morgue corridors are rather narrow. What about your . . . uh, problem with enclosed spaces?”
“I have never allowed it to interfere with my work.”
“Surely you can see how a man in your situation could be . . . sensitive, shall we say, inclined to look for foul play everywhere.”
Hamilton’s hands tightened into fists at his side. “My suspicions about Stephen Wycherly have nothing to do with the fire that killed my parents.”
“‘Suspicion is a heavy armor—’”
“‘And with its weight it impedes more than it protects.’ I don’t believe Robert Burns was talking about police work when he wrote those lines, sir.”
Crawford’s jaw went slack with amazement at Hamilton’s audacity. It was well-known around the station house that the chief inspector was fond of quoting Burns, and no one had dared interrupt one of his recitations. It was even more irritating that Hamilton actually knew the blasted quote.
DCI Crawford rose from his chair, the movement rather like a whale breeching the surface of the waves.
“Sergeant Dickerson!” he bellowed.
A short, flame-haired young officer with chin whiskers and a burgeoning potbelly appeared at the door. He was like a fledgling version of Crawford himself, but with more hair.
“You called, sir?”
“Will you be kind enough to escort DI Hamilton to the morgue?”
Dickerson shuffled his feet and coughed. “What about th’ matter of Mrs. McGinty’s pig, sir?” His accent was decidedly North Yorkshire, the vowels twisted and wrung out before finally being released from servitude in his mouth.
“I suppose her pig can look after itself for a while, Sergeant.”
“If you say so, sir.”
Though the City of Glasgow Police had the distinction of being the first of its kind in Britain, the Edinburgh City Police had already produced several distinguished members, notably famed detective and author James McLevy. However, the constabulary duties included such things as “Regulation of the Keeping of Pigs, Asses, Dogs, and Other Inferior Animals.” Mrs. McGinty’s pig was a habitual offender, and the job of keeping the good lady and her porcine cohort in line had fallen to Sergeant Dickerson.
“Never mind the blasted pig,” Crawford said. “DI Hamilton here wants to look at a body. I want you to go with him.”
Hamilton looked at DCI Crawford. “Sir?”
“See here, Hamilton, I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste the coroner’s time. However, I will allow you to view the body in the company of Sergeant Dickerson here, if you promise to be quick about it.”
“But—”
DCI Crawford narrowed his eyes, a scowl tugging the corners of his mouth. “Be grateful I’m in a generous mood,” he said, doing his best to sound fierce.
Hamilton blinked and saluted. “Thank you, sir.”
Crawford glared at him before casting his small blue eyes upon Sergeant Dickerson. “Mind you keep an eye on him in the morgue, Sergeant.”
Dickerson looked puzzled. “Sir?”
Crawford sighed. “He’s liable to go wonky. Doesn’t like enclosed spaces.” Hamilton stiffened at this, but they both knew he was in no position to deny it. “Tag along and keep him steady, eh?”
Dickerson’s pudgy body snapped to attention. “Right you are, sir.”
“Be gone, both of you, lest I change my mind.”
They obeyed, and DCI Crawford turned his attention back to the stack of paperwork on his desk, sweat pricking his forehead. If only his subordinates knew how much of his famous irritability was an act, calculated to intimidate. The effort to project a cantankerous persona often had the effect of making him truly cranky. He gazed glumly at his cold tea, the cream condensing on top in a thin, unappealing swirl of white. He stretched his six-foot-four frame and lumbered over to the center window, its iron crosshatched panes splattered with rain.
Outside, an anemic drizzle speckled the cobblestones. People hurried along High Street, hunched against a cold, damp wind that managed to thread its way through the thickest cloak. Even the horses looked miserable, their hooves sending sprays of water in all directions as they landed in puddles. A lone ragpicker huddled over his heap of clothing, face hidden beneath the broad brim of his oilcloth hat.
February was a foul month, and Crawford was in a foul mood. He pulled the gold-plated watch from his breast pocket and flipped open the cover. The watch had belonged to his grandfather, his namesake and one of the founders of the Edinburgh City Police. Much as he tried, Robert Lyle Crawford never felt up to following in his august ancestor’s footsteps. He tucked the watch back into his pocket as he returned to his desk. He wanted nothing more than to be at Moira’s side, to stroke her hair, and hug her to him. It was a gloomy day, and the sooner it was over, he thought, the better.
CHAPTER THREE
The Edinburgh city morgue was dark and dank; it smelled of mildew and lost promise. Ian heard the scuttling of rats and the slow drip of water from an unseen source—a steady, hollow sound, like the slow knelling of a church bell. The more he tried to ignore it, the more the sound wormed its way into his brain. Drip, drop, drip, drop.