“Did you tell George Pearson about the playing cards?”
Derek cocked his head to one side. “Don’ know what ye mean, mate.”
“You did tell him, didn’t you?”
“Wha’ if I did?”
“It’s privileged police information.”
“I’m the one what foun’ the card on that poor bloke an’ gave it ye.”
Ian frowned. “In the future, please refrain from divulging such information to anyone.”
Derek kicked a stone out of his path. It skittered across the cobblestones and into the gutter. “Ye coulda told me earlier. But like it or not, I’m in it much as you now.”
“Look, I’m really sorry about your friend,” Ian said.
Derek shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Fellas like him an’ me aren’t missed much by anyone.”
As they passed the National Gallery, a couple of toffs in their Sunday best strolled by. The younger one, a slim, black-haired fellow with an arrogant swagger, raised an eyebrow at Derek, flicking his ivory-handled cane toward the boy.
“I say, Rodney, there’s one of your typical Scottish ‘raggediers’ now.” His accent was British, exaggeratedly well-bred.
“Why, so it is,” replied his companion, a striking fellow with a neatly trimmed silver beard and ironic blue eyes. “Here you go, lad—here’s a shilling for you,” he said, tossing a coin at Derek.
It landed at his feet, and both men laughed.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Pick it up,” said the one with the raven hair.
“I’m surprised he didn’t catch it before the rats could come and carry it off,” the other one remarked.
Ian was unaware of having moved at all until he found himself grasping the black-haired man’s elegant frock coat by the lapels.
“He doesn’t need your stinking charity!” he hissed, his Highland accent thickening as it did in times of stress. He pulled the man’s face closer to his, inhaling the lavender pomade wafting from his hair. “If he wanted to, he could take all your money without either of you neeps being any the wiser.”
“Look here, my good man,” began the silver-bearded one, but Ian wheeled around and shoved his police badge in the man’s face.
“If I so much as catch a glimpse of either of you around here again, I’ll have you hauled to the police station for disturbing the peace!”
“Now see here,” said the other man, but Ian silenced him with a glare that could have burned paint off metal.
“Be on your way—now,” he said, “unless you fancy spending the night in a cell.”
Red-faced, the men sputtered and spewed a feeble protest, but soon took to their heels, striding rapidly away and throwing glances behind them from time to time to see if Ian was in pursuit.
“Guess you showed them,” Derek observed when they had gone.
“They had it coming,” Ian muttered, resuming his journey along the High Street.
Derek scrambled after him. “Wha’s a ‘neep,’ anyway? I thought it meant a turnip.”
“It’s Highland slang for ‘idiot.’”
“Good one,” Derek said, brightening a bit. “Callin’ someone a turnip. Gotta share that one with Fred—” He broke off and took a long, ragged breath.
Ian laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll catch him. By God, if I have to throttle him with my own two hands, he will pay, I promise you that.”
Derek dug something out of his pocket and held it out to Ian. “Here, I wan’ ye ta have this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s me lucky stone. Ye might need it.”
It was hardly more than a pebble, perfectly round and polished to a sheen from being in the boy’s pocket so long. Ian slipped it into his jacket pocket. “You know,” he said as a tear snaked its way down the boy’s filthy cheek, “it wasn’t your fault. It could have happened to anyone—to you, for example.”
“It wouldn’t a happened ta me ’cause I’m not like Freddie! He were always too trustin’ by half—I always told ’im so. I tried ta look after ’im, like, but I weren’t there when he needed me.”
“Sometimes people have to learn to look out for themselves.”
“Is ’at what you think, mister?” Derek said, squinting up at him in the bright, cold-afternoon light.
“Yes,” Ian said, but a little worm of doubt began to gnaw its way into his ear as he turned south on Bank Street. He wondered what his brother was up to, and where he was, as guilt burned a little hole in his heart.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Ian wasn’t surprised when Lillian insisted Derek join them for Sunday afternoon dinner, and even less surprised when the boy eagerly accepted. He was more surprised when Lillian agreed to DCI Crawford’s request to fill in for the absent sketch artists.
“It might be fun to get out my charcoals again,” she said. “Ever since dear Alfie died, I’ve been meaning to get back to my art. And I would like to help—this has gone on long enough.”
“Can you be available at a moment’s notice?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“The witness said he’d come by after church today. If the boy doesn’t show up at the station house by tomorrow, I’ll haul him in myself,” Ian said as his aunt handed him three warmed plates from the oven.
“I think we’ll eat in here,” she said, laying out three places on the round table in the parlor. “It’s a chilly day, and I won’t have to light the fire in the dining room if we dine in here.”
Derek looked around the room reverently, as though he had entered a fairy palace, touching the polished ivory keys on the piano and running his hand over the marble fireplace mantel.
“You can wash up through there,” Lillian said, pointing the way to the lavatory.
He obeyed, treading carefully on the hall runner carpet, as if he feared he might plunge through it. While he was away, Ian explained to Lillian that the strangler’s latest victim was Derek’s friend.
She crossed her arms and frowned. “Do you not have room for him to stay for a while? He’s just a wee thing.”
“Physically, perhaps, but hardly in personality.”
“Ach, Ian, would it be so much trouble?”
“What if Donald comes back?”
“Then he can sleep on the sofa. Are you not afraid the boy himself may be the next victim?”
“I suppose it’s possible, but—”
“Very well—it’s settled, then.”
Ian sighed. When Lillian was determined to prevail, there was no point in arguing. He felt overrun by uninvited guests of late—Donald, the cat, and now Derek. Solitary by nature, Ian did not appreciate sharing his space with anyone, let alone a pickpocketing street urchin. The British fop had called the boy a “raggedier,” and in spite of his loathing of everything those men represented, Ian had to admit it was a felicitous description.
His heart softened a bit when the raggedier, face scrubbed, appeared in the hallway, surveying the feast Lillian was setting on the table.
“Now then,” his aunt said after they had seated themselves, “will it be sausages or fried fish—or both?”
“Both, please, mum,” Derek replied, eyeing the food hungrily.
Lillian beamed at him. “I thought so.”