Ian continued on to his flat, weariness trailing him like an unwanted companion. His legs felt so heavy, he could barely lift them, and his bones ached. The ribs on his right side where he had been kicked twinged with every step. Edward Wright’s face swam in his vision, his intense, pale eyes burrowing into Ian’s soul.
When he reached his flat, he was surprised to find the door unlocked. At first he thought he had left it open—exhaustion seemed to have softened his brain—but the next instant he was on his guard. Someone was inside. Leaving the door ajar, he crept down the front hall. As he neared the parlor, he heard snoring.
Rounding the corner, he saw Donald’s bulky figure splayed upon the sofa. Snoring loudly, he looked as if he had dropped unconscious onto the couch. One arm was flung over the arm of the sofa, the other dangling off the side. His clothing was in disarray, his face bore scratch marks, and the skin on his knuckles was raw and bleeding. Dried blood was caked on his upper lip. The stench of alcohol was overwhelming.
Ian had half a mind to leave him where he was, but as he gazed at his brother, love and loathing warred in his heart. Memories of their boyhood together vied with revulsion at what his brother had become. Why did he have to enter Ian’s life now, when there was so much else at stake? Turning to leave, Ian tripped over the fireplace poker, which clattered to the floor. Donald stirred and opened his eyes.
“Hello,” he said groggily, his voice slurred from drink. “I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”
“Should I be surprised to find you pissed and out stone-cold on my couch?”
“Steady on, now!” Donald said, heaving himself into a sitting position. “Good Lord, what happened to you?”
“I was in a fight.”
“Then let’s not have any pots calling the kettle black.”
“Where have you been?” said Ian.
“What does it matter?”
“You look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Speaking of which, I fed him, and he went out through that cunning little door in your kitchen. Did you make that?”
“Who gave you that bloody nose?”
“What about yours?” Donald said, burping loudly.
“You’re drunk,” Ian said with disgust.
“Perhaps a wee bit,” Donald replied with his bad-boy smile.
“You’re shot tae fuck,” Ian shot back in his aunt’s Glaswegian slang. “Your charm doesn’t work on me. It worked on our poor mother, God rest her soul, but—”
“Really? You’re bringing her into this?”
“She pampered you, which is one reason you’re such a wastrel.”
“She was kind to me, which is more than our father was.”
“So he favored me—that’s a poor excuse for your debauchery!”
“Favored you—that’s an understatement!”
“Is it my fault he preferred me to you?”
“You fancy yourself a great detective,” Donald replied, hauling himself unsteadily to his feet, “but when it comes to our family, you’re blind as a bat.”
“You’re crazy, piss drunk—”
Donald laughed bitterly. “Not drunk enough, unfortunately, to forget what he did to me.”
Something in his voice made a chill run down Ian’s spine. “What are you talking about?”
“He thought he could ‘change’ me—make me more of a ‘man’ by hardening me up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some things can’t be changed, but he didn’t realize that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For Christ’s sake, Ian, wake up! Don’t you remember anything about him—what he could be like?”
“Well, he was stern, but—”
“Stern? He was a bloody tyrant!”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Is this an exaggeration?” Donald said, rolling up his sleeve to show a round indentation in his skin. A scar had formed, brown around the edges, the skin in the center sunken.
Ian’s heart froze. “What is that?”
“It’s a cigarette burn.”
Ian stared at his brother. “Are you saying—did he—”
“Yes. And it wasn’t the only time.”
“Good Lord.” Ian sat heavily on the end of the couch. His head suddenly felt twice its size, and his ears rang.
“They both hid it from you, what he did to me. She colluded in hiding it as much as he did, to protect the family image.”
“But why? Why on earth would he do something like that to you?”
Donald gave a bitter laugh. “He actually told me it was for my own good, that it would help teach me how to be a ‘proper man.’ Obviously I didn’t fit his image of what a son should be. I was ‘different.’” Donald fixed him with earnest gray eyes. “This must be very distressing for you, Brother. You do so like everything to be tidy, don’t you? Well, people aren’t like that—life isn’t like that. It’s messy and unpredictable and frightening. You want to control everything, but you can’t, Ian. Just when you think you have it all sorted out, along comes something you hadn’t planned on—”
“How did you get bloody? What happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
“‘Nothing will come of nothing.’”
“Good Lord, Ian, don’t you ever tire of quoting Shakespeare?”
“Then tell me what happened.”
Donald rubbed his neck and plopped back down onto the sofa. “I haven’t been out strangling young boys, if that’s what worries you.”
Without replying, Ian went to the spare bedroom and pulled the deck of cards from the rucksack. He brought them back into the parlor and held them in front of Donald’s face.
“Where did you get these?”
Donald looked away. “I won them in a card game.”
“I thought you’d given up gambling.”
“I had a relapse.”
“Did you really win them in a card game?”
“I bloody well did—got them off a strange little fellow called Rat Face.”
“Did you say Rat Face?”
“You know the chap?”
“Who else was playing?”
“How am I supposed to remember?”
“You have a photographic memory.”
“Not when I’ve been drinking.”
“Maybe you are the strangler after all,” Ian said, so giddy with exhaustion, he hardly knew what he was saying. “Here I am trying to catch a criminal, and he’s been right under my nose the whole time!”
“Don’t, Ian—it’s been a bad week for us both,” Donald said wearily.
“What if you really are a killer? Wouldn’t that just be too rich? The detective and the murderer! What a story that would make!” Ian said bitterly, confusion and exhaustion conspiring to strangle his control over the rage bubbling up inside him.
“Ian—please.”
Donald’s expression was pleading, but Ian felt driven by a sharp, savage need to hurt not only his brother but himself as well.
“I wish you were the strangler, so help me—then I could solve the crime and get you out of my hair once and for all!”
The minute the words escaped his mouth, Ian wished he could take them back, but one look at Donald’s face and he knew it was too late. Something had broken between them.
“The worst thing you can do to anyone is give up on him,” Donald said in a voice all the more terrifying because it was so quiet. Springing from the couch, he seized his coat and stalked out of the room.
Ian stood frozen in a state of shock before throwing on his cloak and following his brother out into the night.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN