irony that was the natural tenor of the city’s self-regard—it was the Holy Land that bore the foulest stains upon its character. Before ascending the common stair, Quire spared a moment to check that his baton still hung securely from his belt.
He climbed the spiral stairway, every step of which was bowed by the wear of decades. Even now, with the daylight seeping in from a few infrequent windows, he had to watch his footing. To describe the little square openings as windows was to glorify their ruined state, in truth. The glass was long gone, as were the wooden frames, all stripped out for sale or use elsewhere. Now they were nothing more than holes in the skin of the building, by which weather and a miserly ration of light were given admittance.
The first landing was deserted, which did not surprise Quire. The rest of the city might be about the day’s labours, but those who called the Holy Land home kept a different routine. Most of them would not be found out and about before midday; some were owlish creatures, rarely stirring from their lairs until the day neared its end.
From above, drifting down the gloomy stairwell, came the faint and indistinct sound of someone singing. A woman, with a sweet voice. She was drunk, of course, but still: sweet. Quire paused, just for a moment, and listened. The passing thought that here was some intoxicated, and apparently quite happy, siren calling him on to whatever rocks lay above put a wry smile on his face. Then the song collapsed into fading coughs, and the stair was silent again.
He ascended, and found two figures waiting in the shadows of the next landing. They stirred themselves and straightened as he arrived, and held their arms loose and ready. Though it was difficult to be certain in the muddy light, Quire did not think he knew either of them by sight or name. Their demeanour, however, told him all he needed to know.
“I’m not after any trouble,” he said promptly. “Just visiting a friend.”
“Is that so?” one of the men—the nearer of the two—grunted. He had big hands, and an accent fresh from the heather. Men from the north, then. A bit desperate, like as not, and thinking the sort of customers frequenting the Holy Land stair of a morning would be easy pickings.
“The thing is this,” Quire smiled, “it’s police business I’m on, and you, I would guess, might be new in the town. Now maybe you don’t know that the Widow won’t take kindly to strangers disturbing her house, and you certainly don’t know that I’m having the sort of day as’d put a saint in a foul temper, so let’s just say you go along, and we’ll not be troubling one another further.”
It was never likely to work, not with men who had encountered neither him nor his reputation before, so Quire was unsurprised when the man moved. Those big hands came up, and reached. It was slow and obvious by the measures Quire put on such things. He kicked the man, hard, in the crotch and, as he squealed and folded down, broke his nose with a rising knee.
“Don’t be stupid,” Quire told the second of them, and that was all it took to put an end to it.
“Pick him up and get him downstairs. I don’t suppose you’ve the sense for it, but I’ll tell you anyway: there’s not much room in this town for newcomers to squeeze themselves in to the sort of business you’ve chosen. Find yourselves a less perilous occupation.”
The fallen man spluttered bloodily and moaned as his comrade hauled him to his feet and helped him hobble off down the stairs. Quire stood patiently listening to their unsteady descent, just to be sure that there would be no sudden resurgence of courage or vigour. He felt sorry for them: Highland men, probably evicted from their lands, destitute, short on options. He, or his colleagues in the police house, would likely be coming across them again.
Quire turned to the nearest door. It was battered and split, clinging to its hinges with no more firm a grip than a swaying drunkard in the street might apply to some convenient railings. Disrepair was the permanent condition of most doors in the Holy Land; there was no point in mending that which the police, or the inhabitants themselves, would soon unmend. He pushed gently, advanced across the threshold and was greeted by smiles.
Emma Slight was bent over a low table, pouring whisky from an unmarked bottle into a china teacup. She was wearing only a loose, long nightgown of thin white material that did nothing to hide the weight and contour of her breasts. Catherine Heron—who was a great deal better known to Quire than was Emma—sat upright on a rickety bed, light from the narrow window above giving her limp auburn hair a hint of life. She was clearly naked, though she concealed that nakedness beneath blankets that she had drawn up almost to her chin. Her presence, entirely unexpected, discomfited Quire, and he felt a hot blush rising in his cheeks.
Cath was the younger of the two women, her features not yet dulled or slackened by the years of hard living that had taken their toll on Emma. But she followed the same path, towards the same end: the disordered mounding of the bedclothes did little to mask the presence of another in her bed.
“Sounded like you had a wee bit trouble on the stair,” Emma said placidly.
“Nothing to worry about,” Quire said.
It was a struggle to shake off the unsettling effect that the discovery of Cath here had had upon him. And to dispel the confusing, confused tremble of past and present desire it engendered.
“Will you take the morning dram with us, Sergeant?” Emma asked, extending the teacup, a healthy measure of amber liquid within it. The cup was finely painted with flowers and briars. It was chipped and cracked, but once no doubt graced the table of a grander house than this, before being liberated by some light-fingered visitor.
“No, thank you,” Quire said. “I’ll take a look at whatever that is Cath’s got hiding under her bedclothes, though.”
“Ach,” said Catherine with a pained expression, “you’ve not forgotten what it is I’ve got down there, surely?”
“Hush. I’ve no time for games, Cath. I’d not thought to find you here this morning—it’s Emma I was after a word with—and though I’m not minding you listening in, your shy friend there’s not welcome.”
“No games?” Catherine gave a disappointed pout. She was allowing the blankets to slip a little lower, revealing more pale skin. “Well, you’re not the man you used to be. Anyway, my friend’s only a wee bairn. He’d be of no interest to you.”
“Show yourself, man,” Quire snapped.
A crestfallen face shrugged its way out from beneath the bedding. Smooth and fair skin, tousled hair youthfully thick. Eyes bright with trepidation.
Quire arched his eyebrows.
“Let me guess. One of our university’s finest?”
The young man bit his lip dumbly, but Quire did not need to have his question answered to know the truth of it. He growled in irritation. The student sat up straight beside Catherine, averting his eyes, distractedly toying with a little amber bead strung on a thong about his neck.
“I see Cath’s gulled you into buying one of the Widow’s charms,” said Quire. “Comforting, to know the nation’s future rests in the hands of those who find their pleasures in the Holy Land, and think some magic trinket’ll keep them safe from the consequences.”
He took some unworthy satisfaction from the embarrassment—perhaps even shame—that put a rosy tint in the man’s cheeks. The feeling did not linger, though. He was hardly entitled to much in the way of self- righteousness on the subject of Catherine Heron’s company.
“Speaking of the Widow, does she ken you’re here?” Emma asked pleasantly. “She does like to know what’s happening before it happens.”
“You can have the pleasure of telling her yourself, Emma, after I’m done with you. It’s only a few questions I’ve got in mind.”
“Can’t help you, Mr. Quire,” the older woman said as she lifted the cup to her cracked lips.
“You might at least let me ask before brushing me away,” Quire said, and returned his attention to the bewildered youth in Catherine’s bed. “Are you a student of the sciences, or of medicine perhaps?”
He received a hesitant, faintly alarmed nod of the head in response.
“You should know better than to think that bead’s got the magic to keep you free of the pox, then.”
“He’s safe enough with me,” Cath Heron muttered, affronted.
“Oh, I know that, Cath,” Quire said quickly. “I didn’t mean…”
He took Cath’s dark frown as a warning, and abandoned the topic.
“You get yourself off, back to your books or however it is you’re supposed to be spending your time,” he snapped at the student.
