After everyone else was gone and Tom and I were walking to his pub, he said, “I can take the day off. We can do whatever you’d like.”
I looked toward the pub’s front window. Rodger was probably already inside multitasking.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Can I drive you home at least?”
“No, I want to walk some. I’ll take the bus when I’m ready.”
He held me a little tighter and a little longer than normal when we hugged goodbye. I liked it when he did that.
I set off with a plan to go around the block, clear my head, enjoy the temporarily clear skies. But I couldn’t help myself. My feet, guided by my curiosity, took me around the block once and back to the close. I wouldn’t disobey Edwin’s and Inspector Pierce’s orders not to go inside the shop, but I needed to see where Mallory’s body had been.
I less-than-furtively made my way down the narrow-spaced alleyway. Not all of the closes were narrow, but this one was. If I stretched my arms, I could touch both walls with my fingertips. I hadn’t asked my landlords, Elias and Aggie, about the history of this one and only knew about the warden’s one-time residence because of what Hamlet had told me that first day. Once word of the murder spread it was sure to become busier with curious tourists and locals.
There was nothing architecturally appealing about this one, like some I’d seen, but it did garner some attention simply because it was located so near the Edinburgh castle, as well as Grassmarket Square.
I’d noticed before that it was clean, but today it was pristine. Not even a random scrap of paper littered the concrete ground. I wondered if the police had removed many items. There was no sign that a dead body and a disembodied skull had been found down here. There was nothing gruesome anywhere.
The close was bordered by the dark side of the bookshop and a small used-furniture shop, and I noticed the different bricks used in each building. The bookshop’s were reddish brown, but the furniture store’s were lighter gray, darkened around the edges from the passing of time.
The window that had been broken was just above my head, too high for me or someone close to my height, like Mallory had been, to get a good look inside, and there was nothing in sight that she could have stood on.
Tentatively, I put my fingertips up to the grate on the ledge and estimated how hard it would be to hoist myself up. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Why would anyone break the window after they noticed the security grate anyway? With awkward leverage, I tried to pull on one of the bars. The grate wasn’t going anywhere.
I stood back and looked up at it. It did look like someone had taken a file to it. Breaking through would have been almost as impossible as moving it. I didn’t know how things were bolted in, but it wouldn’t budge; even with some good help and a file it would have taken more days than anyone would have patience for. And even if the grate could somehow be removed, the window was small. Some people could probably make it through, but only narrow people. There was a chance I could make it, but I’d have to squirm and wiggle.
I looked out toward Grassmarket. The view wasn’t wide, and someone would have to be purposefully looking this direction to notice anything going on, but it was difficult to picture the scenario of someone thinking they could try to break in or murder someone in daylight without being seen. I frowned back up at the window.
“You know, it’s said they buried witches down here,” a voice said.
I jumped and made a too-loud noise that was a combination of a curse and a yell.
“Sorry,” Bridget said with an unfriendly smile as she sauntered closer. “I really didn’t mean tae scare you.”
She held something in one of her closed fists. I squinted as I eyed a sharp point. She noticed my look and stopped moving forward. She opened her hand and I saw that the item was indeed sharp, and grayish white.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said. “I found it earlier, at the opening,” she nodded backward toward the square. “I heard there was a skull back here with the body, but this isn’t part of a skull. It’s plaster. That made me wonder if what I’d heard was a skull was maybe a death mask or something similar. Do you know?”
“Death mask?’ I said, though I was pretty sure I knew what she was talking about.
“Aye. A cast of the face of a dead person, done in plaster as far as I know, but maybe other materials were used too. It’s not a contemporary tradition.”
I cleared my throat. The item could be used as a weapon. Nevertheless, I moved a little closer and looked again. It could have been mistaken for part of a bone, maybe a skull. With a ragged edge, it was only about four inches long and a couple of inches wide at its widest points. It might not have anything at all to do with the murder.
“I don’t know what the police found. You should have shown them this, though,” I said.
Bridget shrugged. “They should have noticed it themselves.” She stuck it out closer to me.
I looked at her and then rubbed my fingertip over it. The ragged edge wasn’t sharp like the pointed end. The surface was smooth. “Yes, feels like plaster.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Consider giving it to the police.” In fact, I wondered if I should call Inspector Pierce and tell him she’d shown it to me. The only reason I didn’t had something to do with not trusting her. I wondered if she had just brought it with her as curiosity bait to reel me in. If
