I’d thought about texting or calling Rena just to see if she and Sophie were doing all right, but I hadn’t done either yet. I’d wait until later in the morning. Though I’d gotten some sleep, the previous evening’s events had been playing over and over in my mind all night long. A lot had happened—at the pub and at the bookshop. I had a busy day of follow-up ahead.
It suddenly looked like that busy day was going to begin earlier than I thought. Before I could take a second sip of the coffee, my cell phone rang and buzzed from the bag I’d hung over a hook by the front door.
Tom grabbed the bag and handed it to me just as I managed my way out of the chair.
“Hello,” I answered the bookshop’s number. It was usually Rosie calling, but not this time.
“It’s me,” Hamlet said, his voice too high and rushed.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a problem at the bookshop, but Rosie, Edwin, and I are fine,” Hamlet said.
“Hector, Regg?” The dog went home with Rosie every night but belonged to all of us, and Regg was Rosie’s boyfriend.
“Regg is on holiday in Australia, remember? Hector’s fine too. I … I think it’s just best if you come in. This isn’t easy over the phone.”
“I’ll be right there.” I disconnected the call.
Tom was already gathering my things and his car keys.
* * *
“This is not good,” I said as Tom turned onto Grassmarket Square.
Four police cars, their lights blazing, and an ambulance were crammed together in front of the bookshop.
“Hamlet said everyone at the shop was fine,” Tom said.
“Something’s certainly not right.”
Tom parked as close as he could without getting in the way of the emergency vehicles’ expected routes, and we hurried toward the shop.
A police officer, dressed in white crime scene coveralls and with a sour expression on his face, stood outside the door and stopped us.
“Sorry, not open today,” he said.
“I work here,” I said.
“Are ye Delaney?” the officer said.
“Yes.”
The officer sent Tom a look, but then let us both inside.
There were no police officers or EMTs in the shop. Edwin, Rosie, Hamlet, and Hector were all there, but they seemed unharmed as they stood together by the back corner table. Obviously upset in varying degrees, but not visibly hurt.
“Oh, Delaney, it’s sae awful,” Rosie said when she saw us hurrying to them. “Sae, sae awful.” She’d been crying. She held Hector, who leaned into her and looked at me with hopeful eyes. He wanted someone to fix whatever was so wrong.
Edwin stood behind Rosie and put his hand on her shoulder as he grimly nodded for me and Tom to take a seat. Hamlet, who was already sitting, looked at me with wide, scared eyes. When I sat too, Hector squirmed himself away from Rosie and into my lap. Tom sat next to me, closer than normal.
“Delaney,” Edwin began. “Hamlet and Rosie came in early this morning. They arrived at the same time and became alarmed when the front door was ajar.”
Tom and I shared a look, but we didn’t interrupt Edwin’s story.
Edwin continued. “They called the police, but then they both came inside.” He paused. “The shop was fine, over here, but then they moved over tae the other side and found that things weren’t so fine over there.”
Hector whined as he must have noticed me become tenser. Absently, I patted his head.
“Over there,” Edwin nodded, “they found the window in the kitchen had been broken.”
“Was the grate still over it?” I interjected with the first thought that came to my mind.
“Aye, but that led them to wonder further what had happened to the window, so they went back out to explore the close.”
“The alley,” Hamlet interpreted.
Hamlet had been my interpreter since the first day I’d come to the bookshop. When something distinctly Scottish came up or someone, mostly Rosie and my landlord Elias, used a Scots word, Hamlet would jump in and clarify. I knew what a close was, though. In fact, as Hamlet had offered his help this time, my mind had gone back to that first day, when he’d been the one to greet me in the shop. We’d gathered coffee and tea in the kitchen and he’d first told me about closes, their names, and the stories and histories that went with them.
I nodded and sent him a quick smile, but it was clear that he was just as rattled as Rosie. Rosie sniffed and grabbed a tissue from the box on the table as the tears began to flow down her cheeks again.
“What did they, you, find?” I asked.
“Tragically, they came upon a dead body,” Edwin said.
Some words changed everything forever.
“Oh no,” I said. Hector snuggled closer. I swallowed hard. “Who?”
“At first we thought it was a stranger, but the police retrieved some identification and it looks tae be someone you might possibly know. You’ve become friends with some students at the medical school. We all met the women who brought in the books, but only briefly,” Edwin said.
I could barely breathe. “Sophie or Rena?”
“No, it’s a lass whose identification said her name was Mallory Clacher. Did you know her?”
“I met a woman named Mallory last night, but I didn’t catch her last name.” I swallowed hard. “Bleached blond hair?”
“Aye,” Rosie said as Hamlet nodded.
I nodded and swallowed again as my hands got ice-cold and I began to shake. “I was with her last night, or at least I’m guessing that was her. I’d have to see her to confirm, but I think so.”
“Lass, I’m so sorry,” Edwin said.
I looked at Tom and then back at Edwin. “Where are the other officers? I, we, need to tell them about last night. Or should we tell the one at the door?”
Tom nodded
