The Cracked Spine (11 page)

“Yes.”

Elias and Aggie nodded knowingly.

“I'm sairy for yer boss,” Aggie said.

Before I could stop myself, I said, “Elias, is there any chance your cab is available for hire this afternoon? I'd like to see some more of Edinburgh, including the place where Jenny lived. I'm curious. And, I need to find an apart … a flat of my own too.”

Elias and Aggie exchanged looks again, but I couldn't quite read them.

“My cab and I are baith available, and if ye're going tae explore that particular area, I'd like tae be the one tae show it tae ye,” Elias said. He looked at Aggie once again. She nodded. “My love and I have something else we'd like tae talk tae ye about.”

“Okay.”

“We have a locus … a place”—he nodded back toward the other side of the house—“next door that we'd like for ye tae consider.”

“I don't understand,” I said.

“Delaney,” Aggie said as she put her hand over mine, “we have an identical cottage behind our guesthoose next door. Ye couldnae see it, but ye get tae it by walking around this one. We dinnae buy these guesthooses. My family did and now they are mine and Elias's. We are fortunate tae have them and the cottages behind them. We dinnae live in a fancy hoose, and ye wouldnae either, but our home is plenty for us. We thought ye might enjoy a wee one of yer own.”

“I, uh…” I had no idea what to say.

“Just have a leuk at it first,” Aggie said. “It's simple, we leuk for the right person tae live in the cottage. It became available a couple of months ago. We have never ignored our instincts on this and we've never been wrong. We'd be honored if ye would consider looking at the hoose.”

“I, uh,” I said again. I was struck at least incoherent if not speechless.

Elias and Aggie looked at me, their smiles hesitant but warm. They didn't strike me as lonely people, so I didn't think they were just looking for someone to talk to. Maybe it was exactly as Aggie had said. Maybe they listened to their guts about who they wanted to live in the space next to them. Their gut instincts weren't off. I was tidy and fairly quiet, bookishly nerdy, and I minded my own business, or spent my time talking to the bookish voices in my head. They weren't noisy conversations.

“I'd love to take a look,” I said.

“Oh, good,” Elias said as Aggie's smile turned less hesitant and much more confident. If she wanted to cook me in the oven, it looked like I was hers for the basting.

We commenced gobbling up the rest of the sandwiches. It was an unexpected and shared moment of excitement, a moment I would look back on many times and realize that it was then, as we sat around the table and hurried to eat the sandwiches, that we lost the wary politeness that was reserved for strangers. After you gobble lunch together, something very important is bound to change.

After the dishes were done, Aggie led us out and around their cottage. And, true to her word, there was another one on the other side of it and directly behind the other guesthouse. It was almost identical to the one I'd just had lunch in, though maybe even a little better taken care of on the outside. The furniture in the living room wasn't as used, though it still had a country flair. The door on the back wall of the living room was open wide in this one; it led to the bedroom, which turned out to be surprisingly larger than I would have expected, furnished with a wrought iron–framed queen-sized bed, a dresser, an armoire, and a reading corner with a tall lamp and a cushioned, old leather chair and ottoman.

The kitchen was in the same spot but it wasn't as new as the other one, and that was fine.

“This cooker is an auld one, but I think it makes cakes better than mine does,” Aggie said as she pointed at the old white appliance that I would have called a range.

“It's great,” I said. “Really great.”

Aggie and Elias smiled at each other.

“This way then,” Aggie said.

Farther down the hall from the kitchen we found the bathroom. It was bland but also bigger than I would have guessed.

“And this”—Aggie pointed up and above the doorway that was just past the bathroom and led to a small shared courtyard between the two houses—“is your electricity. Ye have to put clinkers, money, in it.”

I looked at the strange wired contraption that reminded me of something from an old black-and-white movie about Thomas Edison, blinked, and again said, “I don't understand.”

“Aye, ye have to feed it coins and it will power the hoose. It's an efficient system and should only cost ye about ten pounds a month.”

“Really?”

“Aye. Ye do need tae pay attention tae it though. Ye dinnae want tae be in the middle o' something and be caught without power.”

“I see.” I'd never heard of anything like it, but I thought I'd be able to handle it okay.

“Come out tae the courtyard,” Elias said. He stepped around Aggie and me and pushed open the back door that faced the other cottage's back door.

There was a wooden deck and a matching fence, both looking as if they'd only recently been restained. The deck was only big enough to hold a small table and four wicker chairs with well-used pillow seats. There were also about twenty large flowerpots along the border, making the entire deck one large container garden.

“I…,” I began. “It's really perfect. I love it.”

Elias's and Aggie's faces lit with their warmest smiles yet.

“Byous! Wonderful,” Aggie said.

“How much?” I asked.

They looked at each other again and then back at me. I was afraid they would say “nothing.” Unfortunately, that would have forced me to walk away from this perfect opportunity.

Elias quoted a rent amount that was almost too good to be true, but just almost, and enough to keep me on the line.

“I'll take it!”

“Braw!” Elias said.

I looked around at my new home and neighbors and another sense of rightness washed over me.

So far, not too bad on tackling the adventure. If only my people back in Kansas could see me now.

 

TEN

I hadn't unpacked much at the hotel so it was easy to repack my bags and take them down to Elias's cab out front. The small hotel lobby was full of visitors from Sweden who were checking in. It was long past checkout time and I didn't want Edwin to pay for that night, so I quickly gave the clerk my credit card and then scooted out of the way.

Elias reloaded my bags into his cab, and directed me to the front passenger seat, and then we set off on a guided tour of Edinburgh. There was so much to see that it was difficult to digest much of anything, but the castle on the hill made a good reference point. I didn't think I could get too lost if I could spot the castle and make my way from there.

He drove up the curved hill on the other side of the hotel, past a bagel shop, a cigar shop, a place with a sign that said, “The Cadies and Witchery Tours,” a whisky shop, and even a pizza restaurant that was sit-down and dine-in, not just take-away. At the top of the hill he turned left. A short moment later we were conveniently stopped at a traffic light.

“This is the Royal Mile,” he said as he nodded to the cross street in front of us. “Up tae yer left, ye could get tae the castle. Go right and ye'll get tae Holyrood Palace and the gantin—I mean
ugly
parliament biggin, uh, building. 'Tis an eyesore, let me tell ye.”

“But everything else is beautiful!” I said as I looked as many directions as I could.

Mostly, it was old architecture up and down the long sloped road. Buildings made of brown and gray stone and adorned with tall windows and peaked and corniced roof lines. The buildings were tall, and they all had small businesses on their bottom floors—restaurants, souvenir shops, pubs, their upper floors holding what I determined were flats, business offices, art galleries, and government offices.

“A mile, huh?” I said.

“A wee bit more than a mile,” Elias said. “Almost another two hundred of yer American yards. Ye'll want to explore it all. Venture doon the closes—uh, the
alleys,
I believe ye call them.”

I spotted a couple of the closes, the narrow passageways, each of which had a sign above it.

“I've heard about the closes. Do you know where the Fleshmarket Close is located?”

“'Tis somewhere directly oof the Royal Mile, but I'm nae sure which direction. Aggie would ken exactly.”

“Maybe I'll make a day of exploring some of them this weekend.”

“Aye. Ye'll enjoy every meenit of it. I have one more place to show ye afore we take a leuk at the flat where that poor lass was killed,” Elias said.

Elias crossed through the intersection and then took a couple of left turns.

“Ah, a spot in front,” Elias said. “I'll just stop a minute, but ye'll want tae spend some time in there later, I'm shuir, particularly since ye're working at a bookshop and used tae work at a museum. There, have a leuk.”

The building was tall, formed with some of the same sturdy stones I'd already seen. It looked like a miniature castle with a turret atop the front corner and old double wooden doors at the bottom.

“It's wonderful. What is it?”

“'Tis the Writers' Museum. Scotland is proud of those inside. Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“Ooooh,” I exclaimed, my hand involuntarily going to the door handle even though I knew there wouldn't be time to tour it today.

As I looked wide-eyed at the building, I soaked in the entirety of the moment—a museum devoted to Burns, Scott, and Stevenson; could there be a better potential heaven on earth? I closed my eyes and decided to let them into my head for a second. Their voices were clear and sure.

“The best laid schemes 'o mice and men,” Robert Burns said.

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter.

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move,” said Robert Louis Stevenson.

“Delaney, lass?” Elias said as he put his hand on my arm.

My eyes popped open. “Oh, I'm sorry. I was … taking it all in.” I could have listened to them for hours. Some other day.

“S'aw right. I was saying, ye do ken that Edinburgh is a national city of books or some such thing?”

“I do.” I smiled at Elias. “I think there are over fifty bookshops in Edinburgh. That in itself is amazing.”

“Aye, 'tis. I didn't ken that. Fifty?” Elias frowned. “Dinnae tell Aggie. If she ken there were that many, I expect I'd have tae take her tae each and every one.”

I laughed. “Deal.” I looked back out at the museum. “I can't wait to visit this museum but I'll need a full day at least.” And I'd need to do this tour on my own.

“Aye.”

I sighed and relaxed into the seat. “Could we go to Jenny's now?”

“I s'pose.”

“You'd rather not, huh?”

Elias shrugged. “All has been gaun well. I'm superstitious enough not tae want tae test our guid luck. Driving tae leuk at a murder victim's home might play havoc with our guid fortune. Scots are a freitie bunch.”

“Freitie?”

“Superstitious,” Elias said.

“We'll make it quick?” I said hopefully. I wasn't superstitious in the strictest sense of the word, but I had a few rituals. I also didn't sense that there would be anything wrong or even particularly dangerous about driving past Jenny's flat.

Elias shot me a patient smile. “Awright.”

The drive was slow because the traffic became too thick to zip anywhere. I took the opportunity to ask a question that had been on my mind since the morning.

“Elias, what would I do if I wanted to find addresses of people who live in Edinburgh? Are there phone books?”

“Who do ye want tae find?”

“Some friends of my boss's.”

“Ye cannae ask him?”

“No, not right now.”

“If ye'd like, ye can give me the names and I can ask Aggie tae help. She kens how tae find people.”

“Thanks,” I said, without committing one way or the other. I wanted the addresses of the members of Fleshmarket. I didn't think I should give their names to anyone else, at least until I understood the secrecy within the group better.

“Ah, we're here. The lass lived a bit on the outskirts of the city,” Elias said as we came upon an area with less traffic that reminded me more of a residential neighborhood in Wichita than part of an old historical town. “Up forrit, there is the building that was listed as the address.”

The building was much more modern than what I'd seen in the city proper. It was five stories and made of white, light brown, and dark brown brick. It reminded me of a bigger version of the 1970s apartment buildings back in Kansas. Each flat had a wrought iron and thin plywood-paneled fence around a small balcony. The surrounding neighborhood was somewhat bleak but not dirty.

“It looks pretty safe to me,” I said.

Elias looked around. He didn't seem all that concerned, but he was very aware.

“We're probably awright during the day.”

From the outside, of course, there was no way to tell which flat had been Jenny's. I was surprised that I was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to know exactly which one was hers, to connect with her that way.

“Elias, could you wait here a second? I'd like to go inside and talk to the landlord.”

“Hou? Now, why would ye want tae do something like that?” he said. He lifted his hat and then put it back on his head, causing the tufts of gray hair to fluff.

I shrugged. “I could pretend to be looking for a flat.”

“Ye think the murder victim's flat will be available?” Elias said, his voice high with disbelief.

“No, not really, but maybe I could just get a feel for the place, a sense of Jenny.”