Mathew's Tale by Quintin Jardine

Author:Quintin Jardine [Jardine, Quintin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2014-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘WHAT NEWS DO YOU have for me, Ewan? Was your mission a success?’

‘Doubly so, Mr Fleming,’ the coachman replied. ‘I found the Clelands’ house in Edinburgh, and I have discovered also that Gavin, Sir Gavin, as I assume he must be now, is residing there.’

‘Indeed? Well done, man. Is he alone, or did you see the two ladies also, Miss Smith and Miss Stout?’

‘No. By chance I saw him arrive and he was alone. However,’ he added with a smile, ‘I did discover whaur he had been. Ah kept an eye on the coach that had carried him home and saw it stop outside a tavern. So Ah went inside myself and engaged the driver in conversation. Ah complimented him on his rig . . . the surest way into a coachman’s good graces, sir . . . and asked if he worked for the gentleman Ah’d seen him drop off. He said no, that he was employed by a gentlemen’s club to see its members safely home after a night at the tables, or with the ladies. In the case of Sir Gavin Cleland, he said, it was both.’

Mathew smiled and turned to Innes Irvine; he, Johnston and young Matt were seated with them in the hotel salon. ‘Did you hear that, Mr Advocate? A mere three days after the death of his twin brother, and our new baronet is out carousing. Is that not something to lay before the court?’

‘Indeed it is,’ Irvine agreed. ‘It will help our defence of impeachment to demonstrate that he was not overcome by grief, as surely he would have been if he was innocent.’

‘Very good. Let us go, then, so that you can meet your client and let him see that he is in good hands with a good prospect of acquittal.’

He, Johnston and the advocate rose from the table; so did young Matt. ‘You cannot leave me behind, Mathew,’ he pleaded. ‘I must see my father.’

‘He may not wish you to visit him in Calton Jail, lad. He said as much to me yesterday.’

‘Is it no’ better for me to see his true situation,’ he asked, ‘than to imagine all sorts of horrors? I have heard stories of the Tolbooth, and what happened there.’

‘You should not have been listening to such stuff. The old Tolbooth prison was from a less enlightened time, and it was rightly torn down. The new jail is still a grim place, mind, but its inmates are treated with respect. But yes, I concede that you should see for yourself, so come with us. I am sure David will understand that your will is stronger than his, or mine.’

On their way up Waterloo Place, Matt’s eye was caught by the monument on the hilltop. ‘What is that?’ he asked.

‘That is Scotland’s national disgrace . . . or so they are calling it,’ Innes Irvine told him, ‘our way of remembering the defeat of Napoleon in the last great battle.’

‘I for one,’ Mathew remarked, ‘would prefer to forget that encounter, since it was almost the death of me.

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