“If you should need assistance in any way,”he had said at the time, mentioning the man he had attended university with, and who had represented mutual clients in the years since.
“It’s always good to know someone who might be helpful.”
He had also provided a letter of introduction that explained my presence in Edinburgh. It did appear that could be useful now.
I had been in Edinburgh only a few hours, discovered my friend dead, and was now being held as a‘person of interest’to answer questions as it was explained regarding Dory’s murder.
The door of the room with a desk and two chairs, one that I presently occupied, now opened.
A man in a plain suit of clothes entered with a folder in hand, then closed the door behind him.
“Miss Lily Montgomery,” he said as he laid the folder on the desk, then took the chair across from me.
“I apologize to have kept you waiting. I only just returned.”
He was older than the constable I had first encountered or the desk officer, pleasant enough with brown hair greying around the temples, moustache, and brown eyes with a congenial expression, no doubt meant to put me at ease.
“I am Detective Inspector Landry,” he introduced himself. “It seems that it has been a difficult day for ye,” he commented.
“Ye are newly arrived in Edinburgh,” he added as he studied the report that had been made earlier when I arrived.
“Not wot we usually see when this sort of crime has been committed.”
Not what they usually saw? Once not very long ago, I was exactly the sort they might see on the street.
Had I changed so very much? My manner of speaking? The clothes I wore? Like a costume that I had put on, disguising who I really was?
Who was I?
An orphan abandoned years before? The young girl who worked in a brothel in order to survive? The real person I was hidden behind an education and fine clothes?
“I chose to be who I am a long time ago. It’s not a matter of wealth or title. It’s about fighting against the expectations of other people. You can be exactly what you choose to be, my dear,” Lady Antonia had told me when I first arrived in London.“Not that it is ever an easy thing.
“An education is merely the means of making that happen. The rest of it is up to you. Mikaela is an example of a young woman who simply refused to accept what others thought she should be. Good heavens, but the girl was challenging from time to time.
“I’m quite proud of her. Times are changing for young women, if somewhat slowly. Still, you have the opportunity to discover what you can be.”
I had already explained twice that I was there to see an old friend. First to the constable I had encountered at Dory’s flat, then to the constable who made the official report after I was ‘escorted’ to the police station.
Inspector Landry looked up when I did not respond, with an expression of what might have been sympathy.
“I realize that it must have been most difficult to find yer ‘friend’ in such a manner. How did you know the woman?”
The woman. Now dead, little more than a few details in his report. To be filed and then no doubt forgotten, merely another murder in a place where it was all too common. That had not changed in the time I had been gone.
“She has a name,” I replied.
He looked up, that dark gaze softening. “I apologize Miss Montgomery. You are quite right. I know this must be difficult. Can ye tell me how you were acquainted with Dory Brown?”
My hands were cold in spite of the fact that it was not cold in the room. I clasped my hands together.
“We met several years ago. We continued to stay in contact with letters.” I left it at that. I had learned from Mikaela that very often the less said was often best.
“It seems that you have read them,” I pointed out what had been taken from me when I arrived. I had been allowed to keep the portmanteau with me.
That dark gaze returned to mine, not unkindly.
“I apologize. There are things we are required to do on behalf of a victim when a crime has been committed.”
