Read Online Restless by William Boyd - Free Book Online Page A

Law said. 'Well, done, all the same: you were the furthest away.'
    'We didn't expect to see you come in round Cammlesmuir, though,' the Laird said, shrewdly, 'did we, Sergeant?'
    'Aye, true, sir. But Miss Dalton is always full of surprises.'
    She went into the dining room, where a cold lunch had been left out for her – some tinned ham and a potato salad. She poured herself a glass of water from a carafe and gulped it down, then gulped down another. She sat and ate, alone, forcing herself to eat slowly, not wolf her food, though she had a huge hunger on her. She was feeling intense pleasure – intense self-satisfaction. Kolia would have been pleased with her, she thought, and laughed to herself. She could not explain why, but she felt she had changed in some small but profound way.
     
    Princes Street, Edinburgh, a mid-week morning in early July, a breezy cool day with big packed clouds rushing overhead, threatening rain. Shoppers, holiday-makers, Edinburgh folk going about their business, filled the pavements and bulked in shifting crowds at the crossing points and bus stops. Eva Delectorskaya walked down the sloping street from St Andrews Square and turned right on to Princes Street. She was walking quickly, purposefully, not glancing back, but her head was full of the knowledge that at least six people were following her: two ahead, she thought, doubling back, and four behind, and perhaps a seventh, a stray, picking up instructions from the others, just to confuse her.
    She paused at certain shop windows, looking at the reflections, relying on her eye to spot something familiar, something already seen, searching for people covering their faces with hats and newspapers and guidebooks – but she could see nothing suspicious. Off again: she crossed the broad street to the Gardens side, darting between a tram and a brewer's dray, running between motor cars to the Scott Monument. She walked behind it, turned on her heel and, picking up speed now, strode briskly back in the opposite direction towards Calton Hill. On a whim she suddenly ducked into the North British Hotel, the doorman having no time to tip his cap to her. At reception she asked to be shown a room and was taken up to the fourth floor. She did not linger as she enquired about rates and where the bathroom was. Outside, she knew, all would be temporary consternation but one of them at least would have seen her go into the hotel. Word would be passed: within five minutes they would be watching every exit. 'Go out the door you came in' – Law always said – 'it'll be the slackest watched.' Good advice, except everyone following had heard it also.
    Down in the lobby again, she took a red headscarf out of her bag and tied it on. She took her coat off and carried it over her arm. When a gaggle of people, heading for an omnibus parked outside, gathered by the revolving door, she joined them and slipped out in their group, asking a man, with as much animation as possible, where she could find the Royal Mile, then darted round the rear of their charabanc, recrossed Princes Street again and then sauntered slowly, dawdling westwards, pausing to look in shop windows, only to study reflections. There was a man in a green jacket she thought she had seen before on the other side of the street, keeping pace with her, turning his back from time to time to look up at the castle.
    She ran into Jenners and up three floors. She moved through haberdashery towards the milliners' department. Green Jacket would have seen her: he would have told the others she was in the department store. She went into the ladies' lavatory and strode past the stalls down to the end. There was a staff entrance here that, in her experience, was never locked. She turned the handle – the door opened and she slipped through.
    'I'm sorry, Miss, this is private.' Two shop assistants on their break sat on a bench, smoking.
    'I'm looking for Jenny, Jenny Kinloch. I'm her sister: there's been a terrible