Read Online The Solitary House by Lynn Shepherd - Free Book Online Page A

singularly blind to his own. Abel, meanwhile, has said nothing, but Charles is in no hurry. Best the man come to it in his own way.
    “He’s not his’sen, Mr Charles. Not at all. Not since we got back.”
    “Is he unwell?”
    Stornaway looks perplexed. “That’s just it. I dinna rightly know. One day he’s as right as rain, the next he dinna seem to know who I am. One day he just sits there in his chair, starin’ into space mumblin’ to his’sen; the next he’s as sharp as a razor, settin’ everything to rights from the state o’ my collar, to the state o’ the nation.”
    Charles puts down his mug. “I suppose he is very old now.” He’s trying to be reassuring, but he’s not as confident as he sounds. Maddox has an incisive mind, yes; but he was never a belligerent man.
    Stornaway, meanwhile, is nodding. “Aye, that’s what’s I thought me’sen. Mrs McLeod, who comes in twice a week to do for us, her husband is in the same declinin’ way. More a little chiel than an old man she says. If that’s all it were, I could manage. But these last few days, things have changed.”
    He is, all unconsciously, rubbing his left arm, and Charles leans forward and pushes the sleeve gently back. Stornaway does not resist and that, more than anything else, tells Charles that something is seriously wrong. There’s a livid bruise from elbow to wrist and darker marks where fingernails have dug into the flesh.
    “Did he do this to you?”
    Charles has never seen tears in Stornaway’s eyes before, but he sees them now.
    “He dinna mean it. I was just trying to help him get his’sen dressed—you know how partic’lar he is about such things. Everythin’ has to be just so—coat, shirt, stock, wesscit.” He sighs. “He accusedme of attackin’ him. Tryin’ to rob him. Told me to get oot and nae come back.”
    Looking at his companion now, Charles is prepared to bet that harder words than this were thrown at him and the memory of those words is far more distressing than any pain the old man feels from the wounds to his arm.
    “Was that the only time it happened?”
    Stornaway shakes his head. “Nay. It happened again this mornin’. Only this time it were Mrs McLeod as bore the brunt. She’s an old lady her’sen, Mr Charles, and canna be expected to suffer ill-treatment. That’s when I realised som’at had to be done. And I thought a ye.”
    Charles nods slowly, then drains his mug and puts it on the table.
    “You did the right thing. I’m glad you came.”
    Stornaway is in no state for more nocturnal wandering, so Charles picks up a hackney-cab at the stand in Tottenham Court Road, and hands over—without any compunction whatsoever—one of the new-minted shillings Knox advanced him only yesterday. It’s a very short hop by four wheels and the two of them are soon set down outside a tall and elegant house in one of the smart Georgian streets on the south side of the Strand. It is—and always was—an excellent location for a man in Maddox’s line of work. Not fifty yards from the river in one direction, and a brisk walk from Bow Street in the other.
    There are lights burning in the first-floor windows, as there are all along the façade. By comparison with the hectic jumbled streets farther north, the architecture here seems to exude its own atmosphere: You can hear the roar of the traffic on the Strand, but it is curiously remote. Here, all is harmony, order, and proportion. Or so it appears outside; inside, as Charles soon finds out, it’s a very different story. The moment Stornaway opens the door they hear the sound ofvoices. A man’s raised in rage, the words shrill and incoherent; a woman’s, pleading and anxious; and a third that carries on steadily all the while: the unmistakable emollience of a professional at work. Charles sees a flicker of apprehension on Stornaway’s face and hurries ahead of him up the stairs. He knows and loves this house but he’s never seen the drawing-room in this