Page 30 of All My Broken Dreams

The Chief of Fuil Bratach, Professor Alastair Manderville, presided over the table. Blood name:The Black.The title suited him in both looks and temperament. Deacon’s uncle had a bloody fire in him that scorched his hair red and singed his thick eyebrows black. Casey had his mother’s coloring: fair haired, green-eyed, blessed with the classical bone structure of a male model. Penelope was in love with him but Alastair would never permit their union.

The Black addressed his son. “Casey, do you mean to join us or continue to waste away in front of the fire?”

“Waste away. I hardly see the point in sitting at the table when I can hear everything perfectly well over here where it is vastly more comfortable.Besides, my cousin has a booming, grating voice that carries. Well suited to calling sheep from the fields.”

Muffled sounds of laughter rose from the group. Deacon flushed and clenched fists at his side. If Casey wasn’t such a weak puny thing, he’d give him a thrashing.

His cousin had a side to him that came from being spoiled and petted in childhood. He was not raised by Alastair, only coming to live with him at age sixteen, after his mother’s death. Deacon was five years older and working at Locksley Hall when the boy arrived, ill-tempered and imperious. Alastair had to send for him on numerous occasions to deal with the brat before he strangled him.

Deacon had delivered his cousin out of one scrape after another. Mrs. Cameron called him a daft lump for being taken advantage of by two mucky-mucks. He thought he was gaining a brother when Casey came to Dugald Croft. He still thought so at times.

“You may as well sit down, lad,” Alastair instructed him with a nod to Casey’s vacant chair. “Does she know where you’ve gone?”

“No.”

“She could have followed you.”

“She’s afraid to go outside. She’s in Harry’s old flat. She’s not coming out.” He rubbed his mouth unwilling to say more, but knowing he would have to. “She has a condition.”

“What sort of condition?” Millicent asked.

“She doesn’t like open spaces. Going out-of-doors. Makes her anxious.”

“Are you attempting to describe agoraphobia?”

“Aye, that’s it.” He reddened. “She told me what it was but the word slipped my mind.”

“It is more likely you had no hope of pronouncing it,” Casey trilled from the sofa. “Though I commend you for delivering such good news. The riddle is solved. A mental case is no threat to us. Harry’s body has been disposed of and we are a unified force against inquiry. Back to business as usual. Thank God, that’s over with.”

His voice was slurred with drink; he was likely unaware of what he had said.

Deacon bowed his head, stunned into shock, praying he heard wrong. Composing himself, he addressed his uncle.

“I thought Harry was at Arran Castle being reprogrammed.”

“We are not a cult, Deacon.” Lester raised his voice, ready to go to war over the slightest remark. “We don’t ‘reprogram’ our members. Listowel was given every opportunity to recant and he refused. Nevertheless, on Arran he was free to go to the very devil if he so wished.”

“He wasn’t going to change his mind, Deacon,” Penelope said with bored disgust. “I tried to reason with him–we all did. He had it stuck in his head that he had to do the right thing.”

“Whatever that means nowadays,” interjected Phillip. “I told him how pointless it was, the fuss over one minor mishap. Admittedly, it was not our finest hour, but we were all off our heads with drink when the man was killed.”

“And what would our arrest change in the long run?” Reginald asked plaintively. “Incarcerate us for the crime of eliminating one less scourge from the streets? Edinburgh was not going to miss one vagrant thief who had spent his days pilfering and defecating in alleys. I still maintain that we acted for the greater good.”

“The sheer gall of it!” Phillip cried. “That animal had the temerity to put his sticky paws all over our belongings. Caught red-handed, no chance of being innocent. He was looking for drug money, no doubt. If we hadn’t killed him, the drugs would have.”

Deacon stood up abruptly and stared at each one of them, disbelieving what he was hearing. This had to be a joke. An elaborate prank.

“You killed a man?”

Chapter Sixteen

“We killed a junkie, a thief,” Millicent said with measured calm. “We are Fuil Bratach. We had a right to defend our property.”

Alastair reached out to him. “Sit down, lad. It’s time you heard the whole story. I didn’t want to get you involved but now I have no choice. Robbie Listowel poses a threat to us all. We cannot have Harry’s sister wandering around Locksley Hall asking questions and causing a ruckus. She won’t find him.”

Deacon’s mouth dried. “Why?”

Alastair hesitated just ever so slightly. It wasn’t like him to sugar the truth.

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