The Burning Glass by Lillian Stewart Carl

or a branch tapping a window. But Alasdair had leaped nimbly
to the conclusion that the source was human, someone who was hiding
from them. He had a point. Stray pedestrian visitors would have
made themselves known by now, wouldn’t they?
    She held onto his hand and concentrated on
keeping her feet, glad he knew where he was going. All the ravaged
cavities of rooms looked alike . . . Alasdair stopped dead in the
middle of the High Hall, beneath the glare of the light bulb, and
Jean caromed off his side.
    His ears almost curled forward as he
listened. She retrieved her hand and held her breath. Silence. No.
Not silence. Subtle creakings from the building and the moan of the
wind outside. And a not-so-subtle thunk from one of the tall
windows.
    Alasdair leaped forward into the largest
window embrasure and pivoted, turning his flashlight toward the
pitch-black slit of a cupboard cut into the thickness of the wall.
For a moment Jean, at his heels, thought she was seeing two giant
crows huddled in the narrow chamber. Then she realized she was
looking at two teenagers, their slight bodies layered in snug black
pants and shapeless jackets adorned with multiple pewter buckles,
their white faces screwed into grimaces at the sudden light.
    “Right,” said Alasdair, slipping instantly
into police mode. “Come out of there. Move.”
    The first one to respond was a boy, Jean
decided, judging by the prominence of his Adam’s apple, the
thickness of his eyebrows, and the six or so dark hairs on his
upper lip. The second was a girl wearing three earrings in each
ear, a slash of red lipstick, and so much black eyeliner and purple
shadow she resembled a punk raccoon. Both of them had hair blacker
than nature intended for their gene pools, his rising in startled
spikes, hers back-combed into a rat’s nest and dusted with what
Jean at first thought were bits of plaster but then realized were
little butterfly clips.
    Gallantly the boy extended his hand to help
the girl step up from what must have been an earlier flooring
level. She ignored him, her hands thrust deep into the oversized
pockets of her jacket, even when she almost stumbled.
    “How do you do,” Alasdair said. “I’m
Detec—Mr. Cameron. This is Miss Fairbairn. You are . . .”
    The teenagers slouched carelessly, but their
eyes darted right and left, up and down, as though seeking escape
routes. “Derek,” said the boy at last.
    Jean remembered the woman leaving the pub,
talking on the cell phone to her recalcitrant son. Here was the boy
himself.
    “Surname?” demanded Alasdair.
    “Trotter,” Derek said, trying to deepen his
voice.
    Another hobbit name, Jean thought, if coming
from a goblin-child. The poor kid probably suffered for that.
Teenagers could make taunts out of names a lot less tempting than
“Trotter.”
    “Stanelaw lad, are you?” Alasdair asked.
    “I am now, sod it all. Me mum and me, we’ve
just moved house to be near her relations. Coulda had relations in
London, but no, they’re either here or in
Middles-bleedin’-brough.”
    Middlesbrough? No wonder Jean detected an
accent originating in the rust belt of the English Midlands. “Has
your father moved here, too?”
    “He’s done a runner, hasn’t he? Walked
out.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that,” Jean said.
    “Rotter like him? Past time to see the back
of him, mum says.”
    Ouch, Jean thought. No wonder the
boy’s tone was so bitter.
    With a grim nod, Alasdair turned to the girl.
“And you?”
    “Zoe Brimberry,” she replied, her crimson
lips pouting.
    “You’re Noel’s daughter. You work at the
Reiver’s Rest,” said Jean. The girl no doubt cleaned up nicely and
didn’t leave black fingerprints on the linen and tea cups.
    “A couple hours a day, aye,” Zoe said.
    “Well then,” said Alasdair, “as a local lass
you’re knowing the castle’s closed just now.”
    “We was having us a look at where that old
bloke bought it—” Derek began.
    Zoe jabbed him with her elbow,