IV.

It was fresh and cold Sunday morning. December had brought winter, so the tombstones of the graveyard next to the church were lined with layers of snow. Dunfermline Abbey was filled with people. Stuart stood outside. He woke up early and ready to welcome a client who had called him the day before. It was an emergency call, and one which Stuart was glad to accept on a Sunday, because it was a case of post-mortem photographing. He hadn't had a chance to take a photo of a deceased person ever since he made a mistake with the daguerreotype of an old man before his brother's funeral. He was excited to return to his favourite occupation, but customers hadn't appeared in the agreed time. Stuart waited, but it was obvious that something had stopped them from coming. Since the funeral of the deceased in question was to be held in the noon that day, it was unlikely that they would come at all. Disappointed and angry, Stuart didn't know what to occupy himself with for the rest of the day. Then he took a look at the calendar and realised that exactly one month had passed since he left Erwing's house. He had no doubt Carol made sure that Mass of Remembrance was held in a church in Edinburgh. Although his family was never very religious, and he himself wasn't sure whether he believed in God, Stuart felt obliged to visit some kind of a holy place to honour his brother. Tangled in warm clothes, he walked through the snow to the Abbey and listened to the choir singing from a distance.

He put hands in the pockets of his coat. His fingers curled around a sharp object. He took an envelope out of his pocket. Intrigued, but not surprised by this discovery, Stuart opened the letter. Although he rarely received letters, he constantly misplaced and forgot about those he did receive. He recognised Carol's handwriting before he started reading. His heart started pounding harder. "Calm down", he mumbled to himself. It was an invitation. The date was only two days past, so it was still valid. She wanted him to come to their place on the Christmas day. It would be only her, Erwing, Loreley, Louise, Carol's sister and him. "It would make Louise jolly happy to meet you properly. We told her much about you, but she hadn't had the opportunity to make independent judgment of you. Please, come and spend Christmas with us!"

Stuart kept his eyes on the paper for minutes after he finished reading. Her appeal touched him and a part of him considered taking another trip to Edinburgh. Christmas was in six days, so he had time to prepare and make plans for after Christmas. If the weather doesn't get worse, he wouldn't have to stay overnight, so there was no fear of bad dreams. "And when had you become so superstitious", he accused himself, "evil spirits in the house giving you headache and nightmares, eh? Damn, it must be old age..."

His consideration stopped when he caught sight of a lone figure between the tombstones. A tall woman dressed in a black cape. Stuart rubbed his eyes to convince himself it wasn't an apparition. She seemed like a ghost from a scary story. But the woman was real. She kneeled in front of one grave. Taking out a cloth and a spatula, she cleaned the snow from it. Stuart saw she had a bag beneath her robe. She took out a Christmas rose and left in on the mound in front of the tombstone. The flower was so white its shape was lost on the snowy surface. Something about the whole scene and woman's posture attracted Stuart. He felt he was a witness to something special and private, but this only encouraged him to come closer.

The woman heard his steps. With a sudden move of her head, she gave him a startled look. Stuart was still too far away to represent a threat, but she seemed frightened. He wanted to apologize for intrusion, but she was quicker and was already running away before he managed to say a single word. Stuart took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders. Then he noticed a glint on the ground next to the grave the woman was taking care of. He came closer and found a silver medallion.

"Ma'am!", he shouted. "You dropped something!" But her black figure had disappeared. In the meantime, people started exiting the church. Stuart was at no position to go chasing after the unknown woman.

The ornament was heavy on his palm. It was surely worth a good deal of money, but Stuart wasn't the rapacious kind of person. He would return any kind of lost object to whom it belonged. Touching the edges, he felt a button and pressed it. When medallion opened, he saw two old photos on each side of it. One was of a middle–aged woman, and another of an older man. "Must be her parents", he concluded as his sight lowered to the tombstone. "Jamieson", he read the surname carved next to the spouses' names. He put the medallion in his pocket next to the once again forgotten letter.

Workless days preceding Christmas passed with medallion lying intact in Stuart's pocket. On the evening of Christmas Eve Stuart had enough of hopeless sitting in his armchair, waiting for a rescue customer to bring some joy into his idle routine. He had polished each frame in his collection, wiped dust from every daguerreotype, cleaned his camera and swept every corner of his studio. He had to get away from his safe four walls.

Since Stuart wasn't easily befriended and wasn't one of those who seek to meet new acquaintances whenever going out, he had nobody to hang out with. However, there was a pub nearby where he sometimes peeped in. He rarely stayed in for longer than a few minutes. The company was made out of those who went there after work to postpone coming back to their families, those who had nowhere else to go and often had no money to pay what they ordered and those who hid there from troubles of reality. Stuart didn't belong to any of those groups, but the atmosphere of a full pub filled him with feeling of community. It could heal his loneliness for the time being.

Smoke of cheap cigars stroke him when he entered. As he was coming nearer to the bar, his ears got used to the loud cacophony of voices. He comprehended that a bunch of people, drunk and sober, were singing Christmas carols. Well, he thought, at least it's more homey than my place.

"Aye, Stu, haven't seen ya for too long", the barman shouted. He was a big man with face covered in brown beard, but scalp without a single hair. "Where'd you been, eh?"

"Home, mostly", he answered, but then, driven by unconscious desire for a disclose, added: "My brother died."

"Oh, gee, so sorry to hear that." Barman nodded his head. "Here, this is on the house." He thrust him a glass of whiskey. Stuart sipped the drink into himself and turned from the bar, blinking his eyes as whiskey was running down his throat. In a convex space, sitting alone at a round table, was the woman in black he saw at the graveyard. He instinctively reached into his pocket. The medallion was still there.

"Hey, who's that lady?"

"That? Old man Jamieson's daughter. Ever heard of 'im? I'm surprised, you two had a strange thing in common. Sadly, old lad passed away early this autumn. You know what his job was? He regularly took photos of the crime scenes. Been moving around the country for a long time, but the family had inherited a house here in Dunfermline. Heard the daughter decided to settle down here after her father died." He gave Stuart a curious look. "What's on your mind, Stu? Aren't ya a bit too old for a pretty young woman like her?"

"I found something hers." Without further explanation, he headed towards her. He was careful not to scare her like the first time, but she didn't seem to notice him at all. She acknowledged his presence with a resigned look only after his shadow fell on her. "Excuse me for disturbing you, but I believe this belongs to you." He took out the medallion and put in on the desk. Woman's eyes widened when she recognized the object. "Good evening", he said, ready to return to the bar.

"Wait", she called him back with a strong, yet feminine voice, "would you like to join me?"

There was a half–empty bottle of vine on the desk. He sat opposite of her and accepted the drink she offered him. "Strange to see someone decent like you in here", he spoke just to break the weird silence between them. "I hardly find anyone besides depressed students and drunkards in the Black Cat."

"You speak like you know me", she answered with a curious smile, "besides, I've never seen anyone similar to you around. Who are you anyway?"

"My name is Stuart Malcolm."

She blinked in a confused way. "Wait, I know who you are! I saw your studio. You are a photographer, the one who takes daguerreotypes of dead people!"

"I guess I have a reputation. And you?"

She made a resentful sound with her tongue. "You could say I'm new in town. Name's Regina." Then Regina filled her glass with vine and drank it in one sip. When she spoke again, her voice revealed dizziness from intoxication. "Seen you at the cemetery... You following me?"

"By no means. I just happened to bum into you there and here." He wanted to ask her about her father, but this were not the right circumstances.

Regina stretched her arm as if to get a grip of the empty chair alongside her, but she missed it and almost fell down. Stuart got up to help her, but she rejected help. "I'm fine, fine...", she mumbled, but Stuart thought this was not her first bottle.

"You should go home. Do you want me to accompany you?"

"Haven't got anything better to do on Christmas Eve?"

Just then Carol's letter came to his mind. He wanted to slap himself across the face. How could've he forgotten about it? Perhaps it was still not to late to plan everything... except it was. The snow had covered the roads. There was no way he could find a cab to drive him all the way to Edinburgh in the morning. He imagined Carol waiting for him, Erwing convincing her there's still time for Stuart to come... But he won't come. He felt more sorry for them that himself.

"Sorry", he heard Regina's voice coming through his thoughts, "shouldn't have asked, should I?" Up on her legs now and strangely wrapped in black coat, she staggered towards the exit. Stuart followed her, but there were too many people inside. She got out before he managed to break through the crowd. When he came out in the freezing air, Regina was nowhere to be seen.