When Watters saw the lights glimmer through the darkness of the close, he tightened his grip on his cane. “What’s happening here, Nicholl?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Sergeant,” Nicholl replied. “Baxter Wynd’s always been a dark place. Let’s have a look!” Dragging his staff from the long pocket inside his trousers, he strode forward, ready to do battle.
“Good man, Nicholl.” Watters tapped the weighted end of his cane in the palm of his hand and joined the constable. While gas lamps illuminated Dundee’s main streets, many ancient wynds and lanes remained dark and forbidding places. The probing glow of a policeman’s lantern was often an unwelcome intrusion into unsavoury secrets and nauseating scenes.
Watters stepped inside the wynd and stopped. Candles or tallow dips glowed at a score of wi
