Nor Will He Sleep

by David Ashton

  Carnegie exited without another word, but a sly smile was spread across his face; the plan had formed and he had found a lever for the job.

  Now the fun would begin.

  As he came out he looked for a particular countenance, but the constable was keeping out of sight.

  A wise precaution.

  And so Sim Carnegie went on his merry way.

  Left alone in his office, the lieutenant looked up at a beloved queen.

  ‘It’s a sair fecht,’ he said out of the blue.

  Victoria did not blink an eye at this colloquial expression of malign fate.

  She had a Golden Jubilee next month. Forty years on the throne. Empress of India.

  Could she have survived the same term at Leith Station?

  Roach doubted it.

  Chapter 25

  You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, dreary mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea.

  Leigh Hunt, The Fish, the Man, and the Spirit

  Two bedraggled figures hauled their weary bodies along the street towards the lower reaches of Leith, where they had their official dwelling.

  A sea-haar had suddenly fallen upon parts of the city and, though not heavy, was enough to dampen the spirits and limit vision of the way ahead.

  A clouded prospect.

  What remained of yester-Sunday had been spent trawling the deepest dives of the harbour, hammering on doors until the moment evil-tempered publicans and barmen answered, then firing questions without respite until satisfied the truth had been extracted as far as possible from these unpromising candidates.

  The subject covered any events concerning Mary Dougan on the previous Saturday night and the dispiriting response negative in the extreme.

  At one point an old lag, who seemed to be close-hingit with McLevy, took the inspector aside, but though the exchange clearly gave the policeman food for thought, it seemed not to pertain to the murder.

  Finally at the Foul Anchor, a tavern second only to the Rustie Nail in terms of base criminality, where priggers, pocket-delvers, pimps, and sharpers touched elbows in fine companionship, they had found a young keelie just taken on as live-in bar tender, who proudly admitted the following:

  ‘I saw her, see? Fidgin’ up tae a table, the auld gangie awa’ out tae pee wi’ the wind and left his dram at the board. She liftit and swalleyed – but me, I was wise tae her tricks and bootit her right oot the door!’

  His pride faded somewhat when told the fate of the whisky delver, but he maintained she had been moving well enough for someone propelled by a hefty kick and that, to his memory, no-one from inside had followed out after the woman.

  The other barman and the innkeeper confirmed this story though the latter, a man of few words and hard knuckles, had expressed a moment’s regret for her passing.

  ‘A harmless soul. Mary. Jist – fallen on bad times.’

  The publican also had a vague memory of some months before when she had tried to claw herself round some man, but the tavern had been mobbed to the gunnels at the time, so he saw nothing of the fellow and the only upshot was that Mary had ended drunken-fu’, collapsed upon a table.

  That aside – nothing more.

  Her expulsion from the tavern was near ten o’clock that Saturday night, and the Police Surgeon Dr Jarvis, wrenched by the urgency of the case from Sunday lunch, greasy chops bearing witness to the roast and innocent lamb, claret fumes round him like a halo, estimated the time of death between that instant and some hours after midnight.

  Therefore, there seemed no reason why Mary should have ended up on Heriot Row, unless she had been killed and taken there.

  Lo and behold one small advance in the investigation – because they knew, at least potentially, how that might have happened.

  Lo and behold!

  Mulholland glanced at the whey-faced, stocky figure barrelling doggedly along beside him and shook his head, if not in complete wonder at least in appreciation.

  When they had met this Monday morning the inspector looked as if a runaway railway train had hurtled over him and he had muttered about a bad night’s sleep.

  But then, on some weird instinct, McLevy had insisted that they carry on the door-to-door enquiries that had been called to a halt at the end of Abercromby Place.

  To the constable’s mind it was for the want of something better to do, since the only witness they’d managed to find so far was a keelie-barman.

  But then they found another.

  From a much more respectable source.

  Albany Street third door along. Upon their knock the woman opened, took one look, then her face whitened and she called for her husband.

  Down he came.

  A large bull of a man, ex-military by the carriage, a proper, curled moustache that put the inspector’s to shame, and piercing blue eyes; augmented by an impression of integrity coming not from outward rules but inner ballast.

  He was dressed to go out into the world, overcoat still open, no doubt about to be buttoned.

  One of his arms hung rigid to the side as if frozen inside the sleeve.

  ‘You would represent the police,’ he said while the wife exited, shutting the kitchen door behind her as if wanting to be quit of the scene.

  ‘We would indeed, sir,’ answered Mulholland, adjusting his helmet to prove a point.

  ‘You’ve saved me a journey,’ said Archibald Carstairs.

  ‘Have we?’ replied McLevy. ‘That’s nice.’

  The man straightened his back a fraction more as if coming to attention and announced, ‘My son is waiting.’

  He beckoned them inside and they followed him upstairs to a pleasantly furnished sitting room where a young man, also dressed to leave, was standing by the window.

  He was diminutive in frame, with a candid face, and he flinched when he saw the visitors.

  ‘These gentlemen are the police,’ the father addressed to him gently. ’But there’s no need to worry, Tom. Just tell them what you told me. The truth never hurt a living soul.’

  On that somewhat contentious affirmation, the story was told without interruption.

  Tom’s voice was hesitant at first but as the events of the evening unfolded, it grew in strength, save for the ending where he described his flight.

  ‘It was cowardly,’ he faltered.

  McLevy’s eyes had never left the young man’s face during the whole recitation.

  ‘I’m sure your father can tell you,’ he responded quietly, ‘all elements are inside a man. And most of them are opposites. Cowardice and bravery just two of a great multitude. Like love and hate.’

  For a moment there was a ghost of a smile on his face, but then he clapped his hands loudly together, a shocking sound in the stillness of the room.

  Mulholland recognised the signal.

  Now the questions would begin.

  They took the boy through the whole night, all over again.

  Every moment was scrutinised, though the account of the botched sortie into the Just Land had the father shaking his head in military disapproval, and rendered the faces of McLevy and Mulholland into impassive neutrality.

  The long, painful walk down South Charlotte Street, the hurtling carriage, the finding of the corpse, to the moment when Tom boaked up the contents of his stomach.

  ‘Were ye sporting a scarlet favour?’ McLevy asked suddenly.

  ‘I may have. I think I might.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘I was on all fours. It may have – joined the rest.’

  The two policemen exchanged glances. At least that was one mystery solved.

  ‘The corpse. Did you know the woman?’

  ‘I did not. Poor soul.’

  Tom’s mind flitted back to the moment when he had twitched the covering aside to reveal the empty, staring face, like a death mask.

  ‘The blanket, you touched it?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Was it sodden from the rain?’

  The young man thought for a momen
t.

  ‘No – just a wee bit damp. Hardly anything.’

  The father watched both policemen lean back for a moment.

  They were sitting at a table facing his son, who was also seated and in obvious discomfort from his lesions; though the questioning had been intense, there had been no hint of bullying or violence.

  Of course had Carstairs ever seen McLevy at full torrent in the interrogation room, or he and Mulholland in action when taking on a villainous gang of felons, hornbeam stick and fists whirling in concerted ferocity, then a different opinion may have been formed.

  But for this moment they were unmoving.

  Their thinking thus.

  If the blanket, thoroughly examined and found to be a cheap, common covering with no identifying marks, such as was used on stored furniture or perhaps the odd dead body – if such were comparatively dry, then this rough casing and contents had been dumped there not long before.

  Which brought them to the carriage and driver.

  Tom had glimpsed them for only a brief moment but the image had burnt itself into his brain.

  That was good.

  So, tell us all over again.

  ‘The carriage – it was roofed?’

  That way the corpse would be hid from prying eyes should the blanket slip.

  ‘Yes. It was small, I think, though. More like a trap.’

  ‘And the horse? Colour, size – any wee thing?’

  ‘No. It was dark. So the horse must also have been dark in hue. I could hardly make out. It was screaming.’

  ‘You mean neighing – loud maybe?’ Mulholland probed.

  ‘No. A scream. Or perhaps it was him. Howling.’

  Now we get there. Now we pray for a detail, anything, a scrap that might point the finger.

  ‘The driver. Whit was he like?’

  ‘The devil.’

  This response stopped the investigators in their tracks. A fallen angel would be a tricky mark.

  ‘The devil takes many forms,’ McLevy said cautiously. ‘Ye might elucidate, sir. And keep it simple.’

  ‘It was black as pitch. Wind and rain, in my face. I could hardly see but . . . he was standing. Howling – as if in some form of madness. Raving. Moon-struck. A chronic rapture of the cerebrum.’

  ‘Tom is going to specialise in diseases of the brain,’ his father offered.

  McLevy was more interested in other dimensions.

  ‘Height? Weight?’

  ‘Hard to tell but – not tall. Nor heavy. He was wrapped in a cloak, with a hood.’

  Hood?

  Mulholland’s heart sank – for here was the question they had been inching towards.

  The face.

  ‘Face?’

  ‘It was – white.’

  At least a beginning.

  ‘White?’ McLevy queried. ‘A natural complexion?’

  ‘No. Painted. Gleaming white. Like enamel.’

  The young man shivered and shifted in the chair.

  ‘Features?’

  ‘It was all so fast. I could not tell.’

  ‘You would not know that face – should you see it again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even a wee toaty bit?’

  ‘In all honesty. I would not.’

  Tom sensed that his words had not transported the policemen into the realms of delight and hastened to help all he could.

  ‘One moment the cloak fell aside, the colour of the cloth underneath – it was pale. Like a pale grey.’

  ‘Uhuh?’ grunted McLevy.

  ‘And of course . . . the stick.’

  ‘The whit?’

  ‘The stick. He waved it in the air and howled. It was silver. Even in the dark it glittered. A silver stick.’

  And that, for the moment, was that.

  At the door McLevy and the military man spoke aside while Mulholland towered over the mother and assured the worried lady of the house that her boy Thomas upstairs would not be hanged by the neck until certifiably dead.

  The constable was good with women, so long as not romantically involved – then his luck was beyond the trials of Job.

  ‘He’ll have to come intae the station to make a formal statement,’ said the inspector, ‘but apart from his sore arse he may get off light.’

  Archibald Carstairs nodded briefly.

  ‘Tom was desperate to join the Scarlet Runners. One of the gang. On the coat-tails.’

  ‘I’ve never been a great believer in gangs,’ replied McLevy. ‘I aye prefer solitary.’

  ‘You’d not make an army man then?’

  ‘Only in front of a firing squad.’

  A moment of sardonic and shared humour, then Carstairs lifted one huge hand and laid it oddly across his heart.

  ‘He’s a decent boy.’

  ‘That guarantees ye nothing.’

  Then McLevy’s attention was caught by the rigid arm still hanging to the other side.

  ‘How did that come about?’

  ‘I was sliced in ambush. By one of my own men.’

  ‘Dearie me. Whit happened to him?’

  Carstairs’s regard moved to a rectangular glass case on the nearby table. Inside was a service revolver that gleamed in the light.

  ‘He died in battle.’

  The blue eyes were like ice and McLevy recognised when best to let well alone.

  He jammed on his low-brimmed bowler.

  ‘If anything occurs further . . . ?’

  ‘If something returns to his memory, I will let you know at once.’

  ‘I thank you for that, sir.’

  A brusque gesture of the inspector’s hand and Mulholland was signalled to join them at the door.

  Just before the policemen left, Carstairs had one last thing to ask.

  ‘Has this been of any help?’

  A strange expression crossed McLevy’s face, as if he had suffered some piercing shaft of pain, and then a bleak smile appeared.

  ‘Now there’s a question,’ he said.

  And indeed it was.

  Both policemen were thoughtful as they walked Great Junction Street with the eventual objective of their station in mind.

  They now at least had some kind of description of the killer – the white face, pale suit and especially the silver stick pointed towards Daniel Drummond, but it wasn’t enough to haul him in again – they would just look like fools –

  ‘Jaysus!’

  This exclamation from Mulholland, who was not wont to take the Redeemer’s name in vain, stopped McLevy dead in his tracks.

  The constable’s body had stiffened as if a bolt of lightning had struck him from above, and when McLevy followed the direction of his staring eyes, all became clear.

  The sea-haar had fixed into a thick, cloying mist and four figures were to be glimpsed on the other side of the street travelling in the opposite direction. The one in the lead appeared as if he had emerged from the primordial soup; a large head with straw coloured hair, that hung in dirty hanks around the pouched and loose lipped face, topped a shambling frame that was massive – once perhaps hard-muscled but now going to fat, though he moved with a simian ability that hinted at a former quickness of hand and foot.

  His arms were abnormally long and the knuckles of his spade-shaped fists brushed against the knees of greasy oil-skin trousers.

  He wore a sailor’s reefer jacket pulled up to the neck, and the eyes, hooded like a cobra’s, had flickered open to lock gaze with Martin Mulholland.

  Gash Mitchell.

  A murderer for sure, and a monster for certain.

  He smiled, rubbery lips stretched till they almost split his face.

  ‘Well, well – see whit we have here!’

  The other three men were not known to McLevy, but they were hard-looking types, and bulges in their pockets suggested that it wasnae sugar biscuits kept there.

  None of this worried the inspector.

  What worried him was his constable.

  Mulholland was yet rooted to the spot, b
ut it would take only one wrong word, one sneer, one jab into the scar tissue that had filmed over a failed investigation.

  Mitchell knew this and that the odds were with him – yet he hesitated.

  McLevy’s hand had moved inside his heavy coat. It was well known the inspector carried an old service revolver that fired heavy bullets, which strangely enough often found their mark.

  And being a policeman, he could get off with killing folk.

  Gash had an animal cunning that had served him well over the years. If he could sneck the lanky bastard over the road to make a wild foray, then use him as cover in the dank fog, then there might be some fun to be had.

  The street was deserted, no witnesses, a good kicking keeping the constable’s body between them and the bullet, then disappear into the mirk.

  Wiser to wait maybe? For a better time?

  Mulholland’s eyes were boring a hole through the film of damp air; Mitchell grinned to show how little this affected him, and then spat a huge gobbet of saliva as far as he could across the road.

  No harm in trying.

  As Mulholland jerked forward in response, his jaw tight with anger, McLevy grabbed him by the arm.

  It was like taking hold of an iron bar, but he did not let go and wedged himself in front.

  A carriage rattled past and the coachman glanced idly right and left before leaving the scene.

  The inspector hissed into his constable’s ear like a veritable tempter, Auld Hornie himself, but the message was not to court damnation.

  ‘Not now. Later. A better time.’

  Both parties seemed to agree on that decision.

  Mitchell because he would prefer to isolate the constable in a dark wynd, bodily violence or even murder better not conducted in an open space; and McLevy because he was genuinely concerned that Mulholland might sunder the man’s skull and kill him in public view.

  They had enough on their hands.

  Mulholland let out a gasp as if some tension had been spat out of his body, and his eyes suddenly found focus as if coming back to some kind of known world.

  A child’s voice was heard and, like a figure in a fairy story, a little girl all muffled up against the elements, with a bright blue Tam o’ Shanter on her head, emerged from the fog in pursuit of a hoop, with her parents close behind.

  She laughed at the erratic progress of her toy and sped past the two policemen, heading down the hill.