Nor Will He Sleep

by David Ashton

  It was a matter of some speed before the public show of such derring-do attracted the forces of repression, and once the squad of police had arrived a reasonably good-natured scuffle took place before the students scattered to the four winds.

  That is except for Daniel and Alan. Just as they sneaked round the side, it seemed the crowd parted like the Red Sea, and there before them were the implacable figures of James McLevy and Constable Mulholland.

  The inspector had lost his low-brimmed bowler for a moment as somebody careered into him, but he jammed it back on his head with a degree of force.

  Both young men had the light of adventure in their eyes, no harm done, a cheeky foray up a well-known landmark. Surely such mischief was permissible as the day of reckoning approached for the Scarlet Runners and themselves?

  Yet the policemen had solemn faces like unto Wattie Scott himself as he contemplated a graven eternity.

  As the whooping students and pursuing policemen left the scene, it was only the four of them in mutual regard.

  ‘Aye, gentlemen,’ said McLevy with grim relish. ‘A wee caper awaits ye at the station. Ye’ll know the way.’

  And now Alan sat in the cold, bare interrogation room, the walls of which were covered in liverish yellow stains, and what seemed like scratch marks, where unavailing nails might have clawed desperately for freedom.

  He sat in the middle on a small chair more appropriate for a schoolboy. Or the dunce of the class.

  McLevy loomed over him while Mulholland leant nonchalantly against the locked door.

  The inspector had decided to invoke the Old Testament and assume the persona of Moses on the Mount.

  ‘You have lied to me once, sir,’ he proceeded with a sombre magisterial air. ‘Kindly do not do so again.’

  Grant swallowed hard.

  ‘I must confess I do not understand the import of your words, inspector – ’

  ‘I said, not again!’

  This sudden roar from McLevy, which would have set the followers of the Golden Calf running for the hills, startled the young man out of his wits, but was precisely calculated, as Mulholland knew well.

  The constable unfolded his long form from the door and pointed an admonitory finger at the young man.

  ‘Don’t try a move, sir,’ said he, as if Grant was about either to flee or make some aggressive motion.

  ‘I shall give you the benefit of a mistaken impulse of loyalty, Mister Grant,’ McLevy announced gravely. ‘But take it no further, lest you yourself become accomplice.’

  ‘Accomplice?’

  ‘To murder.’

  In the silence that followed these words, a seagull somewhere in distance let loose a series of high muffled screeches, as if mocking Alan Grant’s efforts to hold firm to his resolution.

  ‘To conceal the truth is to deliver the blow yourself, as Cain tae Abel from the beginning of time. One falsehood – and you ally yourself to the slaughter of the innocents.’

  McLevy was pitching it high, thought Mulholland, but Grant came from good stock and that can often be a weakness.

  ‘Agnes Carnegie. Whit really happened?’

  The inspector pulled another small chair over and straddled it somewhat comically, as if they were twa auld gadgies sittin’ thegither in the park.

  Grant thought to deny once more that they had at all come across the woman, but somehow it seemed simpler to tell the truth.

  Or at least – part of it.

  ‘Nothing. We – had words. And parted company.’

  Not by a flicker did the inspector’s face give away the fact that this might be a floodgate.

  ‘But ye did – cross her path?’

  ‘We did. As I said – we – exchanged words.’

  ‘Whit kind o’ words? Insults?’

  ‘She – upbraided us.’

  ‘And you replied in kind?’

  ‘Daniel did.’

  ‘You were the peacekeeper?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  McLevy addressed Mulholland out of the blue.

  ‘Is it the peacekeepers that inherit the earth?’

  ‘I think it’s the meek, sir,’ came the straight-faced response.

  ‘Oh? Right.’

  Then with a friendly wave of the hand to Alan, McLevy indicated that he should carry on. All friends now, havin’ a wee gab.

  ‘And then – we left her.’

  ‘In what condition?’

  Alan blurted out an unexpected answer.

  ‘On her bottom. In a puddle.’

  ‘That’s a awkward place to find yourself,’ Mulholland threw in idly. ‘With the rain and all.’

  ‘It is indeed,’ agreed his inspector. ‘How did that transpire, I wonder?’

  ‘Daniel pushed her. And she fell.’

  ‘So there was physical violence?’

  ‘She – grabbed at him.’

  ‘Agnes was an old woman,’ McLevy corrected in matter-of-fact tones. ‘But he pushed her off anyway?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you left her there? In the wet? On her backside?’

  ‘I – I – I was further away. Daniel was closer.’

  McLevy’s face betrayed nothing, but Alan Grant found it difficult to meet those lupine eyes.

  ‘Yes, we left her there,’ he managed finally.

  And now it was coming.

  Mulholland sauntered across the room to occupy a place on the wall diagonally behind McLevy, so that wherever Alan Grant looked, the frame was filled with interrogators.

  ‘And was he angry, Daniel? Insults, you said. Of what kind?’

  Alan had a sudden flash of Daniel’s white, furious face as he dragged his companion into the darkness.

  ‘She – the old woman – mocked his infirmity. Said it was God’s punishment for his sins. He has a temper.’

  McLevy leant back as if satisfied with this, and Mulholland slid in like a friendly snake.

  ‘So – off you went on the randan with the rest of the gang, all boys together, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you never returned to the scene of the crime, as it were?’

  Both policemen laughed at the turn of phrase, and Alan felt curiously nettled, as if not being taken seriously.

  ‘I certainly did not!’

  ‘And what about Daniel?’

  ‘No – he – neither.’

  ‘With you all the time, was he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  This occasion it was Jessica’s face that flashed before him.

  ‘All the time.’

  Liar. I can smell it from your pores.

  ‘You will remember,’ said McLevy quietly. ‘That I spoke to you of lies, the truth and misplaced loyalty.’

  Mulholland felt an odd urge to dance a little jig – this time there were no lawyers – this time, no escape.

  ‘We have a witness who has identified Daniel that very night, on the trail of Agnes Carnegie.’

  ‘But that’s not possible!’

  ‘It is if he went back.’

  McLevy did not add the murderous ramifications such a return might signify, that might muddy the waters, no – all he wanted was a simple admission.

  ‘Mister Grant. On your honour, on probity of family, on the Holy Book itself – can you swear Daniel Drummond was by your side for the rest of that night?’

  Break this alibi and the game is on.

  Alan opened his mouth, but his tongue could not form the words of denial. Instead another creature emerged.

  Truth, at times, like murder, will out.

  ‘I – lost touch with him.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘An hour or so.’

  ‘What was his explanation?’

  ‘A duel. With one of the Runners.’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  McLevy blinked his gaze almost comically, as if he had been told a tall tale. A child’s fable.

  Mulholland’s Irish blue eyes had never seemed more in
nocent as he posed a last question.

  ‘And why did you not tell us all of this, sir – when we first came to visit?’

  ‘Daniel. He said – ’

  More trouble than it’s worth.

  Chapter 29

  That garret of the earth – that knuckle-end of England – that land of Calvin, oatcakes and sulphur.

  Sidney Smith, English clergyman, Memoirs

  The Scarlet Runners charged down the quayside to see what misdirected mischief they might cause on a wet afternoon.

  As is the manner of a mob, they mistook boorish behaviour for high spirits, and had already spirited off a lady’s lace bonnet that one was wearing to some effect.

  The Runners had licked their wounds after the fiasco at the Just Land and felt themselves to be falling behind their rivals, witness the recent scaling of Scott’s statue; so they had taken to the streets with no great plan of campaign of which to speak, three of their leaders lying dolefully at home to nurse perforated buttocks that rendered them hors de combat.

  The Scarlets did not notice the absence of the small figure of Tom Carstairs, who still slept fitfully after an encounter with death, while his father sat in a nearby room and cleaned a revolver from which he had fired upon a blood-crazed killer.

  One of his own. Once a good friend. Now a madman who had cut a sword through his commander’s flesh and would have cut once more but for the bullet.

  Archibald Carstairs looked back into a different world and cursed the arm that lay limply by his side.

  The army was his life and this life was nothing – he loved his son, paid dutiful homage to his wife, but the reality he had known made the present seem like a nest of shadows. What was out there but shadows?

  In the darkness, all shadows die.

  Out there.

  Like a crowd of bullocks the Runners jostled down the ancient thoroughfare, perhaps fuelled by the thought that tomorrow was the day of reckoning and their revels would be soon be over.

  No more bellowing, lambasting, no more the heady brew of untethered rampant howling at the moon.

  No more.

  All glory diminished into a confining narrow life; respectability would take them by the throat and squeeze flat as if a pitch macadam roller had passed over.

  And so there was an underlying desperation as they hunted targets that might satisfy the lust for one last moment of compromised grandeur.

  ‘Loony, loony!’ they chanted as a weird figure loomed up ahead like a stranded ship.

  Tall, emaciated, a long shapeless coat flapping round his ankles, an equally shapeless hat folding apprehensively round the head – he turned to see the source of such jeers and lost his footing on the wet cobbles.

  The horde was onto him like a flash, buffeting the thin figure from side to side, and a cry went up.

  ‘Oh dear me – throw him in the sea!’

  The water in the harbour would be cold and deep enough to shock the unwary recipient, but the weakness of the man’s flailing limbs incited desire to attack the vulnerable – as if a shabby form invited such molestation.

  And yet if singly they had been confronted by the bestial ferocity of such behaviour? A sorrowful shake of the Christian head as the civilised man views the savage.

  A fragment of this was darting through Stevenson’s head as he felt himself lifted from the ground, unable to gasp protest because of a hefty arm clamped round his windpipe.

  He kicked viciously and had the satisfaction of smashing his foot into someone’s face, but the howl of pain served to spur on the hellish legion, and he was transported bodily towards the very edge of the quay.

  Robert Louis cursed the meandering ways that had led him from the comfort of the Just Land to slope down the hill, appetite sated with excellent coffee and a plethora of sugar biscuits, wander an hour under the guise of his father’s hat and then, as a fish returns upriver to spawn, find himself walking Commercial Place by the side of the harbour.

  As he was hauled at from all sides, a racking cough welled up from his lungs, which was most surely not to be improved by the plunge, but was it too late to plead a special case?

  I am a renowned man of letters, dear sirs, and if you baptise me in the murky waters of Puddocky Burn, might I not catch my death of cold. And think of the great works you may destroy that yet repose in my phlegmy bosom?

  The arm, however, was still hooked stiflingly around his neck and with dread he heard the concerted cry of – ‘One – Two – and – ’

  Then a muffled thud interrupted the projected launch, and Stevenson tumbled to the ground as another thump caused a cry of pain, and he found himself wrenched off to the side and a most welcome anchorage.

  A square-built, sandy-haired young man with an older, leaner, but strong specimen who sported a minister’s collar, had obviously disrupted proceedings.

  One of the Runners was on the ground nursing a sore jaw, courtesy it would seem of the younger fellow, while the older addressed the students in terms that would have abashed the very Vandals themselves.

  John Gibbons helped the shabby, gangling tramp to his feet as his father unleashed his best pulpit tones.

  ‘I know your fathers, many attend my church and I will make it my business to inform them that this is how their sons take their pleasure!’

  Jonas Gibbons positively bristled with authority as he pointed the chastened mob back whence they came.

  ‘Go to your homes, study your actions and feel the shame for what you have done. You persecute the weak amongst us when you should pray for their salvation!’

  Stevenson was not quite so sure he appreciated being lumped in with the halt and the lame, but as he peered over at the glutinous, sullen waters below and imagined his body landing like some disenfranchised starfish, he decided that a gracious thanks was more in order than piffling personal concerns.

  As the students slunk off, the writer removed his hat and was gratified to see a shock of recognition strike in the younger man’s eyes.

  ‘Father – see who this might be – Mister Stevenson!’

  Jonas Gibbons turned slowly like a stately galleon and nodded gravely, as if he had rescued a sinner from the depths of hell.

  ‘It is your good fortune, sir, we were on our charity rounds for the needy of this parish. Lord knows there is much necessity in the broken lives that litter these wynds.’

  Stevenson gave his heartfelt thanks, Jonas and John made their introductions and as the younger man slipped shyly into the background, Robert Louis realised that the Reverend Gibbons was not only a person with whom to reckon, but the man had a part to play in coming events.

  ‘It will be my honour and duty to officiate at your father’s funeral,’ intoned Jonas. ‘Thomas attended church with your mother these many years and was a beacon of good Christian observance.’

  Obviously the reverend had never witnessed one of his father’s violent tantrums but, more uncomfortably, his son had been noticeable by his non-attendance in the family pew as the years went by, and more recently especially, absent for the funeral discussions at St Stephen’s.

  If it came to a choice, would Stevenson have preferred a dangerous dip in the sea to a Sabbath sermon?

  Not much in it.

  The sea might have killed him through pneumonic complexity, but the Church did the same for his spirit.

  However, this little bantam-cock of a man had saved the day, and there was no doubt of a powerful charisma that not only cowed students but probably raised the faithful to the heights of worshipful admiration.

  Stevenson noticed light flecks in the man’s eyes and revised his metaphor to a more leonine slant.

  The furze of hair that framed the broad face added more than a touch of the lion, the wiry body had a coiled catlike quality, yet could he not sense something?

  A tremor behind the certainty?

  An emptiness of some kind?

  Or was he just looking for an excuse to denigrate the man of God?

  From Jonas’
s point of view he saw a dishevelled, wraith-like creature so insubstantial that a strong wind would blow him aside. The minister had made it a point of duty not to read Jekyll and Hyde, considering it a work that delved into the darkness of the human soul and brought no great hope of salvation; it would seem that the production of such a bleak viewpoint had obviously taken its toll.

  ‘I thank you once more,’ said Stevenson, to break the somewhat uncomfortable silence. ‘For your strength in my adversity.’

  ‘God gives me strength,’ was the stolid response. ‘From His Presence, cometh all things.’

  Robert Louis put his hat back on and resisted the temptation to light up and then blow smoke, lest it be misinterpreted as Satan’s breath.

  Jonas bowed gravely. ‘We must be on our way – there is a great deal of work to do and little time to do it.’

  Now that was something Stevenson could agree on. He nodded vigorously, almost causing the ill-fitting hat to flop once more over his face, and pulled himself upright to indicate that he was more than ready to enter the fray.

  As the minister marched off down the quayside, his son nodded also, but Stevenson had a question to deliver.

  ‘The ruffian who found himself on his backside – did you punch him?’

  ‘Only the once,’ was the solemn reply. ‘And that was because he resisted reformation.’

  Robert Louis grinned.

  ‘I owe for that. What may I give in response, sir?’

  John Gibbons hesitated.

  ‘I have a copy of Treasure Island – if you might sign your name?’

  Stevenson hid a smile. All the works he had created and wished to explore, all the splits in the psyche fermenting to be born – yet in his home city, both admirers met so far had eyes only for a boy’s adventure.

  At least that is how it was regarded.

  ‘It would be my pleasure.’

  Then an elfin sprite of mischief, one of his brownies, caused him to add.

  ‘And who, prithee tell, is your favourite of the tale?’

  The young man shuffled uneasily for a moment, because he could see his father waiting impatiently along the quayside. ‘Ben Gunn,’ he managed finally.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he suffered for his sins and the sins of others. On his own. A solitary desolation.’