by David Ashton
‘Aye, gentlemen,’ Carnegie called cheerily, letting his disdain surface just enough to make it noticeable. ‘Do my journalistic efforts strike fire from the flint?’
It had been an uncomfortable saunter for McLevy, what with a maelstrom of feelings spouting like hot jets from a previously peaceful though sullen lava field.
Mulholland had confirmed that, the room having been searched, he had also made a swift but thorough examination of the family carriage, finding it clean as a whistle and the horse indeed brown.
Daniel’s alibi had been confirmed by Jessica, though that could be questionable, a drainpipe having been noted in close proximity to his outside window.
These two findings aside, the constable had moved on to tax his superior regarding the exact moment Miss Drummond had given McLevy advice on his upper lip, advice that Mulholland backed to the hilt. It was just that he could not remember hearing these words of wisdom delivered.
Obviously from a time before – but when?
Obviously he had not been on hand.
And what, more importantly than fungal removal, was the promise?
‘None of your business,’ was the curt response.
‘Oh, is it personal then?’
A grim tread. A question not answered.
But not remotely abandoned.
‘I noted a certain . . . resonance between you.’
‘Resonance?’
‘Like a bell.’
‘A bell?’
‘Chiming.’
Again the grim tread. McLevy knew fine well Mulholland’s ability to irritate from the most apparently inept remarks denials that contained an unwilling hidden answer.
‘Ding, dong.’
‘Ding dong?’
‘Chiming. Like a father and daughter, maybe.’
Luckily, before the inspector’s wrath erupted at this age-implied insult, the newspaper boy called out his wares.
And now they read that two of the student leaders had been hauled bodily back into Leith Station, and strong evidence uncovered to link one of them to the recent foul and bloody murder of an innocent old woman. Who was, in fact, the writer’s very own dear mother; and a charge was hovering like an avenging angel over the evil doer’s, or doers’ head.
Imminent.
All circumstantial, all adjectival magnification, but a deal of it, accurate enough to negate outright denial.
Not that it stopped McLevy as he glared at Carnegie. ‘Who told you this blether?’
The man took out a pure white handkerchief and blew his nose fastidiously.
‘I have my sources.’
‘I battered one the other day.’
‘So I have heard. I believe the poor boy is bedridden.’
‘Let’s hope it lasts,’ said Mulholland.
‘Oh, constable?’ responded Sim, affecting only now to notice what in truth would have been an extremely hard figure to fail to see. ‘I hear you had an encounter with Gash Mitchell.’
‘We met.’
‘Lucky the inspector was on hand to save your bacon.’
‘Who said that?’
‘The man himself. Gash. He also said that next time – you’d have nowhere to hide.’
Mulholland’s face did not alter, but he snaked out one long arm to grasp the brushed lapels of Carnegie’s expensive new overcoat, and drew the man close so that their faces were no more than a bruised fingernail apart.
‘You tell Mitchell. Any time. Any place. I’ll leave him face down. In the gutter. Dead or alive.’
It must be said for Sim Carnegie that though he was a venomous, slimy specimen, he did not lack nerve.
His furtive eyes slid sideways, but he managed to hold his water and nod the head.
Mulholland released his grip, and the newsman turned to smile at a stone-faced McLevy.
‘Do you have a quote for me, inspector?’
‘Talk tae the lieutenant.’
Carnegie laughed.
‘That would be a waste of time. I’ll see how events turn out. My readers will be waiting. With bated breath.’
He walked a short distance away as if continuing on a pleasant evening’s stroll and called back cheerily.
‘If you do nothing, I’ll name the man in any case. I have it at my fingertips.’
‘Who told you?’
Anger shot the question out of McLevy like a bullet.
‘Ye think I have but a single informant at your station? Mair than one way tae skin a cat, McLevy.’
The phrase was repeated as the man walked off into the gathering gloom.
‘Mair than one way – tae skin a cat!’
He laughed like a rusty door wrenching open.
‘I warned the lieutenant I had more ammunition. He should have listened!’
With that boastful rejoinder, he was gone.
Neither of the two left behind moved.
McLevy had an image of a giant hoop bowling down the hill, out of control, himself spread-eagled inside howling out some instructions to which no-one paid any heed. And yet, and yet . . . something at the back of his mind. Despite the chaos of feeling, a shape was forming, coming into focus. But it was blurred so far.
He wished to God it would hurry up.
Mulholland tried to shake aside a foul picture of the girl – her thin neck snapped like a twig. What was forming in his mind was vengeance. A bloody vengeance.
Finally they both returned to the normality of a damp street in Leith with seagulls screeching complaints to a heavy-browed sky.
‘The lieutenant’s going to be hopping like a Chinese firecracker,’ said the constable.
And so it appeared as they entered his office.
Roach had the paper spread on his desk and the expression on his face could in no way be confused with a dancing moonbeam.
Yet he surprised both by speaking quietly – now and then the lieutenant rose above the estimation of his two main men.
‘Tell me what transpired at the Drummond house, if you will?’
They did so.
‘So we are no further on from this morning?’
Solemn nods.
‘And Daniel Drummond has thus far resisted confession – if indeed there is aught to confess.’
‘We have the identification – ’
‘I am well aware of that, inspector. But it’s not enough without further evidence. And now?’
Roach rested his somewhat bony hands, palm down, on the offending headline as if he must block it from his view.
‘How did this happen?’
‘Buggered if I know,’ was McLevy’s response.
‘That – though having the merit of honesty – does not advance the cause.’
The lieutenant jerked his head forward abruptly to indicate that they might sit.
The other two did as bidden, unlike Queen Victoria in her portrait, standing for eternity.
‘This rag of a paper,’ Roach again spoke in even tones, ‘has caused a predicament. When Chief Constable Sandy Robb reads it, he will be over me like the Canongate pox.’
McLevy and Mulholland blinked; the lieutenant was not celebrated for his use of venereal simile.
‘Drummond’s lawyers will be here soon. I may stave them off for a while, but then I have to charge or release.’
The lieutenant continued his sequence of thought.
‘If I charge, I will follow a course of action that I do not believe is yet sufficiently supported by evidence in a court of law. If I release without opposite proof of innocence then Carnegie will slaughter us in the paper.’
Roach suddenly slammed his fist down on the desk in antithesis to the previous dry delivery, causing both his men to jump in their chairs.
‘But the worst thing is how did Carnegie have knowledge of all this?’
All three fell silent. The idea of another traitor in the station was indeed a sickening one.
‘Could the auld fellow not have been blethering untoward?’ remarked Mulholland. ‘He’s gabby enough.’<
br />
‘No,’ replied Roach firmly. ‘I have been considering that possibility. For Carnegie to get the story onto the presses and printed in an evening edition, he would need to have known by this day mid-afternoon at best.
‘Dunwoody had scarce made his identification by that juncture and if you remember we then sent him home with Ballantyne.
‘Ergo – he had no time to blether.’
The lieutenant had obviously given this matter deep study; McLevy seemed also lost in profound contemplation, so Mulholland asked the obvious question.
‘When did Ballantyne get back, sir?’
‘At least two hours later. Told Sergeant Murdoch that he had uncovered a nest of cockroaches in Dunwoody’s room and thought to do the man a favour by clearing them out.’
‘That sounds like the constable.’
‘However – he had to find some small boxes for the insects and was away for a short time while the old fellow made them a pot of tea.’
Roach sighed and wearily rubbed at his long chin.
‘That might give opportunity, I suppose. The constable was out of sight, on the streets.’
‘But he helped us catch Billy Napier!’
‘I am well aware of that Mulholland – yet it is possible he may have met up with Carnegie or someone else and boasted of our success.’
‘Have you asked him?’
‘Not yet but . . . Ballantyne is . . . a weak vessel.’
‘Not sure I agree, sir.’
‘It is a matter of the given facts. Either the constable or – someone in the station.’
‘Or – a wee thing else.’
McLevy had emerged from inward delving and a light of sorts was gleaming in his eye.
‘When did you last see Carnegie, sir?’
‘Some time after his mother’s death.’
‘And he warned you then – he had more ammunition?’
‘Yes.’
Roach gazed at this strange man he had known for nigh on fifteen years who might as well at times be an island of the Outer Hebrides.
‘How do you know Carnegie said those words, inspector?’
‘Because he vaunted of it tae me.’
McLevy winced suddenly at an unwelcome shaft of pain.
Mostly he ignored such arrows of internal affliction, would do at this moment and would so again – one day no doubt there would be a reckoning.
But not right now.
Never right now.
‘Give me this one night clear,’ he petitioned. ‘One night only. Hold Drummond until tomorrow.’
A timid knock upon the door and at Roach’s command it opened to allow Ballantyne to stick in a tousled head. His birthmark seemed unusually vibrant as it snaked down his neck.
Unaware that the three intent stares upon him might be weighing up his potential for dissimulation, indiscretion or treachery, the constable blurted out far from welcome news.
‘These same lawyers are back. Hinging aboot at the desk.’
‘Where the carcass is, there will the vultures be, eh?’
Ballantyne looked blank at his lieutenant’s muttered response, and then nodded avian recognition.
‘Like hoodie crows at the lambing season.’
The constable frowned at the cruelty of nature, before remembering why he had entered.
‘Anyhow, they’re scratching at the counter, sir.’
‘I will be with them shortly.’
Ballantyne moved his lips as he memorised the message before departing.
Mulholland shook his head.
‘If he’s the one, I give up on the whole tin can.’
McLevy ignored this piece of folk wisdom, his eyes still fixed on his lieutenant.
‘Give me this night and one way or another I’ll bring it home.’
Robert Roach was not a gambling man, save perhaps an occasional wager on Leith Links as regards his prowess with a mashie-niblick, and so he hesitated.
If wrong, his head might roll.
‘And with a wee bit of luck,’ added the inspector, ‘I’ll cut Carnegie down.’
The Queen looked down upon her three subjects. One of them had to make a move.
Surely?
Chapter 32
Within the bowels of these elements,
Hell hath no limits . . .
. . . for where we are is hell
And where hell is, there must we ever be.
Marlowe, Faust
He lay in the corner, huddled limbs together like a threatened animal.
From the outside he seemed still, inert, but in the depths of his being a change was taking place. The other was sleeping now, the idiot brute, and that was splendid because it gave him time to plan.
And paint pretty pictures in his mind.
For there was no evil to be found in this, no, what he did was a service – as a good husbandman would clear the stinking growths around a fine tree, so he frees the living creature to reach up for the sun.
And bless the child.
So.
One more before the awakening.
One more that stood between himself and the moment he had dreamt of for so long.
An ugly image lurched into his mind. The old witch in the tavern, mouth twisted and leering, trying to smile, slobbering tears, hands like talons, crying his name – HIS NAME!
He had pulled away, but she yowled and clawed at him, then by fortune stumbled to the ground so that he might escape, out of the tavern doors into the fell, dank air of the harbour, with tears blinding him.
Yet she had revealed his destiny. So for that she must be thanked and for that she must be destroyed.
It was only right. Only justice.
Had he felt joy when he lashed down?
It must be admitted there was some delight, as if he was tasting the sweet, beginning fruits of freedom.
He had wrapped the witch in swaddling blanket and then left her at the glistening door as eliminated memory that could no longer harm the coming splendour.
He screamed with joy as the carriage cut through that dark night like a knife.
Soon he would be free!
And even with the first who had dared to threaten, to reveal the sacred book he kept so close, who was no more than a slug under foot, again he had felt such glory as the cane whipped its precise music upon her face and body.
Now there was a third.
Come from nowhere.
The last.
A viper, vixen, naked and wanton.
To tempt, seduce, suck out life and blood, her soul squalid as a leech.
The other two were old and ugly but she was exquisite, a doorway to depravity.
How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman.
Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies.
All this he would destroy.
It should not take long.
Silence the whore with a first blow across the fluttering pulse in her throat and then whip out the life.
He heard a sound somewhere, footsteps on stone perhaps, but he did not open his eyes.
While they were closed he was safe.
For the moment he could only plan, but soon he would be released to dance around the writhing harlot.
And strike down.
The blood in her mouth would be as blood upon his own lips, stripes upon her skin the flayed pain he had suffered since the advent of the witch.
Each welt an exact chastisement.
Patience and death.
The plan was made; the moment would arrive.
Only just. Only right. Only proper.
A joyful deliverance.
Chapter 33
I am not in the least provoked at the sight of a lawyer, a pick-pocket, a colonel . . . a politician, a whore-master, a physician . . . a traitor or the like; that is all according to the due course of things.
&
nbsp; Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
George Dunwoody smiled a little foolishly as he directed his wayward feet towards his own wee door.
The crack had been no’ half bad at the tavern, men of a decent age all with tales to tell; most stories George had heard before, but having the pelf for a decent dram of whisky brightened the prospect of an oft repeated anecdote, and he himself had been accorded pride of place, having brought in a healthy round.
Money cements friendship.
Of course, no mention, not a hint of present events; this knowledge George hugged to himself, while regaling the party with the umpteenth retelling of the blessed day he saw his teeth smiling like a lover’s promise from the market stall.
All the time, though, his ears were cocked for scraps of gossip or a remark made in drink at a nearby table, for his hearing was sharp as a razor shell.
Like a squirrel George stored these careless remarks away, for who knows when they might come in handy?
But not this night.
Now he had money in his poche, and providing he steered clear of such as that big lump of a girl Susan Templeton who had winked her eye when he stumped up coin at the bar, safe in his pocket it would remain.
Mind you. She was a ripe temptation.
George laughed aloud at that idea, navigated the narrow hallway and turned his key in the lock.
Safe from all carnal incitement, it was the work of a moment to light the candle, banishing the darkness.
This he did, and then he blinked.
Did his eyes deceive, or was a man not sitting in the single three-legged chair?
And another leaning against the damp wall.
Men he knew.
But they did not belong in this neck o’ the woods.
From the chair, one spoke.
‘Aye, George,’ said James McLevy. ‘You seem in fine fettle.’
‘Wrestle a bull to the ground,’ added Mulholland.
‘How did you get in here?’ George asked, grinning in spite of himself.
‘Magic.’
This remark of the inspector’s was not strictly true, since he had utilised a set of lock-picks confiscated from a master craftsman many years ago, and now in McLevy’s hands at the service of justice.
At least this is what he told Mulholland when the constable suggested, as usual, that his inspector might be sliding towards unlawful entry.