Shadow of the Serpent im-1

by David Ashton

  A baleful glint of humour surfaced on Roach’s saurian features. ‘You sound like a seaweed collector. What about Frank Brennan?’

  ‘The inspector thinks it might be murder.’

  ‘Murder? By what cause?’

  ‘He may be better telling you himself, sir. In the morning. At the station. It’s to do with opium dens and thumbmarks, and a goddess from India,’ the constable offered with a straight face.

  Roach held up his hand in reflex.

  ‘Stop where you are. You’re right. In the morning. After church. I’ll get it from the cannon’s mouth. I don’t have the strength for an account of McLevy’s meanderings. Not this particular night.’

  If you knew what was going through his mind, the constable thought bleakly, ye’d die with your leg up.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ a voice broke into their exchange, ‘I trust you have not descended to police business!’

  Mulholland was relieved to see Mrs Roach bearing down on them with the smile of a born hostess. She was a small woman with a pretty face, like a doll, dainty and pleasant enough, but unable, as Aunt Katie would have put it, to sit on her backside for five minutes. She loved social gatherings, committees, conversation, culture, never stopped talking and had a laugh which trilled like a bird in the bushes.

  God help him for the cruel callous swine he had become and it was all to do with spending so much time with McLevy, but Mulholland could not rid himself of the thought that she must be a truly terrible person to live with; always smiling, always busy, always fixing the woes of the world, not a shadow to be seen on her unremittingly cheerful face, no wonder Roach headed for the fairways. Ye needed a bit of grimness in a woman, not too much but just enough to prove that she was seriously worth the effort.

  However, she was welcome enough now because not only did Mrs Roach extricate him from his lieutenant, she pointed the constable in the direction of Emily Forbes.

  ‘That young lady,’ she pulled Mulholland down so that his large pink ear was in whispering range, ‘is possessed of a beautiful contralto voice. Together you may grace our recitals with the most exquisite renderings.’

  ‘But I don’t read music,’ said Mulholland plaintively. ‘I missed it growing up.’

  Mrs Roach fixed him with a bright stare, like a bird with its beady eye on an emergent larva.

  ‘There is nothing that cannot be solved by hard work and perseverance. The good Lord took seven days to create the world, musical notation is nothing to that.’

  With this pithy homily, she ushered Mulholland away, without so much as a by-your-leave to her husband.

  Roach watched his constable bow stiffly over Emily’s hand, and even more stiffly greet the man with her, Oliver Garvie, who bore the unmistakable mark of his father’s profession. A butcher’s son. He had a certain beefy charm and a finger in many pies. An entrepreneur. Mulholland had his work cut out there.

  Robert Forbes, Roach noted, was watching the foursome but nothing could be gleaned from his face, what else could you expect from an insurance adjuster?

  The lieutenant watched his wife with a strange, puzzled affection. He had joined the force late, and married even later. Roach had been marked down to inherit the family undertaking business, but the customers were uncomforted by his brooding presence.

  Roach’s nature and looks precluded an easy belief in the hereafter. His brother Archie, round faced, moist-eyed and sympathetically solemn, at least provided some hope.

  Thus the worm of life tries to wriggle off the hook before death bites.

  The day after he laid out his own father, Roach left the business to Archie and joined the police force.

  He had at first been welcomed with open arms, education and breeding to the fore, but somehow had never quite attained his cherished desire. He blamed his mother’s soft nature. To be successful in the force, you needed a heart of stone. His had cracks somewhere.

  They were childless. The act of procreation, despite Mrs Roach’s chirps of encouragement and his banging away grimly like a man with his ball caught in a gorse bush, had produced nothing. No justice.

  The lieutenant came out of these musings with a start.

  It was worrying how he sometimes saw events through McLevy’s eyes, the man was a pernicious influence.

  All was well with the world. Keep it that way.

  One of the young ladies of the soirée approached him, full of the joys of culture.

  ‘All this must make you very happy, Mr Roach,’ she informed him.

  ‘Happiness,’ said Roach. ‘What is that?’

  30

  I met a traveller from an antique land

  Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

  Stand in the desert.

  PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, ‘Ozymandias’

  The haar had settled on Edinburgh. Even the castle citadel, the king’s bastion, 384 proud feet above sea level, was wreathed in a dense fog.

  A large white gull waddled along the length of Mons Meg, the monster gun, four yards end to end, twenty inches diameter, but no longer fearsome since it had been fired and had burst in the year 1682 in an excess of joy at the greeting of the future King James II.

  Such monarchical fervour had little interest for the gull, which deposited a large unpatriotic spatter of dung from its rear end on to the cannon before launching itself into the mist and disappearing like a carrier of ill intentions.

  It left behind a curious sight. That which was meant to inspire fear in the enemy, covered in birdshit.

  McLevy, meanwhile, was cursing under his breath in George Street as the raw, freezing sea fog swirled around, seeping into his very pores. This was a fool’s errand.

  He had stationed himself opposite the house which the Earl of Rosebery had so thoughtfully provided for William Gladstone, a house easily identified by the Liberal colours hanging from each window.

  The front door was resolutely shut, and when the inspector had reconnoitred the place, he found a side exit which Mulholland would have been the one to cover if he wasn’t so damned busy warbling like a canary. Cheep, cheep.

  The inspector had tried to position himself so that he might cover both exits but it was increasingly difficult as the fog built up.

  Add that to the dark of the night and it was just perfect conditions for surveillance – if, like the devil, ye had red eyes and could see through the smoke of hell.

  What a foul pit-mirk. To match his mood. What was he doing here? Two hours he’d been breathing in the damp, rank vapour of the sea-fret. It caught at his throat and stung his eyes. What was driving him to make such a fool of himself? It certainly was not a tissue of stories from some woman in purple, no, and of course he had made the promise to George Cameron but … behind that?

  There was something else. In his mind’s eye, he saw a statue of overwhelming grandeur. And with a rope pull it down. And with a hammer break it apart.

  A seagull let out a shrill skraich overhead, it would be seeing more than him that’s for sure. The visibility was getting worse, as if a million incense burners had been let loose on the Protestant streets to drive the tight-lipped reforming faithful indoors. Must be working a treat because he’d not seen a soul this last hour.

  Wait. He strained to listen in the dank muffled silence. Footsteps. Faint. From the side. Damnation!

  He moved swiftly to the corner and looked down Hanover Street which cut through near to where he was standing sentry.

  It was a well-lit thoroughfare usually but now seemed like an empty graveyard, the rays from a few street lights struggling against the fog and gloom.

  But there he was. Stopped for a moment directly under one of the lamps as if posing for a picture. The man took off his tile hat and then replaced it firmly on his head.

  White hair, grey frock-coat which matched colour and melded with the sea-mist, mutton-chop whiskers down the side of a face tilted away so that the features could not be completely seen.

  ‘Turn round you auld bugger,’ McLevy mu
ttered. ‘Let me put a mark on ye.’

  The target lifted his hands, pulling up the collar round his neck to protect him from the cold or, more likely, unwelcome scrutiny. The hands were gloved. Black against the white hair.

  Gladstone, it had to be. Surely? Though the inspector would not know for certain till he looked into his eyes.

  Of course McLevy had no reason to gawp into the man’s face, indeed no reason even to follow. This was just a respectable citizen out for a walk, in the dead of night, in the darkness, a constitutional, for the good of his health, it being such a healthy atmosphere.

  The man turned and walked with swift sure steps into the blind of mist. In an instant he was gone.

  McLevy took a deep breath, regretted it as his throat was caught raw, and plunged after his quarry.

  Then followed a bizarre game of hide and seek as the fog twisted and spiralled around the two figures, linked by separate desires and a common destiny.

  They prowled their way down East Claremont Street, past the Rosebank graveyard, down, always down, inexorably bound towards the narrow wynds of Leith.

  McLevy could have sworn, in the few glimpses afforded by the moments when the fog shifted, that the man skipped along as if he was leading in a dance. Why would he skip, why would he hop? This was no dancing matter.

  The streets were deserted, little cover save the mist and when it, of a sudden, dissipated, the inspector was marooned in strong light. The other was still in shadow and McLevy thought he saw the figure turn.

  If so, he was discovered, and the policeman cursed silently as he moved to conceal himself. He could dog a man with the best of them but, in the changes of the haar, all things are equal.

  However, there was no outcry, no accusation, no change of pace or direction, and the mist came down again. McLevy ploughed on, trying to keep a distance between them so that he would not blunder upon the fellow but near enough in touch not to be slipped like a fool.

  The figure slipped over Great Junction Street, McLevy following as close as he dared.

  Now they were in the back alleys and wynds of the lower part of his parish. The inspector was on home ground here but the mist suddenly thickened like a gravy sauce and any advantage was nullified.

  McLevy came to a stop. He had been relying on the footsteps of the quarry, a firm strong sound on the cobbles, but now they had halted. Nothing. Silence.

  His face was scammed with moisture from the mist, his clothes soaking. A feeling of complete isolation crept upon him, as if he was lost in a world where nothing was known, nothing was real, a thick grey world of cloud and silence.

  It was like a nightmare. Then the silence was broken by a single scream.

  He ran through the fog, feet slipping on the greasy cobblestones, his only guide a now silent cry of pain. The cloud thinned a little and he could see the Gothic spire of St Thomas’s church sticking through the mist like a dagger at the top of Sheriff Brae.

  A church bought and paid for by Sir John Gladstone of Fasque no less, what a bloody joke he thought as he came to a stop, gasping for breath, and listened with a growing desperation. Please make a sound. Betray yourself. Let me get my hands on you.

  There was nothing. Something scuttled off at the side, a rat, a cat maybe.

  Nothing. Then there was a gust of air. The east wind. It had grown tired of the game, and raised the thick mist like a window blind.

  The road before him was clear, like a ghost ship. Off to the side was a small wynd which he knew well. The nymphs used it to entice their clients in from the main street. It was as good a place as any to start.

  She was sitting on the ground, her hand outstretched as if begging for alms. He could not tell if she had fallen thus or been arranged like some macabre depiction, like a print from Hogarth. The Harlot’s Progress.

  Her face looked up at him. A young face. Her name would come to mind. She was split through. Just like the others.

  Something in the back of his head burst its banks and he howled in anger and grief. Like a wolf.

  31

  As for myself, I walk abroad o’ nights

  And kill sick people groaning under walls;

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, The Jew of Malta

  Leith, 1835

  Jean Scott had been dozing in front of the fire when the noise cut through her sleep like a sharp knife. For a moment she was lost in an unfamiliar world, half between dream and awakening, then the sound came again, a high-pitched squeal such as she sometimes heard when she passed the auld slaughterhoose.

  She was a stocky brisk woman, over forty years in age, who had already survived much in life, her husband Hughie dying an early martyr to strong drink. She buried him, spat on her hands, then made a new life for herself as a cook for Judge MacGregor’s household, mustering a touch of surprising delicacy as regards desserts … Edinburgh Fog, Caledonian Cream and the like. The judge’s wife had a sweet tooth, in contrast to her sour disposition.

  Jean had saved good honest wages, reaching the point where she might look forward to a long peaceful roll down the hill towards the iron gates of Rosebank cemetery, but it would seem fate had other plans.

  The noise grew louder as she came out and crossed the hall to her neighbour’s door. It was Jamie McLevy, she was sure of it, a quiet wee boy of seven years who kept his own counsel. The mother had probably been taken by one of her fits. Jean, periodically, heard her yowling away in what sounded like Latin. There was little danger of the woman being possessed of the devil though, not from the way she fingered that rosary.

  A sharp tap on the locked door and the noise cut off abruptly.

  ‘Jamie!’ she called. ‘It’s me, Jean. Auntie Jean.’

  She called herself so to him, though no relative. They knew each other fine well. The boy would visit and sit by the fire, with a wee home biscuit to keep him going, especially when the yowling was afoot.

  She never asked and he never said.

  The silence was profound on the other side. She tapped again.

  ‘Jamie. I cannae get in if you cannae get out.’

  This proposition seemed to do the trick. She heard him approach, then insert and turn the key.

  The door opened slowly and she stepped inside.

  The boy looked up at her. He had slate-grey eyes like a wild dog, and his face white as the judge’s wig.

  She smiled reassurance. ‘Where’s your mammy, son?’

  He pointed wordlessly at the recess bed in the room where the curtain had been pulled aside. Jean stepped carefully across the floor where various pieces of material were neatly laid out, with more spread on the table.

  She’d never been in here before, just nodded in the hall. The place was clean as a whistle, a kitchen, workroom, living space, his wee bed over in the corner. She had to negotiate a wooden lay-figure which stood in the centre of the room, the bottom part swathed in a fine velvet skirt but the top as yet unclothed and showing its uncovered bosom.

  Jean averted her eyes modestly, walked to the bed and looked in past the half-pulled curtain.

  It was a sight to freeze the soul. Had the woman not gone and stabbed at her throat? With her own shears by the looks of it. The crucifix was stained all with blood.

  She put out her hand to touch the cold skin on the wrist of the corpse. No pulse. The dead eyes could have told her so. She thought to close them but wasn’t sure of the Catholic custom.

  High above the bed-head was a representation of Pope Pius IX. Jean was a staunch Presbyterian but no fanatic.

  Let each worship whom they may, she steered the middle course but she could not help thinking that Pius hadn’t been much help on this occasion. The woman would have been better off knocking on Jean’s door and sitting by the flames with a hot sweet tea.

  Hughie had liked it strong. He liked everything strong. Gripped her so hard on their wedding night, he near cracked her ribs.

  These thoughts had kept the shock at bay. Now, she found she was trembling. How long had she been standing
here?

  And the boy? She turned away from the gory mess on the bed and pulled the curtains across. He must have seen it.

  ‘I was hungry,’ he piped up. His face was blank. Like a mask. The stone-grey eyes looked at her, but they were seeing something else. For God’s sake, the child was only seven, how could his mother do such a thing in her own home? Could she not stab her throat in the chapel, let the priest mop it up?

  Jean swallowed her anger. How can you ever know what people may do, or why they do so? God help the woman. She must have been desperate.

  If you believed scripture, she was a damned soul. The devil had his claws in her and was dragging her into the pit of hell. Never to return. A damned soul.

  She realised she’d been standing there muttering in front of the poor wee lamb, his eyes still fixed upon her.

  This wouldnae do. Don’t want him thinking there were two madwomen in the hoose. What was it, he said? Hungry. Aye. She could fix that.

  ‘We’ll go next door. Tae Auntie Jean’s, eh? I have a penny loaf. I’ll cut ye a slab with cheese. And pickle. Do you like pickle, James?’

  Whether it was the thought of a knife cutting through the white bread or the kindness in her voice, the dam broke in his heart. He let out a cry of loss and bewilderment and hurtled across the room to bury his face into her broad belly.

  ‘It was my blame,’ he howled, his voice piercing into her flesh like a dagger.

  ‘What was your blame, son?’

  ‘At Easter. She would wait. Every time. He never knocked the door.’

  Jean wasn’t sure she’d heard the words correctly, his face buried so deep.

  ‘Who never knocked, son?’

  ‘The Angel. The Angel of the Lord.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jean, trying her best. ‘Angels are busy folk.’

  The boy lifted back his head and looked at her.

  ‘It was my blame,’ he said.

  She had never seen such agony in a face and clutched him in close as if to shield him from all the horrors of this world. Her own eyes filled up with tears.