Shadow of the Serpent

by David Ashton

  ‘But that was said in madness!’ cried Mulholland.

  ‘I have known many things said in madness,’ replied McLevy. ‘Things to scar the soul. But the truth is like that sometimes.’

  ‘And sometimes not. True or false, who knows? It was all so long ago,’ said Eileen. ‘I myself may play you false, inspector. Memory shifts.’

  ‘Aye, it does. Like a dog with fleas.’ McLevy grinned but his eyes were hard as pebbles. ‘Have ye spoken tae another about this?’

  ‘Not since that time.’

  McLevy’s head was spinning. Why had Joanna Lightfoot pointed him here? Why had she not come herself? Was she afraid of what she might find, was she using him as an instrument to find the truth, or just a blunt instrument?

  And how would she have suspicion of what happened thirty years ago?

  The dog groaned in its sleep.

  Mulholland had sunk back into his chair. He knew exactly how it felt.

  ‘Ye said that the house felt full of spies, eyes everywhere?’ McLevy would grind this down to powder.

  ‘Yes. The servants. As if we were watched. Observed.’

  But where would these observations go? And how would they survive the passage of time? McLevy shook his head.

  On the next meeting with Joanna Lightfoot – and there would be one, of that he had no doubt – he would have a few questions that might set her Italian boots a-tapping.

  He roused himself. A remark Eileen made had lodged like that fishbone. Time to dig it out.

  ‘And dead?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I asked when you last saw Helen Gladstone. Dead or alive? ye said. Ye’ve covered the live part.’

  Her face tightened, no graveyard humour this time, the memories had taken care of that.

  ‘She died this January. Her body, like wee Jessy’s, was brought back to Fasque for burial. I was at the display.’

  ‘Display?’

  ‘It was a display of sorts.’

  ‘And you were there. Friend of the family, eh?’

  McLevy was being obtusely familiar thought Mulholland but he’d have a reason. He always had a reason.

  ‘On Helen’s deathbed, one of her last requests was that I should attend. Mrs Gladstone, who is a kind woman, informed me of such. And Helen also wrote a letter to me. When she knew her powers were … failing.’

  ‘What did she die of?’

  ‘Old age. And the ravages of the past.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I could see that letter?’

  ‘It was personal,’ was the uncompromising response.

  ‘And so …?’ the inspector’s mind was darting around like a wasp near jam. ‘There ye were, dressed in black, the coffin lowered, the family vault. January is a bugger of a month, ye must have all been chilled to the bone, eh?’

  No response. He was losing her. Try a leap of faith.

  ‘Who performed the ceremony, Monsignor Wiseman?’

  ‘He died some time ago; it was the Archbishop of Westminster. And it was not a Catholic service.’

  McLevy’s jaw dropped comically as if he could not believe his ears. He said nothing, however, childlike bewilderment on his face. She took the bait.

  ‘According to William Gladstone, Helen had recanted her Catholicism just before she died. She was buried in the Anglican tradition.’

  ‘Did you believe that?’

  ‘To me it does not matter. To Helen it meant a great deal. Her faith was everything.’

  A sniff from Mulholland. Either he was expressing an opinion or he had just got a whiff of Albert.

  ‘So that would be the display part?’ McLevy’s eyes gleamed with mischief. ‘The Anglican tradition, eh?’

  Eileen nodded grimly.

  ‘Five years before she died, Helen wrote to me that her brother had visited her in Germany and they’d had a conversation of thirteen hours, chiefly on the subject of, as he put it, the dangers of post-Vatican Council Roman Catholicism.’

  ‘And had it changed her mind?’

  ‘Not that she expressed in the letter. She merely described him as fanatical on the subject.’

  ‘Thirteen hours is a long stretch, right enough. What a strain on her tonsils.’

  ‘She would be listening mostly,’ was the dry retort.

  ‘And did you express these … misgivings to William Gladstone?’ asked McLevy.

  ‘It was family business,’ came the terse reply.

  ‘But ye must have said something to him? I don’t see you letting it go. For old time’s sake.’

  The inspector leant forward, a winning smile on his face. Eileen Marshall was provoked enough to reach up and hammer in the nail.

  ‘I told him that Helen and Jessy, when he died, would be waiting for him. That their souls were as one. They would know all things. They would be waiting.’

  McLevy whistled softly.

  ‘No escape, eh?’ he said wryly.

  ‘No escape.’ Her eyes met with his. ‘But you must know that, inspector. Professionally speaking.’

  ‘Retribution,’ said McLevy. ‘My faith in a nutshell.’

  He laughed softly.

  Mulholland was cross-eyed now. These two had gone down some path into a forest within the like of which he had no desire to play the little lost Hansel.

  It was that damned mystical side to McLevy which took him, as Aunt Katie would have put it, away with the fairies.

  The inspector and Eileen Marshall gazed across the room at each other.

  ‘What was Mr Gladstone’s response to your offer of condolence?’

  ‘He looked as if he would like to strike me to the ground,’ she said. ‘A dreadful anger in his eyes. But then I had never found his favour.’

  ‘Because of your influence with Helen?’

  ‘Because of many things.’ Her mouth tightened in recollection. ‘He turned his back on me and walked away.’

  McLevy noticed that her ankles, under the hem of the dress, were somewhat thick and misshapen. Circulation maybe not so good. Too much sitting by the bedside.

  ‘I saw him two nights ago,’ she said suddenly. ‘At Waverley Market, addressing the crowd. He is quite an orator. His voice rings out like a bell.’

  Such ambiguity was there in her tone, but what was behind it? A delicacy of purpose, but what?

  ‘Did he see you?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘I believe he did. I was right at the front. I got there early, walking is difficult for me so I took a cab. It was surprisingly expensive. For such a short journey.’

  A smile on her lips. McLevy had it now. Vengeance. What had drawn her. A neat measure of vengeance.

  ‘How d’ye know that he remarked your presence?’

  ‘He faltered in his speech. His eyes met mine. He lost his way.’

  McLevy could see it in his mind’s eye. Gladstone roaring like a righteous lion, the inspector had read in the paper twenty thousand people and those who fainted handed back over the heads of the crowd as if dead, and then in that ocean of adoring faces he finds the one he did not want to see.

  Eileen Marshall, flanked by two ghosts.

  ‘Maybe,’ he ventured disingenuously, ‘ye reminded him of something he’d just rather forget, eh?’

  ‘Or he may have just stumbled. People do stumble. Words can be treacherous,’ she said. ‘But – it may have been my imagination of course – but I swear I saw such anger in his eyes. Dreadful. The same as the day of Helen’s funeral. The same as when he came back from Edinburgh, the night after Jessy had been buried. Anger. Burning. As if he would wish to strike me to the ground.’

  The prospect did not seem to alarm her but give some cause for satisfaction. Not much. But as good as she would get until the day of judgement.

  There was a long silence.

  Two funerals, thirty years apart. Two murders, with the same separation of time.

  McLevy had many other questions in his mind but he felt, somehow, that he had gained as much from the exchange as he migh
t reasonably expect to deserve.

  The dog whimpered, paws scrabbling against the carpet and Eileen looked down at it indulgently.

  ‘In his dreams, he believes he is hunting. Still a young dog.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said the inspector motioning Mulholland to rise, who, as he did so, spoke his first words in a long, long time.

  ‘It was a very splendid cup of tea,’ he said.

  Like a good hostess she saw them to the door. They said their goodbyes but then, perhaps because McLevy’s unexpected cessation of further questioning had left a hunger gnawing at her, she reached round her neck for a locket which he had noticed much earlier; its thin gold chain and ornamental heart-shaped purple case rather at odds with the plain and simple dark-green dress she wore.

  ‘Helen gave this when she left me,’ she said, and opened the case to reveal a photograph inside.

  A young woman stared out at them. Even in the formal pose, it was a troubled and, it must be said, quite sultry face.

  McLevy nodded. Mulholland craned over.

  ‘Let’s hope she’s at peace,’ he said doubtfully.

  Eileen gave him a look which set his head jerking back, then closed the case with a snap.

  The dog almost woke up, then returned to its scrabbling.

  ‘He’s still hunting,’ she murmured, looking back.

  ‘It’s always the way,’ said McLevy.

  For a moment he looked at her with such compassion that Eileen knew it must be her purest fancy, then he turned to go. Her hand went to the nape of her neck. And rested there.

  22

  All her hair

  In one long yellow string I wound

  Three times her little throat around,

  And strangled her. No pain felt she;

  I am quite sure she felt no pain.

  ROBERT BROWNING, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’

  Certain discreet apartments in Edinburgh Castle had been reserved for visiting members of Her Majesty’s government who craved seclusion.

  At a pinch the quarters might even admit certain shadowy figures, not exactly members as in the sense of connection to the trunk of authority, not exactly branched projections in any politically priapic sense. No. They were more insubstantial forms, and yet, at the same time, so very necessary for the constancy of things. The continuity of power.

  The Serpent was one of those shadows. Those he served valued him above all others. He preserved that continuity.

  He stood in the middle of the room and pondered the nature of his task.

  For what had said Benjamin Disraeli?

  ‘To uphold the aristocratic settlement of the country.’

  The prime minister’s main agenda and one consistency.

  ‘To maintain the empire and protect the constitution.’ In Disraeli’s own officially recorded words, the purpose of the Tory party.

  Many other things Disraeli said and the Jew was a man to reckon.

  In his noble guise of Lord Beaconsfield, he had kissed goodbye the Commons and walked out into the streets in a long white overcoat, even though it was August in London.

  The Serpent smiled. Not his style, but to each his own.

  The very name had given rise to a portmanteau noun, ‘Beaconsfieldism’, clumsily created and pejoratively used by one William Gladstone to denote an unchecked, unbridled, profligate, imperialist, naked lust for power.

  But power it was, and evermore shall be.

  Change must be resisted. Truth kept in a pretty little box with red ribbon, wrapped around. Securely bound.

  Gladstone waved it like a flag but the Serpent knew the truth for what it was. A trinket. In a box.

  A bottle of burgundy lay on the table, reasonable vintage, with hunks of bread and a plate of cheese.

  Rather too Scottish a selection for his taste, hard-rinded Knoxian Cheddar, goaty Highland fare, a decent Brie violated by a wash of whisky and another Cheddar which seemed to be wrapped inside what might only be described as a tartan bandage.

  This was his lunch. All other creature comforts, all carnal compensations to be forsworn until the matter was done and dusted. The stakes were too high, the risks too great to admit prolonged personal contact. This was what must be observed. Religiously.

  And yet he missed his little fleshly beast. The surrender in the eye, the biting of the lips, and when he laid bare the creamy skin and cupped the softness, such shameful trembling then ensued as they fell into the pit of hell together. Wantonly, deliberately, damnably, ate of the forbidden fruit. Predator and prey. Each in turn.

  He wrenched his mind away from pictures that might fire the blood with their sweet obscenity, poured a little wine into the glass, swirled it round and sniffed the bouquet. Pas mal. Perhaps a little earthy. But it would have to do, let it breathe.

  And he would have to wait. Who knows what sharp edge would be sharpened from the whetstone of patience? What variations of a hungry, oblique desire might rise to the surface? Anticipation is everything.

  Paper contact. Nothing more. He had picked up the report from their agreed drop-off point and left a little offering in return. A very important little offering with precise instructions as to its usage and the time to throw it in the mix. Not part of the original plan, a touch of improvisation on his part, but it would augment, convince and, with a bit of luck, bring death and destruction.

  He emptied the glass, little finger crooked in the air to amuse himself no one else being on hand, and put it down with a flourish. That’ll have to do, old chap, more where that came from, that’ll have to do.

  He reached into his inside pocket, pulled out his operative’s report, read it again and sniffed the paper. The faintest trace of perfume rather overwhelmed by the odour of cigars from the case he often kept in the same pocket.

  A single page. Short and to the point.

  All was proceeding according to calculation. The subject was not easy, the objective difficult, but so far, so good. He smiled. It was a phrase he himself often used to cover a multitude of sins. There had also been a strange coincidence, which the operative had seized upon and indicated that luck might be with them.

  Either that or they might have the truth on their side, perish the thought.

  He laughed at that notion, then crossed to the fire where half a forest seemed to be burning in the hearth, dropped the paper on to the flames and turned to warm his backside, surveying the room at the same time.

  Severe masculine lines ran everywhere like the North British railway. Dark mahogany ruled the roost. A heaviness of purpose to furniture and fittings – but what else could one expect from such a regimental billet?

  On the wall, a glassy-eyed stag’s head stuck out like the prow of a ship, its antlers raised to no great purpose since they had signally failed to stop a well-aimed bullet.

  A symbol of Christ, the stag. According to Pliny, it drew serpents by its breath from their holes, and then trampled them to death. A reprehensible practice.

  There was a full-length mirror set into the panelling just by the door, and he crossed to look at himself in the bilious, rusty glass. The plenitude of length was to check on the rigours of the kilt, he supposed, and the ugly rust to discourage any narcissistic leanings.

  He scrutinised his own face. All things to all men. A Protean plasticity of feature. Despite his years, his many troubled years, a trim figure, well enough dressed, nothing too ostentatious, Jermyn Street never shouts its wares.

  A boyish cast. Puer eternus. The eyes light blue, not holding much warmth, but then death is such a cold affair and they had seen so much of death.

  The hair above a silver-yellow, the mouth below, a cruelly sensual slot. Not without humour. A smiling assassin.

  An abrupt turn left his image to its own devices and he moved to the window. It was criss-crossed with thin lead piping of sorts and the glass, pale ochre, lent the scene outside a tinted quality, like an engraving.

  He was looking out over the esplanade, the approach to the fortress where L
ady Jane Douglas, the most beautiful woman of her age, had been burned to death in the sight of her son and her second husband; accused of attempting the king’s life, James IV, by dint of poison and sorcery. Her real crime was, of course, being a Douglas.

  And many witches on that very esplanade had been, as they so quaintly put it in these parts, ‘worryit at the stake’, that is strangled and burned after scant trial for – as they were accused and found guilty of – renouncing their baptism and dancing with the devil. Five at a time, no less. Save on firewood. Thrifty folk, the Scots.

  Dancing with the devil would seem to be a most unhealthy pursuit unless … authorised.

  The other window of the apartment looked out and down towards the Lawnmarket where the Serpent knew that in James’s court lay a tall house called Gladstone’s Land. It had been acquired in 1631 by one Thomas Gledstone of that hallowed family. Know thine enemy.

  From high on the castle to look down on the people below was to observe them as so many ants, crawling about their predestined pathways.

  He could lift his foot and crush them all, but wholesale slaughter was not his style.

  You must identify, isolate, and then destroy. Without emotion, as a curious child might pull the legs one by one from an insect and leave it not dead precisely, but powerless, incapable, twitching on its back.

  A crack of sound as the gun on the half-moon battery on the eastern front of the citadel signalled one o’clock, Greenwich Mean Time, to all the good citizens of Edinburgh.

  He had been about the streets late the night before and accomplished much.

  Like Wee Willie Winkie, crying through the lock. Are the children all in bed?

  A vision from the previous night came into his head. Good fun. Out by the skin of his teeth, but it had been good fun. Splendid to be back in the field.

  Time for a spot of lunch. Time for a spot of lunch, old boy.

  23

  My soul, do not seek immortal life, but exhaust the realm of the possible.

  PINDAR, Pythian Odes