by David Ashton
Not unlike a railway station… There was some truth in what the inspector had remarked.
For a moment there was a tug of humour at her lips and then she surveyed everything laid out like an altar: a white linen cloth, the candles lit for purification, a smell of scented honey, a shaving brush and closed razor, a leather belt stained with travel, two silver uniform buttons that she polished every day.
And the letters. Inside the mother-of-pearl box and tied with her own silk ribbon, red as if love tokens.
Sophia had just perused and replaced inside the last. It filled her with the same terrible anger as always.
Betrayal. On every side.
She closed her eyes and let the past wash over her like the sea.
Sweet magnolia trees.
Sophia was riding hard. Just turned fifteen, her blood racing with the horse; she rode bareback, legs astride, like a nigra heathen, said Uncle Bart.
Though he was not really her uncle, just…a friend of the family.
They had lost the plantation to the carpetbaggers but kept a small farm, enough to eke out a decent living, though not enough for her mother who lamented a lost life.
The Glorious South.
Melissa Sinclair mourned that loss, her airs and graces wasted on a hard life of toil.
Sophia did not think it so hard. They had enough to eat, some horses, cows and chickens, two men, ex-Johnny Rebs who worked the place and that Uncle Bart kept in line on his frequent visits.
She was a strange child, so said her mother. Left by the faeries perhaps. Or by a dead soldier. Lived in a world of her own.
And Sophia did. An intense, secret world where her father rode over the hill to wave his hat in the air before sweeping down to hoist her on to the saddle and off to ride the wild winds.
The father she had never seen.
He had died in the war. Melissa told stories of his bravery and noble ways but her daughter felt that the mother blamed him somehow for the lost battles.
The more she praised, the more something did not ring true but Sophia loved him with a fierce pride.
He was a good man. She could see it in the photograph that Melissa had kept along with a pitifully few mementoes of his last and hasty visit.
His death was a mystery. Her mother would not let her see the letters that she guarded so jealously and when she questioned Uncle Bart he merely said, Died for his country, little girl.
Now she was a big girl. Fifteen. Bart looked at her different. Made her feel hot. Strange. Flattered.
Men change when women do.
Her mother looked at her oddly as well, and then sang praises of the father as if the memory might keep Sophia still a worshipping child.
That day when she left the horse to cool down in the stable, why did she do things differently?
No shout through the house to announce her arrival, no slam of the front door which she delighted to do because it made the whole house shake to the rafters.
No. Walk quietly up the stairs, led by the sounds to the mother’s bedroom.
Did she already know what she would find?
A strange chorus like a bullfrog and a mocking bird. Low grunts, high stifled shrieks.
Open the door softly to see her supposed uncle but no such thing, his hairy naked back, her mother’s legs splayed around him, mouth contorted, the Glorious South.
And Sophia had screamed. Lord, how she had screamed.
Betrayed. Her father. Herself.
Ran to her mother’s den, grabbed a small leather case that was lying there, swept all the precious remnants of her father, letters, photographs, official papers, all she could find into that willing receptacle, downstairs without pause, back onto that sweating horse and – disappeared.
Right out of sight.
Never to be seen again.
Just as well, because if she ever came across them again she would shoot the pair where they stood.
Sophia came out of the reverie to find her face wet with tears. Not of grief or rage, just – tears.
Sometimes they fall. All of their own accord.
She took a deep breath of the honey-scented air in the shrine, dried her eyes and then frowned.
The framed picture she had fixed upon the wall, so that it looked down upon her sitting form, had slanted.
While she had closed her eyes.
How was that possible?
Sophia reached up to straighten it. Good. The Glorious South.
She had wanted to die but that had not happened. Fell in with some wild river-men who used her like a toy but she didn’t mind. Life was not important.
Then the voices began. In her mind. In the dark of the night, whispering of things unseen.
She knew things and the river-men left her alone. A voodoo woman. She had power. Pure and simple.
Wherever she went she followed that power. It led her to San Francisco by the waterfront, to Magnus Bannerman.
The chosen one.
When she saw him, deep into him, to see the weakness inside, she knew that part of her search was over.
And the other part just beginning.
They became lovers almost at once. That was good. Fusion was power.
He was her public face, with his charm, energy and sharp gambler’s brain. She became known in certain circles.
Her name was changed to make her sound more mysterious. Sophia Adler. As if from distant Europe. His mother’s maiden name, Adler. Magnus found great amusement in that and she accepted it without fuss.
Sophia had many secrets to keep and now could hold her father’s name to herself. Hidden. For her alone.
The Spiritualists took her under their wing, her fragile quality offset by Bannerman’s brash salesman’s pitch, and she began to do private meetings, then the larger halls, all the time her reputation growing.
A grand tour of Europe was proposed. Last port of call, Edinburgh. She had insisted upon that.
Vengeance at last.
It had been simple to slip out, hire a coachman and find out where the Morrison brothers lived. To see their greedy, pitiless faces. To identify how a beast might break through to kill.
Not just kill but mirror another death.
Amongst the papers Sophia ripped that day from her mother was a report forwarded to Melissa about her husband’s demise. From an unsympathetic consul in Glasgow, Warner L. Underwood. In it was a factual description of the body, its head blown to unrecognisable shreds. Lying in the gutter.
The good man.
In the report those responsible for the crime were not found. But from her father’s letters Sophia knew the guilty ones. As if a finger pointed. The betrayers.
And when she saw Gilbert Morrison that night, sitting in the audience, a face that she had seen not days before, that was the sign. The spirits had led him there. Her scream had not been fear but exultation.
Isolating the beast in Magnus had not been difficult; he had a dark, primitive, superstitious being and a mind that was infinitely suggestible.
Especially after the act of love.
She might put him easily into a mesmeric trance; it came naturally to her, and after a time used three key words to bring about an instant effect.
Find.
Kill.
Destroy.
The murder night they had walked the street cloaked to mingle with the Halloween revellers, thence to the Morrison house where she pointed him the way, bade him remove his socks and shoes for balance, gave him gauntlets to protect his hands from evidence of blood then set the beast loose.
Find.
Kill.
Destroy.
In the aftermath she brought him back through a rear entrance she had discovered in the hotel, unseen since the kitchens were now closed, and then bathed him like a child.
When he woke in the morning he remembered nothing of being an instrument of vengeance.
As it should be.
But now he was dead. Poor Magnus.
He had suffered from these ev
il headaches after each possession and died to serve her.
Sophia had watched from the shadows as McLevy’s two shots rang out in the still night and Bannerman plunged to his death from the rooftop. But she was certain that in his heart he would rejoice and wish her to live on in glory.
And therefore she had a duty to perform. The spirits would wish it so. This was the largest audience she had ever faced and would be her biggest challenge.
For her father. She would do it for him. Perhaps at last, she might hear his voice.
The voice she had waited for all her life.
Walter Morrison, unfortunately, was now safe from anything except her curse.
And she had to hope that one wasn’t heading her own way because her voices had been silent these last days.
Did they disapprove of what she had done?
Or were they just saving themselves for the challenge?
39
They buried him ’neath the sycamore tree
His epitaph there for to see
‘Beneath this stone I’m forced to lie
The victim of a blue-tailed Fly.’
TRADITIONAL, ‘The Blue-tailed Fly’
Ballantyne was worried, his innocent eyes perplexed as McLevy fiddled with the lock-picks.
‘D’ye think this a good idea, sir?’ he asked.
‘Sssh!’
The inspector’s face was a mask of concentration. This lock was of the latest manufacture, as would suit a newly refitted hotel such as the George, and was proving resistant to his charms so far.
All day McLevy had played the penitent, accepting meekly Roach’s severe admonition as regards using a cricket-ball-throwing medical man for support rather than the proper officers; the inspector forbore to mention that, in fact, the killer had been stopped in his murderous act and justice triumphant, well, mostly triumphant.
There was a bit to do yet, which was why he was wielding the lock-pick.
Mulholland was still indisposed, and might well have had the good sense to refuse in any case, so McLevy had mildly suggested to Roach that since a newspaperman from the Edinburgh Herald was coming in to interview the lieutenant this very afternoon, the inspector might take a wee turn on the saunter with Ballantyne for company, so as not to get in the way. He had no wish to detract by individual presence from the glowing reports that were certain to be written about the Leith Police, his lieutenant in particular.
Earlier he had brought Roach up to date, as you were supposed to do with a superior officer, as regards what he had discovered from the banker and wrung out of Walter Morrison.
The wretched man had confessed that eighteen years ago they had had a cash flow predicament, which was threatening to bankrupt the firm of Morrison Brothers.
They had been approached by one Jonathen Sinclair, an agent for the Confederate forces, to purchase two ships in order to run the Federal blockade.
Sinclair had cash bonds that he would make over to them. This they agreed though they knew there to be considerable official disapproval of taking sides in the Civil War, especially with the South since it seemed to be the losing party.
Always back a winner.
They were then approached by the Federal agents, in the person of a man named William Mitchell, to warn that they were under scrutiny.
The Federals had been searching for Sinclair and their pursuit had driven him from Glasgow. He was a wanted man. Badly wanted.
Then devious brother Gilbert, as opposed to honest brother Walter, offered Mitchell a deal.
If they could keep the money, they would deliver Sinclair into his hands.
And hold onto their ships as well.
Just good business.
The deal was struck.
Sinclair was told that the bonds must be signed over for an interim contract and once the certificates had been cashed in and verified, the Confederate officer was then to attend the Morrison offices at the Leith Docks on the stroke of midnight to collect the full ships’ papers.
The Federals were informed, Sinclair intercepted.
Walter protested that neither brother expected the man to be so brutally executed. Imprisonment perhaps, sent back to America in a fish barrel, but not the firing squad.
Why he had fainted at the word JUDAS on the wall was that it had always been on his conscience and Sinclair had warned the brothers that if they played Judas, he would kill them both.
For that reason the word stuck in his mind.
When McLevy had finished, Roach sighed.
‘A motive of sorts and the similarity in death not to be ignored, but what is the connection to Bannerman?’
Connection. That word again.
‘Other than America,’ continued Roach. ‘And America is a very big country. How do we proceed?’
‘Best foot forward, sir. That’s all we can offer.’
These muted, obedient tones brought a narrowing to Roach’s eyes.
‘Are you up to something, James?’ he asked.
‘I’m a wee bit fatigued and I had a big breakfast,’ came the oblique response. Then Sophia Adler arrived and left, the journalists were waiting outside, the man from the Herald was imminent, so Roach waved McLevy off to the streets before the inspector grabbed unauthorised acclaim.
The saunter with Ballantyne had, oddly enough, taken McLevy out of his parish up to George Street, where they had waited a deal of time till early evening when Sophia Adler left for the Tanfield Hall, followed by a hungry pack of journalists.
While everyone was looking one way, McLevy and a slightly reluctant Ballantyne slipped in the other.
Her hotel door yielded easily to his lock-pick but the other was not so accommodating. Until now.
A click as the tiny hook at the end of the instrument caught hold, a twist and –
‘Open Sesame,’ muttered James McLevy.
The private door was sprung but Ballantyne was still in a fret of sorts.
‘Is this not against the law?’ he queried.
‘We are the law, constable.’
‘Do we not need a search warrant?’
‘We’ll get one later, now come on!’
In truth, McLevy was not sure why he had brought Ballantyne along other than if things went wrong it was nice to share the blame with someone.
But the boy had brought luck so far. He stumbled over things. Bodies and suchlike.
They entered a narrow recess, McLevy leading the way to where a curtain, pinned up, and not, he was certain, part of the hotel furnishings, barred their way.
This he pushed gently aside to reveal a small room with an alcove of sorts. There was no window so the shapes within were shrouded in mirk.
McLevy sniffed through his still tender nose.
‘I can smell a candle,’ he announced. ‘Recent burnt. Honey, I’ll be bound.’
Ballantyne whose eyes were attuned to spotting minute insects and therefore sharp as a tack, pointed to what might be two yellow blobs set on a white covering of sorts.
‘There,’ he indicated with a certain reserve, for a saying of Mulholland’s had come into his mind from a time they had sat together, he with a dislocated shoulder and Mulholland with the blame of a suicide on his hands.
Both the results of being associated with McLevy.
Trouble follows the inspector like a black dog.
That’s what Mulholland had said and that’s what Ballantyne was thinking as he watched McLevy light up a lucifer and pass that fire to the candles.
The man himself waited till the flickering flame steadied itself and then scanned the scene.
‘Well, well,’ he remarked, softly. ‘The things ye find.’
Before them in the alcove was what looked like an altar, where various items had been laid carefully in place.
A worn leather belt curled up like a sleeping snake, two equally worn silver buttons, a shaving brush standing on its end, the dry hairs brushed to attention, and what looked like a curved, folded, shaving razor, the yellow surface of its h
andle shining like beeswax.
On the other side was what appeared to be a cord with two acorn tassels attached. A spare perhaps. And destined to fit round the hat of a Confederate Army Officer.
Such as McLevy saw in the picture that faced him on the wall.
Hanging beside it on a nail was a red cloak.
Female to the male, for the man in the picture also wore a cloak: grey, falling round his shoulders, a riding cape of some sort, which gave him a winter look even through the summer blossoms hung ripe above.
And though his teeth were bared in a smile, the light hazel eyes glinting, to McLevy’s gaze there was evidence of tension in the taut cheekbones and hooked nose.
Below, written across the photograph in a firm slanting hand was…
My Father, Jonathen Sinclair. His last visit. Just before Gettysburg. Nine months later I was born.
‘Sir?’ While McLevy had been peering closely to read the writing, Ballantyne, who in fact was almost as nosy as his inspector, had delicately lifted the lid of a mother-of-pearl box, which lay behind the cord and tassels.
It disclosed a pile of letters tied in red silk, with one loose upon the top.
McLevy bowed his head solemnly and Ballantyne’s long tapering fingers, more suited to acolyte priest than practising policeman, lifted the letter and passed it over.
The inspector held it at arm’s length and as words fell into focus so did the last pieces of the Morrison case.
Edinburgh, 1864
My Dear Wife Melissa,
I write this as your husband with what seems eternity between us. I have lost my way. I have lost my way.
I can find no sense in all of this but I blunder on, as if, as if it will make a difference. But it all seems like shadows on the wall as if my existence is not myself, just a shape, a shadow.
I have fallen into an abyss and don’t know how to retrieve myself or if I even wish to do so.
Well, let it all be so. I put one foot, one action in front of the other and grasp at what comfort the moment can bring.
‘He disnae seem very happy,’ observed Ballantyne, who was reading over McLevy’s shoulder.