The Unbelievers

by Alastair Sim

  Why are you doing this, thought Allerdyce? Are you trying to destroy the sergeant and me because we caught you fondling a boy in the Timberbush? Do you want rid of us because of our involvement in your Winchburgh conspiracy? Do you just hate us for trying to find the truth?

  “Well,” asked Burgess, “what do you say Allerdyce? Is there anything in this?”

  “It’s absurd, sir. McGillivray’s a brave and honest man or I’m no judge of character.”

  “But,” said Jarvis, “we’re modern men. We have to put our emotions to one side, and we know how deceptive our impressions of character can be. Everyone thought Madeleine Smith was the soul of genteel respectability until she was tried for murdering her lover. All we can rely on is evidence. We know that Sergeant McGillivray is a trained and practised killer from his military service. We know from Mr Allerdyce that McGillivray has a sufficient motive of revenge – his father dead as a direct result of eviction from the Duke’s land, his brother dead as a result of the Brigadier’s alleged military shortcomings. We know that his presence at Mr Allerdyce’s interview with the Brigadier gave him ample opportunity to reconnoitre the scene of the latest atrocity, and we can be sure that as an old comrade – holder of the VC no less – he would have had no difficulty securing admission to the Castle by night. I make no accusation, sir, I only wish to draw the evidence to your attention.”

  Allerdyce felt his blood pressure rising as Jarvis spoke. He could bear no more of Jarvis’s calm, devious reasonableness and leapt to his feet, feeling his fists clench and his arm muscles tense in preparation for striking the man.

  “You’re a wretch, Jarvis. You know you’re accusing an innocent man. Stand up and look me in the eye.”

  Burgess stood and roared at both of them.

  “Men! Stop this! Sit down at once!” He sat and put his head in his hands. “Dear God, has it come to this, that we’re tearing each other apart while a murderer is on the loose.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Allerdyce. “But I can’t believe Jarvis’s story.”

  “I don’t like it either, Allerdyce.”

  Jarvis was obviously trying to look grave, but he couldn’t entirely suppress his smirk.

  “I don’t think any of us takes pleasure in suspecting a comrade, sir. I wouldn’t have raised the possibility if I didn’t believe it was my duty. As it is, sir, I think the Chief Constable would be surprised if we didn’t follow up any possible lead, however distasteful we may find it.”

  “Help me, Allerdyce,” groaned Burgess. “Can you disprove Mr Jarvis’s suggestion.”

  “I can’t believe it, sir. Whatever Jarvis suggests, I can’t conceive that Sergeant McGillivray is a murderer.”

  “That’s not what I asked you, Allerdyce. I asked you whether you could disprove it. An alibi would be good. Can you disprove it? Yes or no?”

  Allerdyce kept silent. There was only one truthful answer to the question as asked, but it was an answer which would throw a good man into hell. Burgess stared straight at him, his face ashen.

  “I require your answer, Mr Allerdyce.”

  “I can’t specifically disprove Jarvis’s wild accusations, sir, but I don’t believe them.”

  Burgess gave a deep sigh of unarticulated pain before speaking.

  “So, gentlemen, what do we do now?”

  “I’d suggest that Sergeant McGillivray is taken into protective custody while I question him,” said Jarvis. “We may need to charge him as a formality if we’re going to keep him for a while.”

  Burgess looked up. For the first time ever, thought Allerdyce, he seemed close to tears.

  “I can’t believe it. We’re throwing one of our own men into the pit. They’re our own family and we’re turning on them.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. But do you agree it’s necessary?”

  Burgess looked distractedly over the policemen’s heads.

  “All right then. Do what you have to.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  “And just go now. I need some time to think.”

  Chapter 23

  How many chains and bolts would it take to keep death out of the house?

  For the second time this year, before spring had even started, Arthur had had to bury a brother.

  Frederick had been a worse, more ignorant, bully than William and it was hard to mourn the loss of someone who’d brought him only contempt and misery, and who’d brought poverty and humiliation to Josephine. The congregation of the great and good had been slightly smaller, the walk from the church to the mausoleum had been even colder, and Arthur had known himself to be one coffin closer to his own place in the family mausoleum.

  The Inspector had told him not to worry unnecessarily, that there was no definite reason to suppose that any further members of the family were under threat, but to take sensible precautions for his own safety until the case was solved. Arthur had found it hard, though, to accept even the partial reassurance which the Inspector had offered. The person who had murdered two of his brothers might still think the job was only half-done.

  Arthur had made Wilson ensure that the doors were locked and chained, the windows locked and the shutters of every room bolted, and that no-one was admitted to the house without his express permission.

  Death might, however, already be in the house. Maybe, as if in a melodrama, the murderer had been living as a servant under his roof for years, eating Arthur’s food and accepting his pay until the opportune moment to strike. Maybe Wilson himself, underneath his bland servility, was incubating some secret, murderous intention.

  Arthur drew closer to the fire. He’d locked the parlour door from the inside, so not even Wilson or the maid could get in without forcing the door. Even so, it was a comfort to be in easy reach of the poker to defend himself if necessary.

  He tried to distract himself by concentrating on the book which Josephine had given him. The Essence of Christianity by Ludwig Feuerbach, in a translation by Mr George Eliot.

  Josephine had no doubt intended to be kind when she gave him the book. She’d written an inscription in her beautiful, tiny, feminine handwriting, inside the front cover. ‘To my dearest Arthur, my beacon and my rock, may this book bring you consolation at this difficult time. Your loving cousin and sister in Christ, Josephine.’ He’d read the inscription again and again before he’d even started the book, lying back in his chair and feeling the warmth stir in his veins as he thanked God for the privilege of offering guidance and support to his hurt, beautiful cousin. And she’d explicitly written of loving him, though the reference to Christian sisterhood was a barb to his sensitive soul as well as a necessary modesty.

  The book, however, had signally failed to offer the consolation it promised. It was so unlike the improving certainties of home-grown church literature, with their emphasis on manly faith and building a citadel of godliness to repel the legions of evil and unbelief. The book, with its German subtlety, was like an enemy agent, entering the citadel in the uniform of an ally then slowly dismantling the defences from within. Every block it removed from the walls of faith was taken away gently and irresistibly by reason and persuasion, appealing to him to recognise things he felt he’d always known but dared not say, and each logical step he took with the author felt like a compliment to his intelligence, until suddenly the book was finished and he was left looking across a dark wind-swept waste-land which he had always suspected was there, but which he’d been sheltered from by thick walls of illusion.

  The argument, beneath the references to Herr Hegel or Doctor Leibniz, was simple enough. God existed only as the projection of human qualities. Whatever qualities we saw in God – love, wrath, jealousy, retribution – were only the qualities which we valued most highly in ourselves, and deified. There was no heaven, no hell, no blessings or curses, only the lives we chose to lead in our brief interval under the indifferent sun.

  He’d tried to remember the proofs of Christianity which had been drummed into him at University, and to pray. When he
thought back to the proofs it seemed to him that he had always known that they were dusty myths which could be blown away by the chill wind from the darkness, or stories which people had comforted themselves with as they huddled round the fire against that icy breeze. When he tried to pray he heard only the noisy babble of his own mind talking to itself, above the crackle of the flames in the hearth.

  He sat back and stared beyond the pool of light from his reading-lamp and into the dark corners of the room, where the firelight cast only shadows. What God would have allowed the torments he’d faced at his brothers’ hands? What God would have let a woman of unblemished virtue like Josephine be despised and rejected by the men who should have been her protectors?

  And, every Sunday for his whole professional life, had he only been telling comforting fairy-stories to his sparse congregation?

  There was only one piece of wreckage he could cling to in the oceanic waste. Even Feuerbach admitted that the best of men were those who had created a loving Christ as their God, and built a God of love itself. So, he would love. His reason for being would be love, to love Josephine and see her re-established in the dignity and wealth she deserved. He would love her with a force beyond reason, and damn the consequences.

  And, in a world without divine retribution, where he was only a heartbeat away from inheriting the wealth which he so yearned to share with her, surely any action was permissible in the cause of love?

  As Allerdyce passed through the orderly-room on his way out of the Police Office the constables stopped talking and the silence was broken only by the tapping of his heels on the polished floorboards. I’m sorry, he thought. I’d have saved McGillivray from arrest if I could. He struggled to maintain a dignified pace rather than running headlong out of the office.

  He emerged into the overcast daylight and turned his steps towards the Calton Jail. Walking over the North Bridge he looked at the jail’s dark back walls, soot-stained by two decades of smoke from the station below, rising from the raw rock. The fortified sheerness was broken only by rows of tiny slots of windows, and he wondered which window McGillivray might even now be struggling to see out of.

  The head warder took Allerdyce up to McGillivray’s cell, leading the Inspector past rows of locked iron doors. Each one enclosed a silent prisoner in a cell, except for one from which the shootings and ravings of a deranged man could be heard. Every fifty paces the warder opened a barred door across the gas-lit corridor, let Allerdyce through, and locked it behind them.

  “We don’t get many policemen on murder charges here,” observed the warder as he let Allerdyce through another gate. “It does add a bit of interest to the job, wondering what’s going to happen to a prisoner.”

  At last they reached McGillivray’s cell. The warder opened the iron door, creaking on its hinges. Allerdyce paused. Should he really go in? Why subject himself to the sergeant’s contempt and hatred? And if McGillivray had really killed two men for revenge, what would he want to do to his accuser? But it would be an act of cowardice not to visit this man on whom he’d relied for his life. He entered.

  McGillivray stood with his back to the door, his arms stretched to push against the whitewashed brick of either wall of the narrow cell. His head was bowed, and the pale light from the barred window above him shone down on the muscled back of his neck. Even through the heavy serge of the prison outfit Allerdyce could see the sergeant’s broad, powerful back and a stain of blood where the wound in his side must have re-opened.

  Samson Agonistes, thought Allerdyce, as the door clanged behind him and the lock clattered shut.

  “Just give us a shout if there’s any trouble, or when you want out,” said the warder through the peephole in the door.

  Dear God, thought Allerdyce as he looked at the sergeant, what have I done? If this strong, brave man is condemned unfairly, may the stones of this prison come crashing down on me.

  McGillivray turned slowly. His face was blemished by a large bruise and he stood stooped, as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

  “It’s you, sir.”

  “Yes.”

  “When Inspector Jarvis arrested me he said that you’d accused me.”

  That’s low of him, thought Allerdyce.

  “Actually it was Jarvis’s suggestion.”

  “But you agreed?”

  “I don’t believe you killed the Duke or the Brigadier. I had to agree, though, that every possibility that couldn’t be disproved had to be investigated, even if I personally found them distasteful of incredible.”

  “Did you, sir?”

  “You’d have done the same, Sergeant. It was my duty.”

  And, he thought, it’s the betrayal of a friend.

  McGillivray stood straighter, his fists clenched by his side.

  “We knew what our duty was in the army, sir. It was to stand by our comrades, whatever happened.”

  Allerdyce couldn’t meet the sergeant’s eyes. He glanced aside, towards the chipped water pitcher which stood on a little wooden table.

  “It’s only a precaution, Sergeant. We can’t allow you to serve while you’re under any possible suspicion. We just need to keep you here until you’re eliminated from our enquiries.”

  “Couldn’t you just have sent me home, sir? Why did you have to have me locked up? Do you think I might murder someone else, sir?”

  “It’s partly for your own protection, Sergeant. If anything else happens to the Bothwell-Scotts, no-one can blame you since your whereabouts is known.”

  “Protection, sir? Do you know what happens to policemen in prison? That I’ve already been assaulted in the exercise yard with the full knowledge of the warders? Don’t you realise that I could hang for this? If you can’t find the real murderer do you think there’s anything to stop that happening? Or maybe you really do think I killed them. Jarvis sounds like he thinks I did it. Do you, sir?”

  Allerdyce paused. Jarvis’s accusations had sounded incredible, but they’d left a faint tidemark of suspicion in his mind.

  “I find it highly unlikely, Sergeant. I promise that everything will be done to find out who did it.”

  McGillivray’s look couldn’t conceal his contempt.

  “As thorough an investigation as was carried out before James Semple was killed, sir?”

  “I promise, Sergeant. I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

  McGillivray sighed. He didn’t seem to have the strength to stand straight anymore, and he stooped and looked at the floor.

  “I don’t know what hurts me more, sir. The thought that I might be hanged, and leave Jeannie and the bairns unprovided for, or the thought that a man I honoured as a comrade and a friend thinks I may be a murderer.” He raised his head and looked at Allerdyce, his face twisted with pain. “How could you, sir? Don’t you know me well enough to know that I’ve seen enough pain and death already, after ten years in the army? Don’t you know I’d rather save a life than take one?”

  “I’m sorry. I did what I had to.” And, he thought, may I never have to do as hard a duty again.

  “All right sir. I can only pray that you’ll realise soon enough that you’re mistaken. May I still ask two favours of you?”

  “Of course, Sergeant.”

  “Sir, I appreciate what you did for Sergeant Baird and his family. May I presume to ask that you’ll give Jeannie and the family whatever assistance you’re able to?”

  “I will.”

  “And sir, for the sake of our former friendship, may I ask that you don’t visit this cell again.”

  As the door of the cell clanged shut behind him, Allerdyce wondered whether he’d see McGillivray again. He shuddered as he realised that the only future occasion might be as a police witness at McGillivray’s trial, telling the court what the sergeant had confided to him about the deaths of his father and brother from the actions of the Bothwell-Scotts. Or worse, perhaps Jarvis would arrange some ‘accident’ in prison so that another suspect disappeared, quickly and cheaply, without the inc
onvenience of a trial. Again, he felt himself drawn deep into the same rushing tide of inevitability that had led the boy to be hanged for murdering the father who’d daily abused him. McGillivray’s words about comradeship tore at him. The sergeant was right – there was a duty to other people which pulled at the heart more strongly than a duty to the law. It didn’t make it right to choose duty to a friend instead of justice, but by God it made the choice a hard one.

  I can’t save him until I’ve found William Bothwell-Scott’s daughter, he thought, and may I have the strength and skill to do that.

  In the meantime, he knew what he had to do. Leaving the prison, he walked down to the Union Bank in George Street. He withdrew ten gold sovereigns and walked down Dundas Street to the artisans’ houses where McGillivray’s family lived.

  Turning into McGillivray’s narrow street he saw, again, children playing on the cobbles. A ragged boy looked up from his marbles.

  “It’s him!” he heard the boy shout. The children dispersed, some of the running indoors, others standing sullenly on the doorsteps of their houses.

  He walked on, feeling the absurdity of his fear of running the gauntlet of a handful of children. He felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, between his collar and his hat, and turned round. None of the children looked as if they’d moved but, putting his hand to his neck and feeling hot blood, he knew one of them had thrown a stone. Wiping the blood off his fingers into the lining of his coat pocket he went on towards McGillivray’s house.

  He pushed his way up the front path, brushing away the damp sheets which hung heavily from the washing lines, and rapped on the door. After a moment McGillivray’s wife opened the door, wearing a clean white apron.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I want to help you and your family while Sergeant McGillivray’s suspended from the force.”

  “You? You want to help after you’ve had Hector put in prison? You’d have him hanged but you want to help?” She gave a dry laugh.