by David Ashton
A bare spot had been left in the centre and onto that was firmly pressed a scarlet favour.
Had outside photography reached sufficient development, no doubt a posed group beside their handiwork would have ensued, but the young men had to content themselves with a brief moment of shared glory then a quick leap back into the carriage, which disappeared down the hill into the lower reaches of Leith.
The operation was over.
Some time later McLevy and Mulholland came upon the scene from the opposite approach. On the saunter, back from St Stephen’s where the kneeling mourners had finally stopped praying for the departed soul long enough to hand over the address in Salamander Street.
‘So,’ Mulholland said, to break what had been a long silence in the falling rain, ‘according to the Reverend Gibbons’ wife, after the women’s church meeting, as was her wont, Agnes Carnegie left St Stephen’s around ten thirty in the evening.’
A muffled grunt came in response.
‘That would work out with the time of death by the time she got to the harbour, an old woman not fast on her feet.’
A seagull landed on the opposite side of the street and waddled over to investigate something that had caught its eye. It turned out to be some kind of red feather and not worth the poking of a beak, so the bird flew off again.
‘The purse still in the handbag,’ continued the constable doggedly. ‘No robbery. Only thing missing is the bible. Why take a bible?’
‘Maybe it had a treasure map inside.’
Not much of a deduction but at least a response.
Mulholland waited for further pieces of eight.
‘One thing I noticed,’ said McLevy as they trudged along. ‘Though much was made of devout and devoted and holy dedication I didnae sense any real affection for the woman.’
‘Perhaps affection and the Church of Scotland do not go hand in hand,’ was the constable’s thoughtful rejoinder.
The inspector shot him a glance; this was an unexpected remark from a Presbyterian Son of Erin.
‘These bees are having an effect,’ he observed.
They then both went back to their thoughts.
Fragments of that dream from the night before kept surfacing in McLevy’s mind. It was not at all unpleasant in repetition; the fear and dread previously experienced at the wizened apparition had been replaced by a vague scintilla of guilty pleasure as a picture replayed the naked female forms flitting ghostlike behind the writhing fronds.
Of course he was a young man in the early part of the dream – the wizened apparition had taken a back seat till later – that would explain the pleasure.
Did one of them not now bear a fleeting resemblance to Jessica Drummond?
McLevy wrenched his mind back to the case but the naked carcass of Agnes Carnegie had limited charm.
Mulholland sneaked a look at his inspector and noticed him wincing as if in some pain and rubbing at his arm. The rain had reduced to occasional drops as if the clouds could not squeeze out any more liquid for a while, but McLevy seemed oblivious, as if caught within some internal strife.
It was a worry to the constable. What was this pain? Was it the same old hurting McLevy had suffered for a while or was this agony new-minted?
The constable wanted the previous persona back to blight his life. Bellowing the odds, terrible shafts of illogical temper, wild humour, weird flights of fancy, blaming all and sundry except himself for the mess into which he inevitably blundered like a bull at the peat-bog.
In other words, human.
James McLevy.
This withdrawn though insightful creature was no fun; a bit like that skull in Hamlet.
‘Whit’s goin’ on up there?’
Withdrawn or not, the inspector had noted something a little down the road in front of the gates of the Just Land and as they approached what looked like a rammy of sorts, a voice could be heard like the master on a slave galley.
‘Ye thought it funny hingin’ out the windows, eh? See ye laugh on the other side of your face now!’
Mulholland nodded solemnly. ‘Hannah Semple as I live and breathe,’ he announced.
‘Either that or a warwolf,’ McLevy remarked with a burgeoning glint in his eye; he and Hannah had knocked spots off each other many’s the time.
The melee at the gates was revealed to be the magpies of the Just Land in plain workaday dresses, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing with hot water and rough soap at a sodden but defiant sludge of feathers and tar that clung to the hallowed portals.
They had started with gusto, thinking it to be quite an adventure, but hard labour and broken fingernails now a burdensome reality, the air was full of lamentation.
This changed with the advent of the policemen, and Mulholland’s fetching stature gave rise to appreciative giggles plus a more graceful movement of stiff brush and slithering lather.
Hannah shook her head at such levity and spoke aside to the inspector.
‘The mistress will want a word wi’ you, McLevy. By God she will!’
McLevy blinked at her. Could this be the toothless harpy who took on Jean’s sins? He had noted the possibility down in his diary but best not speak it aloud to Hannah’s face.
It was common knowledge she carried a cut-throat razor.
Through the gates three figures could be seen approaching. Lily and Maisie lugging a huge washing pan of hot water and behind them a tight-lipped Jean Brash.
The gate was shoved open with a big pole, washing pan laid down, then Jean and McLevy set to it like two actors on a stage with a captive audience at hand.
‘See whit’s happened here!’ said Jean without bothering to greet her fellow thespian by name.
‘Sticking out a mile,’ was the response.
‘The Scarlet Runners!’
‘That would explain the hue.’
‘Hue?’
‘Of the feathers.’
There was no discernible trace of humour in the inspector’s big bap face so Jean had to accept this at local value.
‘Whit’re you going to do about it?’
‘Observe from a distance.’
The green eyes snapped like a dragon’s jaws and she moved in for an exchange at close quarters.
Mulholland slid out of reach and Hannah crooked her arm through his then looked up at him. She aye relished a rammy between the inspector and her mistress.
‘How’s my big handsome laddie?’ she whispered.
She enjoyed teasing the constable about his attractive manly qualities including the large feet, which he was now shuffling uneasily. The magpies took advantage, scrubbing less, ears cocked for the fray.
‘I pay your wages, McLevy!’ Jean opened up.
‘Indirectly, I suppose you do,’ was the mild response.
‘I pay my taxes, my Parish Charge.’
‘Which gives succour unto and supports the Force of Leith, your civic protector and guardian,’ announced the inspector with a pomposity guaranteed to irritate.
‘So – protector, what do you intend?’
‘Intend?’
‘You heard me.’
McLevy pondered, stroking a moustache that Jean considered would have looked better on a dromedary.
‘I could send Constable Mulholland back tae the station for tweezers.’
‘Tweezers?’
‘Evidence gathering. We could pick the feathers, one by one. Take time, though.’
McLevy’s face gave nothing away. Jean nodded as if her worst fears had been confirmed.
‘Hannah – d’you hear this lunacy?’
‘I do, Mistress. Typical.’
Mulholland once more adopted the role of peacemaker.
‘The trouble is, Mistress Brash,’ he said earnestly, ‘the feathers are stuck on the tar. And the tar is stuck to the gates. We’re all sort of . . . coagulated.’
As a statement, thought McLevy to himself, it was worthy of Ballantyne at his most cryptically ingenuous.
Jean shot Mulholland an evil glance
.
‘I just had these gates painted. With gold leaf.’
‘Ye can still see some wee bits,’ said McLevy.
Jean’s eyes narrowed; it was still difficult to tell from the inspector’s countenance whether he actually knew how obtuse he appeared.
She tried once more.
‘Why, may I ask, are these little swine picking on me?’
‘Possibly because their fathers spend more time at your bawdy-hoose than they do at home.’
‘That surely would be a blessing.’
‘It is certainly to your profit.’
The two had provoked each other beyond their normal bounds, but underneath there was a mutual bafflement, as if they were two ships that had been cut loose and kept bumping into each other in the dark.
As if something deep had lost touch.
‘What – are you going to do about it?’ Jean asked coldly.
‘I shall file report,’ was the stolid answer. ‘Gates painted, bawdy-hoose in uproar. Scarlet woman.’
Jean leant forward till their faces were almost touching.
‘You go tae hell, McLevy,’ she said intensely. ‘You go straight tae hell.’
With that she swung round, signalling Lily, who had been lip-reading the exchange with mounting disquiet, and Maisie, who would most cheerfully have seen the inspector in Satan’s Palace, since he had once arrested her sister for the minor crime of shoplifting a bridal dress and the poor girl about to get married, to pick up the spare empty washing pan.
Jean Brash marched off without a backward glance, spine stiff as a poker, followed by the pan-bearers.
A baleful look from Hannah set the magpies back to scrubbing, while Mulholland carefully disentangled his arm and addressed his inspector.
‘I don’t think she’s very pleased, sir.’
‘Ye could be right.’
Hannah shook her head.
‘That’s you buggered for ony coffee in the Just Land,’ she observed. ‘If the mistress offers I’d check for poison.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ replied McLevy.
He felt oddly out of sorts at the culmination to the exchange, as if he was somehow in the wrong.
But surely not?
Why was Jean so upset?
After all, what had he said?
Mulholland had that funny look on his face again as he gazed over, not unlike the Glasgow doctor.
An unearthly wailing sound startled McLevy, but it was not a troubled conscience, merely the ornamental peacocks in Jean’s garden.
‘These bliddy birds,’ muttered Hannah. ‘Whit for did they no’ steal them awa’ the other night, instead o’ leaving them French sodgers?’
The inspector had heard of the happening but chose not to delve into the details.
Besides he had been struck by an idea that might make amends.
We all like to make amends after the event, rather than own up at the time.
An easier contemplation.
He beckoned the other two over and huddled them together like conspirators.
‘Hannah – have you heard the notion that things happen in threes?’
‘Ye mean the buggers will be back?’
‘Uhuh. And what could be their next target?’
‘Damned if I know.’
The peacocks wailed morosely as they pecked around in the damp grass and Mulholland began to get the drift.
‘Where were the birds last night?’ he asked.
‘In their cages in this weather, right under the bedroom windows.’
Both policemen nodded. That would explain why no attempt was made – the noise would waken the dead.
‘Whit’s on your mind, McLevy?’ questioned Hannah warily.
There might have been a smile on the inspector’s face, thought Mulholland, but it was difficult to discern under that glaikit thing on his upper lip.
‘From the tail of your Orientals,’ McLevy murmured. ‘A feather in their caps.’
‘That’s the target?’
‘Could be. If you set a trap.’
‘How?’
‘Tether the peacocks in the middle of the garden. Trip wires all around.’
‘Tie something in that makes a sound,’ added Mulholland, bringing country lore into play. ‘Little bells or the like.’
‘We hae such left over frae Christmas.’
McLevy lowered his voice another notch.
‘But don’t tell Jean it’s my idea, otherwise she’ll reject it out of hand.’
‘True enough,’ said Mulholland. ‘Especially after that terrible joke.’
‘Eh?’
‘Wait now,’ interrupted Hannah. ‘Once the bells go tinkle, tinkle. Whit do we do then?’
‘Let fly. Small shot is best. Hurts like the pox.’
‘I wouldnae know,’ was her stolid response.
‘Bang, bang,’ Mulholland said. ‘Bang, bang. But you never heard it here.’
He straightened up and the three moved apart in a casual fashion to deceive any watchers.
‘Better be on our way, sir,’ he announced loudly. We have a murder to investigate.’
‘Aye, right enough,’ McLevy responded. ‘On our way.’
They moved off, leaving a thoughtful Hannah gazing at the peacocks.
As they picked up speed downhill, the inspector’s short legs working twice the rate of the loping constable, McLevy frowned at his companion.
‘I considered it quite a good joke,’ he said. ‘Scarlet Woman.’
‘Hilarious,’ replied Mulholland.
Jean Brash stood meanwhile in the kitchen of the Just Land while Lily and Maisie heated then poured water into the washing pan. The smaller of the two flicked cold water at her companion’s neck and darted out of retaliatory range.
Maisie shook her fist and Lily grinned.
They were in love and all is forgiven in that exalted state.
Their mistress felt an unaccustomed emptiness inside.
The boy Cupid was now unsheathed to disseminate his arrows in any direction.
Too bad they kept missing the target.
Chapter 10
Thus we must toil in other men’s extremes,
That know not how to remedy our own.
Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy
Lieutenant Roach looked across the desk at a man he detested but who had the privilege to be obnoxious for the moment.
If a son lose his matriarchal lodestar, may he not be entitled to howl at the heavens?
Or at least bullyrag an officer of the law.
Roach’s own parents had lived a respectable distance from his heart, died within months of each other, and concealed their disappointment in him as best they could.
He had no children of his own, his wife being more interested in tragic opera and cultural gatherings.
His own secret passion was the game of golf, at which he was not untalented save for the matter of putting.
But with putting there is no illusion. The ball must go in the hole. And for Roach it would be easier to contemplate shoving a camel through the eye of a needle.
Therefore when he sifted for compassion, not much was to be found, even had he been sincere.
Which he was not.
Because he just did not like the man.
‘You have my total sympathy, Mister Carnegie – ’
‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ Sim Carnegie interrupted. ‘My mother is dead. I saw her poor body.’
‘At your own insistence, sir.’
‘I wanted to make sure!’
A possibly ambiguous statement, but the man had seemed shaken enough when he stood there in the Cold Room and gazed down at the emaciated corpse, wrapped up in the blanket which covered her like a larval skin.
Sim Carnegie was a lean, whippet-like creature with a face that seemed to have a permanent sneck of doubt settled upon its features. A bony body, tall, with a long neck and a prominent Adam’s apple, his clothes not exactly grubby but worn from sneaking through
so many doors sideways.
In other words, a member of the press.
His voice was high-pitched and his mirthless laugh not unlike a dog’s bark; there were hard little eyes, a clean-shaven face with a long protruding upper lip and sparse brown hair slicked close to the pink scalp.
But he was sharp; and his attention was fixed upon Roach, who could see Queen Victoria behind the complainant high upon the wall and regretted that Her Majesty was unable to come to the aid of an obedient servant.
Victoria’s face gave nothing away. She had an empire to rule and little spare time.
‘My mother is dead,’ Carnegie repeated. ‘A savage, brutal murder. Why? And who? Who is the killer?’
‘The investigation has scarce begun,’ said Roach in what he hoped was a comforting but firm tone.
‘I am a journalist, sir, and I know the pace of investigation in Leith. Like a snail!’
‘The race is not always to the swift,’ Roach replied, concealing his indignation at this downright calumny.
But denial would not help. Better to bow the head and wait for the storm to pass.
‘Not always to the swift,’ he muttered.
‘That is by the by!’
Carnegie now began to talk in banner headlines.
‘I intend to write a scathing indictment of your force, sir. And the Leith Herald will ask the question why you have not acted upon the evidence!’
‘Evidence?’
‘A white favour, found upon the body!’
The lieutenant almost jack-knifed in surprise.
‘How do you know this?’
‘I have my sources.’
As Carnegie treated Roach to a sly and secret smile, the door opened and James McLevy poked his head inside.
He and Mulholland had sneaked in before they went to Salamander Street to snaffle a cup of Sergeant Murdoch’s execrable coffee and share a piece of honeycomb the constable had planked at the station.
When told the contents of Roach’s office they had decided to come to the rescue or, in the inspector’s case, to indulge his nosiness.
For one thing would always be true about James McLevy, high or low, dead or alive – he was nosy.
In fact it was his recorded wish to have this inscribed upon his tombstone.
Here lies a nosy man.
