by David Ashton
McLevy had a notion something of that ilk might happen but as well as male underwear atop the mast, the crowd would be out for any kind of mischief.
Which is where the lieutenant came in.
Roach stepped forward and took a deep breath.
‘Well, how does the target present itself?’
The inspector nodded gravely.
‘Tall. Proud. A top hat of the most perfect proportion.’
Then he slightly diminished this exalted description by adding a mischievous rider.
‘Pure invitation for a dod o’ mud.’
‘Mud?’
‘Figure of speech, sir,’ Mulholland said hastily.
The shouts grew louder as the students approached.
‘Best of luck, sir,’ McLevy proclaimed as Roach hesitated then began to move off. ‘Tall and proud!’
‘Not how I am feeling at this precise moment,’ said the receding Roach. ‘Not remotely.’
As the lieutenant veered at an angle to the crowd, in fact heading for the wynds where the other constables were lurking, a host of bitter thoughts ran in his mind.
How had he allowed himself to be persuaded into this foolhardy exploit? Somehow McLevy had twisted a tale that the inspector and Mulholland were too familiar landmarks to tempt rash action.
They needed someone of mystery, enigmatic, unknown to the leaders of the White Devils.
A towering presence.
How had he swallowed such palpable nonsense?
One thing for sure. McLevy might be more subdued and taciturn than usual these days, but he was still a sly, manipulative, conniving, deceitful hunker-slider!
Meanwhile the man himself watched through his spyglass as Roach’s tall outline presented itself side on to the pack, like a ship about to exchange or receive cannon-fire.
He saw Daniel Drummond stoop to pick up something.
‘That’s it, my mannie,’ he murmured. ‘Ready, aim, fire.’
‘Even if they hit,’ whispered Mulholland. ‘What is the charge?’
‘Assault of a police officer,’ was the solemn response.
A sudden howl of pain rang out in the night and Mulholland gasped in dismay.
‘My God – they’ve missed the hat and hit the lieutenant!’
‘Even better,’ grunted McLevy, still glued to the spyglass.
A police whistle from the wynds blew to signal the hidden constables.
McLevy pocketed his spyglass.
‘The ringleaders are splitting up; you take the first two I’ll awa’ after the third!’
Just as the two parted company, Roach’s slightly strangled voice roused the herring-gulls on the harbour water from their dreams of silver fish.
‘McLevy – I have one in hand – aghh!’
The lieutenant had obviously been kicked in an unofficial spot.
‘That’s double assault,’ McLevy shouted back as he disappeared into the darkness.
Mulholland paid no heed and legged it at a rate of knots towards the melee, which was further complicated by the arrival of the constables who came pouring out of the wynds like a mob of assassins.
Roach rose aloft in the struggle with a triumphant roar, holding a wriggling form by the front lapels though the lieutenant himself had lost his hat.
‘Holy Moses,’ Mulholland panted to himself. ‘I didn’t know the man had it in him.’
Then he lifted his own voice, coming over a bit Irish in the wild shenanigans, hornbeam stick upraised.
‘Guard your skulls! I’m comin’ at you – ready or not!’
The herring-gulls circled dispassionately above; from their point of view there was nothing edible in the writhing wormy mass beneath, so they turned attention to a single figure below that was running into one of the narrow wynds. It threw aside a white flaccid object with trailing legs but this was of no interest either, so the birds flew back to the more sensible motion of the sea.
On its bosom they might find rest.
The single fugitive the birds had observed and dismissed stumbled onwards in the narrow darkness, feet slipping on the wet treacherous surface, a trembling of fear in every limb. But there – there was light ahead at the top of the wynd. Safety. A few more steps –
Then a foot shot out from a narrow side alley and tripped the fleeing form.
As it crashed painfully onto the sharp stones, James McLevy looked down – unlike the gulls he had found something to satisfy the appetite.
‘You run, I walk,’ he pronounced as if beginning a sermon. ‘Yet I know these wynds better than any living being therefore hangs the reason I stand and you fall.’
He stooped to turn over the recumbent figure.
‘Now – let’s hae a wee keek at you, my mannie – ’
The prone body suddenly jerked into life, squirming frantically to escape, and the unexpected motion unbalanced the inspector to topple onto the figure below.
McLevy grunted in pain as a sharp knee dug into his leg, perilously close to the crown jewels, then he pinned the arms back so that he straddled the tricky wee swine.
His chest pressed upon the other’s torso and the whole of his body pushed down hard to contain the wriggling form.
‘I said – let’s have a look at you!’
He managed to contain both his opponent’s hands in the one of his own and pulled off the tweed cap that concealed the other’s countenance.
Rich chestnut curls tumbled down to frame the flushed and hectic face of Jessica Drummond.
Chapter 13
And most of all would I flee from the cruel madness of love,
The honey of poison flowers and all the measureless ill.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Maud
Time stands still. Time flies. Time will tell.
For a moment that seemed eternal yet fleeting, their lips, hers aquiver, his dry as a bone, hovered over each other’s; her breath was sweet from some lozenge and he cursed the intake of Sergeant Murdoch’s coffee which had swirled around like a digestive dervish no doubt creating a sour emission from his maw.
But why was he worried about breath?
Their faces had not moved an inch, both registering a somewhat bewildered ambushed surprise as if they had together fallen into a pit.
Her dark eyes possessed, on close scrutiny, strange green flecks, which put him in mind of Jean Brash.
And the aforesaid torso, come to think of it, had a pliant, yielding quality.
His whole body felt curiously weak, as if someone had pulled the plug.
From Jessica’s point of view, she saw a pitted parchment face with grey, slatey, lupine eyes, and a moustache that looked like a hedge of sorts.
She was also conscious of a strange feral energy in the damp air.
Finally, as if a curtain had lifted, McLevy abruptly hauled himself off and hoisted her upright.
They still had not spoken.
The inspector broke silence and a different reality settled around them.
‘Miss Drummond!’ McLevy rebuked the bedraggled shape, whose countenance was streaked with markings of the White Devils, giving her the look of a market clown. ‘Whit’re you doing wi’ all this gallivantation?’
She flinched at a shaft of pain from the fall.
‘I am not – gallivanting. I am a fool!’
‘I shall give you no argument there.’
Having delivered this formal remonstrance, he watched in some concern as she massaged at her ribs.
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘Only my pride.’
‘It often comes before a fall.’
‘Are you being droll, inspector?’
McLevy pondered and then came to the conclusion that he was being deadly serious.
But who was proud and who had fallen?
He shook that thought aside and assumed a part of his personality easier to access and more apposite to the event.
‘Explain yourself,’ he commanded tersely.
Jessica hesitated, then stooped to pick up the
tweed cap to crumple in her hands. There was something childlike and appealing in the gesture, but he hardened his heart.
A policeman’s heart is adamantine is it not? Second only to the Sphynx.
‘I – I wanted to – protect my brother.’
‘So that he can throw gobbets of mud at folk?’
She winced either at the remark or another shaft of pain.
‘And,‘ Jessica admitted, shoving at her hair, which was wet and clinging to the face, ’to tell truth – I suppose I came also because I was – challenged.’
‘To conduct yourself like a man?’
‘Yes.’
‘That is with great stupidity.’
She blinked at the unexpected observation; it was beginning to dawn on Jessica that this bulky individual was perhaps a more subtle entity than she had presumed.
In her brother’s old suit, which was at least a size too large, the young girl cut a forlorn figure.
‘And were you tae climb the mast and attach the long johns?’
She shook her head, embarrassed at the prospect.
‘No. Daniel just – stuck them on my shoulder.’
‘Yet you swaggered well enough.’
Jessica could not deny the truth of that. She had been swept up in the fever of a mob.
‘As I said. I am a fool.’
Silence followed this candid admission.
‘Pit on your bonnet,’ said McLevy suddenly, ‘or ye’ll catch your death.’
A meek acceptance, then she took a deep breath.
‘I suppose you will arrest me now?’
It would be the talk of the tea parties and her mother would hardly forgive her.
Ever.
‘You tell me my job as well. Thank you.’
His face was like stone beneath the low-brimmed bowler.
‘No, but I mean – you must.’
‘Is that a fact?’
He reached out abruptly and drew her towards him by a vicelike grip upon the arm.
My God, was this how they arrested people?
‘You lack the gentle touch, inspector,’ she announced with as much dignity as a potential jailbird might muster.
‘Do I really?’ he muttered angrily, a fierce light burning in the grey eyes – a light, did she but know it, that had not flamed for some time now.
‘Get going,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You heard me!’
These words were accompanied by a hefty shove that sent her sprawling up the wynd.
Outrage battled with relief as she discovered distance between herself and incarceration.
‘You should treat me with respect sir,’ she managed. ‘I am not a street keelie.’
‘Uhuh? There’s a big dod of mud on your neb.’
‘I didn’t know that, did I!’ she snapped in response, and wiped the nose with the back of her hand. ‘There. Gone.’
‘As should you be before I change my mind.’
McLevy stood forward threateningly, as if about to charge after her, but Jessica held her ground.
‘What about my brother?’
‘He’ll take what’s coming. Now, on your way!’
She scrambled up towards the head of the wynd and at the top, a safe measure between them, attempted to find some dignified comment on her circumstances.
‘I thank you, inspector. But you are not a civil person.’
‘And you’re a very lucky girl.’
‘I am not a girl, I am a woman!’
With that she was out of sight while McLevy bawled after her.
‘That is a matter of debate!’
As McLevy walked down in the opposite direction, conflict raging in heart and mind, he muttered inside.
A matter of debate.
‘Inspector?’
The damned female was back again, shouting from the top of the wynd like a fishwife.
‘You should remove that ridiculous fungus from your face. It puts years on you!’
Then she was gone. This time for good.
Now it was McLevy’s turn to feel tripped and winded.
That was a low blow.
‘Women – they like to have the last word,’ a voice commented from the shadows. ‘Nature of the beast.’
The tone was wry, from the man who stood in a doorway, tall with a long, dark coat, and an exotic soft hat which nevertheless seemed to repel the rain.
He had a gambler’s face, long, pale, almost horse-like, and he was sucking thoughtfully at a cigarette.
‘I came to the harbour for old time’s sake,’ he murmured. ‘It used to be tarry-breeks for the odd riot, but it’s a better class of hooligan these days.’
The man laughed quietly and drew a little circle in the moist air with the glowing tip of his cigarette.
How much had he heard?
McLevy had a maelstrom of feelings with which to deal and it took a moment before he identified the countenance, from both past and present.
‘You’re Stevenson, the writer!’
The man bowed his head and stifled a phlegmy cough.
‘At your service, sir.’
He drew aside and indicated with an elegant movement of the hand that they might walk together.
This they did towards the main body of the harbour, the inspector thinking that the further away from recent events, the better.
‘And you are James McLevy, the Thieftaker. A man of many adventures, I am told.’
There was a light, ironic tone that unsettled McLevy; it was hard to fathom this fellow’s thoughts.
How much had he witnessed?
The inspector had of course read the notorious Jekyll and Hyde and been deeply impressed by the insights.
In his own nature he had felt these murderous contradictions and McLevy could only assume Stevenson had experienced the same.
The duality of man. Saint and sinner.
‘Tae tell true,’ the inspector said out of the blue. ‘I prefer Edgar Allen Poe.’
‘So do I, sir. So do I!’
Stevenson laughed infectiously and linked his arm through McLevy’s in familiar fashion as they neared the lights of the harbour taverns.
‘A woman dressed as a man berates the famous Thieftaker upon the state of his upper lip,’ he teased. ‘Is this the beginning of a tale, I wonder?’
‘I doubt it,’ muttered McLevy in response and, part to change subject, part because he felt a sudden aggressive urge to put this mannie in his place, went on the attack.
‘I remember you. Climbing up a drainpipe in the Lothian Road. I was a constable then and you a daft student.’
Stevenson blinked for a moment, then his face cleared as a memory surfaced.
‘I was making for a widow’s window. To offer comfort and solace.’
‘You were dressed like a pirate,’ McLevy said firmly.
‘I had been performing in a play. The Daemon must have seized me.’
Stevenson suddenly assumed the manner and delivery of an actor as he quoted his own doggerel poetry with relish.
The silent pirates of the shore
Eat and sleep soft, and pocket more
Than any red, robustious ranger
Who picks his farthings hot from danger.
‘So, which are you, inspector?’ he asked, flipping the bright tip of the cigarette in an arc to expire hissing in an oily puddle. ‘Silent pirate, or robustious ranger?’
‘Neither. Though I arrest both.’
This deadpan response set the writer of into a burst of laughter, which deteriorated into a hacking cough.
He wiped his mouth with a large white handkerchief.
‘I never did arrive near that widow’s window.’
‘That’s because I pulled ye down.’
‘You thought I was a burglar.’
‘It was the eye patch.’
By now they had come near to the harbour taverns. From one, the Rustie Nail, a commotion of sound arose, angry voices slurred by ramstam ale and inferior whisky.
‘Some things change, but rarely,’ murmured Stevenson.
‘A dirty dive. Helter skelter.’
Robert Louis swung to a stop to light up another cigarette, huddling at the wall to preserve the flame.
‘And yet,’ he puffed out a thin entrail of smoke, ‘I remember you in there. On the floor. A fight. With a certain Henry Preger.’
McLevy nodded. Early days. A young man then.
‘He was a vicious brute,’ he replied. ‘A pimp.’
In truth he could not now remember why the fight had started, only that Preger had heavy boots and used them well. Kicked his fill.
‘I was . . . observing,’ said Stevenson. ‘At the back. Keeping clear of the blood, you know?’
‘Enough of it,’ McLevy responded. ‘Maistly mine.’
For a moment the inspector seemed lost in memory as the rain fell and the writer inhaled, fingers poised.
‘Preger’s woman. A certain Jean Brash. Stepped out.’
‘She didnae step out. She was always there.’
As he had looked up at the blur of hostile faces, one stared back, red hair like a flame, a cool, dispassionate look like a gravedigger.
The writer leant forward to peer curiously into McLevy’s eyes.
‘What did she do to get you off that floor?’
‘She winked.’
Another roar of laughter, another fit of coughing.
‘Well, it did the trick, my friend. You wiped him from one end of the bar to the other.’
‘I’ve never been back down there,’ said McLevy solemnly. ‘Tae the floor. It’s a bad place.’
‘They say Preger was never the same man.’
‘That’s because he died. In my view poisoned.’
‘By whom?’
‘Madame Arsenic.’
The men appraised each other and a measure of wary approbation rose between them.
McLevy came to the conclusion that for a gabby man, Stevenson was a canny bugger and whatever he saw in that wynd might well stay with him; Robert Louis thought it had been a long time since he’d met a psychology that chimed in such a strange way with his own.
‘There was an old woman murdered here last night,’ said McLevy suddenly. ‘Battered tae death.’
