by David Ashton
A sudden terrible light shone from the windows like a lighthouse to expose the valiant invaders, which was followed by a fearsome female screeching and then, as they bolted for the escape of the garden wall upwards to clamber and gain safety, a thunderous noise split the heavens with shrieks of pain from the climbing Runners.
Tom was frightened out of his wits but, being to the rear, had missed the salvo.
Was Dame Fortune on his side?
No. She can be a fickle creature, tending to side with bawdy-hoose keepers, and so as Tom and some other laggards clawed their way up the brickwork, a second noise burst forth.
Not as loud as the first, but just as deadly in consequences.
A piercing sting as the pellets ripped through his coat and trousers took Tom’s breath away, and then the pain, as shock subsided, made him howl like an animal.
His flanks and buttocks were a mass of fiery agony.
He managed to scramble over to the other side and then they all ran for their lives, limping, lurching, squealing like a herd of pigs, jostling in the frantic effort to put distance between them and lethal pursuit.
Not a hero to be found, which is often the case when small-shot takes a hand.
To his surprise, Tom, who cried easily, had not shed a tear. That happened later at his best friend’s house in Queen Street, the parents fortunately God-fearing and already asleep, when a shivering decimated band of wayfarers attempted in the cellars by wavering candlelight to extract the imbedded fragments from violated flesh.
They had the instruments and supposed skill, exams passed in medical matters, but the hands were shaking and the whisky they employed to numb the pain, clean the wound, and then swallow to provide enough nerve for another operation, had left Tom with a horrible taste in his mouth.
The injuries had been dressed as best they could but he had felt them open again as he struggled in the onslaught of this pitiless bitter wind and rain, most of which seemed to be beating into his right ear while he negotiated Forres Street like a wrecked ship.
This was, without doubt, the most miserable night of his life.
More to come.
As he turned finally into Heriot Row, the wind and rain hit him full on. Body blows. He had lost the hat a million years ago and his hair was flattened to the skull.
Tom had been flogged by the gale part out into the road and then heard a wild scream above the tumult.
A carriage was heading straight for him, the driver muffled up but brandishing what seemed a shining stick and howling in weird delight as the horse careered towards the isolated young man.
Tom threw himself to the side and the wild-eyed animal rushed past, the driver now standing to shake his stick defiantly at the elements, screaming like a banshee, paying no heed to anything in his way.
For a moment the covering clothes slipped and Tom caught a glimpse of a pale material underneath before the carriage swept past and was gone.
Vanished.
As if by magic.
Had that been the devil himself? There was something indeed, beyond this world in that vision.
A nightmare figure from the Apocalypse, seeking vengeance on all who crossed his path.
A vicious gust of wind and rain brought Tom back to his present woes; his knees were now skinned from the fall to add salt to the wound.
His family house was in Albany Street, not far, he could do it. Best foot forward.
But as he attempted to press onwards, his limbs collapsed under him and he sprawled sideways to lurch into a stone pathway leading to a front door. The impetus forced Tom down on his hands and knees to gain a moment’s respite.
There were heavy bushes on the other side of the iron railings to provide shelter of sorts from the watery blasts, so he sat up against the metal, hugged arms round his legs, knees under his chin and tried to count his blessings.
He was still alive.
The wounds would heal.
He could feel, even in all this turmoil, the warm blood trickling down the back of his legs.
Eventually. They would heal.
But what of his parents?
He would have to tell them, or they would find out.
Either way. A rum proposition.
Tom’s face changed as he realised that the hand he had pressed inside his coat and jacket for warmth had not found the usual contents of his inside pocket.
His lucky photograph.
It must have fallen out in the stramash.
Damn!
It never rains but it pours.
A wry, pained smile at that thought and then he looked up to see the number solidly fixed to the equally unmoved front door.
Seventeen.
The very number of the Great Judge!
Though no trophy from this night would be worthy of his judgement.
Tom took a deep breath and prepared to rise. ‘Steady the buffs’ was one of his father’s favourite sayings and to a certain extent, despite the horror of the night, tears, the throbbing pain, the looming shock and disappointment of his mother especially, he felt a curious resilience.
Steady the buffs.
In the top buttonhole of his jacket there was still the loose remnant of a scarlet favour – he was yet a member of the gallant crew.
As he stood somewhat waveringly, Tom’s eye was attracted to a large bundle that lay by the left of the stalwart portal.
A blanket of sorts, wrapped round something, a grey huddled shape; he had been too concerned with his own woes to remark it until now.
For a moment the young man considered leaving well alone, but since when has humanity ever followed that course?
He reached out a cold, inquisitive hand to twitch aside the top of the blanket.
It fell away like a rotten fruit to reveal the lifeless face of a woman.
Her neck and face were welted with blows, the skin was mottled, painted like a maypole, and the mouth gaped open in a cruel parody of surprise as if to say, Unhand me, sir. I’m a good girl, I am!
He put trembling fingers to her skin to feel for a pulse, but she was dead. Dead as mutton.
The verdict of a medical man.
A sudden spew shot out of his mouth, doubling him over on hands and knees, to jet the contents of stomach plus medicinal whisky over the glistening path that led to the front door.
The young man wrenched away and ran off as if the Hounds of hell were after him.
Resilience went only so far.
Chapter 18
The world is full of care, much like unto a bubble; Women and care, and care and women, and women and care and trouble.
Nathaniel Ward, The Simple Cobbler
James McLevy took a large draught of reasonably hot coffee, ignored the flakes from his tin mug that had set sail upon the surface, and tried to make sense of events.
It was like looking at a fast, boiling river and attempting to follow a scrap of silver paper that had fallen in, and now was part of the swirling foam.
Momentary glimpses that might well be illusions lifted the spirits for a second, but then disappeared, leaving only the hypnotic movement of the current.
Whit a caper, eh?
Yet somewhere there was a pattern, he could sense it. A composition with little or no logic, where nothing fits but from the deep fissures of the past, some misbegotten Caliban was clawing his way out into the air.
Perhaps not ugly and deformed, perhaps a more seductive killer. Like Ariel. But a killer nonetheless.
The inspector shook his head and treated himself to another slurp. All fancy conjectures, dancing like witches round a cauldron, but he welcomed these weird insights.
A while since they had honoured him with their company.
A shaft of pain struck him amidships and he bent over to quell the sudden agony.
Finally, after what seemed an endless moment, the pain retreated sullenly and left him alone.
Very alone.
The attic room was a naked proposition; no warming portraits of a beloved family, no cushio
ns where one might lean back to puff a leisurely hookah, no tokens of affection left by a passing maenad.
Just sharp corners and bare wood of a bachelor life, where books and forensic periodicals littered the floor like discarded snake-skins.
He took another slurp and braced himself, but nothing happened.
How long since the old woman had met her unexpected Maker?
Hardly twenty-four hours and the inspector had been run ragged, a cork in a whirlpool, scraped along like dung on a boot-heel, as if the Fates had decided they would throw everything that came to hand at James McLevy.
What had he done to deserve such projectiles?
Had the world gone mad or was it just another day in Leith?
The only moment of respite had been that stolen sojourn in the Old Ship with Stevenson.
They had said little, had sat in a booth sipping at their drinks, best malt whisky, this being the writer’s treat, and watched the bar trade to find similar points of observation.
McLevy rarely met anyone who could glean character and foibles of folk up to his own exacting standards, but Robert Louis came close.
Are a writer and policeman not kindred souls? Always somewhere behind the eyes a calculation being made that might help the case.
Or add a chapter to the book.
Stevenson parsed a man who stood by the bar nursing a pale beer, and came to the conclusion the fellow had fallen on hard times. Once prosperous by the cut of his now shabby clothing, his hand trembled as it grasped the glass, and his eyes shifted here and there as he sought out salvation.
The writer prophesied a tale would unfold.
It came in the form of a scabby mongrel dog that slunk in through the doors and scuttled to the man’s feet before the barman took action.
This was obviously not their first meeting.
The dog made no attempt to ingratiate itself and looked around in much the same manner as the man.
The man poured a little of his beer into a saucer and set it down before the dog.
The dog licked up the beer, the man finished off his drink, and they left together.
Stevenson drew thoughtfully on his bent and bedraggled cigarette and murmured, ’Not exactly a happy ending but it will have to suffice.’
Then he glanced slyly sideways at McLevy’s impassive countenance.
‘Henry Preger. A sudden acquaintance with Madame Arsenic, you said?’
‘That I did.’
‘Self-induced?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Then who might be the purveyor?’
‘There would be a long queue – he was a nasty piece of work, but . . . ’
McLevy looked over to the clock above the bar. Half an hour had passed. Time to go.
‘ . . . Jean Brash was his business partner. All the money came to her, along with their bawdy-hoose. The Happy Land.’
McLevy’s lips quirked in a smile of what might have been reluctant approbation.
‘Then she closed that and erected the Holy Land. It burnt down and lo and behold, wi’ the insurance money she bought the Just Land.’
‘A woman of backbone,’ Robert Louis commented.
‘Ye might say that. I must leave you now.’
The inspector rose and pointed to Stevenson’s glass, but the writer covered the tumbler with long tapered fingers.
‘It has been a pleasure, sir.’
‘Unexpected, I’ll wager,’ grunted McLevy.
For a moment the two shared a sardonic glance and then the inspector’s face grew solemn.
‘My condolences for your father’s death,’ he said out of the blue.
Robert Louis extinguished the paltry remains of his cigarette in a small tin tray.
‘He died. Not knowing who he was. Already in another world. The Unknown.’
A careful statement that hid a welter of feeling.
‘Do you sleep well?’ asked McLevy suddenly.
‘Never.’ Stevenson blew out some smoke. ‘You?’
‘Likewise.’
McLevy nodded as if some revelation had been made between them, and prepared to depart.
Stevenson watched as the inspector pulled fretfully at his moustache.
‘A recent acquisition? The fuskers?’
‘Eh? Oh? Aye.’
‘I shall not ask the whys and wherefores of the earlier advice from the ragamuffin hermaphrodite.’
‘Good. I wouldnae tell you anyhow.’
McLevy was inclined to be disappointed that the subject had been raised again, but then realised that in similar circumstance he would have done the same.
Amongst the traits they seemed to share was that of the nosy man.
Stevenson smoothed at his own whiskers.
‘I have had mine for years. An old friend. It grants me gravitas.’
He suddenly roared with laughter at that idea, but then his own face became solemn.
‘Good luck with your murder.’
‘I may need it.’
As McLevy, on the move, pulled up his collar and jammed on his low-brimmed bowler, Stevenson called softly after.
‘I may not stay in the city long myself; this climate marks me like the Black Spot. But I have a feeling we will meet again, inspector.’
For a moment McLevy hesitated and then, on impulse, hawked out a scrap of paper and wrote something down with the stub of a pencil.
‘My lodging address. In case you’re passing by at midnight. The attic room. If the light’s on, that’s me.’
‘A kind offer,’ smiled Robert Louis. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’
The inspector had then left him; a wraithlike figure as the smoke of the tavern curled round with loving tendrils.
An indignant scratching at the window brought McLevy out of this memory. His familiar, Bathsheba the cat, a royal presence that visited late at night to claim her privileges.
The rain was still falling, but the cat was dry as a bone as she slid through the opened frame – how did she do that?
He carefully poured out a little weak coffee into a saucer and shook his head in customary amusement as it was delicately lapped up.
A cat that craved coffee.
Another nocturnalist, perhaps.
The inspector picked his way over the scattered books towards the table where the red ledger of his diary lay precisely in the centre.
Unavoidable. No getting away wi’ it. There it was – lying like a stone in his path.
What the hell was going on in his heart?
Perhaps if he wrote it down, it would make some sense.
Diary of James McLevy.
10th May, 1887.
I did not expect to see a woman, that’s the problem. It should have been a man. With a hairy face.
Fragrance unexpected can hit below the belt.
Jessica Drummond.
Her eyes are dark and deep; there might even be gypsy blood in the family.
Her brother is a murder suspect. He’s hiding something and so is his friend. But I will find it out.
Dearie me.
Jessica Drummond.
Her face swims before me like a jellyfish and produces the same feeling of inner disquiet as when such a creature is encountered.
You meet them on the edge of the shore and when you poke them with a boot, they quiver in the most alarming fashion.
McLevy suddenly raised his head from the page and let out an anguished bellow.
‘Why am I talking about jellyfish?’
In answer, Bathsheba hopped up onto the sill, spared him one inscrutable yellow-eyed feline glance, and then ghosted off into the damp night.
McLevy closed the window after her and strained for a moment to trace her whereabouts, but she had already vanished.
Leaving him with what refused to disappear.
He returned to his labour.
I have been reading Edgar Allen Poe, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, a murderer betrayed by guilty imagination when his victim’s beating heart sets up a racket under th
e floorboards.
The past come back to haunt him.
But that is only a story, this is the real world.
Is it not?
Jessica Drummond.
Was she already in that dream or did I put her there?
Is my heart pounding under the floorboards?
What has been buried?
McLevy laid the pen aside, blotted carefully and closed the diary. He could take this no further.
The red ledger had been gifted to him by a grateful bank manager at the successful discovery of an embezzlement case.
Pity the man concerned hanged himself.
The past aye comes back.
If he had just not looked direct into her eyes, things would have been fine.
But he had, and they were not.
The coffee was cold now, but he held it against his chest as if it were a source of warmth before dispatching the contents in one gulp.
Let us face the facts and draw conclusions.
His insides were churning with strange fragmentary feelings of a sort never before experienced; an emptiness in the breadbasket that had little to do with absence of black pudding; visions replaying in his mind of parted lips and sweet breath that issued therewithal.
Conclusion?
Could it be that he had fallen in love?
The symptoms fitted what might be read in books but had never been felt.
Until now.
James McLevy in love? Or more accurately – infatuated?
Dearie me.
In the morning it might be gone like the lifting of a wizard’s wicked spell.
But in the meantime.
It was going to be a long night.
And he was damned if he’d shave his moustache.
Chapter 19
I within did flow
With seas of life, like wine.
Thomas Traherne, Wonder
For the corpse in the doorway, time had no meaning. It had fled like a young man from ugly death.
The rain beat down and washed the caked disguise from her face, revealing an age of suffering.
Once she had been a flickering nymph of the pave, but it seemed in the twinkling of an eye her life had altered to that of scavenging.
Delving deeper in the wynds, later and later in the darkness, waiting for passengers of the night, often fu’ as a puggie, a quick dunt against the wall or even better a flutter of the fingers, easy milked, then the pretended passion run its course, money in hand and move on apace.
