Shadow of the Serpent im-1

by David Ashton

  Mulholland had secreted himself in the water closet, snibbed the door shut and put faith in his bowel movements.

  Sergeant Murdoch was in the Land of Nod and Ballantyne had pulled his head so far back into his shoulders that he resembled a turtle.

  But then through the station door, a drowned man walking, leaving wet footprints with every step, came the drookit, sodden figure of James McLevy.

  The crocodile jaws of Roach snapped shut. He crooked his finger, not trusting words in a public place, and the bedraggled inspector, looking neither left nor right, took up the invitation and followed him back into the office.

  That had been a fair time ago. Mulholland had crept out of the closet into the cold room to rehearse his excuses and get used to the temperature, the anticipated icy blast.

  He was implicated by proxy, guilty by association, all his sookin’ up was to be in vain. Leave to attend the third wedding of his Aunt Katie would not be forthcoming. Indeed, he would be lucky to emerge with his testicles intact.

  Pulling up the sheet, he covered the face of the corpse which appeared to be looking down in some dismay at its disarrayed rib cage.

  The door opened and Ballantyne stuck his head in.

  ‘The lieutenant wants tae see you.’

  Ballantyne searched for something hopeful to say, he was a kind-hearted soul and wouldn’t last long. A red tide showed just above the line of his collar, a birthmark about which he had been teased unmercifully by some of the other men at the station before McLevy announced one day that he had similar on his backside and would personally eviscerate the next person who mentioned same.

  Mulholland had stood behind the inspector that day, as he now stood in front of Ballantyne.

  ‘I think the lieutenant might be getting sore-throatit, he’s been leathering his tonsils a decent time now. Don’t worry what he says, ye cannae hear the words through the door and I’m not listening anyway.’

  It was a somewhat confused benison but Mulholland nodded gratefully enough and crossed the greasy floor of the station to the office door which had been left ajar.

  He knocked upon it anyway, just to be on the safe side, and entered.

  The inspector was standing up against the wall as if pinned there by the force of Roach’s invective. His hair was plastered flat to his head and he looked for all the world like a little boy who’d been caught out in the rain.

  The lieutenant had his back to both of them and was staring up at the portrait of Queen Victoria as if seeking a source of strength.

  McLevy drooped the one eyelid in a conspiratorial wink at Mulholland who rejected all reception of same and stood rigidly to attention. The constable knew there was a bucket of urine coming his way. From on high.

  For his part, McLevy was not offended by the rejection and turned his attention back to Roach. You had to commend the stamina of the man. He been ranting for near thirty minutes and scarce repeated the same insult twice.

  The inspector had been battered by authority ere now, and though his recitation of the salient facts had sent Roach into a fit of the vapours, he still felt he had a case to put forward.

  But it was not much of a case and though McLevy had sailed his wee boat through the Storms of Reprimand before, this one was different. A great deal different.

  Roach finally turned round and fixed his pitiless gaze upon the squirming constable.

  ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ he asked.

  Mulholland’s mouth opened and closed but nothing much emerged except for a dry croak. All the rehearsed excuses had just dribbled out the back of his head.

  ‘What did you think you were doing, if it’s not too much to demand? I am intrigued as to your explanation. Just exactly what did you think you were doing?’ enquired the lieutenant with enough ice in his voice to freeze an Aberdeen Angus where it stood munching.

  ‘I … I … was keeping the inspector company,’ came the stutter of a response.

  ‘Company? Company?’ Roach’s voice rose in pitch and, with difficulty, he hauled it back to earth like a flag down a pole. ‘You are not a chaperon, you are not some sort of Spanish duenna, you are a police constable! And as such, you are responsible to your station superior officer, none other, namely, than me!’

  The lieutenant let out a baffled snarl and almost tore at his stiff collar as he once more addressed Mulholland.

  ‘Why did you not tell me this madness, this … wild gallivant was in progress?’

  McLevy judged it time to take a hand. ‘It was my fault, sir,’ he stated, face solemn, tone sober, as befits the repentant sinner.

  Roach’s head swivelled in his direction.

  ‘Everything is your fault,’ he muttered. ‘Explain.’

  ‘I prevailed upon the constable not to divulge the … direction of the investigation, until I had extended it to my complete satisfaction.’

  ‘Extended?’ Roach near howled. ‘By God you extended it. Right up to one of the most important people in this country!’

  But a dour nod from the lieutenant to Mulholland indicated some acceptance of his innocence in the affair.

  Roach knew to his cost what a devious bugger his inspector could be. He turned a cold unforgiving eye back to McLevy. That which ye sow, so shall ye reap, and this was going to be a bitter harvest.

  ‘Extended without a shred of proof,’ he spat out the words like sour pips. ‘A tissue of stories concocted by some female who sends you on a goose chase with madwomen, nurses, murders from thirty years ago, all tangled up like a whore’s drawers!’

  It was a measure of the heated indignation in Roach’s breast that he had expressed himself so indelicately, but he wasn’t done yet, not by a long chalk.

  ‘And who is this woman? This … Joanna Lightfoot? Is she a figment of your imagination, McLevy?’

  ‘She is real enough. And I shall find her out.’

  ‘You have done enough damage,’ said Roach. ‘Acting on your own half-baked assumptions, you have tried to link these murders to William Gladstone. You have bothered and bearded the lion in its den and, as I could have warned you had you the decency to keep me up to scratch, you have provoked the most implacable and punishing rebuttal.

  ‘You are out of your league, inspector. I may not like the man’s politics but he is one of the most powerful men in the country and a beacon of moral probity.

  ‘Yet, you have sought to draw him in. Without a shred, an iota of proof. Not a shred!’

  The lieutenant threw up his hands as if he had just seen a decent iron shot take a bad hop into a deep bunker.

  He shook his head and fell silent. Righteous wrath was an exhausting process.

  McLevy judged it time to try his luck.

  ‘Did Dr Jarvis examine the fingernails of the corpse?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘He did, sir,’ interposed Mulholland who thought he might make this remark without taking sides, ‘and found remnants of human skin under the first and second digits.’

  ‘No more than I noticed myself.’

  ‘And what was your deduction, sir?’

  Mulholland was trying to help, it was the least he could do after McLevy had rescued him from the bottomless pit; mind you, it was the inspector who had landed him there in the first place.

  ‘William Gladstone had two deep scrapes upon his wrist. He claimed to have received them felling trees.’

  ‘Are we to rove the streets arresting everyone who has a scrape upon them?’ was Roach’s flinty response.

  ‘I followed him last night. Myself. I saw him.’

  ‘You saw someone who looked like the man. In the fog. For a moment. And then disappeared. You saw nothing but your own desire to topple the statue of authority, and bring it crashing down.’

  There was enough truth in that remark to stop McLevy in his tracks.

  Roach spoke more in sorrow than anger, but not much more.

  ‘You were following a trail of pure circumstance which has led you to a hellish pass, McLevy. Why di
d you not tell me, your superior officer, of all this?’

  ‘I thought you might curtail the inquiry,’ was the only answer.

  ‘By God, I would have and am about to do so,’ said Roach with cold anger. He moved to his desk and scribbled his name on a piece of official-looking paper which he then slid towards McLevy.

  ‘You are now removed from the investigation. You will confine yourself to your domestic quarters for as much time as it takes this matter to blow over. Then and only then will you be allowed to return to the station with your tail between your legs. There will be, of course, an official reprimand put on your record. A heavy reprimand.’

  As McLevy slowly picked up the paper and squinted at it, Mulholland felt a hot flush run through him, but what was the emotion?

  ‘You can count yourself lucky,’ added the lieutenant. ‘Chief Grant wanted you reduced to the rank of third-class constable and banished to the dog patrol. I interceded on your behalf. Don’t make me regret my decision. Now, you may take your leave. Pick up your bed and walk.’

  McLevy seemed stunned by this turn of affairs.

  ‘I will take command of the inquiry, and Constable Mulholland, as some measure of reparation, will assist me.’

  The constable couldn’t look at his inspector as he walked to the door. The flush was pleasure. A malicious pleasure that he took no pride in, yet could not disown.

  McLevy usually had the last word, but not this time.

  That seemed to be left to Roach. He spoke with some sincerity because, despite their differences, he respected the fact that his inspector had brought home cases that many another couldn’t even begin to open the book on. But the man was a menace. An agent of chaos.

  ‘I blame myself, James. I have indulged you too long. It is my misfortune to be of such trusting nature. And it is your nature and consequent misfortune to take advantage of that trust. Hell mend the two of us.’

  He then reassumed a formal intonation.

  ‘You will not approach William Gladstone, or anyone connected to him, in the immediate or foreseeable future. If you do so, you will be dismissed from the force.

  ‘Go to your lodgings. Shut the portal. And stay there.’

  McLevy stood stock still at the door as if a thought had just struck him.

  ‘Have you anything to say?’ Roach asked in some desperation.

  ‘Carbolic soap,’ McLevy answered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Frank Brennan said the man who paid him smelled of such an odour. So did William Gladstone, this very morning.’

  Roach screwed his eyes tight hoping that when he opened them up again, everything would be different. But when he did, it was just the same.

  ‘Carbolic soap?’

  ‘The very odour.’

  The lieutenant’s jaw twitched.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘It’s my birthday soon,’ said McLevy.

  ‘Many happy returns,’ was the reply.

  The door closed. The inspector was gone. Mulholland couldn’t meet Roach’s eyes. The lieutenant signalled him to leave the office and the constable slipped gratefully away.

  Roach was left alone.

  He sighed and looked up at Queen Victoria. She had it easy.

  35

  By a Knight of Ghosts and Shadows,

  I summoned am to tourney.

  Ten leagues beyond the wide World’s end,

  Methinks it is no journey.

  ANONYMOUS BALLAD, Tom o’ Bedlam

  Leith, 7 April 1848

  Dear Jamie,

  By the time you read this, I shall have gone to join my beloved husband, Hughie, in Rosebank cemetery.

  After that, it is all in the mercy of God, although when I questioned the Reverend Strang about what was on my mind, he looked at me as if I had no right to ask and said, ‘Your sins will find you out.’

  He has aye been a miserable wee stick and never liked Hughie since the day somebody threw a Sabbath snowball at him and knocked his hat for sixpence. My husband came under suspicion for the act due to having a good eye and a merry disposition, but what harm is there in a ball of snow?

  I fear that Hughie’s sins may weigh more than mine. Besides the drinking, card playing and, I have to admit, occasional blasphemies under the influence, there was also the matter of various fancy women, one in particular, Olive the Gypsy.

  On his bended knees, he begged me for pity and I was moved by his passion. The Prodigal Sinner is always worth more than the unco guid. But I was informed by the same nosey-parker neighbour who brought me the news in the first place, her man working the bar in a low dive, The Foul Anchor, in the Leith docks, that Hughie’s knees were not to be trusted.

  He had taken up with Olive once more, the charms of a Romany bangle I suppose.

  I did not dare to ask him again because I knew I could not forgive him this time, so I took a mean revenge with Tam Imrie the cobbler. But I only did it the once, and Hughie did it all the time.

  I hope, wherever we both end up, that I’m not looking down at him or vice versa, or we’re both not looking at each other, level pegging, with the flames of hell spread out behind us.

  That’s what I was trying to ask the Reverend Strang. Without going into details, of course.

  I have one other thing on my conscience which is the reason for this letter.

  Not long ago you stood in front of me proud as punch because you had joined the police force. It’s the first time I’ve seen any colour in your cheeks and I was glad I had asked Judge MacGregor to put in a word, mind you he owed me enough for keeping that crabbit-faced wife of his stuffed with cream crowdie and clootie dumplings.

  Anyhow, I was glad for I know how much justice means to you, what with you not getting that much in your own life.

  We never spoke of that day you found your mother lying in bed with a throat she stabbed for herself, and I was grateful because I had not the wisdom to puzzle it out.

  But the one thing I lied to you about was your father. You often asked me when you were growing up about him and that your mother had always said that he was an Angel of the Lord.

  I always answered that it was a mystery to me, but in fact it was not so. I knew more than I was telling. Not much. But a wee bit.

  About the right time, by the calculation of the months which the Good Lord has set aside for the purposes of such, the number being nine before you made your appearance in the world, I met a young man in the hallway coming from your mother’s door. It was Easter Monday.

  The man was heavy set, white complexion, a sailor by his uniform. He nodded his way past me out the place and I never saw him again.

  I believe he may have been a foreign body. The Italian Navy had a ship in the harbour that very week, but Italians are swarthy skinned are they not?

  Anyway, Jamie. I think that might have been your Angel of the Lord.

  I have not the heart tae see your face when I break that news, you’ve had enough of a hammering.

  You are about to start a new life and I have no wish to spoil it with such miserable tidings, so I will give you this letter, sealed, with the solemn admonition that you do not open it till your fiftieth birthday.

  By that time, I will be long departed, and you will be of an age where you are able to bear pain as well as any other man. Which is to say, not much. But, enough.

  I hope you can forgive me. I have loved you as best I could even when you spilled that beetroot all over my best tablecloth.

  I hope that, by now, you are married with a tribe of children, but I doubt it.

  Something in your heart closed that day. Love and trust will never come easy to you.

  Except for me. You gave it all to me. And I have rewarded you by delaying the truth.

  Forgive me again. Be good. Your loving Aunt.

  Jean Scott

  McLevy’s hand trembled as he put aside the letter which he had now read many times since the opening of it.

  Happy Birthday. Well, that was one mystery sol
ved. Or was it? Best accept that he would never know.

  Every Easter Maria McLevy had waited for a knock at the door. No one came to call. She looked down at her son and put the fault upon him. He could not help her so she took her own life. No justice.

  To his astonishment, he found a trace of moisture in his eyes. But it was a trace only. Nothing a wipe with a hankie would not cure. See? All gone.

  And if he shed a tear, though he was certain this was merely an optic irritation, it was not for himself or his mother, but for Jean. It must have killed her carrying that secret all these years.

  He had to smile though at her having a wee dabble with Tam Imrie. Ye can never tell with women.

  No, you never can tell.

  An impatient scratch at the window took his attention elsewhere and he opened the frame to let Bathsheba slip past him into the room.

  Since he had come back in disgrace the cat had not visited. Perhaps word had reached the rooftops, but here she had now arrived. Was this an omen of sorts, or was it more likely the cold snap following the mild wet weather which had driven her indoors?

  As she made for her saucer of milk, he noticed that a subtle change had taken place. Usually the cat dived in, face down, not a care in the world, but now she seemed uneasy, the head coming up at any slight noise. That regal poise and grace of bearing, which Victoria to possess would have given her eye-teeth, had been disturbed. Her coat was a mite unkempt, the grooming perfunctory. What was going on?

  He knelt beside the cat and ran his fingers softly down the fur at the side of her neck.

  A low growl came in response and she flinched slightly before hunger drove her back to the milk.

  But he had felt the marks. She’d been pinned deep. Time would tell how deep it had gone.

  He poured out some more milk then left the beast to her own devices and a measure of peace as he picked up the coffee pot from the hearth and replenished his cup at the table which was positioned by the open window.

  McLevy sat back down and took a sip. It was black and bitter. Like his prospects.

  That damned woman Lightfoot had jiggered up his cat’s routine, chased Bathsheba out the window before her accustomed time so that she ran straight into a couple of big hairy toms, and had caused his own incarceration to boot. Happy Birthday.