Shadow of the Serpent

by David Ashton

  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 solved. 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.

  Jean’s letter was carefully replaced in its envelope and put inside his diary which, to be truthful, he had not had the energy to make an entry in these past few days.

  It was late afternoon, the light still holding as he looked out into the streets below. The passers-by were muffled up against the cold, breath puffing out like a steam train, all was back to normal.

  The Midlothian election result had been announced this very morning. Gladstone had won hands down. Sweet William.

  A terrible lethargy had settled upon him. Each day that passed was like another layer of dust.

  To keep his thoughts from shifting back to the contents of Jean’s letter and all the raw feelings it invoked, he replayed in his mind the last exchange of words between himself and Mulholland. Although that itself had not exactly been an ode to joy.

  As he had walked away from the station up Charlotte Street, heading for the Leith Links where the rain could really get at him, a shout came from behind. He knew the voice but did not turn round.

  He was filled with a terrible rage. He had never been taken off a case before; why had he not lifted up Roach’s desk and hurled it at the man? But he had felt paralysed, quite paralysed, by the rain and cold and the long walk back, and the exchange with Gladstone, the instinct that something was not quite right, and something was equally very wrong.

  His own desires, obsessions, played like a harp; something was behind it all, he knew it in his bones.

  Roach was correct. Circumstances had led him by the nose. Yet something was behind it all and he was like a blind man, led by the nose. And so his anger was directed against himself. Who better to batter?

  ‘Sir. Sir!’ Mulholland swung in front and brought McLevy to a halt.

  ‘How was the musical soirée?’ demanded the inspector, a savage grin on his face. ‘Did ye encounter anyone of interest? Any wee chookie birdies?’

  ‘What? Yes. Yes, I did,’ replied the nonplussed but slightly nettled constable. ‘Emily Forbes is the young lady’s name. And she is not a chookie birdie.’

  ‘The daughter of Robert Forbes?’ A reluctant nod from Mulholland who was wondering how he always ended up where he never intended to be when the inspector was in such a mood, like a matchstick boat in a raging gutter torrent.

  ‘I know him well!’ roared McLevy, oblivious to the rain pouring down his face. ‘He was once, like me, an investigator. We broke a bonded whisky swindle one time. Danced on the tables of the Old Ship till we fell off on our faces. But he is respectable now.’

  ‘He certainly seems to be,’ was the careful response.

  McLevy stuck his face close in to Mulholland, his eyes were bloodshot, face unshaven, the wild man of the forest.

  ‘Well, you hang in with respectability,’ he said with a mirthless smile. ‘Because that’s where ye belong. That’s where your bread is buttered! Sook, sook!’

  He brushed past Mulholland and headed up into the slanting downpour.

  The constable was hurt and angry, his overture not even made, already rejected.

  ‘It’s not my fault things turned out to be so!’ he shouted after.

  The figure of McLevy carried on walking as if not having heard, then, as the street rose to a small crest, he turned and shouted back.

  ‘I am sure yourself and Lieutenant Roach will solve these murders in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. I look forward to that. Remember when you kiss his backside, it’s to be right in the middle. Don’t deviate. In the meantime I advise you to shun my presence lest you be contaminated by the desire for justice!’

  Thus was the parting.

  McLevy took another sip of his coffee and made a face. It was cold. So was his bond with Mulholland but better that way. Keep the young man out of trouble. Till the game was played through. He would wait for the next move. He knew it would come. Something was behind it all.

  The cat had been nesting in one of the armchairs, treading the cushion to make herself comfortable, when she suddenly leaped from the chair and out of the window in two jumps, hair standing on end.

  In his preoccupation, he had heard nothing, but now the creaking floorboards presaged a visit.

  Rap-a-tap-tap on the door. His landlady this time for sure. He opened it a crack, foot poised to forestall Fergus if the dog smelled departed feline. It whined but nothing more. Mrs MacPherson peered in at him. He’d never known a more mis-doubting tribe than the Dundonians. Born wary.

  She pushed an envelope through the narrow aperture which divided them.

  ‘This was handit in for ye,’ she announced. ‘A wee street boy. Paid tae deliver. A woman, he said.’

  She still held on to the envelope which he now had at least his fingers upon. Her face was dubious.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs MacPherson,’ McLevy smiled as best he could, while he tugged the envelope out of her hand. ‘It is not a love letter. The reputation of your house is yet above reproach.’

  ‘Ye’re getting a lot of visitors these days.’

  ‘It’s the weather,’ he replied, closing
the door gently on her then listening to her departing footsteps on the stairs before he examined the missive.

  It seemed to be his day for envelopes. He sniffed at the paper. The faintest touch of rose perfume, very delicate, no wonder Mrs MacPherson was suspicious.

  He took the envelope to the window where the light was better, sliced open down the join with his thumb, and brought out two pieces of paper. One vellum with writing inscribed; the other, tissue, wrapping something within. He read as follows.

  W.G. will celebrate his triumph tonight in the family house at Fasque. My friend has the secret diary and will meet you in the funeral vault on the hour of nine. The diary has all the proof you need in his own entries. You must bring this paper with you as evidence of identity. I cannot be there. I am otherwise engaged. J.L.

  McLevy almost spat in disgust at these words. What did the woman think he was? Otherwise engaged? What the hell did that mean?

  And yet his eye was drawn back to the words … all the proof you need.

  And then there was a postscript.

  The other was found where the diary was hidden. I remembered your words, ‘a silent witness’.

  He slowly unravelled the tissue paper and found in its depths a fragment of white plume. The feather part was, to some extent, dried and shrivelled, but the spine was intact and showed where it had been snapped through.

  McLevy moved quickly to the cupboard, brought out the mother-of-pearl box, opened it, and carefully, from its wrapping, teased out Sadie Gorman’s broken and grubby panache.

  He pulled out a drawer in the table, took out a magnifying glass and a piece of plain white paper. The two pieces were then slid together over the paper, his fingers trembling a little as this was accomplished.

  He looked through the glass.

  It could not be denied. A perfect match.

  36

  ‘Take the hand and say you do not know it.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Lay your hand upon that face and say you do not know it.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Place your hand upon that bosom and say you do not know it.’

  ‘I do not.’

  Inverness. A murderer’s testified denial,

  upon the body of his victim.

  The castellated turrets of Fasque House had withstood stronger blasts than this April wind. Indeed it was a mere snipe of a breeze which made no impression on the golden stones. The lights were blazing, and there was a sound of merriment and music from within which would not quite carry to Balmoral Castle fifteen miles away.

  Even if the noise had and were the Queen in residence, which she was not, being tucked away safely in Baden-Baden, it is doubtful that she would have joined in the joyful celebrations, her worst fears realised, her champion unhorsed.

  McLevy wasn’t celebrating either as he hunched his way up the long drive towards the stately mansion. The coach journey to nearby Laurencekirk had taken an eternity and then he’d had to scrounge a lift to the outskirts of Fettercairn and follow by tramping the rest of the way in this nagging wife of a wind.

  The import of Roach’s words kept circling in his mind.

  If the inspector approached Gladstone, he would be dismissed from the force. Not an idle threat.

  But he wasn’t going to meet William head on, more … discover his way around. A glancing encounter.

  Thus, falsely reassuring himself but feeling doom in the pit of his stomach nevertheless, he pressed onwards.

  Luckily the main gates had been wide open and he’d already watched pass by two carriages of cheery gentlefolk who no doubt by this time were well inside, warm as toast, drinking a health to the Great Man and then each other. They had paid no heed to the dark figure skulking along the verge like a plague carrier to the feast.

  An exposed huge swathe of grassland lay in front of the large doors of Fasque House, which opened and shut like a hungry mouth to gobble up the jovial visitors.

  The houselights spilled on to this lawn with fine abandon and, in the darkness out of the circle of this artificial radiance, the eyes of nature glittered in the night as some curious deer gathered to witness the spectacle. But not too close lest they be seen and some celebrant lean out of the window to let loose a shot.

  For that same reason, McLevy also skirted the edges of the light. He was searching for a building suited to darker purposes.

  And there it was. Not far from the house but far enough that the music would not waken the dead and the dead not disenchant the living. The Gladstone family vault.

  The stone glowed faintly in the surrounding gloom: four pillars with a flat slab of a roof and an iron railing placed around, of which the gate had been thoughtfully left, as he found when he tried it, unlocked and open to the touch.

  Before he descended the worn stone stairs to the opening of the crypt, McLevy felt in his pocket for the comforting weight of an old black revolver. His lifesaver.

  He cleaned it every month before replacing the weapon in its oilskin pocket. Aunt Jean had given it him on his twenty-first birthday, to protect him when she was gone.

  She claimed her husband Hughie had gained it in a card game with some excise men who had confiscated it off a rum smuggler from Jamaica, but McLevy doubted that.

  He had fired the gun twice in the line of duty. Once he’d missed, once he’d hit. But since it was at the same man, a blackmailing bastard who was shooting back at him, one cancelled out the other.

  The wind whistled round his ears and McLevy realised he’d taken refuge in the past to avoid the present.

  No more of that. This uneasy breeding of hesitation must be rectified. He took the revolver from his pocket and grasped it firmly in his hand as he walked down the slippery mosscoated steps. The entrance to the crypt was black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat. He poked his head inside.

  ‘I am James McLevy, inspector of police,’ he called softly. ‘Whoever is there, make yourself known and let us parlay.’

  Silence. The wind swithered above. He took a deep breath to calm himself and walked into the darkness of the tomb.

  The air was cold and clammy but what else was to be expected from a congregation of long-dead bodies?

  The inspector shuffled forward in the dark, all senses alert for danger. He might strike a lucifer but that would make a target of him and he felt his big backside was already sticking out quite far enough.

  Then he saw a glimmer of light. It appeared to be coming from behind the defining edge of the sepulchre. He moved softly and, bending down so as not to be visible above the flat surface of the stone, sneaked a look around the corner.

  A small candle flickered on the stone ledge of a bricked-up window.

  It illuminated the shape of a book that lay beside, uneven pages protruding from the leather binding. On top of the book was a small bell.

  Bell, book and candle. Were they not the auguries of excommunication?

  ‘The dramatic in me,’ said a voice behind him.

  The man who had been lying perfectly still, arms crossed, on the top of the sepulchre, had swung silently off the stone surface hindward of the inspector. He reached forward, one hand to pull back the head, the other thumb and first finger to press hard just below the lobes of the ears before McLevy could swing round with the revolver.

  Unconsciousness followed, like a lamb the shepherd.

  37

  Our torments may, in length of time,

  Become our elements.

  JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost

  The chapel of Maris Stella was empty, the pungent odour of incense still hanging in the air after the last service had been intoned and the faithful departed.

  The altar boys had taken off their gowns and left, no doubt after trying the lock of the cupboard where the holy wine was kept and finding it, as usual, made fast.

  Father Callan did not begrudge them the exploration. Boys will be boys, and when holy robes are removed, animal nature often reasserts itself.

  The young a
re entitled to their wild ways, the heavy duties of adulthood come soon enough.

  The bishop, of course, might have quite another view. He clove to a most severe authority, but then it was rumoured he had once whispered in Pope Pius’s ear not long before His Holiness departed this mortal coil.

  Or was it that Pope Pius had whispered in the bishop’s ear?

  Whatever. They were in whispering distance and the little priest had never got closer to the Universal Father than a large portrait of Pius on the wall in the bishop’s study, when he delivered to his superior a monthly report on the comings and goings of the Leith congregation.

  It was said the recently ascended pontiff, Leo XIII, was a forward thinker. Hard to tell from his portrait which had been stuck up opposite Pius, but Father Callan hoped so. God knows the Church needed such.

  There were many of the cloth who would not agree, but then he had always regarded himself as a secret radical.

  He had arrived a young man from Ulster at the height of the Great Famine to find the congregation, a large part composed of recently emigrated Irish Catholics, driven hard in on themselves by a hostile society and clinging to the skirts of Mother Mary for spiritual consolation.

  Callan was supposed to be a small cog in the holy machine of this fine new building who would make way for bigger wheels, but somehow he had got stuck in the works and now, thirty years later, he was still on hand.

  He lived amongst the poor. He blessed them, visited the sick, comforted and buried them. As best he could.

  His superiors wafted past, rings glittering in the candlelight, and looked down from a great distance at this worker ant who, when he gave service, wore his robes like a blacksmith wears his apron.

  He was regarded with benign condescension, but they left him alone and that was all he asked.

  To be left alone. To labour. To do God’s will.