Shadow of the Serpent

by David Ashton

  Gladstone’s cheeks were unwontedly flushed: red wine and the press of bodies. He would have a headache in the morning, deranged liver and bowels, castor oil prescribed; oh yes, he would have a dreadful headache.

  She hid her smile behind the fluted glass and watched as, around his ungainly figure, some quite beautiful women fluttered like butterflies, drawn to the fire, the source of power. Butterflies.

  Or was it moths? They burnt in ecstasy at the flame. She had once viewed them die in a hotel room in Venice, the window open on a hot airless night, a single candle in the lamp to lure the prey to death.

  They had wagered on the number. She had lost. The forfeit had been deliciously degrading.

  Soon, she would be back in his arms. Safe and damned. But not yet, there was much yet to do.

  She checked the french windows through which they had agreed he would enter, their being left a little open despite the chill of the evening to let the smoke of best-quality cigars escape into the night.

  He had not yet appeared.

  To still the tremor of anxiety she turned back and surveyed the magnificent drawing room and double cantilevered staircase, thronged with elegant figures, gowned and suited, laughing and gay, mouths open, eyes sparkling. And yet, despite it all, there was an animalistic quality to the crowd she found … quite repugnant.

  A realisation that she was looking at it through his eyes. So be it. Who better?

  Fasque had been inherited by Tom Gladstone, the eldest brother, who had always lived in William’s shadow and was doing so once more, somewhere in the happy gathering. There was coolness between him and the Great Man; little wonder since Tom was a staunch Tory and she wondered if William had demanded the reception here, just to spite his brother.

  Through the library doors she glimpsed the figure of Lord Rosebery, his doughy complexion and pale hazel eyes more pronounced than usual.

  After victory was announced, a torchlight procession had arrived at the George Street house to be addressed by first Gladstone, and then Rosebery. But that was as near as his lordship would get for a while. He did not have the common touch, mostly because he detested the masses. He was a misanthrope. He detested everyone. Except himself.

  Horace Prescott leaned forward to murmur something in his master’s ear and was rewarded with a pale smile. Both men stared at Gladstone and somewhere else, she was sure, no doubt guzzling champagne and stuffing his face from the trays of food proffered by an ill-qualified retinue of local girls and tradesmen masquerading as servants, was little George Ballard.

  She liked George, he was a treacherous soul but he had some value. He spent much of his time trying to insult her in various ways or shock with lewd insinuations, but she had enjoyed the tale of him sneaking down the cellar steps of a rampant bawdy house to spy Horace being soundly flagellated.

  He had slapped Prescott hard on the back, next day.

  Dear George.

  He, too, would have his eye on Gladstone and she was reminded of a painting she had once viewed. The leader of a pack of lions. Isolated in his own pride. Only surviving so long as he had the strength to keep the claws of others at bay.

  For a moment she felt obscurely sorry for the old man and almost regretted the part she would play in his downfall but then Gladstone turned to smile at her.

  Ah yes. A strange bond. She would have no difficulty persuading him to the family vault that they might both pray and give thanks for victory at Jessy’s tomb.

  She would kneel at his feet and look up with adoring eyes. Sweet William liked that. He would put his hand upon her shoulder and she would shake as if moved by a secret desire she could not name. He liked that even more.

  An obsequious sexuality, charged and hidden, under the cloak of worship. Not a word said, not a carnal touch, but he relished her submissive adulation.

  As the Serpent had once remarked, she was an artist in erotic transference.

  Catherine Gladstone, noticing the direction of her husband’s gaze, also smiled over. The woman had borne his various obsessions with beautiful creatures of low and high degree, being assured for herself that he would be incapable of the act of infidelity to the marriage bed.

  But did she consider delectatio morosa, adultery of the heart, the insidious delight in contemplating the evils of lechery without actually committing same?

  The good wife saw no danger here and thus smiled over. A mistake on her part, as she would soon discover.

  Another look to the window. Nothing. Damnation. Run through the strategy again.

  She would move back as if to allow Gladstone a time of private prayer with his daughter, then render him a moment unconscious. She had been taught well in that particular skill. Drag out the body of McLevy from its hiding place, God grant it wasn’t too bloody and she didn’t see the face. Then press the axe into Gladstone’s hand, wait for him to show signs of recovery, run back to the top of the steps and scream back into the house till people arrived.

  The story would be simple. Gladstone had used her as cover for a rendezvous, knowing her to be a simple and obedient soul. He had instructed her to wait outside the crypt but she heard shouts and then a single scream and, taking her courage in both hands, crept timidly down the steps to find a hideous carnage.

  Sir Edward Graham, an honoured guest and high official in Her Majesty’s security forces, would lead the pack and take command.

  And there he was! Out of the corner of her eye she observed him stroll elegantly through the french windows. Her lover. The Serpent.

  The timing was perfect. Gladstone, for a moment, had separated from the crowd. Perhaps he sought adoration from a different source and she would supply that.

  She waited for the signal. The Serpent would take out a cigar, light it up, then move into the throng.

  But he did not. Instead he looked at her. This broke the rules. Direct contact was to be avoided until the task was completed, and then the most strenuous consummation might be enjoyed but not till then!

  She had to meet his gaze. The intensity brought her eyes round to lock with his. He smiled. A clumsy servant jostled him, and the black silk scarf parted to reveal a spreading patch of blood on the white shirt.

  This time, the death she saw in the Serpent’s eyes was his own.

  He fell to his knees and sprawled out his length upon the floor.

  One of the maids screamed and dropped a tray of glasses. The sharp noise cut through the babble to produce a most profound silence.

  And in that silence, to fill the Serpent’s place in the opening to the outside world, as if by magic, stepped the figure of James McLevy.

  A bloody axe in hand which he laid upon a silver tray and, noticing a cup nearby, availed himself of a jolt of coffee before turning to stare, slate-grey eyes in the white face, straight at her.

  The inspector knew. The game was up. Her lover was dead. What did it matter?

  She had stood there paralysed but now she slowly removed the thick glasses from the bridge of her nose and dropped them on the floor. She reached up for the wig, pulled it from her head and shook the golden hair free.

  Then, like the Serpent, she spread her fingers and passed them deliberately over her face.

  The pinched features spread and relaxed.

  Then the stooped hunched figure of Jane Salter straightened to become Joanna Lightfoot. And stayed that way. Transformed unto herself.

  McLevy did not seem surprised.

  The silence was broken by the voice of William Gladstone.

  ‘God preserve us!’ he announced.

  41

  That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light,

  The fate of a nation was riding that night.

  HENRY LONGFELLOW, Tales of a Wayside Inn

  When Lieutenant Roach, in his hours-of-darkness sleep, dreamed about golf, the route to the hole consisted of inaccessible staircases and weird conduits which became more and more difficult with each nightmarish twist.

  But once, only once, he
had dreamt of a verdant fairway sloping gently upwards and had then hit a drive which soared a bisecting arc to the most perfect lie.

  When he reached the ball, however, he noticed with a sinking heart that the green which lay fairy-bower-like on a small plateau, was just as far from him now as it had been when he first struck the shot.

  Progress is an illusion.

  For some reason this had come into his mind as he looked across the desk at James McLevy.

  The inspector stood at attention, freshly shaved and pomaded, hair for once in some kind of order. He had even pressed, or someone had, his uniform, trousers and tunic all shipshape and made ready.

  He looked like a man you could trust, a man for an emergency, a man who also knew his place in the great grand scheme of things.

  It was a truly sinister sight.

  Mulholland stood a little behind him to the side, which is where the young man belonged. How could he hope to match this resplendent vision?

  ‘I don’t know how you did it, McLevy,’ said Roach. ‘But you have somehow redeemed your stupidity. If I had been where you found yourself, against instruction and flouting every rule in the book, I would have had a cardiac seizure and had to lie down in the long grass.

  ‘You must have a guardian angel, that’s all I can say, because your ignorance of common sense is matched only by a complete inability to recognise danger when it is full in your face and ready to strike home!’

  The inspector could have said much but he averted his eyes modestly. Besides, he sensed that Roach’s heart wasn’t fully committed to further reprimand.

  Chief Constable Grant had been summoned before the even higher heid-yins to be told that a crisis of state had been averted by the prompt action of a humble inspector from Leith station.

  The precise detail had not been released and never would be, but Leith was now the toast of the Edinburgh force and its gallant leader, Lieutenant Roach, to be commended.

  Through gritted teeth, the chief constable had done so, and the lieutenant had enjoyed every moment of watching his bullying superior crawl up his own backside.

  Mason or no mason, Brother Grant owed Brother Roach an apology and it would get round the lodge in no time.

  Brother Roach would see to that.

  For a second there was something that almost approached a smile on Roach’s face, then, catching McLevy’s eye, he reached into his bag of frowns and stuck one on.

  ‘You redeemed yourself. By the skin of your teeth. The next time, you may not be so lucky. And let there not be a next time, because if there is, then, as I have already just remarked, you may not be so lucky, and that is undeniable and a fact!’

  The lieutenant had got himself in a fankle. Not for a moment did McLevy’s face register this.

  ‘I’ll bear all that in mind, sir,’ he replied. ‘How did your own investigation proceed?’

  This innocent-sounding query provoked some tension between Roach and the constable.

  ‘It got nowhere!’ Roach’s jaws snapped together. ‘The constable spent most of his time shaking his head over my suggested lines of enquiry.’

  McLevy turned to look in seeming astonishment at Mulholland whose mouth had set in stubborn lines.

  ‘Diagrams. With all due respect, sir. Lines going from one spot to another. On a piece of paper.’

  Roach’s lips thinned. ‘I was applying scientific theory.’

  ‘In my experience,’ Mulholland thought to hell with it, I’ll never get that leave anyhow, ‘the only place to solve a crime is where it was committed. On the street.’

  ‘In your experience?’

  Roach was near apoplectic and this was obviously a sore point between them that, in normal times, McLevy would have enjoyed witnessing till the cows came home.

  But he had an appointment to keep.

  ‘I’m sure the lieutenant would have led you in the right direction, constable,’ he ventured with an emollience which took Mulholland’s breath away, ‘as he has done with my good self, so many times.’

  He inclined his head gravely towards the lieutenant who responded in kind. McLevy tried for another.

  At times like these ye cannae have too many nods, was his thought.

  ‘And I must ask you, sir, if I may resume my activities in the parish? Crime never sleeps.’

  Roach pondered. ‘How are your scrapes healing up?’ he enquired of the injuries McLevy had so recently incurred in the line of duty.

  ‘On the mend, sir. On the mend.’

  ‘Then, you may resume,’ said Roach. ‘And take Mulholland with you; he is of no further use to me.’

  Then, as they moved to the door, Roach surprised himself.

  ‘You have my thanks, James,’ he said. ‘Only you could have brought this off. Therein lies your strength and your potential downfall.’

  Then the dark Presbyterian fear of being too effusive seized him, and he added a footnote to his thanks.

  ‘You don’t deserve them, but you have them anyway.’

  ‘In that case I may ask a favour of ye, sir?’

  ‘Ask away.’

  ‘I know Constable Mulholland desires a small leave of absence to attend the betrothal of a close relative. I wonder, might we spare him for a few days?’

  ‘I shall try to notice his absence,’ muttered Roach, which was his way of responding in the positive.

  As McLevy and a dazed Mulholland were about to pass through the door, Roach could not resist a last dig.

  ‘And Mulholland? Mrs Roach still has her eye on you for a tenor voice. Let us hope you survive the scrutiny. She the blackbird, you the worm!’

  They closed the door on the snort of his laughter and McLevy hummed contentedly under his breath as the two surveyed the station.

  The morning shift had just left, Sergeant Murdoch was contemplating a tin mug of sweet tea and Ballantyne, as befitted the youngest and most recently recruited, was at a table laboriously copying out reports.

  He looked up, smiled shyly, and bowed his head in grave acknowledgement of a shared triumph.

  McLevy smiled back but there was an element of worry in his eyes. The boy had a gentle and trusting nature, a bad combination for a policeman.

  Whereas Mulholland now … a different kettle.

  The inspector turned to regard the wary face of his constable.

  Beat him to the punch. Just for mischief.

  ‘What was all that about diagrams?’

  Mulholland moved them away from Roach’s door just in case the lieutenant had his ear against the panelling.

  ‘The man is all theory,’ he muttered. ‘Good enough behind the desk and a fine superior officer, don’t mistake me now – ’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.’

  ‘But – he thinks everything can be solved with a pen! Names here, times there, arrows pointing, lines running like a chicken with its head chopped off. It got us nowhere. I mean …’

  Mulholland looked down at McLevy from a great height.

  ‘… at least you think you know what you’re doing, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Mulholland.’ McLevy rubbed at his eyes as if to hold back a well of appreciation. ‘I shall treasure that remark till the end of my days.’

  He made to turn away but the constable had more to say.

  Here it comes, thought the inspector.

  ‘How did you know I needed time away, and the reason for it, if I may so ask?’

  ‘You may.’

  McLevy assumed an air of gravity, as if examining a witness in court.

  ‘Your Aunt Katie sent you a card, did she not?’

  ‘She did indeed.’

  ‘On that card were the precise details of the wedding and your requested presence, were they not?’

  ‘They were so.’

  ‘That card was sticking out of your coat pocket as it lay on the hook, was it not?’

  ‘It might have been.’

  ‘Some careless person, Sergeant Murdoch possibly, must have brushed agai
nst the coat and dislodged the card. I found it on the floor, and, returning same, could not fail to notice what was writ thereupon.’

  ‘Thereupon?’

  ‘In a nutshell.’

  McLevy looked innocently into the hard suspicious eyes of his constable, then decided to take the offensive.

  ‘Therefore when you were sookin’ up tae the lieutenant I knew exactly your motive. Why did ye not confide in me?’

  Mulholland stepped back a little.

  ‘I … I … didn’t think you’d have an interest.’

  ‘Ye mean ye thought you’d find a sleekit way to avoid me altogether. Never mind, let that be and answer me the following question, but come up honest this time!’

  How is it, when dealing with McLevy, you always ended up, no matter where you started from, at the back of the position you had formerly occupied?

  ‘Go ahead,’ Mulholland said glumly.

  ‘Ye had a chance to redeem yourself, like me. Ye could have kissed his backside over these diagrams, why did ye not so?’

  ‘Because it was a murder investigation,’ came the reply. ‘And some things cannot be passed.’

  Not for a moment did McLevy indicate the pleasure he derived from that rejoinder. But he was glad he had pressed the favour out of Roach. Very glad.

  ‘I’ll make a policeman out of you yet, Mulholland.’

  ‘I look forward to that, sir.’

  For a moment they shared an ironic appreciation of each other’s faults and virtues, then McLevy moved abruptly away towards the station door.

  ‘Ye can thank me for my intercession by the purchase of a hooker o’ whisky at the Old Ship the morrow night, but for the moment I have an appointment to keep.’

  ‘Not another secret mission?’

  The question brought McLevy round. His face sombre.

  ‘Not exactly. But it is something I must do. In common with the man whose life I took, I do not enjoy loose ends.’

  Then he was gone.

  Mulholland had come out of it smelling of roses. He had got his leave and the lieutenant would soon forget his chagrin. One decent putt would see to that.