by David Ashton
The beast paid no heed; the fugue that played within its mind was only set for killing. It charged. Bare feet certain on the slates, body powerful and full of fury, it came full tilt with intent to murder the sitting man.
McLevy had no choice.
He shot twice. The first impact to the chest slowed the beast a moment but still it hurtled on. The second hit near to the same spot and halted the onrush.
The creature let out a strangled cry of almost pathetic surprise and then toppled slowly over to roll down the slates, off the edge of the roof and down into the back green below on the other side of the terraces from the road beneath.
The cricket ball had come back down the slates and jumped the guttering to fall and bounce on the road then to be caught neatly by Doyle as if fielding at long-on.
McLevy stood and signalled below to show all was well though the blood pouring down from his nose might detail otherwise. Doyle waved exuberantly in response before heading off to see if he might gain entrance to the back of the terrace.
The inspector was in no hurry. The beast would not be leaving the scene. Not for a while.
A sudden dizzy spell near overcame him and he grasped at the stack to maintain his balance.
As he gazed down over the back streets, his eye was caught by a movement. A small figure in red, also cloaked, darted up a side alley then was gone.
Or was it a figment of imagination? For a moment he had the wild notion to hurl himself off and swoop down like a bird of prey, snatch the woman up in his claws.
Was it a woman? Was it anything at all?
The figure from his dream came in his mind and he felt a short stabbing pain in his chest. A cold sweat ran down his face and he gasped for breath.
Hold on. Hold on.
After some time, the pain passed.
He reassured himself. It was nothing. Running about on rooftops, all this exertion, thrown on his belly, proximity to violent death, no wonder he felt a wee bit of pain.
Any sensible man would.
It was nothing.
Though it was as if the dream were coming true and the case not yet solved.
By a long haul.
So…by the time McLevy had clambered down from the roof and got to the back green, Conan Doyle was already on hand looking down at the crumpled body, which lay face down upon the muddy earth and grass, the one arm outflung.
‘I’ll need that cricket ball as evidence,’ said McLevy, who by this instance had mopped up the blood with a large white hankie which he held against his nose.
Doyle nodded, not sure if this was a joke, both men’s adrenalin still pumping hard.
‘Have ye touched the corpus?’
‘I took the pulse. That is all.’
‘Good man. I take it death has occurred?’
Again Doyle nodded.
‘Nothing could survive that fall.’
McLevy took away the hankie and touched under his nose somewhat gingerly.
‘Whit’s that fancy word when the blood stops?’
‘Coagulation?’
‘It has occurred.’
The inspector looked at young Arthur.
‘I thank you, Mister Doyle,’ he said.
Doyle knew he was being thanked for more than just a fancy word, and said nothing.
They both gazed down at the body.
As well as not wanting to disturb the scene of the crime, Arthur had a strange dread of turning over the corpse where it lay.
Had he not partly caused the death?
‘Aye well,’ McLevy muttered. ‘Halloween is over now.’
He grasped the inert mass by the shoulder and pulled the body round with no great finesse; mind you, the beast had tried in its turn to end the inspector’s life.
An eye for an eye.
And there he was finally.
Facing up to heaven the handsome countenance distorted by impacted death and animal rage.
Magnus Bannerman.
McLevy bent down and sniffed the hair. Yes, and now he thought he might place the aroma. Sweet magnolia.
As the inspector came back up, Conan Doyle sighed.
‘Miss Adler will be devastated,’ he remarked in shock.
McLevy said nothing. One thing he knew. There would be hell to pay for this.
And a sore nose is a terrible thing.
36
Among the sheep set me a place and separate me from the goats, standing me on the right-hand side.
Order of Mass for the Dead
Sophia Adler indeed seemed devastated at first, the violet eyes glittering with incipient tears that she kept at bay while the watchful McLevy stood in her hotel room.
Just the two of them. He had arranged for the body of Bannerman to be transported back to the station in the carry wagon, and sent a somewhat shaken Conan Doyle home.
No doubt Big Arthur would have wished to be on hand with a manly arm for the delicate maiden, but as a civilian he had no place in the investigation at all, and Roach, when he discovered these events in the morning, would not be pleased that Doyle had even taken the part he did, without the young man being further embroiled.
Mind you, if it hadn’t been for that cricket ball…
However, Mister Doyle had a soft spot for Miss Adler and soft spots were not a requirement here.
So the inspector had kept his intentions away from Arthur and to himself, which was that despite the hour, having wrapped up the formalities as best he could and sent Doyle on his way with an admonition to leave things to the proper authorities at the proper time, McLevy had headed at once for the George Hotel.
He had been tempted to make detour to the lodging house and haul Walter Morrison from his uneasy bed, but that might come later.
No. First port of call was Sophia Adler.
The night porter had been most reluctant, given the unearthly hour, but a combination of the words murder investigation and McLevy’s lupine stare augmented by the smear of blood still hanging round the inspector’s nostrils convinced the man sufficiently to tap upon Sophia’s door and announce a policeman to be pending.
It did not take long for her to answer.
And it would seem she had not been asleep, the dressing gown and slippers already donned, blonde hair scraped back with a white headband to match her pale complexion.
McLevy was also parchment white, his pallor worse than usual from the painful proceedings of the night.
Accordingly they were like two ghosts as he entered, closed the door in the curious night porter’s face and then told her of the macabre series of events which had led to the death of Magnus Bannerman.
He left out the cricket ball and Conan Doyle in case it proved a distraction.
No gentle recitation. He wanted to hit her early and hard. This was murder and he himself had killed a man. It would haunt him for a long time and his mind would hold the vision of that body jolting with the impact of the bullets like the stuff of nightmare.
She was the key. He was now certain of that.
Yet he had never met someone so perfectly enclosed within themselves. So apparently untouchable.
And therefore he told her. Laid it on the slab.
Brutal rendition.
Her hand went to her throat and the aforementioned eyes glistened while he watched like a hawk.
The story so far.
‘Poor Magnus,’ she murmured. ‘I cannot quite believe –’
‘Oh it’s true enough. He fell like Icarus onto the back green. Broke every bone in his body.’
She went to the windows and pulled back the curtains to let the pallid light of early morning seep into the room.
‘And I have some questions I need to ask you, Miss Adler,’ McLevy continued.
‘Ask away.’
She turned from the window, he gestured to a chair; she refused with a shake of the head and so they stood like two survivors on a battlefield.
No quarter. Given or requested.
‘Whit do you know of these events?’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘A man you share a deal of your waking life with has turned from human form into a murderous beast, and you know nothing about it?’
‘Murderous?’
‘He most certainly killed Gilbert Morrison, was after his brother Walter and then deviated tae me. I’d call that murderous.’
‘I saw no sign of this.’
‘You with all your sensitive ways? Voices? Visions?’
The sardonic streak that underlay his tone struck home and her face tightened the merest fraction.
‘Magnus was a…hidden soul. Secretive.’
‘Surely not tae one of your abilities?’
‘We are all hidden from each other, inspector.’
He acknowledged the truth of that with a nod of sorts then returned to his theme.
‘You saw no sign of the beast he became?’
Into Sophia’s mind flashed an image of Magnus, his face contorted in pain.
Afterwards.
‘One thing. Of late, he…he endured the most terrible agony in his head. A blinding torment. Perhaps he was being split in two.’
‘Whit would cause that?’
‘The past. Everything comes from the past.’
‘I would agree. And you had no influence in all this?’
‘In what way?’
‘To engender this split?’
‘How should I accomplish such a thing?’
‘You talk of the powerful forces that surround you. Could Bannerman have been…distorted by them somehow?’
‘If so, it escaped me.’
McLevy wondered a moment whether to throw a name in her face but decided to hold fire.
Later. Wait for occasion.
‘What were your movements this night?’ he asked instead.
She showed no surprise at the question, almost as if she had been expecting such.
‘In the hotel. Resting. I had early supper sent to my room.’
He would check with the night porter but the man had been half-asleep when McLevy arrived and was no sentinel.
She could have left easily without scrutiny. Front or back. The kitchens below might well have an entrance onto the street. Hotels were like rabbit warrens.
‘Whit about Magnus? Did you see him leave?’
‘He makes – made – his own arrangements. We were not in each other’s pockets. He often went out at night with his own objectives in mind.’
‘Women? Murder? Rapine? Any ideas?’
For a moment the slightest trace of a smile showed on her lips; this man was not predictable.
A pity he suspected her so deeply.
‘It was his concern.’
‘Now it is mine.’
She frowned at something.
‘You have hurt your nose.’
McLevy wiped the damaged organ with the back of his hand, like a child in the playground.
‘Whit’s going tae happen tomorrow night?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh, I’m not searching out prediction. The Tanfield Hall. How can you mesmerise without your right-hand man?’
‘I shall think. And make my decision tomorrow.’
‘Thought’s a good thing, right enough.’
But he had a feeling that she had already made up her mind. She would go through with it. The woman had steel.
‘So – you allege not to have been out guising for Halloween?’
‘It is a fact. I have not left this place.’
The inspector began to wander around the room in an idle fashion, whistling a Jacobite tune under his breath; any member of the fraternity would have warned that a wolf was on the prowl.
‘D’ye have such a thing as a red cloak?’ he asked out of the blue.
Her eyes widened a touch but that may have been to do with the random quality of the query.
‘I am afraid I do not. Sorry.’
His eyes switched towards the clothes stand, which stood by the door. It held no cloak, just some scarves and bonnets. Then he looked at the closed wardrobe in a corner of the room.
As if reading his thought, she smiled thinly.
‘Be my guest, inspector.’
As he rummaged through the garments, conscious of her amused eyes on his back, McLevy found of course that there was no sign of such clothing, nor did any of the other coats show any sign of evening damp. So much for that.
He popped out again like a clockwork toy.
‘Whit about Magnus Bannerman – did he have a black cloak of sorts?’
‘Yes. I believe he did. Won it in a poker game. He used to wear it for fun.’
‘Fun?’
That wasn’t McLevy’s recollection of events.
And what Sophia did not add was that the wearing of such apparel and experiencing of such fun was within their bedroom walls.
Poor Magnus.
‘Did he…suffer much?’ she murmured.
‘Two bullets in the chest. As I said. Every bone broken. Blood from his ears. I’d say he suffered.’
She made no reply but nodded gravely as if his bleak description had not touched her. Just words.
McLevy had noted that Sophia had made no question about why he was interested in cloaks and the like.
A lack of curiosity in a suspect betokens many things; one of them is that they’re as guilty as hell and concealing the fact.
For the first time since entering, he walked up and stood close to her, face to face.
Her visage was clear, unlined, composed, and you could drown yourself in those violet eyes.
‘Forgive me for saying,’ he remarked, softly, ‘but ye don’t seem overly grief-stricken by the news I bring.’
‘I regard death as a bridge from life not the end of it,’ she replied succinctly.
‘If so, then Magnus Bannerman has much to answer for in the world of spirits.’
‘That is his doom.’
‘Nothing to do with you?’
‘Nothing at all.’
By now they were near enough that their breaths almost commingled, hers sweet, his fraught with blood.
Her eyes were fixed deep on his, and out of the blue she near knocked him into a sideways shock.
‘Your mother haunts you,’ she said.
‘Whit?’
‘She haunts you. A memory.’
‘My mother cut her throat. I found her. In the room I sat with her. And waited.’
He had blurted out a truth concealed for fear of the dark shame. A gang of children following Jamie McLevy through the wynds, sniggering, calling names of madness and contamination.
Why had he told this woman?
What was happening?
‘I feel such sorrow. In you.’
‘Is she out there wi’ the voices?’ he asked.
‘I am sure. Somewhere.’
‘Did you hear her?’
Sophia shook her head and he was suddenly like a bewildered child caught between belief and experience.
‘It came into my mind. I have no control over these forces. At times, they invade me. Body and soul.’
She gazed at him as if in supplication and a charge passed between them.
The child became a man. Priapic to boot.
Her lip trembled and the upright man wondered what it would be like to sink his teeth into that flesh.
As if in reflex, Sophia’s tongue passed along the upper lip leaving a glistening trail before disappearing inside her mouth.
It was as if everything had magnified, her lower lip sensual and pink.
Full and inviting.
The Valley of Venus.
And what would be the harm of delving in?
Only compromising the whole investigation by a kiss. And what followed. There would be no stopping what followed.
There was nothing in his vision but that face; the eyes, unmoving, fixed upon his own.
Those eyes began to lose focus, turn inwards towards each other and the effect was curiously erotic.
McLevy felt a force of such power drawing him to her, a psychic envelopment augmented by a jolt in the nether regions that had little to do with deductive faculties.
Passion. Pure and simple.
Neither pure nor simple.
Dangerous as hell and he was bent upon it.
Where would be the harm?
Then he had a vision of Magnus Bannerman sliding from the slates off the edge of the known world.
That’s where passion got you.
‘Aye well,’ he near whispered. ‘As you say. Everything in the past.’
He let out a mirthless laugh and drew back his head to shake it like someone emerging from a spell. His eyes swept once more around the room as if seeing it anew and something he had noticed from his earlier perambulation came to mind.
All the doors to the various rooms were ajar, save one. He had glimpsed into her bedroom and then a wee vanity recess of sorts, no doubt leading to the bathroom.
But there was a small room to the side with the door firm shut and a lock that he had no doubt was fast secure.
He spoke edgily, passion still lurking disappointed and frustrated. The flames not drowned.
‘Whit’s behind that wee door, eh?’
She looked to where he indicated, herself feeling an emptiness, cheated of fusion.
And fusion is a powerful weapon.
‘That is for my privacy,’ she replied tersely.
‘Where ye keep your secrets?’
‘Where I am private.’
To forestall further portal enquiries, she closed her eyes as if overwhelmed by events and sighed deeply.
‘I must ask you to leave me now, inspector. I have answered your questions as best I can. It is already morning and I have much to consider.’
‘No doubt ye have, no doubt.’
McLevy as usual had forgotten to remove his hat and tapped the crown as if to make sure the thing remained still on his head.
The Valley of Venus had been a close call and who knows but that the low-brimmed bowler had kept him safe.
He took one more jaunty tour round the room as if signalling a farewell voyage.
‘A messenger will be sent at some time to bring you to the station to identify the body of Mister Bannerman and make formal statement.’
He grinned like a wolf.
‘Clean him up, best we can, he will be recognisable.’
