Fall From Grace (18 page)

‘Then ye can remain an ignorant Irish pig!’

Mulholland flushed red and Dunbar tensed himself but now it was McLevy’s turn.

‘So that is why you stole. They owed you.’

‘They did. And threw me off the job for no reason.’

‘How so?’

‘That bastard Alan Telfer!’

‘The right hand of Sir Thomas?’

‘A minion! He sneaked in. I was the foreman, no bugger knew as much of the iron-moulding as me. But as soon as that bridge was built, he threw me out.’

‘There must have been a reason?’

‘He sneaked in the foundry. Witnessed me. I had drink taken.’

‘That’s a surprise,’ was the dry response.

‘It was my birthday!’ Dunbar said defensively.

Now it was Mulholland’s occasion for silence as he watched McLevy manipulate the exchange so that the other was forever on the back foot. Yet the inspector somehow gave the impression that he and Dunbar were working towards a common end, uncovering the truth together as it were, though that would change at some point, the constable would have wagered his carefully tended Protestant soul upon it.

‘So,’ McLevy mused thoughtfully, ‘to assuage your hurt feelings and empty pockets, you removed from the possession of your former employers, that which you believed rightfully belonged to yourself as compensation for unfair dismissal?’

Dunbar had momentary difficulty in following this somewhat convoluted reasoning, but got there eventually and near nodded his head off in agreement.

‘That is correct. The bastards!’

McLevy smiled and also nodded, all friends together, but then leant back again, folded his hands together, this time more resembling a Buddha than a priest, and waited.

Hercules felt obscurely summoned to contribute more.

‘And it wasnae the first time,’ he affirmed.

Mulholland’s long nose twitched in apparent bewilderment.

‘It wasn’t the first time you had broken into the place?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘Not at all you had? Or not at all you had not?’

‘For the love of Christ,’ Dunbar muttered indignantly. ‘Not at all I hadnae.’

He shook his head at McLevy as if to say, ‘How do you endure this great gowk?’ and received a complicit headshake in reply, yet the two policemen were playing him like a hooked fish.

Hercules felt an ill-founded sense of well-being; he and the inspector might be sworn enemies but there was respect to be paid on each side.

Unlike this dozie from the bogs of Ireland.

He ignored Mulholland altogether and addressed McLevy as close to an equal.

‘It wasnae the first time I had asked for my due. I banged upon their door.’

‘And when would that be?’ asked his almost equal.

‘Not long since. A Sabbath day. Sir Thomas wasnae on the premises.’ Dunbar puffed up importantly as if he had hammered on the portal like a creditor. ‘I was taken to Alan Telfer and there I made my just demand.’

‘What was his response?’

Dunbar’s face darkened with chagrin.

‘The bastard laughed at me.’

‘He was a brave man,’ McLevy observed, a tinge of admiration to his tone as if he believed Dunbar a fellow to be reckoned. ‘Or a foolish one, eh?’

‘He threatened me wi’ the police.’

‘Well that’s where you’ve ended up, right enough.’

This comment from Mulholland was treated by the other two with the contempt it deserved, and then McLevy hopped off the table to drag over the second chair so that he and Dunbar sat together like two old men on a park bench.

‘Surely he could have just shown you to the door like a gentleman, why threaten you, Herkie?’

‘Because I threatened him,’ the man boasted.

‘With what?’

For a moment Dunbar almost blurted out what was in his mind, but then his instinctive feral cunning kicked in and he closed his eyes, shaking his head, a self-important smile on his face to indicate the depth of the secrets he held.

Perhaps it had something to do with this mysterious Beaumont Egg the man had mentioned to tantalise Mulholland, or perhaps Dunbar was giving himself airs to cover the fact that he had gone cap in hand to be treated like a doorstep beggar, but it was time now for the subject of murder.

‘So you had your vengeance, eh?’

‘I did indeed.’

‘While they were snoring, the Great Man and his secretary –’

Here, Dunbar suddenly let out a loud snigger. ‘Aye, like dirty pigs.’

The man had a sly look upon his face but McLevy did not wish to pursue this divergence from the main narrative.

‘While they were snoring,’ he continued, ‘you made a fool of them, robbed them blind.’

‘Whit was my due,’ asserted Dunbar complacently, not realising that he was in the process of tying a noose around his own neck.

McLevy leant forward from his chair, faced away from Dunbar and made a little movement with his hand like a man feeding bread to the ducks.

He spoke softly almost in a whisper, as if they were both witnessing the scene.

‘You went into the study and looked around, what could you take to make up for the wrongs committed? And there was the candlestick, what better? Inscribed to Sir Thomas who gets all the credit for your labour, the crime fits the insult, eh?’

Dunbar nodded his appreciation of McLevy’s grasp of the subtle under-currents to this event while Mulholland, who would be an important witness at trial, trained his large pink ears towards the two men, side by side, all friends together.

McLevy carried on with his reconstruction in a soft mesmeric tone, which his superior Lieutenant Roach would have found hard to recognise and alarming to witness, like a wolf lying down with lambs.

‘Out you came, into the hall, quiet as a mouse, and there in front of you was Archibald Gourlay, the butler, another quiet man. Face to face. In from the street while you were busy about your righteous task, a wee bit shaky on his feet, whisky on his breath, the drink is a terrible thing, eh Herkie?’

For a moment Hercules Dunbar hesitated, and then nodded assent.

‘He was puggled, right enough.’

‘A terrible thing, the drink.’ The inspector bowed his head in the sorrow of wisdom.

Mulholland also bowed his head but it was to hide the light of triumph in his eyes. They had him now.

Or had they?

McLevy continued, his voice quiet and reassuring, as if impending death was to be a pleasant surprise.

‘And of course a man as strong as you would not dream of doing harm to a man as old as that, no. Not smash his head with a candlestick as the constable was daft enough to suggest but perhaps, by accident, you wished to escape, he stood in your way, you gave him a wee gentle push, is that the way of it?’

‘Aye,’ said Dunbar slowly. ‘Jist a wee push.’

‘And down he fell?’

‘Over his own feet.’

‘A terrible thing, the drink. A man of his age should know better, eh?’

‘Dangerous, right enough.’

McLevy and Dunbar nodded together, wise beyond their years, and Mulholland tried not to catch the suspect’s eye lest it break the spell.

‘So, one minute he was there before ye, and the next?’

McLevy held up his hands palms outward as if to ward off unwarranted accusation.

‘Out of sight. Down the stairs. Arse over elbow.’

He laughed heartily as though no harm had been done, a comical event, like Humpty Dumpty falling, like the old man who would not say his prayers; Dunbar laughed also but then a strange look came into his eyes.

‘Not down the stairs,’ he said slowly. ‘I left him in the hall. On his arse right enough. But … in the hall. It was me went doon the stairs. I ran like hell. Then, out the window.’

The inspector’s eyes narrowed; either the man had realised he was about to hang himself or the invented structure did not fit what had actually taken place.

He kept his tone pleasant, try again.

‘Well that’s a puzzle Herkie, because I found him at the bottom of the steps.’

He forbore to add, ‘With his head split open, because you crashed something into it, you murderous evil snaffler.’

Try again. One step at a time. Tie him in with a silken cord, the rope can arrive later.

‘Maybe what transpired. He followed you. On the stairs. Grabbed at you. Called out. Made a big noise. You shoved free, a wee push. Down he fell into the scullery. You left him there. Sitting. On his backside. Like you said, eh?’

Dunbar shook his head promptly and McLevy knew he had lost the man.

‘No. He didnae say a word. Ever. Jist sat doon wi’ a bump. I left him sitting. In the hallway. Looking at me. His mouth was open. But he didnae say a word.’

‘What about his head?’ asked an exasperated Mulholland who also knew that their hard work was all in vain and as his Aunt Katie would have said, ‘You can lead a horse to clear water but what if the creature is devoid of thirst?’

‘It was fine,’ came the stolid reply.

‘Not a great big wound in it, then? Full of the joys of spring, was he?’

This irony from the constable was wasted on Dunbar.

‘He was fine,’ was the answer.

‘Fine?’

McLevy suddenly stood and kicked away the chair so that it skittered across the room to crash into the wall, much in the manner of Big Nosed Kate.

‘Fine?’ he roared.

Mulholland jumped off the table so that he was on the other side of the suspect, who had begun to realise that perhaps everything wasn’t so fine after all.

‘Full of the joys of spring, eh?’ the constable repeated.

‘No’ exactly,’ responded Hercules who was beginning to relish this despite the tremor of fear in his guts.

‘Looking at you, was he?’ McLevy came in from the angle, a savage glint in his eye.

‘Right enough.’

‘So he would know your features? Face to face, you said.’

‘I didnae say that, you did.’

‘You did not contradict me. Face to face!’

Dunbar judged it a wiser course to stay silent. The constable wasn’t quite sure where the inspector was heading so he contented himself with looming menacingly.

‘So, he would know you from before?’

‘Before?’

‘When you banged upon the door to claim your miserable just demands, you were taken to Alan Telfer, you claim. Who answered the door? Who looked at you? Who led you through the house to meet the secretary?’

‘The auld man,’ Dunbar finally muttered.

‘Archibald Gourlay was his name,’ said McLevy. ‘The butler, a man about his lawful pursuits.’

‘And he would recognise you!’ Mulholland had caught on to the line of question and they would try to keep the man bouncing between them till he betrayed himself.

‘It was dark in that hall,’ was the defiant response.

‘Darkness be buggered!’ bawled McLevy. ‘He would know you from before, rouse the household and inform Alan Telfer, that the man who’d come to visit previous was the man who’d robbed the house, right left and centre.’

‘You couldn’t let that happen,’ Mulholland interjected.

‘One old man could put you in the jail, one man only, and to save your worthless soul, you smashed him down,’ the inspector accused.

‘With the candlestick,’ cried Mulholland in triumph. ‘I was right all along!’

‘I didnae use such,’ Dunbar asserted indignantly.

‘Then what did you use?’ demanded McLevy.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘I never laid hand on him.’

‘You’re a liar!’

McLevy hauled Dunbar off the chair and upward so that their noses almost touched.

‘Ye broke his skull.’

‘I did not.’

‘Ye did so.’

‘Didnae.’

‘I’ll pee in your boots.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Your gang’s no’ here, now.’

‘I should hae drowned you when I had the chance.’

‘And I should have kicked you harder!’

Mulholland sighed. This was getting them nowhere for the harder McLevy hammered in, the more stubborn became the denials; either the man had lied himself into a corner or the truth lay in a different version of events.

Furthermore the constable was due time off this evening and hoped to attend a choir practice at church, where he would combine hymns of 
worship with hopeful glances in the direction of some well-brought-up young ladies who lifted their voices and bodices to God; thrilled by the organ’s swelling thunder, a becoming flush upon their faces and discernible pulse beating in their throats, they were ripe for a spiritual plucking.

Presbyterian veneration might never spill over into gay abandon but it had its moments.

Finally McLevy, with an exclamation of disgust, hurled Dunbar back into his chair.