Trick of the Light (34 page)

Roach did not know Mulholland’s landlady from Eve but imagined her to be a buxom lady of Irish extraction who doted upon her lodger’s every word and plied him with sweet tea and home-made ginger biscuits.

The lieutenant was content enough with this image; a man needs as much comfort as he can garner these days.

In his hand he held the letter from Jessie that had set McLevy off and running.

Just to make sure, he read it once again. Roach had been brought up to date with all the events so far but it never did any harm to re-examine the evidence.

Countess,

The coast is now clear. Only Lily Baxter and me, the house empty. I can deal with her. Hannah Semple is gone. I will let your man in by the gate. You must keep your promise to me. A murder has been done. Logan Galloway. It has all been to your plan and my reward must be soon.

Jessie Nairn

‘Poor lassie. She signed her death warrant.’

McLevy had ghosted up at his elbow in a manner Roach always found disconcerting; the man would have made a fine footpad.

‘Indeed,’ Roach observed. ‘Blackmail implicit. Not a good idea.’

‘I don’t doubt the Countess would have got rid of her anyway,’ said McLevy. ‘Once Binnie was safely back in London the only person who had knowledge of it all was Jessie. The threat in that letter just…hurried things on.’

McLevy pursed his lips as he remembered the pain in Jessie’s eyes.

I felt bad but I did it anyway.

‘It is also possible that when it came to the point of Jean being put away for the rest of her life, Jessie may have recanted.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Ye never know. And the Countess wouldnae take that chance either.’

‘It was a clever plan she laid.’

‘Very strategic.’

Roach handed the letter back to McLevy and reflected once more how his inspector could manage to land in a clump full of thistles and emerge unscathed.

As if he could mesmerically read his superior’s mind McLevy suddenly ventured, ‘Whit about the court official with the wig that jumped?’

‘He has decided to forgive and forget.’

‘In case his wife finds out?’

‘Exactly.’

McLevy’s lips quirked in amusement. They were standing in the middle of the station but the place seemed oddly empty and calm as if a great storm had just passed over.

‘In all this excitement,’ Roach remarked almost casually, ‘it rather slipped my mind. Samuel Grant? I assume we are to charge him with attempting to sell back stolen goods to the rightful owner?’

‘Aye. Providing Mistress Grierson attests to such.’

‘I assume she will. After all, what other explanation could there be? A respectable widow…’

In fact the lieutenant had been unwise enough to mention a hint of the happening to his wife; she had thrown her horrified arms in the air at the invasion into Muriel Grierson’s decency but also pressed him to keep her abreast of additional developments.

Thus widows attract curiosity by dint of standing alone in the field of matrimony.

An exception to the rule.

He glanced at McLevy who seemed to have forgotten the last question, so the lieutenant returned to the present crime.

When McLevy had sent word back to the lair of the Countess that he had taken Binnie to uncover proof on the murder of Galloway and the plot hatched by this woman, Roach had not hesitated to have her hauled in.

But the case was not yet nailed down to his satisfaction.

‘We may not have enough on the Countess,’ said Roach thoughtfully. ‘Even with this letter and Jessie’s witnessed confession, a good lawyer and she might wriggle free.’

‘That was before Mister Binnie offered to turn Queen’s evidence,’ replied McLevy with a certain inner glee. ‘I have just been in close conference with the wee toad and he is anxious to save his neck. He is at this moment writing out a formal confession naming the Countess as the Machiavelli behind these wicked deeds and he a mere tool in her hands.’

‘Machiavelli was a man.’

‘I am aware of that, sir.’

‘And what does Binnie wish in return?’

‘Some clemency from the judge.’

‘A word in His Honour’s ear?’

‘That sort of thing.’

‘The fellow has committed two murders, plus attempted arson and an acid assault to boot. Not a great deal of leeway, inspector.’

‘I know that. But I didnae want to hurt his feelings.’

This sardonic exchange had been conducted as they watched the Countess emerge from a side room with two of the female helpers at the station. The procession was led by a bashfully triumphant Ballantyne.

‘More to that boy than vision would indicate,’ Roach allowed.

‘His mother’s a nurse,’ came the cryptic response.

McLevy and Mulholland had decided not to acquaint Roach or the world at large with Ballantyne’s error as regards the stab in Jean’s boudoir.

Anyone can make a mistake. Anytime. Anywhere.

As the Countess spied Roach she made one more effort to reassert a somewhat shrunken authority.

‘You make a misjudgement, Lieutenant Roach,’ she averred. ‘And I shall write to the highest in the land.’

‘Her Majesty may be a trifle occupied,’ Roach replied dryly. ‘Please avail yourself, however, of our facilities of pen and paper but you must purchase your own postage.’

As she turned away in contempt at this trifle, thus avoiding the stare of a stone-faced McLevy, the Countess found herself on a collision course with Jean Brash – who had just been released from the cells.

Hannah Semple at the side of her mistress. Patterson the lawyer with his large head made up the rear.

And so it came to pass that the
War of the Bawdy-hoose Keepers
had its final act in the Leith station.

‘Ships that pass in the night, eh McLevy?’ Roach uttered without moving his lips.

‘Uhuh.’

Silence as the two women appraised each other, then Jean stepped up to the mark.

‘Countess – you take my place, it would seem,’ she slid in sweetly. ‘One for the other.’

The older woman spat out her rejoinder.

‘I am worth twenty of you. You are nothing more than a common slut.’

Jean nodded as if in complete agreement.

‘What was it you said?’ She screwed up her eyes as if remembering the words. ‘
In prison
…
each day is like a year, each year like an eternity
. Very nicely put.’

For a moment it appeared as if the Countess would launch herself tooth and nail at Jean, then she gathered herself together for the last word.

‘May your future be as diseased as your body,’ she announced before turning with dignity to Ballantyne and linking her arm through his in a proprietorial fashion.

‘Lead me on, young man,’ she announced, as if he the consort and she the royal quality.

Ballantyne nodded, did not attempt to disengage his arm and led her off to the very cell that Jean had just vacated, the door still open, the lumpy mattress waiting like a sullen lover.

‘I’ll write ye a letter,’ Mistress Brash called after, but the Countess did not look back.

Jean watched her go then turned to Roach. She was conscious of all eyes in the station upon her, the various young constables in various corners and even Murdoch rooted at his desk, all ears aquiver.

Was she now a legend?

Imprisoned and released.

The queen bee.

‘I thank you for the hospitality, lieutenant,’ she said solemnly. ‘You must sample mine some day.’

Roach was not inclined to indulge in mythical exchange.

‘I would have left you to rot in jail, Mistress Brash,’ he retorted bluntly. ‘You may thank McLevy here.’

The inspector’s face was part hidden in the shadows into which he had stepped back as soon as Jean’s entourage had appeared.

She did not thank him. McLevy did not wish it so.

‘How is Constable Mulholland?’ she asked him formally.

‘Still alive.’

‘I am sorry for his wound.’

‘I’ll pass it on.’

Then McLevy hesitated a moment before a request.

‘Jessie Nairn. Make sure she gets a decent burial. She wisnae all bad.’

Jean thought about that for a moment before nodding acceptance; she owed the inspector that much at least.

Patterson stepped forward importantly to lead her from the station. As Hannah Semple passed, she winked at McLevy.

‘Ye’re a bloody menace,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know your equal.’

‘Oh, one thing?’ the inspector could not resist calling just as Jean reached the station door. ‘Your wee boudoir nearly went up in flames.’

‘That’s happened before,’ she replied a trifle enigmatically.

McLevy felt a sudden onrush of anger and let her have it with both barrels.

‘This is your fault, Jean. Your black pride was the cause of all this. Carry that with you to your bawdy-hoose.’

For a moment it was as if everyone else receded and it was just the two of them.

A spark of equal anger appeared in her eyes.

And then she was gone.

A few moments passed and a low murmur rose from the assembled constabulary. Whit a night.

The Countess had also left the scene.

Roach let out a huge exhalation of relief.

‘Would you care to join me in a wee libation in the office, James?’

‘No, thank you, sir,’ said McLevy, surprisingly.

He was on his way to the station door and turned, conscious that his part in these events might also be rendered into legend.

‘My work is not done and Halloween is not yet over.’

‘The Morrison case?’

‘None other.’

Roach thought to ask further then contented himself with a nod. The man was solving things right, left and centre; best let him get on with it.

As the inspector disappeared, Ballantyne came out of the cells and Roach crooked a finger at him.

Over walked the young constable.

‘Do you drink malt whisky?’ asked his lieutenant.

35

I beheld the wretch – the miserable monster whom I had created.

M
ARY
S
HELLEY
,
Frankenstein

Arthur Conan Doyle shivered in the dampness of Halloween night and gazed across at his companion, who seemed totally impervious to the clammy moist air that wraithed around them like a witch’s spell.

Midnight had come and gone; some snatches of smoke from a distant bonfire that had not yet expired also swirled at their feet; and Doyle was reminded of a scene from
Hamlet
when the ghost appears on the battlements. It had been at the Lyceum in London, he was fifteen years of age and staying a most glorious three weeks over Christmas with his uncles and their families.

The great Henry Irving had played the Dane.

Tall, slim, a handsome brooding presence with a shock of dark hair, quietly spoken but with the impression of a superb intelligence, black glittering eyes and a long nose that sniffed out corruption in the state of Denmark.

And when his father’s ghost appeared, it seemed the prince’s very soul was split in twain.

It had been the happiest time Conan Doyle had enjoyed in England since being sent at the age of nine to the tender mercies of the Jesuits at Stonyhurst College.

His wild, adventurous spirit had collided head-on with the spartan discipline hammered down upon him and though there had been moments of gratification and scholastic success, he had felt, not unlike Prince Hamlet, suffocated and beaten down by an authority he did not at times recognise or respect.

Arthur had felt almost betrayed by his mother but now realised that she had sent him away to protect the young boy from the worsening state of his own father.

An alcoholic ghost.

Still residing in the institution where he moved between sweet clarity and dangerous fits of violence. A madness to be feared lest it travel in the blood.

All this had passed through Doyle’s mind; there was little else to do huddled in a doorway, watching the roof-tops for a murderous beast to take its bow.

A bang on the door of his mother’s house.

Doyle had thought one of the lodgers had forgotten his key but there on the threshold was James McLevy.

‘I’m going hunting, Mister Doyle,’ he said, face white in the dark outside. ‘You were on my way.’

No more needed to be said. Arthur had bolted for his old sailor’s coat, stuck on the cap, shouted upstairs to his puzzled mother that he would be a time or so, and then was off into the misty night for adventure.

Though it did not seem much of an exploit so far.

They had relieved the shivering constables stationed on watch outside the house of Walter Morrison and then McLevy had hunkered down like an animal settling into its den, tipped his hat over his eyes and not uttered a word or moved a muscle since that moment.

Arthur was restless. He took out one of his pipes and thought to light up and puff some comfort but then worried that it might signal occupation and so replaced it.

Once more he scanned the rooftops where he had been instructed to fix his eagle eye.

Nothing. A few seagulls wheeling despondently, pale shapes in the leaden sky.

‘Ye see any fiendish ogres?’ asked the inspector from under the brim.

‘Nary a one,’ replied Doyle.

‘Ah well. Time yet.’

Anxious that McLevy might disappear once more into the land of Nod, Doyle threw a question at him.

‘‘What makes you think this killer will appear tonight, inspector?’

‘Jist a wee intuition.’

And in fact, it was no more than that. But on the way to Doyle’s he had stopped off at the banker’s house. The man, in the midst of Halloween celebrations, a bonfire in the back garden, festooned with overexcited grandchildren, had not welcomed the intrusion but supplied what information he had gleaned on the Morrisons’ finances.

An interesting harvest. It chimed with a picture that was beginning to build up at the back of McLevy’s mind.

And if he was correct, this might be the last night possible for murderous excursion.