‘I know what they’re like,’ said McLevy.
Roach waited for more but the inspector had his
‘Anything from the scene?’
‘One decapitated white feather, property of the deceased,’ offered Mulholland.
‘That’s helpful,’ said Roach sourly. ‘Witnesses?’
‘Had it been one of the big new streets we might have been in business, sir. But it’s the wynds. In these alleys, every eye is closed to crime, every door is shut to probity,’ sighed the constable, his eyes radiating a holy rectitude. ‘More’s the pity, sir. A lost tribe.’
The hypocritical, unco guid quality in Mulholland’s tone made McLevy want to spit. Sookin’ up. The constable was sookin’ up to the lieutenant. The bugger was after something. And McLevy knew exactly what it was, the sleekit lang dreep.
He stood suddenly, moved to the door and turned the handle.
‘I’ll go shake Frank Brennan till his teeth rattle, though I doubt we’re wasting our time. Sadie lived hard but she survived. She knew the streets and could look after herself in her chosen profession. The strike was from close by. It would be trade. She wouldnae let rough that near. It would be trade. Respectable. A
Then he was gone. Roach sighed.
‘Why is it Inspector McLevy, given the choice in matters of heinous crime, will always seek out culprits from amongst the respectable classes?’
Mulholland, to whom this appeal was directed, made the following response.
‘I have sometime asked the inspector that, and he has given me always the one word in answer, sir.’
Roach waited.
‘Experience,’ said Mulholland. He nodded politely and followed his inspector out of the door.
6
I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true.
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, ‘The Revenge’
Benjamin Disraeli followed the erect form of Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen’s private secretary, down a long corridor of Buckingham Palace towards the Royal reception chamber.
They walked in silence. Disraeli measured the man’s military back and wondered how many daggers he could safely plunge in. Quite a few. It was a broad back.
He did not trust Ponsonby. The secretary belonged to the other camp and who knows how many were the keyholes against which he pressed his Liberal ear?
One of Disraeli’s many talents was insidious character assassination, an invaluable weapon in politics, and he had no scruples about using this talent to poison Victoria’s mind against the man. To a certain extent he had succeeded: Ponsonby’s influence had waned and Disraeli gloried in the fact, but not enough, not enough by a long chalk, the fellow was still too close to the Queen.
Close enough, for instance, to look over her shoulder and slide the resultant information of her communications with Disraeli towards the enemy.
Ponsonby stopped at a door and turned.
‘Her Majesty is most anxious to see you, prime minister,’ he said in his usual bluff direct fashion, not that it fooled Disraeli. It was an honest open face and therefore all the more to be suspected.
‘Dear me. And what has caused this anxiety, I wonder?’ murmured Disraeli, eyes veiled in apparent thought.
‘I am sure she will tell you, sir.’
But then as Ponsonby lifted his hand to knock softly upon the door, Disraeli slid in the knife.
‘The election, Sir Henry, how do you think it will result?’
‘I am sure I do not know,’ was the careful reply.
Disraeli laughed suddenly, eyes creased in amusement, charm personified.
‘But you are of the Liberal faith, Sir Henry. You must wish William Gladstone to prevail, trample us Tories to the ground like so many snakes!’
He laughed again. A high-pitched sound, like steel on stone, and his eyelids batted together in a strangely feminine fashion.
All terribly pleasant. Ponsonby’s back stiffened a notch.
‘My politics have never interfered with my function, sir. I merely wish what is best for the country.’
‘And your Queen, surely?’ responded the prime minister with devious, toxic humour.
‘And my Queen,’ came the stolid reply.
Sir Henry always seemed to play with a straight bat. That was even less to be trusted.
‘Then let us hope,’ said Disraeli with a winning smile, ‘that both are satisfied. Queen and country.’
For a moment the two looked at each other, then Ponsonby nodded somewhat jerkily, tapped upon the door and opened it slowly.
‘The prime minister, Your Majesty,’ he announced.
Disraeli slid through the aperture and the door closed behind, shutting off Ponsonby, his abhorrent Liberal tendencies and the rest of the known world.
Now, for as long as this lasted, Disraeli was safe. The door was thick and there was a large key stuck in the lock to this side. No eavesdropping from the enemy.
In the middle of the room, stood a small, dark-clad figure. His Queen. He resisted the impulse to fall upon his knees, it would be the devil’s own job getting up again.
She extended her arm. Benjamin Disraeli took the plump little hand in both of his, bowed deep, kissed it and murmured as always, ‘In loving loyalty and faith.’
He straightened up with some difficulty, and looked into the worried eyes of his Faerie Queen.
‘That dreadful man, you will defeat him, Mr Disraeli. Anything less shall not be countenanced.’
Queen Victoria waved her arms in the air as if pursued by Highland midges and motioned her prime minister towards a chair which she herself had set, precisely in the middle of the reception room.
Disraeli sat down gratefully although he had, of late, been experiencing some severe pains in the region of his back passage, and the chair, like so much of Buckingham Palace, seemed to have been constructed with the utmost discomfort in mind.
‘I shall do my best, Your Majesty,’ he replied a trifle wearily, ‘but I am afraid the final decision will be that of the populace, an unfortunate disadvantage for our small measure of democracy.’
She adored his sly humour but took a stern part in the dance between them.
‘Shame on you, sir, to doubt the people of this country. They have more sense than to vote for someone of such … questionable temperament.’
‘Many things about Mr Gladstone are questionable, save the one. He has stamina. Mark you, so does the hybrid mule.’
Victoria smiled and Disraeli put up a languid hand to touch the one dyed black curl which dangled down the centre of the mighty dome of his forehead. His dry skin and hooded eyes brought to mind the appearance of some exotic reptile.
In 1874, these six years past, his Conservative party had swept in with a healthy majority over the crumbling Liberal government of William Gladstone. Disraeli himself had been prime minister in 1868, before being leapfrogged by the People’s William, and, having triumphed once more, teetered back towards his Queen like a slightly mildewed second bridegroom.
