McLevy made the remark with a serious air and both women could not resist laughter. Mulholland, calculating he was being paid back for sucking up to the lieutenant, cut his losses and played a part.
‘Like the urine of the wild boar,’ he announced.
More laughter. Then silence. Jean leant out farther so that she looked McLevy straight in the eye.
‘They say she was cut to pieces. Is that true?’
‘She more or less held together,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘One blow. I don’t think she saw it coming.’
‘Otherwise she would have got the hell out of the way,’ said Jean, nettled by his apparent insouciance.
‘I have to agree with you there,’ McLevy replied.
He glanced up at the coachman. Angus Dalrymple, a massive figure. Once he’d been a respectable tradesman, a blacksmith, but now he sat behind the horses and his twin daughters worked tandem in the Just Land.
‘Keep it in the family, eh Angus?’ McLevy said happily.
The man stared straight ahead. The inspector turned his attention back to Jean.
‘Sadie was a wily old cove. But she never saw it coming.’
‘Then it was trade,’ she asserted.
‘That’s possible.’ His face gave little away.
‘If I hear anything on the streets,’ she had a network of spies, ‘you’ll be informed.’
McLevy said nothing. Mulholland hastened to fill the silence. ‘Any information will be welcome, ma’am.’
Jean withdrew into the carriage. ‘Take us onwards, Angus,’ she commanded, then in the same tone, as the driver clicked at the horses, ‘You will find this man, McLevy.’
He stiffened at the arrogant tenor of her words. ‘I’ll do my job,’ he muttered.
‘Sadie Gorman did not merit such a death.’
‘That’s what happens when you live outside the law. One minute you’re safe, the next, the axe falls.’
A cold look passed between them.
‘If I ever lived outside the law,’ she replied, ‘it was from necessity. Now, I have no need.’
‘Crime is a bad habit,’ said McLevy. ‘Ye never lose it.’
She smiled suddenly and leant out again so that their faces were almost touching.
‘When you find this murdering bastard,’ she whispered softly, ‘I’ll have the coffee waiting.’
The carriage departed and one of the horses left a large mound of dung behind as a parting gift.
McLevy marched off abruptly down the street with Mulholland lengthening his stride to keep pace.
The inspector sounded like he was chanting something under his breath; the constable caught a few notes and recognised the old Jacobite air,
By now they had reached the bottom of Constitution Street. Mulholland swung left automatically heading for the Old Docks, but McLevy halted to point the other way.
‘That new building which stands so proudly in Salamander Street there, what is its function, constable?’
‘It’s the slaughterhouse, sir.’
‘So it is,’ said McLevy. ‘So it is.’
8
But keep the wolf far thence that’s foe to men,
For with his nails he’ll dig them up again.
JOHN WEBSTER,
Frank Brennan gasped for breath as he lumbered up the steep brae of the Coalhill. The hounds of hell, oh Jesus, and he innocent as a newborn babe, had stalked him all the way along the Old Docks. He could hear them howling still.
Thank the Living Saviour that bastard Mulholland was such a height. His helmet stuck out like a pea on top of a mountain through the dusty windows of Docherty’s Tavern and Frank had seen it miles away, above the crowd.
Just time enough for him to dive out the window, kick the scabby hens out from under his feet in the backyard, and be about to prise open the rearwards door when some instinct caused hesitation. He looked through a crack in the wood and what did he see but nothing more than a much worse bastard, that vindictive evil snaffler, McLevy.
Waiting to sink his claw.
Frank had managed to clamber over a couple of walls to the side and come out at a back alley on to the docks; he’d crossed over the wee bridge which led to the shore and then he’d run for his life, leaving the warm cosy tavern behind.
He’d been revelling in the sorrow of Sadie’s death and the drinks bought in sympathy, him pleading the broken heart and the whisky going down nicely; mind you he’d bought them all enough the night before, only his due, money to burn the night before, money to burn. Blood money.
Don’t think on that, Frank, don’t think on that.
Then an old bitch, Agnes Stein, one of the wrinkled crones Sadie used to sit with in the corner, had walked straight up and given him the evil eye. Evil.
‘I never did a thing wrong,’ said he.
She picked up a whisky glass and threw the contents straight in his face, the waste of it as well, and her voice rang out through the place.
‘Ye were her man. Ye should have been on the qui vive, on the streets with her, watchin’ her survival. Ye’re not even a half-decent pimp!’
The black mist came down and he raised his hand. The landlord grabbed it. She was just an old woman, let it be, Frank.
No matter how old, he’d break her neck, no one insulted him like that.
Then the mist cleared, he looked out the window and saw the constable from afar, tall as a gallows tree.
These thoughts in his head as he got to the top of the brae, nearly safe now. Duck into the wynds down the other side, ye could lose the devil himself in there. Behind him a police whistle sounded, oh Jesus, it sounded close.
He took a deep breath and hurtled himself over the break of the hill.
Up above, in the cold blue sky, a flock of ravens wheeled in circles, attention fixed on something in the distance below.
Their harsh cries broke out like a complaint against the dirty tricks of Fate.
9
Sprinkle me with hyssop, O Lord, and I shall be cleansed.
In Vinegar Close, one of the ragged children, egged on by his companions, their feral white faces alive with
