Shadow of the Serpent

‘What?’

‘You said plenty of money. Bought for all. How so?’

Brennan’s eyes shifted sideways. ‘I won it in a game of chance.’

‘Ye’re a liar.’

Mulholland backed off; this was the inspector’s show.

McLevy’s eyes bored into Brennan, the big Irishman tried for bravado. A mistake.

‘No one names Frank Brennan a liar, no one living on this earth – ’

The inspector’s hands moved so fast, Mulholland missed it entirely. Brennan did not because he found himself grabbed by the shirt front, pulled bodily out of his chair and spun round like a child’s top till he slammed up against the wall with an impact that near jolted the malodorous teeth from out his head.

Then he was off again, another circle, and then another, round and round, a bizarre dance of controlled violence, till the big man was deposited back into the very chair from which he had been plucked.

Slack-jawed, eyes glazed, he watched as McLevy deliberately unbuttoned the hooks and eyes of his tunic, slid it off and laid it neatly on his own chair. His shirt followed to reveal a long-sleeved red semmit, over which he hitched his braces again in two straight lines to contain his little mound of a belly. A comical sight if you discounted the coal-black fury in his eyes.

‘Is there any water in that bucket?’ he asked.

Mulholland craned his long neck. ‘Full to the brim, sir.’

‘I will ask you once more, Frank Brennan.’ The inspector might have been carved out of stone. ‘How so?’

The big man’s mouth opened and closed. No words emerged. McLevy, now standing over him, reached forward slowly and took hold of the front of Brennan’s throat. He cocked the other hand and sighted down it as if about to release an arrow.

Brennan was paralysed. The fingers of the hand on his thrapple were digging into the soft tissue. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the man would rip out the whole works; where is the mercy of God here?

‘How so?’ There was no mercy. Not in these eyes.

An awful smell arose as Brennan lost touch with his bowel movements and emitted a long fearful fart. Mulholland wrinkled his nose but the inspector didn’t seem to notice.

‘Where did you get the money, Frank?’

‘I was paid. Services rendered.’

‘What service?’

‘I – I – ’ Brennan’s eyes filled with water and he shook his head. McLevy’s hand tightened as the truth and one more fart were squeezed out. ‘It was gentry. See, this fellow hailed me outside the tavern. I was on my way to find poor Sadie, descry how the wee soul was faring – ’

‘Ye were off to skim the cream like many a pimp before you. So?’

‘He offered me a payment. He had a friend he said, liked the cut of Sadie’s jib. He would pay me in advance. I was to go back in the tavern. Enjoy myself. Services rendered.’

McLevy let go of the neck and wiped his hand on his semmit. Brennan would not meet his eye. He massaged his throat in the terrible quiet.

The inspector could not afford the luxury of disgust, or the bile that rose in his gullet. He whistled softly to keep it at bay … ‘Charlie is my darling, the young chevalier.’

‘This gentry. What did he look like?’

‘He kept to the shadows,’ said Brennan eager to help now, wrongly thinking the worst was over. ‘Silver hair, tall enough but not as me, in a doorway, black gloves, he wore black gloves.’

‘Anything else?’

‘He smelled of soap.’

‘Scented?’

‘Carbolic.’ Brennan nodded wisely. ‘Thought I to myself, that’s an odd thing.’

‘How so?’

‘Gentry don’t use such. My mammy washed me in that soap.’

‘Not clean enough.’

The inspector walked away to put some distance between them. Mulholland slid in again. ‘Anything else about him?’

Brennan shook his head, Mulholland persisted. ‘What about his voice, you said he spoke to you, what was the sound?’

‘A whisper only. Slow words. But born to command.’

‘An Edinburgh voice?’

‘I’d hazard … not of the Celtic strain.’

‘From the South? English?’

‘Born to command.’

‘What else?’

‘Not a bit. I’ve racked my brains for you, I can remember no more.’ Brennan sighed heavily. ‘He put the coin payment in my hand, I walked back into the tavern. A mysterious event.’

‘Mysterious?’ McLevy laughed but it was a harsh bitter sound, a terrible twisted anger inside him. ‘Ye sold the poor auld whore, left her defenceless, and while you were drinking yourself stupid on the proceeds, her body was being hacked to pieces!’

‘That was terrible mischance for the unfortunate soul,’ came the sententious response. ‘And I blame myself something awful, but who can know the workings of God or the wiles of Satan?’

The flame in McLevy’s eyes went out and a cold light replaced it. As he walked back to the table, Mulholland moved in reflex as if to intervene, then thought better.

‘You’re scum, Frank,’ said McLevy. A dispassionate judgement more eviscerating than physical violence. ‘At least when Burke and Hare sold bodies, they had the grace tae kill them first or rob the grave. When you sold Sadie Gorman she was alive, her heart was still beating, there was still mischief in her eyes. You are death’s pimp. The very man to whom you sold her would be the man that took her life.’

‘You don’t know that!’ cried Brennan.

‘I know it,’ was the cold response. ‘And I’ll make sure everyone on the street does as well, every last sinner. Everyone of the Fraternity. When you look in their eyes, you will see what you’ve done. Not one person will be your friend. A ghost. A dead man walking.’

He went back to the door, opened it with the key and bawled out, ‘Ballantyne!’

After a moment, the young constable appeared. He came into the room with some caution, eyes widening at the sight of his inspector in his red semmit and braces, then the after-reek of the farts wafted over. He gazed warily at the seated Brennan.

‘Has this man soiled himself, sir?’

‘Not yet son,’ said McLevy. ‘Not yet. Stick him in the cells.’

Brennan rose unbidden and walked on shaky legs to the doorway. A strange dignity had taken possession of him.

The young constable, not wishing to get too close, gestured him through the door but the big Irishman turned at the last.

‘This won’t make ye think any the better of me,’ Brennan said in a drained voice, ‘but I owe some such to her. The last three, four nights, Sadie thought someone was watching at her. In the streets. I didn’t pay no heed.’

He looked at McLevy like a whipped cur hoping for a biscuit.

‘Ye’re right,’ said McLevy. ‘It makes you even worse.’

Brennan turned and left. Ballantyne followed. The door closed. Mulholland let out a long breath to relieve the tension in his gut and McLevy began slowly to don once more his shirt and tunic.

‘We can’t hold him,’ said the constable.

‘I know that. Let him fester for a while. Something else may come to his mind.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘So do I. But let him fester anyway.’

‘That old saying, sir.’ The words popped out before Mulholland could get them back. ‘“To err is human, to forgive divine” – it doesn’t cut much with you does it?’