Shadow of the Serpent

A bottle of burgundy lay on the table, reasonable vintage, with hunks of bread and a plate of cheese.

Rather too Scottish a selection for his taste, hard-rinded Knoxian Cheddar, goaty Highland fare, a decent Brie violated by a wash of whisky and another Cheddar which seemed to be wrapped inside what might only be described as a tartan bandage.

This was his lunch. All other creature comforts, all carnal compensations to be forsworn until the matter was done and dusted. The stakes were too high, the risks too great to admit prolonged personal contact. This was what must be observed. Religiously.

And yet he missed his little fleshly beast. The surrender in the eye, the biting of the lips, and when he laid bare the creamy skin and cupped the softness, such shameful trembling then ensued as they fell into the pit of hell together. Wantonly, deliberately, damnably, ate of the forbidden fruit. Predator and prey. Each in turn.

He wrenched his mind away from pictures that might fire the blood with their sweet obscenity, poured a little wine into the glass, swirled it round and sniffed the bouquet. Pas mal. Perhaps a little earthy. But it would have to do, let it breathe.

And he would have to wait. Who knows what sharp edge would be sharpened from the whetstone of patience? What variations of a hungry, oblique desire might rise to the surface? Anticipation is everything.

Paper contact. Nothing more. He had picked up the report from their agreed drop-off point and left a little offering in return. A very important little offering with precise instructions as to its usage and the time to throw it in the mix. Not part of the original plan, a touch of improvisation on his part, but it would augment, convince and, with a bit of luck, bring death and destruction.

He emptied the glass, little finger crooked in the air to amuse himself no one else being on hand, and put it down with a flourish. That’ll have to do, old chap, more where that came from, that’ll have to do.

He reached into his inside pocket, pulled out his operative’s report, read it again and sniffed the paper. The faintest trace of perfume rather overwhelmed by the odour of cigars from the case he often kept in the same pocket.

A single page. Short and to the point.

All was proceeding according to calculation. The subject was not easy, the objective difficult, but so far, so good. He smiled. It was a phrase he himself often used to cover a multitude of sins. There had also been a strange coincidence, which the operative had seized upon and indicated that luck might be with them.

Either that or they might have the truth on their side, perish the thought.

He laughed at that notion, then crossed to the fire where half a forest seemed to be burning in the hearth, dropped the paper on to the flames and turned to warm his backside, surveying the room at the same time.

Severe masculine lines ran everywhere like the North British railway. Dark mahogany ruled the roost. A heaviness of purpose to furniture and fittings – but what else could one expect from such a regimental billet?

On the wall, a glassy-eyed stag’s head stuck out like the prow of a ship, its antlers raised to no great purpose since they had signally failed to stop a well-aimed bullet.

A symbol of Christ, the stag. According to Pliny, it drew serpents by its breath from their holes, and then trampled them to death. A reprehensible practice.

There was a full-length mirror set into the panelling just by the door, and he crossed to look at himself in the bilious, rusty glass. The plenitude of length was to check on the rigours of the kilt, he supposed, and the ugly rust to discourage any narcissistic leanings.

He scrutinised his own face. All things to all men. A Protean plasticity of feature. Despite his years, his many troubled years, a trim figure, well enough dressed, nothing too ostentatious, Jermyn Street never shouts its wares.

A boyish cast. Puer eternus. The eyes light blue, not holding much warmth, but then death is such a cold affair and they had seen so much of death.

The hair above a silver-yellow, the mouth below, a cruelly sensual slot. Not without humour. A smiling assassin.

An abrupt turn left his image to its own devices and he moved to the window. It was criss-crossed with thin lead piping of sorts and the glass, pale ochre, lent the scene outside a tinted quality, like an engraving.

He was looking out over the esplanade, the approach to the fortress where Lady Jane Douglas, the most beautiful woman of her age, had been burned to death in the sight of her son and her second husband; accused of attempting the king’s life, James IV, by dint of poison and sorcery. Her real crime was, of course, being a Douglas.

And many witches on that very esplanade had been, as they so quaintly put it in these parts, ‘worryit at the stake’, that is strangled and burned after scant trial for – as they were accused and found guilty of – renouncing their baptism and dancing with the devil. Five at a time, no less. Save on firewood. Thrifty folk, the Scots.

Dancing with the devil would seem to be a most unhealthy pursuit unless … authorised.

The other window of the apartment looked out and down towards the Lawnmarket where the Serpent knew that in James’s court lay a tall house called Gladstone’s Land. It had been acquired in 1631 by one Thomas Gledstone of that hallowed family. Know thine enemy.

From high on the castle to look down on the people below was to observe them as so many ants, crawling about their predestined pathways.

He could lift his foot and crush them all, but wholesale slaughter was not his style.

You must identify, isolate, and then destroy. Without emotion, as a curious child might pull the legs one by one from an insect and leave it not dead precisely, but powerless, incapable, twitching on its back.

A crack of sound as the gun on the half-moon battery on the eastern front of the citadel signalled one o’clock, Greenwich Mean Time, to all the good citizens of Edinburgh.

He had been about the streets late the night before and accomplished much.

Like Wee Willie Winkie, crying through the lock. Are the children all in bed?

A vision from the previous night came into his head. Good fun. Out by the skin of his teeth, but it had been good fun. Splendid to be back in the field.

Time for a spot of lunch. Time for a spot of lunch, old boy.

23

My soul, do not seek immortal life, but exhaust the realm of the possible.

PINDAR, Pythian Odes

The body was dead, no doubt about it. Dead as a doornail. The room smelt of stale sweat and whisky, the cadaver sprawled out on the mattress as if just fallen heavily to sleep.

McLevy observed the corpus. Mulholland was outside taking notes from the live members of the household and the inspector was grateful for the solitude. The constable and he and were scarcely on speaking terms owing to a slight disagreement of procedural intent.

It had manifested itself in this respect.

As soon as they had been deposited outside Eileen Marshall’s door the young man, seeing the way the investigation was heading along with the squinty-eyed demeanour of his inspector, made what he considered to be an important point. More than just important. Crucial.

‘What do we tell Lieutenant Roach?’

‘Nothing,’ came the response serene.

‘Nothing?’

Mulholland’s eyes were near popping from his head and McLevy regretted ever bringing him along in the first place. A weakness on his part. The need for witness.

Even though he had underplayed the exotic frissons of his exchange with Joanna Lightfoot and presented it more as a stark narration, the look on his subordinate’s face had not been one of confidence. And it was even worse now.