Shadow of the Serpent

‘Nothing?’ repeated the constable, his voice rising to a high note so that a passing carthorse neighed in reply, thinking to have heard a fellow labourer.

By this time they were heading up Chambers Street, ready to turn into a cold whipping wind coming up the bridges from the direction of Waverley Station. But the wind was nothing compared to the coldness Mulholland felt in his bowels. A fell dank creeping chill.

‘I know that look on your face, sir. Somewhere you are entertaining the impossible possibility of a link between one of the most important political figures of this age and murders which occur at thirty-year intervals.’

McLevy smiled at a passing young woman who was clutching at her fashionable chapeau as the wind picked up.

‘Hold on to your hat,’ he advised.

Mulholland was not to be diverted.

‘And why did you not tell me of this George Cameron business before?’

‘I like tae keep things up my sleeve,’ was the nonchalant reply.

‘That’s for magicians!’ Mulholland said sharply. ‘I’m supposed to work along, not guess magic tricks, leave all that prestidigitation to Pope Leo. This is nothing less than a weird and crazy fantasy, not one shred of proof!’

‘Of course it is,’ agreed McLevy blandly. ‘Stories, supposition, ghosts and mirrors. We can’t tell that tae the lieutenant, he’d have a heart attack.’

‘He’ll have one of them anyway when he finds out what we’re up to and he’ll tell you what I’ll tell you. Stop. Right. Here!’

McLevy did so. A piece of paper had blown against his face and he had automatically caught at it. It was an election pamphlet, a picture of William Gladstone, arm raised, finger pointing. The words below the image said simply, The People’s William. He is the man.

The inspector crumpled the paper up and threw it into the air so that it sailed over the side of the South Bridge, which they stood upon now, down to the Cowgate below.

He watched as it gave the appearance of life, dipping and swooping, but it was at the mercy of a stronger element, a force of nature which would not be denied.

‘It may all be moonshine,’ he said quietly. ‘But I made a promise to George Cameron which I must try to fulfil.’

He brooded further as they walked on, Mulholland shaking his head like a cow plagued with flies.

‘If these two murders are connected in any way, and there is any chance, no matter how strange and fanciful it might all seem, of finding the perpetrator, then I shall go right tae the end.’

‘Ye’ll be on your own, then,’ said the constable bitterly, still smarting about being kept in the dark.

‘That doesnae worry me, I was born so.’

McLevy was equally bitter, feeling he’d been let down.

‘I asked you along because I value your opinion but if this is all ye can offer, then the least you can do is keep your mouth shut and not clipe on me tae the lieutenant.’

‘I am not a clipe,’ said Mulholland stiffly. ‘I do not betray, but I have my duty.’

‘So did Pontius Pilate,’ was the caustic response.

Both noses were out of joint and, to tell the truth, there were deep feelings of disappointment on either side. As George Cameron had been towards him, so McLevy may have wished to be to the constable, father to son.

But that was to overestimate the young man’s need for a parental shadow, and also somewhere evidenced a refusal on the inspector’s behalf to acknowledge that he lacked the same generosity of spirit as the big Highlander.

In frozen huffy silence, they had traced their path back to Leith station, a nondescript building even more nondescript inside. Sergeant Murdoch at the desk, half-asleep as usual, dust motes floating in the air around him.

Ballantyne with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth was attempting to write up a report. He did give them a quick glance, paused as if to say something, then got his head back down swiftly as the highly polished door which led to Lieutenant Roach’s inner sanctum, the only door in the place with a shine worth the mention, swung open and out stepped the man himself.

Roach often put McLevy in mind of a crocodile for some reason. The lieutenant possessed a long jaw which he habitually worked from side to side when perturbed, and bulging slightly bloodshot eyes which hinted at sins suppressed.

The man’s neat white collar and black tie peeped out of the open neck of the official braided frock-coat.

Stiff and tidy. McLevy had never seen him out of uniform, and wondered idly what he wore. Perhaps a scarlet cloak and boots of Castilian leather?

Roach pursed his lips. ‘You’ve been out all morning, McLevy.’

‘On the case, sir. On the case.’

A jovial reply and swiftly in, lest Mulholland blurt out his procedural misgivings.

A wintry smile from the lieutenant, the man had something on his mind, something in the back pocket.

‘My suspicions were correct,’ he said bleakly.

McLevy blinked. Surely Roach hadn’t got wind of what he was purposing, who could have told him? And yet the lieutenant had an uncanny knack of sensing when McLevy was up to mischief. A knack developed by dint of the fact that Roach usually was the one who got it in the neck.

Mulholland stepped forward. ‘Suspicions about what, sir?’

The big lanky unctuous bastard was going to betray him, McLevy was sure of it.

Roach took a deep breath.

‘At the lodge last night, Chief Constable Grant laid his hand upon my shoulder and said … Women chopped in half are no great advertisement for our fair city, lieutenant. Murder is a blot. Clean it up. Sooner before later.’

The lieutenant jerked his jaw in painful memory.

‘And I have to say the way he was looking at me confirmed my worst fears. As if I had the pox.’

‘A grand suspicion, sir. I remember you saying the very words. A plague carrier, did you not say?’

A sidelong glance at McLevy indicated where Mulholland thought the source of the pestilence might lie but, to the inspector’s relief, he added nothing to the above words.

In fact, McLevy was a little ashamed of his earlier accusation. Mulholland might well sook up, but he wasnae a clipe. Not yet. The inspector was safe. No one would tell on him. He was safe.

His ears were buzzing and the ground seemed to move beneath his feet, surely Edinburgh wasn’t suffering a tremor of the earth?

He closed his eyes and in his mind he was a wee boy looking up at his mother; her mouth opened and shut; he couldnae hear the words but the spittle was fair flying in his direction.

She raised both her hands, fingernails like talons, but then her face changed to that of a desperate sanity. She crossed to the door, locked it, put the key on the table, then turned towards him.

The woman reached out tenderly to touch the boy’s face and then snatched something up from the table, flung herself away into the alcove bed set into the small room, and pulled across the curtain.

The wee boy stood alone. He was hungry. He went to a chair, clambered up on it and sat carefully by the table.

Maybe if he was good, nothing bad would happen? He waited. Time passed. The curtain was closed.

McLevy came out of this disquieting reverie to realise that Roach had addressed a question to him. Both lieutenant and constable were awaiting a response.

‘I am sorry, sir,’ he muttered. ‘I have not quite grasped the implication of your last remark.’

Roach’s eyelids blinked down, then up again, the skin a thin membrane; by God the man did look like a crocodile.

‘A simple query. You are the investigating officer, McLevy. What is the progress of the said investigation?’