seen face or the smell of carbolic soap? What to believe? That was always the problem.
The silver-haired man moved out of the light and his place was taken by a woman who clutched some papers to her bosom as if they were a precious child.
A stooped, pinched body, God knows the misfits this game attracted, but there was something familiar about her. Of course, the glasses, the thick glass put him in mind of George Cameron.
A dig in the ribs brought him back. Mulholland frowned over as another burst of applause rent the air.
‘You were grunting,’ he said accusingly.
‘I was not,’ replied McLevy annoyed to be brought out of his reverie. He looked back to the platform to find that the woman, also, had vanished.
‘You were too, sir. Like a pig at the trough.’
The inspector ignored this bucolic simile. His attention was fixed on the stage where Gladstone had raised his right hand and held it in front of him as if he grasped the globe of the world in his cupped fingers. As he drew breath to speak, McLevy noticed that the left hand, resting quietly by his side, was indeed covered with a black stock.
The crowd kept a profound and impressive stillness as the sonorous voice rolled like thunder, the slight trace of a Lancastrian accent from childhood upbringing under the commanding Shakespearean tone. The man’s physical magnetism almost palpable, an eagle’s swoop of grandeur to lofty cadence. William in the high reaches.
‘Our nation is called to undertake a great and responsible duty. A duty which is to tell, as we are informed from high authority, on the peace of Europe and of the destinies of England …’
What about Scotland? wondered the inspector.
‘… we have found its interests mismanaged, its honour tarnished, and its strength burdened and weakened by needless, mischievous, unauthorised and unfortifiable engagements of war. The nation has resolved that this state of things shall cease, and that right and justice shall be done! It shall – be – done!’
Gladstone threw back his head like an actor who had delivered a successful speech – which, McLevy cynically supposed, was exactly the ticket. Playing a role. Like a mountebank selling quack medicine.
For a moment there was silence then a full-throated roar of approval indicated a successful conclusion to the last act. Mulholland, caught up in the general enthusiasm, shouted something to the effect of, ‘Well done, that man! Fine words. Fine words. Bring home the bacon!’
McLevy sometimes forgot how young was his constable but, at this moment, it was only too obvious and oddly touching to see his face alight, the blue eyes sparkling and the large hands, which had grasped many a criminal collar, clapping together for all they were worth.
The inspector turned away and looked at the applauding audience behind them, perhaps Joanna Lightfoot would be amongst the worshippers, waving her drawers in the air or even brandishing the further proof she had promised McLevy.
But he failed to see her tall, fashionable beauty amongst the hempen homespuns. Then his eyes narrowed.
Father Callan. Coat up to his neck. Also, like the inspector, not putting his hands together. The little priest was unaware of McLevy’s scrutiny and his gaze was intent upon the platform where Gladstone was gravely acknowledging the adulation of the masses.
What was going on here? A secret admirer? A Papish plot? Perhaps he was going to unveil himself and declare to the world that William, admittedly an unpromising name for such, had knelt and kissed the hem of the Pontiff? Or was it something quite other?
As if McLevy had shouted out his name through the noise, the priest started, turned and looked straight at the inspector, listening to God on a full-time basis must bring its own acuity. His moonlike face registered a brief smile as McLevy’s eyes bored into him, but, in the manner of his calling, the countenance gave nothing away.
In McLevy’s experience few of the Romanish icons did. Except Jesus. You could trust that agony.
His priestly collar still hidden, Father Callan melted back into the crowd like a holy wafer on the collective tongue as they roared approval.
Mulholland was standing by, with the dazed, slightly foolish look of someone who’d been running with the herd.
‘I didnae know ye to be such a radical,’ said McLevy.
‘I got carried away, sir. Glorious sentiments.’
The constable still retained a rapt look in the eyes and McLevy had an obscure craving to puncture the dream.
A malicious desire which did not speak well of him, but perhaps he was jealous of the young man’s expression of unstinted admiration for another. Few of us are free from jealousy; it follows us home like a black dog.
‘Sentiments is exactly what ye got. A hogwash of figmentation,’ the inspector remarked somewhat harshly.
Mulholland’s face darkened but just before he opened his mouth to deliver one of Aunt Katie’s homilies of remonstrance, to wit,
‘Come on. Now’s your chance!’
McLevy hustled the bewildered constable on a course of interception and practically shoved him into Gladstone’s face as the great man was about to exit.
‘My colleague here has been riven tae the core, Mr Gladstone!’ he bawled like a fishwife. ‘He cannot resist the impetus tae tell you so in person, and commend your message to the nation. Go ahead, Mulholland!’
A couple of the secretaries stepped forward protectively to shield their leader from this bellowing lunatic and his gormless beanpole companion, but Gladstone was apparently unperturbed. McLevy was struck by how much like a death mask his face now seemed. On the platform, his eyes had radiated energy and blazed with moral indignation, but now they were sunken back in his head.
He seemed spent, a sheen of perspiration over his face, and looked all of his seventy years. Mind you it was the end of a long campaign and one and a half hours in West Calder might well be equivalent to ten in any other venue.
Then, were a switch pulled, the man sparked into life as if a current had been shot through his body.
He gazed keenly up at the tongue-tied, befuddled Mulholland.
‘I am gratified that you approve my humble offering, sir,’ he boomed. ‘Let us hope that your sentiments are shared by many, and we carry the day.’
‘It was fine, fine,’ mumbled Mulholland, wondering how in God’s name he found himself in such a pass. ‘You brought it home. My Aunt Katie always says, you can do no more than bring it home. That’s what God does.’
Gladstone was not to be outdone in the nuts and bolts of deific referral.
‘And the same Almighty, in his wisdom, has wonderfully borne me through,’ he pronounced.
He clasped his hand to Mulholland’s shoulder in order to indicate an end to the exchange, it was half past the hour of six and he had many more hands to shake.
As Gladstone turned to go, however, McLevy had other ideas.
‘We are policemen,’ he said, out of the blue.
This caused a momentary hesitation in the acolytes who had turned as one man and woman to leave with their leader.
Who amongst us has such unspotted conscience that the word ‘policeman’ will not cause just the merest tremor in the soul? The shadow of a passing sin?
McLevy put on his idiot face and slid forward to confront Gladstone. He was near enough to sniff but all that came to him was a slight sour odour of sweat from the great man.
‘We are from Leith. We keep the streets safe. Do ye know Leith, Mr Gladstone?’
‘My father was raised there,’ was the somewhat formal response. ‘Before he left for pastures new, he had the honour to be a merchant of that parish.’
‘I never knew that. Did you know that, Mulholland?’
McLevy turned away, addressing the remark to his subordinate who wished the ground to swallow him up such was the buffoon his inspector was presenting.
‘And what did he trade in, sir?’
