Gladstone’s face had set in rather stony lines, the cause unknown, the effect plain for all to see. He replied with the one word.
‘Corn.’
McLevy took a deep breath and stepped off the edge of the precipice.
‘And d’ye ever come back, sir? Tae the auld place? Walk the ancient streets as it were?’
Gladstone made no response. A flash of anger in his eyes. The silver-haired secretary stepped into the breach.
‘Mr Gladstone has many demands on his time,’ he said ambiguously. ‘Now, if you will excuse us?’
‘Oh, aye, aye, definitely.’ McLevy now appeared to be crushed and rather obsequious. ‘It’s just that we came all the way. From Leith. Tae see you, Mr Gladstone.’
‘And now you have, sir. Now, you have.’
There was a moment when the two men’s eyes locked, bulls in a field, then Gladstone made his exit.
Most of the entourage followed, leaving only the tall secretary and a few stragglers. The official looked down with barely concealed disdain at this dolt of a policeman now standing alone, Mulholland having retreated as far back as he could without actually fleeing the scene.
‘What is your name?’ the secretary asked abruptly.
‘McLevy. Inspector McLevy. At your service, sir!’ The inspector straightened up in what was perilously close to a parody of military readiness. ‘And whom do I have the honour of addressing, sir?’
‘My name is Horace Prescott,’ was the clipped response.
‘Horace? What a splendid appellation. Very close tae Horatius. The Captain o’ the Gate!’
There was a cough from behind Prescott, it may even have been a smothered laugh, coming from a wee, fat, rather dissolute-looking cove who certainly was no great advert for the party of morality. The secretary’s cheeks pinked up but he decided to treat McLevy like the idiot the man undoubtedly seemed to be. Though when he attempted to introduce a silky menace to his tones it was inappropriately tinged with a growing petulance.
‘I assume you have a superior officer?’ McLevy nodded his head vigorously. ‘What is his name?’
‘That would be Lieutenant Roach, but it’s not worth your while talking to him. sir.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m afraid he votes Conservative,’ said McLevy. ‘Always has, always will. Ye’d be wasting your time.’
From Prescott’s view, the implication that he would be trying to curry election favour with some nonentity of a police officer left the man almost gasping for breath.
There was another sound behind him, this time verging on a definite snigger. His lips tightened and without another word he prepared to make a dignified and dismissive exit. But McLevy wasn’t finished yet.
‘I could swear I’ve remarked ye some time in Leith, sir. Have you ever visited, down by the docks maybe?’ Mulholland winced as the inspector ploughed gaily onwards. ‘There’s some pretty sights. When the ships come in.’
Prescott had never met such a profoundly irritating person in his life.
‘I know little of the place,’ he snapped. ‘And I am happy to keep it so.’
He strode off, the wee fat fellow after him with a broad grin on his face. The rest of the stragglers followed in an untidy scramble on the outside edge of which McLevy briefly glimpsed the woman with the thick glasses, body still hunched over her papers. Then she and the rest were gone. As if they had never been.
While the inspector whistled softly to himself, an outraged Mulholland returned to his side.
‘You made a terrible bloody fool out of me!’ he accused bitterly.
‘With God’s help and your own efforts, the situation may yet be remedied,’ came the opaque reply.
McLevy looked past his indignant constable into the body of the hall. It had not yet emptied, people stood around in clumps still chewing over the words of William Gladstone, but he did not see a likeness he recognised.
‘Don’t think I didn’t fathom what you were up to,’ Mulholland said through gritted teeth. ‘You wanted to look in his eyes. Well. What did you see?’
‘Power,’ replied McLevy. ‘But for good or ill, that I do not yet know.’
The constable threw his arms to the heavens that McLevy could entertain the slightest doubt over a man so widely regarded as the sentinel of truth and probity, but the inspector’s mind had shifted back to the small, windowless dining room of the tavern where they’d filled their bellies.
The dried skulls of the sheep had been arranged all round the walls, lighted candles placed between the horns.
It was meant to be decorative but had struck him as just so many intimations of death.
27
Come forth thy fearful man:
Affliction is enamoured of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
The Serpent held out a hand before him and noticed the fingers to tremble a little. That was good. Nerves. A man without nerves was a fool who deceived himself.
He moved over to the window and looked out over the lights of the city glittering fitfully in the darkness. He had already been out earlier in that darkness, to set the scene as it were. But now he had returned to wait for the appointed hour.
Some solid banks of fog were beginning to build up. That was good, good for business. What was it the old fellow, regimental batman, ancient mariner, whose gnarled hands were supposed to attend to his every need, had said this morning as he scraped out the ashes?
‘We’ll hae a sea haar the nicht. I feel it in my bones. Cauld as the grave, sir.’
He mimicked the near-incomprehensible accent perfectly, speaking aloud in the silent room, then moved restlessly away from the window to regard himself once more in the stained, cracked, full-length mirror.
Now, there was no going back. Now, it had to be done.
Had the word from the South been cheerier, the early election forecast more promising, he may have considered a halt to the mission. But no, let’s be honest old chap, even with the advent of good tidings, the matter must run its course. He had the taste for blood now.
And it was such splendid sport, to be out in the field once more, not sending others out to risk for him.
It was all a matter of timing. When to play the cards.
On an impulse, he tried to mould his features to those of Benjamin Disraeli, the drooping eyes he could manage but not that splendid nose, that would need some construction. The mouth was possible, hinted at a certain lubriciousness, a delving into dark corners. The reflected mouth smiled at the thought.
For had Disraeli not written, possibly on his knees at the time, to the comely Lord Henry Lennox, ‘I am henceforth your own property, to do what you like with …’?
He dropped the pretence and sneered at himself. But was he not the same? A creature to be used? An instrument, not of pleasure though, but of ruin? His potency dependent on those above? In this case, not even the dignity of direct command, a suggestion here, an implication there, an elegant oblique silence after a subject raised.
A creature. That was all.
The Serpent was suddenly filled with the venom of self-hatred. He spat, quite deliberately, into his own face and watched as the saliva slid down his mirror image.
Then he cheered up immensely. Good to get that off one’s chest. Think of the rewards from on high. Favours bestowed. The power granted. Beyond his peers. No one would deny him. He would be
