There was a breathless excited quality to her speech which McLevy found unsettling; he wished she would hold her tongue because it was the devil’s own job to decipher this writing. He muttered what fragments he could make out.
Again Joanna spoke, this time in the curiously formal manner which he recognised from their first meeting.
‘It is common knowledge that Gladstone would walk near the Argyle Rooms in Great Windmill Street where the upper classes indulged in every kind of dissipation. He would approach these women of the night under the guise of rescuing them from a life of sin, at least that is how it was presented to the outside world.’
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and swallowed hard as if some vision in her mind had perturbed her, then got back on track.
‘But these entries might show that when he was alone, feasting his eyes upon them … who was the sinner, and who was sinned against?’
‘Aye. A fallen woman’s a great temptation,’ said McLevy cheerily. ‘But even if he did. What then?’
In response she pointed at one of the curious markings at the foot of an entry. McLevy strained to make sense of the words which came before the sign.
Then after that came
‘It looks a wee bit like a whip,’ he hazarded.
‘It is the Greek symbol lambda. The letter L. I believe it represents the lash. The whip, as you say. The scourge.’
McLevy’s eyebrows shot up; this was approaching value for his lost whisky. ‘Are you saying these women
‘No!’ she said impatiently. ‘It was self-administered. He scourged his own body. Many times. To drive out the terrible guilt. The impurity within. To suffer is to be released. But only for a time, and then it returns, even stronger.’
Her eyes upon him were hot and zealous; McLevy felt as if he needed space to draw breath.
‘I knew an embezzler had one of those leathers,’ he said, with a scholarly air. ‘Studded with nails. I think he got it from France. I believe they were all the fashion.’
Joanna would not be deflected.
‘There were many women, Emma Clifton, Elizabeth Collins, you may find their names, and he writes of his sympathy being corrupted, how he must limit and scourge himself, but back he goes, again and again!’
She took a deep breath to control what seemed to him to be a rising hysteria. ‘And then … came the punishment of God. In the middle of all this, his daughter died.’
Joanna had alluded to this in their previous tete-a-tete but it was another turn of the screw.
‘Ye think this might be the root cause of our two murders,’ he mused. ‘You cannot control the guilt within, so you kill the cause of it, without. First his daughter, and then the sister’s recent death set it all off again.’
‘He may not even know he does it,’ she said. ‘He may be split from it. Like the branch from the tree.’
McLevy sniffed. He had no time for these sorts of daft notions; anyway part of his attention had shifted to a scene about to happen at the bar.
No. Not yet. The recent arrival, Andra, had turned from the counter to survey in benign fashion the tobacco smoke which spread like a cloud through the bar.
The old man added to it by lighting up his pipe and puffing contentedly. The chance has gone, Johnnie. Wait for the next time, eh?
‘How did you get these papers?’ he asked suddenly.
She hesitated. ‘A friend. They were loose inside one of his … official diaries.’
‘You have someone in Gladstone’s employ?’
She nodded unwillingly.
McLevy sat back. No point in asking the name of her provider; she would return to ‘I cannot tell’. There would be a time, either in the interrogation room, or when he had some leverage on her, like a headlock perhaps.
He smiled at the thought but was there not some element of attraction in this vision? Her head against his chest, his arm across her throat? And did she not invite this, by her very nature?
He flicked the pages over to her with an idle finger. ‘It’s a good read, what I can glean, but it says nothing. Proves nothing. Nothing worth a damn.’
His voice was flat, his face stony, as if he had completely lost interest. She tried to hold down her mounting desperation. He had to believe her!
‘There is another book. A private diary. Kept under lock and key. Always. If I can get my hands on it, I know it will contain his innermost thoughts and deeds. Then we will know the truth. You must help me, you must – ’
His hand shot out like a snake and grasped her firmly on each side of the jaw. She shuddered as he bent her face close to his, like lovers.
‘The truth?’ he said softly. ‘What is your commerce in all this, Miss Lightfoot? Tell me your own truth, and I will see where to lay the brand of justice.’
Without taking her eyes from his, she reached into the bag and took out another page of the paper. He let go her face and she bowed her head as he looked upon the page.
He looked up to find a single tear finding a path over the high cheekbone down to the corner of her mouth, where she licked at it like a child.
‘Pauline Lightfoot,’ her voice was low and agonised. ‘My mother. She left this vale of tears when I was five years old.
‘She had given up the streets when I was born, a sum of money had been settled on her. When she died, I was taken away by a guardian and looked after till I was old enough to make my own way in the world.’
Joanna let out a sigh which a softer heart than McLevy’s would have found quite piteous.
‘I told you the truth. A private income, I have, of sorts. Each month a sum was deposited in a bank account under my name. My guardian arranged this, but, like my mother, would not tell me the identity of my father.’
The inspector’s eyes were watchful, this woman was full of stories. They all are.
‘So, you have fixed on the People’s William?’ He whistled a melody under his breath as he awaited her answer.
‘God help me. I have.’
‘Why in particular? Your mother must have had many … visitors in her time?’
She looked away, and put her hand up to her throat.
‘When my guardian died, this is most shameful to relate, I went through all of his papers. I found evidence that a large sum of money had been passed to him from a lawyer acting on behalf of an unnamed benefactor. The money was to be settled on my mother and myself. The rest was easy.’
‘Was it now?’ McLevy’s eyes widened in what she had come to recognise as his idiot look. ‘And how did ye persuade the lawyer to divulge the name of this here benefactor? They are mean-mindit, small-mouthed creatures. Their whole profession is dedicated to guarding others’ secrets. How did you do that, I wonder?’
Joanna smiled crookedly.
‘I seduced him, Mr McLevy. I came to his bed at night and dropped the seventh veil. These wiles are in my blood.’
McLevy again whistled softly under his breath and gazed back out into the bar. All quiet. So far.
‘Since then, I have made it my business to find out every single thing about William Gladstone. I have used recommended … investigators and now I have my friend. A friend at court.’
‘Would it not be easier just to go up and ask the man?’
A simple enough question but her eyes filled up and she bit into her lip with such force that he feared a bloody response.
