‘The name the lawyer gave me was by the spoken word. Not by written proof.’
‘Your seduction had its limitations, then?’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, then drew another deep breath.
‘I am afraid he will deny me. And I am even more afraid that he may have committed murder. The least I owe myself is to know the truth of that before I knock upon his door.’
As McLevy brooded on this and turned his face once more away from her, she drew the pages towards her bag.
‘He stays tonight in George Street. It is his habit to go walking of an evening. Who knows – ’ her voice almost broke, ‘what he may accomplish? I wish that you might follow him. Perhaps you may find out the truth this night. For me. And for justice.’
He made no reply, his eyes fixed towards the bar. She looked down to put the papers into her bag and when she raised her eyes once more McLevy was no longer opposite.
She looked out into the crowd and there was no sign of him. He had vanished into the smoke-filled room.
Johnnie Martin was good at his trade and on the point of exercising it. The mark was fuddled with drink which made the delving even easier. He slid his fingers into the man’s side pocket where he had previously noted the purse tae reside, prepared to lurch into him, blame the whisky, grin his apologies and be out with the lift before –
An iron hand gripped his where he held the wallet, and he looked up with a sinking heart to see McLevy’s big face leering through the smoke at him like a warwolf.
‘Well, Johnnie,’ said the inspector softly, ‘we’ll not make a fuss. Slip the retainers on, just tae keep you honest, eh?’
The little man sagged back as McLevy deftly clipped the cuffs around his wrists, removed the wallet from his unresisting hands and tapped Andra on the shoulder.
‘I think this belongs to you, sir,’ he said.
The old man had noticed nothing.
‘I must have dropped it on the floor,’ he muttered.
‘I think not,’ replied the inspector.
Still holding firmly on to the pickpocket, he glanced back to see if Joanna had witnessed his small triumph.
The cubicle was empty. A draught of cold outside air hit him on the back of the neck, and the street door shook gently as if a ghost had left the tavern.
For a moment he was tempted to race after but she would be long gone with these long strides. Never mind. He would hand Johnnie over to one of the constables on the beat, and then go about his business.
‘Can I see my way tae buy you a drink, sir?’ said the grateful Andra, puffing his pipe fit to bust.
‘I believe I may have a whisky,’ responded McLevy. ‘I lost the last one in mysterious circumstances.’
29
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying.
ROBERT HERRICK,
‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’
Mulholland took a deep, soul-satisfied breath. This was the life. A grand destination.
He’d worried in the coach all the way back from West Calder, cursing the weakness for sheep’s head which had let McLevy inveigle him out there in the first place, chewing a bitter lip that he’d be late – but no, just made it in time.
Slipped in at the back as the first note quavered in the air. This was the life.
The recital had unfolded with one sweet mystery after another. To begin. A succession of young ladies who held their violins like newborn lambs as they sawed their graceful way through compositions by various, by the sound of it, foreigners.
And then to follow some songs which delighted the ear, while the eye was being entertained as the daughters of the Muse swayed tastefully to the constrained passion of the melody. They never moved their legs though. Good breeding saw to that.
Madrigals and pastoral fancies,
One piece which particularly impressed the constable was
Donizetti! Your very man. Italian by the sound but none the worse for all that.
Indeed had Mulholland known the fate of Gaetano Donizetti, the poor songsmith dying mad, eaten up by cerebrospinal syphilis, he may have reflected that fine music, like most things, comes at a cost.
But he did not know that. And his attention had been captured by one particular young lady who had played piano accompaniment for the various performers.
Emily Forbes was her name. Her father Robert sat at the front, stern but proud, a widower of three years.
The whole society seemed to be in mourning for someone or other, from the Queen downwards. A nation of glum faces, surrounded by black crape.
Mulholland had sat at the front beside Mrs Roach, the lieutenant holding to the outer reaches of the audience, and the constable could have sworn that Emily had cast some sidelong glances in his direction though she might have just been following the pages of the score.
There was the satisfied buzz of honey-laden bees as, recital over, the young ladies congratulated each other and were in turn complimented by the sons of upright citizens.
The constable found himself rather isolated, suddenly conscious of his low rank. These fellows were of a different breed, a confident assumption of their own self-worth wafting around them like horse-breath in November. Money does that.
One of them, a fellow Mulholland had disliked on sight, was making great play over Emily who seemed not to notice what a potato-head the man had on him and laughed, no doubt in pity, at some presumed witticism.
Roach, seeing his constable lurking like a night-thief at the back of the crowd, crossed over amid the tinkling of teacups and crunch of ginger biscuits.
The lieutenant’s wife revelled in these evenings but his own patience was sore tried by it all. Just when you thought the damned thing was finished, up popped another song about trees bending in the breeze, decent enough on the course when such a wind had to be taken into account, but not worth such interminable musical spasms.
‘Let us assume you have enjoyed the recital and not waste words, constable,’ he said tersely. ‘Where did you leave the inspector?’
‘He was … heading homewards, sir,’ was the careful reply.
‘McLevy doesn’t have a home, unless he carries it on his back like a tortoise,’ muttered Roach. ‘What is the progress of our investigation?’
‘We’re gathering in all the strands, lieutenant.’
A baleful glint of humour surfaced on Roach’s saurian features. ‘You sound like a seaweed collector. What about Frank Brennan?’
