Shadow of the Serpent

lights struggling against the fog and gloom.

But there he was. Stopped for a moment directly under one of the lamps as if posing for a picture. The man took off his tile hat and then replaced it firmly on his head.

White hair, grey frock-coat which matched colour and melded with the sea-mist, mutton-chop whiskers down the side of a face tilted away so that the features could not be completely seen.

‘Turn round you auld bugger,’ McLevy muttered. ‘Let me put a mark on ye.’

The target lifted his hands, pulling up the collar round his neck to protect him from the cold or, more likely, unwelcome scrutiny. The hands were gloved. Black against the white hair.

Gladstone, it had to be. Surely? Though the inspector would not know for certain till he looked into his eyes.

Of course McLevy had no reason to gawp into the man’s face, indeed no reason even to follow. This was just a respectable citizen out for a walk, in the dead of night, in the darkness, a constitutional, for the good of his health, it being such a healthy atmosphere.

The man turned and walked with swift sure steps into the blind of mist. In an instant he was gone.

McLevy took a deep breath, regretted it as his throat was caught raw, and plunged after his quarry.

Then followed a bizarre game of hide and seek as the fog twisted and spiralled around the two figures, linked by separate desires and a common destiny.

They prowled their way down East Claremont Street, past the Rosebank graveyard, down, always down, inexorably bound towards the narrow wynds of Leith.

McLevy could have sworn, in the few glimpses afforded by the moments when the fog shifted, that the man skipped along as if he was leading in a dance. Why would he skip, why would he hop? This was no dancing matter.

The streets were deserted, little cover save the mist and when it, of a sudden, dissipated, the inspector was marooned in strong light. The other was still in shadow and McLevy thought he saw the figure turn.

If so, he was discovered, and the policeman cursed silently as he moved to conceal himself. He could dog a man with the best of them but, in the changes of the haar, all things are equal.

However, there was no outcry, no accusation, no change of pace or direction, and the mist came down again. McLevy ploughed on, trying to keep a distance between them so that he would not blunder upon the fellow but near enough in touch not to be slipped like a fool.

The figure slipped over Great Junction Street, McLevy following as close as he dared.

Now they were in the back alleys and wynds of the lower part of his parish. The inspector was on home ground here but the mist suddenly thickened like a gravy sauce and any advantage was nullified.

McLevy came to a stop. He had been relying on the footsteps of the quarry, a firm strong sound on the cobbles, but now they had halted. Nothing. Silence.

His face was scammed with moisture from the mist, his clothes soaking. A feeling of complete isolation crept upon him, as if he was lost in a world where nothing was known, nothing was real, a thick grey world of cloud and silence.

It was like a nightmare. Then the silence was broken by a single scream.

He ran through the fog, feet slipping on the greasy cobblestones, his only guide a now silent cry of pain. The cloud thinned a little and he could see the Gothic spire of St Thomas’s church sticking through the mist like a dagger at the top of Sheriff Brae.

A church bought and paid for by Sir John Gladstone of Fasque no less, what a bloody joke he thought as he came to a stop, gasping for breath, and listened with a growing desperation. Please make a sound. Betray yourself. Let me get my hands on you.

There was nothing. Something scuttled off at the side, a rat, a cat maybe.

Nothing. Then there was a gust of air. The east wind. It had grown tired of the game, and raised the thick mist like a window blind.

The road before him was clear, like a ghost ship. Off to the side was a small wynd which he knew well. The nymphs used it to entice their clients in from the main street. It was as good a place as any to start.

She was sitting on the ground, her hand outstretched as if begging for alms. He could not tell if she had fallen thus or been arranged like some macabre depiction, like a print from Hogarth. The Harlot’s Progress.

Her face looked up at him. A young face. Her name would come to mind. She was split through. Just like the others.

Something in the back of his head burst its banks and he howled in anger and grief. Like a wolf.

31

As for myself, I walk abroad o’ nights

And kill sick people groaning under walls;

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, The Jew of Malta

Leith, 1835

Jean Scott had been dozing in front of the fire when the noise cut through her sleep like a sharp knife. For a moment she was lost in an unfamiliar world, half between dream and awakening, then the sound came again, a high-pitched squeal such as she sometimes heard when she passed the auld slaughterhoose.

She was a stocky brisk woman, over forty years in age, who had already survived much in life, her husband Hughie dying an early martyr to strong drink. She buried him, spat on her hands, then made a new life for herself as a cook for Judge MacGregor’s household, mustering a touch of surprising delicacy as regards desserts … Edinburgh Fog, Caledonian Cream and the like. The judge’s wife had a sweet tooth, in contrast to her sour disposition.

Jean had saved good honest wages, reaching the point where she might look forward to a long peaceful roll down the hill towards the iron gates of Rosebank cemetery, but it would seem fate had other plans.

The noise grew louder as she came out and crossed the hall to her neighbour’s door. It was Jamie McLevy, she was sure of it, a quiet wee boy of seven years who kept his own counsel. The mother had probably been taken by one of her fits. Jean, periodically, heard her yowling away in what sounded like Latin. There was little danger of the woman being possessed of the devil though, not from the way she fingered that rosary.

A sharp tap on the locked door and the noise cut off abruptly.

‘Jamie!’ she called. ‘It’s me, Jean. Auntie Jean.’

She called herself so to him, though no relative. They knew each other fine well. The boy would visit and sit by the fire, with a wee home biscuit to keep him going, especially when the yowling was afoot.

She never asked and he never said.

The silence was profound on the other side. She tapped again.

‘Jamie. I cannae get in if you cannae get out.’

This proposition seemed to do the trick. She heard him approach, then insert and turn the key.

The door opened slowly and she stepped inside.

The boy looked up at her. He had slate-grey eyes like a wild dog, and his face white as the judge’s wig.

She smiled reassurance. ‘Where’s your mammy, son?’

He pointed wordlessly at the recess bed in the room where the curtain had been pulled aside.