Shadow of the Serpent

stood rigidly to attention. The constable knew there was a bucket of urine coming his way. From on high.

For his part, McLevy was not offended by the rejection and turned his attention back to Roach. You had to commend the stamina of the man. He been ranting for near thirty minutes and scarce repeated the same insult twice.

The inspector had been battered by authority ere now, and though his recitation of the salient facts had sent Roach into a fit of the vapours, he still felt he had a case to put forward.

But it was not much of a case and though McLevy had sailed his wee boat through the Storms of Reprimand before, this one was different. A great deal different.

Roach finally turned round and fixed his pitiless gaze upon the squirming constable.

‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ he asked.

Mulholland’s mouth opened and closed but nothing much emerged except for a dry croak. All the rehearsed excuses had just dribbled out the back of his head.

‘What did you think you were doing, if it’s not too much to demand? I am intrigued as to your explanation. Just exactly what did you think you were doing?’ enquired the lieutenant with enough ice in his voice to freeze an Aberdeen Angus where it stood munching.

‘I … I … was keeping the inspector company,’ came the stutter of a response.

‘Company? Company?’ Roach’s voice rose in pitch and, with difficulty, he hauled it back to earth like a flag down a pole. ‘You are not a chaperon, you are not some sort of Spanish duenna, you are a police constable! And as such, you are responsible to your station superior officer, none other, namely, than me!’

The lieutenant let out a baffled snarl and almost tore at his stiff collar as he once more addressed Mulholland.

‘Why did you not tell me this madness, this … wild gallivant was in progress?’

McLevy judged it time to take a hand. ‘It was my fault, sir,’ he stated, face solemn, tone sober, as befits the repentant sinner.

Roach’s head swivelled in his direction.

‘Everything is your fault,’ he muttered. ‘Explain.’

‘I prevailed upon the constable not to divulge the … direction of the investigation, until I had extended it to my complete satisfaction.’

‘Extended?’ Roach near howled. ‘By God you extended it. Right up to one of the most important people in this country!’

But a dour nod from the lieutenant to Mulholland indicated some acceptance of his innocence in the affair.

Roach knew to his cost what a devious bugger his inspector could be. He turned a cold unforgiving eye back to McLevy. That which ye sow, so shall ye reap, and this was going to be a bitter harvest.

‘Extended without a shred of proof,’ he spat out the words like sour pips. ‘A tissue of stories concocted by some female who sends you on a goose chase with madwomen, nurses, murders from thirty years ago, all tangled up like a whore’s drawers!’

It was a measure of the heated indignation in Roach’s breast that he had expressed himself so indelicately, but he wasn’t done yet, not by a long chalk.

‘And who is this woman? This … Joanna Lightfoot? Is she a figment of your imagination, McLevy?’

‘She is real enough. And I shall find her out.’

‘You have done enough damage,’ said Roach. ‘Acting on your own half-baked assumptions, you have tried to link these murders to William Gladstone. You have bothered and bearded the lion in its den and, as I could have warned you had you the decency to keep me up to scratch, you have provoked the most implacable and punishing rebuttal.

‘You are out of your league, inspector. I may not like the man’s politics but he is one of the most powerful men in the country and a beacon of moral probity.

‘Yet, you have sought to draw him in. Without a shred, an iota of proof. Not a shred!’

The lieutenant threw up his hands as if he had just seen a decent iron shot take a bad hop into a deep bunker.

He shook his head and fell silent. Righteous wrath was an exhausting process.

McLevy judged it time to try his luck.

‘Did Dr Jarvis examine the fingernails of the corpse?’ asked the inspector.

‘He did, sir,’ interposed Mulholland who thought he might make this remark without taking sides, ‘and found remnants of human skin under the first and second digits.’

‘No more than I noticed myself.’

‘And what was your deduction, sir?’

Mulholland was trying to help, it was the least he could do after McLevy had rescued him from the bottomless pit; mind you, it was the inspector who had landed him there in the first place.

‘William Gladstone had two deep scrapes upon his wrist. He claimed to have received them felling trees.’

‘Are we to rove the streets arresting everyone who has a scrape upon them?’ was Roach’s flinty response.

‘I followed him last night. Myself. I saw him.’

‘You saw someone who looked like the man. In the fog. For a moment. And then disappeared. You saw nothing but your own desire to topple the statue of authority, and bring it crashing down.’

There was enough truth in that remark to stop McLevy in his tracks.

Roach spoke more in sorrow than anger, but not much more.

‘You were following a trail of pure circumstance which has led you to a hellish pass, McLevy. Why did you not tell me, your superior officer, of all this?’

‘I thought you might curtail the inquiry,’ was the only answer.

‘By God, I would have and am about to do so,’ said Roach with cold anger. He moved to his desk and scribbled his name on a piece of official-looking paper which he then slid towards McLevy.

‘You are now removed from the investigation. You will confine yourself to your domestic quarters for as much time as it takes this matter to blow over. Then and only then will you be allowed to return to the station with your tail between your legs. There will be, of course, an official reprimand put on your record. A heavy reprimand.’

As McLevy slowly picked up the paper and squinted at it, Mulholland felt a hot flush run through him, but what was the emotion?

‘You can count yourself lucky,’ added the lieutenant. ‘Chief Grant wanted you reduced to the rank of third- class constable and banished to the dog patrol. I interceded on your behalf. Don’t make me regret my decision. Now, you may take your leave. Pick up your bed and walk.’

McLevy seemed stunned by this turn of affairs.

‘I will take command of the inquiry, and Constable Mulholland, as some measure of reparation, will assist me.’

The constable couldn’t look at his inspector as he walked to the door. The flush was pleasure. A malicious pleasure that he took no pride in, yet could not disown.

McLevy usually had the last word, but not this time.

That seemed to be left to Roach. He spoke with some sincerity because, despite their differences, he respected the fact that his inspector had brought home cases that many another couldn’t even begin to open the book on. But the man was a menace. An agent of chaos.

‘I blame myself, James. I have indulged you too long. It is my misfortune to be of such trusting nature. And it is your nature and consequent misfortune to take advantage of that trust. Hell mend the two of us.’

He then reassumed a formal intonation.

‘You will not approach William Gladstone, or anyone connected to him, in the immediate or foreseeable future. If you do so, you will be dismissed from the force.

‘Go to your lodgings. Shut the portal. And stay there.’