Shadow of the Serpent

pleasure.

Anything but the axe. Anything that might provide the smallest chance of surviving this hellish predicament.

‘Ye did a fine job: lockpicks, the pillow, in and out like a ghost, but what was the necessity, sir?’

McLevy let humble admiration creep into his voice and watched the man nod acceptance before replying.

‘Over-elaboration. Fault of mine. My reconnaissance had led me to believe that money would keep him in the tavern and removed from his pimping ground. But then, inevitably, he saw me in the doorway, and there was always the prospect that sometime, somewhere in the future, there might be another recognition. I don’t like loose ends.’

That took care of that and anyway Frank Brennan wasn’t worth the breath. The inspector had other things on his mind. Play for time. Act the innocent.

‘Ye said, render me unconscious? But, ye’ve already done that, sir. I was out like a light. Ye could have finished me off there and then. Why bring me back to life?’

‘I felt the least I could do, old boy, was thank you. Face to face, as it were. After all, you’ve done a tremendous amount of work on my behalf.’

He smiled again. McLevy’s face was like a mask. The fellow had to see himself in someone else’s eyes to behold his own genius. That might be a weakness.

‘Alas, I am forgetting my manners in this heathen country. Allow me to introduce myself.’

The man levered himself off the tomb and bowed as if meeting a stately dowager.

‘Graham. Sir Edward Graham. I have an official position. Security. But I also run and provide a service, most secret, to those in highest authority. Those who kiss the Queen’s hand. When split from my official guise, I become another person. And I call myself the Serpent. A silly name but it satiates a melodramatic streak.

He bowed once more.

‘At your service. The Serpent.’

‘An adder in the path that biteth the horse’s heels so that his rider shall fall backward,’ the inspector quoted, in apparent acquiescence of the man’s function.

‘Genesis. Exactly! But what says Matthew? Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.’

‘Harmless? But, ye’ve murdered three people.’

‘Oh, more than that. In my time.’

McLevy closed his eyes as if the full extent of his dreadful plight was beginning to dawn.

Keep the bugger talking, words don’t kill.

‘All this … all that has happened … was your planning. Was it not?’

‘Indeed. Start to finish, old boy.’

‘But why? For God’s sake, why?’

McLevy blinked like a bewildered child and the Serpent almost laughed at the look on the face opposite.

He assumed the manner of someone delivering a lecture, a dissertation, an anatomy of events.

‘Let us suppose that the advent of William Gladstone was not welcome; indeed a foul, unacceptable prospect to someone in the highest reaches, exalted almost.’

‘Like a Majesty, maybe?’

A sharp look came into the Serpent’s eye and McLevy schooled his features back to bovine.

‘A messenger approached me, a most high messenger, and a remark was made. Implication more than command, but to be hard reckoned and in no way ignored.

‘The import of it being … who will rid me of this turbulent priest? … that sort of thing, eh?’

McLevy nodded as if his dull brain was managing to follow it all so far, and the Serpent carried on.

‘So it became my task to put these, as it were, unspoken words into practice. This is what I have done. To the best of my modest ability.’

‘And what is your reward?’ McLevy asked most humbly.

‘I shall sit on the right hand of power. Together we shall play the long game. Though to tell you the truth, old boy, a great reward also comes from the strategy and the act itself.’

He laughed lightly and flipped the axe up into the air so that it described a circle before the handle landed back in his hand. McLevy eyed the sharp blade and kept talking.

‘How will you effect this purpose? What is your strategy, Sir Edward?’

‘To the point. Good. It is as follows. William Gladstone will be found here, a little dazed in his wits, holding the bloody implement of murder, your body at his feet. Some torn pages from his most private diary, genuine enough, which detail his covert meetings with prostitutes and self-scourging, will be found in your pocket.’

He hoisted himself off the tomb and McLevy noticed the man’s shoes were highly polished. Good-quality leather.

‘Your part in all this is already a matter of record. Your colleagues and even Gladstone’s own men can attest to the fact that you pursued him for these murders. It will be assumed that you taxed him with the further proof in your pocket and that he gave in to the evil influences which had set you on his trail in the first place.

‘A witness will also swear that she saw him rise from the corpse, axe in hand, covered in your blood, etcetera, etcetera.

‘Bravo, inspector! The case is solved. Pity you had to die, but we shall all travel that road, sooner or later.

‘In your instance, however, sooner carries the day.’

The man skipped happily across the flagstones in a way that reminded McLevy of the night he trailed the supposed figure of Gladstone through the fog.

Unbeknownst to the inspector, what was causing an excess of spirits in the Serpent’s breast was the thought that soon he would be reunited with the little fleshly beast. Would lie in her arms once more, and feel the naked pulse of pleasure.

‘Of course, I, in my official capacity, can make sure that the whole thing is hushed up. But Gladstone will be finished. He will never assume office. In any capacity. A toothless and disgraced old man.’

‘What about his party? They can take office, can they not?’

‘Without his backbone they will collapse. A whiff of the scandal will encourage the rot. There will be another election, and no mistake on this occasion.’

A look of detached cruelty came in his eye. Almost time to render. And chop.

McLevy wasn’t quite ready for that.

‘How did you know about … thirty years ago?’

‘Records. We keep records on everything that might be useful. Including your good self. Thirty years ago, William Gladstone was in emotional crisis. He had lost his daughter. He was in Edinburgh, on the streets that night. The very night a brutal crime was committed that set the headlines all aflame. A Lamb to the Slaughter.’

The quote set the Serpent into a fit of laughter but McLevy could smell the blood lust underneath.

‘It caught the public imagination, old boy. I’m always keen on anything that catches the public imagination.’

McLevy creased his brow as if following all this had sorely strained his mental resources and the Serpent, with a certain contempt, spelled out his strategy.

‘It could all be woven in, you see. I knew if I could link that past crime with a present likeness, you would not be able to resist. I play the long game, but you? You are a predictable type, inspector. A servant of the Crown, who deeply resents authority. I knew if I laid a trail of tasty enough morsels, you would gobble them up. Gobble, gobble.’

‘So, everything … was a lie?’

‘Who knows? All these years ago, that murder, someone had to do it. Who knows?’

A look came over the Serpent’s face as if some strange thought had surfaced, but then he was back on course.

‘The nurse was genuine enough. And the deaths of the daughter and sister. I always like to mix fact with