Fall From Grace

there.

Both others fell into a cold sweat.

Mulholland’s hand closed protectively over the pocket where he’d put the ring and Roach prayed silently that the inspector had not overheard too much.

If McLevy knew that the lieutenant was acting as love’s emissary, the future would contain more barbs than Cupid’s quill could muster.

‘Where have you been hiding, McLevy?’ Roach demanded, trying to read his fate in the inspector’s face, but the countenance in front of him was blank. The Sphinx would have supplied more indication.

‘I attended a funeral,’ came the eventual answer.

‘Of your own making?’

‘Not directly.’

‘That’s a nice change.’

For a moment McLevy darted a ruminative look towards his superior, then he turned to his constable.

‘We have work before us, Mulholland,’ he said.

‘And what is that, sir?’

‘The fire at the bonded warehouse.’

‘I sniffed it on the wind this morning,’ Roach interposed. ‘But that is a concern primarily for the port authorities and official fire investigation.’

‘Not any more.’ McLevy shook himself as if in anticipation, and drops of water sprayed from his overcoat perilously near to Roach’s highly polished shoes.

The lieutenant cut an immaculate figure as always.

The inspector, as usual, resembled a dog that had just run through a puddle.

‘A report just in at the desk as I arrived. It seems that a body has been newly found amongst the debris,’ said McLevy. ‘That makes it our concern.’

‘What kind of body?’ asked Roach suspiciously.

The ghost of a smile touched McLevy’s lips as he watched Mulholland struggle into his police cape and carefully place the helmet upon his head. With his great height and beanpole figure, it never failed to amuse the simpler side of his inspector.

‘I havenae yet made acquaintance, sir,’ he replied with due deference. ‘But I am willing to wager that it is burnt to a crisp, and dead as a dodo.’

8

O Comforter, draw near,

Within my heart appear,

And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

RICHARD LITTLEDALE,

Come down, O love divine

The walls and ceiling of the warehouse were blackened by the fire but had stood firm. The wooden beams had absorbed, over the years, enough moisture from the sea and windswept rain, to render them proof against consuming flame.

The body had not been so lucky. It had lain under a pile of scorched debris, until discovered by the workmen brought in to sweep the site lest more combustion be lurking, ready to burst once more into destructive action.

Oliver Garvie looked down at the scrambled mess of something once human, and sighed.

‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t come too near.’

He had met and escorted the policemen through the ruins of the fire leading them to an unsavoury tangle of flesh and bone, the scorched putrid matter peeling from the emerging skeleton. It was curled up in a foetal position, lying on its side, what was left of the face contorted, jaws open in a silent scream.

McLevy dropped to his knees and peered at the corpse, whistling a Jacobite tune under his breath,

‘Charlie is my darling, the young Chevalier.’

The inspector was in his element, oblivious to the stench from the near carbonised flesh and the gruesome picture presented. He pored over the details of the body like a housewife picking out a good piece of meat for the table.

Above him, Garvie and Mulholland eyed each other. It would seem that there was no love lost between them, and they made an odd contrast.

Oliver was very much the man of fashion and cut, even in this sad wreckage, an impeccable figure. His single-breasted frock coat was of a smooth dark material, fastened only with a top button to reveal the silk, silvery waistcoat below. To complete the upper body ensemble, a patterned cravat nestled at the neck of the fine-combed cotton shirt of such dazzling whiteness that might even match the hue from the imagined nightgown of Emily Forbes.

His hair was a glossy chestnut brown that fell in waves towards his left eye; the trousers were discreetly striped, hanging to the bottom of the heel of his boot, and all in all, especially taking into account the heavy sensual mouth which hinted at an aptitude for the boudoir, he presented a formidable proposition.

Through gritted teeth Mulholland would have to admit, given the fact the man’s father owned a succession of butcher’s shops, that Oliver Garvie exuded a certain beefy charm.

The constable on the other hand, was more of a bony proposition, only too conscious of the rough material of his police uniform the collar of which chafed against his long neck, and the fact that, however hard he pulled at them, his wrists dangled out from the sleeves as if he was some sort of half-witted farm boy.

There was also the matter of his helmet with its little metal nipple at the pinnacle. Given its positioning on his great stature, it looked, in the words of his Aunt Katie, ‘like a pea on top of the Mountains of Mourne’.

All this had instantly flashed between them while McLevy whistled.

Garvie spoke down to the inspector, ignoring the tall figure beside him. His tone had the self-assured drawl of a man at ease in his class and social standing, though far from content with the situation in which he found himself.

‘I’ve been here since first light. We found him not long ago. Buried, you see.’

Garvie dabbed at his brow with an immaculate white handkerchief, which he replaced with a flourish into the sleeve of his jacket so that it hung out as if the bold Oliver were a Restoration dandy.

Mulholland stepped past and his nose wrinkled as the stench of the corpse rose to meet him.

‘It’s a wonder you didn’t smell him out,’ he said.

‘Twenty thousand pounds’ worth of top-quality cigars creates quite a smokescreen,’ Garvie observed wryly.

‘Really? I don’t use the things.’

‘A decent cigar is the mark of a true gentleman.’

He smiled at Mulholland as if to take away any hint of disparagement in the remark, but the sting remained.

It is said that if stabbed by a bee, the best resource is to maintain a still quality in order that the insect may therefore withdraw its barb. If the spike breaks off, the bee will die. Allow it to retract the same and buzz about its business, then not only will it live on to serve Mother Nature, but you will suffer less pain.

That is what they say.

Mulholland’s lack of motion however had less to do with enlightened self-interest and more the demeanour of