The building stone itself was from the Craigmillar quarry not far from the capital, the masonry 900,000 cubic feet, the cost of the whole project estimated to be in excess of ?400,000, and the whole fandangle fairly shrieked prosperity.
A new, vibrant prosperity.
McLevy, however, preferred the old docks, with their creaking timbers and skulking rats.
You always knew where you were with a rat.
More and more he was finding that in place of the street crime, the pimps, whores, delvers and skylighters who used to flow through Leith like the blood did his veins, he was now dealing with the perfidy of the respectable classes.
Sleekit pouches. Hidden and devious; like the pox behind a welcoming smile from a nymph of the pave.
Doctor Jarvis, the police surgeon, would be summoned to the cold slab and, if it were after lunch, breathing claret fumes all over the corpse, would hopefully confirm what McLevy had already spotted. Till then, the inspector, as was his proven custom, would keep his powder dry.
Therefore he was silent.
Mulholland, however, was chewing the bitter cud of jealous indignation.
As he had marched over to Garvie to deliver the inspector’s demands as regards the non-disarrangement of corpses and then turned to go, he had most definitely heard a snort of laughter behind his back. He treated the noise with the contempt it deserved for a moment, but then another snigger cracked his good intentions and he whipped round.
All the workmen had broad grins on their faces and Garvie wasn’t even looking in his direction but seemed to be examining the back of his hand.
What had been going on? Why had the men been laughing? Why was Oliver Garvie admiring the half-moons of his nails?
‘What a pompous ass!’ he burst out.
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ said McLevy as he bent down to pick up a flat stone and send it skimming over the scummy placid waters of the old docks.
‘Eh?’
The stone skipped a number of times and then sank into the depths of the sea.
‘A sixer!’ McLevy almost hopped in the air with childlike satisfaction. ‘That’s a good omen.’
‘Omen?’
The inspector suddenly changed countenance and stuck his face fiercely into that of his constable.
‘What’s the matter between you and Garvie anyway? Like twa dogs slavering over a gammon bone.’
‘My Emily is not a gammon bone,’ replied Mulholland stiffly.
McLevy was now well aware of what was going on behind his back but he played daft.
‘Emily Forbes?’
‘You have seen us together, inspector.’
‘Only some months ago, through the gates of the Just Land.’
‘Indeed. A house of ill repute. And you, bawling out like a man possessed.’
‘I was trying to attract your attention.’
‘You terrified my Emily. And I had the devil’s own job explaining what you were doing there.’
‘I was drinking coffee wi’ Jean Brash,’ said McLevy, beginning to enjoy himself. ‘So. Garvie. Oho. A rival, eh?’
‘I believe he has paid court.’
‘For God’s sake,’ roared McLevy changing to sudden fury. ‘This is a criminal investigation not the pangs of jealous love!’
He shook his finger under the long straight nose of his constable.
‘And you are not young Lochinvar! Get a hold on yourself.’
With that, he stomped off in the direction of the Tolbooth Wynd for his stomach had reminded him of a missed breakfast, and all these funerals and burnt bodies gave a man the most terrible appetite.
With a bit of luck, he would find at the Old Ship, his favourite tavern and the place where poor Archibald Gourlay had spent his last night on earth almost a year ago – and there’s another dead body – a drappit egg or two. McLevy did not believe in heavy daytime provender and this produce of the hen poached in the gravy made from the fowl’s own liver, would sustain his vital forces without a sluggish aftermath.
Mulholland on the other hand, now loping beside him he noticed from the corner of his eye, swore blind by sheep’s head broth, but the constable was young enough to take such a hodgepodge in his stride.
‘How comes it, sir,’ said Mulholland, paying not the slightest heed to the previous wise advice, a mark of amatory obsession through the ages, ‘that you and Robert Forbes are so well acquainted?’
‘I told ye once before.’
‘Tell me again. You were in a terrible fury at the time and I more concentrated on avoiding the spittle.’
The inspector stopped dead. Now and again, Mulholland could surprise him. The constable was correct. McLevy had been removed from a case because of the trifling matter of him trying to pin a murder on the next prime minister of Great Britain.
Prime ministers may start wars but they rarely admit to murder. It turned out that McLevy may have been slightly mistaken but, in any case, he had taken his bad temper out on his subordinate.
‘I was not in a fury. And you were sookin’ up to Lieutenant Roach at the time to gain his approval. Just the same as you are now. Sook, sook.’
However, the young man was not to be distracted.
‘Tell me again, please.’
‘Agghh!’
McLevy turned abruptly and marched towards the Tolbooth Wynd, noticing with a jaundiced eye that the work of dismantling the old wynds, the narrow closes, lanes and small cramped courts that had bred many a decent criminal, was proceeding apace.
‘Robert Forbes was like me one time. In the field,’ he muttered, eyes casting around for another flat stone. ‘We had a few capers thegither.’
‘I note that he addressed you as James?’
‘I was that tae him and he was Robert to me. One swindle wi’ bonded whisky, we broke it and then we danced a jig upon the tavern tables.’
‘Difficult to imagine, sir.’
‘He was in the ranks then. A changed man now, who looks not back whence he cameth.’
McLevy gave up on the stone. The Old Ship beckoned in the distance and he could smell the gravy. He almost broke into a trot, a rare event for him and Mulholland lengthened stride to keep pace.
‘D’you want me to put in a word?’ the inspector asked, puffing slightly.
‘No thanks,’ came the hasty response.
‘Why not?’
‘I already have sufficient representation.’
‘Who might that be?’
McLevy’s eyes were wide with innocence and Mulholland feared the worst.
‘It is a confidential matter, sir.’
The inspector suddenly let out a whoop of laughter sending some seagulls that had been moping about on the quayside, screeching up into the damp, cold heavens.
‘Ye’re getting very snifty, Mulholland, too much genteelity has that effect. Now let’s get on with this case and leave romance where it belongs – on the shelf!’
One of the provoked gulls settled on the cross spar of a sailing ship, shortly bound for Copenhagen with a cargo of jute yarn.
Jute held no interest for the seagull. It lifted a sharp yellow beak and through beady eyes, watched the figures of the two men as they disappeared out of the November chill into the warmth of the tavern.
Then a far-off skirl of birds brought its head spinning round. In the distance a fishing boat was coming towards the harbour, followed by a mixed flock of terns, razorbills and herring gulls. They were feeding on the scraps thrown from the boat by the men already at work, gutting the fish and throwing the slimy innards back into
