constable did not possess his encyclopaedic knowledge of the criminal flotsam and jetsam that flowed in the streets of Leith.
‘One of our charges has such a twisted foot, the hammer is his preferred advantage, and in stature he would also fit the bill. Giant of a man. A nice big corpse.’
‘Daniel Rough!’
The name had now clicked into Mulholland’s mind and he screwed up his eyes in annoyance at having to be spoon-fed by the inspector. He’d never hear the end of it.
‘Love might sharpen some o’ the senses but it does bugger all for the brain,’ remarked McLevy acidly. ‘Bugger all.’
‘Got it!’ Ballantyne turned in triumph from the window with the large, fat fly, buzzing morosely inside the tumbler and confined by a sheet of paper to prevent escape.
‘I hope that’s no’ a crime report you’re using, that insect might defecate at any moment,’ said McLevy.
‘No, sir. Blank sheet. Wouldnae dream.’
With these words, Ballantyne hurried towards the station door to release his captive.
‘Too kind by half,’ muttered the inspector, noting that the young man’s right shoulder was still hunched from an injury suffered from a jailbreak almost a year ago.
McLevy took some responsibility for the incident. The thought reminded him that even the greatest man might lapse on occasion, so he fixed Mulholland with a marginally more benign eye and inclined his head for contribution.
‘Daniel Rough. I have him now,’ said the constable. ‘A wild man.’
‘In drink, especial. He’s sampled our hospitality, twice for violent affray and theft, but low-class stuff. And something else that may or may not have relevance.’
‘What may that be?’
‘Also in drink. He has a penchant for setting things alight.’
‘A theftuous pyromaniac?’
‘You may describe him so,’ said McLevy. ‘To his mother, Mary.’
12
Then bring my bath and strew my bed,
As each kind night returns,
I’ll change a mistress till I’m dead,
And fate change me for worms.
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER,
Rachel Bryden gazed up at the corniced ceiling, smiled with almost perfect malice and threw her naked limbs into the shape of a star.
‘Does she lie like this?’ she asked.
Oliver Garvie pursed his lips thoughtfully.
‘A touch more decorum,’ he replied.
She adopted another pose that left even less to the imagination.
‘This perhaps? How does that please you?’
For a moment he was tempted to tangle up with her once more, catch the quickness of her breath as she slid round him like a snake, a sinuous lustful snake, but then he slowly shook his head.
‘We’ve indulged sufficient my dear, even for the keenest appetite. Best return to your gainful employment.’
She had prepared a sulk but his words brought her to laughter, and she quit the bed to begin dressing, donning her boots in an admirably business-like fashion.
‘That old bitch Hannah Semple stuck a razor to my throat this very day.’
He smiled. ‘All the more reason not to be late.’
‘I want revenge.’
‘We shall have it.’
She shook the dress over her head then turned in order for him to lace her up.
‘This is the very best game.’
‘But a dangerous one,’ he murmured.
Indeed he had a picture in his mind of a circus performer juggling with Chinese swords that flashed in the lights as they spun high then fell back towards the man with increasing speed, the blades sharp and unforgiving.
‘A cool head. Hot blood can wait.’
She leant back against him and his arms squeezed her cruelly till she gasped agreement.
‘We shall have all the fun in the world when the game is over,’ he said, spinning her away to complete the transformation, by donning her outdoor coat. For a moment she had her back to him, and when she turned, he was looking at a respectable young woman of modest beauty.
‘Will you see her again?’ she asked demurely.
‘Of that I have no doubt.’
‘Why?’
‘Part of the game.’
She laughed and his mind flashed back to the first time he had seen her in the Just Land.
He had accompanied a group of wealthy businessmen, one of whom he was cultivating in particular for some urgently needed investment, and sat to the side in an armchair as the champagne flowed, the magpies laughed, and the ties of matrimony loosened.
From his vantage point he watched a willowy young creature walk down the stairs from the rooms above, holding on to the arm of some old dotterel who had no doubt been duped into imagined vigour, walk the man to the door, tenderly see him out, then turn with a look of complete and cold disdain upon her face. Their eyes met and he smiled to see such sport.
She smiled also without the slightest trace of being disconcerted and, as big Annie Drummond who overflowed the piano stool but had fingers as delicate as the cream puffs she loved to devour, launched into a version of ‘Going home with the milk in the morning’, the creature walked back towards him and stood as if for his appraisal.
‘No fool like an old fool,’ he said.
Her pale blue eyes usually so evasive fixed upon him.
‘I don’t pay for love,’ he continued.
‘Then I’ll supply you for nothing,’ she replied.
The die was cast. Two souls twinned in selfish contemplation without a moral scruple between them. And all else followed on.
It was she who suggested that he pay court to Jean Brash who luckily had not been on hand that night to see him at the bawdy-hoose.
No, he would meet her under more respectable surroundings and Rachel knew exactly where that might be and the way and means to intrigue her mistress.
He was eager enough to accept the challenge. It kept the woman from seeing what was happening under her nose and gave Rachel a secret to nurse, an advantage to hold that was so necessary to her character.
And how could he refuse the dear girl? It was her very own secrets that fuelled the present exploit, a means of escape that was also very necessary. For both of them.
A train whistle sounded in the distance but the dead in Rosebank cemetery were not in the mood for travel.
‘You had better leave,’ he said.
