The result of that throw was to witness a disaster in which all four elements played their parts. The reluctant earth, savage fire, howling wind and ice-cold water.
Be that as it may, I shall attend the closing. The lady of the house will be concomitant. There’s always a woman to hand. And the devil’s never far away either.
As long as folk steer the middle course, we may all rest easy but that rarely happens. Someone somewhere, high or low, tries to bend occasion to their will without success and then, to gratify a hunger they barely comprehend, takes a wee step sideways, a deviation, and imperceptibly puts in motion events that set the gates of hell quivering with anticipation.
To strive beyond yourself is human aspiration and yet it is also an item on Satan’s breakfast table. Right next to the boiled egg.
I should stop now. I fear my thought is moving in a direction that might well land me in the asylum.
But why does the vision of Icarus still hold in my mind?
Man strains every muscle to rise and embrace that which cradles the seed of his own destruction.
An unearthly yowl broke into this meditation; Bathsheba was at the window ready to embark upon her midnight prowl.
McLevy, with a sudden burst of energy, leapt up, pulled up the sill to let her depart and then leant his head out to follow her progress.
He watched as she padded along the damp slates and then slipped out of sight.
A strange cheerfulness unexpectedly possessed him, as if he had left his gloom upon the page.
James McLevy, inspector of police, would attack his next investigation with appropriate ferocity.
Crime was like the blood in his veins.
He looked out once more over his city. Edinburgh. And somewhere, towards the sea, the parish of Leith. His patch, where he was King of the Castle.
The cold November air stung at McLevy’s face as he let out a whoop of laughter that echoed in the still night.
2
Incensed with indignation Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burned.
JOHN MILTON,
Mary Rough looked grimly into the flame of the oil lamp as she listened to her son thrashing around in the recesses of the warehouse.
Noise enough to wake the dead, or, more to her concern, a distant night watchman walking the Leith docks. It had been a big mistake to let that boy near whisky but his nerves needed steadying, the great gowk, and a rinse of kill-me-deadly was all that would do the trick.
Unfortunately, it also gave Daniel Rough the illusion that he was ruler of the world, and, in addition, as is so often the result of whisky, brought out the cantankerous side of his nature.
Not that it needed much bringing out. He would take issue with his own shadow, but, in drink, Daniel would beat that shadow to the ground and stamp it to death with his big hobnailed boot. Many was the time Mary had witnessed him crashing his foot down with enough force to raise sparks from stone, as he tried to destroy the fiend below.
There are seven kinds of beastly drunk: Swine, who sleeps and pukes, Sheep, who cannot speak, Martin, who drinks himself back sober, Goat, who is lascivious, Fox, who is crafty, Ape, who leaps and sings, and Lion who is quarrelsome. Daniel was a combination of Ape and Lion.
It was Mary’s own fault. She had spoiled him as a wee boy because of his infirmity and now, as a huge man, he still bore the imprint of that indulgence.
His hulking form emerged from the shadows as he dragged out some large freight cases, still marked with the name of the ship, the
‘Wee Willie Winkie, rins through the town,
Up stairs and doon stairs, in his nicht gown.’
It is doubtful if Daniel knew that in some Jacobite songs, Willie Winkie was supposedly the nickname of William III, but he crashed a last wooden crate into position to compensate for any lack of learning, and let out a bellow which echoed on and on in the emptiness of the building.
‘Mammy. I have it all in hand! Bring me my tools of trade!’
‘Can ye no’ be quiet?’ she admonished. ‘D’ye want the world tae know?’
A wild laugh came in response. The whisky may have calmed his nerves for a while, but now they were breaking loose again. It was always so when he came to this point, for he both loved and feared the fire.
It was a large warehouse, piled high with packing cases. All wooden. All grist to the mill. The ceiling was high and vaulted, a good updraught and plenty of gaps in the walls for the wind to whistle in and fan the flames.
Mary noted all this with a keen eye as she crossed towards him, carrying the lamp in one hand and a large sack, which she bore lightly enough, in the other.
The light from the lamp caught Daniel’s shadow and threw it in grotesque against the assembled pile, as he capered round it, dragging his twisted right foot behind like a horse would haul a ploughshare through stony earth.
His infirmity. It had twisted his nature as well.
Daniel snatched at the sack and emptied it out, shaking a thick mass of wood shavings on to the floor, and then scraped them round the heaped cases with his warped, misshapen foot, giggling like an uncontrollable child.
‘What’s sae funny?’ asked Mary, who was growing increasingly nervous, the sooner they were out of this place the better; she had a bad feeling which was getting worse by the second. Not helped by the fact that she had failed to move her bowels all day and was dying to sit on a midnight cackie-pot.
Daniel bent over and blew playfully at some shavings to propel them like a snowdrift towards the bottom of his created edifice. Then he straightened up and recited a fragment of what was swirling through his mind.
‘I says tae the joiner fellow, “Can I have these shavings kind sir?” Says he, “Whit for?” Says I, “They start a fine fire.”’
He laughed at that then a following thought, not so pleasant struck him. ‘The auld bugger even wanted payment, is there nae charity in this thieving bastard world?’
His face suddenly contorted in anger and he produced a heavy hammer from the inside depths of his jacket to bring it crashing down repeatedly on the lid of one of the cases.
‘So, I gave him this blow, then I gave him another!’
‘Ye’re a liar,’ said Mary. ‘Ye gave him the payment.’
Daniel ignored this shaft of mother-wit and dashed his hammer down on the dislodged lid, breaking it into pieces which he added to the accumulation.
‘Ye don’t need all that,’ she remonstrated, ‘the place is dry as a bone. Go up like the flames o’ hell.’
Again he paid no attention and, his manic burst of energy far from exhausted, shoved the hammer back into his pocket then delved into the contents of the broken case, emerging with a small square box which he opened up and sniffed, in apparent ecstasy.
‘Stinko D’Oros, ripe and ready.’
‘Don’t touch the merchandise!’ came the sharp warning but Daniel, in response, bawled out like a market
