Fall From Grace

his gaze. Her own was fixed upon him and he felt a sudden warmth creep up under his collar.

‘I was due some period off. Oftentimes my lieutenant is glad to see the back of me and I also wanted to return you this.’

He produced from a canvas sack, a silver candlestick that he laid carefully on a side table.

‘I came across it in the evidence room. I apologise, it should have been restored long since. The perpetrator has unfortunately vanished and that episode closed.’

She looked at the candlestick with no great affection.

‘I had forgotten. There is a great deal to forget.’

He stuffed the canvas bag back into his coat pocket, muttering to himself as it refused to fit neatly.

Margaret smiled. For a moment, she thought that he looked like a little boy, but it is always a dangerous sign when a woman takes a man for his younger version.

‘So, you’ve come?’ she said.

‘Indeed.’

‘It is a long distance to venture.’

‘Uhuh. Here and back. Very long.’

‘You intend to go back this day?’

‘The coach returns within the hour.’

‘Then we don’t have much time.’

‘No.’

She suddenly smiled at some inner thought and a glint of mischief showed in her eyes.

‘Are you married, Mister McLevy?’

‘No.’

‘Betrothed?’

‘I certainly hope not.’

Her gypsy eyes measured him up and down, leaving the inspector to feel like a prize bull at the cattle fair.

‘Your note mentioned that you had something to tell me?’ he asked.

‘Indeed I do.’

‘I assume it is to do with the case?’

‘Not at all.’

At her remark, he stepped back and raised his hand, palm upwards, as if about to take an oath in court.

She stepped forward so that they were out of sight from the garden, took that hand, and laid it lightly round her waist.

A simple enough gesture but within it the seeds of a passion that could destroy both of them.

What kind of women were they serving up these days?

But as McLevy thought so, he could feel the pull of an attraction that had been there from the moment they had met.

He stood like a statue, knowing what was right but mightily magnetised to the opposite proposition.

She moved in close so that his hand slipped further round her back, her face tilted up towards him.

He could smell her breath, violets and a strange peaty fragrance, the merest hint of alcohol perhaps?

Must get closer, investigate further, after all he was a policeman was he not? These things must be investigated.

A harsh screech from the garden broke the spell as a large black crow swung down from the naked branch of an oak tree, landed on the neglected grass of the lawn and hopped towards the chilled numb figure of Sir Thomas, sitting in the wooden chair as if composed of the same element.

The aftermath of heavy rain had left a puddle in a small depression in the earth, near to the man’s feet and this was the crow’s target.

It was thirsty. So it dipped its beak.

One week past. Offer and rejection. Margaret shivered, filled the glass again but sipped more cautiously this time. She knew the dangers of whisky. It promoted a certain careless quality to the limbs and inflamed other parts, especially the tongue. She still had a part to play of the sorrowful widow, sea-shanties notwithstanding.

The family would leave tomorrow, and then she would be free. Unlike James McLevy.

She remembered how the spell had been broken. That damned crow. The inspector stepped back, a look of almost comical terror on his face and had bolted from the room. Then he darted back in again to retrieve a forgotten hat, jammed it on his head and fled the scene.

It would have been funny, had it not been so painful.

Her heart was hammering in her chest with the humiliation of that rejection. As if it would jump into her mouth, as if it would jump the confines of her body.

That damned crow.

She had watched it fly off croaking in satisfaction as the outside door of the house slammed shut and the inspector no doubt shot up the high street towards the marketplace where the statue of a ram celebrated the town’s reliance on the wool trade.

The ram, however, had no ears. It had arrived that way and the sculptor, according to legend, committed suicide because of that omission.

Like Alan Telfer. A suicide of omission.

Margaret had been witness to so many things.

After the inspector had scuttled off like a frightened rat, she had walked to the French windows and called her husband’s name. He had best come in. It was cold out there.

Sir Thomas had risen, turned, and looked at her like a dumb animal, a thread of mucus finding its way from his nose down on to his shirt front.

A mute and suffering animal. Like herself. Something they could both share.

Thomas Bouch died the next morning from a heavy cold, which had plagued him for all of that month.

He had no will to resist death.

For the faults in design, he was entirely responsible.

For the faults in construction, he was principally responsible.

For the faults in maintenance, principally if not entirely responsible.

That was the final verdict of the Court of Inquiry.

And it killed him.

Rain, rattling on the window brought her once more back to the here and now. She rose from the armchair, walked to the window and pulled back the curtains. It was dark outside, the street lamps throwing light upon the hunched figures of the passers-by and the wheels of the carriages spraying devious spouts of water from the torrential downpour, which was lashing on to the cobblestones.

Margaret nursed the whisky glass against her body and looked out into the night.

At least at the cemetery, she had the last act. She had laughed in the inspector’s face and left him to the wind and rain.

He desired her. She knew that. He was a coward to his own heart.

She would find another, a sailor perhaps.

Damn that crow.