Light brown in colour, the eyes. Hazel almost. An odd contradiction to the surrounding rectitude.
He pronounced judgment.
‘As regards … fondness?’ The word sat strangely in his mouth, like a sour plum. ‘Emily is prone, I am afraid, to whims. I indulge her far too much myself. One day, it’s one thing. One day, another.’
Somewhere in the room a floorboard creaked as if a ghost had joined the party.
Roach glanced around, but there was only himself, Robert Forbes and the long table.
‘So you see little future, only a whim?’
‘I cannot tell the future,’ Forbes responded, shifting in his chair and showing unmistakable signs of wishing to curtail the discussion.
But Roach did not move and Forbes was provoked into setting up a further obstacle.
‘Then there is position. In society. The constable has a long way to go.’
‘But, I would have thought that you of all people –’
The lieutenant had blurted out the words before taking account of their effect and stopped abruptly as Forbes stiffened in his seat.
‘Aye? What of me?’
Roach was committed now, too late, the cat out of the bag, forgetting that though it was common knowledge Robert Forbes had worked himself up from the ranks, the man himself obviously harboured some sensitivity about his origins, and the subject must be approached with delicacy.
Thank god it wasn’t McLevy on hand, though Forbes had mentioned that the inspector had landed up at his office not long ago that night with some annoying inquiries and the lieutenant would catch hold of him tomorrow to ask his subordinate what he was up to this time.
Forbes was still waiting. Roach twitched his saurian jaw and tried a smile but crocodiles are more noted for their rending teeth.
‘That you would understand the possibilities of rising to the heights from another … level, as it were.’
And there Roach ground to a halt as the face before him went a dangerous shade of puce.
‘I have worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am,’ said Forbes tightly, ‘there’s few men with my energy or application!’
‘I’m sure that’s true.’ A mild observation that did not placate the man one bit.
‘I have sacrificed much and will again, what is so dearly bought, cannot be lightly thrown away.’
‘Dearly bought?’
Forbes suddenly rapped the knuckle of his hand upon the table to emphasise the words.
‘Respect! Position!’
The lieutenant was getting out of his depth, this was the sort of morass McLevy would have revelled in, Roach had often observed that the angrier folk got, the happier the inspector became.
He took a reluctant leaf from his subordinate’s book, and remained silent, with a slightly surprised look on his face as if to say,
Roach couldn’t quite manage the stupid expression McLevy produced on his face on such occasions, but he did his best.
It provoked an illogically fierce response.
‘Emily is too young. She must be protected!’
‘Protected? From the constable?’
‘From life itself. She is my daughter!’
The father’s eyes were burning from some internal combustion and Roach decided to opt for discretion, although he could not quite keep a slight chill out of his voice.
‘I shall convey these sentiments to Mister Mulholland.’
Forbes stood and nodded somewhat jerkily then made for the door. He turned from there to have the last word.
‘I have nothing against the man.’
‘I can see that,’ was the dry response. ‘Good night, Mister Forbes.’
‘Good night, Lieutenant Roach.’
The heavy door closed with a dismissive thud and Roach was left in far from splendid isolation. He flexed his jaw thoughtfully from side to side; he and Mrs Roach had not been blessed with progeny and it no doubt part accounted for the energy with which she threw herself into the giddy affairs of the young.
The lack also deprived him of understanding the disquiet that must burn in a father’s breast at the prospect of losing a daughter and gaining what he might consider to be a dead loss.
For a moment he felt a strange pain and emptiness as he allowed himself to wonder what it might have been like to be a progenitor.
If a boy, he would have gained a caddie. Not to be sniffed at. The older you get, the heavier the golf bag.
And if a girl? Two Mrs Roaches, cheerful and chirpy, always on the go, flitting to and fro. Always. Chirpy.
Perhaps the Almighty, in His wisdom, knew best.
17
Come sing now, sing; for I know you sing well,
I see ye have a singing face.
JOHN FLETCHER,
The two thieves grinned nervously at each other as they waited in the darkness of the wynd. This should be easy, a drunk man and woman, easy pickings. However, though they were good at their trade, they had but recently arrived in Leith and so were still finding their feet.
That is they knew how to freeze a mark to the wall with one knife to the throat and cut his purse loose with the other blade, but geography and local rules of engagement were yet to be fully discovered.
They were about to receive a lesson.
Donnie Stevens and Jug Donleavy – hard men, well known in their native Paisley, but forced to quit the place owing to the inadvertent death of a fellow robber over an argument as to whose turn it was to buy the next round of rustie-nails, a large measure of cheap whisky that brought down the red mist like no other. So it had proved and the man had died. The inadvertent part being he had four brothers, evil bastards who would not listen to reason.
Donnie was a small rat-faced specimen with a vicious temper, it was he who had stuck the fellow robber; Jug was an amiable thickset thug whose ready smile had lulled many a victim off guard.
That smile and the fact that his ears stuck out like an elephant’s gave him a gormless air but his favoured weapon was a length of lead piping which broke heads, noses and collar bones with a fine disregard.
The drunk woman was singing, a hellish caterwauling of Robert Burns’ beautiful love song,
‘Flow gently Sweet Afton, amang thy green braes,
Flow gently I’ll sing ye, a song in thy praise;
My-yy Mary-eees a-a-sleep –’
Her voice cracked on the note and dissolved into maudlin tears as she staggered heavily in the narrow wynd, causing the beanpole drunk supporting her to stagger also and find himself unexpectedly on the point of Donnie’s knife, the tip resting just under his chin.
‘Not a move,’ said the vindictive Donnie, ‘or I’ll cut ribbons out of ye.’
‘He will that,’ agreed Jug. ‘Jist hand over yer wee poke of money, kind sir, and we can all go home. Safe and sound.’
As Jug laughed at that thought, Donnie dug the knife in for emphasis and the beanpole, his blue eyes wide
