‘I’ll do my own, thank you,’ was his riposte.
But all this time the inspector had been glancing over at her from below his brows, while she favoured him with her profile, staring straight ahead.
Somewhere in the sky above, a seagull emitted a series of melancholic, high-pitched calls. They echoed then faded in the stillness, leaving only the muffled sound of the ships creaking and swaying with the swell of the sea.
Margaret’s gypsy eyes were fixed far beyond the horizon and McLevy shifted uneasily as if he sensed her drifting away with the waves.
‘How’ve you found yourself here?’ he asked quietly.
‘Do you mean in this world, or the Leith docks?’
‘The docks.’
‘I was on my way back from the Gourlay family, I did not wish to return directly to Bernard Street. I often come to this place.’
‘It is dangerous,’ he warned.
‘I have never found it so.’
‘You might be mistaken for a lady of the night.’
‘I like the night-time,’ was the cryptic response.
She sat there like a graven image but McLevy thought he could sense a compulsive yearning to be free, to break all bonds. It might be he felt this because he possessed the same. Buried deep. Just beside the madness.
‘When I was a little girl,’ she murmured, ‘I dreamt of being a pirate.’
‘A pirate?’
‘Yes. A sword between my teeth.’
‘I had you down for a sheep stealer.’
‘Nothing on land.’
The inspector pondered this for he loved the earth.
‘I don’t like the sea,’ he muttered.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too deep.’
Margaret laughed once more and wondered why she felt so comfortable in his presence. The thought came to her that perhaps they might have known each other in a previous existence. Ancient Egypt seemed to be a popular venue and she tried to imagine herself decked out in the robes of a temple princess. But what of McLevy?
‘Were there policemen in Antiquity?’ she asked.
‘I expect so. Man was born criminal.’
‘Criminal?’
‘I am as great a wrongdoer as any such I catch.’
This change of subject intrigued her.
‘It is your contention, then, that we are born to guilt?’
‘That is my contention.’
‘I might take issue with you there.’
McLevy waited for her to elaborate on that issue, but she smiled then lifted her face up towards the moon. As she did so, the hand nearest to him swung free and hung down by her side. It occurred to the inspector that if he touched across it would be his to grasp; but it also occurred that she was married and respectable was she not? Out of reach.
‘Do you have offspring?’
This somewhat brutal inquiry jolted Margaret from the alternate reality of moonlit piracy, Egypt and original sin, causing her to blink a moment before response.
‘Three. Two girls. One boy.’
‘Three? You don’t look it.’
‘It was long ago,’ she retorted dryly. ‘They are grown now, out of my hands.’
‘Do you love them?’
‘They respect me,’ was the elliptical response.
‘What about their father?’
The inspector may well have meant, ‘Do you love him?’ but Margaret chose to answer the other possibility.
‘They respect him also,’ she replied.
However the mood was broken now; the crescent moon reflected itself on the water in vain, sewage broke the surface and rats lurked in the shadows, tails entwined.
‘Tell me about your killer,’ she asked, pulling the hand back into her lap and turning to face him.
So the inspector did and she paid heed.
Of course Margaret Bouch knew nothing of Hercules Dunbar, he would have been an anonymous face in the crowd of workmen when she sat on the train making the first official crossing in September 1877.
The Tay Bridge.
Completed near to time, dead riveters notwithstanding.
Her husband of course had been at the front with the other dignitaries while she had sat with the ladies. While some of the delicate creatures paled at the enclosed roar and the sinister shadows of the iron lattice whipping past the carriage windows, Margaret had looked down at the russet colours of autumn which bedecked the fields on each side of the expanse of water, and wondered what it would be like to launch oneself into the air to land like a graceful leaf amongst the yachts, wherries and fishing boats which filled the river below.
The band played, but no one had danced in her carriage as they arrived at the other side; the crowds beneath watching as the train moved along the bridge like a giant shiny insect.
The sun shone. It was a beautiful day. Surely God was on the board of the North British Railway.
Thomas Bouch was the hero of the hour. He had travelled on the footplate of the engine, holding tightly to his hat and smiling awkwardly at the cheering throng.
When asked to say a few words, he had said very few.
And after lunch, they all went home.
To Bernard Street.
As McLevy described the possible circumstance of theft and murder, Margaret listened impassively. He made no mention of Beaumont Egg, what would a dainty woman know of such a thing, but when he portrayed his meeting with Alan Telfer, a somewhat coloured version it must be said, where his doughty investigative worth encountered evasive condescension, the bollard woman looked as if she would like to spit on the ground.
‘I would not believe a word the man says,’ she exclaimed, looking away. ‘He is despicable!’
‘How so?’ probed the inspector.
For a moment it appeared as if Margaret would let loose a torrent from the fury of frustration she felt within, but then she bit down hard on her lip.
‘He is unhealthy,’ was all she added.
That would seem to be that, then.
‘Does he have the pox?’ McLevy asked in apparent hope.
