Despite her brave words, it was still there.
Like a knife in the gut.
She had to give this man up. He was bad for business. But the fault was hers. She was not in control.
What in God’s name was she going to do?
And where was Rachel Bryden?
And Hannah Semple?
Jean had sent Angus Dalrymple out to search the gardens but it was black as pitch outside and even with a flaming torch, there was a forbidding amount of ground to cover.
Of course, Hannah could be sitting in a tavern by the docks, cackling with glee over the trouble she was causing Jean, and if that was the case by God she would make the woman pay for the worms that were gnawing away at her insides. Make her pay.
The mistress of the Just Land shook her head; these were unprofitable thoughts and she prided herself that the confusion she observed in other minds was not ever part of her reasoning.
Straight. Clear. Clean.
That was Jean Brash.
Except for love.
Love was the very devil.
She had not even had the time to go up to her boudoir and change outfits, so her clothes were still charged from the aftermath of passion.
The very devil.
The Jew’s harp throbbed agreement as the fiddler brought the reel to an end with a mighty scrape of his bow, grinned at Annie Drummond and in the silence while the company took a gulp of air before the advent of more champagne and lust, Jean thought to hear a thump at the front door.
She slipped out into the hall and listened.
Again something thudded against the wood like a dead weight. Or a foot kicking.
The fiddler started another air, ‘Tam Lucas o’ the Feast’, a tune Jean remembered being played at a thieves’ wedding which had been rudely interrupted when McLevy came to arrest the bride, Catherine Bruce, for shoplifting.
Catherine and old Mary Rough had been the queens of that trade but that was a fair time ago.
This was now.
Why was she in such dread to open the damned door?
She did so to disclose the giant figure of Angus, a stricken look upon his face, holding the limp body of Hannah Semple in his arms.
This was now.
26
And he that strives to touch the stars,
Oft stumbles at a straw.
EDMUND SPENSER,
The woman in the framed photograph looked at Mulholland with a severe exacting gaze. She wore dark sombre clothes as would befit the about to be dead wife of an insurance adjuster. A ribbon of black crepe hung round the frame to confirm continued mourning, the death in Victorian terms being comparatively recent, that is three years before.
Martha Forbes, mother of the beloved Emily, and could he see the daughter in the mother?
It was not an unpleasant face, just a touch … lifeless, though alive enough when the picture was taken because she was sitting in a chair with the window behind, surely they wouldn’t have stuck the corpse up and propped the eyes open, surely not?
But it was a solemn countenance: life a burden to be carried to the grave.
Perhaps the daughter was a fairy child?
His Emily has darting mischievous eyes, white, even teeth, (the mother’s mouth was firm shut lest a morbiferous deadly infection enter), straight nut-brown hair, a clear skin, cherry-red lips and a little pink tongue that had licked its way round many a meringue as Mulholland watched indulgently on, a slab of Dundee cake sat solidly before him on the plate.
She was also fond of chocolate confections in the French style although like any well-bred young lady, she frowned upon many other things French.
But that little pink tongue knew its way around the intricate edifices of spun sugar that made up the mysteries of the Edinburgh tearooms.
The voice of Robert Forbes broke the icy silence during which the constable had, to escape the present predicament, allowed his mind to wander.
Forbes was sitting at the other side of a large desk in his study; above and behind a stag’s head protruded from the wall, possibly the beast had lacked sufficient cover; the books on his shelves, unlike Oliver Garvie’s, were worn with much use, maritime tides and currents, timetables of death and destruction, statistics relating to longevity or the lack of it, natural catastrophes, accidents and acts of God, all grist to the mill.
The frozen silence had been caused by the speculation that the constable had laid before the insurance adjuster.
It was also very cold in the room due to one of the windows being left open, but the older man seemed impervious.
‘Are you suggesting,’ said Forbes in clipped precise tones, ‘that I have made a mistake?’
Mulholland tore himself away from tearooms and tongues.
‘No, sir, not at all,’ he replied, meeting the baleful stare of Emily’s father with candid demeanour. ‘But in light of what has come to light, as it were. It may be as well for you to reevaluate your findings. As it were.’
Forbes’ eyes hardened.
‘It strikes me, constable, that you are the one in need of reevaluation.’
‘I beg pardon, sir?’
The insurance adjuster took a deep breath as if trying to contain mounting exasperation.
‘What you have put before me is slight, riddled with hearsay, and circumstantial. Is this all you possess?’
‘At the moment,’ Mulholland retorted. He was in truth somewhat nettled himself, not unlike little Nelly, having presented his case hoping for a grave appreciation, and after that, the two men, soon to be related by marriage, fellow investigators together, poring over details, nodding solemn agreement and then nailing Oliver Garvie to the wall.
But, Robert Forbes seemed to be taking this personally.
‘The word of a thieving woman, you would place above mine?’
‘It’s Mister Garvie in the dock.’
‘I am implicated!’
This sharp response delivered, Forbes sat back in his chair and tapped his finger twice upon the inlaid surface of the desk. It was a sober charcoal colour and matched the suit of the adjuster, who closed his eyes for a moment in thought and then pronounced his judgment.
‘All this seems hardly worth the bother, constable.’
‘Bother?’ Mulholland almost squeaked the word.
‘Examine it, sir.’ The small intent eyes bored in as Forbes leant across the desk. ‘Who knows where these so-called Stinking D’Oros came from? And this mysterious fleshy gentleman that you surmise to be Mister Garvie? A figment. You have only her word.’
Mulholland opened his mouth but nothing came forth and the stag’s glassy eyes above offered little
