air into his lungs; the inspector could feel his senses slipping, a darkness behind the eyes.
‘Your Auntie Jean will no’ help you now,’ Dunbar taunted. ‘Another mad auld bitch.’
It is possible that had Hercules reflected on such a remark he may have considered that to insult the only woman McLevy had ever truly loved might not have been the best way to induce subjugation but he had blood in his eyes and, at these moments, the primitive emerges club in hand.
However, one caveman deserves another.
McLevy’s left hand scrabbled desperately in the loose earth with renewed force and came upon a by-product of his favourite element in the shape of a flat heavy stone which he raised up to smash into the side of the other’s face.
The terrible crushing pressure relaxed for a moment as Dunbar’s head absorbed the force of the blow. He blinked his eyes in an almost comical fashion as McLevy smashed at him again and then, while the man reeled back, the inspector dropped the stone and rolled away from underneath to land on all fours drawing great gulps of air into his tortured lungs and throat.
The two men slowly then lumbered to their feet and while the storm howled above them in the night sky, lurched and grappled at each other like two prehistoric beasts in the primeval sludge.
But despite Dunbar’s animal nature he lacked McLevy’s recourse to applied madness under severe stress, a ferocious lupine glare indicating the demonic possession within.
Hercules was driven back towards the tree and one final scything blow to an area somewhere between the belly button and groin laid him writhing to the ground.
‘As you say, Herkie,’ McLevy gasped, wiping a smear of blood from his nose with one hand while he brought out the restrainers with the other. ‘Things change.’
But Fate was not finished with them yet; there would be other acts of violence to play out before these two enemies from birth could truly say the game was over.
The growth that had aided Hercules to launch his attack had creaked and groaned in sympathy while its champion had engaged in combat. It was an old walnut tree and the roots had been weakened by incessant downpour then stretched beyond their strength by the westerly gale. They snapped, and downwards it fell with a writhing motion as if in a death throe.
Like a bolt from the blue.
The trunk and heavy branches missed Dunbar by very little but crashed down upon the vengeful McLevy, pinning him underneath as if crucified to earth.
He could not move, breath driven from his body and a sharp stabbing pain indicating that a few ribs were either cracked or broken and the back of his head aching mightily where the tree had first struck.
One of the wizened fruits of the branches fell off and pinged on to his exposed forehead.
He’d never liked walnuts; they always stuck in the gaps of his teeth.
Again there was a curious still interlude as if the storm was gathering its strength for a final burst of destruction and in the silence, broken only by the heavy rain, came the sound of laughter.
Hercules Dunbar staggered to his feet and looked down at his enemy.
‘Ye have tae admit, inspector,’ he said with delighted malevolence, ‘either God or the devil is on my side.’
‘I would venture, the devil,’ grunted McLevy, the pain in his crushed ribs jolting him as he tried to move.
But he could not. He was helpless.
He watched as Dunbar put his hand up to the side of his bruised face, swollen and blotched from the stone that McLevy had clattered against the side of his head.
The inspector’s body and limbs were entangled and pinioned by the heavy branches that pressed him ever deeper into the earth but his head, by a quirk of chance, was clear, framed by the poor broken boughs like a portrait.
Therefore he could observe as Hercules Dunbar searched out the flat stone, hefted it judiciously and then came back to kneel by the side of the spread-eagled form.
Dunbar lifted up the stone.
‘Like for like,’ he muttered. ‘The storm will take the blame.’
Some of the dark clouds above began to fragment and a ray from the revealed full moon glinted on the stone, as it poised in the air.
McLevy’s eyes were steady upon the other’s face.
‘Can you kill in cold blood, Herkie?’ he asked; then it was his turn to laugh ignoring the shafts of agony in his ribcage as he gazed up at Dunbar’s puzzled face.
‘I am prepared to die. Are you prepared to end my life? Do you have the gumption for such deliverance?’
This was his only hope, the inspector had calculated; he in fact had no desire whatsoever to shuffle off this mortal coil without at least one more pot of coffee and a plate of sugar biscuits with Jean Brash, but his chances of avoiding the grim reaper were somewhat limited.
Pity from Dunbar was out of the question. If he begged for mercy or showed the least fear, it would inflame the man to a primitive lust for the killing blow. The balance must be altered and risk was the key.
McLevy began to sing softly. A song that Dunbar had heard before in the interrogation room when the inspector was King of the Castle.
‘Charlie is my darling, my darling, my darling.
Charlie is my darling, the young Chevalier.’
Chanted like an incantation, it caused Hercules to jerk back, nostrils flaring.
‘That’s Jacobite!’ he accused. ‘Ye dirty wee Papish porker!’
‘Then bash in my brains, because I’m going to sing it any fashion.’
McLevy began again but stopped abruptly and roared with laughter at the look on the face of his mortal foe.
Hercules Dunbar’s head was in a spin as the gale suddenly lashed in on them again and he was taken backwards.
His thoughts were whirling like the wind. If he killed this demon he would be safe, no man would follow him; but while McLevy lived, Dunbar would always be looking over his shoulder, always in fear of discovery; he could persuade Jenny to sell the house, move North to her relatives he would be more secure there but even then, even then?
Kill the bastard and be done with it.
But how can you kill a man who laughs in your face?
Hot laughter.
In cold blood.
The song began again and it drove him near mad to the point when he lifted up the stone with a snarl and hurled it downwards.
But if with murderous intent his aim was sadly awry, for the missile crashed beside McLevy’s head and bounced harmlessly aside.
The Jacobite air halted its jaunty progress. The wind howled and the rain beat down on McLevy’s unprotected face as the two men gazed at each other.
‘With any luck ye’ll drown tae buggery,’ Dunbar remarked soberly. ‘Nature will do the job.’
‘True enough,’ replied McLevy. ‘Water will one day be the death of me.’
Hercules suddenly smiled and he moved forward to stand, legs astride, over the recumbent form.
