He fished in his trouser flap, produced his not inconsiderable member and a stream of urine joined the rain gushing down on the inspector’s countenance.
McLevy froze in disbelief but he should have remembered that there were many facets to the story of the boots.
The pupils of his eyes narrowed to a grey slit flecked with yellow, and for a second he strained up against the weight of wood that held him fast.
Had he succeeded in wrenching free it is doubtful whether Hercules would have survived to refasten his trouser flap and kneel down once more to grin savagely as he looked into the cold lethal eyes of the deeply insulted wolf.
‘You and me are the same, McLevy. Under the skin. Jist the same animal. Now we are equal. Like for like.’
Dunbar levered himself to his feet and was about to leave when a command from the depths of the tree stopped him in his tracks.
‘Hold it there!’
Covered in pish or not, survive the night in doubt; in spite of ribs cracked, the inspector glimpsed a chance here.
Questions must be asked. If the man thought McLevy to die in this place, he might reveal the truth.
‘The auld butler. Did you cause his death?’
Dunbar shook his head in disbelief at the effrontery of the man but answered anyway.
‘I did not. I left him where I said.’
‘Then who killed the man?’
‘I wouldnae know.’
From his disadvantaged position, McLevy probed further.
‘When you came to the house that Sunday, you threatened blackmail to Alan Telfer did you not?’
This was not such a wild stab as it seemed; the inspector had been long mulling over Dunbar’s veiled allusions from the interrogation.
The man made no response but with an insolent smile invited further deduction.
‘The blind eye, you turned. The Beaumont Egg. They would be connected?’ continued the policeman.
For a moment Dunbar considered not responding but then a gust of wind blew some muddy leaves over McLevy’s face and the effort he had to make to blow them off, jerking the breath from one side of his mouth to the other, brought home how helpless and puny was the questioner.
And Hercules was a boaster. The appreciation he possessed as regards his own clever ploys was boundless. He could not resist this moment.
Dunbar adopted a mysterious air.
‘The bridge must open on time,’ he opined. ‘The cost must not be exceeded. The ore was poor quality, the iron produced shot through wi’ holes.’
‘So you filled them up?’
‘We were ordered so and thus provided.’
‘By whom?’
‘Alan Telfer.’
‘He brought you the Beaumont Egg?’
‘Whenever necessary. Had it made up special.’
‘Yet you had no written proof. Nothing. So when you went to see him he laughed in your face.’
‘But I got my own back.’
‘A candlestick only. He’s still laughing.’
This blunt assessment brought a scowl to Dunbar but then a sly dirty smile spread across his countenance.
‘I had the last laugh. I saw them.’
‘Saw what?’
‘I’ll throw it in their face one day. In front of everybody. In their face!’
This must have been the strangest interrogation in the annals of crime; urine-soaked police inspector, poleaxed by a walnut tree, asks questions of a suspect who might yet change his mind and kill him at any moment.
Yet it did not impinge on McLevy’s state for one moment. He had a sixth sense when a fact that might help unlock a mystery was about to be revealed, no matter the circumstances or whether the discloser realised the importance of same.
He also realised the source of the guilt he had sensed in Dunbar as regards the death of his only friend, the riveter, Tommy Loughran, but this was not the time to bring it home; guilt causes anger and that emotion could wait until another day.
Now it was his turn for silence; he stuck out his lower lip and shook his dripping head as if to imply, ‘What could the likes of you know? What secret could you hug close that could possibly discomfit the great Sir Thomas Bouch and Alan Telfer?’
Hercules took up the invitation.
‘Before I robbed the stick, on the way through, I keeked in the bedroom, maybe a purse lying free. I saw them. Thegither. Telfer was lying on the bed in his shirt and trousers. Sir Thomas was in his nightgown, under the sheets. His head was on Telfer’s chest. They were both asleep. Babes in the wood. Dirty bastards.’
Dunbar sniggered then looked down at McLevy to see the effect of his words.
‘So,’ said the inspector slowly, ‘you closed the door, went to the study, thieved your due, were about to leave and then that was when the auld fellow came in?’
‘That was when.’
An ice-cold blast of wind hit Dunbar full in the face and froze the disappointment on his features.
McLevy seemed unimpressed. To hell with him then.
‘A long night,’ said Hercules. ‘And cold as the grave. I doubt you will not survive. I’ll be sitting by a warm fire wi’ a good woman dishing out the hot meal. Black pudding, chappit tatties and kale. Every mouthful I’ll think of ye. And I’ll wish for your death.’
Then he was gone into the darkness without another word, leaving the inspector soaked in urine and burning with a fierce indignation.
There would be a reckoning for this. Only nature may pass water on inspectors of crime.
But at least he was alive to smell the piddle.
His mind was racing with what Dunbar had told him; if he got out of this alive, the shape of what was forming in his head would have its day.
If he got out of this alive.
