Fall From Grace

loves to shop.’

‘So I have read,’ was McLevy’s obscure rejoinder but the lieutenant paid no heed and ploughed on.

‘Like most women she takes all day to perform that function. That is what Robert Forbes calculated, but he calculated wrongly.’

Roach left these words hanging in the air for he was rather proud of the way he had handled the investigation and waited for his inspector to ask the expected question, but as, at last, McLevy looked up from the piece of paper, his eyes were full of suppressed rage.

‘What have we here?’ Roach inquired, taking note of the anger and hoping he wasn’t going to witness another blast of emotion.

When Mulholland had entered upon the scene downstairs, Emily, who had developed an irrational but intense loathing for the constable as being the bringer of her father’s death, had launched, aided by the spinster sisters who chimed in like some Greek Chorus, a vehement almost frenzied attack upon the young man.

Roach had ordered him immediately from the room but the constable was shaken to the core as men often are when women let rip, and though he seemed to be holding himself together at the moment would have probably realised that romance had been somewhat nipped in the bud.

The lieutenant had been a bit shaken himself; tears often came to his wife’s eyes over dead sparrows and the like, but full-blown female grief left a man helpless.

All he could do was murmur condolences and leave spinsters, Emily, maid and cook to their collective sorrow.

You cannot bring back the dead; Orpheus had made the best effort so far, but then unfortunately looked back.

Roach certainly did not intend to make the same mistake and, with some sense of relief at misery being in the lower reaches and him on high, regarded the still figure of McLevy who held what Roach now discerned as a letter of sorts in his hand.

‘What have we here?’ repeated the lieutenant.

‘The whole story,’ was McLevy’s bitter response. ‘And what a sad, sorry business it is.’

Roach took the letter and read Robert Forbes’ somewhat spidery writing, though that may have been caused by an inner anguish.

James … God forgive me for what I am about to do. I know, for certain, that you will not. I have betrayed everything I hold dear in my life, my reputation above all.

In my loneliness, after the death of my wife, I took to visiting a house of ill repute. Not often, but enough. I formed an attachment to one of the young women, Rachel Bryden by name, and was sufficiently foolish to write her some letters of deep affection.

Oliver Garvie came to me and informed me that the girl was going to make the letters public by selling them to the newspapers. They would be my ruin and hold me up to the most savage ridicule.

He could prevent it but in return he must request a small favour. Small! Only this one time and never again. He assured me that the day the insurance money appeared in his account, I would have the letters in my hand.

It was out and out blackmail and to my eternal shame, but for the sake of my daughter, I accepted the bargain.

There’s nae foule like an auld foule.

After the constable’s visit, I realised that there was no escaping the consequence of my actions and even if Garvie wanted to try to brazen it out, I was finished with lies.

And, so I am.

This is my confession. But I cannot thole the shame of a public prosecution. I have sent Emily out shopping. She loves shopping.

The maid will discover my body. God forgive me.

By the time Emily returns, everything will be tidied up and she will be at least spared the sight of me.

This by my own hand,

Robert Forbes.

Lieutenant Roach glanced over to where the luckless Mulholland sat with the other constables to await orders, a withdrawn disconsolate figure.

A quote from Burns came into his mind.

‘The best laid schemes of mice and men, gang aft agley,’ he muttered. ‘The maid overslept and was late to arrive. Emily came back unexpectedly. Forgotten her purse. On the hall table she found a note directing the maid to go to the police, bring them back, and convey them to the study. It conveyed her instead. A sorry business indeed.’

‘I can find little pity in my heart.’

McLevy’s face was like stone and Roach was moved to plead the adjuster’s case.

‘The shame, McLevy. It broke the man.’

A mild remark which provoked its opposite as McLevy erupted into an expression of the anger he felt within; he had once witnessed another suicide as a small boy looking down at a woman who had sliced her throat like an apple and bled regardless of the horror she had left behind.

He, the son.

She, the mother.

His inheritance.

‘Shame?’ he almost snarled. ‘Who cares for shame? He could have stood up, admitted guilt, taken his punishment – who knows what friends may have rallied round?’

Roach was stung by the broadside and answered back.

‘Would you?’

McLevy fell silent and the lieutenant warmed to his theme.

‘Would even his own daughter?’

‘She never got the chance,’ was the sombre response. ‘All she saw were her father’s bare feet swinging in the air, toenails and all.’

Both men were genuinely exercised now, each seeing something of the other’s point of view but driven by an ethos that was a cornerstone in the way they saw life.

‘Then what should he have done?’ Roach asked. ‘How could he break such dreadful tidings?’

‘Sat with her, told her the truth, begged her forgiveness,’ McLevy responded. ‘If she really loved him as a daughter, she would have been his support.’

‘I somehow doubt it,’ the lieutenant muttered.

‘She never got the chance one way or the other,’ the inspector growled. ‘Her birthright was sacrificed on the altar of his respectability. That is truly shameful.’

While this exchange progressed, Constable Ballantyne had made a surprise appearance at the study door and signalled Mulholland out.

He had been sent from the station to break some bad news to his inspector but had enough sense to know that a body blames the messenger.

Ballantyne had long ago distinguished the constable as being the link between lower and higher, much the same as Mercury would wing up from earth to Olympus, and so, not realising Mulholland’s agonised personal connection to the affair, delivered the intelligence such as it was, and returned to his bluebottles.

This, indeed, was the final straw for Mulholland, and, the colour fled from his rosy cheeks, he came back to inform his superiors that Oliver Garvie had unfortunately flown the coop.

His offices were empty, his house was empty save for the old retainer, and though a search would be mounted in the immediate area and then throughout Leith, he, Martin Mulholland, was not hopeful of its