The faces he saw on the streets were like grotesques, the features twisted out of shape; sly malignant goblins, witches and warlocks stalked the city, eyes sliding sideways as they passed him by.
A street vendor selling hot chestnuts had, to drum up trade, a small female monkey dressed in a gingham gown chained to a stand beside the brazier.
Children were encouraged to throw nuts at the animal, ostensibly to feed it but it seemed to McLevy that, with evil intent, they hurled the missiles so that the poor beast was struck time and time again.
The monkey chattered its teeth together lethargically, the yellow eyes with strangely slit pupils looking out at a world inescapably alien and terrifying.
It screeched forlornly and the children began to imitate the sound, the high-pitched shrieks drilling into McLevy’s head till he could stand it no longer and quit the scene leaving the animal to its simian fate.
What after all could he have done to save the beast?
Bought the monkey?
How could an investigating officer arrive at the scene of a crime with a monkey on his shoulder?
Lieutenant Roach was of crocodile persuasion; he would want to eat the prey. Ballantyne would feed it bluebottles and Mulholland would wish to marry the poor beast. Jean Brash would have it labour in the Just Land. Perhaps Margaret Bouch could care for the lost soul; she would take it to the docks where they might watch the ships together and dream of freedom.
Night had fallen long since as he wandered plagued and haunted, driven to distraction by thoughts that hung before him like flies swarming round the liquid amber eyes of a cow in high summer.
But a cow was not a monkey.
That way madness lies.
As midnight chimed from the nearby church tower of Saint Thomas, James McLevy found himself before a door that seemed familiar.
He knocked upon it and when he saw the face of the man within, he knew why he had come and what his mission was on earth.
Retribution.
Now, in this study with the cold pale eyes of Alan Telfer upon him, McLevy was about to deliver it.
Retribution.
‘You cut corners in the making of that bridge,’ he said.
‘Who tells you that?’ Telfer responded calmly though there was the slightest twitch at the side of his mouth.
‘Hercules Dunbar.’
Telfer laughed, but there was no humour in his cold intent eyes.
‘As I have said before, a drunkard, a thief and a murderer.’
‘I shall grant you the first two but not necessarily the last,’ the inspector replied.
Telfer’s hand rested on top of the filing cabinet and he drummed his fingers upon the surface as if impatient to be done with the tiresome subject of homicide.
‘Then who was responsible for Mister Gourlay’s demise?’
‘That arrives later,’ was McLevy’s flat retort. ‘Let us stick to present death.’
His tongue felt thick and heavy in the mouth, the orifice dry and clogged as if cotton wool had been stuffed inside; the pain was like a knife in his head as he struggled to find the words.
He wondered if eels were feasting on the body of the schoolmaster, the little boys still holding to his hands.
Where to begin, eh?
Retribution.
He also looked at the photo of the Tay Bridge. Never guess it was shot full of holes.
‘Did Sir Thomas know?’
‘Know?’
‘What went on at the Wormit Foundry?’
Alan Telfer’s eyes shifted to where a portrait of the great man gazed down like some biblical patriarch, the wings of hair at each side of the dome of his balding head a mischievous contrast to the full solemnity of his beard and moustache. The face as always was impassive, the eyes deep and brooding.
The secretary had to be careful here; the man before him was swaying slightly and closed his eyes as if some inner pain or conflict was pulling him apart, but what and how much did he comprehend?
‘Sir Thomas soars above the petty details. His work is on a scale that few may recognise. High above.’
‘Like Icarus?’
Alan Telfer chanced a thin smile and McLevy moved to wipe it off the man’s face.
‘The bridge has fallen. The train. Present death.’
Telfer bowed his head.
‘A terrible tragedy,’ he murmured.
‘When I questioned you some time ago about Beaumont’s Egg, you affected to know little of such material and yet you delivered regular shipments to the Wormit Foundry.’
The secretary shook his head as if this whole affair was beyond his comprehension and made no answer.
‘It was used to cover up faults in the construction of the iron girders, the very girders that fell last night and took innocent people to meet their maker.’
McLevy took a step towards Telfer and the secretary’s hand inched open the drawer.
‘Men, women and children. Drowned deep. The divers will find some, others may float to the surface and the river will keep some for itself.’
Telfer took in a lungful of air; it was as if this man had brought the very stink of fleshly corruption with him, as if the atmosphere had contracted so that there was nothing left to breathe, a contagion of mist and guilt.
‘I cannot be held responsible for an act of God,’ he declared.
‘God has nothing to do with it!’
For a moment it seemed as if McLevy was about to strike him and Telfer nerved himself to grab for the gun, but the inspector stopped and put his hand up to the back of his neck as if some inhibitor had been clamped in place.
While the man was thus rooted to the spot, Telfer recovered himself somewhat.
‘I made many visits to the Wormit Foundry but only to check the progress of the work, inspector. Anyone who says otherwise is advancing a vile defamation.’
McLevy said nothing and Telfer was emboldened enough to elaborate further.
‘You have only the word of Hercules Dunbar. A violent man of malicious temperament. How can you accept his word over mine?’
‘There will be others,’ was the muttered response. ‘I have spoken with them. And they told me
