36
Every man loves what he is good at.
THOMAS SHADWELL,
Now he watched her in the Old Ship tavern and still wondered about the moment. That and many others.
It might be concluded that he had the advantage now because she was not aware of his regard as she reached forward to lay her hand upon the sleeve of a man sitting opposite her with his back to the inspector.
Naval fellow by the looks of it, a captain’s hat on the table beside him, sandy hair tinged with grey, bit of a sea dog perhaps.
McLevy had come to the tavern for a strong dram of whisky before embarking on what might well be a lamentable fool’s errand and should he happen to have guessed correctly then he might also lament the fact that Constable Mulholland was nursing a broken heart in the bogs of Ireland and therefore not available to be a good right hand.
He could, of course, have brought other constables for reinforcement or even broken the rule of a lifetime and informed Lieutenant Roach of his proposed action, but somehow it had seemed better to be on his own.
Better the devil you know.
And indeed, in official company, he would never have ventured into the Old Ship, swiftly drained his tumbler, been about to leave, and then heard her unmistakable laughter wafting through the tobacco smoke from the tavern dining room.
There were windows in the shape of portholes in the wooden wall and he gazed through one into the dining room like a sea creature that had somehow squelched its way up on to the timbers of the vessel.
The porthole glass was thick and slightly distorted but he could well enough distinguish Margaret Bouch, widowhood discarded this night to judge by her bright blue dress, as she threw back her head in more laughter to display the white taut skin of her throat, the gypsy eyes now mocking and flirtatious.
Of course the inspector should have felt relieved that he was no longer the target of those dangerous eyes, but he did not.
He felt unworthily betrayed.
Humpty Dumpty.
Sitting on a damp wall. Watching at a porthole.
Margaret lifted up her glass and drained it at a gulp, most unladylike to behold; her companion signalled at one of the waiters.
McLevy watched as the serving man bent his head, took the order and then exited. In order to get to the bar the fellow had to pass the static figure of McLevy who detained him by the arm.
‘Whit did he command?’ was the question.
‘Ye mean like a ship?’
‘I mean like the drink!’
‘Champagne. Best quality.’
The waiter, Mattie Turpin, was an old birkie who had seen the world come and go; he knew McLevy from long since and assumed that the inspector was lurking with intent.
‘The man,’ asked McLevy with a nasty gleam in his eye. ‘What is he?’
‘Norwegian,’ replied Mattie and shot off towards the bar because it had entered his mind that if McLevy were on the point of arresting someone, it would be best to get the champagne down and money paid.
A grandfather clock that had pride of place in the dining room struck the full hour. It chimed quarters and half as well: a prudent and practical measure to remind any seaman or passenger therein that the tide waited for no man.
It now announced the hour of eight and as McLevy heard the muffled tones through the wall, he realised that duty was a’ calling.
He took one last look to see Margaret raise the large hand of her companion in both of hers, and hold it tenderly as Mattie brought the champagne. The waiter twisted off the cork, the bubbles fizzed and the drink was poured. It was enough to make a man want to spit.
One of the tarry-breeks in the rough quarters of the Old Ship, in fact the bar where McLevy himself drank, had indulged himself beyond common measure due to the fact that his handsome sailor laddie was about to leave the port of Leith for the New World and it would be a long haul leaving the man minus able-bodied comforts, his own boat heading for Holland tomorrow morn.
The tar’s voice was hoarse and rough as he lifted it in song, and he gave a melancholy lilt to the normally jaunty tune as if he could already observe the sea stretching like a prison sentence before him.
McLevy left on that air and Margaret Bouch stilled the glass of champagne on the way to her lips as she remembered the moment when Alan Telfer, his cold eyes upon her, pulled the trigger of his silver-plated revolver.
.
A lone seagull perched atop the foremast of the good ship the
It might well have been the same bird that had observed McLevy and Mulholland these five days past after the warehouse fire, though one gull looks very much like another.
A dank November sea mist had covered the Old Docks like a funeral pall, and neutralised the bird’s keen eyesight upon which it relied for various titbits dropped or thrown carelessly away by embarking passengers.
Or perhaps a tearful relative having waved goodbye might find they had no appetite for the farewell cake and hurl it, with its white wrapping, into the sea; that was when the gull made its move, swooping down to grab the sweet concoction just before it hit the water and alerted some lesser of the species that the game was on.
But this night they could drop a whale in the water and the bird would be none the wiser.
Indeed, there was a mighty splash but it was just some young boys running wild in the harbour, who had made use of the general obscurement to heave up a large piece of broken timber and hurl it into the water. As it floated off into the darkness, a watchman cursed and chased the boys for their lives; the gull spread its wings and glided silently off to join the other spectres wheeling in the mist.
One of which was James McLevy who slipped quietly aboard the
This case had been saturated with dampness since the beginning and now it seemed as if his very pores
