‘How did you know?’ he muttered finally.
‘I am an inspector of crime,’ replied McLevy. ‘It is my speciality.’
Rachel still had not moved and McLevy, whose eyes had not strayed below the collar bone, noted a pearl necklace round her neck that he had seen many a time nestling at the throat of Jean Brash.
To his eyes it had never been much to look at, the small pearls a sort of greenish black colour but the display brought him to a curious anger.
Hannah Semple had been felled to the ground for such baubles and it looked a damn sight better on Jean.
He held out his hand, the other steady as a rock aiming the revolver at Garvie’s chest.
‘I’ll take the trinket,’ he announced. ‘It belongs to another, though I don’t doubt she thieved it like your braw self. Whoors thegither.’
For a moment it appeared that Rachel was going to refuse this elegant request, then she caught a flicker of a glance from Garvie and nodded obediently.
But as she raised her arms to undo the clasp at the back of her neck, her breasts leapt into prominence, the nipples pointing at McLevy like two sentries on duty.
No man, unless the blood is completely frozen in his veins, can ignore the mating signal of erectile tissue and the inspector, though defended like the Castle itself, was also a biological specimen.
His eyes wavered momentarily and that was enough for Garvie to launch himself at the policeman, with Rachel diving in low from years of practice.
But another part of McLevy’s biological conditioning was reflex. He smacked Garvie a sharp blow on the side of his head with the revolver to leave the man dazed on his hands and knees, then spun Rachel round, planted his foot on her equally distracting buttocks and shoved her head first on to the lower bunk bed.
Jean Scott had always thus advised him, ‘You must never raise your hand to a woman, Jamie, but that disnae mean you cannot deliver a good kick tae the backside.’
He quickly cuffed Garvie’s hands behind the man’s back, shoved him with his foot into a corner and when Rachel finally disentangled herself from the grubby sheets, she found herself face to face with the wolf.
He took the pearl necklace from her and carefully stashed it into a secure inside pocket of his coat, then buttoned the flap over for insurance.
‘Make yourself decent,’ McLevy growled. ‘Or I’ll run ye stark naked through the streets of Leith.’
Rachel played a last card, lip trembling, surrender her area of expertise. She bowed her head meekly and then looked up, the pale blue eyes promising sweet acquiescence.
‘You are a strong man, inspector,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll do anything you wish. Anything.’
A yellow light came into McLevy’s eyes and he reached out his hand but instead of the expected caress, his fingers took hold at the base of a throat so recently denuded of the pearl necklace.
The fingers tightened, cutting off the supply of seductive breath.
‘I’ve already told you what I want, girlie. Obey such before I knock you unconscious and dress you myself.’
She clothed quickly, her own hands shaking, and when that was accomplished, the policeman cuffed her likewise behind the back, hauled Garvie to his feet and lined them up together as if for parade inspection.
‘You’re lucky it’s me,’ he remarked softly. ‘If Jean Brash had found you first, Mister Garvie would be watching his means of procreation bouncing down the road in front of him, and you, Miss Bryden, would be left with a face only a mother could love.’
For the first time truly, the lovers realised that they were no longer children of fortune in a wild game against the world. This was real. The fairy tale was over.
The look upon McLevy’s face chilled them to the bone; it had no pity, no anger, just the detachment of a hangman.
He ripped the bed sheets into strips, which he placed over their mouths and tied behind, knotting them firmly into place.
The inspector had a fine calculation to make. The easy bit was over, now he had somehow to get them on deck at the same time as the other passengers arrived because in public view the crew and captain would not dare interfere. However if he was intercepted before that, he would be forced to use the revolver and shooting Argentineans by and large was frowned upon, especially on their own boats.
Once more he cursed the fact that Mulholland was not on hand; the Irishman took to violence like a duck does to water and that hornbeam stick of his was worth a thousand threats.
One massive piece of good fortune was that, when he pulled the small curtain away, the porthole of the cabin looked on to the harbour side of the ship.
The vessel itself was riding high on the sea, the tide just about to turn and from this vantage he could peer upwards to see the outlines of the folk beginning to mass by the gangplank. Women were no doubt weeping, men chewing on their pipe stems, children unaware of parting sorrow sliding on the wet wooden planks of the pier, hoping to grab a piece of the leaving cake in its white wrapping.
All grist to the mill.
But when they made their move, so would McLevy.
He turned back to address the rigid, gagged figures.
‘Hannah Semple survived that vicious dunt to the back of her head. I am sure that will please you?’
He waited till both nodded. They already seemed to have lost identity and character. Peas in a pod.
‘Unfortunately,’ he added genially, ‘Robert Forbes hung himself from the head of a stag. He left a letter that incriminates the pair of you. A voice from the grave, eh?’
This time there was no response, save for a choked sob from Rachel though that may have been gathering mucus.
The inspector glanced back through the porthole to calculate the odds once more and then his own blood froze.
Fleetingly the fog had lifted and the lamps outlined the shapes of a man and woman passing by heading further up the pier to where another ship, at a later hour, was preparing to depart for the New World. The woman was a buxom type, waddling a little as she clung on to the arm of her escort, a tall bearded fellow, who walked solemnly beside her, his head inclined a little to the side, looking downwards as if to guard against a slip and fall.
His face was turned towards the
The sea mist returned, the man and woman lost to sight.
For a moment McLevy was almost paralysed by shock, and then his heart started pounding like a steam shovel. His mind was likewise throbbing; what the hell was going on? Was Fate intending to make a monkey out of him? What happened to that pitiable monkey anyway?
Never again would he grant Mulholland leave of absence; not even if the father of every female he cast his glaikit Irish eyes upon, hung themselves like a row of Christmas decorations, not even then!
He pulled himself together and glanced at his timepiece. Thirty minutes till the ship sailed. He could do it. Just. Was he not James McLevy inspector of crime? Or was he just a monkey on a stick?
In for a penny, in for a pound.
McLevy dragged the couple over to a slim iron stanchion that acted as a support in the cabin, running from floor to ceiling; he unlocked their restrainers for a second then refastened them so that the pair were pinioned arms behind, with the stanchion as jailer. Their eyes were fearful and bewildered which was only right and proper.
‘I’ll return shortly,’ promised the inspector. ‘Meantime behave yourselves or I’ll dump you at the Just Land for the benefit of Jean Brash.’
Then he was gone, the door locked behind.
Oliver and Rachel shuffled round so that they could gaze into each other’s eyes.
Tears and pain.
Love is the very devil.
The ginger tomcat thought the same as it was rudely shoved aside by McLevy’s foot while the inspector made his way swiftly back up the corridor. The cat had taken a perverse liking to this strange human and yowled plaintively as it followed the policeman.
