Trick of the Light

always when he came out of it, Sophia was leaning over him. She told him he had slept like a dead man. Afterwards he was under the spell of a blinding headache.

Sophia watched the thoughts pass behind his eyes like clouds. As for her, the decision was made.

Surely as a sign from above.

Vengeance.

‘Shall we return to the hotel?’ she said. ‘I have sore need of privacy.’

She reached out her hand to run it down the side of his neck, the nails scratching lightly on his skin. Magnus Bannerman had known many women but no-one to set his blood aflame like this one. Her body wrapped around and he forgot everything but his desire.

He pulled her in, tight and fierce, as if he might crush her, bones and all.

Sophia closed her eyes. That was what she wanted. That was what she hungered for. All the way back to a day in the hot sun when she had turned fifteen.

A day in the sun.

When her mother betrayed the memory of a good man.

But now it was October in Edinburgh and time for a reckoning.

There was one voice still to hear.

She had waited all her life for that voice. Now she would bring it forth.

Time for a reckoning.

13

And when night

Darkens the street, then wander forth the sons

Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost

That night a series of events took place to put a smile on Satan’s countenance.

Each was connected to the other by intangible lines, as if a spider’s web of violence and deceit were being spun over the city, where a movement such as that of a fly twirling itself into sticky oblivion as struggle created its own winding sheet, provoked another action in response.

Two card-trumpers sat in the Rustie Nail tavern down by the docks and schooled their features not to reflect an inner malicious glee as they watched the mark once more take the bait.

They had lured him in with a common enough ruse; the simple ones are oft the best.

One pretended to be drunk, quarrelsome but with money to burn, the other amused, good-natured, not even wishing to take this fool’s gold as he dealt the cards in an alcove.

It was hidden from the main maelstrom of vagabond whores who had flocked to the place because a ship had just docked from Holland and the tarry breeks also had money to burn. Wild women and cheap whisky make a jolly Jack Tar.

The sharpers called themselves Mister Evans and Mister Todd. The game was vingt et un, where the object was to add your card values as near to twenty-one as possible without going squandered. A fancy name for over and bust.

The nearest to twenty-one was the winner, unless a natural took place: that is, an ace plus ten or court card.

Easy rules.

Any child could play.

The banker dealt the cards. That was the good-natured Mister Evans. The drunken Mister Todd bet against.

Both took the part of cattle merchants who had sold their beasts for strong profit at market and were whiling away the time in rough surroundings before heading back to their respectable lodgings, thence, next morning, to the Borders where their rustic wives waited to herd them once more into the pen of domesticity.

The odds of the game were in favour of the banker because if the scores tied he won, but Mister Todd did not seem to recognise this fact, protesting noisily at his continuing ill fortune.

Mister Evans shook his head as Mister Todd, whose two cards totalled fifteen, called up for another twist and went spectacularly squandered as a jack of spades turned over.

As designed, this attracted the attention of a small portly man who was standing nearby, observing the larger more raucous belles de nuit with a certain hunger.

The man wore a bowler hat and had a completely forgettable face with small beady eyes, which glittered as he watched the cavorting melee.

But he did not relish such rough company it would seem, so when Mister Evans caught his eye to smile his apology for his companion’s membership of the bad loser’s club the portly man came over to observe matters.

After two further defeated hands, Mister Todd went to relieve himself on the misty late-night cobblestones and Mister Evans suggested that the gentleman might like to join in the fun.

His friend needed to be taught a lesson. There might even have been the slightest suggestion of envy on Mister Evans’s part as he described the absent micturator having a larger farm, the result of a bovine inheritance from a providential marriage.

A greedy glint in the small ratlike eyes as the first bait was taken.

To begin, Mister Smith, as the mark so named himself, did very well indeed. Then the wagers increased. The bank changed hands as Mister Todd, puffed up with irritation and his own importance insisted that it should, over to him.

But his cards stayed the same, worsened by bad decisions and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the laws of gambling probability.

Mister Todd then demanded a doubling of stakes as was his banker’s lien, and the other two were happy to comply.

But suddenly, as if night had changed to day, the accepted order was reversed and Mister Todd began to enjoy the most incredible run of luck.

He drew five to a count of sixteen; naturals and court cards followed him like obedient sheep and as the other two strained to recoup their losses, the stakes were doubled yet again. Good money after bad.

The pocketbook of Mister Smith, a previously bulging receptacle, which clever Mister Evans had noted as he stood beside him at the bar while the little man paid for his beer, complaining that it stood no comparison with good London ale, began to shrink like a punctured bladder.

Mister Todd defied the odds of gambling and gravity as he swayed over the table to collect his winnings, face apparently red with alcohol, clumsy with the cards; surely it was only a matter of time?

A silent message the apologetic Mister Evans signalled as they pushed their stakes into the middle. All his money in the little man’s case; but this hand he sat proud on twenty, the cards face down, hidden to all but Mister Smith.

Mister Evans went bust. Squandered. Sadly.

The banker turned over thirteen, an unlucky number. The next card up was four. Seventeen. Not enough to vanquish the two face-down cards. But of course, the banker did not know the value of the hidden hand. Twist or stand?

If he stood pat, Mister Smith would win. For a moment the man hesitated and then with a careless sweep of the hand turned over the next card.

It was a four again. Twenty-one. A boozy roar of triumph from the banker and an