This seemed to satisfy her that she would not be casting her pearls before the swinish embodiment of a legal system that believed most spirits were in a brandy bottle.
‘The man last night. I remember him well. His face. It was not one of my voices but now and then, a vision comes. A dark visitation. It shakes me to the very core.’
McLevy had sudden recall of the figure ahead of him in the tunnel and felt a weird tremor.
He shook it off and got to business.
‘Whit did you see?’
‘A skull. I looked at his face and saw a skull.’
‘Surely a portent of death?’ Doyle interjected, a little miffed that these two had almost excluded him from the exchange and eager to embrace the idea that Sophia had, in some way, foreseen the future.
The inspector shot the young man a warning glance. The murder was his to reveal and in his own good time.
‘Anything else?’ asked McLevy.
‘Such as?’ Sophia responded.
They now, despite Doyle’s effortful intervention, were locked into each other’s gaze as if some unseen battle were taking place. Perhaps a battle of wills, of mental force, or even attraction, as one subtle psyche probed into the other.
‘A word, say. Written in blood.’
McLevy observed her violet eyes to darken the merest touch then she slowly shook her head.
‘I saw a skull. No flesh. Just bone.’
‘No word upon a wall?’
‘Words are cheap.’
This cryptic reply would seem to signal conclusion to that line of questioning, so he shifted ground slightly.
‘According to Mister Doyle, you screamed aloud?’
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
‘As I said, I was shaken.’
‘Surely you have seen such visions before? Skull and crossbones?’
‘No. Never. Not of that kind.’
‘Where did you meet this man?’
‘I had never met him. Until last night.’
To the watching Doyle it seemed that the tenor of the exchange had almost become that of interrogation but he supposed that must be the nature of a policeman.
Let nothing lie at peace.
‘And whit do ye conclude from this bony apparition?’
A faint smile came to her lips at the deliberate obtuseness of his question.
‘As Mister Doyle remarked. Death, I suppose.’
Arthur was beginning to feel like some sort of reference point on the map of Edinburgh.
‘And you saw nothing else?’
Sophia raised her hands for a moment then let them fall to clasp each other in a graceful enfolding.
‘My gift is both a blessing and a curse, inspector. It is not clarity but confusion. When I am in a state of such…invasion, my mind is almost overcome.’
For a moment her voice trembled and she looked towards Doyle whose heart lifted in response. Then she turned back to the obdurate figure still attending answer.
‘As I say, it was a confusion but behind the skull, in a terrible darkness – though this may not be part, it may be from some other force that was present – I saw a man, far away, lying in a pool of blood.’
Doyle stiffened. McLevy’s face was unchanged.
‘Did ye see the face?’
‘No. Only the body. And the blood.’
‘In a room? A fireplace to hand?’
‘No. In the open. At night. On the street. On stone.’
No-one ever tells
But the inspector reckoned that Sophia had put enough in to get a little back.
‘The man you saw was called Gilbert Morrison. He was murdered late last night, his head smashed by a heavy iron poker.’
A sardonic smile came to McLevy’s lips.
‘He is in fragments of blood and bone. The poker is still intact. The nature of iron.’
Sophia did not respond at first to the bleak statement.
‘That is a cruel fate,’ she murmured finally.
‘Aye. There’s nae justice.’
‘It would seem so.’
For a moment her face seemed troubled and she glanced over at Doyle whose heart lifted once more at the vulnerable creature before him. McLevy, on the other hand, didn’t give a damn. There was something about her containment…an almost sensual invitation.
He had been close quarters with many attractive and dangerous women but this one was in a class of her own.
Back to business.
‘It’s a pity your vision didnae include a wee keek at the murderer, save me a deal o’ time and trouble.’
‘I saw nothing more than what I have told you. A skeleton face.’
‘Uhuh?’
For a moment they stood in silence then a sudden screech from outside the window made them all jump.
A seagull had swooped down to grab a piece of crust thrown from the kitchen below. It rose triumphantly into the air, white bread clutched in its orange talons, and flapped away into the dull sky.
Sophia shook her head as if trying to break free from her inward thoughts. She saw the anxious look on Doyle’s face and spoke directly to him.
‘You are a kind person, Mister Doyle,’ she said, quite out of the blue.
‘I try to be,’ he said in some confusion, the tips of his large ears becoming tinged with colour.
‘It is a rare quality,’ Sophia smiled.
Then she turned once more to McLevy, who in no way qualified for similar approbation.
‘I am sorry I cannot help you further, inspector. I have nothing more to add. Fate is cruel.’
McLevy accepted this implicit dismissal with a cheerful nod, and banged his hands together.
‘Ach well, never mind. I will bring the killer tae justice and watch the judge pit on the black cap.’
He let out a harsh whoop of laughter.
‘Then I’ll watch him dance the Perth two-step on the hangman’s rope. The rewards of my chosen profession.’
Doyle recognised the technique employed.
An apparent mercurial shift of behaviour at times verging on direct brutality; all to disguise the fact that behind all this was a probing intelligence of intent.
Designed to keep the suspect on the hop.
Doyle would keep that in mind for future reference.
But surely Sophia was not under suspicion?
Or was everyone so in James McLevy’s eyes?
The man himself turned as if to go and then shot out a sudden question at Sophia.
‘Whit does Judas mean tae you?’
She took a breath and for the first time seemed a little flustered.
‘I suppose…the betrayer of a good man. Lord Jesus.’
