Trick of the Light

29

And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.

THE BIBLE, Revelation

As he sat drinking his coffee in the attic room, James McLevy reflected that he might well have done a foolish thing this night. More than one in fact. Two at least recognisable. God knows what others had slipped past the sleeping sentries.

Mulholland had gone home and McLevy, having finally arrived at the Auld Ship and found to his despair that the last of the sheep’s heid broth had been scoffed by some swine from Kilmarnock, had drowned his sorrows with a hooker of whisky and hairy tatties.

Unfortunately a side effect of the mashed potatoes and flaked dried saltfish was a raging thirst.

He called for water, remarked it lacking in gusto, and called for more whisky.

And it was in this state of unaccustomed inebriation that he had found himself sitting before the amused gaze of the Countess while a delicate tune from a piano traced a passage in the air around them, coming from some other room in the bawdy-hoose.

McLevy had knocked upon the door in peremptory fashion and demanded to see the Madame of the ‘hotel’ on official business. To his surprise, after a moment’s wait, he found himself ushered politely inside by a tall cadaverous fellow dressed up to the nines as a butler.

‘I don’t recognise your features,’ he declared as he followed the fellow down a long narrow hall with tasteful landscape paintings on the wall, most unlike the Just Land where Jean Brash’s favourite picture was an octopus dragging a scantily clad woman under the sea.

‘I am not from these parts, sir,’ the man answered in rounded tones. ‘My previous employer was the Earl of Essex.’

‘Oh?’ said McLevy. ‘Come down in the world, eh?’

‘The remuneration,’ replied the butler, smoothly opening a door to deposit the inspector within, ‘is far superior. And regular to boot.’

The Countess was sitting at a large mahogany desk with a spread of papers before her.

‘You may remove your hat, sir,’ she remarked. ‘No-one will steal it from you.’

While McLevy did so, with a somewhat befuddled air, the Countess beckoned towards a small table set by the window where, as if ordained, a crystal decanter of whisky with two large equally crystal glasses had their pride of place.

‘I welcome the distraction,’ she smiled, throwing one of the papers back onto the desk as she rose. ‘There is too much paperwork in this world.’

‘I would concur. But I didnae know a bawdy-keeper and policeman shared the same predicament.’

The Countess raised a thin eyebrow to signal otherwise and motioned him to the table where she poured out two large slugs of whisky without asking.

It was not their first meeting. He had dropped in a time before with Mulholland to inform her that Leith was his parish and she had best be discreet. The woman had nodded polite assent and did not attempt to offer a free sample of the wares within.

Then they had met again when someone had tried to break in by her back garden and the German Shepherds she kept had near torn the man to pieces.

The Countess declined to press charges; the animals had earned their keep and the word would get round.

Beware of the dogs.

So, this was their third meeting.

They drank. It was good whisky.

‘Business or pleasure, inspector?’ she asked with a modest smile.

McLevy tried a flanker.

‘A respectable man has been murdered. You know him well. He has been seen in your company.’

She registered this remark calmly enough, dabbing at her mouth with a lace handkerchief lest the whisky linger.

‘Who is this man?’

‘Witnesses link him to your establishment. Artefacts found on the premises point in your direction.’

Her gaze was steady but he noticed the faintest tremor just above the lip; the lips of women sometimes give them away. Looking in their eyes is just a waste of time.

‘A brutal murder. The head smashed into a thousand pieces. As if a monster had broken it for vengeance.’

‘But surely –’

‘But surely, what?’

The inspector put on his daftie face, easy enough with the amount of blood alcohol.

‘A thousand pieces?’

‘Bones and flesh under your feet. Whit a mess!’

Now the Countess was blinking her small eyes as if her thoughts were speeding too fast.

That had not been the description given to her.

‘How is this to do with me?’

‘He visits you. In your company. Witnessed.’

‘That’s not possible.’

‘Definite.’

‘Who is this man?’

‘You already know the name.’

‘I do not.’

‘Gilbert Morrison!’

Try as she might, the Countess was unable to suppress the fleeting stab of relief which left a mark on the heart-shaped face, the visage changing from cloudy confusion to a sharp focus of concentration.

‘Mister Morrison. I know nothing of his death.’

‘Whit about Logan Galloway?’

McLevy shot out the other name like a bullet into her face and despite herself, she almost blinked recognition.

Then recovered.

And he knew he would get little more for his pains.

But he also knew that she was complicit, if not the fons et origo of events surrounding Jean Brash.

How to prove it was another matter.

‘Who might that be?’ she queried finally.

‘Another deid body. Jist thought tae throw it in.’

The inspector grinned somewhat foolishly as if the drink was leading him by the nose, but although she had smelled the whisky as soon as he walked in and sought to augment the effect, the Countess bore in mind that every member of the fraternity she had so far encountered had described McLevy by various detrimental adjectives, but stupid was not one of them.

‘I have not heard or met with this…Mister Galloways,’ said the Countess carefully.

‘Galloway.’

‘Yet Mister Morrison, how sad. A good client.’

‘Dead as a doornail,’ said McLevy cheerfully. ‘Oh, here…’ He hauled from the deep poacher’s pouch in his coat