very air of the room. The study itself was dark, with pools of light from various table lamps, but he had stepped back so that the white face hung in the gloom like a Halloween ghost.
He rendered then with great formality, a statement of intent.
‘I believe I will find out the truth,’ said James McLevy. ‘No matter how many lies I am told, how many misdirections, how many secrets kept. If you have broken the law, I will find you out. It is my profession, my life’s work, and I am good at my job.’
Then he eructated softly as the whisky came back to haunt him, and grinned like a wolf.
‘So, Countess, if you have told truth ye have nothing to worry about.’
‘My conscience is clear,’ she replied demurely.
The music next door came to an end with a final subtle chord and as if taking cue, he let out a roar of laughter.
‘Whit a merry-go-round it all is, eh? But the best way not tae get dizzy, is to stand in the middle and watch the wheel go round. Stand in the middle.’
A curt nod and he was gone.
The Countess pulled at a bell rope to signal the butler, returned to her desk and thought for a moment. Then a sly, malicious smile came to her lips and she pulled a sheet of paper towards her and began to write.
The inspector observed her through the keyhole; it always amazed him how many folk never thought to keek in by this aperture.
He straightened up just in time as the servant came out from a side room to escort him back towards the door.
‘Whit is your name?’ he asked in friendly fashion.
‘James Feeney,’ the other answered.
‘Feeney? That’s Irish.’
‘I am of that extraction, sir.’
‘Ye’d never guess,’ said McLevy as they walked down the long corridor, staggering a little as if losing his bearings. ‘But the Irish, they’re everywhere, eh?’
As they passed the door to the main salon, the inspector suddenly lurched and sprung open the portal with a thump. Only a momentary glimpse before the butler rushed to close it again, but enough for McLevy to see some women in decolletage fussing around two bald heads that mercifully were facing away lest they be Masonic panjandrums that the inspector might have seen in Roach’s company.
That, however, was not what held his interest. One of the girls he recognised, Maisie Powers; he winked at her and she scowled when she saw his face; a hefty specimen and one that he might try to intercept on another occasion.
He turned from the newly closed door with an affable smile.
‘Night night, Mister Feeney,’ he said cheerily. ‘Don’t let the bugs bite.’
And with that, he stepped out into the night.
A scratching at the glass brought McLevy back to the present of a hungry cat at his attic window.
He let Bathsheba in to snash at the scraps he had deposited in the chipped saucer and walked back to the frame, which he had left open.
The dank October air made him shiver, but he enjoyed the dampness on his face.
The inspector decided he might have been a bit hard on himself. Normally it was not a good idea to see suspects with drink taken but perhaps that may have worked in his favour. Had he been bristling with sobriety, perhaps the Countess would have been even more defensive.
Perhaps it was not such a foolish move. But the second action was definitely daft.
On his way home, the weight of the world upon his shoulders, he had chanced to run into three young hoydens, out late on the streets, dressed as Halloween hell-hags, one a besom rider with broom, the others ripe for mischief.
Something in his demeanour set them to caper; they were masked and much mischief can be done behind the visor.
They linked hands to surround him and demanded a golden apple or he must pay forfeit.
McLevy had been put in mind of Paris with the three goddesses and see what happened to him.
The Trojan War.
He had no apple to hand in any case and demanded to know the forfeit.
And thus he could be witnessed in Constitution Street, a fine respectable thoroughfare, dancing a highland fling, arms aloft, in the middle of three giggling females.
The inspector shook his head at the attic window, while the lights of Edinburgh blinked in admonition.
Like many a man before him, he blamed the whisky for this wild cantrip; the resemblance to his dream of some nights ago did not escape his notice.
And like the dream, it had a strange aftermath.
No tunnels or spectres in a red cloak, just the glimpsed sight of a face looking out of a passing carriage.
A moment only, but surely it was the visage of Sophia Adler?
Or was it hallucination brought on by whisky, the highland fling and unaccustomed exertion?
The face jerked back inside, the carriage flung round a corner and was gone, the muffled figure of the coachman no help to identification.
McLevy stood frozen with raised arms until a sharp pain in his side caused them to lower. He broke through the chain of witches with a muttered excuse and walked swiftly home without once looking back.
And now he was. Home.
He mused upon these strange events. This mesmerism was catching – was the dream a premonition and if so, was there more to follow?
All his life he had balanced the gut instinct of a policeman with sudden shafts of intuition.
Earth and heaven.
He valued both.
Somewhere in the dark night there was a high-pitched squealing noise along the rooftops. A breaking hinge or a dying animal.
Take your pick.
McLevy thought back to that face in the carriage. Was it Sophia Adler and if so, what did it signify?
And what would she have observed? A man with his arms in the air. Surrender or the highland fling?
Take your pick.
A foolish move indeed. He had exposed himself to some unknown forces but what did it all signify?
Bathsheba jumped up onto the table and out of the window to terrorise the rodent population and McLevy was suddenly overcome by a feeling of utter helplessness.
Four cups of strong coffee had raised him to a plateau from which there was only one way to go.
Down.
A crash. As if he had lost control of everything. A feeling of dark panic, not unlike the death dream but this was waking consciousness.
His diary lay open on the table but what could he write?
Two murders, one burnt body, two cut bellies, one assaulted music box, a jail full of slinkers, Silver Samuel, and Jean Brash, well-known bawdy-hoose keeper; a madman on the loose, mesmerism, pools of blood, dead spirits talking in your lughole, Big Arthur, wee Muriel, the Countess and Roach laughing up their sleeves, strawberry birthmarks and hornbeam sticks. A cross-segment of the lunatic planet. Yours truly, James McLevy, Inspector of Police.
‘That takes the biscuit,’ he declared aloud. ‘That is quite sufficient!’
Oddly enough, it was.
The recitation of these bizarre events had calmed him down.
His mind began to work again, sifting through it all and coming to certain conclusions.
