Trick of the Light

truth?’

‘I swear.’

He took the letter he had filched from the bosom of the Countess and waved it in front of her dying eyes.

No mercy. Not while there’s breath.

‘And this is in your own hand to the Countess?’

‘I do so swear,’ said Jessie. ‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned.’ Her eyelids closed then her head fell back.

Lily Baxter had stood in the doorway watching events unfold.

She recognised the inert form in the corner as the wicked man from the market, saw the policemen crouching over Jessie and then her friend crumple like a leaf.

Lily darted forward; the men stood up to give room as she knelt beside Jessie and reached out her hand to caress the cold face of death.

Jessie’s last words were in a broken undertone, from the childhood game that she and Lily had been playing in the Just Land to while away the time of occupation.

Indeed it was the ruse that had enabled her to lock Lily away in safety.

Hide and seek.

In the darkness.

It had been great fun.

‘Peeky-boo,’ Jessie murmured. ‘Here I come. Ready or no’. It’s not my fault.’

Lily bowed her head.

The policemen did also, McLevy removing his low-brimmed bowler while Binnie moaned softly in the corner.

Hide and seek.

Here I come.

Ready or not.

34

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

And if I die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Child’s bedtime verse

Lieutenant Robert Roach was a much-relieved man as he waited for the changing of the guard at the station.

He had an injured constable to consider but the wound had been dressed by Doctor Jarvis and Mulholland was no doubt at his lodgings now, sitting with his feet up in front of the fire, regaling his landlady with tales of bravery.

Roach did not know Mulholland’s landlady from Eve but imagined her to be a buxom lady of Irish extraction who doted upon her lodger’s every word and plied him with sweet tea and home-made ginger biscuits.

The lieutenant was content enough with this image; a man needs as much comfort as he can garner these days.

In his hand he held the letter from Jessie that had set McLevy off and running.

Just to make sure, he read it once again. Roach had been brought up to date with all the events so far but it never did any harm to re-examine the evidence.

Countess,

The coast is now clear. Only Lily Baxter and me, the house empty. I can deal with her. Hannah Semple is gone. I will let your man in by the gate. You must keep your promise to me. A murder has been done. Logan Galloway. It has all been to your plan and my reward must be soon.

Jessie Nairn

‘Poor lassie. She signed her death warrant.’

McLevy had ghosted up at his elbow in a manner Roach always found disconcerting; the man would have made a fine footpad.

‘Indeed,’ Roach observed. ‘Blackmail implicit. Not a good idea.’

‘I don’t doubt the Countess would have got rid of her anyway,’ said McLevy. ‘Once Binnie was safely back in London the only person who had knowledge of it all was Jessie. The threat in that letter just…hurried things on.’

McLevy pursed his lips as he remembered the pain in Jessie’s eyes.

I felt bad but I did it anyway.

‘It is also possible that when it came to the point of Jean being put away for the rest of her life, Jessie may have recanted.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Ye never know. And the Countess wouldnae take that chance either.’

‘It was a clever plan she laid.’

‘Very strategic.’

Roach handed the letter back to McLevy and reflected once more how his inspector could manage to land in a clump full of thistles and emerge unscathed.

As if he could mesmerically read his superior’s mind McLevy suddenly ventured, ‘Whit about the court official with the wig that jumped?’

‘He has decided to forgive and forget.’

‘In case his wife finds out?’

‘Exactly.’

McLevy’s lips quirked in amusement. They were standing in the middle of the station but the place seemed oddly empty and calm as if a great storm had just passed over.

‘In all this excitement,’ Roach remarked almost casually, ‘it rather slipped my mind. Samuel Grant? I assume we are to charge him with attempting to sell back stolen goods to the rightful owner?’

‘Aye. Providing Mistress Grierson attests to such.’

‘I assume she will. After all, what other explanation could there be? A respectable widow…’

In fact the lieutenant had been unwise enough to mention a hint of the happening to his wife; she had thrown her horrified arms in the air at the invasion into Muriel Grierson’s decency but also pressed him to keep her abreast of additional developments.

Thus widows attract curiosity by dint of standing alone in the field of matrimony.

An exception to the rule.

He glanced at McLevy who seemed to have forgotten the last question, so the lieutenant returned to the present crime.

When McLevy had sent word back to the lair of the Countess that he had taken Binnie to uncover proof on the murder of Galloway and the plot hatched by this woman, Roach had not hesitated to have her hauled in.

But the case was not yet nailed down to his satisfaction.