Her eyes were fixed deep on his, and out of the blue she near knocked him into a sideways shock.
‘Your mother haunts you,’ she said.
‘Whit?’
‘She haunts you. A memory.’
‘My mother cut her throat. I found her. In the room I sat with her. And waited.’
He had blurted out a truth concealed for fear of the dark shame. A gang of children following Jamie McLevy through the wynds, sniggering, calling names of madness and contamination.
Why had he told this woman?
What was happening?
‘I feel such sorrow. In you.’
‘Is she out there wi’ the voices?’ he asked.
‘I am sure. Somewhere.’
‘Did you hear her?’
Sophia shook her head and he was suddenly like a bewildered child caught between belief and experience.
‘It came into my mind. I have no control over these forces. At times, they invade me. Body and soul.’
She gazed at him as if in supplication and a charge passed between them.
The child became a man. Priapic to boot.
Her lip trembled and the upright man wondered what it would be like to sink his teeth into that flesh.
As if in reflex, Sophia’s tongue passed along the upper lip leaving a glistening trail before disappearing inside her mouth.
It was as if everything had magnified, her lower lip sensual and pink.
Full and inviting.
The Valley of Venus.
And what would be the harm of delving in?
Only compromising the whole investigation by a kiss. And what followed. There would be no stopping what followed.
There was nothing in his vision but that face; the eyes, unmoving, fixed upon his own.
Those eyes began to lose focus, turn inwards towards each other and the effect was curiously erotic.
McLevy felt a force of such power drawing him to her, a psychic envelopment augmented by a jolt in the nether regions that had little to do with deductive faculties.
Passion. Pure and simple.
Neither pure nor simple.
Dangerous as hell and he was bent upon it.
Where would be the harm?
Then he had a vision of Magnus Bannerman sliding from the slates off the edge of the known world.
That’s where passion got you.
‘Aye well,’ he near whispered. ‘As you say. Everything in the past.’
He let out a mirthless laugh and drew back his head to shake it like someone emerging from a spell. His eyes swept once more around the room as if seeing it anew and something he had noticed from his earlier perambulation came to mind.
All the doors to the various rooms were ajar, save one. He had glimpsed into her bedroom and then a wee vanity recess of sorts, no doubt leading to the bathroom.
But there was a small room to the side with the door firm shut and a lock that he had no doubt was fast secure.
He spoke edgily, passion still lurking disappointed and frustrated. The flames not drowned.
‘Whit’s behind that wee door, eh?’
She looked to where he indicated, herself feeling an emptiness, cheated of fusion.
And fusion is a powerful weapon.
‘That is for my privacy,’ she replied tersely.
‘Where ye keep your secrets?’
‘Where I am private.’
To forestall further portal enquiries, she closed her eyes as if overwhelmed by events and sighed deeply.
‘I must ask you to leave me now, inspector. I have answered your questions as best I can. It is already morning and I have much to consider.’
‘No doubt ye have, no doubt.’
McLevy as usual had forgotten to remove his hat and tapped the crown as if to make sure the thing remained still on his head.
The Valley of Venus had been a close call and who knows but that the low-brimmed bowler had kept him safe.
He took one more jaunty tour round the room as if signalling a farewell voyage.
‘A messenger will be sent at some time to bring you to the station to identify the body of Mister Bannerman and make formal statement.’
He grinned like a wolf.
‘Clean him up, best we can, he will be recognisable.’
Sophia said nothing. He had by now reached the outside door and she would be glad to see the back of him.
His hand touched the knob to throw it open and then he hesitated.
‘Jonathen Sinclair,’ he shot the words out suddenly. ‘Whit does the name mean to you?’
For a moment it was as if her whole body froze and then an instant later, she had recovered.
‘It means nothing at all.’
‘Ye sure?’
‘I am certain.’
But he had seen the shock and aftermath.
She knew. Bugger your certainty. She knew.
Like the cricket ball of Conan Doyle, a long shot had hit the mark.
‘A pool of blood,’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘When ye had a wee confab with Mister Doyle and myself, you mentioned the sight of a man in such a state.’
‘I did. A vision. But I know nothing more.’
‘In a street, not a room. You said.’
‘I did.’
‘Eighteen years ago. In the Leith Docks. A man was shot, his head obliterated, bones and flesh. I believe that to be your pool of blood.’
‘Anything is possible.’
‘He was a Confederate Officer. Jonathen Sinclair.’
Sophia’s face was like a mask now. ‘What was he doing here?’
‘Buying ships for the South, I believe. You hail from the South, do you not Miss Adler?’
‘I am not alone in that.’
He nodded acceptance of this point and opened the door as if to finally leave, then turned to stare back at her.
‘The case was never solved. Now we have another. Twa pools of blood.’
‘If true. If it…was this man. Sinclair. I do not see the connection. To Mister Bannerman. Or his actions.’
McLevy smiled.
‘Neither do I. Quite. Yet. But I will find it. That’s my job.’
As he moved out through the doorway he threw some words casually over his shoulder.
‘Find, kill, destroy,’ he remarked cheerily.
‘What?’
