‘Ye could have tried.’
‘I’m no’ that enamoured of the police.’
But Samuel hastily qualified the remark with a glance back to Muriel who was waiting with some impatience at the station door.
The bouncy mattress was calling. If she was going to lose her reputation, it might as well be worth her while.
Her mind flipped back to the time yesterday when, miserably going through her dead husband’s desk for the want of anything better to do, she had opened the secret drawer again and stuck her hand to the back. There she found a small embossed knob which when she pulled, produced another aperture.
Undertakers have many boxes.
Inside this one was a letter addressed to her husband at his business address from a woman who signed herself
They promised further amatory adventures and were fairly graphic as to how this would be achieved.
They also thanked him for his generous offerings both in love and cash.
Which is when Muriel realised that a scamp who would go to jail for you was worth a hundred respectable men who keep a mistress to give them pleasure and a sour face to give their wife.
She had told the maid of her decision and Ellen’s only comment was that she’d have the tea ready for them when they got back. And turn the bed down.
Muriel winked at Sam. Most unladylike.
‘I’m better disposed now,’ said the bold Samuel to the inspector.
And to prove the truth of that, he volunteered further endorsement of his new qualities.
‘I’d seen him before. Sinclair.’
‘Whereabouts?’ asked McLevy, quickly.
‘The Happy Land. He had a wee magpie there. My cousin Mamie worked the place, God rest her soul. She’d pass me a bite to eat and I’d watch them a’ arrive frae the upstairs window. I saw him twice.’
The Happy Land had been a notorious bawdy-hoose, run and owned by one Henry Preger. A villainous type who had died in mysterious circumstances and was mourned by no-one.
‘Sinclair was mad keen on that wee lassie. And she on him. Lovey-dovey. She was aye playing wi’ his hair.’
‘What was her name?’
‘I don’t know, and Mamie’s dead now, but I can tell you one that does.’
McLevy did not need to be told. The woman who had plied her trade there was suspected of helping Henry shuffle off this mortal coil and who then opened her own place, the Holy Land, followed after a fire and insurance money by that quintessence of bordellos, the Just Land, was none other than Jean Brash.
And she owed him her sweet existence.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said to Samuel.
‘You know where tae find me,’ replied Samuel, proudly, then turned and walked to the door where Muriel put her arm through his and off they walked to another life.
Silver Sam and Moumou.
No hidden drawers.
As they did so Constable Mulholland walked in, favouring his side slightly but telling himself he was fit for duty and ready for action.
Possibly after his landlady fussing around him – Roach’s guess was right, she was Irish but not buxom, in fact thin as a rake – Mulholland was hoping for a hero’s welcome at the station. No bunting, no pipe bands but the odd handshake or a clenched-fist salute.
What he received instead was his inspector coming up with a possessed look in his eye.
‘How fit are ye, constable?’ he demanded.
‘I’ll live till I die,’ said Mulholland.
‘Good,’ came the response, ‘for we have work to do.’
With that McLevy, who was luckily still in his outdoor clothes, hustled Mulholland out before he even managed to get a foot inside.
Ballantyne watched them go and sighed.
For the moment his days of glory were over. Back to the insects and a quiet life.
But what a time it had been.
42
Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN,
He watched the two figures approach in the gloom of the afternoon, walking slowly up the crooked road that wound its way through the bare fields.
They were city folk, or at least dressed so, the tall one leaning slightly to the side, the other a burly figure with a low-brimmed bowler, battling against the wind that always blew at this time of year.
Down towards Loch Leven lay the more fertile land but up here in the Braes of Orwell was a harsher proposition; a few cattle and sheep, with a tough grind to grow crops of any great matter save what the poor soil would allow.
The farm fed and housed them; it was a hard taskmaster and took its toll but he was content enough.
More than that, sometimes.
He had watched his wife and twin boys, their fair hair flopping to the ungainly sway of the ramshackle cart, leave some time earlier after a bite to eat.
Kirstie calling encouragement to Auld Bob, their stubborn and slow horse, who knew the road down was easy compared to the one back up when they would be loaded with provisions from the market town.
So the horse was saving his strength.
Age teaches you such wisdom.
Usually the farmer would have gone with them but this day had decided to remain at home.
There was always something to do: a fence to mend, a dyke to restore, the henhouse to repair, but that was not the reason he had stayed.
A dream last night.
Cannon fire, bodies piled on wagons, no clean straw, no springs to cushion against the jolts on a road the savage rains had washed back to sharp stone. Whips cracking, profanities shouted at the broken horses, the storm beating down, almost drowning the cries of agony.
Some moaned, some prayed, some cursed their fate and some, like John Findhorn, held their peace.
His last words,
The farmer had awoken drenched in sweat, his wife sleeping peacefully beside him.
These dreams used to haunt him but then had faded with the years.
Now this one had returned, and so he stayed at home. Stayed to see the men approach. This had been his dread for a long, long time but like the dreams the fear had faded.
