‘Oh, someone will buy it,’ said Jean airily. ‘It’s well enough equipped.’
He shot her a look but decided not to pursue this conversational bearing.
A low-pitched yowl came from the direction of the garden wall.
‘That bloody cat!’ Jean exclaimed.
‘Whit?’
‘The reason we had tae cover over the pool. It had one of the big fish out flopping on the grass!’
An offended black shape sat on the wall, just missed aim upon a fat bird and now the pond was out of reach.
‘Bathsheba!’ McLevy spluttered. ‘Whit’s she doing here?’
‘Who?’
‘Bathsheba. My cat. Well, comes tae visit. Whit’s she doing up here?’
‘Hunting,’ said Jean grimly.
McLevy called out to the animal, which promptly jumped off the wall and disappeared.
‘Seems to know you well enough,’ Jean commented dryly.
The inspector shook his head. It was a long haul from his attic to this garden; feline ways are mysterious indeed.
He reached for another sugar biscuit.
‘I have to thank you, James,’ said Jean suddenly. ‘The Countess. She had me down and out.’
‘Ye’d have thought of something,’ he grunted.
‘I’m not so sure. Are you all right?’
She noticed that he had stopped in mid-stream, the sugar biscuit dipped into the coffee but not withdrawn.
A twinge of pain had hit him in the chest and he’d had another flash of that damned figure from the dream.
‘I’m fine,’ he replied.
And he was. Indigestion can take many forms and he had been eating haphazardly too much of late.
Unfortunately the sugar biscuit had now dissolved in the coffee. He tried to fish it out but things just got worse as the remnants swirled around.
‘James McLevy, what a mucky creature you are,’ scolded Jean, throwing away the dregs and giving him a clean cup into which she poured a fresh brew. ‘Here!’
He accepted this, doled in his usual four spoons of sugar, and sat back meekly enough as if he and Jean were an old married couple, she tutting at his incapacity.
But in fact she was a bawdy-hoose keeper and he was a man knee deep in murders.
This last adventure would keep him going for a while, though.
‘That poor girl,’ said Jean as if she had read his mind. ‘No matter what she did. To be shot like that. And die not knowing.’
‘Well, she knows now,’ he muttered.
The inspector keeked out of the gazebo and looked at the dull sky, wondering what might be going on in the spirit world; it would be busy up there.
He caught a trace of concern in Jean’s gaze and smiled at her as he prepared to drink his coffee.
‘Whit a caper, eh?’ said James McLevy.
The McLevy Mysteries
In Edinburgh,1880, election fever grips the city. But while the rich and educated argue about politics, in the dank wynds of the docks it’s a struggle just to stay alive. When a prostitute is brutally murdered disturbing memories from thirty years ago are stirred in McLevy who is soon lured into a murky world of politics, perversion and deception – and the shadow of the serpent.
Based around the terrible Tay Bridge disaster, the story begins with a break-in and murder at the Edinburgh home of Sir Thomas Bouch, the enigmatic, egotistical builder of the bridge. With the help of brothel madam, Jean Brash, McLevy finds the murderer but much more is yet to unfold – arson, sexual obsession and suicide.
After Confederate officer, Jonathen Sinclair, arrives in Edinburgh to purchase a blockade-runner from Clydeside shipbuilders he is betrayed to the Union forces and shot dead. McLevy teams up with Arthur Conan Doyle to find the agents responsible and Sinclair’s missing money. Meanwhile, a beautiful young spiritualist, Sophia Adler, is the toast of Edinburgh with her dramatic seances. However, she could yet prove to be the deadliest woman McLevy and Conan Doyle will ever encounter.
Available from www.polygonbooks.co.uk
About the Author
David Ashton was born in Greenock in 1941. He studied at Central Drama School in London from 1964 to 1967, starring in
David started writing for film, television, theatre and radio in 1984 and has seen many of his plays and TV adaptations broadcast; he wrote early episodes of
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The McLevy Mysteries:
