Nor Will He Sleep (25 page)

‘No’ be so easy this time.’

‘We may not need them.’

As both policemen turned in surprise at this enigmatic comment, Jessica once more held McLevy’s gaze.

‘Do not forget your promise, inspector.’

‘Whit promise?’

‘The one you made. Goodbye.’

Mulholland glanced sideways at his superior officer, who blinked as if stung by one of his constable’s bees, and then made a jerky movement of one arm to ward off some imaginary foe, but
Jessica still had a last word in mind.

‘And Mister McLevy?’

He had stopped, comically, one half in, one half out of the room.

‘I’m sad to see you did not take my advice.’

‘Advice?’

‘As regards the . . . fungus?’

She twitched fingers under her nose like a pantomime villain.

Mulholland coughed to disguise the amusement best he could, while McLevy scowled like a child and strode huffily out of the door, followed by his lanky subordinate.

Jessica listened to their footsteps go down the stairs

and waited till the front door slammed.

Only then did she let the tears flow.

They poured down her face in a stream, and she placed her shoulder blades against the nearest wall to let her body shudder.

Because she was not sure.

McLevy was right. There was a darkness and had always been. A violence that ripped at the surety of their life.

She would always have to watch. To guard. Until perhaps the day dawned when her brother could take command of that darkness.

But was it too late?

There seemed such a split in Daniel. He would talk about himself in a contemptuous off-hand way when alone with her, never at any other time.

As if he were worth nothing.

Her mother’s voice sounded once more in the next room.

Time to tell events so far and set the lawyers in motion.

Now she would be Jessica Drummond once more.

Mistress of her fate.

A great part of which was hanging in the strange brooding perception of a certain Inspector James McLevy.

Sim Carnegie near jumped for joy as he saw the policemen approach. The evening edition of the
Leith Herald
had just hit the streets and he had been savouring the
imaginary appearance of Lieutenant Roach’s face as the headline jumped up to smack him in the lugubrious official snout. ‘ARREST IMMINENT IN CARNEGIE MURDER CASE!’

He watched McLevy pay good money for the paper then he and Mulholland, the constable craning his neck to get decent vantage, peruse the front-page story. This was a world better than a miserable
lieutenant.

The inspector’s face betrayed little, but Mulholland shook his head in a fashion that suggested the ground shifting beneath his feet.

‘Aye, gentlemen,’ Carnegie called cheerily, letting his disdain surface just enough to make it noticeable. ‘Do my journalistic efforts strike fire from the flint?’

It had been an uncomfortable saunter for McLevy, what with a maelstrom of feelings spouting like hot jets from a previously peaceful though sullen lava field.

Mulholland had confirmed that, the room having been searched, he had also made a swift but thorough examination of the family carriage, finding it clean as a whistle and the horse indeed
brown.

Daniel’s alibi had been confirmed by Jessica, though that could be questionable, a drainpipe having been noted in close proximity to his outside window.

These two findings aside, the constable had moved on to tax his superior regarding the exact moment Miss Drummond had given McLevy advice on his upper lip, advice that Mulholland backed to the
hilt. It was just that he could not remember hearing these words of wisdom delivered.

Obviously from a time before – but when?

Obviously he had not been on hand.

And what, more importantly than fungal removal, was the promise?

‘None of your business,’ was the curt response.

‘Oh, is it personal then?’

A grim tread. A question not answered.

But not remotely abandoned.

‘I noted a certain . . . resonance between you.’

‘Resonance?’

‘Like a bell.’

‘A bell?’

‘Chiming.’

Again the grim tread. McLevy knew fine well Mulholland’s ability to irritate from the most apparently inept remarks denials that contained an unwilling hidden answer.

‘Ding, dong.’

‘Ding dong?’

‘Chiming. Like a father and daughter, maybe.’

Luckily, before the inspector’s wrath erupted at this age-implied insult, the newspaper boy called out his wares.

And now they read that two of the student leaders had been hauled bodily back into Leith Station, and strong evidence uncovered to link one of them to the recent foul and bloody murder of an
innocent old woman. Who was, in fact, the writer’s very own dear mother; and a charge was hovering like an avenging angel over the evil doer’s, or doers’ head.

Imminent.

All circumstantial, all adjectival magnification, but a deal of it, accurate enough to negate outright denial.

Not that it stopped McLevy as he glared at Carnegie. ‘Who told you this blether?’

The man took out a pure white handkerchief and blew his nose fastidiously.

‘I have my sources.’

‘I battered one the other day.’

‘So I have heard. I believe the poor boy is bedridden.’

‘Let’s hope it lasts,’ said Mulholland.

‘Oh, constable?’ responded Sim, affecting only now to notice what in truth would have been an extremely hard figure to fail to see. ‘I hear you had an encounter with Gash
Mitchell.’

‘We met.’

‘Lucky the inspector was on hand to save your bacon.’

‘Who said that?’

‘The man himself. Gash. He also said that next time – you’d have nowhere to hide.’

Mulholland’s face did not alter, but he snaked out one long arm to grasp the brushed lapels of Carnegie’s expensive new overcoat, and drew the man close so that their faces were no
more than a bruised fingernail apart.

‘You tell Mitchell. Any time. Any place. I’ll leave him face down. In the gutter. Dead or alive.’

It must be said for Sim Carnegie that though he was a venomous, slimy specimen, he did not lack nerve.

His furtive eyes slid sideways, but he managed to hold his water and nod the head.

Mulholland released his grip, and the newsman turned to smile at a stone-faced McLevy.

‘Do you have a quote for me, inspector?’

‘Talk tae the lieutenant.’

Carnegie laughed.

‘That would be a waste of time. I’ll see how events turn out. My readers will be waiting. With bated breath.’

He walked a short distance away as if continuing on a pleasant evening’s stroll and called back cheerily.

‘If you do nothing, I’ll name the man in any case. I have it at my fingertips.’

‘
Who told you?
’

Anger shot the question out of McLevy like a bullet.

‘Ye think I have but a single informant at your station? Mair than one way tae skin a cat, McLevy.’

The phrase was repeated as the man walked off into the gathering gloom.

‘Mair than one way – tae skin a cat!’

He laughed like a rusty door wrenching open.

‘I warned the lieutenant I had more ammunition. He should have listened!’

With that boastful rejoinder, he was gone.

Neither of the two left behind moved.

McLevy had an image of a giant hoop bowling down the hill, out of control, himself spread-eagled inside howling out some instructions to which no-one paid any heed. And yet, and yet . . .
something at the back of his mind. Despite the chaos of feeling, a shape was forming, coming into focus. But it was blurred so far.

He wished to God it would hurry up.

Mulholland tried to shake aside a foul picture of the girl – her thin neck snapped like a twig. What was forming in his mind was vengeance. A bloody vengeance.

Finally they both returned to the normality of a damp street in Leith with seagulls screeching complaints to a heavy-browed sky.

‘The lieutenant’s going to be hopping like a Chinese firecracker,’ said the constable.

And so it appeared as they entered his office.

Roach had the paper spread on his desk and the expression on his face could in no way be confused with a dancing moonbeam.

Yet he surprised both by speaking quietly – now and then the lieutenant rose above the estimation of his two main men.

‘Tell me what transpired at the Drummond house, if you will?’

They did so.

‘So we are no further on from this morning?’

Solemn nods.

‘And Daniel Drummond has thus far resisted confession – if indeed there is aught to confess.’

‘We have the identification – ’

‘I am well aware of that, inspector. But it’s not enough without further evidence. And now?’

Roach rested his somewhat bony hands, palm down, on the offending headline as if he must block it from his view.

‘How did this happen?’

‘Buggered if I know,’ was McLevy’s response.

‘That – though having the merit of honesty – does not advance the cause.’

The lieutenant jerked his head forward abruptly to indicate that they might sit.

The other two did as bidden, unlike Queen Victoria in her portrait, standing for eternity.

‘This rag of a paper,’ Roach again spoke in even tones, ‘has caused a predicament. When Chief Constable Sandy Robb reads it, he will be over me like the Canongate
pox.’

McLevy and Mulholland blinked; the lieutenant was not celebrated for his use of venereal simile.

‘Drummond’s lawyers will be here soon. I may stave them off for a while, but then I have to charge or release.’

The lieutenant continued his sequence of thought.

‘If I charge, I will follow a course of action that I do not believe is yet sufficiently supported by evidence in a court of law. If I release without opposite proof of innocence then
Carnegie will slaughter us in the paper.’

Roach suddenly slammed his fist down on the desk in antithesis to the previous dry delivery, causing both his men to jump in their chairs.

‘But the worst thing is how did Carnegie have knowledge of all this?’

All three fell silent. The idea of another traitor in the station was indeed a sickening one.

‘Could the auld fellow not have been blethering untoward?’ remarked Mulholland. ‘He’s gabby enough.’

‘No,’ replied Roach firmly. ‘I have been considering that possibility. For Carnegie to get the story onto the presses and printed in an evening edition, he would need to have
known by this day mid-afternoon at best.

‘Dunwoody had scarce made his identification by that juncture and if you remember we then sent him home with Ballantyne.

‘Ergo – he had no time to blether.’

The lieutenant had obviously given this matter deep study; McLevy seemed also lost in profound contemplation, so Mulholland asked the obvious question.

‘When did Ballantyne get back, sir?’

‘At least two hours later. Told Sergeant Murdoch that he had uncovered a nest of cockroaches in Dunwoody’s room and thought to do the man a favour by clearing them out.’

‘That sounds like the constable.’

‘However – he had to find some small boxes for the insects and was away for a short time while the old fellow made them a pot of tea.’

Roach sighed and wearily rubbed at his long chin.

‘That might give opportunity, I suppose. The constable was out of sight, on the streets.’

‘But he helped us catch Billy Napier!’

‘I am well aware of that Mulholland – yet it is possible he may have met up with Carnegie or someone else and boasted of our success.’

‘Have you asked him?’

‘Not yet but . . . Ballantyne is . . . a weak vessel.’

‘Not sure I agree, sir.’

‘It is a matter of the given facts. Either the constable or – someone in the station.’

‘Or – a wee thing else.’

McLevy had emerged from inward delving and a light of sorts was gleaming in his eye.

‘When did you last see Carnegie, sir?’

‘Some time after his mother’s death.’

‘And he warned you then – he had more ammunition?’

‘Yes.’

Roach gazed at this strange man he had known for nigh on fifteen years who might as well at times be an island of the Outer Hebrides.

‘How do you know Carnegie said those words, inspector?’

‘Because he vaunted of it tae me.’

McLevy winced suddenly at an unwelcome shaft of pain.

Mostly he ignored such arrows of internal affliction, would do at this moment and would so again – one day no doubt there would be a reckoning.

But not right now.

Never right now.

‘Give me this one night clear,’ he petitioned. ‘One night only. Hold Drummond until tomorrow.’

A timid knock upon the door and at Roach’s command it opened to allow Ballantyne to stick in a tousled head. His birthmark seemed unusually vibrant as it snaked down his neck.

Unaware that the three intent stares upon him might be weighing up his potential for dissimulation, indiscretion or treachery, the constable blurted out far from welcome news.

‘These same lawyers are back. Hinging aboot at the desk.’

‘Where the carcass is, there will the vultures be, eh?’

Ballantyne looked blank at his lieutenant’s muttered response, and then nodded avian recognition.

‘Like hoodie crows at the lambing season.’

The constable frowned at the cruelty of nature, before remembering why he had entered.

‘Anyhow, they’re scratching at the counter, sir.’

‘I will be with them shortly.’

Ballantyne moved his lips as he memorised the message before departing.

Mulholland shook his head.

‘If he’s the one, I give up on the whole tin can.’

McLevy ignored this piece of folk wisdom, his eyes still fixed on his lieutenant.

‘Give me this night and one way or another I’ll bring it home.’