Nor Will He Sleep (29 page)

It is never a good idea to kick a policeman when he’s down. One day he will rise again. Memory intact.

The constable, meanwhile, lifted his hand in salute.

‘It’s nice to see the general public joining in with the police in the pursuance of their duties, sir.’

Archibald Carstairs nodded gravely, but a dark humour was not far from either man’s eyes.

As the runaways were dragged off, the felled accuser draped over Mulholland’s shoulder like a bedraggled plaidie, Tom murmured that perhaps they might take one of the side-streets to avoid
further confrontation.

His father nodded agreement, but the man’s gaze was fixed on the debris of distant warfare.

His fist clenched as if to deliver another blow, but who would be the target now?

A distant figure waved at him. McLevy in his element.

All that had gone for the major now.

An anguished parting.

Yet a compensation holds for those who miss the heat of battle – death is never far away.

It aye lurks close at hand.

As she climbed the stairs to her boudoir, Jean Brash was wondering if that last wee gurgle of champagne might have been an error of judgement.

It had left her giddy after a riotous evening.

The Worshipful Society of Engineers, having assembled for the funeral of an august member, had made their first visit en masse to the Just Land and belied a sober sounding name with maniacal
energy, erotic curiosity and a never-ending thirst for expensive sparkling wine.

They were to a man lean-shanked, above average height and had a profound interest in how things worked.

Especially a bawdy-hoose.

How did the inner mechanisms function?

The nuts and bolts, as it were?

The magpies were only too keen to supply practical exposure, but as the evening wore on and sated couples returned to the main salon, having explored the nooks and crannies of sensual
construction, an ancient one-eyed fiddler struck up the starting notes of a frolicsome jig.

‘A Mile to Ride’ was the tune and in a matter of moments, and not for the first time, sofas and chairs were dragged aside and the carpet rolled up, as the salon was transformed for a
ceilidh.

Annie MacManus was a soft-hearted and bounteously framed female, whose form had become not unlike the cream buns she was so fond of devouring, but who also possessed a delicate yet firm touch
appreciated by the older clients. Now, she plumped herself down at the piano and, instead of soothing background melodies, let the stirring notes of the fiddler’s tune echo in the ivory keys
she struck with both abandon and precision.

Hannah Semple had a soft spot for auld Mally Duncan, a rapscallion when young, rogue through the middle years and in his helter-skelter journey down the brae of dissipation, an unreconstructed
snaffler.

But he could play, one eye darting amongst the increasingly bared limbs of the magpies like a randy sparrow, while his fingers leapt to ribald conclusions upon the roused and rousing
strings.

There was a time he had played that music for Hannah alone, but the man wasnae tae be trusted – he would follow the notes out the window and never be seen again.

Yet still – she poured a generous dram and slid it near enough that he could smell the quality.

Mally grinned and did not even look down – he knew his women and he knew his fiddle.

He brought the tune to a close and then launched into an Irish jig this time. ‘Wild Oats’
.
Wander the earth, sow them well and reap your fill.

Hannah’s face split into an unaccustomed smile. That had been their melody.

On with the dance.

Later, after a hectic and lung-bursting strip jig that near bounced Jean’s expensive painting of a lecherous octopus dragging a scantily clad female under the foaming sea from its pride of
place on the wall – when the music became less frenetic – Jean was tempted onto the floor for a slow waltz by a stoop-shouldered lighthouse designer, tall and solemn, not unlike an owl,
who had nonetheless assiduously plied her with the best champagne on the principle of oiling the moving parts.

As she danced in his arms and the lights dimmed a little, Jean closed her eyes and who knows what dreams fluttered behind those lidded curtains?

There was a vague, fragrant, pipe-tobacco smell from his evening jacket that she found not unattractive.

However when the music stopped, so did she.

A bawdy-hoose keeper can play no favourites amangst the clients; lovers she can pick and choose, but not from those who enter by the front door.

Jean had made that mistake once, disastrously, lost a most precious piece of jewellery to the blaggard’s treachery, and if it wasn’t for that miserable swine McLevy, her bonny
Tahitian pearls would have been gone forever.

But the inspector brought them back. That was the trouble with James McLevy. He brought things back.

She looked at the man before her – decent, respectable, married no doubt but they all are – and sighed to admit that he was the civilised opposite to what she desired.

What a bugger.

Still, a waltz is a waltz.

While events unfolded above, in the cellars Lily and Maisie were having the time of their life, showing two of the younger brethren exactly how the Berkeley Horse worked its particular
magic.

The ingenuity of the pulley system for those who enjoyed being hauled up and scourged on a circular basis also ignited their interest, but the engineers returned in fascination to the structure
of the Horse itself; after some persuasion one allowed himself to be inserted into the various apertures, fitted for head, nether regions, and feet. Adjustable of course.

Maisie then ‘whipped’ him gently on the backside with a sturdy but dull cane, while Lily crouched on the other side explaining her part in the proceeding by hand signs.

She mimed milking a cow with great earnestness, while both the young men were near overcome with the giggles.

Maisie smiled grimly. She could have told them a few tales of deep-desired and blood curdling flagellant activity that would have wiped the smiles from their faces.

Mostly inflicted upon those who inflicted their will upon others, rather like pirate captains walking their own plank.

And she took them right to the edge.

It was the best job Maisie had ever had in her life.

Having led the young men on a guided tour of whips, spikes, and cruel implements of torture that lined the walls both girls felt more like museum curators.

There was a moment of some discomfort at the end as in –
well what shall we do now?

Lily instinctively leant back her head till it rested on Maisie’s swelling bosom – lifted for the purposes of the profession by a corseted costume that combined domination with
jagged gratification.

The jutting mother of night and pain.

One of the young men bowed his own head in response to Lily’s movement and let it come to rest upon his friend’s shoulder.

Both couples stood there.

Entwined.

Innocence personified.

It may be found in the strangest currency.

However there are two sides to the coin.

Back to the higher reaches.

At the end of the evening Jean Brash, having bid a chaste enough farewell to her solemn owl plus a more formal goodbye the Worshipful Body, left the exhausted magpies and detritus of the night
for Hannah Semple to knock into shape, then slipped into her boudoir and closed the door.

She took a deep breath to control the giddy whirling in her head and smiled a little foolishly.

Then the Mistress of the Just Land frowned.

A draught of damp breeze. She could have sworn she’d closed that window.

Ah well. A wee bit of fresh air wouldn’t kill her.

She threw clothes aside carelessly, till she reached a very fashionable soft satin corselet, then crossed the room to don her peignoir.

Fancy name for a skimpy auld scrap o’ silk
, according to Hannah Semple, but Jean loved the feeling of the material as it caressed her bare skin.

However, ruffles were no protection when the cane whipped into the side of her neck.

From behind the curtains where he had waited for some hours in the dimly lit room, marking the time with sweet imaginings, the slight figure had emerged and struck from behind like a snake.

The pain paralysed her as if the whole body had frozen in shock, and then a precise kick, delivered with the toe-end of a polished boot, smacked into the back of her knee and sent her tumbling
onto the thick carpet.

Jean’s mouth opened and closed but no sound emerged.

She lay on her front like a stricken animal in the slaughterhouse, hit with a bolt between the eyes.

In the semi-dark, oil lamp burning low, the killer’s white-painted face hung in the gloom like a ghost. The pale-grey figure turned her over with one casual foot to expose her body for
punishment.

It was silk clad.

The body.

As a whore’s should be.

Now where to commence?

Ah, yes. He took a scrap of paper from his pocket, smoothed it out and then dropped it onto the creamy quilt of the bed.

Later.

In her mouth, it would find a home.

Jean’s eyes could hardly focus. She saw above a shimmering, silver figure, the face a blur of white. A shoe trod on her face, turning it to the side. Her neck was bared for the next
blow.

She lay on the carpet just beside her bed, and underneath the frame she could see something glinting in the dark, just behind where the edges of the quilt touched the floor.

A small, empty cut-glass scent bottle with a silver top that must have been knocked under by a careless hand and now was her only hope of salvation.

A hand grabbed the collar of her peignoir and ripped it from her body.

The naked whore.

Jean gathered all her strength and reached out her fingers to grasp the heavy little bottle. Through half open lids she could see the silver cane rise into the air.

She threw the bottle with every ounce of power in that arm. Not at the figure. But at the window to the side.

The pane shattered as the bottle smashed through it, falling into the garden.

After a long moment the silence was broken by a voice calling in alarm from below.

The killer moved swiftly to the window and, using the curtain as cover, glanced beneath.

Two women, one large, one small. For a moment they gazed up, then together dashed towards the garden door back into the house.

Not much time but at least it left his way of escape free.

Voices approaching up the stairs. A gaggle of females, he could kill them all – but perhaps not.

Just time for one strike.

It might be enough.

He crossed back to the recumbent body that was by now huddled on its side, pulled it so that the front was open to a lethal blow, took careful sighting –

The noise was nearer.

Kill the whore.

Hammer down!

The cat lapped carefully at a saucer of weak coffee, one ear aye cocked for danger.

McLevy had named the beast Bathsheba, since she often bathed and groomed herself on the wet roofs in the manner of that biblical temptress.

Now and again, he would see her from the window padding on the damp slates, sliding between chimney breasts and then launching into a sudden swoop, which signalled the demise of something
smaller of frame and slower on the uptake.

For the moment she was content to lap, while the coffee provider scratched on a page inside a large, red ledger.

The exploits at the rammy had provided the inspector with some much needed release, and cramming the dishevelled, dispirited, bruised remnants of the Scarlets and Whites into the holding cells
also had its compensations but now – at the end of the day – he was left with himself.

That is if you didn’t count the cat.

They both had whiskers. That much might be shared.

Diary of James McLevy.

12th May, 1887.

Shakespeare wrote, ‘The whirligig of time brings in his revenges,’ and by God he wasnae far wrong.

I seem no further on in both cases.

Every moment I turn around something else smacks me in the face.

I feel like one of these matchstick boats wee boys sail in the gutter. Borne on by a torrent of dirty water till the vessel meets its nemesis by some open drain.

A dismal prospect.

And I have a foreboding there’s more to come.

Furthermore, I am haunted –

And there he stopped.

How could he write he was haunted by a pair of eyes?

That was daft.

And yet true.

It was all right when he was in motion, but as soon as he stopped, this feeling of dreadful unease – as if a hunger had been aggravated that would never be satisfied – took
possession of his solar plexus and dallied with the nerve ends. All to do with seeing the damned woman’s face where there should have been a man’s!

When her hair had fallen down over those red lips and dark eyes it had stuck a knife right into his guts.

A guilty twist.

And the more he saw her, the worse it got.

Whit was it Jean said?

Love is the very devil.

She wasnae far wrong either.

When would this sorcery leave him?

He let out a long growl of anguish that startled the cat into flattening its ears and yowling low in response.

For a moment they stared at each other, then Bathsheba jumped up and exited huffily by the window.