Nor Will He Sleep (32 page)

These were
his
men.

Not the cream of the crop perhaps, but they had laid their bodies on the line for justice.

Spoiled brats notwithstanding.

One of the loudest supplicants for these whippersnappers, a man who shared the same Lodge as the lieutenant and mistakenly presumed this to give him some edge, being of a higher Masonic rank
than Roach, stuck his florid countenance to the fore, with what he took to be a valid and unanswerable complaint.

His business was tobacco – the more yellow smoke the populace drew into their lungs, the richer he waxed.

‘I spoke with my son – he has been bitten by fleas all night!’

‘Let us hope the fleas survive,’ said Roach dryly.

‘How dare you allow this to happen?’

‘I might ask you the same question,’ was the unyielding response.

‘If you break the law, sir,’ remarked Mulholland, ‘you take the consequence. All or nothing.’

The demanding throng suddenly became aware of an ominous stillness, not only from the three facing. When they glanced around the other constables were ranged throughout the station, obviously in
attention, and, to a man, facing directly towards the contending parties.

It is always wise to look behind – it may be only a shadow, but something will always be on your trail.

Roach pitched his voice a little louder, aware of a wider audience.

‘I will not have my men assaulted by a rabble who fondly imagine themselves to be privileged above justice and I will press charges – as previously stated and at the risk of
repeating myself – without fear or favour!’

Then a smile crossed his face for the first time.

Wintry, but a smile.

‘Furthermore it is my pleasure to inform you that this will be heard in court within the next few days, and that the presiding official will be Sheriff Hunter.’

An indrawn breath from the lawyers present.

Hunter was a nuggety little man, fierce in the sentence, who would snap a legal head from its shoulders, who was no lover of Masonic ritual; not a man who might view student revels as a gay
whirl.

A bushy-eyebrowed, granite nemesis.

‘If you wish your clients or progeny released on surety of bail, Sergeant Murdoch will be attending at the desk with relevant forms. I will then decide each case on its intrinsic
merit.’

Now the smile was more that of a crocodile.

‘It will be a long day, gentlemen. Goodbye.’

As the disconsolate pack headed towards the desk where Murdoch, whose blood coursed at a speed that would put a sloth to shame, waited, Roach dismissed Sinclair with a nod of thanks and
addressed himself to Mulholland.

‘And where is McLevy, if I may be so bold?’

‘The inspector dispatched me post-haste to bring you the latest developments, sir.’

‘You mean he’s up to something he doesn’t want me to know about or you to witness?’

‘That would be about the fist of it.’

The constable then, as directed, brought Roach up to date with what had been gleaned from the Just Land. Sadly not a great deal, in that he had been unable to find any footmarks, and a thorough
examination on both sides of the garden wall had produced nothing either.

The killer had come and gone, leaving not a trace behind.

Save on the body of Jean Brash.

‘You begin to wonder if the man is somehow anointed with the devil’s luck,’ muttered Roach.

‘Had crossed my mind.’

‘But no. He is of this earth and we will find him.’

‘I hope so,’ Mulholland replied, the memory of his inspector’s grim figure disappearing into the pale light of a treacherous May sun with hardly a word of farewell clear in his
mind.

‘I take it the Mistress of the Just Land will survive?’

‘Not by too much. It was a vile attack.’

The lieutenant shook his head in frustration.

‘Could she identify the man?’

‘No. Neither from the past, in the present, nor might she recognise him in the future.’

‘She could supply no reason for the assault?’

‘According to the inspector, not a one.’

Roach almost stamped his feet in temper, such was the irritation, for he had something rustling in his inside pocket like a canker on the skin.

And his small victory was over.

‘Surely there must be some motive that links these three crimes?’

‘That’s what I keep telling myself.’

Mulholland’s face gave nothing away, but he had a notion that McLevy was brooding to some effect.

Or was the constable just grasping at straws?

Like his inspector.

The lieutenant cast a bleak glance over the station.

‘When word of this latest depredation gets out on the streets, there will be no place to hide.’

He then fished something out of his jacket pocket.

‘Here – just to cheer you up.’

It was a folded copy of the
Leith Herald
, morning edition, with yet another flaming accusation.

WHERE IS THE KILLER? HE LAUGHS AT THE POLICE!

Their visit to Carnegie had not obviously discouraged the man from flaunting his banner headlines.

As Mulholland read on, Roach tapped a long bony finger to indicate a worrying sub-heading.

Rumours of another killing. What is being concealed?

‘I hope to God McLevy can pull a rabbit out the hat,’ muttered Roach. ‘We are running out of time.’

The lieutenant cast an eye over the crowd at the desk, which had not diminished one jot, as Murdoch licked his thumb and laboriously separated one sheet from another.

‘A minor triumph,’ he said soberly. ‘Compared to what is coming. You can keep the paper.’

Roach then disappeared into his room, leaving Mulholland a little bereft.

The constable had been, in truth, taken aback at McLevy’s sudden departure, though it was certainly not the first time his inspector had pursued his own ends.

But now, for the life of him, Mulholland could not think quite where to direct his own steps.

All the other constables had returned to their various tasks save Ballantyne, who was gazing his way with a strange expression on his face.

Mulholland glanced once more at the paper; it did not make pretty reading, so he hurled it into the nearest wastepaper-basket and, for want of something better to do, stalked over to the
constable’s desk.

For a change there were no insects, dead or otherwise, on the surface as the young man averted his eyes, birth mark pulsing – a sure sign of emotional upheaval.

‘Is something bothering you, Ballantyne?’

The constable nodded.

‘McWhirter,’ he replied.

‘You’ll have to help me here,’ muttered Mulholland, telling himself for the umpteenth time he was dealing with a strange labyrinth of a mind, and that howling abuse or
wrenching the boy up by the scruff of the neck would not help matters.

‘My mammy told me. Last night. In confidence.’

‘Go on.’

‘An auld woman. Wi’ bellythraw. McWhirter.’

‘Well enough named,’ said Mulholland. ‘I know you’ll get there eventually, Ballantyne, but if you wouldn’t mind while the Queen still reigns.’

‘Wind mostly,’ was the response. ‘An auld woman. Frae the church. St Stephens.’

A bell of sorts rang in Mulholland’s mind. There were two old biddies who had entered the church along with the minister’s wife, and was not one of them named McWhirter?

They had been questioned right enough, but though both McLevy and he had the impression the dead woman was not universally popular, lips were locked tight and holy praise won the day.

‘She knew Agnes Carnegie,’ Ballantyne said, as if confirming the other’s line of thought. ‘And Agnes tellt the auld woman something about her son. No’ very
nice.’

‘Sadly,’ rejoined Mulholland, wondering if he should go and lie down somewhere, ‘Sim Carnegie has an alibi for the murder night.’

‘It’s been on her conscience. She should have told ye. But dirty linen. When she saw me last night, wi’ my uniform and my mammy told her . . . ’

Here Ballantyne looked abashed.

‘Told her what?’

‘That I was . . . a son tae . . . stick by his mother. The auld woman tellt her. And my mammy tellt me. In confidence.’

‘And you’re worried about breaking that confidence. The patient to the nurse, the nurse to her son?’

‘A wee bit.’

Finally they had reached the goal, and Mulholland had a reasoned response to the constable’s misgivings.

‘Nothing is private where the law is concerned, Ballantyne. Now spit it out!’

And the constable did.

Some ten minutes later, when Roach opened his office door to see the continuing stasis at Murdoch’s desk, he noted the absence of these two men.

Without so much as a by-your-leave.

And McLevy gone as well.

He tried to rid himself of the feeling of being a sinking ship, with rats streaming off in all directions.

He closed the door again and looked at Victoria on the wall.

Only the Queen holds true.

Everything else is fabrication.

Another vile dream and Stevenson wrenched out of it basted with perspiration.

His father and he had been astride a log, floating on dark, deep water, paddles to hand.

It seemed to be an underground cavern, with pale clay walls, and the sinuous current bore them onward with little effort on their behalf.

Thomas was at the back, old and frail, but accoutred in his Sunday best, a fierce expression of determination on his face. Louis had only a shirt for covering, dangling legs bare, and he sported
a nightcap with some foolish bobble on the end, which obscured his vision as it danced in front.

There was a feeling of menace in the dark waters, and various large, snakelike shapes swam near the surface, now and again breaking surface and disclosing flat, reptilian heads with sickly
yellow eyes that seemed not to focus on the paddling pair, as if they were of no interest.

The heads then dipped below again, but the malevolent ripples that spread on the viscous tide showed the length of the creatures.

Stevenson’s naked legs were freezing in the flow, but his father seemed unaffected, stout Sabbath serge repelling all evil machinations.

‘You are the lawful son!’

This strong shout from Thomas echoed and bounced off the cavern walls, before disappearing behind as the motion of the water drove them onwards.

The lawful son, the lawful son, the lawful son.

Robert Louis tried to nod his head in acknowledgement, but the nightcap slipped over his eyes and disaster struck.

He had been guiding from the front, but this temporary blindness caused him to steer the log into a treacherous rock, black and slimy, sticking part out of the water like a knife. The log struck
with a bone-shaking blow and the jolt skewed the primitive craft sideways so that, agonisingly slowly, Thomas began to slip from the rough bark.

‘A lighthouse! See the need!’

As his father howled and pointed, the log now travelling sideways while both scrabbled desperately to hold firm, the writer jerked his head round to see a pure white structure looming out of the
darkness ahead.

A beautiful, phallic pharos, so cunningly jointed that the surface seemed unbroken, rising from the waves like an alabaster beacon, like a warning –

These poetic musings were broken by a strangled cry.

Stevenson turned back in time to see his father slide off the rear end of the log and be swallowed up by the icy waters.

Thomas maintained a brave front, no trace of fear as he called out once more.

‘
YOU ARE THE LAWFUL SON!
’

Robert Louis could not move. His legs were clamped round the log, skin frozen to the rind of the dead tree.

His mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged. He watched horror-struck, while his dauntless father sank below, going down bolt upright, so that the son’s last view was that of a
valiant right arm which plummeted like Excalibur.

Then the deadly ripples gathered as the serpents feasted and the water boiled.

A few scraps floated to the surface: the fragments of a Sunday suit, a shred of white cotton, gobbets of a striped tie that once denoted the Worshipful Society of Engineers. All wisps of
law-abiding material that whirled in the water until they too sank back into mindless oblivion.

And then the log hurtled into the foot of the lighthouse, tipping Stevenson from his rooted base to sprawl, arms outstretched like one crucified, onto the black, smooth steps that led to the
entrance of the edifice.

The breath was knocked from his body – he did not dare turn round to see the sullen, slobbering element that was now his father’s tomb.

With an angry gesture he snatched the ridiculous nightcap from his head and threw it to the side.

His bare shanks shivered. What a pale, useless worm had been cast to shore.

Then the door of the building opened and a ray of blinding light shot out in the darkness.

A figure was silhouetted by that light, but Stevenson was mostly dazzled and deprived of vision.

The oscillating shape stretched out a questing hand and the writer screamed.

To come awake.

Sweating like a pig.

The house was eerily silent, all servants departed for the repast-to-be, and Stevenson was grateful enough for such diversion as he struggled into his clothing, having decided it would be better
to stagger round the place than lie in bed and risk another trip into the unconscious obliquities of filial remorse.

Guilt.

It never leaves the generations.

Find a way to sever your own shadow and you may kiss the beast goodbye.

What was it the old man had called out?

‘
You are the lawful son!
’

What might that mean?

At the frontal lobe of the conscious ego, as it nestles in the pineal gland, the meaning was clear.

But in the depths, where the flat-headed ones slither with their own truth to tell, where the Brownies raise hell and hurl lightning bolts of mischief, another meaning might well present
itself.