Nor Will He Sleep (6 page)

She frowned.

‘You two must pull in your horns.’

‘Agreed,’ said Alan quickly.

Daniel wheeled round from the window, where he had been watching the figures of the two policemen disappear along the side of the square.

‘Nonsense!’ His eyes were glittering with temper as he confronted Jessica; he had been excluded since the advent of his sibling and the pique this had bred was augmented by a darker
underlying emotion.

‘You, my dear sister, pretend to be wild at heart but underneath you are nothing more than a . . . conformist!’

Jessica was stung.

Nothing stings like family.

‘Am I really?’

‘Yes, you are!’

A somewhat childish exchange, but it produced a frozen silence, which was broken by a loud authoritative call from the next room.

‘That is our mother’s voice,’ said Jessica, throwing the half-chewed apple at her brother, who caught it neatly. ‘In case you do not recognise the timbre.’

She swept out through a side door, while Daniel flipped the apple, which landed tidily on a small salver.

‘Mater will give it me in the neck,’ he grinned, but Alan had other matters on his mind.

‘Daniel? Why did you not mention our wrangle with the old woman?’

‘More trouble than it’s worth.’

‘In what way?’

‘Use your noddle, my dear chap,’ drawled Daniel, in the affected tones he and Alan were wont to employ while in heroic mode. ‘Once they knew that, never get them out the
door.’

Grant was not quite at ease.

‘Last night – we were separated quite a time. After the chase.’

‘Yes,’ said Daniel, sighting down his stick like a rifle. ‘Press of the crowd, old chap.’

‘I wondered – where you had gone?’

‘A duel to the death,’ replied Daniel carelessly. ‘With one of the Scarlets. He had a wheelbarrow and I my cane.’

Alan nodded acceptance as the door opened and Jessica emerged with a malicious smile.

‘Our mother would like to know,’ she murmured, ‘the whereabouts of a certain set of corsets?’

‘They were decrepit,’ protested Daniel.

‘And fitted all the better. She is waiting.’

Daniel took a deep breath, limped towards the door, and slid it shut behind himself.

Appraisal from a woman can contain many elements. Jessica looked at Alan’s solid frame, decent demeanour, then had certain thoughts she kept to herself.

‘You are a good friend, Alan.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Because of his . . . infirmity, Daniel feels he has to prove himself. Twice over.’

‘I realise that.’

‘You must watch over him.’

‘A difficult task – at the moment,’ Alan replied wryly.

Jessica’s eyes widened innocently and she moved a little closer so that he could inhale, however faintly, the odour of sweet apple.

‘Perhaps,’ she breathed, a glint of mischief in her eyes, ‘I may provide assistance.’

John Gibbons heaved at the heavy pew, trying to wedge it back into the straight. It was a mystery how some mornings these solid receptacles for the nether regions of the
worshipful congregation were skewed out of true.

Older members of St Stephen’s Church muttered darkly it was the devil dancing in the dark of night that moved the benches, his cloven hooves beating a rhythm that resonated then translated
into sinful shifting; John, though he nodded politely, kept his own counsel.

As he did in most things. A quiet watchful young man bound to follow his father Jonas into the ordained ministry of the Church of Scotland, he was of average height, a stocky build, sandy-haired
with a calm disposition.

A certain quiet humour occasionally informed his words but in contrast to his father’s more public persona, he was a private soul.

He looked across to where the wiry figure of Jonas Gibbons stood talking with the two policemen, one indeed rising like a steeple above the minister, and then John knelt down not in prayer but
to run his eye along the line of the next pew.

It was also out of true.

Satan’s slant in the House of God.

On the outside St Stephen’s Church faced the elements with the usual equanimity of Craigleith stone, hewed sharp to cut through inclement weather.

A broad flight of steep forbidding steps provided occasion to contemplate myriad sins as the faithful laboured upwards to the main door, above which, rising a good 160 feet into the air, was the
bell tower.

It pointed uncompromisingly to heaven and set at the top was a clock face to inform the passing citizen just how much time was left in this life.

St Stephen’s resembled not so much a house of worship as a fortress of religion. Had there been slits for the archers of God to shoot through at the unbelievers not one devout eyebrow
would have been raised.

For this was a deity who valued defence.

Preferably in advance of attack.

The interior shunned ostentation; it was set in octagonal lines with doors leading to staircases that spider-webbed upwards to mysterious destinations. At the back similar doors opened onto
descending stairwells that guided to rooms where children schooled and mothers plotted sales of work. After that the stairs plunged into the murky depths of the foundations.

What was hidden in those depths?

Something forgotten or still remembered?

Jonas Gibbons stood below the high-imbedded pulpit whence, in deep resonant tones, he preached fiery sermons that attracted the godly from his dreich rivals all over the city, and bowed his head
in sorrow.

‘Poor woman,’ he murmured, though it was close to a rumble. ‘She has gone to the bosom of a merciful Lord.’

‘It’s not where she’s gone that concerns me,’ said McLevy. ‘So much as who sent her there.’

The minister seemed to accept the remark at face value.

‘Thou shalt not kill,’ he responded.

‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ grunted the inspector and signalled to Mulholland, who produced a crumpled piece of paper from his tunic pocket, which he smoothed out
best he could and then presented.

It had been agreed between them that the constable would retain any pieces of evidence, since McLevy inevitably misplaced them in the crevices of an untidy attire or lost them in his station
cupboard.

‘Would this bring anything to your mind, sir?’ asked Mulholland.

Gibbons peered down at the scrap and then brought it up closer; he was somewhat short-sighted but considered glasses a vanity. Which way the vanity worked was open to question, however he let
out a cry of recognition.

‘I am almost certain. It is from my own bible!’

‘Is it missing a page then?’ enquired McLevy suspiciously.

‘No. But – oh – poor Mistress Carnegie.’

‘If you might just – proceed to the nub, sir.’

Gibbons nodded at Mulholland’s polite dig in the ribs and sighed.

‘The Good Book. Its back-binding had come loose.’

‘No doubt through reputable usage,’ encouraged Mulholland.

‘No – it was the moths,’ replied Gibbons. ‘Mistress Carnegie offered to take it home for repair. She was very handy with a needle. And thread. My own wife, Martha, lacks
that ability.’

‘Very sad,’ said McLevy. ‘Well there was no sign of any book, good or otherwise.’

‘I’m afraid that is correct, sir,’ added Mulholland. ‘The killer may possibly have taken it.’

‘My personal bible? In the hands of a murderer?’

‘Unless he chucked it in the harbour,’ McLevy hazarded.

The minister’s head came up sharply at this but Mulholland diverted potential indignation.

He had summed up Jonas Gibbons as a man who admired the sound of his own voice. The man was small of stature and had a handsome broad face, with mutton chop whiskers luxuriant in the
Lord’s name that formed a furze under the neck but left the strong chin bare. A formidable personality, but despite all this a certain childlike need for attention.

Women are often sore attracted to such men and the older ladies of the church no doubt fluttered around like insects to the flame.

‘Are you absolutely certain sure, sir,’ ventured the constable, ‘that the page is from your book? It may be vital as the case unfolds.’

Gibbons nodded acknowledgement, then called over his son and acquainted the young man with the sad facts. John, after strong scrutiny, confirmed the provenance of the page.

‘It is from my father’s bible I have no doubt,’ he said gravely. ‘The spine had weakened.’

‘Was the page clutched in her poor hand?’ asked the minister.

‘Not quite,’ answered McLevy, who had a sudden flash of the open mouth and his own hooked, inserted fingers.

All four of them looked down at the stone floor as if the body had been transported there.

Agnes Carnegie’s presence lay before them and each saw a different spectral version of the crumpled corpse.

In McLevy’s mind, she looked up accusingly, her mouth still gaping from his horny-handed intrusion and her voice rasped out.

I wait tae be avenged. I demand it. Whit kind o’ Thieftaker are you? Where is my vengeance? Sappie-heid!

‘The Lord gives, the Lord taketh away,’ the elder Gibbons intoned.

‘And the police have to aye be finding the solution,’ the inspector muttered. ‘We’d be obliged if you might provide us with the woman’s address – ’

‘Wait!’

Gibbons held up his hand as if struck like Moses on the mountain.

‘Were not the students by the harbour last night?’

‘A known fact, sir,’ Mulholland replied tersely.

‘Could not their wild and immoral behaviour have led to this unfortunate pass? Striking down the godly in their jealous frenzy? Satan knows no bounds!’

‘That is true, father,’ said John quietly. ‘But there is perhaps a distance between wild behaviour and the taking of a life.’

He looked McLevy straight in the eyes, an unusual act for a member of the public in the presence of a policeman, and nodded.

‘I will fetch the address from our records.’

As John moved off his father smiled proudly.

‘A good boy,’ he announced. ‘Fruit of my loins.’

Trust you tae take a’ the credit,
thought McLevy somewhat unkindly. It was to the minister’s good name that he toiled hard amongst the poor in the extremities of the city,
but he had, to McLevy’s thinking, the fault inherent in most men of God.

What was it Mulholland’s Aunt Katy would say?

Once you think you’ve got the inside track, there’s no gettin’ past you.

The constable’s consideration, however, had shifted once more towards the accuracy of the blows meted out to the pitiful Agnes. What kind of mind would produce exaction of such
violence?

Was it purely accidental or had she somehow provoked the attack?

If accidental, the investigation would be a long haul but if not? The blows, the insertion, might well betoken an amoral, cold and calculating mind.

From which direction?

Another long haul.

He looked around this church where everything seemed to have its place.

‘God and Satan – a similar precision,’ said McLevy aside, as if he had somehow read Mulholland’s thoughts.

A side door opened and three women came through with blameless tread. In the lead was a frail birdlike creature and it was to her that Gibbons directed a heartfelt cry.

‘Martha – a most terrible happening!’

He moved swiftly over to the three, spoke softly, raised his hands as cries of outrage and fear came in response, and then bowed his head.

The women fell to their knees before him as if stunned, Gibbons clasped his hands together and the sound of prayers arose like bees buzzing around one of Mulholland’s hives.

John, who had returned with a slip of paper, took one glance at the scene, another at the police, then also fell dutifully to his knees and prayed for the departed soul.

McLevy and Mulholland stood there.

It was too far down for the constable, and the inspector lacked the inclination.

They also serve who only stand and wait.

Stevenson watched the backs of the two figures as they moved along Heriot Row, and regretted he had been unable to glimpse the faces.

One, like a beanpole, was crowned with an absurdly small helmet, while the other bore a heavy coat and had the rolling gait of an animal new emerged from its lair.

Police, from the uniform of the tall one, but what struck the writer was the unhurried stroll of both, as if they had all the time in the world.

‘Louis?’

Fanny’s voice buzzed in his ear like a wasp and drew him away from the window.

She and his mother Margaret were seated in two armchairs, one ensconced in mourning weeds, the other with a black silk scarf draped round her neck but other than this, more accoutred for a climb
up Arthur’s Seat.

No, he was being unfair, but his wife’s dress sense would never chime with respectable fashion any more than his own. Fanny was a buccaneer; in his imagination he saw her boarding a
grappled ship, cutlass atween the teeth, ready to loose forth rapine and riot –

‘Louis?’

This time the wasp had grown mightily and almost filled the room with angry vibration.

Stevenson lit a cigarette with great care and deliberation, knowing this would provoke but unable to help himself. He had been immured in the family home for days now and felt a most profound
desire to have a tantrum, kick the polished furniture, disgrace himself by passing water in the aspidistra and generally behave like a spoiled child.

‘Yessss?’ he drawled.

The bone of contention was that Robert Louis had decreed that his father’s funeral was to be a grand affair with over a hundred guests and at least forty carriages.