Shadow of the Serpent

 

There is a legend that after Lucifer had been cast into hell, God granted him the one wish to make up for what must have been a severe disappointment.

Satan thought long and hard, then averred that he would wish to grant mankind the gift of desiring power.

God could see no harm in that: He Himself had possessed supreme omnipotence for all eternity and see the good job He’d made of it.

So, God granted the wish.

And Satan has been laughing ever since.

I have reached my third coffee. The cup has left a yellow ring at the top of the page where I write but nothing is perfect. Not even myself.

I am James McLevy, inspector of police. I record in this wee book what the French call my ‘pensées’, or what the Scots would term ‘whatever passes through a body’s mind’.

My existence is a struggle between personal human frailty and the desire to serve justice. An exactitude forever compromised by the very people who framed the laws they now wish to bend.

I look back to see the anguish and pain I have caused for others and caused to myself by the unyielding pursuit of justice. I look ahead and see much the same prospect. So be it.

Break the law, high or low, I’ll bring ye down. Suffer injury, high or low, I will avenge ye. To the best of my compromised ability.

I’m down to the dregs now. Coffee is like blood in my veins.

Out of my attic window, I can see a thousand torches flickering in the sky from the direction of Waverley Market.

They light the way to power. Politics. The dunghill upon which many a cock has crowed.

I turn the other way and look out over my kingdom.

Leith, March 1880

Sadie Gorman shivered as the cold east Edinburgh wind bit into her bones. No place to hide. She looked down at her dress, dirty yellow like the lamplight and thin as a winding sheet. What kind of life was this? She should have decent drawers, keep her old bones warm and cosy, but no, she had to be accessible to all comers. Shed her shanks to liberal or conservative. All comers.

She laughed suddenly and the sound echoed in the silence of Vinegar Close. It was late, past midnight, other folk in bed, ten to a room, drunk men snoring, children clenching knees to keep the contents of their wee bladders at bay, and the women?

Well, whatever they were, at least they were spared standing on a corner in Leith on a dank March night, hoping for some mortal old fornicator fuddled with drink on his way home from the big meeting. On his way home, but, Christ Jesus this wind was cold, just enough blood in his veins to prove that a standing cock has nae conscience.

The gaslight flickered and she caught sight of her image on the other side of the street, reflected in the oily glass of one of the half-uncles, the wee pawn shops, dotted round the closes. A shop she’d been in many a time herself, the door well locked, window empty save for this daft soul in a yellow dress slavering back at her.

Look at the sight. The woman was
ancient
, for God’s sake, if she was a day. A single white feather stuck in the back of her wispy hair added a gay touch to the shipwreck.

What year was it now? Soon she’d be coming up to fifty. Sadie shared a birthday with Queen Victoria, May the 24th. That day Her Gracious Majesty would be a sight older but better
preserved
. People would kiss her hand, kiss her backside if they could find such under all those skirts and petticoats and God knows what else. Aye they’d get lost in there, choke on all that flannel guarding the Queen’s private parts, choke, kiss her
backside
and sing the National Anthem. All at the same time. On their knees.

She walked across the street and looked closely at herself in the glass. By God, she was a treat to behold. Face white with powder and chalk, eyes black as pitch, cheeks rouged up like a paper doll and her mouth a big red gash. Not exactly a shrinking violet but what’s a shop without a sign? She opened her lips, and pouted comically at herself. A big mouth. Her speciality.

In the silence, faintly, the sound of a child whimpering from one of the black, grim, warren of houses in the close, then it was quiet.

Set out with high hopes this night, high hopes. Some palaver-merchant had been blowing up a storm at Waverley Market, big crowds, men getting demented over politics. That was good, good for business; they would spill down the hill to Leith, lash out their money and their love-drops; that baby’s howling again, must be her teeth coming through, poor wee soul. Born tae suffer.

None of that for her, no cuckoos in the nest, she sheathed the custom up, and if not, a sponge-and-vinegar girl. Not a seed born of man survived that barrier. A sponge-and-vinegar girl. In Vinegar Close.

Sadie’s face went slack for a moment and her eyes, looking deep the other in the glass, seemed like a child’s, full of pain and vexation. Her white plume moved in the cold wind as if waving goodbye.

What was it McLevy had said to her? All these years ago, all these years.

She’d dipped a mark in the Tolbooth Wynd, while the man was standing to attention, him being an officer of the guards, and slid the wallet over to her then fancy boy, wee Dougie Gray.

Dougie had taken off round the corner while she gripped the mark fast in pretended passion. The man discovered his loss but she gave gracious pardon, it must have fallen from his pocket or perhaps it was at home with the wife, never mind settle up the next time, eh?

He cursed her something fierce as a rancid wee whore, but the smile froze on her face when Dougie marched back round the corner, arm in arm with Jamie McLevy, prime thieftaker of the parish of Leith, in the city of Edinburgh.

The policeman was limping though, puffing for breath; wee Dougie must have kicked the clouds but the ploy had not worked. Not well enough.

God bless wee Dougie, took it right on the chin, said he’d delved in regardless, nothing to do with her, no proof, she was free of scath. But, even though, even though, McLevy turned those slate-grey eyes on her, wolf eyes in that big white face that looked like it never saw the light of day. He smiled and her bowels lurched, then he reached out and gently flicked the feather which even then she wore as her proud emblem.

‘One day, Sadie Gorman,’ he said, and his voice pierced in deep. ‘One day, your wings will be broken and you shall fall to earth at my feet.’

Well, he could kiss the devil’s arse because here she was alive and kicking. But still. His voice echoed in her mind. All these years.

And wee Dougie had died in the Perth Penitentiary, defending his honour against some brute from Aberdeen. He did not deserve that. Nae justice.

The east wind nagged her back to the present. She turned and looked at the dead street. Not a hunker-slider in sight. That bloody wind must have frozen the randy boys where they lay.

Sadie shivered and glanced around again. This dark time, the evil hour, played tricks upon your mind. Satan might be watching, long black nails and big red eyes. She had felt him on her trail these past nights.

She dare not go home empty handed. Her pounce, Frank Brennan, was a big Irish lump with hands like a navvy’s shovel, genial enough save in drink but, by this time of night, he’d be steaming like a horse dollop and looking for his due reward. Her face was safe but God help her belly from his fist.

For a moment she felt a sense of panic, desperation, as if she was sliding away from what she knew into the darkness, some pit where only monsters waited. She’d seen a drawing once, a woman drowned at sea, a great big octopus dragging her under, the mouth open, screaming, hair wrapped round her face, breasts naked, dress ripped from her by the slimy tentacles. Of course it was to ginger up the clients in the Holy Land, the bawdy-hoose where she’d first been on the bones. Should have stayed there, Jean Brash would have seen her right, but no, she was too young, too restless, she liked it free and easy. Free and easy. Look at her now.

A hard shake went through her whole body. It was cruel and cold. No mercy. She’d have to go home. Take her licks.

She could stand the panic now. It was like a dull ache but a thing she knew.

But then the fear charged in again, like a black mist. She heard something in the shadows, a rat chittering; what if the beast scuttled right up her leg? She detested rodents. Now wait. What was that? God’s mercy on a cold night maybe?

Footsteps, coming towards her, through the narrow wynd, heel and sole on the cobbles, a fine firm masculine step.

Aye, there he was now, oh definitely on the prowl, ye could tell. Under the tile hat, a furze of white hair shone in the gaslight, a patriarch, even better, might settle for a wee flutter of the fingers, gentleman’s relish, but see the light grey frock-coat – that’s quality, that’s good money, that’s more than promising.

Sadie licked her lips and pulled a touch back into the shadows, distance lends enchantment. She laughed softly, the man’s head turned, slow, ponderous.

‘Well, my braw gallant,’ Sadie spoke low, inviting, she had a fine organ for that, whisky tonsils. ‘Is it company ye’re searching for? I’ll wager you could tremble me, I can tell just looking. I know a strong man when he comes a-calling.’

She laughed, kept in the shadows, extended a white arm; her arms were her best point these days, elegant, long, supple fingers waggled saucily.

He also kept out of the light, but she could see, straining her eyes, that he was a fair age and height, white sideburns, eyes deep set below craggy brows, shaded by the brim of the hat. The mouth worried her, it was not a kind cut. And there was an odd smell in the air. A hospital smell. Coal tar.