End of the Line (3 page)

Plus the fact that Mulholland's hornbeam stick had laid low more criminals than the Fire of London.

‘This is ridiculous, James McLevy,' she interposed. ‘You've not a damned bit of proof and you know it.'

‘I'll haul him in just the same,' he threatened.

‘You do that and I'll have my lawyers round your head like a plague of wasps!'

The inspector knew when his bluff had been called, dropped the bank note back into the wallet and near threw it at the hulking coachman.

‘Here are your ill-gotten gains, but mark this, my mannnie!'

The inspector stuck his face close to Angus and spoke softly, as if the words might worm a hole in the coachman's mind through which the truth would shine.

‘I have you in my sights,' he whispered. ‘Wherever you go, I'll be watching, waiting, every time you take a breath. No escape. I'll be there. Watching. Waiting.'

The coachman's eyes were filled with a primitive fear. He opened his mouth as if to defy the laid curse but nothing came out.

‘Go and tend tae the horses, Angus,' said Jean. ‘You like the cuddies.'

The giant stumbled off, leaving Jean and McLevy staring at each other. It seemed that everything else had melted out of sight and all that was left was the naked man and woman.

As near and far away as they have ever been.

‘I know what you are about, James McLevy,' she remarked quietly. ‘Angus is a simple soul. You plant doubt in his mind, poison the imagination and wait for him to make a foolish move.'

‘If innocent,' he replied, ‘the man has nothing to fear.'

‘Leave him alone, I warn you.'

And yet beneath all this something else was being exchanged. Equally dark, equally dangerous.

McLevy took a deep breath.

‘Whit is that perfume you're wearing?'

‘It's French,' said Jean, leaning in. ‘Ye have to get close. To release the aroma.'

He let out a sudden harsh laugh and drew away as if emerging from a spell of his own. He nodded brusquely to Hannah and would have left without further word had not Jean decided to have the last one.

‘You just have to see Angus wi' the horses to know how harmless he is,' she called at his departing back.

McLevy turned slowly, his face curiously immobile for a moment as if a different reality had struck deep.

‘I arrested a man once,' he said, ‘for the murder of three sad and lonely women. Took me two whole years to track him down, a vicious and unprincipled killer. He had a small mongrel dog he doted upon. All that concerned him upon apprehension was who would look after his boon companion. He had dismembered the women. And fed the dog.'

The peacocks broke into a series of ululations, a weird plaintive cry that rang in the silence.

Jean gave not an inch. Who knows what is real and what is not from a tale that's told?

‘Stay away from my coachman.'

‘I'll do my job.'

‘I'm telling you—'

‘You'll tell me nothing!'

The inspector turned abruptly and stomped off, catching Pettigrew by the elbow and almost hauling the little railway man along, scattering the peacocks who, though foolish birds, knew trouble when they saw it.

The departing duo was followed by the tall figure of Mulholland, stalking behind like a heron.

But it is aye in the nature of women to hammer in the nails.

‘Don't you dare slam those gates when you depart the grounds, James McLevy!' Jean flung after them.

Moments later, a resounding metal clang reverberated through the garden to indicate that Jean's command would seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

The ghost of a smile hung round her full lips. The man was so predictable. Like frost in winter.

Hannah joined her, and the old woman's brow was creased in thought.

‘Whit do you think tae Angus?' she queried.

‘He's hiding something,' Jean replied tersely, ‘but there's no use asking. He'll just get that glaikit look on his face.'

‘Whit was he doing in Jedburgh?' ‘Perhaps he's got a woman there.'

Hannah sniffed to indicate the unlikelihood of that possibility.

‘Ye don't suspect him guilty?' she continued.

Jean returned to her coffee. In a way she regretted not offering the inspector a cup but he had sore vexed her and could damned well do without

‘It's not what I suspect,' she answered finally. ‘It's McLevy. What is in his mind.'

Hannah thought further.

‘Angus doesnae gamble,' she remarked at last.

‘Exactly,' said Jean, taking a sip of the now lukewarm Lebanese. ‘He's an Aberdonian.'

* * *

The three men walked down the hill from the quivering gates, each silent for their own reasons.

McLevy was fuming at the icy contempt shown to an officer of the law, dying for a coffee, and calculating what effect that barb he had stuck into the coachman's thick hide might produce. He would also contact his police acquaintances in Jedburgh to find out if the bold Angus had left a trace of sorts in the streets or taverns. The man was huge; surely there would be some nosey bugger to recall his exploits.

Mulholland kept his face straight but inside was hugging himself with glee. Not often did he witness his inspector under the cosh, and he cherished the experience though there was nothing malicious in this delight, just a slight buzzing in the ears. There had always been rumours that Jean Brash and McLevy were once at close quarters in grappled love but it was hard to see one way or the other. Dark and deep the pair. Well matched.

Pettigrew had a deal running through his mind to render him silent. Unexpected and unwelcome emotions that troubled his conscience. He shook his head as if to clear his mind. That was the first bawdy-hoose he had ever seen and he sincerely hoped it would be the last.

‘The roses were very nice,' he said finally.

No response was forthcoming.

‘My dear wife was very fond of roses. I often leave them on her grave,' he added. ‘My daughter and I pray for her everlasting peace.'

Again silence reigned.

The guard sighed. It would be good to get back to the refuge and sanctuary of his timetable.

Mulholland loped along and thought about the case. No doubt McLevy would have all sorts of schemes and intuitions that he would not yet deign to share with his constable, but in the meantime there was the compensation of this faint but joyful auditory buzzing.

Of course had the constable known what was heading his way he may not have hugged his glee quite so tightly.

* * *

Senga Murdison dipped a sugar biscuit in her tea and swiftly transferred the soggy half into her mouth with a contented gulp. The said aperture was wide in the extreme with rather small teeth, which gave it a somewhat feral air, as if the woman might take a sharp bite out of you at any given moment.

Mulholland was installed stiffly opposite in an armchair. They sat in her flounce-bedecked sitting room and there was a cage with a morose-looking canary directly in his eye-line.

He tried to avoid gazing at the masticating mouth or the bird, and also to evade contact with the woman's eyes which last seen had been brimming with tears but now might appear to be gleaming with obscure intent.

‘I am impressed with your alacrity, constable,' Senga remarked, daintily nudging a crumb of biscuit away from the aforementioned orifice with her pinkie.

‘Lieutenant's orders,' Mulholland said formally. ‘When I got back in he told me I had to get back out. I have to get back in though,' he added quickly.

Indeed he and McLevy had arrived back at the station to find a grimly amused Roach waiting with news for his constable. The lieutenant had been paid a visit by Senga Murdison, who told him amongst many other things, the woman gushing like a fountain, that she had recalled something possibly helpful to the investigation.

It was personal and could only be confided to someone of a gentle disposition as it concerned her former betrothed who was now unfortunately dead, and murdered to boot. To relay this confidence she needed a sensitive soul,
comme il faut
, a soul of discretion, which, in her opinion, effectively ruled out McLevy.

And Roach as well, it would seem, though she imminently welcomed him to the embrace of the reading society of which she and Mrs Roach were founder members. The lieutenant had flexed his jaw at this prospect and finally managed to shovel the woman out of his office with a promise that the soul of discretion would be winging her way as soon as he inserted his size-twelve boots within the station.

Senga had left happily enough, only pausing to inform Roach that the first book for the society's perusal would be
Wuthering Heights
, a tale of tragic love, which she felt resonate to her very bones.

Most of this Roach reported, omitting the reading society references, and Mulholland had left for MacDonald Street with his large ears burning red, the cause of much simple-minded amusement to both his superiors as they contemplated his looming predicament.

The constable had so far refused the sugar biscuits, accepted a cup of tea and was now awaiting elucidation.

The bird let out a frustrated cheep, and with a little cry Senga arose, crossed over and pushed a few crumbs through the thin bars of the cage.

‘I have named him Archibald,' she murmured. ‘After my first husband.'

‘How many have you had?' Mulholland asked curiously.

‘Canaries?'

‘Husbands.'

‘Only the one,' she replied taking no offence at what might be deemed an intrusive question. ‘I had high hopes for Count Borromeo but . . .'

She sighed, pushed more crumbs through to the bird which seemed to have perked up a bit. Mulholland, despite the fact that he and McLevy appeared chalk and cheese to the world at large, had picked up during the years an intuitive ability from the inspector that his normal mode of ratiocination might deny and realised that the woman was deflecting her attention so that she could disclose what otherwise might be difficult face to face.

So he spoke gently, like a soul of discretion.

‘Mistress Murdison. You remarked to the lieutenant that you had . . . recollected something?'

She stuck her finger into the cage and Archibald hopped up upon it to chirp encouragingly.

‘Count Borromeo . . . was not without his blemishes,' she said.

Mulholland waited. Fresh complexion, candid blue eyes that betrayed no trace of the fact he spent most of life up to his neck in mayhem.

‘I myself enjoy the smallest sip of sherry,' Senga avowed. ‘But the Count was a whisky man. And it altered his disposition.'

‘In what fashion, ma'am?'

Archibald hopped back onto his perch and defecated briskly. Better out than in.

‘He became prone to . . . rough usage,' Senga replied.

Mulholland stood up. It felt suddenly awkward sitting down, and perhaps he might look more protective.

She took a deep breath and then, like an ardent lover, spilled out all over.

‘As I told you and the inspector, the Count would never discuss his past life. He would always say . . .'

Here she affected an Italian accent.

‘
We have the present, Senga my amore – who needs the past?
Oh – he could be so romantic!'

Mulholland felt an obscure shaft of what he hoped wasn't jealousy shoot through him.

Men are such strangers to themselves.

‘When he wasn't being rough and ready?' he ventured.

‘Yes,' she answered simply. ‘But I was filled with the most intense curiosity and one day I . . . peeked into his room and caught him unawares.'

Senga bit her small teeth down upon the lower lip as if to cause herself pain.

‘He had been drinking and didn't see me at first. A small black case was open before him and he . . . was looking at the contents with a . . . strange smile upon his face. Then he saw me and . . . flew into a dreadful rage. Threw me out from the room. In my own house. It was . . . disconcerting.'

The word seemed oddly inadequate for what was obviously passing through her mind, and she shivered.

‘No trace of such a case either on the train or in his room. Mind you it was a cursory search.'

An official response from Mulholland, who had returned to police persona.

The woman said nothing. She had not expected the revelations would cost her so much hidden pain.

The constable realised that the foreign emotion had not been jealousy but pity. And compassion is of little use to a practising policeman.

‘I thank you for this information, Mistress Murdison, and regret any . . . vicissitudes you may have suffered.'

To this formal statement, Senga nodded, and unconsciously her hand crept up to massage the ribs just under her breast. She turned and looked directly at Mulholland, her eyes dark with memory.

‘We shall draw a veil over that.'

The canary let out a sharp cheep and the woman turned away to gaze once more into the cage.

‘He's still hungry,' she remarked softly. ‘Men and their appetites.'

* * *

The bed lay at an angle as if passion had shunted it askew and Mulholland crouched low beside it, trying the uncovered floorboards with his penknife to see if there was a loose fitting. All he had brought up so far was a load of dust and the thought that the timid maid had a lot to answer for as regards avoidance of domestic duty – he then sneezed explosively to prove the point.

‘
Gesundheit
,' said McLevy cheerily, as he pulled out the last of the sideboard drawers and felt carefully into the aperture for hidden knobs or panels that could conceal a hidey-hole.

This time he had the bit between his teeth and if necessary he would tear the ceiling down. Something was crying to be discovered, he felt it in his water.

‘The boards are untouched,' Mulholland coughed.

‘Roll up the carpet then.'