5

‘Are you listening to me, inspector?’

McLevy was hauled back into the present by the querulous tones of Lieutenant Roach, his mandated superior at Leith station.

Roach was a more or less permanently disappointed man, with the saving grace of a waspish humour some of which he even, at times, directed against himself.

His disappointment lay in the fact that, despite being vice-president of the golf club and rolling up his trouser leg on a regular basis at the best connected of Masonic lodges, he was stuck to Leith like a fly in a dung pile till retirement laid its fell hand upon his shoulder.

His predecessor, Lieutenant Moxey, had left somewhat under a cloud and Roach had been swiftly drafted in from Haymarket to fill the gap after almost giving up hope of such promotion.

He remembered the trembling excitement when he had first viewed the drab exterior of Leith station; never mind, he would change it into a stepping-stone towards greater achievements.

Now fifteen years later the station was still the same and he could well understand what had driven Moxey to such base acts of deliverance. Understand but not imitate. The Good Lord and Mrs Roach would see to that.

Why the powers-that-be could not discern the true gold that lay under his careworn exterior and raise him out of this creeping decrepitude to the lofty reaches of a sublime incumbency was a mystery which taxed him into many a shank on the fifth hole.

His humour was a direct result of having to deal with McLevy for almost a decade and a necessary bulwark against the potential bedlam it involved.

‘A murder is the last thing we need.’ Roach shook his head at the injustice of it all. ‘It is most inconvenient.’

‘Especially for the corpse, sir.’

‘What?’ Roach shot a look at Mulholland but the candid face seemed innocent enough. ‘Yes, of course there is that to consider but … aghh!’

The lieutenant stood up, flexed his skinny arms and swiped an imaginary ball two hundred odd yards, splitting the middle of the fairway, only to see it disappear down a rabbit burrow.

‘We have an election on hand, the streets are infested with liberal incitement and the few decent conservatives left are huddled together in doorways. There is a meeting at the lodge tonight and Chief Constable Grant will be there.’

In his mind’s eye Roach could see a smooth green and a white ball rolling eternally towards the hole. Never quite getting there. Never quite.

‘I had hoped to impress him with the changing face of Leith and how we discharge our onerous duties to keep the streets clean as a whistle; what with the eyes of the country focused on Edinburgh, what with Gladstone landing his great fundament upon Midlothian – ’

Roach came to a sudden halt. He had made the mistake of looking into the blank, incurious eyes of his inspector and, as a result, had completely lost track of what he was saying.

‘What with? Gladstone was landing his fundament?’ prompted McLevy.

‘Yes. That is correct. Of course. To impress, and thence to discuss with the chief constable the gravity of the political situation and, despite the fact we both distrust the machinations of Disraeli, nevertheless he is a Conservative and so are we. A parity of belief!’

This ‘we’ obviously did not include Mulholland and McLevy who sat there, in Roach’s view, like dangerous radicals waiting to sprout. He took another deep breath.

‘But instead, Sandy Grant will shake this murder in my face and demand it be solved at once. I shall be reduced from one of equal standing to that of a plague carrier!’

‘I’m sure if the woman knew what a nuisance she was going to be, she’d have arranged to be murdered in another parish, sir,’ said McLevy.

‘There is no call for impertinence, James.’

But the interjection did the trick. Roach, who had been winding himself into a whirligig of indignation, sat quietly back at his desk.

‘What about her pounce, could he be our man?’

‘Frank Brennan? In anger he might crack her rib but not hack her to pieces. He’s a Dublin man, the only blood they like is in their sausage.’

The inspector shook his head and gazed at the portrait of Queen Victoria which glowered down from the lieutenant’s wall. Her Sovereign Majesty. Putting on the beef.

‘Besides, why kill the goose that lays the golden egg?’ he added.

‘Raddled egg from all accounts. She may have been holding money back on him, you know what these people are like.’ Roach shook his head in Christian sorrow.

‘I know what they’re like,’ said McLevy.

Roach waited for more but the inspector had his broody look on, might as well converse with a wooden Indian.

‘Anything from the scene?’

‘One decapitated white feather, property of the deceased,’ offered Mulholland.

‘That’s helpful,’ said Roach sourly. ‘Witnesses?’

‘Had it been one of the big new streets we might have been in business, sir. But it’s the wynds. In these alleys, every eye is closed to crime, every door is shut to probity,’ sighed the constable, his eyes radiating a holy rectitude. ‘More’s the pity, sir. A lost tribe.’

The hypocritical, unco guid quality in Mulholland’s tone made McLevy want to spit. Sookin’ up. The constable was sookin’ up to the lieutenant. The bugger was after something. And McLevy knew exactly what it was, the sleekit lang dreep.

He stood suddenly, moved to the door and turned the handle.

‘I’ll go shake Frank Brennan till his teeth rattle, though I doubt we’re wasting our time. Sadie lived hard but she survived. She knew the streets and could look after herself in her chosen profession. The strike was from close by. It would be trade. She wouldnae let rough that near. It would be trade. Respectable. A clean blow.’

Then he was gone. Roach sighed.

‘Why is it Inspector McLevy, given the choice in matters of heinous crime, will always seek out culprits from amongst the respectable classes?’

Mulholland, to whom this appeal was directed, made the following response.

‘I have sometime asked the inspector that, and he has given me always the one word in answer, sir.’

Roach waited.

‘Experience,’ said Mulholland. He nodded politely and followed his inspector out of the door.