Fall From Grace (14 page)

She’d had to steal her own wedding dress from a department store, and the man she married, Andrew Rough, a skylighter of note, had fallen from a roof in the course of a burglary, landed in a waggon full of pigs heading for the slaughterhoose, and stank for years.

Tall tales from long ago. Andrew was departed like his son, the poor man had caught a wasting disease in the Perth Penitentiary and died skin and bones.

She had no fear to tell the constable of past crimes, because now she was as pure as the driven bloody snow.

Mary laughed once more though the pain was never far away and Mulholland also wondered if she was testing him out to see if he was after something, which he indeed was, but he gave no hint of such, smiled bashfully and not once put in a question about the fire.

Another thing learned from McLevy. Never ask the anticipated.

However he did have to tolerate many amused glances from the regulars of the tavern who knew him for a clean-living fellow and no doubt wondered what he was doing with such a disreputable old biddy.

When they were drinking in the curtained booth it was satisfactory enough but as it came time to leave, Mary had leant heavily upon him, announcing loudly to the assembly that he was a fine big specimen, and she’d wager that he was all in proportion.

Mulholland hurried her outside ignoring the open laughter at his back, and when the night air fermented the alcohol content in her blood, had no option but to stagger along with her, grit his teeth when she lifted her voice in song, and pray that he did not encounter anyone of note.

Robert Forbes, for instance. Or Emily. Or both.

But all he had encountered was a knife at his throat, a mere bagatelle.

Mary snorted in her sleep and Mulholland prepared, like her eyes, to betray the old woman.

The room was clean enough and bare of furnishings with a small bed stuck into the corner. The inventory included a chipped and battered chest of drawers which stood on three feet with a lump of stone stuck under to make a fourth, a recess where some tawdry clothes were hanging, an empty fireplace, a wee coalbunker and any amount of floorboards, cracked and creviced, that might provide a hiding spot were there a policeman in the house.

Which indeed there was.

When they had questioned Mary earlier he had noted the inspector’s eyes sweep round the room appraisingly and Mulholland now did the same.

Where to begin?

McLevy had recommended,
when she is least expecting, look for
an opening
.

The woman was asleep, unconscious, a less expectant state could hardly be envisaged.

Mary was too crafty to undo herself with a word. Yet, the inspector was sure that she was hiding something.

So, where was the constable to begin?

If, for instance, the expired mouse under Mary’s bed had been alive with eyes to see, it would have witnessed the tall figure of a man swiftly, surely and always most neatly, sift through the pitiful contents of the chest of drawers, rifle the threadbare hanging clothes, tap the walls and boards for hollow spots, look below the mattress and sheets, then beneath the frame to find amid the dust, for folk with no carpets to sweep things under have to sweep it somewhere, a lifeless rodent body.

But a dead mouse cannot look for or at itself, and so the circle was complete. Apart from a mercifully empty chanty-pot, Mulholland had found nothing.

Little bubbles of saliva were forming at Mary’s mouth where she blew out gently in her sleep; then she started and almost came awake.

Hypnos, however, once more received her in his arms, and, as Mulholland’s head had whipped round in alarm at her stirring then watched her be claimed anew by the God of Sleep, his attention was taken by the fireplace.

The grate was empty but that was not his target.

The small coalbunker.

McLevy was a great man for extremities. It was his assertion that the hands and feet could tell you just about all you wanted to know.

Faces, however, were the very devil.

The constable had noted that as Mary tucked in with relish to her hookers of whisky, two of the nails on her right hand were crusted with a residue of black. The woman, despite her aptitude for knocking back John Barleycorn, maintained herself  diligently enough. A habit from her former criminal days when a decent shoplifter always had to look respectable.

Despite the damp weather the fire had not been set, nor were there any ashes to be seen.

So, why the black crust?

The constable opened the bunker and gazed inside. Coal, to be sure, filled it halfway up; of the lowest quality, crumbling and powdery, just perfect for getting under the fingernails.

Which Mulholland was about to experience as he reached in and searched amongst the brittle fragments.

As his fingers probed further, he came across a sharp edge that was certainly not a lump of cheap coal.

Both hands in now, to lift it out into the light.

A smallish box. He blew the coal dust off it towards the fire grating, no point in making a mess.

A thin wooden box with a marking on it which stirred a vague memory, then when he opened it up and sniffed the contents, the memory sharpened.

A smile spread across his face.

A smile of triumph that promised retribution but took little account of the vagaries of Fate.

At that moment Mary awoke to see the constable and what he held in his hands.

She bowed her head, and Mulholland moved in for the kill.

18

Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

FRANCIS BACON,
Essay

Leith, 1836

Herkie Dunbar tried to keep the fear at bay as he limped down the sharp cobbles, and turned into the alley that led to the wynd where he lived.

He was big for his age, raw-boned, hard-knuckled and king of the gang, but at this moment in mortal dread because of the following set of circumstances.

Along with the wild straggle of boys who terrorised all the smaller, younger children in the wynds, with particular attention paid to any pretty girl with fair hair who would be surrounded and spat upon until she was covered from head to foot with saliva and in hysterics, tears and spittle running down her face in equal measure, it was his custom to bathe every Saturday morning in the nudie, bare scud, under the hot summer sun, in Puddocky Burn, their name for the Water of Leith.

This water rose twenty miles away in the Pentland Firth, meandered through the countryside and then dipped sharply all the way down towards the Leith docks.

There was a secluded spot near to where Great Junction Street branched over the river, where the boys would throw off all their clothes and dare each other to feats of derring-do, Herkie taking particular pleasure in hurling others into the water and listening to their howls of fear as the fast-moving current almost dragged them to the bottom.

He was a good swimmer, naked body gleaming in the water like a fish as he held someone under until they begged for mercy and promised him anything he asked.

This usually involved ritual humiliation or even sexual favour for, as has been already noted, Herkie was big for his age.

Therefore, though he was king, he was not beloved by his subjects.

So when his boots disappeared, the gang did as well, leaving him searching alone by the riverbank.

He had left a neat pile of his clothes, the heavy boots on top in case of strong wind, but when he returned dripping and boisterous, they were gone.

One of the smaller boys was supposed to stand guard but he had become distracted, pitching a hail of stones at some swans upstream who were disputing the tenancy of the running water.

Herkie would have given him a good kicking but he did not have the implements.

No one had seen anything untoward; no one had noticed a figure, which had crept out from the reeds, made a lift, then back behind the rushes to hide like Moses in a basket.

Herkie had eventually given up the search and now was on his reluctant way homewards.

The sharp cobblestones hurt the boy’s bare feet but that was nothing to the pain he would suffer when his father found out the loss.

Dirkie Dunbar was known as the Iron Man, part because of his skill shaping that metal in the foundry, part because of the heavy cutting edge of his fists and the cold implacable intent with which he crashed them down like a heavy hammer. He had three sons who lived in abject fear of his anger. Herkie was the youngest and his bowels were already loose at the prospect of those fists.

What could he tell his father?

Nothing that would make any difference.

The frightened boy could feel the bruises already.

And then he saw them. His boots. At the other end of the narrow alley, on the cobbles, neatly arranged with the toes pointing off as if waiting for him to slip them on and rampage his fill.

A pale shaft of sunlight shone into the passage and illuminated the leather, glinting off the metal toecaps as if guiding him to their side and Herkie was full of rejoicing not caring how they got there.

A gift from a Protestant God perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

As Herkie rushed forward to claim his prize, a figure stepped out and stood between him and his property.

He blinked in disbelief. It was the wee porker, the boy he had not long ago battered and kicked till he had spewed up all over him. A dirty Papish vomiter.

Then the penny dropped. The wee bastard, he must have stolen the boots.

What did not occur to Herkie was that the reason the boots were now on show might be part of a larger picture, no; his only thought was how come the wee porker knew where to make the theft? How come he knew?

Then the big boy remembered some time ago, he and some others had held the porker’s head under the water till he was near drowned. He was feart o’ the water, couldnae swim a stroke, they had dipped him up and down like a witch, that was great fun.

They had left him sprawled out on his face with the slime pouring out of his nose and mouth. Great fun.

But it had been by the Water of Leith and would explain why the porker had known the prime location.

The wee bastard.

‘You stole my boots!’ The big boy fairly howled.

The other’s slate-grey eyes were unmoving.

‘Ye can have them back.’

‘I’ll murder ye!’

‘Ye can have them back.’

‘Bring me.’

‘Come and get so,’ said Jamie McLevy.

Herkie was at least a head taller than his opposite, stronger, and older, a hard dirty fighter, but he was on his own and something in his opponent’s stillness should have warned that the outcome might not be like past encounters.

He moved forward, bare toes gripping at the cobbles.

‘Yer mammy cut her throat, they hung her on a hook like a pig and a’ body laughed. Mad auld Papish bitch.’

The insult did not achieve the hoped-for loss of reason, cause the boy to run headlong for vengeance and give Herkie a chance to get his powerful arms wrapped round. Once he got to close quarters he could crush and gouge. The fight was his.

But no. The other was still out of reach; he had not budged an inch, neither back nor forward.

Herkie let out a howl and made his move, hurling himself towards his target but he should have looked down.

The right tackety boot of Jamie McLevy crashed in just below the kneecap, paralysing the bigger boy to the spot with the most hellish pain as if his bone was splintered.

The other kneecap suffered the same fate from the same tackety boot.

He fell to the ground, mouth open, almost retching with agony. A foot came down on his outstretched hand, crunching the fingers to the stone beneath. The other hand went the same way. No favourites played.

The bigger boy might as well have been crucified.

He lifted his head and watched as the other solemnly unbuttoned himself and carefully urinated, first into one of Herkie’s boots, then the other. No favourites.

‘Ye can have them back,’ said Jamie.

There was not a trace of feeling on his face. The eyes were blank, impersonal almost and all the more petrifying because of it.

Only a small boy but he carried a wilderness of anguish and the terrible fear that one day his mother’s madness might infect and drown him if it had not already done so.

He walked out of the passage into the sunlight and was gone without a backward glance.

After a long time, Herkie Dunbar crawled painfully towards his boots and when he got there, sniffed cautiously.

Not too bad a smell, all that Holy Water must purify the pish, with a bit of luck he could rinse them out and no one would ever know.

That he had lost the fight.

When McLevy’s eyes came back to focus, he found he was once more looking at the blank page of his diary. He had sat at the table with best intentions, then not written a word and instead slid off into memory.

The cemetery meeting with Margaret Bouch this very morning had no doubt triggered that particular recollection, because Dunbar, the grown man, had played a part in the history of Sir Thomas and his tragic fall.

More and more McLevy drifted in and out of the past these days, a sign of age no doubt but in this case also, a wish to avoid some uncomfortable aspects of his present situation.