The Tangling of the Web (14 page)

‘Aye, but then she’s never been shackled to a useless man and been at the beck and call of not only three bairns but a Peter Pan sister as well.’

‘Gie credit where it’s due, Sally. Josie did well at being the mein host behind the bar when you were away. And she was promoting nothing but beer.’

Sally huffed.

‘Okay,’ continued Rita, ‘She did have more than a few propositions, but she never …’

‘Aye, I’ll bet she did.’

Rita shrugged and changed the subject by saying, ‘Know something, Sally, there’s an awfy sadness about Josie at times. Think that’s why your brother always waits for her after he’s finished his shift. And here, do you ken he’s probably going to get a bravery award?’

The mention of Luke still had an adverse effect on Sally. It was just her luck that after he had done his training at the Scottish Police College he’d been attached to Edinburgh ‘D’ Division, whose headquarters were in Charlotte Street. And if all that was not enough to annoy Sally, hadn’t he been on the Shore beat for six months now.

‘Are you listening to me, Sally?’

‘No, it’s eleven o’clock and I’m opening up. And here, I hope that’s your cigarette that I smell burning …’ she sniffed before going on, ‘… and not the pot of anything that’s lying-about soup.’

* * *

Friday nights in Leith were always busy for the police. Last Friday had been even more so. Thirty-year-old good-looking bachelor Luke, who was everybody’s darling but Sally’s, was doing the back shift – two in the afternoon until ten at night.

He’d just hung up his civvies jacket when the morning constable, John Thomson, looked quizzically at it before saying, ‘Suppose that means you and your pal, Rab, in “B” division, are going for a few pints and a birl around the dance floor when you’re finished.’

‘Sure are,’ replied Luke, doing a soft-shoe shuffle. ‘And who the lucky lassie that will land me tonight is, I do not know.’

‘Know something, you’re like your sister Josie; you’re going to leave it too late to get hitched like me …’

‘With two out-of-control teenagers thrown in.’

‘Aye, and they would help you qualify for a police house in Clermiston and kiss goodbye to that houff …’

‘John, that “houff”, as you put it, is a well-furnished and -maintained home for not only me and McAllister, my half-wild cat that sees to it that no vermin lives longer than a minute if it is daft enough to invade our home, but also my sister Daisy, who bides there when she’s on leave from the hospital.’

‘Aye, somebody told me that your sister Sally had brought down two feral kittens from Inverness way and that they were both great hunters.’

‘They are. One she gave to me, McAllister, named after the man who gave her them, and the other one, Sheba, she kept herself to keep the Four Marys rat-free too.’

Quickly forgetting the cats, John surprised and annoyed Luke when he lustfully mumbled, ‘Here, and talking about your sister Daisy, see the next time I need treatment at Leith Hospital I hope it’ll be your Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do who will be applying the plasters.’

Exasperated, Luke mumbled, ‘Look, just get ringing into headquarters and let them know that you’re going off duty and I’m taking over.’

Within ten minutes of John leaving, Luke was out, where he loved to be, on the beat. One of his first ports of call, which he had to do before 3 p.m. closing time, was the Four Marys. He just reached the door when Sam Steele staggered out. ‘Oh, not you again,’ Luke exclaimed, dodging out of Sam’s way. ‘It’s only two o’clock in the day and by the looks of you I should run you in.’

‘Look, son,’ Sam lisped, ‘that bitch in there …’

‘My sister Josie …’

‘Are you saying the bitch is your sister? Well, no offence meant. But she’s a right Bible-punching git. No sell me ony mair drink, she’ll no.’ Luke remained silent. Sam went on, ‘So I’ll meander ower to the the Ship Inn – and do you ken when you ask for a nip and a pint in there that’s what you get with naebudy trying to get you to change your mind and hae a plate o’ soup or mince and tatties instead.’

Sam spat on the ground. Disgusted, Luke stuck out his foot, which Sam tripped on before staggering out into the roadway. ‘Mind how you go, Sam,’ Luke hollered after him. ‘You could end up in the water, and see if you get any drunker and I see you stagger into the drink I’ll no jump in to save you.’

Before Luke entered the pub, he heard Sam starting to recite ‘Tam o’ Shanter’. It reminded Luke that Sam was an educated man who had fallen on hard times. The second line, ‘And drouthy neibors, neibors meet,’ was still ringing in Luke’s ears when he stepped inside to be warmly greeted by Josie.

Lifting a pint glass, Josie asked, ‘Need refreshment, Luke?’

Luke shook his head. ‘No. Never drink until I’m about to go off duty.’

‘Aye, but you never refuse a plate of warming soup,’ Rita replied, dishing him up the delicacy.

During his shift, Luke dealt with drunks, shoplifters, lost children and two domestics, one of which was a husband beaten up by his wife, although he withdrew the charges against her before Luke had finished writing up the complaint – but then it was Leith, and what man would admit to being a battered husband?

Busy as he was, though, he managed to rendezvous with his opposite number in ‘B’ division, where Granton trawlers still docked on Fridays, and pick up a pauckle of fish that he would hand into the Four Marys. The parcel, of course, included delicacies for hard-working McAllister and Sheba.

On his way back from his fish delivery, he noticed a young sailor slumped against the Bernard Street wall of the King’s Wark. Apprehensively approaching the weeping man, Luke discovered he was the young Irish sailor whose ship had been in dry dock for a few weeks three months ago. During the lad’s imposed stay in Leith he had got friendly not only with Luke but also with one of the obliging ladies. So infatuated had he become with Marie that he had got her to promise to give up working on the streets, and when she agreed to do so he left her a weekly settlement that she collected at the shipping agents.

Kneeling down beside the man, Luke asked, ‘What’s up, Irish?’

Between sobs, snuffles and pauses, the man managed to mutter, ‘Said I would be her only love and left her money to keep her going straight and … I arrived here on an early tide … and went up to our place … and not only was she with one man … but another two were waiting.’

Luke wanted to help the man, whose name he didn’t know except that everybody called him Irish, so getting upright and then dragging Irish up beside him he looked over to the dock before saying, ‘Look, there are better fish in that dock there than her.’

To his surprise, the man blurted, ‘The dock – that’s where I’m thinking of throwing myself, or maybe it would be better if I cut her throat.’

Luke, who had lost count of the number of times that people had said they would commit suicide and then decided to solve their problem with more drink, looked at his watch. ‘Look, Irish, it’s just fifteen minutes until I finish my shift, so as I want to go dancing tonight don’t commit suicide or justifiable homicide until the night shift comes on at ten o’clock.’

Irish sniffed. ‘Okay. Look, just take me over the road and I’ll get another drink while I’m waiting for the night shift to come on.’

Five minutes later, Luke was in the police box that was situated just at the end of the Commercial Bridge. He had finished all his police reports, changed his shoes and taken off his police jacket to don his brand new Jackson the Tailor’s blazer when a frantic knocking at the door stopped his merry whistling. Opening the door, he said, ‘Okay, George, stop the fooling. You know it’s my partying night so just come in and take over.’

‘I’m no George,’ the boiler-suited middle-aged man blurted. ‘I’m here because I think you should ken there’s a man in the water needing saved … and I cannae swim.’

Luke peered out from the box and was horrified to see the man in the middle of the dock screaming for help was none other than Irish. ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ he shouted whilst racing along the bridge. On arrival at the dock wall, he removed his jacket and shoes and then dived in. On surfacing, he realised he had swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of the stinking water. Before thinking of his own safety he grabbed hold of bobbing, panicking Irish and was dragging him towards the iron steps that were situated at the side of the pier when drunken Sam, who had seen Luke dive in and thinking in his inebriated state that he should rescue him, leapt into the dock too.

By the time Sam surfaced, Luke had begun pushing Irish up the steps but was suddenly hampered when Sam swam over to them and starting dragging Luke and Irish back under the water.

The situation had become so chaotic that none of the three knew who was rescuing who, which resulted in them all being in danger of drowning. Luckily the ever-dependable George had now taken up the night shift and, climbing down the steps, he somehow managed, with the aid of a long pole, to drag all three to safety.

Unfortunately they had now swallowed several mouthfuls of the filthy, polluted, germ-infested water. ‘I think I will die of the plague,’ Luke gasped before the ambulance arrived.

‘Naw, laddie,’ answered George. ‘It’s Yellow River Fever that’ll take you away if we dinnae get you to Leith Hospital in the next ten minutes to get your stomach pumped, your body showered and your smart arse used as a pincushion.’

‘And what aboot me and Irish?’ demanded Sam.

‘Och,’ replied George, ‘the two o’ you’ll survive. Your main organs are all pickled.’ He then laughed uproariously. ‘You see, nae self-respecting germ wants to be killed off by stagnant McEwan’s Best.’

About three in the morning, Luke, who had been showered, had his stomach pumped and had been injected against all sorts of infectious troubles – even pregnancy he suspected – was ready to leave the hospital.

He was grateful for all the treatment, painful as some of it was, that he had been given in the last few hours. He now knew why the community of Leith loved this old hospital.

Prior to the Nation Health Service coming into being, Leith Hospital had been built and its upkeep assured by the distinctive community of Leith, who cherished their beloved place. Always they were assured, rich or poor, of getting the help they required there.

While thinking about the hospital and its place in Leith, Luke wondered how many sailors, fishermen, drunks and attempted suicides had had landed in the water and then been revived in the hospital.
It must total thousands in the last two centuries,
he mused.

Daisy, who was four years younger than himself, was a staff nurse in the hospital. She had been a junior nurse here because she was of the opinion that the training and support she would receive would be second to none.

On being wheeled into hospital, he was thankful to discover that Daisy was the senior staff nurse on duty.

She did try to persuade Luke to stay in the hospital until after breakfast time at least. Luke being Luke, he was determined to go, so he demanded of her that she fetch his jacket and shoes. ‘What jacket and shoes?’ she enquired.

‘My good blazer and dancing shoes,’ he spluttered, spitting out some more gunge from his mouth. ‘I kicked them off before I jumped in to save these two idiots.’ Luke continued looking at Sam and Irish, who were quite happy to stay tucked up in bed until daybreak. ‘Sure someone must have picked them up for me.’

‘Picked them up? I think they did, but for themselves.’

‘But just a minute, I have another three payments before that jacket is truly mine.’

Daisy just shrugged before lifting up a water-sodden empty wallet. ‘Now they haven’t robbed you of everything. Look …’ She now held the disintegrating article in her hand, ‘… wasn’t it nice of them to return your wallet so you could fling it in the bucket yourself!’

Luke just shrugged and, borrowing one of the hospital dressing gowns, he made for the door of the ward.

‘Just a minute, Luke. Since you insist on going home at this unearthly hour, I’ll show how you can get out without inconveniencing anyone.’

‘Oh, good.’

Daisy and Luke arrived at the tunnel that linked the hospital to the nurses’ home. However, as it was a dark, damp corridor Luke shivered.

‘Are you sure you’re alright?’ Daisy enquired.

‘Aye. Just a bit shaky, so give me your arm.’

They were halfway up the tunnel when Luke stuttered, ‘Daisy, I think I should have stayed in bed. You see, I’m now hearing horrible sounds.’

‘Like what?’

‘A cracking – crunching – scampering.’

‘Don’t be daft, you’re not hearing things – that noise is your size 10s crushing the scuttling cockroaches to death. At night this place is alive with them!’

* * *

The most annoying thing for Sally about last Friday’s shenanigans was that Luke had been put up for the Royal Humane Society’s Bravery Award for saving Irish. She smirked, thinking how he would be in good company when the Duke of Gloucester, no less, carried out the ceremony, because hadn’t drunken Sam Steele also been nominated for the award – his was for jumping in to save Luke!

Three days later, one of the last of the lunchtime customers to come into the Four Marys was none other than Nancy. ‘What’s brought you in here?’ Sally asked.

Nancy squinted up at the blackboard that displayed the menu of the day. ‘Well, first of all, no your mince and tatties. Cannae abide mince and tatties with nae carrots in it. So I’ll just hae the soup.’

‘And?’

‘And, Sally, as you know it’s too early in the day for me to be working so that means I’m here for another reason.’

‘Like what?’

Nancy let time pass. She was enjoying keeping Sally’s curiosity dangling. Eventually she slowly uttered, ‘A business meeting with none other than Dora Noyce’s right-hand woman.’

‘What? Oh here, she’s no thinking of opening up a high-class knocking shop here in Leith, is she?’

‘No. But after we’ve discussed the business she wishes to put forward, I just might get her to give me some pointers on how to draw up a management plan.’

‘Management plan?’ Sally spluttered through her giggles. ‘You just have to be joking.’