David Ashton

End of the Line

Waverley Station lay quiet, the locomotives heaving softly like a herd of animals, flanks steaming as midnight struck.

Two figures emerged in the lamplight, clanking towards the recently arrived Newcastle train. Their clothes proclaimed them to be railway cleaners, stoical and stocky, metal buckets bumping together as the two old women, Margaret Reid and Jenny Dunlop, reflected upon life, as they knew it.

‘Ye wonder why folk come and go,’ Margaret announced in the stillness.

‘I’ve never left Edinburgh,’ was the response.

‘Some folk though,’ Margaret winced at a sudden ache; the dampness played merry hell with her bones at times. ‘All over the world, camels and ships and the Lord knows what.’

‘I wouldnae put trust in the sea,’ said Jenny, and then let out a shriek. ‘My God, look at the size of it!’

A large black rat picked its way carefully up the platform, oblivious to the disquietude it was creating.

Margaret shook her head in remonstrance. ‘The place is rampant with the beasts — all these years and you’re still kicking up a fuss. If it doesnae have a ticket Mister Pettigrew will see it far enough.’ She had spotted the trim figure of the guard down at the front engine of the train and frowned for a moment. ‘That’s funny.’

‘Whit is?’

‘Nothing. Come on — all aboard!’

They clambered into the rear carriage and with an ease born of long practice picked their way in the semi-gloom, eyes flicking left and right to register the state of the compartment and the necessary cleansing thereof.

‘These late-night trains, dirty devils!’

Margaret smiled grimly at the other’s remark.

‘Wisnae for the dirt, we’d have no living — oh, oh.’

Her nose wrinkled at the whisky and tobacco fumes, plus she had also spotted a figure slumped in one of the corner seats. ‘There’s always the one, eh?’

‘A disgrace tae mankind,’ observed Jenny piously.

‘Just inebriated.’ Margaret shook the figure roughly by the shoulder. ‘End of the line, sir. Rouse yourself!’

A moment and then the entity slowly fell to land with a thud on the floor where it lay ominously still, the face staring up, eyes wide open and sightless.

‘His neck is livid, see the mark!’ gasped Jenny.

‘I see well enough,’ replied Margaret bleakly. She wrenched down the carriage window, stuck her head out and bawled down the platform.

‘Mister Pettigrew — I think we have a dead body in Waverley Station!’

‘That’s against regulations,’ came the prim response. ‘Don’t move a muscle!’

A piercing whistle blast signalled bureaucratic alarm and Margaret sighed as she looked back to where Jenny was staring disapprovingly down at the corpse.

‘It’s going tae be a long night, Jenny.’

Her companion nodded, then a random thought struck. ‘D’ye think they’ll pay us extra?’ she asked.

* * *

Thomas Pettigrew was a worried official as he escorted the two police officers through the stale air of the railway carriage. A dry stick with small features and erect bearing, the very embodiment of a railway man.

‘We had it moved to a siding,’ he remarked, moustache twitching unhappily. ‘But it’s played havoc with the timetable.’

‘The timetable, eh?’ said Inspector James McLevy.

‘Havoc.’

By now they had reached the corpse where it lay covered over by a white sheet.

‘Abracadabra!’

McLevy whipped off the covering with a flourish and the two policemen bent over the cadaver.

They made a strange contrast. The inspector grizzled, thickset, muffled up in his dark coat, low-brimmed bowler sitting on his head like a chimney pot, and Constable Mulholland a tall lanky figure, his cape billowing with the stooping motion.

Two pairs of eyes stared down. Slate-grey and wolfish, clear Irish blue.

‘A handsome brute,’ said McLevy. ‘Save the wee blemish round his neck.’

‘A straight line,’ Mulholland noted. ‘Wire?’

‘Wire would cut deep.’

‘Not with cloth wrapped round. A garrotte!’

‘Or a length of cord. Strip of leather.’

They seemed to find great relish in these homicidal musings. Pettigrew indicated some envelopes scattered on the table where the man had sat.

‘These would seem to be his. . property. Business letters. Name and address. In Leith. Why we sent to your station.’

‘Aye, we’re always open for murder,’ said McLevy, delving into the man’s pockets as Mulholland scrutinised the scattered papers.

‘All addressed to one Count Borromeo,’ the constable announced. ‘Italian, I’ll wager — that would explain the garrotte.’

‘Uhuh?’ McLevy grunted sceptically at this flight of fancy. ‘One thing for sure — there’s no wallet to hand.’

‘Theftuous murder?’

‘Possible. My surmise is that he was drunk as a lord when it happened, didnae feel a thing.’

After a sardonic laugh at that idea the inspector abruptly straightened up, eyes boring into Pettigrew as if he were a sudden suspect.

‘Where did the corpse get on the train?’

‘I’m not rightly sure.’

‘You must be. You’re the guard. You have a whistle round your neck!’

Pettigrew pursed his lips in thought.

‘Newcastle — I am almost certain.’

The little man stiffened his back under their gaze.

‘I like to be certain,’ he said firmly.

‘Any luggage?’

‘I could not swear — but I think not.’

McLevy sensed that Pettigrew was mulling over something — a timetable mentality grinds slow but sure.

‘Anything else come tae mind?’

‘When I inspected tickets it was obvious the man had drink taken though he was. . civil enough. But one other presence in the compartment caught my attention. I’m not certain I should point the finger though.’

Both policemen smiled. A movement of the lips that indicated the onset of appetite.

* * *

‘A giant of a fellow. With ginger hair. In the same carriage!’ reported McLevy to Lieutenant Roach who sat under the portrait of his dearly beloved Queen Victoria in the commander’s neat and tidy office at Leith Station.

The lieutenant had an expression of distrust upon his face though that was only natural.

‘And a man of such description shoved past the collector at the ticket barrier,’ added Mulholland.

‘Plus we found an empty wallet jettisoned upon the railway tracks — expensive leather, surely the corpse’s.’

‘Robbery with death thrown in, sir!’

To the constable’s enthusiastic assertion, Roach said nothing but twitched his long and lantern jaw. He was aware that things had been quiet recently and these two were growing restless, like slavering hounds without a deer carcass to gnaw upon.

‘I’m not sure this is even our case,’ he demurred. ‘What about the Railway Police?’

‘Couldnae find a goods wagon if it ran over their big toe,’ McLevy dismissed. ‘Only too pleased for us to take over the mortal remains.’

Mulholland chipped in support. ‘And he lived in MacDonald Street, our parish, sir.’

‘Who found the body?’ Roach asked while he pondered.

‘The cleaners. Two old biddies, Margaret Reid and Jenny Dunlop.’

‘Nothing to add though,’ said Mulholland.

‘But by God, could they talk.’

‘Not unusual for the species,’ muttered Roach.

McLevy detected an unwonted brooding in his lieutenant’s bosom and signalled Mulholland to the door.

‘Away tae the desk, constable, and arrange cadaver collection from Waverley Station,’ he declared. ‘The police surgeon will want to justify his existence.’

A complicit nod and Mulholland was out the door, leaving McLevy to work his rough magic.

The inspector let the silence rest for a moment and then in remarkably gentle tones enquired if there was something on his superior’s mind.

Roach hesitated and then, encouraged by the obliging look in McLevy’s eye, while realising of course that it was a ploy to get him to sanction the investigation, spoke man to man.

‘Mrs Roach has joined one of these newfangled. . reading societies,’ he confided. ‘Books.’

‘Ye mean Edgar Allen Poe, Murders in the Rue Morgue and such like?’ was the eager and spurious response.

‘No. Female exponents. Such as the Bröntes.’

‘Aha!’ the inspector exclaimed. ‘And whit like are their literary emanations?’

‘Long,’ said Roach. ‘And to my mind somewhat morbid, but that is not the problem.’

McLevy resisted temptation. All things come to he who waits. Silence is golden.

The lieutenant took a quick shifty look up at Queen Victoria before confiding further.

‘Mrs Roach has asked me to join the group. I would be the only man.’

McLevy chewed at his lip to indicate deep thought.

‘I am pit in mind o’ The Bacchae,’ he opined. ‘I would stick tae golf.’

The door opened and Mulholland returned to announce that the cadaver was en route.

‘Well, lieutenant,’ boomed the inspector. ‘Shall we take up the case?’

Roach nodded. His mind was clear, the words crisp.

‘Proceed on two fronts,’ he directed. ‘Find this ginger giant and also determine everything you can about the corpse. The more you discover about a dead body the more reasons emerge for it attaining that condition.’

He had scarce finished the sentence when, with a cry of approbation and promised obedience, McLevy shot out of the door, closely followed by the constable, before their superior could change his mind.

Roach sighed and attempted to recall the plot of The Bacchae. He had a vague memory of a man up a tree surrounded by a pack of howling females. Very Greek.

* * *

The police had struck lucky. A bang on the door of the lodging house — a timid maid about to go shopping, the housekeeper out, McLevy bluffness personified, Mulholland all Irish charm — and they had been shown to the man’s room where they might root around to heart’s content.

This they had done. The general inspection having produced nothing, the inspector was now nosing in the wardrobe while Mulholland sifted through the tall chest of drawers.

‘Socks of finest silk,’ the constable announced.

‘Shoes of finest leather. Cashmere suits!’ said the awed McLevy. He sniffed at the label. ‘Exclusive. Saville Row. The man was a spender.’

They had ascertained from the maid that the fellow had been there for a month and was the sole lodger in the house, but there was not a shred of document here to tell them one thing more as regards identity; the letters from the train — investment prospectuses from various companies replying to an obvious enquiry — were no help.

‘A man of mystery,’ the inspector concluded. ‘Whit was he doing here, Mulholland?’

As if in answer, a female voice cooed in the ether.

‘Roberto?’ it fluted through the door. ‘Are you decently attired?’

The portal opened and a woman of some certain years, hair newly coiffured, tightly corseted with bosom athrust to show generous inclination, tripped in.

Her mouth was a little slack, and grew slacker at the sight before her.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Policemen. At your service,’ stated Mulholland.

‘Where is Count Borromeo?’

‘He is — I’m afraid — dead, ma’am,’ the constable assured her solemnly.

The mouth sagged further, though the bosom stayed firm.

‘But we were to be engaged!’

‘That would be difficult now,’ McLevy said.

‘Oooh,’ she wailed. ‘And I’ve just left black behind!’

‘How is that?’ Mulholland enquired, while McLevy tried to guess the woman’s age. No spring chicken.

‘I was widowed not two years ago. How did he die?’

‘This is whit we’re trying to ascertain,’ the inspector muttered. ‘Are you the housekeeper then?’

‘Certainly not!’ came the outraged response. ‘I am Senga Murdison, owner of this establishment, and I would ask you to address me in a manner befitting!’

Mulholland knew from hard experience that McLevy’s tolerance of glandular women was a touch on the low side, and so slid in smoothly before blood stained the carpet.

‘Perhaps ma’am, it might be best if you compose yourself from the terrible shock and then we may converse about. . Roberto?’

She nodded gratefully at this manly offer and then heaved a sigh, hand upon the jutting breastworks.

‘I feel a wee bit faint. If you might escort me to my rooms, they are close by.’

‘I bet they are,’ observed McLevy dryly. ‘Away ye go Constable Mulholland, I’ll steady the ship.’

He was more or less ignored as the two left the room, Senga leaning upon the constable’s arm.

‘Is that your name then?’ she remarked as they disappeared. ‘Mulholland?’

‘All my life, ma’am,’ came the reassuring response.

McLevy darted forward and closed the door behind them. A clever move of the constable’s to get her out and leave him time to delve unsupervised.

And he had a wee surprise up his sleeve should the delving bear no fruit. It would not help with the dead man’s history but it might produce a murder suspect.

* * *

To see Thomas Pettigrew you would scarce believe it. A trusted employee of the North British Railway staring through the iron gates of a bawdy-hoose. Birds strutted on a large expanse of green lawn leading to an imposing façade that gleamed white in the cold Edinburgh sunshine, but a’body in the city knew of this place.

The Just Land. Owned by the notorious Jean Brash, and there the man was, soiling his eyes with such scrutiny.

A bawdy-hoose. Anathema to the pure at heart.

While the guard was thus preoccupied, McLevy and Mulholland wrangled quietly in the background.

‘That widow woman has you in her sights,’ said the inspector with malicious intent.

‘I merely offered a steadying arm.’

‘Which caused her knees to knock thegither.’

McLevy laughed heartily at his bon mot and Mulholland did not dignify it with rejoinder. They had broken the news that the man had been indeed murdered, and despite her palpable shock, the inspector had questioned vigorously, much to the woman’s displeasure.

Strangely enough Senga Murdison seemed to know little about her fiancé. He had arrived out of the blue, swept her off her feet and marriage was mooted.

But no hard facts.

Pettigrew meanwhile was growing somewhat restive.

‘All I can see are peacocks.’

‘Ornamental, like so much in life,’ the inspector replied. ‘Keep looking, if you please.’

While Pettigrew sighed and did so, Mulholland shook his head dubiously.

‘This is a long reach, sir.’

‘Not so far,’ McLevy defended. ‘I met with Jean Brash in her coach some time past, bowling along Great Junction Street. I remarked she had a new coachman atop.’

‘Some people are emerging,’ offered Pettigrew.

‘Good,’ said McLevy, then resumed a line of reasoning that Mulholland had already attended and by which he was still resolutely unimpressed.

‘Jean told me her usual man, Angus Dalrymple, was on a wee holiday. Jedburgh. By the Borders. And he would be back in a few days.’

‘Two women only,’ the guard declared.

‘Just keep on the qui vive,’ answered McLevy, and extended his line of deduction to Mulholland. ‘Angus is a giant of a man-’

‘With ginger hair. I know. It’s still a long reach.’

‘Newcastle,’ said McLevy, ignoring the disbelieving tone of his constable, ‘is the nearest main station from Jedburgh for the train to Edinburgh.’ He developed his theme further. ‘And at this time of the day Jean Brash is wont to take coffee in her garden along with her right-hand woman, Hannah Semple, while often accompanied by-’

‘That’s him,’ Pettigrew said reluctantly. ‘The very same.’

They peered through the iron bars of the gateway like children at a peep show as Hannah poured out coffee for Jean, who watched as the aforesaid Angus, sandy-red hair agleam in the pale sunshine, began to chop lumps out of a dead tree trunk.

‘It is the man from the train,’ muttered the guard. ‘I am not mistaken.’

‘Sometimes, sir,’ Mulholland whispered with only the slightest trace of irony. ‘You amaze me.’

‘Only sometimes?’ replied a man who was, by his own perception, the eighth wonder of the world.

* * *

Hannah Semple was a pugnacious survivor who kept the keys of the Just Land and ruled the magpies therein with a rod of iron. The old woman feared neither man nor beast, and if one thing delighted her it was to watch Jean Brash and James McLevy at each other’s throats.

Jean’s hair was also red but it was a deep auburn that brought out the green of her eyes — eyes that were glinting with controlled fury as they speared into the inspector’s impassive face. Porcelain skin betrayed no trace of the life she had led as a street girl and whore in various low-slung brothels before clawing her way up the greasy pole to a divine consummation, as she now owned the finest bawdy-hoose in Edinburgh, patronised by respectable loins of the ruling class.

A tall, elegant woman, taller from her fashionable boots, she had at least an inch on McLevy which, having stood, she was using to great effect by looking down a disdainful nose at the man.

Mulholland stood vigilantly to the side opposite Hannah, straight-faced, but she knew that he enjoyed these bouts as much as she did herself.

Pettigrew, having formally identified Angus, had walked off to gaze at a rose bush, ostensibly to admire the blooms but it would seem in reality to put as much space between himself and sin as possible, lest it contaminate his Calvinist conscience.

Angus, his axe dropped to the ground, was caught unhappily between Jean and McLevy, stringy ginger hair hanging over his face and bearing a passing resemblance to, in the words of the immortal poet, a coo looking ower a dyke. Although the image of a bovine female gazing over a small stone wall might be somewhat forced, there was a dumb, enduring quality to his stance that gave some credence to this conceit.

The coachman admitted being on the train though had, he claimed, but a hazy recollection, having supped heavily on the ale of the Newcastle Station tavern.

This was indeed, he further claimed, why he had rushed through the barrier at Waverley, being in dire need of relieving himself, accomplishing the function just in time, a feat in which he took no little pride. He had no knowledge of which carriage he had occupied, having slept through the whole journey.

Battle lines having been drawn, the warring factions were getting stuck into each other.

‘You have only the word of that. .’ Jean waved dismissively at Pettigrew, who was peering at a deep pink rose as if it contained the secrets of the universe, ‘wee railway man to place Angus on the scene — and proof of nothing else. As per usual.’

McLevy drew up the artillery of heavy sarcasm.

‘Lucidity personified, Jean,’ he shot back. ‘I bow before you. But — if he was in that compartment?’

‘Whit does it prove?’ Hannah threw in, just to keep the pot boiling.

‘Proximity to murder.’ Mulholland made his own contribution for much the same reason.

‘I saw no dead body!’ Angus proclaimed loudly.

‘Calm yourself,’ said Jean, and sighted carefully at the inspector’s parchment-white face as if it were a target area. ‘You are full of wind, McLevy. As per usual. Puff, puff. Full of wind.’

Angus took encouragement from the short-range salvo and declared grandly that he had nothing to hide.

McLevy pounced.

‘In that case you will oblige me by turning out your pockets.’

‘Eh?’

‘You heard me!’

Jean yawned disparagingly. ‘Go ahead, Angus. Humour the poor soul. Think what a sad life he leads.’

‘Aye. So.’

The coachman laboriously turned out his pockets and listed the contents.

‘A bit o’ string, sugar for the horses, my own handkerchief, plug of tobacco and some paltry coin. A poor man afore you!’

‘Whit about the inside pooch?’ enquired the inspector. ‘It hangs heavy.’

Angus blinked at this unexpected observation and slowly drew out from his inside jacket pocket a battered and worn leather wallet, opening it to display the innards like a butcher flaying meat.

‘Paper,’ he declared. ‘Naething but paper.’

‘The world is full of it, eh Angus?’ said Mulholland, and while the coachman was thus distracted McLevy reached out and neatly flipped the wallet into his own hands.

‘Give me back!’

‘Oh let him pochle about to his heart’s content,’ said Jean. ‘Sooner he’s done, sooner I enjoy my coffee.’

The inspector licked his lips. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance-’

‘No, there is not!’ Jean rapped back.

‘Damned right. Cheek o’ the devil!’ chimed Hannah.

‘In that case,’ McLevy muttered, fingers busy, ‘I will go about my business.’ He scrabbled in the guts of the wallet and looked disappointed at the result.

‘You are correct, Angus, nothing but bits of paper, yet — wait now — see here.’

He had located a hidey-hole in the leather and as he fished therein, the rest gathered round a little so that the manoeuvre took on the appearance of a conjuring trick. The inspector played it for all he was worth as he pulled the rabbit out of the hat.

‘Abracadabra!’

The ‘rabbit’ turned out to be a large bank note. It was waved through the air in McLevy’s podgy fingers.

‘Twenty pounds. Currency of the realm. That’s a deal of money, Angus.’

The coachman said instantly that he had won it at the races. Jean asked what all this legerdemain had to do with anything. The murdered man was robbed, countered McLevy. Pettigrew heard the voices raised and peered all the harder at the damask rose. Mulholland took the note from McLevy, held it to the light and pronounced it genuine. Angus repeated he had won it at the races. Jean and Hannah looked at each other during this assertion as McLevy came in on another tack.

‘Whit were you doing in Jedburgh?’ he asked Angus suddenly.

‘I have friends there.’

‘You don’t have any friends, you’re an Aberdonian!’

Angus growled at this insult and Jean shoved in lest he make the mistake of attacking McLevy. She had seen the inspector in action more than a few times and the level of pure violence was quite terrifying.

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.’

‘Can you not help?’

‘I,’ the inspector announced from on high, Mulholland being on his hands and knees, ‘am searching out secret and subtle regions where one might plank a leather case.’

The constable sneezed once more.

‘Count your blessings,’ McLevy said sardonically, slamming the last drawer back into place and turning his attention once again to the wardrobe. ‘At least the widow woman is out on the rampage — your virtue is safe.’

In fact Senga had declared to Mulholland that the thought of McLevy rummaging once again and more extensively through the cavities of her house was more than she could bear, and besides there was an emergency meeting of the reading society to attend.

‘She’s not that bad,’ the constable muttered, peering at one cracked board which might hold some promise.

‘You’ve changed your tune.’

‘I never had a tune.’ Mulholland pried at the floorboard but it stayed stubbornly where it belonged. ‘Just because a woman has a flighty mentality doesn’t mean she can’t suffer in the heart.’

This was addressed to his inspector’s backside, the other half being wedged in the bowels of the wardrobe.

‘Is that a fact?’ came the muffled response.

‘I think Senga Murdison had a painful time with Count Borromeo.’

‘Maybe she enjoyed it.’

Mulholland gave up on the cracked board. ‘I’ll try the other carpet.’

‘You will not. Come here a second.’

The constable stood up somewhat wearily and crossed to where McLevy had partly emerged from the wardrobe, a triumphant lupine grin upon his face.

The inspector wrenched back the door to let the maximum light in and pointed to what had been uncovered when the expensive shoes had been hauled away to lie in an untidy pile at the other side.

The exposed wood on the bottom corner had some faint scraping marks as if the covering might have been prised up at one time.

‘I cannae reach. Fall short. You try.’

Mulholland stretched out a long arm and poked his penknife into a crevice, then levered up the panel.

The wood creaked for a moment and then slowly came away enough for the constable to hook in his fingers and pull the whole base up.

McLevy dived into the recess and emerged with a small black leather case in his tight grip.

‘Abracadabra!’ he exclaimed, fingers already prising at the lock. It did not budge. ‘Allow me your knife,’ he requested Mulholland.

‘That’s against the law.’

‘We are the law.’

He took the knife, slid it into the lock and twisted lightly. It sprang apart with remarkable ease.

‘Sometimes,’ McLevy remarked judiciously. ‘I feel that God is on my side.’

‘That must be a great comfort to Him,’ retorted the constable, as the inspector hauled back the lid to reveal the contents.

‘Papers,’ Mulholland observed. ‘Nothing but papers.’

McLevy’s eyes were gleaming like a porcine wayfarer that had just stumbled on a field of truffles.

‘Aye — but deep within,’ he breathed. ‘Buried treasure, constable.’

He stuck both hands into the pile, brought some up to his nose and sniffed hungrily.

‘Buried treasure, and we will take it to the station for deep examination.’

He then shoved the papers back inside, clicked the lock in place and frowned at Mulholland.

‘Whit is the hour?’

‘Late enough to sin,’ replied Mulholland.

McLevy jerked his head towards the door.

‘Come on. Before we dig into the plunder I have one more destination in mind. If God is truly on my side, our luck may hold.’

With that cryptic observation he was on the move and opening the door at speed.

‘What about the room? Look at the state.’ Mulholland remonstrated but he was also in motion.

‘The maid can do it. Or the lusty widow. Men make a mess, women clear it up!’

These inappropriate words echoed in the air as the inspector disappeared, followed by Mulholland.

The room was left in silence. Clothes scattered, doors gaping, bare floorboards scuffed and dusty.

Rough usage.

Ransacked.

* * *

The Just Land was in full swing, the fiddler sawing energetically as the magpies wheeched and swirled in the arms of a bunch of newly qualified medical students.

Not all could afford the service but Jean was willing to bend the rules a little; after all these were her future clients, and as their practices grew larger so would their pocket books.

It is often so with the medical profession. The ills of humanity are their meat and drink.

The main salon was awash with vigour and Jean’s blood was coursing in sympathy. Things were usually much more staid when it when their fathers were in situ.

That thought almost made her laugh out loud, but this was arrested when Hannah approached with a scowl upon her face that did not betoken glad tidings.

‘Mistress, there’s a commotion in the garden,’ she announced.

‘Are the students getting frisky?’

‘No. They’re well dug in.’

Hannah sought to emphasise the burgeoning quandary.

‘Your peacocks are howling blue murder!’

Enough to set Jean off and running. ‘If they are harmed in any way!’

‘Aye, well,’ puffed Hannah as she followed on. ‘It’s no’ my fault, I’m just the messenger.’

She caught up just as her mistress threw open the back door. The wind was howling and the dark profound.

‘Should we not call for Angus?’ Jean wondered.

‘I dinnae ken his whereabouts and I have my cut-throat in place.’

Sure enough, the blade of the old woman’s razor, an implement with which she was, in her own words, a dab hand, gleamed dully in the dim light of the lantern that was always kept by the back door.

Jean picked up the light and grabbed a heavy piece of stick always kept there in case of predators or recalcitrant clients.

‘Come on!’ she said, and they sallied forth out into the howling wind.

Raised voices, curses and muffled shouts led them through the darkness towards the source of the commotion, and despite her initial bold spirits, Jean felt a surge of trepidation — what was out there in the void?

‘Black as pitch,’ muttered Hannah, clutching her razor.

The wind dropped suddenly and Jean raised the lantern high. Its flickering rays revealed one man sitting upon another man with a third man hauling at the back of the recumbent and pinioned body.

‘James McLevy! What’re you doing in my garden?’

‘Sitting on your coachman while Mulholland gets the cuffs on,’ was the measured reply.

‘He won’t. . come quiet, Mistress Brash,’ Mulholland panted.

‘Nae wonder, wi’ that weight on him,’ Hannah growled, as with a loud click the restrainers were put in place and Angus was hauled up to face his mistress.

‘I had a wee notion Angus might try an escape out the back this night,’ McLevy smiled. ‘And I got lucky.’

A large bag stuffed with clothes lay to the side and it was obvious that the coachman had been trying to run off to begin a new life.

Possibly in Aberdeen.

Jean drew a deep breath. ‘Angus Dalrymple, what’ve you got to say for yourself?’

‘I was feart tae tell ye, mistress,’ he mumbled.

‘Tell me what?’

‘I was feart.’

‘That makes a lot of sense,’ said Hannah.

The inspector then coolly informed Jean that he had enough on Angus to bring him in with a possible attendant charge of assaulting a police officer. Sure enough, during the fracas, one of the giant’s flailing fists had connected with McLevy’s nose and a large trickle of blood had spilled its way down over his mouth and chin.

It gave him on oddly sinister appearance, like that of a vampire, but was small consolation to either Angus or the mistress of the Just Land.

Jean nodded acceptance of the proposed incarceration and equally coolly informed the inspector that if he or that lanky Irish specimen were found in her grounds again without permission, she would let loose a volley of small-shot at them to the effect that they’d be picking the pellets out of their backsides for years to come.

The constable tried to absolve himself but was informed by Hannah that he was well and truly implicated.

As McLevy left with the small black case hanging loosely from his hand, he called back a piece of advice.

‘Be careful, Jean. Such a firing implement has a terrible kick.’

‘I’ll brace myself,’ she said grimly.

Mulholland shrugged apologetically, shoved Angus out with one hand and picked up the man’s big travelling bag with the other. The giant had said nothing more.

The wind whipped up again and the peacocks began caterwauling. Joining them out of the darkness came the sound of James McLevy as he gave voice to a Jacobite air:

‘Charlie is my darlin’, the young Chevalier.’

‘He works all hours, that man,’ Hannah commented.

Jean’s face was set in stern lines. ‘I asked Angus once more how he had accrued the twenty pound and he maintained the racecourse story. A lie.’

‘And now he runs out on us. Guilty over something.’

To this shrewd point, Jean nodded.

‘One thing in the stupid big bugger’s favour. No matter how I twist and turn him, McLevy has an abiding interest in justice. He will not bend the law for easy conviction.’

They fell silent. A burst of merriment from inside signalled that someone somewhere was having the time of their youthful existence.

‘Come on, Hannah,’ Jean said, ‘back tae the grind.’

* * *

Lieutenant Roach, at his desk, leafed through the papers from the black case as McLevy, Mulholland and Queen Victoria gazed down upon him.

There was an air of justified and grim satisfaction to the inspector, though it was tinged with a certain nagging doubt. His nose was also still throbbing.

A policeman is never completely happy.

‘The fellow was no more Italian than neeps and tatties,’ said McLevy. ‘Fergal Dunphy was his real name.’

‘Irish, lieutenant. A Kerryman, no less, from his passport,’ Mulholland assured solemnly.

Roach shot the constable a look to indicate he was quite capable of reading a passport for himself.

He continued to leaf but McLevy, as well, could not resist further dissertation.

‘All documents, his diary and garnered newspaper clippings, a record of crime as long as your arm!’

‘Bigamy, sir. And seduction,’ added Mulholland.

‘Specialised in rich widows and susceptible young women in service.’

‘Some of these letters would break your heart.’

‘Would they indeed?’ muttered Roach — it was like having the recording angels for company.

‘Last port of call was Newcastle,’ pontificated the inspector. ‘Woman of a certain age swindled out of her dead husband’s hard-earned cash.’

‘Came back to squeeze the last drops!’

‘Wrote about it in his diary. Gloried in it!’

Roach picked up the aforesaid journal, then put it back down again for later perusal.

‘And so returning with his ill-gotten plunder,’ he remarked, unwittingly joining in the heightened exchange, ‘the malefactor met his fate on the late-night train.’

The lieutenant almost idly picked up a letter and waved it at them. ‘No doubt in the eyes of many he deserved to die, but who, if I may ask — killed him?’

McLevy frowned. It was a good question.

‘Angus Dalrymple tried to escape last night. In the cells now and we’ve hammered at him but. .’

The constable summarised the results so far.

‘All we got out of the man is that he was not asleep as he claimed, only said that to deflect suspicion. He got woken up by the collector for his ticket and there he was in the compartment with Borromeo, the fellow boasting about his coming nuptials, loud as hell, no manners at all and drunk as a lord.’

Mulholland ran out of steam and McLevy suddenly raised his head as if he’d just been stung.

‘And so?’ prodded the lieutenant.

‘According to Angus,’ the inspector said slowly, as though his mind was elsewhere, ‘when he left the train at Waverley, the fellow was alive and snoring fit to burst.’

‘What about the money found on Dalrymple?’ asked the lieutenant astutely.

‘Claims he won it on a horse. A fiction of course but. .’

Now it was McLevy’s turn to stop. Both policemen looked somewhat deflated.

‘Neither of you seem particularly convinced of his culpability,’ said Roach, with some asperity. ‘Pray tell me why?’

‘I can smell guilt,’ muttered McLevy. ‘And he’s hiding something. But not murder.’

Mulholland took up the theme. ‘Angus has hands like a navvy’s shovel. Break the man’s neck like a twig but not. . the garrotte.’

‘The police surgeon confirmed this to be the cause of death — slow strangulation from a twisted ligature,’ McLevy added. ‘A thin strip of cloth or leather snaked in from the back. Does not fit the man’s style.

‘Perhaps he did it to throw you off the scent?’ Roach suggested to his inspector.

‘That would take intelligence,’ McLevy growled. ‘We battered at him for hours but he stuck to his story. It just does-nae fit. I wish it did. But it doesnae fit.’

Silence fell. Roach looked at the letter he was holding.

‘Dear me,’ he murmured. ‘Listen to this. I will have to leave service because of my condition. Please honour the pledge you made to me. I beg of you. I will make you a good wife but do not leave me in disgrace. I could not bear the shame should my father find out what I have done. Yours in desperation and love, Christina P.’

For a moment there was a silence as if this simple rendition had touched three hearts hard as leather, for this trio in their differing ways were well inured to the suffering of humanity at large.

They served the law and the law takes no prisoners.

‘I read that one as well,’ said Mulholland, and the remark brought them all back to business.

‘The man kept meticulous account of his depredations,’ McLevy declared. ‘All his victims. Just referred to by initials mostly. Newspaper clippings as well. Two mysterious deaths. Birmingham. Manchester.’

‘Women of course,’ added Mulholland, ‘of a certain age. Respectable. ‘

‘Aye,’ McLevy scowled at his constable, ‘your lusty widow had a narrow escape.’

‘She’s not my lusty widow!’

Queen Victoria frowned. Tempers were fraying.

‘Away and hunt out that address for me, constable,’ ordered McLevy, ‘and we’ll be on our way.’

The tone was in no way meant to mollify, and an indignant Mulholland marched out to do his duty.

Roach was never too unhappy when these two were at odds; normally they were thick as thieves and their superior the target for devious machinations. He looked at the letter again.

‘I could not bear the shame should my father find out what I have done . .’ he read once more. ‘A sad tale such as you might find in a novel, eh?’

McLevy thought he might as well try to change what was proving to be an exasperating subject.

‘Whit about your own literary dilemma, sir? The reading society — what is your decision?’

A strange expression crossed over Roach’s face.

‘The offer was withdrawn,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘The women spoke together last night and some felt that the. . advent of a man might. . upset the balance.’

The inspector let out a loud, jarring laugh, and the semblance of a wintry smile appeared on the lieutenant’s countenance as he twitched his jaw.

Then there was a long, sober silence.

‘So where do you go from here, James?’

‘Back to the beginning sir,’ answered McLevy. ‘All the way. Back to the beginning.’

* * *

Once more a sugar biscuit was dipped into tea, once more the soggy mess disappeared into a gaping maw.

Mulholland sighed. It had been his idea to bring the gift; old ladies were, in his experience, notoriously sweet-toothed. What he had not anticipated however was that his inspector would commandeer the offering and proceed to stuff his face.

‘Very nice,’ said McLevy and licked his lips. ‘Mind you, I’m more of a coffee hand.’

‘I’m afeart we don’t do coffee,’ Jenny Dunlop observed in her most genteel tones.

‘Too foreign,’ Margaret commented wryly.

They were all sitting in the small room which the old ladies shared. Two single beds, each in a recess, indicated it was both living and sleeping space, and the whole had a Spartan, monastic quality.

‘You keep it fine and neat here,’ Mulholland remarked as he glanced round. ‘My Aunt Katy always says that a tidy room betokens a Christian mind.’

‘We don’t cleave to possessions,’ said Jenny.

‘Just as well.’ Margaret’s lip twisted in a mordant smile. ‘Since we don’t have an option. Ye need money for possessions.’

‘Shared, this fifteen years,’ the other nodded.

‘Thick and thin.’ Margaret smiled almost fondly at Jenny, who often reminded her of a frugal wee sparrow.

McLevy’s own domicile was like a midden, with halfpenny books, forensic papers, scientific journals and the detritus of bachelor existence scattered right left and centre. If this signified his mental state it was small wonder he needed another sugar biscuit.

The inspector munched once more and, thus fortified, put forward a request.

‘The night of the murder. If you might relate events. From the very beginning?’

‘We’ve already told!’ replied Jenny.

‘Tell me again.’

‘The inspector likes a story,’ Mulholland said with no little trace of irony. In truth he did not know why they had returned to the cleaners unless it was one of McLevy’s slices of instinct. He also had the feeling that something recent had lodged in that strange morass of a mind and, as usual, it would only be revealed in the fullness of time.

He often felt that there were in fact, two James McLevys. One, the belligerent, sardonic, wild-humoured individual, and the other a deeper, questing entity that Mulholland glimpsed only too rarely.

While the constable had thus been wool-gathering, the old ladies had launched into their tale and so he tuned in just as they were approaching the site of murder.

Margaret was in full flow.

‘Then Jenny saw a big black rodent and let out a hellish screech-’

‘I did. I don’t like rats,’ interrupted the other.

‘And I said Mister Pettigrew would see it far enough, and then-’

‘And then ye said, That’s funny!’

Margaret stopped. ‘You’re right, Jenny,’ she said slowly. ‘I’d forgotten that.’

‘Whit was funny?’ McLevy encouraged softly.

‘Nothing, I’m sure, but. . the man was like clockwork.’

A look passed between the two policemen before Mulholland leant in with an equally gentle enquiry.

‘Nothing, I’m sure, Margaret — but what was it, exactly?’

Jenny put her head to the side, exactly like a sparrow, and Margaret squinted as if summoning up the exact image that had caused her to wonder.

‘Mister Pettigrew, ye could set your watch by him. Every night, he aye met us at the rear of the train but that night. . he was down by the engine. At the front.’

A thoughtful silence ensued.

‘Funny that,’ Margaret said finally.

‘Ach, his mind would be elsewhere, poor man,’ Jenny said, almost under her breath.

‘Poor man?’ McLevy made a sympathetic face and shrugged for enlightenment.

‘If whit they say is whit they say,’ said Jenny.

‘And what is that, ma’am?’ asked the equally concerned Mulholland.

‘Gossip,’ announced Margaret firmly. ‘Just gossip. The railway’s a terrible place for gossip.’

‘But we never repeat it, do we Margaret?’

‘And I never listen to it,’ McLevy concurred.

Margaret was by far the sharper of the two old ladies and caught another look between the policemen.

‘A terrible thing, the gossip, inspector,’ she said gazing straight at him.

‘Indeed, Margaret,’ he replied.

Then, at great sacrifice to himself, and for the sake of the investigation, McLevy pushed the plate of titbits towards the women and smiled like temptation itself.

‘Have a sugar biscuit,’ he murmured.

* * *

Small, precise steps sounded in the empty station as Thomas Pettigrew approached the rear carriage of the late train. Emptied of passengers, it awaited only the final rites of cleansing and inspection before resting for the night. He regarded the long, gleaming shape with obscure fondness. Its formal name was High Endeavour but it was known throughout the railway as Puffing Billy.

Pettigrew smiled for a moment, then his face changed as he consulted his watch. They were late.

‘I told Margaret and Jenny to wait for a while,’ said a voice. ‘We have business first on hand.’

The guard did not appear surprised to see the figures of McLevy and Mulholland looming in the mist of Waverley like inauspicious apparitions.

The inspector’s face was grave — tired, even; it was the end of the chase, but he took no pleasure in it.

‘How is your daughter — Christina?’ he enquired.

Pettigrew pondered.

‘She is well. Considering.’

‘Considering her condition, sir?’ Mulholland said.

The little man nodded as if something long anticipated had been confirmed, and then walked towards them to continue his inventory of the train.

The glistening body was on his right, the policemen on the left as they all walked at a slow pace while the guard scrutinised the giant machine in his keep.

‘I have made provision for her,’ Pettigrew said finally. ‘All of my savings.’

‘Buttressed by the money from the dead man’s wallet?’

A moment’s silence greeted this observation from McLevy before Pettigrew nodded once more.

‘I thought it. . appropriate,’ he replied. ‘No doubt it was come by dishonourably. I put it to another use.’

His delivery was exact, without emotion, and as they proceeded, his focus never left the wheels and carriages as the company passed them by.

‘That night. How did you recognise him, sir?’ Mulholland asked.

‘My daughter had a photograph she treasured. Of them. In a happy moment.’

For a second Pettigrew stopped and closed his eyes, then he snapped them open and continued his slow progress. ‘I found it in her belongings. By accident. I would not have you think me to be a nosey man.’

‘I am,’ McLevy responded. ‘Nosey as hell. The night of the murder, you were at the wrong end o’ the train.’

‘To put distance between you and the corpse,’ the constable added.

‘It seemed. . a sensible precaution.’

There was even a touch of graveyard humour in the little man’s voice, but it found no answering smile.

‘The dead man, in his secret case, had a letter from one Christina P.’ McLevy announced heavily. ‘We learned from Margaret and Jenny the rumours concerning your daughter, checked at her place of service and found that she had left under disgrace.’

The inspector shivered suddenly.

‘Cold in this place.’

‘Midnight,’ Pettigrew said dryly, pausing to rest his hand against the side of a carriage as if he could sense a hidden life within. ‘The glass drops.’

McLevy jerked his head almost irritably at Mulholland, who had been a silent observer for the most part.

The constable took his cue.

‘So, sir — allow me to reconstruct events?’

The guard nodded a grave permission and the constable, monitoring his steps so as not to leap into the lead, summed up for the prosecution.

‘Fate decrees that the man responsible for your daughter’s ruin ends up on your train, drunk as a lord, boasting of impending marriage. The train empties and there he is. Snoring like a pig.’

‘So, you helped the seducer on his way. To a deeper sleep,’ McLevy said quietly.

Somewhere in the station a train let out a long, mournful cry like a lost soul. They were now at the front engine and it marked the end of the line.

The inspector stepped up to face Pettigrew, his face sombre and even somewhat troubled.

‘I will not pretend to envisage the anger and hurt which burned in your soul at the callous betrayal of your own flesh and blood, causing you to commit an act beyond anything you could ever have imagined,’ he stated. ‘But I do know how you did it.’

‘Indeed?’

‘That’s a fine silver whistle you wear.’

Pettigrew’s hand moved to clasp the object where it nestled against the stiff front of his uniform.

‘A tribute for thirty years’ service,’ he affirmed.

In fact McLevy had only noted this as they walked, but it made perfect if sad sense.

‘Hangs round your neck by a strong cord.’

The guard nodded agreement. ‘Leather. Twined fast. My own making.’

‘And with such you strangled him.’

‘It seemed. .’ said Pettigrew, ‘appropriate.’

This final and formal acknowledgement of the murder seemed to release the tension, and all three men let out a puff of breath in unison.

‘The only thing I regret,’ the guard vouched, ‘was the blaming of Angus Dalrymple. It was meant to distract but. . went too far.’

‘Aye — you led us to him and it was his words that part led me to you,’ averred McLevy. ‘Angus declared that when you arrived for the tickets, the man was boasting loud and rude of his coming nuptials. And yet you never made mention of that — just said he was civil enough. For a man as exact as yourself, I thought that peculiar.’

‘You would have found me in any case, inspector.’

‘And you, sir,’ Mulholland adjured solemnly, ‘must accompany us to the police station of Leith, where you will be formally charged.’

‘You also have a timetable,’ Pettigrew remarked with a curious glint in his eye. ‘That’s good.’

He put his hand upon the engine beside him as if taking its temperature.

‘I know these creatures better than any human being — in fact prefer them. This fellow’s nickname is Puffing Billy. Would you care to know why?’

Both policemen nodded, thinking the man was merely trying to delay the inevitable moment.

‘Because at this time of night,’ Pettigrew fingered his moustache and smiled, ‘near precise to the minute, the mechanism cools, but just before it shuts down it aye lets out. . a last farewell.’

As if he had summoned up a spirit, the engine suddenly belched out a huge blast of steam that enveloped the policemen where they stood. Both coughed and spluttered, flailing around till they finally fought their way out of the cloud of vapour.

Then it cleared as if by magic. And also like a conjuring trick Thomas Pettigrew had disappeared.

* * *

As the two policemen searched round the vast cavern of the station like some frantic wanderers lost in a dream, McLevy yet found time for recrimination.

‘Ye should have kept on the qui vive,’ he accused his constable.

‘What about you?’ came the indignant answer.

‘I was attending to the larger concern — it is your function to look out for mechanical subterfuge!’

Mulholland snorted at that but the inspector suddenly stopped; his sharp ears had caught a scrabble, a hint of movement in a constricted dark passageway by the booking offices.

He put his finger to his lips, pointed to the possible refuge for a fugitive and signalled Mulholland to investigate the narrow confines.

‘Take your stick,’ he whispered. ‘Watch your neck.’

‘Why can’t you go?’ came the answering hiss.

‘Only room for one. And I am inviolate.’

The constable shook his head at the obtuseness of his inspector, grasped his hornbeam stick and stepped off into the darkness.

Indeed the whole episode was beginning to take the form of some awful nightmare where no matter what move was made an insidious feeling of failure loomed. The station itself seemed to have mutated into a malevolent entity, towering overhead like some hostile beast as jagged shafts of light played against the clawed iron girders.

McLevy shook off these weird imaginings just as a sharp crack followed by a high-pitched shriek cut through the sepulchral silence.

After a moment, Mulholland emerged looking a little shaken.

‘It was a big black rat. Went straight for my ankles,’ he reported.

‘It would be trying to escape,’ the inspector muttered.

‘I couldn’t take the chance-’

The constable stopped. His eyes fixed upon something he had seen high up beyond McLevy’s abiding presence.

‘Turn round sir,’ he said softly. ‘Slow does it. Lift your eyes heavenwards.’

The inspector did so, and on a high gantry by the girders, with the trains set out far below, he discerned a glimpse of white in the gloom. The pristine collar of Thomas Pettigrew in contrast to the dark of his uniform and the surrounding shadows.

How he had got there God alone knows, but the man knew every nook and cranny of his station, so there he remained and it was a long way down.

‘Mister Pettigrew,’ McLevy called quietly. ‘You’ll do yourself a mischief.’

‘I intend to,’ came the firm response. ‘With my death you prove nothing.’

‘Whit about your daughter?’ the inspector probed.

‘As I said. Provided for.’

Pettigrew looked over the expanse of his beloved station and the serried ranks of trains, their metal sides reflecting a dull gleam in the shafts of light.

A smile of pride came upon his face.

‘I shall count to five,’ he called. ‘Five is a godly number, Calvinists have aye thought it so.’

He began the enumeration. One, two, three.

‘You’ll mess up the timetable, sir!’ Mulholland shouted desperately.

‘A black mark upon your worksheet!’ bawled McLevy. ‘And whit about God — he’ll take it amiss, surely?’

‘I am a good and faithful servant,’ came the unconcerned response. ‘I shall be forgiven. Four. . five!’

Pettigrew put the whistle to his lips and blew.

* * *

‘We found him on the roof of the engine,’ McLevy said, gulping down the fragrant brew. ‘Arms round the smoke-stack, neck broken.’

Jean shivered at the singular end to a strange tale.

‘A sad business,’ she remarked.

She had noted that he was better dressed than his usual state, shaved and by the smell of it, pomaded under the low-brimmed bowler. For a moment she wondered if it was for her benefit.

‘I’ve just been tae the funeral,’ the inspector announced. ‘I thought I’d take my chance.’

‘On what?’

‘That ye wouldnae let fire at me with small-shot.’

‘Oh, that?’ Jean sipped her coffee delicately, in contrast to the awful sleuchin’ noise he made. ‘Business is thriving. I’m in a good mood.’

For a moment their eyes met, and the curious feeling of deep intimacy that sometimes crept upon them unawares washed gently at the shore of their separate islands.

McLevy slurped his coffee. She winced.

‘The daughter was there. Hefty lump of a lassie.’

‘That would be her predicament,’ Jean observed.

‘Big boned. Make a good mother.’

‘That’s your criterion, is it?’

He ignored the waspish comment.

‘Seemed well enough. Two aunties with her.’

A comfortable silence fell between them while the peacocks strutted around the lawn being fed by Hannah Semple who, despite her best intentions, had become quite fond of the glaikit creatures.

‘I admire the way they shiver their feathers to attract the females,’ said Jean thoughtfully. ‘It’s about all they’re good for. Men.’

‘Shivering accessories?’

She made no answer, an impudent smile upon her face, and McLevy calculated that now was as good a time as any to break the news.

Mulholland after the funeral had headed off to take tea with the lusty widow, more in pity than love, and this despite his inspector’s injunction that it never worked to try to save people from their own foolishness, never in a month of Sundays.

In fact Jean Brash had said these words some time past, staring right into McLevy’s face. Funny that.

Roach was on the golf course at Leith Links, and if he saw a horde of semi-naked bloodthirsty females heading in his direction, the man would at least know better than to shin up a tree.

The inspector was on his own. As per usual.

‘I have to thank you, I suppose,’ Jean declared, reaching at the coffee pot. ‘For proving my coachman innocent and not pressing charge for your bloody nose.’

McLevy nodded. Aye, well. Time now. Try not to take too much pleasure in it.

‘Jedburgh,’ he remarked idly. ‘Ye know a woman there — Minnie Moncrieff?’

Jean sniffed. ‘A sordid type. Keeps a low bawdy-hoose.’

‘She’s trying to raise standards, my police colleagues tell me’ he replied dryly. ‘Bought a new carriage, been driving round the town like the Queen of Sheba. Seen by one and all.’

‘Scruff. No changing that.’

To this magisterial rebuke from the mistress of the Just Land, the inspector nodded meekly, and then added a mild rejoinder.

‘With a fine big coachman. A giant of a man in fine livery, whipping up the cuddies in grand style.’

There was a moment of frozen silence.

‘Angus?’

‘None other than.’

Jean nearly spat out the coffee as her mind struggled to deal with this betrayal.

‘So that’s where he got the money?’

‘The wages of sin,’ was the urbane response.

‘Everybody knows he’s my coachman. What a showing up. I’ll wring his bloody neck!’

So saying she leapt to her feet and headed off to the stables whence, not long after, there came the sound of raised voices, or rather, to be more accurate, one loudly raised female voice and a cowed masculine rumble.

As Hannah gazed suspiciously at him, James McLevy smiled guilelessly and poured himself another cupful.

For a sophisticated woman, Jean could at times bear more than a passing resemblance to a fishwife.

The inspector sighed, leant back in his chair and let the images of this recent case flicker in his mind.

One by one they registered as if projected on a screen: the contorted body in the carriage; the lined faces of the two old ladies; the lusty widow who had just left black behind; Angus at bay like a dumb animal; Hannah with her cut-throat razor at the ready; Jean’s face as she promised a shotgun reprisal and French aroma; Mulholland trying not to shudder as McLevy scoffed his eighth sugar biscuit; Roach reading the daughter’s letter in a moment that oddly moved the three of them in that office; then the sight of Pettigrew staring glumly through the gate of a bawdy-hoose and the savage picture of the proud smile upon his face as he fell like Icarus to a certain doom.

That brought a sombre cast to McLevy’s features, but then his lips twisted in humour at the last picture from the recent funeral.

The minister had done his bit, the daughter, with an aunt on each side, bowed her veiled head, and the mourners were about to reach for the ropes to lower the coffin down when — from long distance — the sound of a train whistle came blowing down the wind.

To a person, the railway men took out their watches, looked upon them, and nodded their approval.

The train was punctual in passing.

The timetable safe for another day.

Content

David Ashton
End of the Line