David Ashton - End of the Line

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.’