David Ashton - End of the Line

‘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.