David Ashton - The Painted Lady

“No’ too bad. For his age. I had twa gae-ups for one gae-doon but that’s quite usual.”

Jean laughed aloud this time and the inspector’s face began to show pink at the edges. “To that end did he avail himself as it were. . of artificial stimulation?”

“No. Not at all,” Minnie replied promptly, then catching the narrowing of eyes from a mistress who knew the magpies inside out. “Well — nearly not.”

“Tell me a wee thing,” McLevy said, with what he hoped was a benign expression.

“There was a white powder he took. Tried tae get me to, but I wouldnae.”

“Why didn’t you inform me of this, Minnie?” Jean exclaimed angrily.

“He said it was doctor’s orders,” was the plaintive response. “It perked him up no end.”

Silence followed. McLevy had nothing more to say but there was a predatory gleam in his eye.

“You may go now, Minnie,” said Jean, “and the next time some man lays out white powder, you let me know.”

At the door Minnie stopped and a wistful look came over her face. “We used to do a game, the judge and me. I would be a butterfly. He would chase. And pin me down.”

With that she exited. A silence ensued.

“The powder might well have been arsenic,” McLevy remarked finally. “The judge was apparently murdered by such.”

“Ye think he took too much, maybe?”

“I don’t know. But a woman stands accused.”

“His pretty wee wife?” Jean teased, with more than a little needle in her tone. “Are you her knight in shining armour, James?”

He responded in kind. “Your friend Mister Boothroyd may well be involved in all this. Watch yourself.”

She too had heard the rumours and it had piqued her interest to the extent that Jean had decided to indulge her curiosity. A diversion of desire.

“Ye better get going,” she announced, refusing McLevy the satisfaction of a response. “As I said, we have the General Assembly. Busy as hell.”

A sudden shaft of humour lit up the lupine eyes. “Whit happens if I meet one of the clergy?”

“Tell him you’re the devil in disguise.”

For a moment they looked at each other. Jean and McLevy had been in many scrapes together and it was a mystery to one and all what held the two of them in bondage. But bonded they were, and the secret they shared was one that no other person would ever penetrate, no matter how much acrimony danced at times in their hearts.

“I thank you, Jean Brash,” he said. “For the coffee.”

“Good night, James McLevy,” was her answer.

Diary of James McLevy

It is amazing how wayward women can be, for I do believe there was a hint of jealousy in Jean Brash at the end of our conversation. Thank God men are above such things.

And yet Judith Pearson’s countenance stays with me from that portrait. Desirous, yet vulnerable, like a child caught in a woman’s body. Then Boothroyd, a handsome brute — flesh on the bone, but I sense a weakness and behind that fallibility the rank sweat of fear and guilt.

What is the truth of it all? What lies behind these faces? How did the judge come to die and what is this feeling that I have somewhere missed a sign?

At this point McLevy laid down his pen, slurped at his tin mug and grimaced over the bitter dregs. Events so far had left a residue of crystals; dregs of a sort that he was looking at like some old harpy in the fairground trying to read the future in tea leaves.

He opened the pages of The Heart of Midlothian to seek out solace in the writing of Sir Walter Scott, a man of the highest moral and literary integrity — never knowingly found in a bawdy-hoose, who aspired to the ideal that virtue may always be rewarded and treachery unerringly punished.

The inspector had never found this to be the case in his own experience but he was prepared to be diverted.

Yet something in the case had slipped him by, and he could not bring it to mind.

As the artist struggled out of profound sleep a gloved hand laid itself over his mouth. He let out a muffled yelp of anger and fear at the intrusion while a voice sounded in the darkness — a voice familiar to his senses but not welcome at this moment.

“Pleasure and pain, Mister Boothroyd. Pleasure and pain.”

The hand was removed for him to blurt out, “God Almighty, what are you doing here?”

Judith Pearson laughed softly, desperation and desire entangled in her response. “I have your key. I entered in.” She saw the panic in his eyes and moved to soothe this reaction. “The servants were asleep. I left by the back door. No one saw me.”

“How can you be sure?”

Once more Judith fed him comfort; this was what drew her to Jardine Boothroyd, the need for reassurance like a child almost, in contrast to his driving certainty in the act of love.

“It is the dead of night. Everyone sleeps, save you and I.” She took his hand and pressed it fast it over her heart just below a breast untrammelled by corset. “There — can you feel it beating?”

He was still uneasy. A recent visit had unsettled his nerves. “McLevy — he came — he asked me of you. At great length.”

“How excellent!” she cried. “The inspector is pursuing the case — that is the best news possible!”

“You are mad, Judith. This. . we agreed that there would be no contact. You are mad.”

She laughed softly and leant closer so that he might smell the fragrance of her perfume. “What have we to fear? We are innocent. Babes in the wood.”

His eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He could make out the familiar shapes of the studio and the white oval of her face hanging before him like a tempting spectre. Hard to think when the mouth is dry, when desire melts resolve and hardens flesh.

“Innocent,” she repeated, her lips now so near that he could feel the warmth of her breath. “Save for a certain. . enticement on your part.” Judith laughed again but this time with an edgy, uncontrolled quality that both alarmed and attracted the artist.

“You laid aside the brush, walked over to where I sat and said, “I admire the line of your neck. It is very beautiful.” You reached out your finger and traced that line down my flesh. Skin upon skin. Do you remember?”

His hand had moved to cup her breast. Another familiar shape.

“And do you remember when you came to my house, to finish off the portrait — you held me hard against the wall? So hard I was bruised. Like a butterfly.”

“Yes,” he muttered hoarsely.

“We are guilty of nothing but love, and must be forgiven our sins.”

“Sins?” The judge had died. Out of the blue. Poison was rife in rumour but he knew nothing except — the judge had died. His thoughts were confused. There are many sins. But he knew nothing.

Judith could sense his desire now. To match her own flame. This was everything. All her terrible fears burnt to ashes at this moment. This was everything.

“It is the dead of night,” she murmured. “Only we two. . are truly alive.”

Somewhere a church clock struck midnight as their bodies moved together into the two-backed beast.

Pleasure and pain.

Alec Nimmo once more weaved his spell. Market Place, Leith: different crowd, similar delivery as he neared the end of a dramatic description on the vicissitudes of motherhood. “Ague and gum rot! The children cry and howl for you their mother to soothe their brows and ease their aching bodies — ”

“They need McMunn’s Elixir.”

Alec’s head snapped round as a tall figure detached itself from the crowd and moved to stand directly before the improvised trestle table. It was most obviously a constable at law.

“And I need you at the station,” said Mulholland. “With your confiscated cargo.”