Fall From Grace (13 page)

But that was then, and this was now. A small side room of the Freemason’s Hall in George Street, where, the worshipful meeting of the lodge over and the sowing of seeds amongst his fellow members as regards the perfidious conduct of a certain chief constable in the President’s Cup carried out with scrupulous nicety, he had decided to place the suit of Constable Mulholland in front of Robert Forbes.

They were both still dressed in Masonic regalia, the silver sashes adding a layer of formality to the occasion.

Forbes sat at the end of a long table and Roach, not wishing to seem invasive of the man’s territory, found himself at the other extremity so that he was forced into speaking rather loudly, as if selling wares at the market.

So far the insurance adjuster’s face resembled that of a man staring at a blocked water closet.

Roach took a deep breath and tried not to bawl down the distance between them.

‘The constable does not lack culture.’

‘I’ve heard him sing.’

Mulholland had a reasonable tenor voice. He and Emily had performed some duets together at a musical evening
chez
Roach. The lieutenant hated these soirées but his wife was in her element, weaving romance like a spider’s web.

‘His promotion prospects are … reasonable.’

‘Seems diligent enough.’

‘More than that.’

‘Nothing wrong wi’ steady.’

‘No. But, it makes him sound rather dull.’

‘Vanity is not welcome in my house.’

Roach was beginning to feel obscurely annoyed with his petitioning role and the granite responses spearing up the table towards him.

He found an unexpected dignity and firmness of tone; perhaps it was the Masonic carvings in the surrounding wood panelling which provided the support.

‘Mister Forbes I am not quite sure how I ended up as advocate for the constable’s case but here I am, and I require from you, like Solomon, a judgment.’

This comparison to the great Israelite, who, though initially a wise ruler, was brought low by idolatry and fleshly inclination, brought Forbes snapping to attention.

‘A judgment?’

‘As regards his honourable intentions towards your daughter – what are his prospects?’

The succinct question produced an equally concise reply.

‘Poor. Emily is too young. She does not know her own mind. Or heart.’

Roach nodded. In a strange way, he was growing into the function he had reluctantly assumed.

‘I would agree with that. But perhaps … in years to come?’

‘It would be many years.’

‘The young man may believe that your daughter is worth waiting for.’

‘He may wait. But what of her?’

‘She has, I am told, expressed some … fondness?’

The forefinger of Robert Forbes began to tap upon the table, indicating a mite of agitation within.

While the man tapped on, Roach observed him with a professional eye. A widower of some three years’ standing and well enough presented. The eyebrows were somewhat tufty and the face though not exactly pudgy had some flesh to spare but his posture was erect and his hair carefully combed to conceal an incipient bald spot at the back.

A small man. But he carried himself like the church elder he was and the darting restless eyes missed nothing.

Light brown in colour, the eyes. Hazel almost. An odd contradiction to the surrounding rectitude.

He pronounced judgment.

‘As regards … fondness?’ The word sat strangely in his mouth, like a sour plum. ‘Emily is prone, I am afraid, to whims. I indulge her far too much myself. One day, it’s one thing. One day, another.’

Somewhere in the room a floorboard creaked as if a ghost had joined the party.

Roach glanced around, but there was only himself, Robert Forbes and the long table.

‘So you see little future, only a whim?’

‘I cannot tell the future,’ Forbes responded, shifting in his chair and showing unmistakable signs of wishing to curtail the discussion.

But Roach did not move and Forbes was provoked into setting up a further obstacle.

‘Then there is position. In society. The constable has a long way to go.’

‘But, I would have thought that you of all people –’

The lieutenant had blurted out the words before taking account of their effect and stopped abruptly as Forbes stiffened in his seat.

‘Aye? What of me?’

Roach was committed now, too late, the cat out of the bag, forgetting that though it was common knowledge Robert Forbes had worked himself up from the ranks, the man himself obviously harboured some sensitivity about his origins, and the subject must be approached with delicacy.

Thank god it wasn’t McLevy on hand, though Forbes had mentioned that the inspector had landed up at his office not long ago that night with some annoying inquiries and the lieutenant would catch hold of him tomorrow to ask his subordinate what he was up to this time.

Forbes was still waiting. Roach twitched his saurian jaw and tried a smile but crocodiles are more noted for their rending teeth.

‘That you would understand the possibilities of rising to the heights from another … level, as it were.’

And there Roach ground to a halt as the face before him went a dangerous shade of puce.

‘I have worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am,’ said Forbes tightly, ‘there’s few men with my energy or application!’

‘I’m sure that’s true.’ A mild observation that did not placate the man one bit.

‘I have sacrificed much and will again, what is so dearly bought, cannot be lightly thrown away.’

‘Dearly bought?’

Forbes suddenly rapped the knuckle of his hand upon the table to emphasise the words.

‘Respect! Position!’

The lieutenant was getting out of his depth, this was the sort of morass McLevy would have revelled in, Roach had often observed that the angrier folk got, the happier the inspector became.

He took a reluctant leaf from his subordinate’s book, and remained silent, with a slightly surprised look on his face as if to say,
‘I know I’m missing something but I am unsure of what it might be. Clarify my addled wits.’

Roach couldn’t quite manage the stupid expression McLevy produced on his face on such occasions, but he did his best.

It provoked an illogically fierce response.

‘Emily is too young. She must be protected!’

‘Protected? From the constable?’

‘From life itself. She is my daughter!’

The father’s eyes were burning from some internal combustion and Roach decided to opt for discretion, although he could not quite keep a slight chill out of his voice.

‘I shall convey these sentiments to Mister Mulholland.’

Forbes stood and nodded somewhat jerkily then made for the door. He turned from there to have the last word.

‘I have nothing against the man.’

‘I can see that,’ was the dry response. ‘Good night, Mister Forbes.’

‘Good night, Lieutenant Roach.’

The heavy door closed with a dismissive thud and Roach was left in far from splendid isolation. He flexed his jaw thoughtfully from side to side; he and Mrs Roach had not been blessed with progeny and it no doubt part accounted for the energy with which she threw herself into the giddy affairs of the young.

The lack also deprived him of understanding the disquiet that must burn in a father’s breast at the prospect of losing a daughter and gaining what he might consider to be a dead loss.

For a moment he felt a strange pain and emptiness as he allowed himself to wonder what it might have been like to be a progenitor.

If a boy, he would have gained a caddie. Not to be sniffed at. The older you get, the heavier the golf bag.

And if a girl? Two Mrs Roaches, cheerful and chirpy, always on the go, flitting to and fro. Always. Chirpy.

Perhaps the Almighty, in His wisdom, knew best.

17

Come sing now, sing; for I know you sing well,

I see ye have a singing face.

JOHN FLETCHER,
The Wild-Goose Chase

The two thieves grinned nervously at each other as they waited in the darkness of the wynd. This should be easy, a drunk man and woman, easy pickings. However, though they were good at their trade, they had but recently arrived in Leith and so were still finding their feet.

That is they knew how to freeze a mark to the wall with one knife to the throat and cut his purse loose with the other blade, but geography and local rules of engagement were yet to be fully discovered.

They were about to receive a lesson.

Donnie Stevens and Jug Donleavy – hard men, well known in their native Paisley, but forced to quit the place owing to the inadvertent death of a fellow robber over an argument as to whose turn it was to buy the next round of rustie-nails, a large measure of cheap whisky that brought down the red mist like no other. So it had proved and the man had died. The inadvertent part being he had four brothers, evil bastards who would not listen to reason.

Donnie was a small rat-faced specimen with a vicious temper, it was he who had stuck the fellow robber; Jug was an amiable thickset thug whose ready smile had lulled many a victim off guard.

That smile and the fact that his ears stuck out like an elephant’s gave him a gormless air but his favoured weapon was a length of lead piping which broke heads, noses and collar bones with a fine disregard.

The drunk woman was singing, a hellish caterwauling of Robert Burns’ beautiful love song,

‘Flow gently Sweet Afton, amang thy green braes,

Flow gently I’ll sing ye, a song in thy praise;

My-yy Mary-eees a-a-sleep –’

Her voice cracked on the note and dissolved into maudlin tears as she staggered heavily in the narrow wynd, causing the beanpole drunk supporting her to stagger also and find himself unexpectedly on the point of Donnie’s knife, the tip resting just under his chin.

‘Not a move,’ said the vindictive Donnie, ‘or I’ll cut ribbons out of ye.’

‘He will that,’ agreed Jug. ‘Jist hand over yer wee poke of money, kind sir, and we can all go home. Safe and sound.’

As Jug laughed at that thought, Donnie dug the knife in for emphasis and the beanpole, his blue eyes wide with what Donnie took for fear, nodded gingerly and reached slowly into his inside jacket pocket.

But as he did so, he dropped the woman who landed on her backside with a howl of pain and split the knifeman’s attention for a moment.

It was enough. What Mulholland produced from his pocket was not a purse but a large bony fist which he planted into the middle of Donnie’s face, crunching back his nose and sending the man hurtling in reverse for at least three feet to land on his hands and knees, spitting blood with a terrible ringing in his ears.

Jug’s mouth dropped open, this was their first plunder in Leith, and no one had prepared him for such violence.

He stepped forward, drawing out his lead piping but the beanpole simply walked up and kicked him in the groin.

Mulholland’s Aunt Katie had always advised him thus, ‘When in doubt, go for the crown jewels.’

Or as McLevy also counselled in the early days when a wee street keelie had laid the callow young constable low during a resisted arrest, ‘Hit them first. And hit them hard.’

Jug joined Donnie in a groaning chorus on the ground and Mulholland cursed the fact that, having changed into civilian clothes to escort Mary Rough homewards, he had neither restrainers nor his lethal self-fashioned hornbeam truncheon to hand.

He moved in anyway, another couple of blows would do it, knock the wits out of them long enough for him to borrow a cart from somewhere and wheel them to the station.

This intention was somewhat forestalled however when Mary, in her befuddled state and the gloom of the wynd not helping one bit, took him to be in danger, threw her arms around his legs and clung on like a leech.

‘I’ll save ye, constable!’ she bellowed.

That word alone was enough to send Donnie and Jug off as speedily as their crippled condition allowed, while Mulholland tried in vain to disentangle himself from Mary’s vice-like grip of his kneecaps.

By the time he had achieved this, hauling her up to face him, the thieves were long gone.

‘Jist as well I’m here, eh?’ said Mary.

Mulholland sighed. Though he was not too downcast. He had noted the faces; they would meet again.

‘Just as well, ma’am,’ he replied politely.

Mary drew herself together in queenly manner.

‘Ye can let me go now, constable. I’ll sail under my own steam.’

And that she did. Not without the odd tack to the wind but kept her dignity and footing, through the narrow alleys, into one of the closes; even after some unsuccessful passes at the lock of her door with a bent key, Mary still achieved a ladylike decorum as she handed it to the constable.

‘You do it so. My eyes betray me.’

He did as instructed. She walked into the single room where she lived her life, sat in a crooked chair, directed him to light a candle in case the bogeymen arrived to steal her Catholic soul and promptly fell asleep.

Mulholland lit the candle and looked down at her with obscure affection. She reminded him of the old women he had grown up with in Ireland; life had washed over them like a violent sea, leaving barnacles for eyes, strands of weed for hair, and wrinkled skins from the blasts of salt.

Yet they survived. Endured. And laughed.

As Mary had in the Old Ship. Mind you she had reason to be cheerful, it was Mulholland buying the drinks. For him weak beer, for her a hooker of the hard stuff.

She alternated between tears for her dead son and raucous mirth over some of the scrapes that had landed upon her in life.