Fall From Grace (40 page)

McLevy howled in pain and the revolver flew out of his grasp to skitter along the wet planking until it was lost from view.

He hammered the bird on the head with his free hand till it pulled the beak away then dropped at his feet but, in the meantime, Hercules Dunbar had spun round, and seen the form of the inspector outlined against the faint lights of the ships in the far distance.

Dunbar dropped his shoulder and rushed at McLevy, driving him backwards so that they both fell off the end of the pier into the dark waters below with a muffled splash.

All that remained behind was a dropped revolver, a piece of rope with a fashioned slip knot and a bedraggled semi-conscious seagull.

In the distance, from the West Pier, the fog-bell tolled like an intimation of mortality.

Meanwhile James McLevy was about to make peace with his maker –though the situation was far from tranquil.

In fact it more resembled a nightmare from which the sleeper struggles to awake, where every breath jolts the heart with a premonition of impending doom.

When they had hit the water, the coldness had shot through his body and shocked him like a lightning bolt.

The inspector was enveloped in darkness near infernal, immersed in an element he had always feared would be the death of him, and locked in combat with a man who seemed intent on giving him an undesired and fatal baptism.

The two men were clasped together in a deadly embrace, McLevy clinging like a limpet round Dunbar’s neck because it was the only way to keep afloat. He also knew that if Dunbar were granted any space to exercise those powerful forearms, he would be drowned like a rat.

Which was happening in any case, as Hercules took a deep breath then dived under the water taking McLevy with him. The policeman managed to grab a gulp of air before the sea claimed them both but his lungs were being stretched to breaking point and his whole being thrashed in dreadful panic as the most primitive fear overwhelmed him.

His mouth was shut but the water coursed up the nostrils, into his eyes, the salt blinding and the desperate need for inhalation building up into a silent scream.

The weight of his heavy overcoat threatened to drag him even deeper as he tried to hold on to his adversary because if he let go he would drown like a dog. Then Dunbar drove his fist into McLevy’s distended solar plexus.

The last remnants of air whooshed out in a trail of bubbles and McLevy spluttered as water rushed in to replace the other element.

Then just when he thought he could bear it no longer, Dunbar drove up to the surface again, the inspector still clinging on like a limpet.

They were locked together face to face, both breathing heavily but Hercules had enough to spare for last rites.

‘I am sorry James McLevy,’ he wheezed a trifle painfully. ‘As you say. A long journey. Take my secret with you.’

With this remark, Hercules Dunbar drew in another deep breath and plunged them once more into the cold deadly sea.

This was the final act. McLevy felt his whole body freeze as it recognised imminent annihilation.

Again the water swirled around him, drowning the world in a clammy dank embrace and he was sinking deeper into the flood, his consciousness failing, darkness at the back of his eyes, ready to welcome extinction.

What had saved him would now be his death. Dunbar would hold him under till his lungs collapsed.

As a dying man is supposed to experience his life flashing before his eyes, so McLevy had a vivid picture of the moment Dunbar and the other boys had held his head under the Water of Leith, then released him to lie gasping on the bank, howling with laughter as they ran away to leave him alive and swearing vengeance.

Vengeance. And he had wreaked it. With two kicks of his tackety boots.

And suddenly there was another howling. The wolf would fight for its existence, consciousness be damned.

McLevy let out a bloodcurdling scream regardless of the water that rushed in, prised himself away from Dunbar and kicked the man just below the kneecap with all the force he could muster.

Dunbar’s grip slackened. One more kick. The other knee.

Now, whether the cartilage tissue at that spot had its own historical memory of pain and humiliation or it had been grievously weakened by the blows from all these years ago, in truth mattered very little, but the end result was that Dunbar loosed his hold from the terrible agony incurred.

The inspector grasped the man by his waterlogged hair, pulled the head back to expose the throat and hammered a series of devastating blows into the soft flesh. Dunbar reached out to try a catch at McLevy’s eyes with his hooked fingers, but they found no purchase.

Another few blows and suddenly Hercules Dunbar had gone, down into the depths of the sea and McLevy was heading in the opposite direction like a cork out of a bottle.

He broke the surface of the calm water, gasping and retching for breath, then began to sink immediately, for as has been previously related McLevy could not swim a stroke and he had just destroyed his only means of flotation.

The inspector tried to shout but his voice had been strangled by the salt of the sea, and the darkness before him lay unbroken like a waiting shroud.

The heavy coat was yet again dragging him under and though he thrashed around desperately, it was a losing battle.

As if to emphasise this, something thudded painfully into the back of his head. He grabbed at it in the darkness and his fingers made contact with the splintered rough surface of the large piece of timber that the wild young boys had thrown into the sea.

A blessing on the wild boys.

McLevy hoisted himself on to the spar, the upper part of his body sprawled across while his legs dangled in the sea.

It was deathly cold and he felt his senses slipping but he wedged himself as best he could and thus drifted off into the misty darkness.

However the tide had now turned and Inspector James McLevy was heading out to sea, where he might join with the shipwrecks and ghastly mariners who inhabit the edges of the watery main.

Once more the fog-bell sounded in the night.

38

Methought I saw a thousand fearful wracks;

A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
Richard III

The woman’s body was facing away. Her black hair streamed behind like sea snakes in the water of the deep.

His mother, Maria McLevy, hand still clutching the shearing scissors used to cut her throat.

The little boy floated towards her. Jamie McLevy, he would save her, everything would be fine, they would be happy and she would smile and hold him close.

Except that his mother had rarely smiled and never held him close.

No matter. Jamie would save her anyway.

He was no longer afraid of the water. See? He could move, breathe, his body was weightless and he twirled round like a seal for the sheer joy of motion.

She was vertical, standing on the bottom of the sea, as he approached and gently touched her shoulder to let her know that the saviour was at hand.

The contact from the tip of his finger spun her round and he looked into her countenance.

The red bloodline was still etched across her throat but other than that her face was peaceful.

Except for the eyes. The sockets were empty and, as he watched, a small black eel slipped out of one, with another wormy creature following.

They chased each other, in and out of both sockets and the horrified little boy realised that the eels were playing hide and seek.

Life and death.

Hide and seek.

James McLevy let out a fearsome roar, opened his eyes and found himself looking up at Lieutenant Roach.

The inspector was somewhat reassured. Roach might bear a passing resemblance to various sea monsters but his eyes, though bloodshot, were firmly in their sockets.

The lieutenant suddenly whipped out a handkerchief to let loose an explosive sneeze.

‘I hope I’m not catching a cold from you, McLevy,’ he admonished the still figure in the hospital bed. ‘Proximity to dampness is a dangerous pastime.’

The inspector nodded. It was about all he could manage.

Roach accepted such as a signal of health.

‘I have passed this time composing a funeral oration just in case,’ he announced. ‘Would you like to hear it?’

‘No thank you,’ McLevy croaked faintly.

Roach walked away from the bed and winced as stiff joints cracked accompaniment; he had been sitting in a chair for more hours than he cared to bring to mind, until the inspector’s muffled yelps had brought him to the bedside.

There was a high window in the room and the officer peered out through it on to the street below. He sniffed at some flowers in a vase on the windowsill, scratched a fingernail upon the glass, and threw some words over his shoulder.

‘A fishing boat came upon an object floating in the sea. Dragged you aboard like a beached whale.’

McLevy said nothing in reply; other than lingering facets of the dream, his thoughts were lucid enough as he recollected the events aboard the ship and on the pier but the rest of his animal functions seemed to be in some state of suspension.

‘The boat had been out all night for a poor harvest,’ Roach continued. ‘Then they found you. A prize catch, eh?’

The lieutenant’s dry laughter hung in the air like a line of washing and McLevy discovered a raging thirst.

‘Could I have some water, please?’

‘Have you not had sufficient of that substance?’ Roach muttered as he walked back to pour into a tumbler from the jug, which lay on a small table beside the bed.

McLevy levered himself up, jammed a pillow behind for support then took the tumbler and slowly sipped at what had nearly killed him.

‘Like a beached whale,’ said Roach with satisfaction.

‘When did they find me?’

‘First light.’

‘What hour is it now?’

‘Middle afternoon.’

That meant the
Dorabella
was long gone.

‘Of the second day,’ the lieutenant added.

Long, long gone.

‘Second day?’

‘You have been lost to the world for more than thirty hours. A relief for many.’

McLevy’s eyes were beginning to focus and for the first time he noted that his normally immaculate lieutenant had grown some stubble on his long chin and the stiff white collar was somewhat crumpled.

‘How long have you been here, sir?’

‘Too long for my comfort.’

The idea that McLevy might glean a smidgeon of solace from his concern and possibly use it one day to advantage sent Roach into total disavowal of any affection.

He straightened up into official posture and blew his nose reprovingly.

‘I am assuming inspector,’ he said with another sideways twitch of the jaw, ‘that you have an explanation for this maritime farrago?’

McLevy closed his eyes somewhat wearily.

‘I have indeed, sir. But it’s nothing that cannot wait until tomorrow.’

‘That is a decision for me to make not you. By the way a passenger has been reported missing from a boat bound for the New World, his wife is in a terrible state. Would this have anything to do with yourself by any chance?’

‘She is not his wife,’ McLevy answered obliquely.

‘How would you know?’

‘It’s a long story, sir.’

McLevy’s head drooped on to his chest and Roach grunted at the sight.

‘You were making a terrible noise before you honoured us with your waking presence.’

‘I was dreaming.’

‘About what precisely?’

‘Hide and seek.’

Roach shook his head, strangely relieved that things were getting back to normal.

‘I shall hear the tale tomorrow, inspector. It had better be good.’

Hercules Dunbar was at the bottom of the ocean; the lovers would no doubt be discovered, freed, and then sail on for Argentina where there was no treaty of extradition and all policemen have moustaches and gold teeth.

Would this make a good tale? McLevy wondered.

The lieutenant would not be best pleased but a mitigating factor might be that the Forbes case would not therefore have to be reopened and the man’s reputation could remain intact and free from shame.

After all, like Dunbar, he had paid for his sins with his life, the insurance company was not out of pocket and the only person who had lost materially was a certain bawdy-hoose keeper.

Unless, of course, you count Mulholland’s loss of his one true love.

Is love material?

The suicide was already hushed up due to the deft hand of the Masonic Brotherhood and now the whole mess could be swept under the carpet.

Respectable houses are full of such cover.

McLevy became aware that Roach was still there, though he had moved to the door and opened it.

‘You were lucky to survive, James. A guardian angel must have been flying on the waves.’

The lieutenant looked across, a wry, baffled twist to his long snout.

For a moment McLevy met his gaze, then both men looked away in some embarrassment.

‘Close your eyes and it might be she will appear,’ said Roach in a rare burst of poetic imagination.

‘Who will?’

‘Your guardian angel. Goodbye,’ was the cryptic response as the lieutenant shut the door to dream of his own heavenly guide who might cure a vicious slice that had appeared lately on the course to plague him.

It might be connected to the fact that Mrs Roach was talking of taking in lodgers. Young men, preferably.