Trick of the Light (37 page)

Her eyes widened a touch but that may have been to do with the random quality of the query.

‘I am afraid I do not. Sorry.’

His eyes switched towards the clothes stand, which stood by the door. It held no cloak, just some scarves and bonnets. Then he looked at the closed wardrobe in a corner of the room.

As if reading his thought, she smiled thinly.

‘Be my guest, inspector.’

As he rummaged through the garments, conscious of her amused eyes on his back, McLevy found of course that there was no sign of such clothing, nor did any of the other coats show any sign of evening damp. So much for that.

He popped out again like a clockwork toy.

‘Whit about Magnus Bannerman – did he have a black cloak of sorts?’

‘Yes. I believe he did. Won it in a poker game. He used to wear it for fun.’

‘Fun?’

That wasn’t McLevy’s recollection of events.

And what Sophia did not add was that the wearing of such apparel and experiencing of such fun was within their bedroom walls.

Poor Magnus.

‘Did he…suffer much?’ she murmured.

‘Two bullets in the chest. As I said. Every bone broken. Blood from his ears. I’d say he suffered.’

She made no reply but nodded gravely as if his bleak description had not touched her. Just words.

McLevy had noted that Sophia had made no question about why he was interested in cloaks and the like.

A lack of curiosity in a suspect betokens many things; one of them is that they’re as guilty as hell and concealing the fact.

For the first time since entering, he walked up and stood close to her, face to face.

Her visage was clear, unlined, composed, and you could drown yourself in those violet eyes.

‘Forgive me for saying,’ he remarked, softly, ‘but ye don’t seem overly grief-stricken by the news I bring.’

‘I regard death as a bridge from life not the end of it,’ she replied succinctly.

‘If so, then Magnus Bannerman has much to answer for in the world of spirits.’

‘That is his doom.’

‘Nothing to do with you?’

‘Nothing at all.’

By now they were near enough that their breaths almost commingled, hers sweet, his fraught with blood.

Her eyes were fixed deep on his, and out of the blue she near knocked him into a sideways shock.

‘Your mother haunts you,’ she said.

‘Whit?’

‘She haunts you. A memory.’

‘My mother cut her throat. I found her. In the room I sat with her. And waited.’

He had blurted out a truth concealed for fear of the dark shame. A gang of children following Jamie McLevy through the wynds, sniggering, calling names of madness and contamination.

Why had he told this woman?

What was happening?

‘I feel such sorrow. In you.’

‘Is she out there wi’ the voices?’ he asked.

‘I am sure. Somewhere.’

‘Did you hear her?’

Sophia shook her head and he was suddenly like a bewildered child caught between belief and experience.

‘It came into my mind. I have no control over these forces. At times, they invade me. Body and soul.’

She gazed at him as if in supplication and a charge passed between them.

The child became a man. Priapic to boot.

Her lip trembled and the upright man wondered what it would be like to sink his teeth into that flesh.

As if in reflex, Sophia’s tongue passed along the upper lip leaving a glistening trail before disappearing inside her mouth.

It was as if everything had magnified, her lower lip sensual and pink.

Full and inviting.

The Valley of Venus.

And what would be the harm of delving in?

Only compromising the whole investigation by a kiss. And what followed. There would be no stopping what followed.

There was nothing in his vision but that face; the eyes, unmoving, fixed upon his own.

Those eyes began to lose focus, turn inwards towards each other and the effect was curiously erotic.

McLevy felt a force of such power drawing him to her, a psychic envelopment augmented by a jolt in the nether regions that had little to do with deductive faculties.

Passion. Pure and simple.

Neither pure nor simple.

Dangerous as hell and he was bent upon it.

Where would be the harm?

Then he had a vision of Magnus Bannerman sliding from the slates off the edge of the known world.

That’s where passion got you.

‘Aye well,’ he near whispered. ‘As you say. Everything in the past.’

He let out a mirthless laugh and drew back his head to shake it like someone emerging from a spell. His eyes swept once more around the room as if seeing it anew and something he had noticed from his earlier perambulation came to mind.

All the doors to the various rooms were ajar, save one. He had glimpsed into her bedroom and then a wee vanity recess of sorts, no doubt leading to the bathroom.

But there was a small room to the side with the door firm shut and a lock that he had no doubt was fast secure.

He spoke edgily, passion still lurking disappointed and frustrated. The flames not drowned.

‘Whit’s behind that wee door, eh?’

She looked to where he indicated, herself feeling an emptiness, cheated of fusion.

And fusion is a powerful weapon.

‘That is for my privacy,’ she replied tersely.

‘Where ye keep your secrets?’

‘Where I am private.’

To forestall further portal enquiries, she closed her eyes as if overwhelmed by events and sighed deeply.

‘I must ask you to leave me now, inspector. I have answered your questions as best I can. It is already morning and I have much to consider.’

‘No doubt ye have, no doubt.’

McLevy as usual had forgotten to remove his hat and tapped the crown as if to make sure the thing remained still on his head.

The Valley of Venus had been a close call and who knows but that the low-brimmed bowler had kept him safe.

He took one more jaunty tour round the room as if signalling a farewell voyage.

‘A messenger will be sent at some time to bring you to the station to identify the body of Mister Bannerman and make formal statement.’

He grinned like a wolf.

‘Clean him up, best we can, he will be recognisable.’

Sophia said nothing. He had by now reached the outside door and she would be glad to see the back of him.

His hand touched the knob to throw it open and then he hesitated. 

‘Jonathen Sinclair,’ he shot the words out suddenly. ‘Whit does the name mean to you?’

For a moment it was as if her whole body froze and then an instant later, she had recovered.

‘It means nothing at all.’

‘Ye sure?’

‘I am certain.’

But he had seen the shock and aftermath.

She knew. Bugger your certainty. She knew.

Like the cricket ball of Conan Doyle, a long shot had hit the mark.

‘A pool of blood,’ he said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘When ye had a wee confab with Mister Doyle and myself, you mentioned the sight of a man in such a state.’

‘I did. A vision. But I know nothing more.’

‘In a street, not a room. You said.’

‘I did.’

‘Eighteen years ago. In the Leith Docks. A man was shot, his head obliterated, bones and flesh. I believe that to be your pool of blood.’

‘Anything is possible.’

‘He was a Confederate Officer. Jonathen Sinclair.’

Sophia’s face was like a mask now. ‘What was he doing here?’

‘Buying ships for the South, I believe. You hail from the South, do you not Miss Adler?’

‘I am not alone in that.’

He nodded acceptance of this point and opened the door as if to finally leave, then turned to stare back at her.

‘The case was never solved. Now we have another. Twa pools of blood.’

‘If true. If it…was this man. Sinclair. I do not see the connection. To Mister Bannerman. Or his actions.’

McLevy smiled.

‘Neither do I. Quite. Yet. But I will find it. That’s my job.’

As he moved out through the doorway he threw some words casually over his shoulder.

‘Find, kill, destroy,’ he remarked cheerily.

‘What?’

‘The beast that was once Magnus Bannerman. He said these words. Do you recollect them?’

He wanted her to know that however she twisted and turned, spirits, visions be damned. He was on her trail.

She registered that but shook her head anyway.

‘It is all a mystery to me.’

‘That’s my meat and drink,’ said McLevy, ‘mystery.’

He closed the door but just as she breathed a sigh of relief, it popped open again and he stuck his head in like an ogre from some fairy tale, the gaps in his teeth showing from a troll-like grin.

‘Don’t forget my ticket.’

‘What?’

‘The box office. At the Tanfield Hall. Wouldnae want to miss your last show.’

‘I have not yet decided.’

‘Oh, you’ll be there,’ said James McLevy. ‘I feel it in my bones.’

The door finally closed and Sophia moved swiftly to turn the key in the lock lest another visitation occur.

Then she leant her back against it and let the hot scalding tears flow down her face.

The vision she had seen. The pool of blood, the body in the street – had it been the good man?

Grief and rage.

One dead, one still alive.

37

There’s nothing of so infinite vexation

As man’s own thoughts.

J
OHN
W
EBSTER
,
The White Devil

The Diary of James McLevy

It is a rare event for me to feel tired but I am driven to that conclusion this hour of four in the morning.

No wonder, however, I am exhausted.

In one day I have been near brained to death by ravening beast, watched a young woman breathe her last, shot the aforesaid beastie, rescued a bawdy-hoose keeper from a doom she brought upon herself, stuck another in jail for much the same thing, hammered a knifeman, been delivered by a projected cricket ball, near disgraced myself by passion inappropriate and forgot to feed the cat.

Indeed McLevy had returned, heated up a pot of coffee as best he could on the embers of the big late-night fire his landlady had left burning in the grate, then opened the attic window to scan the rooftops for Bathsheba.

But she was not to be seen. In the huff, probably. The inspector had then commenced to sit at his table and write.

A good way to get things out of the system.

The birdies are beginning to chirp away at the dawn chorus and I am too tired to go to bed.

Sophia Adler is a powerful creature and you may only wonder what would happen if such power were used for malevolent ends. As I believe it has been.

I have read a deal about mesmerism in my scientific journals and though there is great debate over the merits, there seems little doubt over its capacity to influence others through the medium of such power. Whether this triggers a kind of autosuggestion or is imposed from without, one of its striking offshoots is the ability to control the minds of others.

Hypnotic trance. Witchcraft by any other name, according to the good Christian folk who burnt those accused of sorcery right, left and centre to preserve the faith.

There is no doubt Sophia Adler has that power, I could have lost my very essence in her violet eyes.

Luckily, as in my dream, I was able to wrench myself to safety.

But what if you did not have the strength?

What if she was able to control Magnus Bannerman and then unleash a primitive anger and violence such as we all have lurking in the depths of our being?

It’s never far away. See what happens in war.

Civilisation. Skin deep.

I believe Magnus Bannerman to have been her instrument of destruction so she didnae get her hands dirty.

A perfect crime.

How do I therefore find her out?

She is like an amphibian that slips from one world to another. I am on dry land, she in the waters. By the time I get the boat launched, she’s back on shore.

And underneath it all I sense the Imp of Vengeance. A livid presence, an opposite figure to the Christian God with his white hair or saintly son, crowned in thorns.

Another primitive, dark force that dwells in the deep fissures of the psyche and cuts a swathe through any concept of morality or structured law.

It will have blood.

I am only too aware of this force in myself that I keep contained within the boundaries of justice.

Without them I too might be a beast on the prowl.

Seeking vengeance from the world for a wee boy who watched the blood drip from his mother’s throat onto the pillow where she laid her head.

We all seek reparation for past wrongs.

Or even present ones.

But it must be done within the bounds of law, otherwise the world is mad and the savage beast within holds sway.

Sophia Adler is such a beast. No matter how beautiful her face, how justified her cause – she has caused death for her own dark ends.

And I must bring her down.

But how?

McLevy slowly shut his diary and let his mind drift this way and that with the current of his unconscious.

What had she said?

I do not see the connection.

Was there a challenge in these words? A part of the wrongdoer seeks to be discovered. To sabotage the guilty self.

For some reason Poe’s story of
The Tell-Tale Heart
came into his mind.

A man kills another then buries his victim beneath the dead man’s own floorboards. The thud of the murdered heart haunts the killer, growing louder by the second until he screams out a confession to the police who are sitting in the very room come to investigate the disappearance but, in the main, probably just hoping for a cup of tea somewhere.