Nor Will He Sleep Read online

  NOR WILL HE SLEEP

  Born and educated in Greenock, David Ashton trained to be an actor at the Central Drama School in London. He started writing plays in 1984, winning the Radio Times Drama Award for The Old Ladies at the Zoo the following year. His work has been broadcast throughout Europe and he continues to write for BBC Radio 4; his McLevy series is now in its tenth season. He has also written extensively for television, film and theatre.

  He began writing the McLevy novels in 2006 with Shadow of the Serpent, followed by Fall from Grace (2007) and Trick of the Light (2009). He lives in London. www.david-ashton.co.uk

  PRAISE FOR DAVID ASHTON

  ‘McLevy is a sort of Victorian Morse with a heart’ Financial Times

  ‘McLevy is one of the great psychological creations, and Ashton is the direct heir to Robert Louis Stevenson’ Brain Cox, star of the BBC Radio 4 McLevy plays

  ‘You can easily imagine the bustling life of a major port, and the stories are alive with a most amazing array of characters’ BBC Radio 4

  ‘David Ashton, like Robert Louis Stevenson or Ian Rankin, is inspired by the beauty-and-beast nature of Edinburgh. His interpretation of James McLevy is worthy of the original man’ Sherlock Holmes Society

  ‘Ashton’s McLevy ... is a man obsessed with meting out justice, and with demons of his own’ The Scotsman

  ‘An intriguing Victorian detective story ... elegant and convincing’ The Times on Shadow of the Serpent

  ‘Dripping with melodrama and derring-do’ The Herald on Fall from Grace

  This eBook edition first published in Great Britain in 2013 by

  Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

  West Newington House

  10 Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.polygonbooks.co.uk

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-577-2

  ISBN: 978-1-84967-251-5

  Copyright © David Ashton 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  The moral rights of David Ashton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

  To Graham and Michael – fellow travellers

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 1

  If you want to be a wolf, you must howl.

  Rousseau to James Boswell

  A deathly hush had fallen on Leith Harbour as a horde of white faces stared up into the dripping sombre sky. The drops had smeared and caused the chalked make-up of the young men to run, giving them the appearance of distorted circus clowns, the dark rings round their eyes sliding like black tears as they held a collective breath.

  The object of their scrutiny was a slender cane projecting like a stray moonbeam towards the top of a stately ship’s mast. In fact an official vessel of Her Majesty’s Revenue Service, but for this moment trembling on the edge of being the recipient of an equally stately corset that dangled from the tip of the cane.

  The underwear swayed as if shying away from the jutting masculine naval staff and then coyly wreathed itself in fond embrace to surrender her charms, helped by an impatient prod from the conductor’s baton.

  But would she stay the course?

  The stick removed itself, the wind fluttered straps and buckles but the corset held steadfast, gleaming pale as streaks of water ran down old satin in the dark night.

  ‘She has found her hero!’

  A disembodied voice rang out in the damp air, and the crowd below burst into wild cheers to hail the slight figure who shinned nimbly down the mast, mission accomplished.

  As the shape landed awkwardly on the deck and hopped to the harbour flagstones, it was now obvious that the cane was no affectation – one leg lagged crablike behind the other – but despite this, the young man executed an agile caper as he accepted the adulation.

  His name was Daniel Drummond, also white-faced but with jet-black hair, long and swept-back, that framed the alabaster visage in a dramatic casing.

  A medical student with exams successfully passed, Daniel was soon to be qualified like the rest of his fellows; and also qualified as leader of the White Devils, who at this moment vied with the Scarlet Runners, deadly rivals in derring-do and anarchic acts aimed at creating havoc in the public domain.

  Three days of mayhem were the city’s reward for the begetting and nurturing of these young bloods who would, in time, become respectable and frown upon the antics in which they now revelled.

  A solid chunky figure led the congratulatory throng, Alan Grant. Drummond’s best friend, he played, with some relief, Sancho Panza to the other’s Quixote.

  ‘Corsets on the topmast – a beautiful sight!’ Daniel announced with gusto amidst much cheerful bedlam as the two friends embraced.

  ‘I hope your mother doesn’t miss them,’ was the more deliberated response.

  ‘She has such fripperies in abundance!’

  Alan shook his head as he gazed up whence his comrade had newly descended.

  ‘You are truly mad, Daniel. On such a night to climb so high.’

  ‘Too cautious, my friend. How are we to win else?’

  A refrain of agreement from the rest of the students milling around them brought a smile to Alan’s face.

  In truth both young men were to some extent acting a part, as were most gathered here, but whereas Alan possessed a ballast of sorts, the prudent inheritance from generations of a cooperage-owning family, Daniel had a reckless streak. His eyes glittered like the silvery cane he twirled in triumph.

  Alan nodded judiciously.

  ‘The Scarlets will be hard pressed to match such an exploit,’ he admitted.

  ‘And the White Devils will triumph – ’

  A hail of wet dungy clods, sky-propelled but now earth-bound, contradicted this bold assertion as they landed with smelly spattering impact on the gathering.

  This was accompanied by a chorus of catcalls from a crowd of equally garishly attired young men who h
ad emerged from one of the taverns, their tribal marking a livid scarlet, which covered the face and glowed diabolically in the dark like a satanic challenge.

  A howl went up from the white ranks and as the scarlet horde whooped their jubilant way towards the narrow wynds that spread off the harbour, the corset-worshippers set forth in hot pursuit.

  Daniel paused once more to admire his handiwork atop the mast and Alan loyally kept company. The crippled leg would not allow his friend to keep up with the whirling limbs of their companions and these two would perforce follow at a more measured pace.

  If there was any acknowledgement of his disability, it certainly did not show in the eyes of the slender figure as he bowed solemnly to Alan and they prepared to go where the noise of the fracas would lead them.

  Then a cracked voice from the shadows stopped them in their tracks.

  ‘I saw ye.’

  A momentary fear showed in Daniel’s eyes, as if some deep unrest had been provoked by a force of conscience but then some movement from the darkness revealed an old woman who stepped forward, clutching her large handbag like a shield.

  A thin face, cheekbones sucked tight in rectitude, the small figure quivered with indignation as she confronted the two miscreants.

  This was Agnes Carnegie, as the youths would find out at a later juncture, much to their regret.

  ‘I saw ye,’ she repeated. ‘Profane a woman’s undergarments, ye sinful godless creatures.’

  Daniel threw out a riposte, though Alan was already trying to edge them away from further entanglement.

  ‘I merely moved them to another location,’ he replied.

  ‘Ye have no shame!’

  As Agnes spat out this verdict, some virtuous saliva joined forces with the rain falling alike on the blameless and culpable.

  Nature has no favourites.

  While Alan tugged at his elbow, Daniel peered with some humour into the accusing mouth.

  ‘No shame indeed, but yet I have my own teeth.’

  The tiny form shook angrily.

  ‘A godless sinner!’

  ‘He does lack a certain pious inclination, madam. You are correct in that observation,’ said Alan earnestly, though a gleam in his eye betokened an inherent comicality to the situation.

  Agnes’s hat was saturated and had folded itself around the small pointed pate like a dismal pancake. She wrenched her head right and left to scatter the seeping raindrops, and moved forward to remonstrate further.

  ‘Decent folk cannot walk the streets these nights without a student rabble making their life a misery.’

  ‘I would imagine yours to be a misery in any case, madam,’ Daniel responded ungallantly. Then, with aplomb, he limped forward and offered with outstretched hand what he thought to be a placatory gift.

  It was a crudely formed rosette of white – the emblem of his faction, and indeed one of the same rested cosily in the bosom of the billowing corset above.

  ‘You may have one of our favours, madam. White. For purity of purpose.’

  She snatched the rosette and with a vicious tweak of her clawed fingers, tore the fragile fabric in two.

  Christians have never hesitated to proclaim their virtue by indiscriminate cruelty and Agnes held true to her belief; indeed the action released a further vein of moral invective sown in the Old Testament and reaped by Calvinism.

  ‘Ye dare insult your elders,’ she observed with tight-lipped relish. ‘Look at you. A deformed soul. See God’s punishment for your wickedness.’

  Daniel’s face flushed and his hand gripped tight to the cane. ‘Go to hell,’ he muttered and allowed himself to be moved away by Alan’s restraining hand.

  But Agnes had more to convey, clutching at the light grey sleeve of Daniel’s suit, a colour he wore to distinguish himself from the common herd.

  ‘You will wait till I have ended!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Take your hands from me – ’

  ‘You will wait my pleasure – ’

  Alan had by now walked some paces on, thinking to be followed, but now looked back to see the struggling pair.

  ‘Daniel, come on with you,’ he called somewhat desperately. What had been an amusing entanglement now appeared to have a vicious aspect.

  ‘Let me go!’

  The young man wrenched away and Agnes fell onto her backside in a puddle with an unholy splash.

  ‘See how I am treated, God help me!’ she cried as both youths disappeared into the darkness.

  For a moment Alan looked concerned, but Daniel hauled the larger man onwards, shooting back a vindictive glance, and then all that was left was the sound of the rain.

  A distant howl indicated a faraway melee as the rival students joined battle.

  Agnes sat, feeling the noxious damp spread around her nether regions. It seemed an eternity passed before she gathered the strength to lever her bony form upright.

  She once more clutched her handbag and muttering a deal of possibly uncharitable imprecations, moved slowly off into the darkness.

  Mistress Agnes Carnegie had lodgings in Salamander Street, where the slaughterhouse welcomed most dumb animals to its bloody bosom; every night she walked the length of Leith Harbour safe in the arms of the Saviour, but this evening the inner conversation was informed with a certain malicious righteousness.

  Despite her damp posterior she considered she had won the joust with the crippled reprobate – had he not fled the battle? Scuttled away like a dirty wee rat?

  Agnes laughed aloud in the silence. But what was better was her discovery from an earlier time – an open book had revealed the dark secret that would give her power to use or withhold, depending upon her Christian conscience.

  Oh, the pleasure to be found as fearful haunted eyes begged silently for mercy and her avoiding gaze twisted the sin deeper, like a nail in the flesh.

  Then a wetness where her fleshly tissue had rarely if ever known such brought her wandering thoughts back to present circumstance.

  Daniel, the other had called him. A fell disgrace for such a holy name –

  The rain had stopped for a moment and something fluttered at her feet. It was the favour she had previously torn, now lying on the moist flagstones.

  Agnes looked swiftly around but saw nothing save darkness and shadow. Then a chirruping whistle sounded from behind her and she turned to see a slim figure emerge from one of the wynds that spread like wormy fissures from the body of the harbour.

  Her eyesight was poor but she could see that he held a cane and skipped with an odd halting gait towards her.

  Had the old woman not been so wrapped up in her vengeful musings, she might have observed this strange being to have dogged her footsteps for some time.

  She peered as he whistled once more like a discordant meadowlark. His face was chalk white, his suit a pale colour, hair plastered flat, eyes dark and hidden as his countenance was averted at an angle from her sight.

  He pranced up merrily like a March hare, struck an attitude with one dainty foot to the fore, then flipped back the tip of his cane to land on the shoulder and smiled, the teeth a little yellow against the white mask of his face.

  Then he deliberately allowed himself to become still and presented his appearance close towards her, as if in invitation.

  Finally, her jaw dropped in recognition.

  ‘You –’ she began as the cane whipped across and took her full in the throat, crushing the windpipe to stanch the flow of air.

  Words need air.

  As her head lurched forward, the cane cut viciously down in two blows to the sides of her unprotected neck and then welted down upon her pathetic, pious hat to penetrate her cranium.

  She fell like a stone and the blows rained down with hideous accuracy and no little brio as the figure danced around the broken-backed doll that had once been a woman of some upright quality.

  With her dying breath Agnes tried to form a word to name what she had recognised, but a swordsmanlike hit cut precisely between her eyes like
a sabre and – as it were – she gave up the ghost.

  A dying spasm finally loosened her grip on the bag and amongst its contents, now spilled out onto the slippery stone, was a heavy bible, solemn with usage, but the spine loose and flapping like a duck’s wing.

  The figure riffled through the pages till, coming upon a suitable passage he ripped free the leaf. Having perused then marked a line in it with a thumbnail, he wrapped the white favour within this holy covering and stuffed the whole inside the old woman’s mouth as if she were a Christmas turkey. He then jammed the jaw shut.

  So, like a jack-a-dandy, bible in hand, he danced off into the night, leaving his erstwhile partner a numb, lifeless wallflower.

  The rain began to fall again, diluting the trickle of dark blood coming from the ears of the corpse.

  A seagull high above let out a screech.

  To signal a soul departing, or was it just a bird on the wing?

  Chapter 2

  I’ve seen sae mony changefu’ years,

  On earth I am a stranger grown:

  I wander in the ways of men,

  Alike unknowing and unknown.

  Robert Burns, Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn

  James McLevy regarded himself in the rust-flaked mirror and came to the conclusion that he resembled a ruined castle.

  The cheekbones still held their place but above and below were a scene of near desolation.

  Where was the wolf these days?

  He leant forward and peered into the slate grey eyes almost concealed in the folds of lidded flesh; a yellow light might still burn in them somewhere but damned if he could see it.

  This revelation caused the nostrils to flare in the broad pitted nose. What teeth remained were like tombstone stubs hidden behind the thick, curiously ripe lips.

  It aye puzzled the inspector why his lips might appear so lush with promised joy and perhaps to disguise this, he had recently grown a bushy moustache, which was flecked with some grey and an indeterminate colour like charred ashes that gave him the appearance of, in the opinion of Constable Mulholland, ‘a walrus with the mange’.