Free Fall From Grace by David Ashton Page B

exit of the passage but as they reached it, a voice stopped them.
    ‘I’m no’ done yet.’
    They turned to see the fallen boy had somehow pulled himself upright and was standing with his small hands held in front of him in the parody of a pugilist’s stance.
    ‘No’ done,’ he said.
    For a moment there was a flash of primitive fear on Herkie’s face, then, realising that the eyes of the pack were upon him, his anger rose and he prepared to move back towards the swaying figure.
    ‘Jamie? Jamie, is that you?’ called a voice and they all took to their heels as a female figure approached from the wynd.
    Jean Scott took the scene in at a glance, scooped the boy protectively into her ample stomach and shouted after the disappearing pack.
    ‘If I catch ye, I’ll leather your backsides ye spawn o’ Satan!’
    She held the boy tight and sighed. This had happened before and would happen again. He was an outcast.
    Jean pulled him away from her and tutted to herself.
    ‘Look at the mess of your face,’ she scolded as if it was all his fault, whipped out a hankie, spat in it, and began to wipe the blood from his skin. His slate-grey eyes gazed at her and it broke her heart, but she had to be practical, tears got you nowhere.
    ‘I never win a fight,’ he said.
    ‘That’s because you’re the smallest, they’re all older than you and there’s a whole gang!’
    ‘I never win.’
    ‘That Dunbar boy is an evil swine, he’ll come tae a bad end you mark my words!’
    She finished cleaning him up, grasped him firmly by the hand and he limped beside her as they walked back through the wynd towards the entrance to their close.
    One of the windows above opened and a woman leaned out.
    ‘Is he a’ right, Jean?’
    ‘He’s fine.’
    ‘I heard the rammy but I wasnae certain. These rascals are aye up tae something, eh?’
    ‘Uhuh.’
    The window closed again and Jean became aware that the boy was looking up at her. Solemn-faced.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘They said my mammy cut her throat. A’body knows.’
    Jean sighed again. Would it never end?
    ‘Your mammy was a good soul, son.’
    ‘But it’s true. I saw her.’
    Indeed he had. Jean had lived across the hall from them and found him keeping vigil at the kitchen table while his mother lay in the bed recess like a rag doll.
    God knows why the woman had done that but Maria McLevy was a Catholic and the workings of such a mind would always be a mystery from Jean’s staunch Protestant viewpoint.
    However, she had taken the boy in and now he was her life and she his family, their bond was stronger than blood.
    ‘Your mother was a good soul,’ she said quietly.
    ‘I’ve been saving my pocket money,’ he replied as if in answer. Jean smiled; his shifts of thought were commonplace to her by this time.
    ‘Have ye now?’
    ‘But I don’t know if it’s enough.’
    ‘I’ll make it up. What is it ye want to buy, the Edinburgh Castle maybe?’
    He shook his head gravely.
    ‘No. A pair o’ tackety boots.’
    ‘Big heavy boots? And why is that?’
    He made no response but a look passed over his face, which many a criminal in years to come would recognise and then worry over.
    ‘Will we get a size up, so’s ye can grow into them?’
    ‘The bigger the better,’ said the boy.

    ‘McLevy, if it’s not too much of a burden, could you bring yourself back to earth?’
    The inspector wrenched himself from memory; God knows why such a recollection should have come into his mind and perhaps it was an offshoot of the personnel connected to the morning funeral, but then again McLevy’s thoughts did tend to drift when his superior was summing up the salient facts of a case.
    He looked at Lieutenant Roach and wondered if, like the crocodile, he ate his meat alive and kicking.
    ‘Your servant aye, sir.’
    ‘That provides great comfort,’ muttered Roach.
    The two of them plus Mulholland were ensconced in the lieutenant’s office with various chief constables, a Masonic lodge