Free Nor Will He Sleep by David Ashton

obedient servant.
    Victoria’s face gave nothing away. She had an empire to rule and little spare time.
    ‘My mother is dead,’ Carnegie repeated. ‘A savage, brutal murder. Why? And who? Who is the killer?’
    ‘The investigation has scarce begun,’ said Roach in what he hoped was a comforting but firm tone.
    ‘I am a journalist, sir, and I know the pace of investigation in Leith. Like a snail!’
    ‘The race is not always to the swift,’ Roach replied, concealing his indignation at this downright calumny.
    But denial would not help. Better to bow the head and wait for the storm to pass.
    ‘Not always to the swift,’ he muttered.
    ‘That is by the by!’
    Carnegie now began to talk in banner headlines.
    ‘I intend to write a scathing indictment of your force, sir. And the
Leith Herald
will ask the question why you have not acted upon the evidence!’
    ‘Evidence?’
    ‘A white favour, found upon the body!’
    The lieutenant almost jack-knifed in surprise.
    ‘How do you know this?’
    ‘I have my sources.’
    As Carnegie treated Roach to a sly and secret smile, the door opened and James McLevy poked his head inside.
    He and Mulholland had sneaked in before they went to Salamander Street to snaffle a cup of Sergeant Murdoch’s execrable coffee and share a piece of honeycomb the constable had planked at
the station.
    When told the contents of Roach’s office they had decided to come to the rescue or, in the inspector’s case, to indulge his nosiness.
    For one thing would always be true about James McLevy, high or low, dead or alive – he was nosy.
    In fact it was his recorded wish to have this inscribed upon his tombstone.
    Here lies a nosy man
.
    With the constable behind, he stood impassive as Roach brought them up to date.
    Since he and Mulholland had had their ears casually pressed to the door and eavesdropped the end of the conversation, McLevy was unimpressed by the repetition of Carnegie’s little
bombshell.
    ‘The streets were littered wi’ these favours,’ he averred. ‘Your mother could have picked it up anywhere by pure coincidence.’
    He did not, of course, mention hooking it out of the corpse’s mouth; only the three of them knew that, though there was another question to address.
    Who the hell had informed Carnegie about the favour?
    ‘Aye, but try this for size,’ Carnegie shot back with a twisted grin. ‘These students are spoiled rotten, no moral compass worth a damn. Strive tae outdo each other. A murder.
That would be the ultimate, eh? Win at all costs.’
    ‘A good headline,’ McLevy allowed. ‘But there is the small matter of proof.’
    Sim Carnegie stood and pointed an accusing finger.
    ‘Proof? Proof is whit you believe to be true.’
    With that corrupt aphorism he made for the door, only to find it filled by the form of Mulholland.
    The constable showed no sign of moving and the dislike in his eyes was palpable.
    A girl’s shrunken body lay face down the cobblestones, her face white, neck broken by one single deadly blow.
    Like a rag doll.
    A young constable, not long begun his shift, knelt down beside the pitiful wreckage and gently turned her to the light.
    He knew that face and his insides lurched.
    Rose Dundas.
    A pretty name for a pretty wee girl.
    Pretty no longer.
    Carnegie did not budge either, hard bright eyes full of self-justification.
    ‘Still bear a grudge, eh, Mulholland?’
    ‘Only till my dying day,’ was the reply.
    ‘I was just doing my job. Pure and simple.’
    ‘Like Judas Iscariot.’
    ‘Ye blame me for your own faults.’
    Both McLevy and Roach knew the history of this exchange, but that was not the issue at moment as the constable stood slightly aside, forcing Sim to squeeze past.
    While the man’s hand reached for the door handle, McLevy slid out an apparently idle question.
    ‘Where were you last night, when midnight chimed? At prayer, I suppose.’
    Sim turned, his smile a slit in the face.
    ‘I waited for you to get round tae that.