Free Nor Will He Sleep by David Ashton Page A

Big Susan and Mae Dunlop. In their loving arms. I spent the night.’
    ‘Whores can be bought.’
    ‘Like policemen?’
    ‘Get out,’ said Mulholland tightly.
    ‘Yours tae command,’ Carnegie answered ironically. ‘Oh by the way – wait till you read the paper. It’ll make your toes curl.’
    But McLevy found the last word.
    ‘Sim?’ he called softly.
    The man turned, half in, half out of the room.
    ‘Your grief for your mother,’ the inspector tilted his head in acknowledgement. ‘It’s gey overwhelming.’
    For a moment Sim blinked as the shaft went home, then he slammed shut the door.
    There was a heavy silence.
    ‘We have an informer in the station,’ said Roach grimly. ‘Either careless or in Carnegie’s pocket.’
    McLevy nodded.
    ‘We’ll smoke him out.’
    A knock at the door and at Roach’s behest it opened and Ballantyne poked in his head.
    ‘Lieutenant? Ye told me tae report any more bicker wi’ the students?’
    Roach inclined his head to indicate agreement.
    ‘Well,’ Ballantyne announced earnestly. ‘A woman jist came tae the desk to put in a complaint that they’ve stolen her parrot.’
    ‘Why would they do that?’ the lieutenant asked wearily.
    ‘It had red feathers.’
    For a moment McLevy had a vision of the students plucking the parrot naked to augment their deluge for the gates of the Just Land, but then shook his head.
    Madness is catching.
    ‘She left the cage on the window sill,’ Ballantyne added to help the investigation, ‘and the wire door was broken into!’
    ‘’More likely she forgot to close it and the parrot flew away,’ Roach dismissed. ‘She can tell all to Sergeant Murdoch, I’m sure he can manage that much
criminality.’
    The constable nodded jerkily and was about to leave when McLevy stopped him with a sudden question.
    ‘Ballantyne – do you know anything about a white favour on the corpse?’
    ‘Aye. I saw it!’ came the proud response.
    ‘Tell me a wee thing, eh?’ the inspector queried, fearing the worst while Roach’s face set like stone.
    ‘Yesterday. After you left. I went into the Cold Room tae view the deid body. It’s important to look at cadavers, tae get used the sight in case you come upon them on
patrol.’
    Mulholland had been lost in a bitter past, but the thought of Ballantyne on the saunter through a slew of corpses brought him back to the present.
    ‘So,’ continued Ballantyne. ‘I saw the favour, I saw the deid body and I put two and two thegither!’
    ‘And who did you tell about this?’ asked Mulholland.
    ‘Only the boys in the station,’ replied the young man, beginning to grow somewhat uneasy under the questions.
    ‘Not Mister Carnegie by any chance?’ inquired Roach, whose face was like thunder now.
    ‘I jist saw him come and go,’ replied Ballantyne simply. ‘He’s not in the police, is he?’
    ‘So only the boys,’ McLevy pursued. ‘Why tell them?’
    The red birthmark pulsed on Ballantyne’s neck as he began to realise that he might not be the hero of the hour.
    ‘They’re aye making fun o’ me, because I don’t know anything. So I wanted tae let them see. That I knew.’
    Roach waved an exasperated hand at McLevy as if to say,
you deal with it,
and walked off to contemplate his Queen as the inspector took a deep breath.
    ‘Constable, if you ever have knowledge of something as regards an ongoing investigation, you must inform no-one but Mulholland or myself.’
    ‘Whit about the lieutenant?’
    ‘He has enough on his plate,’ replied McLevy while Roach kept his back to proceedings.
    Ballantyne was a picture of misery.
    ‘Did I do wrong, sir?’
    McLevy shook his head.
    ‘Silence is golden, jist keep that in mind. Now – away back to the desk and deal wi’ the missing parrot.’
    The young man nodded gratefully and shut the door.
    The inspector and Mulholland looked at each other and both bowed their heads slightly, perhaps to conceal a smile of sorts, but Roach was not amused.
    ‘How