Trick of the Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

re-evaluate his promotion prospects if Mulholland displayed a continuing talent for such fine-milled investigation.
    Ballantyne fell silent.
    They waited. Hounds on the trail.
    One of Ballantyne’s hands, which indeed had a life of its own, crept unconsciously up to touch the livid birthmark that disfigured his face.
    It was as if something had kicked Mulholland hard in the pit of his stomach; in the name of his own cleverness, showing off in front of his lieutenant he had humiliated a fellow constable, a fellow human being, and if the ground had swallowed him up like another vanishing act, he would have accepted it as part of his just desserts.
    Lieutenant Roach though was made of sterner stuff. He searched in his mind for a phrase to indicate that whatever mitigation of physical defect, he, as premier authority in the Leith Police station, could not allow mystic influences of any kind access to a cracked mirror.
    Strangely enough, nothing much came to mind.
    Out of the ether, however, a voice sounded forth.
    ‘Away ye go, constable,’ said James McLevy. ‘And tidy up your desk, it looks like a midden.’
    As the grateful Ballantyne quit the scene, the lieutenant reflected, not for the first time, how his obstreperous, noisy subordinate had the ability to ghost up out of nowhere.
    At the most inopportune moments.
    McLevy shot the shamefaced Mulholland a look to blister tarmacadam, and then turned to gaze enquiringly at Roach.
    The lieutenant found he had an obscure need to defend his actions, but why should he? He was the superior and he had no need to vindicate his conduct.
    ‘I caught Ballantyne in the act of gazing wilfully into his own personal likeness,’ he vindicated, nevertheless.
    ‘I gathered that,’ was the terse response.
    ‘Mesmerism has no place in my station!’
    ‘It’s all the rage,’ said McLevy, annoyingly. ‘I’m sure Mrs Roach is intrigued, is she not?’
    ‘It is superstitious drivel,’ Roach retorted, but was aware of the ground underneath his feet shifting as ’twere in a sandy bunker at the mention of his wife who was, in truth, intent upon dragging him shortly to some society cabal on the subject. For some reason arguing with his inspector often had this effect; the man instinctively perceived a weak point and then poked it with a sharp stick.
    McLevy adopted a mild, even more irritating tone.
    ‘There is a measure of scientific doubt, sir. And while science doubts, we must all hold our breath.’
    ‘I shall hold my breath for no-one. The pernicious influence of spiritism is creeping round this city like a pestilence. Like some sort of…Catholic plot.’
    ‘Oh, you blame the Pope, do you?’
    ‘I would not be surprised,’ expostulated Roach, who suspected his inspector of ultramontanist leanings; no-one knew where McLevy worshipped, if he did so at all, and the man was known to whistle seditious Jacobite airs to boot.
    ‘I had no idea.’
    ‘Had not of what?’ asked Roach, who was beginning to lose the thread.
    ‘That the Spider of Rome was weaving this web.’
    Roach took a deep breath.
    ‘Our country is founded upon the decent God-fearing bedrock of Protestant Christianity, McLevy. Undermine that, and anything can happen.’
    ‘So, in the defence of your realm,’ said McLevy, his tone changing of a sudden to reflect the angry contempt he felt within, ‘you would hammer in upon a glaikit wee boy who seeks to rid himself of the brand our deeply compassionate Lord has seen fit to burn upon his face?’
    For the second time that day Mulholland felt the ground swallow him up but, strangely enough, though a muted hiss escaped from Roach’s lips, he did not respond in a fashion the constable would have anticipated.
    ‘It is not our task to question the ways of the Deity, inspector,’ he replied firmly. ‘And, I would remind you, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’
    ‘That’s between him and me,’ was the equally obdurate response.
    Roach, in