Nor had the woman been fooled by the vacuous act. Jean could read it in her face.
‘I want the French girl back.’
‘That is not possible.’
Almost identical statements, but this time the claws were unsheathed on both sides; Jean calmly removed her hand from under that of the Countess and rested it some inches away.
‘I never force people against their will,’ she remarked, quietly. ‘It just brings grief.’
‘Don’t make an enemy of me, Jean.’
‘I hope you enjoyed the tea,’ came the response. ‘That coffee was a disgrace.’
The Countess laughed and leant back to gather her possessions as if accepting dismissal. As she did so, she spoke almost casually, drawing on a pair of black leather gloves, which encased the small hands like another skin.
‘But of course I know your history,’ she murmured as she prepared to rise. ‘For you everything must be a fight. You dragged yourself from the gutter, and the habit remains. To provoke, antagonise. From the gutter. How sad.’
‘You’d best depart,’ said Jean. ‘Before I burst into tears.’
The Countess stood, fished in her handbag to find a small purse from which she extracted some coins and then laid them carefully on the table.
‘For your trouble,’ she remarked.
Then she waited for a moment, gazing thoughtfully down at the seated woman.
‘I have always considered,’ she said finally, her eyes resting on the contours of Jean’s gown, ‘the show of colour to be somewhat vulgar.’
‘I like to be noticed,’ was the retort.
A shake of the head as if taste was a subject wasted on the garish, then the Countess’s face once more set itself in concerned sympathy.
‘Don’t go beyond your class, my dear,’ she announced gravely, ‘especially if you wish to avoid pain.’
And then she was gone.
As Jean sat alone toying with her teaspoon, stirring the coffee to see if it might alter the taste, a woman who had been sitting at a distant table walked across, dainty cup and saucer in a stubby-fingered hand, to seat herself heavily in the chair previously occupied by the Countess. Her name was Hannah Semple. The keeper of the keys of the aforesaid Just Land, loyal to her mistress unto death.
The death of others, that is. Hannah had a cut-throat razor and it was her boast that she rarely snapped it open without drawing blood.
Not in a Princes Street tea room, of course.
The clothes of respectability sat somewhat uneasily on her solid frame. By her own admission Hannah Semple was no beauty; a squashed pug-like physiognomy contained round deep-set eyes to echo the canine theme. Broken veins, which age and bitter experience had etched into her cheeks, added to the fine mix.
She reached across and munched into an untouched slice of Dundee cake. Jean said nothing. Hannah munched on.
Neither had noticed a small portly man who had slipped out from a table near the window and followed the Countess as she made her dignified exit. He had not paid his bill but that was not unusual for Alfred Binnie; his function was more a matter of exacting what was due and punitive.
He had paid keen attention to Jean Brash, weighing her up with dispassion as a poulterer would a live chicken.
Calculating which way the feathers would fly.
Upwards usually, as the blade came down.
Binnie left unseen. His speciality.
‘No’ bad cake,’ pronounced Hannah, sending a few crumbs flying to scatter like birdseed on the table. ‘Too dry, though. Lacks moisture.’
She knew her mistress well. Jean Brash had that broody look upon her face. Things had not gone to plan.
‘I am afraid, Hannah,’ said Jean, ‘that the Countess and I did not find a measure of agreement.’
‘Over that wee French trollop?’
‘A bruised and innocent lamb.’
‘She hasnae the pox, right enough,’ replied Hannah, helping herself to another slice. ‘The doctor confirmed same. Clean as a whistle. I meant tae tell you.’
‘I am glad to hear it.’
‘She’ll be useful, no doubt,’ was the stolid summation. ‘Innocence is aye useful.’
‘The Countess wants her back.’
‘Uhuh?’
‘I intend to keep her.’
Hannah shook her head gloomily. She had a bad feeling about all this; mind you she had a bad feeling about most things most mornings.
‘Did ye offer payment?’
‘Did I hell.’
That took care of that then. Trouble would ensue. For certain sure. Sharpen up the cut-throat.
‘The other yin’s a menace.’
‘Jessie?’
‘None other. Lippy. A menace.’
‘She has a deal to say for herself,’ agreed Jean. ‘But we may knock her into shape.’
Jessie Nairn, a pert wee magpie who had found her way over from Paisley to the Countess’s establishment, had also flown the coop. Her reasons were not scored so deep and Jean suspected a restless temperament allied to an eye for the better chance, the Countess being allegedly mean of payment and disposition. Jean had seen many such types as Jessie pass through her hands, but the girl had spirit.
Besides she had arrived with Simone. Justice for all.
‘She stays as well?’ muttered Hannah.
‘She does.’
‘Your decision, mistress.’
‘It is indeed.’
There was a gleam in Jean’s eye Hannah recognised. A fancy name for it would be the light of battle. Looking for a face tae punch would be another.
Jean’s own nose had been out of joint since the Countess had opened up a rival establishment in Leith and the fact that the boy Cupid had not been hanging round her skirts of late did not help.
Ah well, whit’s fur ye will no’ go by ye, Hannah resolved, even if it’s warfare and violence.
She joined her silence to that of her mistress.
They made an odd pairing: a dumpy thickset creature and the refined woman of fashion.
Both were warriors.
However, what was coming would be a cruel reminder that no-one is as strong as they hoodwink themselves to be.
A universal truth. Rarely realised.
For Sophia Adler, across the room, waiting patiently for a slow-witted local lassie to emerge from the depths of the kitchen with a pot of your finest Scottish brew as Magnus had commanded, it was a different contemplation.
She had been content to watch her companion wreak havoc amongst the plump pigeons of the tea room with his hawk-like demeanour, but then her attention had been drawn towards the two women sitting diagonally opposite.
One was beautiful, one was not.
Sophia had the fleeting image of a dark shape shifting between them. Death perhaps. It was much on her mind.
Of course – the moment was broken by the thud of the teapot as it landed on the table, spilling some brown liquid out of the spout to stain the white covering like dirty blood on an altar cloth – of course, and her lips twisted in a smile of wry amusement as she watched the scared waitress scuttle back to the safety of the kitchen, it could have just been…a trick of the light.
Now you see it. Now you don’t.
4
I think for my part one half of the nation is mad
– And the other not very sound.
TOBIAS SMOLLETT,
The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves
Lieutenant Robert Roach clove easily to moral indignation, long upper lip swirling in ethical distaste as he heaped scorn upon the luckless Constable Ballantyne.