aven had just been told to keep his distance when his eye was drawn to something on the other side of the Cowgate. At first he couldn’t be sure because he only glimpsed them through the departing congregation, but as he moved beyond the crowd and the pair drew close, there could be no mistake. Walking westward towards the Grassmarket was the woman who had recently come to him with such horrific bruising, accompanied by a scowling and ruddy-faced man.
They were both dressed for church, heading home from worship. Her head was bowed low, as though reluctant to meet anyone’s eye, while he walked with his chin thrust forward, his peering eyes seeming to challenge the world around him to explain itself. It was Sunday morning, but Saturday night was still etched across his visage, a drinker’s face with pudgy pink skin and a bulbous nose. These were the only parts of him that appeared soft. The rest of the man resembled a coiled spring.
They had passed by the time Raven made it across the road. ‘Mr Gallagher!’ Raven hailed him, making sure he had the right person.
The man turned around, his expression conveying irritated curiosity when he failed to recognise who had called him. His wife, by contrast, had a look of fear as she immediately identified the man approaching them. She was evidently terrified of the repercussions should her husband learn what Raven had deduced, or maybe even the mere fact that she had visited a doctor.
‘What do you want?’ he asked, looking Raven up and down. There was evident disdain at being summarily apprehended by some young upstart, though Raven noted that his eye lingered a moment upon the scar.
‘I need to speak to you.’
‘Then speak.’
Mrs Gallagher’s head remained down. Raven was sure she was trembling.
‘It concerns a delicate matter, inappropriate for discussion in front of your good lady wife.’
Mr Gallagher looked confused and dismissive, instantly relegating anything Raven might say in terms of its potential relevance.
‘Please, I’m sure what I have to impart will be greatly to your benefit. Let us step somewhere close by where we might enjoy some privacy.’
Raven led him off the Cowgate into a narrow close between two buildings, the hubbub from the Free Church congregation immediately softer.
‘Well,’ Gallagher said impatiently, ‘out with it.’
‘I am your wife’s medical practitioner. I thought we ought to discuss a chronic condition that has been afflicting her.’
His suspicious eyes narrowed further. ‘What condition is that?’
‘Please do me the courtesy of not thinking me a fool. She endeavoured to conceal the source of her injuries for fear of more. But I understood what I was looking at all too well.’
Gallagher looked outraged at Raven’s impertinence. ‘She doesn’t pay attention. She gets distracted. A man works all day, then comes home to find the last of the flour’s been ruined. What business is it of yours how a man runs his house or disciplines his wife?’
‘Oh, we’re talking about discipline? Is that the same mettle you require to say no to another whisky when you’ve already drunk your fill and spent the wages your wife needs to live on?’
‘Who the hell do you think you’re addressing, boy?’
‘I am acting in my patient’s interest.’
‘No, you’re sticking your neb where it ill belongs. So you should mind it doesn’t come to some harm.’
Raven noticed Gallagher ball his right hand into a fist. It hadn’t taken much. He knew a thing or two about men like this.
Raven put up his palms in a placatory gesture. ‘Very well, Mr Gallagher. It is your business how you discipline your wife. Just as it is my business how I treat her affliction. And having identified that affliction as the lump of shite standing in front of me, I hereby prescribe a remedy. I am going to ask her to come and see me regularly, and if I see further evidence of your hands upon her, I will find you and I will knock seven bells out of you. That way you get to handle your business and I get to handle mine.’
Rage built up in Gallagher, but he did not move. Yet.
‘I’ll do what I will with these hands, son, including beating you to a pulp if you ever cross me again.’ Gallagher made another fist. He was getting there, but something was holding him back: the very fact that Raven was not afraid.
‘Why wait? I’m in front of you right now. Come now, you’ve shown great vigour in hitting a woman. Why don’t you show me how you hit a man?’
‘I won’t do this on the Sabbath.’
Raven put his hands by his sides, leaving himself open. ‘Does that mean your wife can burn the scones with impunity today?’
That was the tipping point, the moment Gallagher’s rage overcame his cowardice. He swung for all he was worth, launching his fist towards Raven’s face. But Raven was quick; quick enough for a drunk like him. He moved his head in a twinkling and Gallagher punched the wall, with all his weight behind the blow.
Gallagher dropped to his knees, letting out this guttural moan as he looked in horror at the mangled fingers, broken, bloody and raw. The only thing he had beaten to a pulp was his own hand.
Raven stood over him and held his chin, forcing him to look up.
‘Remember I did this without even touching you. Strike her again and that will change.’