Murder by Appointment: Inspector Faro No.10 (14 page)

'Not a great deal. At least not until evening. Then I must visit Seamus.'

'And after that?' he asked, hoping to sound casual and failing miserably to hide his eagerness.

Her eyes widened again momentarily before she looked
away from him, studying the staircase as if it offered immediate
escape from a difficult situation.

'I have other people to see. I intend to fight with every means
possible against Seamus's sentence. So grossly unfair, it is.' Turning to him again, she said, 'Now, if you'll excuse me—'

Reluctant to let her go, he said desperately, 'What about tomorrow then?'

She shook her head but he pretended not to notice. 'Look,
my official police business is finished. I don't need to go back
until evening—catch the last train.'

She smiled and, suspecting hesitation, he seized her hands, held them tightly. 'Shall we spend the day together? Please, Imogen.'

The smile vanished. Her face expressionless, she said, 'That
would be fine. Sure now, I would enjoy that.'

'See you after breakfast then.'

He watched her go. At the foot of the stairs she turned,
faced him. For a moment he thought she was going to change
her mind but, with a shrug, she ran lightly upstairs.

He slept badly that night. Vivid dreams concerning the following day awakened him like warning signals of evil to come. But worst of all was the knowledge his waking mind stubbornly refused to accept. How Seamus Crowe fitted
exactly the description of one of the visitors to Miss McNair's
cottage and it took little imagination to identify the veiled young woman as Imogen Crowe.

They were Irish with Fenian sympathies. And as the two
people had been murdered, their connection, however vague,
made them possible suspects whom Chief Inspector Faro in any
other circumstances would have been very eager to question.

Arriving at Imogen's hotel in good time for their breakfast
meeting, Faro asked the desk clerk if one of the pony chaises they advertised for the use of residents was available for hire.

The arrangement made, he hurried into the dining room.
There was no sign of Imogen and in a pretence of reading the
morning newspaper he sat through half an hour of despair.

She had changed her mind.

But as he was about to leave a message for her she appeared
breathless in the hall.

'Sorry about that. I had someone to see late last night. And I overslept.' She smiled. 'Sir Hamish has offered to put in a plea for Seamus, to have his sentence reduced. Isn't that wonderful? Especially when he's from the North—'

'He lives in Ulster, but he was born here in Stirling. He's a Scotsman,' Faro corrected her.

'He still belongs to those we are fighting against. But he's a
very nice man.'

Faro had already decided that from his fleeting acquaintance
outside the court with the man whose looks were so familiar.

'No, thank you,' said Imogen to his offer of breakfast 'I'll keep my appetite. Where are we going?' she asked as he led her outside to where the pony chaise was waiting for them.

The sun shone radiantly, the streets gleaming after an early shower of rain.

Half an hour later they were trotting briskly along the road towards Menteith and Inchmahome. A boat was for hire and
Faro rowed towards the island which beckoned over the water.

'How lovely.' said Imogen as they stepped ashore.

As they walked towards the ruined priory, Faro said, 'It has quite a history. Mary Queen of Scots stayed here as a child with her four Marys, safe from the machinations of the
Scottish nobles. Here is the spot where they played, according
to legend: Queen Mary's Bower.'

The sky clouded over and a thin breeze ruffled the waters. The feeling of rain was in the air and they took shelter in the
crypt, burial place of the lairds of Menteith—lairds with their
ladies, resting at their sides for all eternity, in that peaceful place.

The sun returned and they sat on the turf with their backs against a broken wall. 'I must thank you,' Imogen smiled and looked across at the priory, 'for such an unexpected—happy day, and this pretty place.'

'Perhaps we'll meet again—visit other magic places—'

She shook her head. 'No.' Her tone was firm.

'Why not?' he demanded sharply.

Turning, she looked at him, exploring his face with eyes that held a caress. 'You know the reasons perfectly well, I think, Inspector Faro,' she said softly.

'I thought we had agreed you were to call me by my name,' he reminded her gently.

'No. Inspector Faro will do fine for what I have to say. It is better for us both this way. Sure, I was glad to see you. Don't think for a moment that I'm forgetting what you did for my reputation, but friendship between us is not—and can never be—part of the deal.'

'Friendship is not precisely what I have in mind—'

She covered her ears, shook her head as if to thrust away his
words.

Dragging her hands away, he held them firmly and said, 'Hear me out—'

She looked up at him. 'No, you hear me out. I am doubly grateful to you for giving me a character reference, let's not forget that. But—and it's a big but—there's two hundred years of bitterness and the Fenians between us.'

She gestured to the ruined walls of the priory. 'This is your
history; mine is even older. We belong in the mists of legend,
the pre-Christian Fenians—
fianna
, as they were called, were a
band of warriors like those of King Arthur. It was an order of
chivalry, the very spirit of Ireland, heroic conduct with magical
undertones. The number of
fianna
was seven score and ten chiefs, every one having nine fighting men under him, and each of them bound by three sacred vows: to take no woman
or goods by force, to refuse none who asked for cattle or bread
and to fight to the death at the side of their chief. And no man
was worthy to join the
fianna
till he knew by heart twelve books
of poetry. Not even for the country of everlasting youth—the
Tir nan Og
—would the
fianna
give up Ireland—'

Faro listened silently, studying her face, observing in her eyes conviction and complete dedication to the Irish cause.

'The saga combined self-reliance, attachment to the earth and a strong ring of anti-clericism. The
fianna
flourished in Ireland in the second and third centuries of the Christian era. They resisted conversion and when St Patrick pronounced the doom of hell upon them for their pagan ways, the bard Oisin told him: "Better to be in Hell with Finn, than in Heaven with pale and flimsy angels ..."'

Faro groaned inwardly. Her ringing tones, her shining eyes also pronounced doom on his growing love for this passionate patriot who was doubtless a member of a terrorist organization.

She turned on him and smiled. 'Even today, I believe their pagan beliefs are stronger than lip service to the Virgin Mary.'

'Such sentiments are splendid, Imogen, but they belong in legend. Frankly, I cannot reconcile chivalry with hearts that throw bombs to maim and destroy, and assassinate their political opponents in the name of religion.'

'Sure and I agree with you—in principle. But who first drew the sword in Ireland? Not the Irish, I can assure you. We were
a conquered race, like you here in Scotland. God knows, you people have even less to thank England for. We have Cromwell's murderers but you have Edward the Third at Flodden Field and Butcher Cumberland at Culloden. As for
the name Fenian, it was chosen about a generation ago for the new embodiment of Irish national feeling. Not to be confused
with the more modern Irish Republican Brotherhood of the last decade.'

With its murderers,' he interrupted.

She paused apologetically. 'I didn't mean to give you a
lecture, Inspector, but it's all very close to my heart. I grew up
with the legends. The heroes were real people to me and my uncle, Seamus's father—him your people murdered—' she added bitterly, 'he made me learn them by heart. My child
hood was steeped in the sagas. That's probably what made me a writer.' She sighed. 'Every day I had to recite a new passage
and he made me promise to do the same for his son should anything happen to him—'

As she spoke Faro thought of her uncle Brendan Crowe, the
fanatical patriot who had brought his adopted niece with him to London, his whole purpose to kill the English monarch
whom he held personally responsible for all Ireland's sorrows
past and present. In an assassination attempt on the Queen in St James's Park, he had been fatally wounded by the police. Rather than be taken prisoner he shot himself in his lodging. Imogen, a girl of sixteen, was with him and, accused of sheltering a terrorist, she was sent to prison.

'You can't blame Seamus,' Imogen went on. 'He was born
and bred to hate the English and die for Ireland. A passion and
loyalty so strong he was even willing to leave his young wife
and baby son back there, believing that as a newspaperman in
Scotland he could do more to further the cause, certain that,
with Home Rule just around the corner, he could recruit a few
good fighters to scare the wits out of the British.' She made a
wry face. 'And not only with guns. He claimed I had taught him that the pen was mightier than the sword.'

A shrill whistle announced the boatman's return and as they
walked towards the landing-stage she took from her reticule a
small booklet, hardly bigger than a pamphlet. 'Read this sometime. It will help to set your ideas right about the movement.'

With a gesture of impatience, Faro thrust it into his pocket,
aware that for him the day was almost over. He was conscious
that little had been achieved. Painfully aware that the vivid unhappiness of the dreams that had haunted him were on the way to realization, he looked sadly across at Imogen.

Ignoring him, she trailed a hand in the water and watched the island all the way back to the shore while Faro searched her face for regret. The regret he was feeling was that
somehow they had left part of their lives, lived briefly in less
than an hour, on that strangely magical island. He would hold
in memory for ever Imogen clasping her knees as she sat on
the velvet turf by the ruined wall, the breeze ruffling her dark
hair, the vision of Inchmahome with its tombs of warriors, and
the voice of Imogen Crowe reciting the story of the
fianna.

In the pony chaise that awaited their return all such magic evaporated. Faro's mood changed to deepest melancholy, as a thin driving rain cut sharply across Flanders Moss and struggling to hold up an umbrella against the elements left little chance for conversation.

Outside the hotel, Imogen once more held out her hand.

'Goodbye—and thank you again.'

'Is it to be goodbye? Can we not make it
au revoir
?'

Stubbornly she shook her head. 'No. Goodbye it is.'

'Why, Imogen, why?'

'Sure, haven't you taken in a word of all I tried to tell you out there?' she demanded, shaking her head. 'There's the Irish Sea and two hundred years of bitterness between us, remember.'

'Seas can be sailed on; bitterness can be laid aside. Others than ourselves have overcome it in the past—'