Murder by Appointment: Inspector Faro No.10 (21 page)

As she spoke Faro suddenly sprang across to the door. He moved so lightly and soundlessly that when he flung it open, Andy Carling catapulted into the room, his mother's warning scream a second too late.

'Back from Glasgow already,' said Faro amiably. 'No need to listen at keyholes, lad.'

'I wasn't—just came in. Heard Ma had a visitor. I was curious.'

'So we see. Well, now that you're here make yourself at home,' said Faro leading him to the table and pushing him into a chair. Sitting opposite, he said, 'Now what have you to tell me about Constable Thomas's visits?'

Andy exchanged an uneasy glance with his mother. 'It had nothing to do with us.'

'So you know what I'm on about,' said Faro. 'That's a relief. We're looking for reliable witnesses to the incident.'

'I don't know anything about him being stabbed. The man what did it, everyone knows he's a killer and keeps wide of him. They got into an argument, that's all we know.'

Mrs Carling put her hand on her son's arm. 'Will he need to go to the court?' she asked anxiously, her mind clearly dealing with many other crimes that might be unmasked.

'I don't think that will be necessary, seeing that the constable's killer is dead. Jumped from a moving train.'

'Well, well,' said Mrs Carling in tones of obvious relief. 'At
least my laddie is saved the ordeal. This sort of thing is so bad
for a lad's reputation.'

Faro smiled grimly. And young Andy's shady activities were
safe from exposure for a little longer.

'You'd better tell the Inspector what he wants to know.'

'I don't know nothing, Ma. You know that. I'd have told you.' Andy whined.

Faro stood up. There was nothing more he could do, except
waste time trying to wrest information out of the Carlings.

'If you change your mind, or if your mother persuades you to do so, you know where to find me.'

Number 9 Sheridan Place was silent, empty. As Faro wearily climbed the stairs to his study he realized that Vince and Olivia would not return from the wedding in Dunblane until Wednesday.

But on Wednesday, Vince came home alone. He had persuaded Olivia to take a few extra days at the famed Hydro.

'Such indulgences are necessary in the early days of pregnancy, Stepfather. And she had May to look after her.
They'll be back with Rose at the weekend. What's been happening to you in our absence?'

Vince listened intently as Faro brought him up to date. He too was shocked by Constable Thomas's death and the rever
berations this would have on Olivia's maid, whom, according
to Mrs Brook and Constable Lamont, he intended to marry.

'What a dreadful blow for that poor afflicted girl.'

As Faro laid a wreath on Thomas's grave overlooking the sea
in Crail, his thoughts were with May.

Vince had sent a telegraph to Olivia, telling her of the constable's death, and Faro expected to see the maid among the female relatives and friends gathered in Thomas's home, since it was not the usual practice in Scotland for women to accompany the coffin to the graveside.

But May was not in evidence. Constable Lamont looked round and shook his head sadly. 'Shouldn't be surprised if she's had a complete collapse with shock, poor lass. 'Sides she's never met Charlie's mother or his family—'

The tearful, sad-eyed group of women clung together in the white-washed fisherman's cottage in a close by the harbour. The constable's father laboured painfully to attend the needs of the mourners, offering drams, receiving their murmured condolences with a shake of his head, a grief-stricken
parent walking through a nightmare from which there was no
awakening.

All his hopes had been buried with his only son in that grave
near the stormy shore where the winds already played havoc with the bright wreaths so reverently laid.

And Faro had brought home to him that day the similarity
of his own family history to that of Charlie Thomas. His father was son of a poor Orkney crofter scraping a living from the sea. But Magnus Faro had been clever, the 'lad o' parts'. Sacrifices had been made to send him to the Scottish mainland to fulfil his heart's desire and become a policeman.

Magnus had done well, only to be run down by a carriage in
Edinburgh's hilly High Street late one night—murdered, as his son was to prove many years later—because his disclosures in the case of the mummified infant in the wall of Edinburgh Castle, perhaps the rightful King James VI, put the Royal succession in jeopardy.

Faro had been four years old. His mother Mary took him back to Orkney where she in her turn made sacrifices for his education and upbringing, so that he might follow in his late father's footsteps.

She had watched him leave with unspoken forebodings, but
her fears that history might repeat itself had been unfounded and Chief Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro was touching the pinnacle of a brilliant career. The next step would be Superintendent, a step he had little desire to take for it meant sitting behind a desk issuing orders.

A safe job, but not one cut out for him, he thought as he
boarded the train and sat glumly silent beside Lamont and his colleagues returning to Edinburgh after the young constable's
funeral.

Never had he been so thankful to see the welcoming lamps in
his own windows. He would be glad to shed the miasma of sorrow, share a drink with Vince and chat over the problems of a successful young doctor's practice.

He heard voices in the drawing room.

Olivia was home.

He threw open the door, called a greeting.

Olivia was holding Vince's hand as they sat alone close together by the fire. Something in their attitudes, in the
shocked countenances they turned towards him, had his heart
leap in a shaft of terror.

'Rose? Isn't she with you?' Faro demanded.

Olivia shook her head and began to cry.

Faro dashed to Olivia's side. 'Rose—is something wrong with
Rose?'

Vince put a hand on his arm. 'I'm sure Rose is all right, she's
been delayed, that's all,' he said smoothly. 'However,
Olivia—Olivia has something to tell you, Stepfather. You had
better sit down.'

So saying, he poured a dram and thrust it into Faro's hand. 'Now, dearest, please tell him what you know.'

Olivia nodded miserably, twisting the lace handkerchief around her fingers. 'At the beginning, it was just a trivial mistake, the kind of incident that happens to us all.'

She paused and sighed. 'You remember the day Rose and I went to Duddingston Fair?'

'I do indeed. That was also the day you announced your delightful news.'

Olivia wavered, her hand went immediately protectively to her stomach. She nodded. 'Rose had promised to look up the great-aunts of one of her favourite pupils. And they were there, two dear old souls, sisters, full of chatter, bright as squirrels—'

Her description brought Bessie McNair's chatty neighbours
vividly before Faro.

'They looked at May—I had called her forward to help carry
some of the things I had bought at their stall. She seemed
reluctant, she always behaved shyly, as you know, but, for a
moment, she didn't seem to hear me and she seemed to— shrink away from them.

'I laughed a little at her keeping her head well down as she gathered our purchases together. The sisters were chattering like magpies to another customer, suddenly one of them
looked up and said, "Oh, it's you, dear, I thought I recognized
you." And the other sister came forward at that. "Did you find
the house that was for sale all right?"

'Well, May just stared at them blankly and, with a quick
glance at me, hurried away with Rose, clasping her parcels. I was curious. I wanted to know what it was all about. I waited
till they had served the next customer and then I said, "You know my maid?"

' "Not exactly," said one, "but we've met before."

^‘
"When was that?" I asked.

'They were more than willing to tell me. "Your maid, is
she? She came to look for a house in Duddingston. There was
a cottage next door to us, and we saw her peering in the windows. Apparently she was looking for a house. We told her it wasn't for sale." '

Olivia paused, made a helpless gesture, 'I thought, the sly
thing keeping it to herself, so I told them we gathered that she was going to marry our local policeman. They looked puzzled
at that because she had said the house was too small for her. With a husband and four wee bairns.'

Olivia stopped breathless and looked from Vince to Faro.

'I asked them, "You mean, she actually spoke to you?" They
were both emphatic about that and an argument followed about who said what to whom, which I interrupted to ask if
they were absolutely sure we were talking about the same person. They said of course they were sure, her accent being Irish, like their dear mother.

'I was shattered at being deceived by her. Pretending not to be able to speak. It took me all my time to be civil to her on the way home, I can tell you.'

She was silent for a moment and Faro remembered their return from the fair and Rose saying that someone had recognized May and wasn't it a small world.

And Faro cursed himself for not listening more carefully, detaching himself as he always did from any domestic chitchat, when he might have learned so much—

Olivia sighed and continued. 'I was fairly shattered at her
pretending to be dumb, but I told myself the two ladies might
be mistaken and, when I mentioned it to her—tactfully, she just shook her head wildly, indicating that she must have a double.

'I realized that was probably true. She's a plain little thing
and the two ladies, well, let's face it, they did seem a bit dotty.
Anyway, I determined to forget about it.'

She stopped and took a sip of water.

'When we were in Dunblane for the wedding, Vince decided
that after he left May should go to Glasgow and bring Rose
back to the Hydro, that we would be company for each other.'

Again, she paused and Vince patted her hands. 'You'd better continue, dearest, if you're up to it. Or shall I tell Stepfather the rest?'

'No. No.' Olivia sat up straight. 'At the wedding reception. I had met an old friend of Aunt Gilchrist who, I discovered, was also staying at the Hydro. At breakfast, in the course of our conversation, the inevitable subject of maids came up.

'She said, "Your poor dear aunt was so shattered when hers
died of a fever. She loved that poor dumb creature, treated her
like a daughter. We were sure it hastened her end—" I couldn't
believe what I was hearing. I asked her to repeat it—'

Olivia paused, shook her head. 'There was no longer the
slightest doubt. The maid was May Moray. May, whom she'd
taken from the orphanage, who had been with her for six years.
The friend went on to say how Aunt had told everyone that
when she died her great niece—me—was to take care of her.'

She looked at them both, smiled sadly. 'Aunt Gilchrist had
told everyone how proud she was that I had married into such
an illustrious household, with a Chief Inspector of Police as stepfather-in-law.