Murder by Appointment: Inspector Faro No.10 (6 page)

^{Chapter 7}

Faro set off for the Central Office next morning, faced with an unpleasant duty: a further visit to the mortuary, where he hoped that his growing suspicions would prove incorrect and that the dead woman had been removed by grieving relatives or friends.

She had not.

And she was not alone. The trestle alongside was occupied by the corpse of an elderly man, the sheet being replaced by Dr Nichols who had just completed his examination.

'Brought in this morning, Faro. Constable Thomas has all the details.' The doctor looked up briefly 'Another case for you, I'm afraid.'

'Indeed?'

'Died within the last twenty-four hours. An attempt has been made to suggest that he had died in his bed, perhaps of natural causes such as cardiac arrest.'

'What do you mean—"an attempt has been made"?'

In reply Nichols removed the sheet and invited Faro to
inspect the man's skull. 'See for yourself. He was hit very hard
on the back of the head. The second fractured skull we've had
in this week,' he added grimly nodding towards the woman's body. 'Seems catching.'

And but for the grace of God, as Faro knew his mother
would say, it might well have been three. Himself included.

'Any identification?' Faro asked Thomas who had appeared at the door where he was disposed to linger. His wary glance
towards the two bodies indicated that he shared his superior officer's distaste for mortuary visits.

Keeping his distance, he took out a notebook. 'Found in a lodging house in Weighman's Close, sir.'

Faro knew the area off Leith Walk, poor and squalid, a shilling a week would provide a roof over a man's head and little more.

'He's a Mr Glen, according to the landlady. That's all she knew about him, or was willing to tell him. Except that he wasn't from these parts—from up north somewhere, she believed.'

As Thomas spoke, the doctor's assistant produced brown-paper bag and shook out a pathetic bundle of worn and none-too-clean clothes, patched and darned.

'This is what he was wearing, sir. Looks like an old beggarman.'

Faro was studying the man's face intently.

'A moment, Doctor, if you please.'

Removing the sheet from the dead woman's face, he remembered that her accent had been familiar and Lachlan Brown's talk of Glen Gairn had jogged a further chord of memory.

Turning to Dr Nichols, he asked, 'Look at these two. Tell me, do you see a remarkable resemblance between them?'

The doctor glanced over Faro's shoulder. 'In what way?'

'Could they possibly be related?'

Dr Nichols shook his head. 'All corpses look alike to me, I'm afraid.' His slightly exasperated tone suggested that
Detective Inspector Faro was being more eccentric than usual and that his hopes of a nice tidy disposal of the two corpses in the direction of his medical students was doomed to failure.

Faro motioned to the constable, who came forward reluctantly. After a careful scrutiny, eager to oblige, he said, 'You might be right, sir. They do look a bit alike. Same sort of bone structure. The woman looks younger, though there's probably not much in it. Another murder on our hands, sir?'

As they approached Weighman's Close by way of the quay
side, the crews of two ships moored alongside were the target
of good-natured catcalls from the fishermen unloading their catches to a screaming accompaniment of seabirds.

The
Royal Solent
, a handsome yacht, bound for the Isle of Wight, was frequently used by members of the Queen's
entourage or visitors to Balmoral who could afford the luxury
of a more congenial means of reaching Osborne House than the tortuous rail journey to the south coast of England,
followed by a short but often unpleasant crossing of the Solent.

The second ship was the
Erin Star
, sailing between Edinburgh and Rosslare, for wealthy passengers of a similar
disposition to those on the
Royal Solent
, who, anxious to avoid
a journey by train and the notorious Irish Sea crossing, wished to enjoy a voyage—good weather permitting—to Southern Ireland in relative comfort.

Faro remembered that one of Constable Thomas's recent tasks had been to arrest a stowaway who was carrying with him the proceeds of an Edinburgh jewel robbery. It had been one of the constable's first cases undertaken alone.

'You did very well on that one,' said Faro, nodding towards the ship. 'From what I read in the report, you showed considerable initiative—and courage. Well done, Constable.'

'Thank you, sir.' Thomas beamed. 'But I did have a bit of luck too and good timing, coming by the information unexpectedly!' he added modestly.

Earnest and ambitious, Thomas was new enough to the job to welcome exchanging the dull and mostly sordid daily routine for the possible excitement of a murder hunt, as Faro discovered when he enthusiastically led the way into the lodging house.

'I found the dead man upstairs in a back room face downwards on the floor, sir, and he didn't look to me like a man who had died of a bad heart. I know, sir. I've had some experience of heart attacks. I was with my grandfather when he died,' he added triumphantly as they ran upstairs. On the landing he turned to Faro and said, 'And the motive couldn't have been robbery.'

'What makes you so sure of that?'

Thomas laughed. 'You'll soon see for yourself. Nothing worth the stealing. Wait till you see the hole he lived in, he
added, opening the door of a bleak impersonal room furnished with the transient characteristics of most cheap lodgings in the
city. A rickety looking bed with patched thin cover held pride
of place beside a broken wooden chair, and a tin cup and saucer
on a derelict washstand.

Faro felt disgusted that anyone paid money for what was little more than a prison cell, especially when he opened the wall press. The empty shelves were covered with dirt and stains accumulated over the years by many former tenants
plus a strong suggestion that its present ones were of the rodent variety.

At his side Thomas sniffed the air. 'God, sir, even the mice must have a lean time existing here.'

The sorry condition of the man who had drawn his last breath in the squalid room was confirmed by a complete absence of possessions of any kind.

'Looks like he was in a hurry, sir. No intentions of staying any longer than whatever his dubious business dictated,' said Thomas.

Faro nodded. This was the kind of room he associated with
criminals on the run. He regarded the constable with approval.
Here was a young policeman who caught on fast. He would go
far, he decided, watching him examine the window, which rattled in the ill-fitting frame while a piercing draught issued from the direction of the Firth of Forth.

'That's how whoever topped him got in, sir.'

About three feet below the sill, a washhouse roof and a drainpipe would have presented little difficulty of access to a determined murderer.

'It could have had benefits both ways,' he told Thomas. 'For a criminal on the run, as well as a killer. Look—' he pointed to the broken lock. The sash window opened with a minimum of effort. ‘We had better speak to the landlady.'

But she was already hot on their heels, panting up the stairs,
demanding to know who they were and what they were doing
wandering about a respectable house without permission.

As Thomas stepped forward from behind Faro, she was somewhat mollified by the familiar sight of the policeman's uniform, for this was the same constable who had arrived on the scene when she rushed out screaming for help, yelling
that there was a dead man in her house.

When the man in plain clothes was introduced as Chief
Inspector Faro, her aggressive manner vanished and, anxious
to placate them and make a good impression, she suggested they adjourn downstairs to her own premises.

Faro was surprised after the sordid scene he had left upstairs to find himself in a well-furnished spacious parlour where nothing had been spared for personal comfort in the
way of cushions, highly padded sofas and a good burning fire.

A locked glass cabinet carried the usual insignia of the Edinburgh middle class, china ornaments, crystal and silver.

Mrs Carling was also well furnished with jewellery and as
well upholstered as her velvet sofas, her frizzled hair a shade of
red that nature had never invented. She obviously did well out
of her poor lodgers, thought Faro, as she invited the police
men to a glass of wine, which they refused. The gesture made, she sat down opposite and addressed them in sepulchral tones.

'That this should happen in my house. It is quite unbelievable—poor Mr Carling must be turning in his grave—'

As Faro listened he had a feeling that such tragedies among
the poor who rented her rooms upstairs were perhaps not all that infrequent and that poor Mr Carling's eternal rest might often be so disturbed.

She was at pains to emphasize that she ran a respectable boarding house for impoverished gentlemen and Faro could no longer restrain his impatience with the self-righteous monologue as she stressed her virtuous tolerance and warm
humanity. She was not pleased to be cut short by Faro's sharp
questions concerning the deceased.

'Mr Glen came to us three weeks ago. He lived very quietly—'

'I understand he was not from these parts—' 'That is correct. From somewhere up north, he was.' 'Then what was he doing here? Did he have a job?' Mrs Carling bristled at that. 'He did not have an occupation that I was aware of.' She sat straight 'I don't enquire about my gentlemen's business. That is their own affair. As long as they pay their rent regular and behave with decorum—'

'Criminals often pay their rent and behave with decorum.'

'I'm very particular about my gentlemen.' Her voice was heavy with outrage. 'Mr Glen was a very reserved, quiet boarder. Otherwise I would have sent him packing. There now.'

She paused to eye the constable sternly and her gaze drifted
towards Faro, conveying the unmistakable impression that
the pair of them might well not have met her high standards.

'I trust my gentlemen implicitly. They have their own keys
and the staircase is used by all of them.'

'So you wouldn't be aware if Mr Glen had any visitors last night?'

Visitors are strongly discouraged, Inspector,' Mrs Carling said stiffly. 'This is a respectable house,' she repeated.

Discouragement was hardly needed, for why anyone should
find comfort or welcome in visiting such a room as the late Mr Glen had occupied was something Faro would have enjoyed debating at some length. 'Did anyone call on him during his tenancy with you?' The woman's face shadowed. 'There was one woman— earlier this week. She looked about the same age as himself, on the elderly side. But she was tidy, neat, respectable-
looking, well spoken. I wouldn't have let the other kind across
my threshold,' she added sternly.

'Be good enough to define respectable-looking?'

Mrs Carling shrugged. 'She looked like she had fallen on bad times, they both did, come to that. I'd have put her down
as a maid in upper-class service, or a shop assistant. You meet
a lot of her kind in Princes Street every day of the week—'

Before she could go off at a further tangent, Faro asked, 'And how long did this visitor stay?'