A Quiet Death (6 page)

The young man, recognising the voice of authority, saluted smartly thereby giving the whole game away. Faro raised an admonishing finger and with a sad shake of his head, still chuckling, caught up with Vince.

As they approached the town centre he asked idly where the police station was located.

'You are not going there, Stepfather? I thought you were on holiday?' There was no reply from Faro. 'You cannot resist a mystery, can you?'

'There is something wrong, Vince. Take my word for it.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake. That constable could have been watching the tenement. There's plenty of petty crime in Paton's Lane, believe me.'

When his stepfather remained silent, he said: 'Regarding the girl Polly, there is a perfectly logical explanation which I am sure must have occurred to you almost immediately, as the reason for her suicide.'

'One you considered too indelicate to mention to McGonagall?'

Vince nodded grimly. 'Exactly. I suspect that neither of them went to London nor had they any intention of so doing. As you well know, in every big city, here and in Edinburgh, there are what are known in polite society as gentlemen's select clubs, patronised by the wealthy. And a positive refuge for young women whose ambitions are stronger than their morals.'

'Would Polly not have been more use to them alive than dead?'

'I think you'll get your answer from the police surgeon at the mortuary. I presume that is your destination,' he added in disgust.

When Faro mumbled: 'Something like that,' Vince continued: 'The answer is easy. The wretched girl probably found herself pregnant. In eight cases out of ten, that is the reason for suicides among young unmarried girls. Either betrayed and abandoned by a lover they cannot face the future or disowned by parents unwilling to endure a daughter's disgrace.'

Not either, sometimes both, thought Faro grimly, remembering how his dead wife Lizzie had been made to suffer, a fifteen-year-old servant girl, for bringing Vince into the world.

'Polly must have been pretty sharp about it,' he said, 'seeing that she had only gone missing for a few weeks.'

'Come, Stepfather, you can do better than that. I imagine that girls, the pretty ones with potential, are discovered and recruited on the weaving factory floor. Not literally, of course,' he added with a grin. 'They probably work part time in the select clubs until they soon find that working hours in both establishments and keeping up a pretence of home life are too exhausting and opt for the more lucrative nightwork. I would presume that Kathleen Neil wanted to spare McGonagall's feelings, hence the postcard from wherever it was posted.'

Faro was not convinced nor was he to be diverted from his purpose by Vince's argument.

He had no difficulty in identifying himself in the police station. They were fortunate, he was told, that the police surgeon had been called in to deal with a fatal accident enquiry. He was to be found in his temporary office.

'Is this an official enquiry?' asked Dr Ramsey nervously. He was young and clearly impressed to learn that Dr Laurie had been assistant to the Edinburgh City police surgeon.

Vince quickly explained that his visit was on behalf of his landlady, Mrs McGonagall, quite distraught about a missing female relative. Ramsey listened with an expressionless face.

Then abruptly he led them to the mortuary and raised the sheet on a girl who had been pretty and voluptuous too. Surprisingly, however, the medical exchanges between Ramsey and Vince, including the fact that Polly Briggs had been a virgin, made nonsense of an unwanted pregnancy or indeed of prostitution.

Vince was also puzzled. 'I wonder why she committed suicide, then. An unhappy love affair, do you think?'

'Perhaps,' said Dr Ramsey.

'Have you any theories?' Faro asked.

'No. None at all. Now if you will excuse me, gentlemen...'

Faro looked sharply at the young doctor. His negative was a fraction too emphatic, his first eagerness to be helpful had faded rather suddenly. It indicated a refusal to discuss the subject any further, unusual between two doctors with a common background.

As they left that sad icy room of death they almost cannoned into a constable ushering a wild and distraught-looking man towards the door.

'Another poor soul come to identify a victim. God, how I used to hate those moments,' said Vince, 'when there is nothing you can say or do to give any comfort.'

At the front door, Faro paused. 'I think I will just pay my respects to Superintendent Johnston before I leave.'

Vince looked up at the clock. 'And I have a surgery in half an hour. See you later, Stepfather. Enjoy the play.'

'Are you not coming too?'

'Not tonight. I have an engagement.' With a gentle smile, 'Besides I've seen McGonagall's Macbeth twice already.'

'Oh. Is it worth my while?'

Vince laughed. 'Knowing your sensitivities, I wouldn't recommend it if I had any doubts. But this is a performance not to be missed. You have my word,' he added as they parted.

Faro was warmly welcomed by Superintendent Johnston, who had called upon his assistance on several occasions to investigate murder or fraud cases where there was involvement with an Edinburgh area.

'What brings you here?'

'My stepson, Dr Laurie, had business with Dr Ramsey. Concerning the girl who was found drowned. The suicide.'

The Superintendent nodded sympathetically. 'That was Briggs, her father, just gone along to make the formal identification. Poor man, he'd just heard about it. Someone read it in the paper and told him. Apparently the lass has been missing for weeks now. Tinkers they are, left their travelling circus in Fife. He's been searching for her everywhere.'

Faro looked up with new interest. 'I wonder, could I have a word with him before he leaves?'

At the Superintendent's puzzled glance, he said: 'My stepson lodges with the man McGonagall who came in earlier today. A young relative, a girl, was friendly with the dead lass. She is also missing.' His enquiring glance brought no response. Obviously the Superintendent knew nothing of any misfortune to Kathleen Neil.

'McGonagall, eh? We thought he might have done her in. Gave orders to have him watched. Looks weird and wild enough. But you can't go on appearances,' he added in what sounded like regret.

Promising to dine with the Superintendent and his wife on some future visit, Faro excused himself quickly and walked towards the mortuary where Polly's father was just emerging.

Overcome with grief, the tears spouting from his eyes, Briggs sobbed noisily into a large red handkerchief. To question him at such a time seemed a terrible intrusion into his agony.

'My condolences, sir,' said Faro. 'Come, let me help you to a seat—over here.'

'She's dead, my bonny bairn,' was the savage reply. 'What can you do to help?'

'I am a detective inspector, sir. We have knowledge that her friend Kathleen Neil with whom she lodged at the McGonagalls' was with her a few weeks ago. She is still missing. I am trying to trace her and any information you have might be of considerable assistance.'

'Kathleen Neil, that one. What's she done?'

'Nothing as far as I know. My enquiries are on behalf of her relatives who are naturally very concerned.'

'Oh I just wondered. Wouldn't put anything past that one. She was a thorough bad lot. If it hadn't been for her, our Polly would never have left home.'

'In what way did she influence your daughter?'

'They met when we were doing a penny gaff at Magdalen Green. We often called on members of the audience to do a turn and this Kathleen was persuaded by her uncle, or whoever he was, that actor chap, to do some bird calls.' And grudgingly, 'They were very good. She could have made a name for herself in the halls and seemed to have a liking for the travelling life. But she was ambitious and lazy and went back to the weaving after a day or two. Polly told us she had some well-off gent in tow who had promised to better her. We all know what that meant, of course,' he added scornfully.

'What happened then?' Faro ignored the implication.

'Our Polly just walked out on the circus. Went with her. Left home.' His sobs renewed. 'They'll never convince me that she took her own life. Oh dear God, dear God. That police doctor told me that she wasn't in the family way. As if any lass of ours would kill herself for that,' he said scornfully. 'There are no unwanted bairns with us. All are welcomed however they were come by. Welcomed, aye, and loved.'

'When did she leave home exactly?' asked Faro gently.

'About two months since, it would be. She had heard that there was money to be had in Dundee. The building of this bridge and so forth. There would be lots of chances for young lasses getting employment with Deane's.'

'And that was the last you heard of her?'

'Oh no. She came home a couple of times.'

'But there was no other communication?'

The man frowned. 'Communication?'

'I mean did she write at all?'

'We don't go much on writing, sir. Moving around all the time doesn't give much call for scholars. As long as we can count up the pennies that's all is needed. Last time we saw her was—I don't remember exactly—a few weeks ago.'

'That isn't very long. Did she perhaps go to London with her friend?'

'London? There was never any mention of London.' He made it sound like the ends of the earth. 'She was staying in Dundee and she promised faithfully to come home for her brother's wedding. When she didn't arrive we knew there was something wrong.'

'It might have been difficult for her getting back—if she did go to London.'

'London or Timbuctoo, what difference does it make? She would have come home for the wedding. A tinker lass's word is her bond. 'Sides she'd never have gone all that way to a foreign place without telling her family.'

Refusing Faro's offer of fare for a carriage back to Carnoustie, or for the train, as they neared Paton's Lane Briggs said proudly: 'Legs were made to walk on, sir. Mine have been carrying me on longer roads than that for fifty years now.'

Watching him walk away, their despondent farewell brought acute memories of that other bereaved father on the railway platform. And Faro remembered his promise to McGowan.

Could that have been only yesterday?

Retracing his steps to the police station, Faro asked the Sergeant in charge, Crail by name, if he might take a look at the accident log.

'Anything particular you're interested in, sir?' asked the Sergeant, torn between helpfulness and curiosity.

'A lad, Charlie McGowan, worked on the bridge.'

'Oh that one.' Flicking through the pages, he said: 'Here it is, sir.'

As Faro suspected, there was nothing in the entry to suggest it had been anything else but a platform that gave way on one of the piers. But turning over the pages for the last few months, he remarked:

'There do seem to be rather a lot of fatal accidents on the bridge.'

'What can you expect, sir? The Tay is notorious for high winds, it can pluck a body right off those pieces of iron, just as easy as winking,' Crail added with a kind of gruesome relish, and closing the logbook firmly: 'Anything else I can do for you, Inspector?'

Faro smiled. 'I'm curious to know why when I asked to see this particular entry you said: "Oh that one." '

The Sergeant raised his eyes heavenward. 'Oh, the poor laddie. We were all sorry about that, but his father just won't accept that it was an accident. According to him it was a personal vendetta between the lad and Deane's.' He touched his forehead significantly. 'Not quite right, you know. Grief gets them that way. We try to be sympathetic but what a trial he has been to us.'

'I understand his daughter-in-law, the lad's wife, also disappeared about the same time.'

Sergeant Crail gave a long-suffering sigh. 'Disappeared, left home. We put it on our missing persons list, of course, but when you've been on the force as long as I have, you know that if we stopped to investigate every case like that, we'd have no time left for crime. There's a dozen good reasons why a young widow should want to get away from it all and none of them very sinister.

'After all,' he added earnestly, 'perhaps she didn't care for her in-laws and we have only McGowan's word that she was happily married.'

Two missing women, two bereaved fathers mourning a son and a daughter, refusing to believe their deaths were accidental or self-inflicted but helpless to convince those in authority.

As for the girl Kathleen, he strongly suspected that she had never left Dundee either and all his instincts told him that Polly Briggs was a murder case. And that Dr Ramsey had his own reasons for silence.

He hated being baffled but any further investigations were the sole responsibility of Dundee City Police and as far as Detective Inspector Faro was concerned, the murderer's identity was of merely academic interest.

Too bad, but no doubt Vince would keep him informed of any interesting developments after his return to Edinburgh next week.

Chapter 6

Faro had the rest of the day to himself and was surprised to find that Dundee's rush of wealth had, perhaps as a result of Sir Arnold Deane's benevolence, proved a boon to the common man. As he wandered through Overgait and Nethergait he noted that the shops looked prosperous. Although their windows were less elegantly dressed than those of Edinburgh's Princes Street, their prices for the goods on display were considerably lower.