Blood Line (24 page)

'I'll help you with the spelling. No, you must write it yourself, or you'll never learn. Right? "Major General Sir Eric Haston-Lennard, Edinburgh Castle", that should find him.'

As the girls went upstairs with Mrs Brook, their father promising to read a very short story to them, Mary Faro picked up the envelopes and sighed. 'I shall miss Eric very much. He's such a dear, good friend.'

'Then invite him for Christmas too.'

Mrs Faro gave a little shriek. 'What? In my tiny house - what would the neighbours think?'

'I imagine they would think you were very lucky to have such a beau.'

Mary Faro blushed very prettily. 'Get along with you, Jeremy Faro, he isn't my beau.'

'But he would like to be? You know that perfectly well, Mother dear, and you're flattered by his attentions. I can see that.'

She sighed again. 'What it is to have a detective for a son - one hasn't a bit of privacy for one's emotions.'

He put his arm round her, hugging her. 'All these wasted years, the two of you. Why on earth didn't you marry him years ago?'

She looked up at him solemnly. 'I don't know, Jeremy. I think I've always loved him, but something has always said, "No."'

'It's your silly snobbery - thinking yourself not good enough for him, that's all. It isn't too late to change your mind, you know.'

She shook her head obstinately. 'No. I had a bad dream just after your dear father died. Sir Eric was so good to us but I never, ever forgot it.'

'But Mother, dreams are nonsense. You can't throw away happiness for a dream.'

'I could for this dream. No - I'm not going to tell you any more, so don't ask me. Listen, that's Mrs Brook. Your daughters are ready for their story now, son.'

Next morning at the Central Office, Faro was in time to sign the papers identifying the dead man but not to halt the process of his being, as Superintendent Mackintosh delicately referred to it, 'tidied away'. And although Faro now knew the reason why Harry Femister had been on the Castle Rock that day, he could not change the clause 'Death by misadventure'. That must stand until such time as a murder charge could be brought, and first he had to catch his murderer.

'Well, Faro?' said the Superintendent. 'Get on with it. We're in for a busy day. Her Majesty left Balmoral yesterday. One of her whims to stay the night in Perth and proceed on another private visit to Peebles. She has expressly commanded that none of this is to be made public but we'll have to post extra constables as usual.'

'Are we expecting trouble?'

'No, but we'd better be prepared -just in case. There's a lot of isolated country
en route
where a Fenian could lurk. Don't suppose your services will be needed though,' he added sarcastically and turned his attention again to the papers on his desk in a gesture of dismissal.

In a room down the hall the charred contents of Harry Femister's tin box had been examined by the expert Sergeant Adams. Warned that they needed very careful handling, since they would readily disintegrate, Faro soon discovered that what had survived were merely personal and not particularly literate or interesting letters exchanged between the two brothers.

He had almost completed his reading when Adams came in and set before him a crumpled piece of paper, which he smoothed out carefully.

'This came from the mortuary, Inspector. The dead woman had it clutched in her hand. I don't suppose it'll make much sense, but we have orders not to destroy anything till you have had a look at it.'

Faro picked up the paper. It was charred at the edge and it contained only the scrawled letters 'rich as'.

'Rich as - who?' Was this the last remaining clue to the Queen Mary jewels? Faro sat and looked at it for a long time, then he sharpened a pen and began idly to copy the letters in the hope that they might provide a clue. As he did so a picture sprang to mind. Of the last moments of a woman trying to fight her way out of a locked bakehouse, desperately trying to write a message. Another picture took its place. Of two small children laboriously writing at a table.

His hand trembled so much he could hardly pen the short note. At last he threw down the pen, engulfed by an icy sense of disaster which even the knowledge that he had solved the Edinburgh Castle mystery could not diminish.

'Found something interesting, Inspector?'

'Take this to Superintendent Mackintosh. Tell him where I've gone and that he's to come at once.'

Chapter Fifteen

At the Castle, Sir Eric was sitting at his desk, writing. He looked up, smiling. 'Jeremy, come in, lad. I've been expecting you. Do sit down.'

Faro remained standing. 'You know why I'm here.'

'Of course I do. From the moment I heard you'd found Dowie, I knew the rest was just a matter of course.' He gave him a shrewd glance. 'You're a clever chap, Jeremy, no doubt about that.Your dear mother must be proud of you.'

'Let's leave my dear mother out of this conversation, if you please.'

Sir Eric spread wide his hands. 'As you wish, dear boy. Anything you wish.' His manner was gentle, benign.

'Then first of all, tell me, who murdered Harry Femister? You know who Harry Femister is, I imagine.'

'I do indeed. A foolish old chap whose sympathies with the French Canadian rebels were well known. He climbed Castle Rock presumably with some idea of breaking into the royal apartments and finding that allegedly hollow wall on the very day Wolseley stormed Fort Garry.' He shook his head sadly. 'Only a madman would have tackled such a hazardous - and impossible - venture.'

'Who did you get to kill him - Forster?'

'Good Lord no. There was no need for anyone to kill him. The moment he set foot on the Rock, he was doomed. He had scaled his own death warrant.'

'Helped by one of your loyal servants, of course.'

Sir Eric shook his head. 'No, Jeremy, without any external help, you must believe me. His death was an accident, self-induced. He slipped and fell, a misadventure that could easily have happened to a young strong man half his age.' He sighed. 'However, it was just as well it happened that way. His attentions were becoming a bit of a nuisance, too persistent to dismiss as harmless eccentricity.'

'Was Mace's death also a fortunate accident?'

'I'd rather not go into that, if you don't mind, Jeremy,' said Sir Eric with a delicately expressive shudder. 'I'd have chosen a cleaner end then relying on his taste for antique pistols. He had come upon some evidence that we were not very keen to share with the world in general. And being a very moral chap, that was the only - rather messy - way to silence him.'

'You're admitting conniving at his death?'

'It was necessary. A soldier's duty to his Queen and country is to protect her at all times and Mace's information could have been disastrous to the safety of the realm.'

'What about all these other murders? All the people who died because they wanted to tell the truth - that the child's body in the wall here was that of Queen Mary's son, James, and that every monarch since has been descended from an impostor?'

'How romantic,' said Sir Eric mockingly.

'There's nothing romantic about eight murders.'

'Eight murders!' Sir Eric threw down his pen violently, an impatient gesture betraying the first emotion he had shown so far. 'Haven't you the least idea how many men - thousands, tens of thousands - I have ordered to certain death in the field in my years of army command - and you expect me to have feelings of guilt about a mere eight?'

'In the battlefield you were fighting against an enemy,' Faro reminded him.

'Is that so? Are not all men, eight or eighty thousand, composed of the same flesh and blood, capable of the same emotions, of feeling the same joy and pain? Besides,' he went on hurriedly, 'what do you think these men were but enemies of the Queen?'

'One of them happened to be my father.'

Sir Eric sighed. 'Magnus Faro was a fine fellow, one of the best who ever lived. I was sadder about Magnus than almost anyone I have ever known. Truly sorry, Jeremy.'

'Then I'm afraid you'll be a great deal sorrier when I do my duty to my Queen and country and arrest you as an accessory to murder.'

'You won't do that, Jeremy.'

'It is my intention, and who will stop me?'

'I will, lad,' said Sir Eric sadly. 'It is my intention that you are to be put under immediate restraint.'

Faro looked over his shoulder. Forster had entered with three other civilians. Of equal stature, they bore unmistakable signs of having served an apprenticeship in the wrestling ring. He braced himself. He was hopelessly outnumbered but he wouldn't go down without a fight. In a tight comer, he could give a good account of himself, for there were some very devious tricks he had learned in his time with the Edinburgh City Police calculated to throw even strong men off guard.

'Take him,' said Sir Eric tonelessly.

As they pinioned his arms to his sides, Faro said, 'Have you another accident in mind for me? I hope it's a convincing one this time.'

'You may rest assured on that score, Jeremy. We are very efficient in that department.'

'So I've observed. Tell me one thing, Sir Eric'

'With pleasure, my boy.'

'You have been like a father to me, you supported my mother and I believe you have a certain fondness for her. You knew that I was in danger. How did you reconcile your conscience with giving orders that I was also to be disposed of, by an "accidental" fall of rock?'

Sir Eric regarded him steadily. 'You will keep forgetting that I am a soldier first and foremost, lad. Many times in my life I have had to obey orders, as you are doing now, because they were given by the highest in the land, Her Majesty the Queen herself. As you must have experienced many times yourself, doing one's duty can be unpleasant, sometimes it can even wring a man's heart.'

He stood up. 'We are ready to leave now.'

'Where is Lucille?'

'Lucille should now be at sea on her way back to Orkney. When I suspected that you were on the right track and might arrive at any hour, full of accusations, I thought it best to terminate my niece's visit. Especially as the foolish girl seems to imagine she's in love with you.'

'Does she know anything of all this?'

'Of course not. She's a silly romantic girl.' He looked at Faro and that moment's compassion, more than any threats, chilled him to the heart. 'I'm sorry, I hope you don't reciprocate her feelings because I'm afraid you are unlikely ever to meet again.'

'Tell me, where did the plot to kidnap my two daughters fit into the plan? Was that just to scare me off too?'

Sir Eric shrugged. 'There never was any plot to kidnap your little girls, Jeremy. Their abduction that night was, I suspect, just what it appeared to be. Another attempted child abduction, common enough in the sordid annals of Edinburgh's underworld.'

He signalled to the four silent men. 'You know what to do.'

Faro was led by his captors, arms held firmly but unobtrusively, downstairs to a carriage waiting at the open door leading to the empty quadrangle. There was no point in crying out - nor any opportunity to do so - as he was bundled inside.

The window blinds had been drawn and one of the men tied his hands together behind his back while another blindfolded him. He cursed them roundly, realising that he was to be executed like a trussed fowl instead of being despatched, as he had always imagined, in a straight fight to the death.

The carriage moved off. They were travelling down the steep High Street. It was a road he had travelled often enough in his twenty years, strange that this was to be the very last time. Time, he thought, had almost ceased to exist for him. He had been denied even the condemned man's last requests, that he might say farewell to his mother, to Rose and Emily and to Vince. Especially Vince, dearer to him than any man alive, and very nearly his own son.

At last the carriage stopped. He was helped out and felt the warmth of summer sunshine on his face. Savouring that moment of finality, he took a deep breath before being led forward, warned of a step and propelled through a succession of stone corridors.

Were they going to put him in some miserable dungeon and leave him there to die? At least he was glad there was no resemblance to the creaking wooden floors of East House Asylum. They meant that he should have a less lingering end than poor Peter Dowie.

He realised that stone had given way to polished marble, for once his injured ankle, unused to such speed, slipped and only his jailers' support kept him from falling. Around him the echoes signified space, indoor space for there was no longer summer warmth or birdsong. He had the impression of a large room, the creaking of doors opening and closing, sounds of breathing, the clank of arms, as if the doors were guarded. Where in God's name had they taken him?

'Stand there.'

He did as he was told, wishing he could identify his place of execution. A moment later, the blindfold was removed. The large room was familiar. He was in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. He had been here before with the Edinburgh City Police during an attempted break in.