Murder by Appointment: Inspector Faro No.10 (2 page)

^{Chapter 3}

Against Vince's professional advice, Faro presented himself at the Central Office of the Edinburgh City Police the following morning. His appearance, two hours later than usual, aroused some whispered speculation among the young constables on duty outside.

Faro, fully aware of their interested attention, made a firm progress up the steps, his hat pulled well down over his forehead to conceal Vince's bandage. Considering the soreness of his head and the unsteadiness of his legs he was grateful for his stepson's insistence that Briggs drive him there in the brougham.

'Anything to report?' he asked the man on desk duty.

The constable looked at his list. 'Three breakins, two cases of assault, three of soliciting, oh aye, and at five this morning,
a woman's body—carriage accident apparently.' He looked up. 'Bastard hadn't even stopped—'

'Where is she now?'

'Down below, sir. Don't you want the rest?' he added with another look at the list of minor crimes.

But Faro was already heading swiftly along the corridor down the stairs that led into the chilly depths of the police mortuary. A grim place where, at the discretion of the police
surgeon, unclaimed bodies became the property of his medical
students after three days for the purpose of dissection.

After all Faro's years as a policeman, the fate of unidentified
sheeted corpses lying there never failed to chill his soul.

Today there was only one body on a trestle in solitary isolation in the middle of the room.

Dr Nichols, the police surgeon, looked up from his desk and
greeted the Inspector cheerfully. His rotund body, white hair,
luxuriant beard and rosy cheeks plus the permanent frown
between his eyebrows suggested a genial Santa Claus who had
found himself in the wrong role.

He removed the sheet as requested and Faro found himself looking down on the face, now tranquil in death, of the woman who had pleaded in vain for his help and protection.

'They are going to kill me—'

The sombre words echoed in his head. Ashamed that he had believed this unfortunate woman had set him up for a
gang of thieves, he touched the sleeve of his coat as if to ward
off the memory of those frantic clawing hands. If only he had
reacted with more speed. If only his normal awareness of danger had not failed him.

He sighed; his life story seemed characterized by those fatal
words: If only...

'Brought in early this morning,' said Dr Nichols.

'So I was told. What about her injuries?'

The doctor shrugged. 'Consistent with being run over by a carriage. What one would expect. Here—and here—' He drew the sheet down further. But Faro hardly listened.

'Was there any possibility that she was already dead?' he asked, cutting short the doctor's clinical details. 'I mean, before the accident?'

The doctor knew Inspector Faro and his reputation too well to regard this question with surprise.

'Wheels run over her were enough to kill her. Did plenty of damage—liver, spleen, ribs—see for yourself—'

Faro averted his eyes from the mangled corpse. 'Do we know who she is?' The doctor shook his head and Faro sighed. 'Any clues to her identity?'

'You can see what we have for yourself.' As Nichols signalled
to his assistant, Faro remembering the woman had been
empty-handed, knew the answer. And if she had been murdered,
as he suspected, her killers, in their own interest, would have made certain she carried no means of identification.

As they waited, Nichols looked at Faro. 'Murder, sir. Is that what you have in mind?' And he spilled the bag of clothes out
on to a spare trestle. 'This is what she was wearing.'

Faro unfolded a black cloak and a grey merino dress. Even in
better days undrenched by rain, they would have been shabby
and threadbare. They were, however, neatly patched. The linen undergarments, chemise, petticoat, drawers, repaired and carefully mended, the stocking feet well darned. The condition of her clothes and the stitching indicated that their
late owner was of a careful disposition, either a seamstress of
some ability or lady's maid. The excellent quality of once-fine
linen indicated that in all probability they had been passed
down to her by some grateful well-off employer or benefactor.
Her hands, neither rough nor red, were further confirmation of his suspicions.

'That's all there was, Inspector. No reticule. Perhaps it rolled away somewhere. We'll never know. Nothing here to tell us who she might be, sir.'

But the doctor too had come to his own conclusions. 'All the signs indicate a member of what we like to call the respectable poor, sir. Servant, like enough, I'd say.'

Faro agreed but with some cautious reservations, based on bitter personal experience. Clothes did not always tell the truth and could be deliberately misleading. As he had found to his cost in the Case of the Missing Duchess.

'Let me see.'

He studied the woman's face carefully before Nichols replaced the sheet. The doctor looked puzzled at the intensity of Faro's gaze.

'Something I missed, Inspector?'

Faro shook his head. 'No. I thought when I first saw her that we had met before.'

'And have you?' said the doctor hopefully.

When Faro shook his head, the doctor smiled. 'You must have a good memory for faces, sir.'

'Goes with the job, doctor. But I'm afraid it has let me down
this time. No matter. Tell me, were there any marks besides those of the wheels?'

'Then you are suggesting this might be murder, sir?'

'Without going into the details of the assault on himself, Faro nodded. 'Could be.'

The doctor whistled. 'Rum business, Inspector. That mighty crack on the back of her head might not have been
contact with the carriage wheel, or the ground when she fell.'

Faro winced, remembering the heavily nobbled stick, the kind carried by desperate men who meant business, rather than a gentleman's accessory, as the doctor continued, 'Her skull was fractured.'

'Would that be enough to kill her?'

'Yes, of course. But I must point out to you that this injury is also consistent with the carriage accident.'

'Where was she found?'

'In Dean Village.'

Faro looked up. 'Hardly a busy thoroughfare. Not exactly the hub of the heavy carriage trade at five in the morning.'

The doctor sighed. 'The assumption is always that the driver was one of those young blades, reckless—and drunk.'

Pausing, he regarded Faro earnestly. 'You know it as well as
I do, Inspector. These young well-off lads will do anything to
avoid trouble, bringing discredit on their families and so forth. Manslaughter is a difficult tag to have to live down if
your heart—or your family's heart—is set upon seeing you as
advocate—or doctor—or minister of religion.'

But Faro was hardly listening. Dean Village was on the other side of the town, far beyond the Mound and the Georgian New Town with its staid streets and crescents of elegant houses.

Thanking the doctor for his help, he returned grimly to his own office upstairs. The time that had elapsed and the distances involved suggested that after the two men's murderous assault on him, the woman had been similarly treated and was already dead or dying before the carriage accident was staged.

He shuddered and touched the bump on his head tenderly. If his skull hadn't been thick, then he might have been occupying the adjacent trestle in the mortuary.

'Bound to happen to him with his kind of life. All the enemies he made. All the villains he put away. Just got unlucky, that's all. You can't win for ever—'

Such would have been the verdict of his colleagues. With a
funeral service in St Giles, laid to rest in the quiet grave beside his beloved Lizzie, he would have been luckier in his
demise than the dead woman. The fate of unknown corpses at
the hands of medical students, although necessary for the progress of medical science, continued to trouble him.

There was nothing he could do to avert the inevitable. Unless he could produce evidence before the Procurator Fiscal within three days that the woman had been murdered and produce an identity and a family who would make the
necessary funeral arrangements, he would be left with another
unsolved murder on his hands.

Vince had insisted that Briggs bring him home again and Faro was not displeased to be carried back to Sheridan Place where the smells of baking greeted him as he opened the
front door. Rich fruit cake and roasting meat assured him that Mrs Brook was preparing a banquet fit for his daughter Rose.
With the assistance, sought or unsought, of the new maid, May.

Faro sighed. Rose's imminent arrival presented problems momentarily more pressing than the dead woman's identity.

As for Mrs Brook's behaviour, he suspected this might indicate a smouldering volcano threatening his peaceful domestic scene. Once in sole command of her two gentlemen, she had warmly welcomed the young mistress but,
apart from dark glances, kept her own counsel, refusing to be
drawn on Mrs Dr Vince's contribution of a mute servant into the household, despite the girl's tragic history.