The Balmoral Incident (11 page)

Olivia had sent the girls up to bed and Gray took a seat at the table with us.

‘We need to ascertain who was the last person to see the young woman before the accident.’ A question that to my ears again sounded familiarly like the preliminary enquiry in a murder investigation. Neither Olivia nor I were sure of when we had last seen her, used to her flitting silently to and fro in the cottage, ignoring us and never indulging in any conversation, however trivial, that might have been remembered. But we both knew that it was Mabel the inspector had in his sights, failing to understand that the girl had been her personal maid and, with all that implied, must have had a daily routine.

All I remembered was that Lily didn’t go out with Mabel in the pony cart because she wasn’t feeling well. And that was while we were at Braemar Castle two days ago. That
was the last thing I recalled, although I had heard them after that, talking upstairs with Mabel haranguing Lily as usual. I could not swear that was only yesterday and neither could Olivia.

Gray seemed to think this very odd, until we explained that as Lily was Mabel’s maid we did not expect her duties to include waiting on us, beyond obliging with an occasional cup of tea or, when Mabel was absent with us at some grown-up function, looking after the two little girls. In retrospect now, this latter made me very fearful for their safety.

Everyone was being questioned. Gray insisted that, secretive by nature, Lily was a young woman, after all, and using phrasing more delicately for our benefit, he suggested as he had done to Vince that she might have been enjoying the attentions of some young man unknown to us. He had obviously profited by his visit to the stables.

I didn’t see her in the role of a flirtatious tease or a seductress, but following Gray’s philosophy, boys would be boys too. Mabel immediately endorsed that Lily had visited the stables frequently.

‘On the slightest excuse. I had to reprimand her on several occasions when she should have been attending matters relating to my toilet and wardrobe,’ Mabel added grimly.

And so began the wearisome prospect of Gray interviewing any whose path Lily might have crossed in the faint hope that she might have told someone her life story. This included our two daily maids; the exotic gipsy-looking Yolande and Jessie in the slender hope perhaps that Lily might have shared girlish confidences with them.

They shook their heads. ‘Never spoke a word to us.
Thought a lot of herself, she did. Head in the air, went on as if she was too good for us, being a lady’s maid and all that.’

Olivia said hopefully that maybe she had made a friend among the stable boys, one who had been bold enough to pierce that secretive shell. I felt this was a waste of time. I had my prime suspect. The mystery man of the dark forest, my rescuer with his rifle.

I put this to Vince later, carefully omitting that incident and merely remarking how I thought I had seen Lily in conversation with him in Ballater, and that Dave our driver saw them together.

I added: ‘Remember, the same man who almost missed the train in Edinburgh and was at the gipsy encampment?’

Vince, baffled for an instant, shook his head. ‘Oh him, one of the ghillies,’ was his only reaction as if this was quite insignificant.

‘Does he work on the estate somewhere? I met him in the forest and he was carrying a rifle.’

‘When was that?’

‘Two days ago. The day Lily disappeared.’

Vince thought for a moment. ‘The same man you
thought
you’d seen a couple of times. Come on, Rose, what’s the connection – only that you’ve got a good memory for faces.’

I could hardly explain without telling him the reason was that at first glance he looked like Danny. That would sound so absurd, this painful reminder, no longer mentioned between Vince and me since Jack and I married. The past had ceased to exist; it had been very carefully laid in the grave beside Danny.

Vince was frowning. ‘Oh, I expect this fellow will be questioned with everyone else.’

I couldn’t understand, it seemed that he was the obvious person, the prime suspect. I went back to the Ballater incident. ‘The way our driver Dave said it, rather coyly, seeing them together, I wondered if they might be lovers.’

‘Really?’ Vince sounded interested. ‘Did Dave know him?’ he asked.

‘No, but he said he’d seen him around the stables and the description sounded like him.’ As I repeated it, Vince smiled, a little wearily, I thought. ‘Tall, thin, dark hair! Looked like a gipsy.’ Vince laughed. ‘Come on, Rose, that could apply to half the young men in Deeside. Pure coincidence.’

In my experience coincidence is never pure but there was no point in arguing. Vince was saying: ‘HM had a word with me this morning. He is, of course, seriously concerned, as am I, about the fact that the girl was living in his private cottage. You know how anxious he is not to let that get abroad and I was made to feel somehow that it was my responsibility to sort it all out. Clear the path, as he called it.’

He laughed bitterly. ‘He trusts my discretion. He reminds me constantly that Inspector Faro was his mother’s personal detective and how she valued him. He saved her life once or twice, as I expect you know. Anyway, seems to think I helped Stepfather in some of his cases and that I might have inherited some of his genius. He is now seeing me in that role. Which is, I’m afraid, too big for me.’

A good doctor but a poor actor, I thought. That was
true. But the role wasn’t too big for me, I was used to solving crimes – Lady Investigator, Discretion Guaranteed, crimes small and large, and that included murder.

I decided I would say no more, keep it from Vince, go undercover as it were, and find the answer to Lily’s death, for I was certain that this was no accident.

I had not a great deal of time either; we were to return to Edinburgh after the Highland Games at Invercauld, the climax of the royal season. Olivia sadly would have to miss it; as well as her pressing London engagements, she had a family wedding, a Gilchrist niece getting married in Surrey, that she could not cancel. At her side Faith constantly bemoaned having to be parted from Meg, while Olivia’s patience wore thin.

‘After all, Faith knew that we wouldn’t be here all the time with you,’ she shrugged. ‘Of course, she didn’t expect her cousin Meg, so much younger, would turn out to be a soulmate.’

I sympathised since I got plenty of the same kind of moans from Meg. These domestic issues were all very trying as I had additional very real fears of my own about those Games and the opportunity they would provide for Lily’s killer on the loose among all those illustrious guests.

But I was no longer free to pursue my investigations as I might have been in Edinburgh. Here I had family commitments, of the most pressing kind. I was a mother now. I had a seven-year-old to take care of, my first duties were to her, and I must never forget that with Faith gone Meg would need me to share the hours of her lonely days.

I had also expected Mabel to take her departure with Olivia, sharing the long train journey back to London,
since her main reason for coming with us had been, as well as the women’s suffrage meeting, to be reunited with her old friend. Some tactful hints that she would miss Olivia were dismissed with a sad shrug but she showed not the slightest inclination to cut short her holiday. She was clearly enjoying herself and had adapted to the lack of a personal maid, quite content with daily expeditions in the pony cart, either following the guns or into Ballater. Never the easiest or jolliest of companions, here she would remain with us until the holiday ended and Vince saw her safely onto the London train.

Then suddenly we heard from Vince news that we had been dreading and everything else was momentarily swept aside by another crisis looming. A crisis closer to my heart and to Meg’s than even her distress at Faith’s imminent departure. On our doorstep this time, the secret of Thane’s presence was out.

The King knew we had a magnificent deerhound, more than usually large for the breed. And he was very interested. That was all that had been said, but it awoke volcanoes of terror.

We decided that this information must be kept from Meg. Vince hoped that with the Games looming, the King might be too busy and that by the time he remembered about the deerhound, it would be too late and we would be back in Edinburgh, with Thane safe to roam again on Arthur’s Seat.

That proved to be a forlorn hope, however, and we were fated to have a quite unexpected encounter. From the cottage we often had a fleeting glimpse of HM riding out of the stables, if we were up and about early enough each morning. A creature of habit, he normally followed a set daily route around the estate which we were careful to avoid, regarding our little wood as quite safe, the only place where we exercised Thane each day, completely cut off from any view from the castle.

We had got to know it well and Meg was intrigued by
the tiny island mid-river with its monument, and each time we passed the wee anchored boat she reminded me that I had promised we were going to row over and explore.

‘We can’t take Thane,’ I reminded her again. ‘He is much too large, we would capsize. And you are never to go without me. Understand?’

The boat looked very old and fragile but I was determined to take it out and test its safety before risking Meg, especially as there had been wistful hints of a picnic with Faith before she left, arousing fears that Meg with her sense of adventure might persuade Faith to tackle it on their own.

Meg had decided that the folly was set up by Queen Victoria over a graveyard for her beloved pet dogs. I thought that improbable but it had that touch of sentiment and romance that she enjoyed, always preferring real stories rather than Grimm’s fairy tales.

Suddenly Thane rushed back to us and took his place at our side.

We felt the ground shake, birds happily chirping in the treetops took off into the air with startled cries at the sound of horse’s hooves and the jingle of harness.

Two horses appeared. There was no mistaking the rider in the lead. Meg and I curtseyed, expecting him to ride on, but the King reined in, looked down not at us but at Thane at our side, fearing for our safety, not his own.

‘That is a very fine animal,’ said the King to his companion, presumably an equerry. ‘Bring him over.’

The man dismounted and came over to us. Thane
was stiffly on guard as the man approached. The equerry looked at me and said sharply: ‘Why has he no collar?’

‘He never wears a collar.’

‘That is surely most unwise for a valuable animal,’ was the disapproving reply. ‘No lead either, I see, and that is a requirement on the estate.’

Ignoring that remark, I said: ‘He is very obedient and will go with you if I tell him to.’

There was nothing I could do. Meg was at my side, trembling, her grip on my hand painful. Thane was looking at us both, hesitating.

‘Go with him,’ I said.

Thane trotted off looking offended, his backward glance at us anxious as the King dismounted.

Meg whispered: ‘Why did you do that, Mam? You should have told him to run away. Hide among the trees!’

‘Shh’ I said. The King was examining Thane, his head, flank, ears and mouth were explored by what seemed expert hands. Through all this Thane stood alert, his head averted, and if a dog could be said to signal displeasure, he was doing so. The King of England was just another human and he was fussy about being handled, much less being touched, by strangers.

The King looked up and spoke to the equerry who signed to us to come forward. It was no more than a few paces but it felt a lot further.

Again we curtseyed and he looked up from handling Thane as if aware of us for the first time. We weren’t important.

‘He is your dog?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘How old?’

‘About ten, Your Majesty.’ A wild guess since I had no idea, only that he had been with me for ten years. I could only pray that an advanced age might put the King off the idea of owning such a dog.

‘Indeed? Remarkable, he looks quite a young animal.’

Turning from stroking Thane’s head, he looked up at me, a flicker of recognition in those hooded eyes. ‘Ah, my physician’s sister, is it not?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

He nodded towards Thane. ‘We like your deerhound. He would fit excellently into our kennels. He is without doubt the best specimen of his breed that we have encountered,’ he added approvingly.

A pause as he regarded me, smiling expectantly. I made no move and the pause became longer than was polite, as I knew and he knew what was next. What was expected? That I should curtsey again and say: ‘I would be honoured if Your Majesty would accept him?’

But I was damned if I would! Meg’s grip on my hand was imploring. I was so angry. Who had invented this ridiculous archaic custom by which a monarch had the right to claim everything he clapped eyes on? I wasn’t having any of it, it belonged to the Middle Ages and this was the twentieth century and I was a suffragette.

The King’s regard was very hard now, his smile growing thin. He wasn’t used to being kept waiting. His equerry was staring at me, frowning, shuffling his feet, an impatient throat clearing.

‘Your dog, is he not?’ the King asked again.

Suddenly Meg stepped forward, curtseyed and put a hand on Thane’s head.

‘No, Your Majesty. He is my dog. I cannot give him to you’ – she choked on a sob – ‘you can put me in the Tower of London if you wish, but you cannot have my Thane.’

Her voice broke, her courage failed and, kneeling, she flung her arms around Thane. But she wasn’t finished with the King yet. She looked up at him. ‘Your Majesty has a lot of dogs, but I have only Thane and he would die of a broken heart if we were parted.’

The King was taken aback; his open-mouthed equerry broke the silence, murmuring about extraordinary behaviour to me as if I was a very lax parent, adding something about the presence of royalty.

But the King cut him short, held up his hand. He looked at Meg for a moment, as she clung there holding onto Thane as if her life depended on it. He smiled thinly. ‘We would not dream of depriving you of your dog and he has an excellent name. Did you know that Thane is the word used by the ancient kings of Scotland?’

The equerry whispered, twittering, and the King said sharply: ‘Nonsense, Charles, besides we have no suitable bitch of his breed for mating.’ Remounting, he looked down at Thane regretfully. Puzzled he shook his head. ‘And we have no idea where we would find one to match him.’

As they rode off, Thane gave what was an almost human sigh of relief and we all went home to tell a shocked but relieved Vince of our encounter.

Meg was smiling now. ‘He is really quite a nice man, your king, Uncle Vince,’ was her verdict on the incident.

When Mabel heard, declaring Meg’s behaviour quite disgraceful and hinting that she should be punished, she was also surprised that anyone, especially the King of England, could seriously want That Dog.