The Evil That Men Do.(Inspector Faro Mystery No.11) (14 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Guiltily aware that he had hardly seen Rose for the past two days, Faro decided to go home to Sheridan Place. He found Rose in the dining room.

‘You have just missed Danny.’

For a moment he wondered who she was talking about. McQuinn, of course. ‘He looked in about five minutes ago. Wanted to see you.’

‘Was it urgent?’

‘He didn’t say. I was to tell you he was on his way to the Royal Infirmary. I tried to get him to wait and have tea.’

Smiling she poured out a cup for her father. ‘Your Danny is almost as stubborn as you are. Did you know that?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Trying not to sound cross, he buttered a scone and said idly: ‘So it’s Danny now, is it?’

She nodded eagerly. ‘Of course. I can hardly call him Sergeant or Mr McQuinn. He’s a friend, after all.’

‘And how long has my sergeant been a friend?’ His tone light, Faro tried to sound amused while inside him anger stormed and roared and threatened to engulf that peaceful tea-table.

Rose looked away, still smiling. ‘Since I was a little girl, lost in Edinburgh. You remember. He came to my rescue. I never forgot him.’

And Faro realised what he had never suspected. That ten-year-old girls make heroes out of mortal men. Had she thought of the young policeman all these years, seeing him not as her father did as an irritating necessity of his life at Edinburgh City Police but as a brave handsome Irishman? The thought was terrible, for he realised that never in all their years together had McQuinn been a person in his eyes.

‘You don’t like him, do you, Papa?’ She sounded disappointed, sad.

‘Of course I do,’ Faro lied. ‘He’s a splendid fellow.’

Rose’s look told him that his voice was too hearty and she didn’t believe a word of it.

‘I’ve known him for years and years,’ he added defensively.

But Rose was too shrewd not to see through that. ‘You mean, you’ve worked with him, but tell me,’ she said, leaning her elbow on the table and regarding him solemnly, ‘what do you really know about him?’

‘As much as any senior detective inspector needs to know about a junior officer.’

‘Such as? Go on, tell me.’

‘That he’s reliable. A good man to have around in a fight,’ he added generously.

Her face told him that wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. That she regarded this as a rather indifferent testimonial of her friend’s virtues.

‘What do you know of his background, Papa? His early life in Ireland?’

‘Not a great deal. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t talk much about that’

‘You mean you know nothing? That you’ve never asked him?’

‘Not really my business, is it?’

‘As a policeman, perhaps not. As one human being to another, very much your business.’ She paused triumphantly and then went on. ‘Did you know that both his parents, two sisters and a younger brother died in infancy in the dreadful potato famine? And that the local priest had a sister who was a nun in the convent here in Edinburgh? They took him into their orphanage, educated him. You must know it, Papa. The Sisters of St Anthony, it’s just down the road.’

Faro still went out of his way to avoid its gates.

Rose did not observe her father’s shudder from the memory of what the sensational press referred to as the ‘Gruesome Convent Murders’. One of his most successful cases, it was still unbearably painful to think at what cost to himself he had solved the murderer’s identity. And he had reason to be grateful to McQuinn, who had saved his stepson’s life.

He said, ‘I thought he had kin in Ireland that he visited from time to time.’

‘Cousins only. But he still regards Ireland as his home. He still yearns to go back there. It sounds a lovely country, Papa. I’d love to go there someday.’

Faro put down his empty tea cup, and kissing her lightly said: ‘Who knows where your travels will take you, my dear. Well, I must be off again. I’ll see you later.’

She followed him to the door and he turned: ‘What now? You’re looking very serious.’

‘I’ll tell you later, when you have more time.’

‘More about McQuinn?’ he asked smiling.

‘No. Nothing more about him.’

At the Royal Infirmary, McQuinn was waiting for him. ‘Piers Strong, sir. He’s been attacked by keelies. Wants to see you urgently.’

As they hurried towards the ward, McQuinn filled in some of the details. ‘He’s not seriously hurt, just a bit bruised and knocked about. Fortunately he’s got a good thick skull. Put up a good fight and one of our lads passing by came in the nick of time. One of Big Jem’s gang. We’ve got the lad in the cells.’

Piers Strong, his head bandaged, greeted them wanly.

As Faro commiserated, saying they’d got the culprit, Strong shook his head. ‘I think there was more to it than keelies, sir. I have good reason to think this was an organised attempt on my life.’

McQuinn and Faro exchanged glances. Those were the sort of odds where Big Jem was concerned. Those who hired him and his thugs paid handsomely for the risks run.

‘Are you sure? What sort of enemies do you have?’

‘I didn’t think I had any. Now I’m not so sure. I understand that Theodore Langweil is dead. Is that true?’

When Faro said it was, Piers sighed. ‘I can tell you this then, sir. He came into the office last week and said he wanted no further work done on Priorsfield and he wanted no archaeological revelations made public. Was that understood, he said. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about and I said I didn’t think there was anything of archaeological interest, more than that the house had been added to during the years.

‘ “That’s what I mean,” says he. “I want your word that you’ll keep any observations to yourself. We don’t want to be bothered with investigations so I’ll make it worth your while to be discreet.” And he put down a purse containing one hundred guineas on my desk. I was taken aback, for I would have respected a client’s silence without being paid for it.

‘So I thrust it back at him. Said I had principles and all that sort of thing. And that if I thought something should be made public then all his damned money couldn’t keep me quiet.

‘He was furious. And so was I. And somehow that visit set me thinking. But it wasn’t until I was hit on the head that it all made sense. He was so anxious that the wall in the small drawing room shouldn’t be removed or altered to make way for a bathroom next to the master bedroom.

‘And he lied and so did Cedric when they said nothing had been changed in their lifetime. You were there that night, sir. I was and am absolutely sure there was a door that had been covered in. The wallpaper gave the game away.’

‘The wallpaper. Now I remember,’ said Faro triumphantly. ‘Of course you’re right. It’s too modern.’

When Piers looked puzzled Faro explained. ‘I realise I was looking at it in a hotel Vince and I were visiting. The manager’s wife said that it used to be fashionable twenty years ago.’

‘That’s right. I knew then the story about it not being decorated in this generation couldn’t be true.’

Faro left very thoughtfully. McQuinn had called on Big Jem in his warren in Causewayside, and by dint of various threats for that gentleman’s future which sounded feasible had got him the admission that he had meant no harm, he had been hired to give the wee mannie a fright.

‘He was very disgruntled, however. Because Big Jem likes to keep tabs on his hirers. Does a nice little line in blackmail as we know already. Earns himself a few pounds. But this time, he was furious that the balance of payment on the job successfully accomplished would not now be forthcoming: “Hear that the mannie who got me to do the job is deid now.”

‘And he might as well have put Langweil’s name and address into my hands, especially as we thought there might be some connection with Moulton’s death too. Although Jem’s better with his fists than pulling wheel pins out of carriages.’

When Faro drew his attention to the significance of those muddy footprints they had both seen in Priorsfield, McQuinn seemed disappointed.

‘What do you make of it now, sir?’

‘I’ll tell you better when I’ve checked on a couple of facts.’

In Sheridan Place, Rose was awaiting her father’s return.

‘I have something to tell you, Papa.’

Faro was tired. ‘Is it important? Can it not wait until tomorrow, my dear?’

She sighed. ‘I’ve tried to tell you several times, but you didn’t seem to be listening to me. I’m going back to Orkney, Papa.’

‘What about your new school?’

‘There is no point in my staying here until term begins, now
that Vince’s wedding isn’t to be at Easter. I’ve had a letter from
Emily. She and Grandmama miss me so much. And I miss them
too. Anyway, I’m not at all sure that I want to go to the Academy
after all,’ she added bleakly.

‘I thought you wanted to learn languages.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure about that any more. I’m
not sure that it’s a good idea of Vince’s, that I should follow him into Langweil society when he marries Grace in order to find a
suitable husband. From the few friends of Grace’s I’ve met, I hardly think I’d find the kind of man I would want to marry in
their ranks.’

‘But you’ll soon make friends at the new school.’

‘I don’t want friends, Papa. You don’t understand, it’s my own
family I want. And you haven’t time for me, really. Even less
than when Emily and I come on holiday. If I stay here, we will get cross with each other. And I would hate that.’

‘Aren’t you exaggerating a little, my dear?’

‘I don’t think so. You won’t - don’t approve of people I like.’ She looked at him. ‘Like Danny, your sergeant. He’s the only friend I’d want to have, apart from Grace. And I can see that
Danny would become a subject of anger between us.’

‘Danny McQuinn, is that it?’ Faro exploded angrily. ‘Of course
I’d object to your friendship - even if it were possible for a man
nearly thirty to be friends with a girl of fifteen. I couldn’t allow
that and you know it. Especially as he is one of my junior officers.’

Rose smiled. ‘Yes, it would be rather undignified for you, I
can see that.’ And leaning over, she touched his cheek and said softly, ‘Poor Papa, you do see, don’t you, that it is better if I go
back home - to Kirkwall? Perhaps when I’m older, when you
realise I’m not a little girl any longer, things will be different -
easier for us. You will be able to treat me like an equal and accept
the friends I want to make in Edinburgh.’

She was silent for a moment and he could think of nothing to say. Denial would be futile. ‘If I stay here, I will only get fonder and fonder of Danny and you’ll hate that.’

‘Fonder and fonder! My dear, Danny is the first good-looking
young man you have met. A pleasant change, no doubt, from
the rough schoolboys you normally encounter, but do recognise
it for what it is. That he has all the excitement of being different,
of living in a world that seems dangerous and strange to you.’

He took her hands and held them tightly. ‘We all go through
this phase in our lives when we are young—’

And not so young, his conscience whispered, remembering
Barbara Langweil.

‘It’s called hero-worship.’

She sighed. ‘Some call it love, Papa. And for some it lasts for
ever,’ she said sadly. ‘Sometimes I have a feeling we never grow
out of it, as you suggest.’

He could think of no answer that would not give her pain, and asked instead: ‘When do you go?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘So soon?’

‘It’s either now or the next boat - next week.’

He remembered there were only two sailings a week.

‘But what about Vince - Grace?’

‘I’ve said my goodbyes to Grace. She and Vince have known
that I wanted to go home—’

And Vince had never breathed a word to him. ‘A well-kept
secret, eh?’ he said bitterly.