The Unbelievers (20 page)

Warner sighed and sat back in his chair.

“I don't know, Inspector. I honestly don't know. Please, I've told more than I should have. Just leave me alone.”

Allerdyce stood up, his hand still clenched on the little box.

“I'm taking this with me, Warner. If I ever doubt that you've told me the full truth you'll be spending the next five years breaking rocks.”

Allerdyce felt a sense of progress as the cab wound its way up the long road from Balerno. The sun was breaking through the cloud in occasional bright shafts, bringing out the sedge in a vivid green where the light hit the ground. A curlew paced the moor and, far off, a falcon swooped on some unsuspecting prey. It was like finding a pocket of Sutherland a few miles from Edinburgh.

Every rotation of the cab's wheels was bringing him closer to finding Augusta Mitchell and her daughter, and to finding answers that might release McGillivray from suspicion. He thought again about the telegram – ‘Mine all Mine' – could it refer to the husband who'd abandoned Augusta Mitchell, not to the shaft the Duke had been dumped down? He pictured the fiery daughter Warner had described, cut off from her legitimate inheritance, murdering her way through the family that had disowned her.

As the dark trees of the driveway closed around the cab he felt his optimism starting to drain away. Surely it was fanciful to imagine some woman he'd never met had premeditatedly murdered two Dukes? Was he clutching at straws to avoid having to confront the sergeant's possible guilt? And if Augusta Mitchell or her daughter really had anything to do with the deaths, why would they stop now? Would they keep on killing until the family was extinct?

He stepped down from the cab into the shadowed chill of the little courtyard in front of the house. A plump slack-jawed girl in a grey hessian dress and bonnet stood staring at him. He reckoned she must be about fourteen, and graceless with it – obviously not the blonde heroine Warner had met.

“Hello,” he said. “My name is Inspector Allerdyce of the City of Edinburgh Police. Does Miss Augusta Mitchell live here?”

The girl stared at him vacantly. He advanced a little closer.

“Augusta Mitchell? Or her daughter? Do they live here?”

The girl backed away slightly.

“Awmmummum. Hnmumum.”

He moved a step closer.

“Please, can you speak more clearly? I represent the police and I require an answer.”

The girl gave an animal grunt and ran away round the back of the building. Bloody hell, he thought, why does everything have to be so difficult?

The door into the vestibule of the house was open, but the inner door was shut. He pulled the doorbell and heard a loud clanging inside the house. Pressing his face against the pane of frosted glass in the door he could see a shadowy movement across the hall. He pulled the bell again but saw no more movement. After thirty seconds, impatiently tapping his foot on the tiled floor of the vestibule, he gave a more powerful pull and the bell clanged so loud and so long that he thought it would surely wake the dead.

For a full minute there was nothing visible inside, then he saw a squat, dark figure come up the hall and disappear into a room. A moment later a taller figure emerged into the hall and came towards him.

The woman who opened the door must have been in her fifties, thin-faced but handsome, with hair which was still dark under her white lace bonnet. Her black silk dress covered a strong figure. If this was Augusta Mitchell he could see how, thirty years ago, she could have captivated the young aristocrat. The idiot girl was a mystery, though, unless William Bothwell-Scott had fathered another child with Miss Mitchell that no-one had yet told him about.

He took his hat off.

“Good afternoon, I wonder if you can help me. My name is Inspector Allerdyce. I'm looking for Miss Augusta Mitchell.”

The woman pointed at her ears and then her mouth and shook her head.

“Augusta Mitchell, madam? Do you not know her?”

The woman shook her head again.

God, thought Allerdyce, what sort of house of idiots is this?

The woman picked up a little schoolroom slate which was hanging from a hook inside the door. She wrote on it, the stylus screeching against the surface, and held it out to him.

‘Deaf and dumb,' he read.

He took the slate, rubbed her words out with his fingers and scratched out his own message.

‘Can anyone here speak?'

The woman took the slate from him. As she rubbed out his message and scratched her own a younger child, a boy, appeared in the hall, staring towards him with open-mouthed fascination before giving a loud groan. Allerdyce glanced back to check that the cab was still waiting to take him away from this mad place. She held the slate out to him again.

‘No. Deaf and dumb school.'

His heart sank. The prospects of finding Augusta Mitchell were fast receding. He wrote again on the slate.

‘Augusta Mitchell?'

‘No,' wrote the woman. ‘Gone away.'

‘When?'

‘Long time.'

‘Daughter?'

‘Gone too.'

‘Where? Either.'

The woman gestured to him to wait. She turned round and went down the hall. The boy in the hall stood staring silently at him, and the idiot girl appeared from a side room, looked at him briefly, then ran back.

The woman came back, smiling politely. She took the slate, wrote on it, then held it out towards him.

Dear God, thought Allerdyce as he read the address she'd written, not that. In the name of all that's sacred, please not that.

Arthur jumped in his seat as he heard the doorbell ring. He reprimanded himself for a foolish timidity. Surely his killer wouldn't turn up in the middle of the afternoon and ring the doorbell to request admission?

He wasn't expecting a visitor, though, and he wondered who it might be. Probably a parishioner wanting him to hold a funeral or visit some dying peasant. He'd have to go, even if leaving the house meant exposing himself to unnecessary danger.

Or maybe someone was bringing news.

He thought about the news he'd most fear. Had someone come to tell him that the killer had struck again, and that his brother George was dead?

Poor George. Arthur supposed that if George died he might, quite apart from concern for his own welfare, actually be sorry. George hadn't been a bad brother. He'd never beaten Arthur, he hadn't locked Arthur in a cupboard and left him overnight like Frederick had done, and he'd spared Arthur the daily humiliation and ridicule which he'd suffered from Frederick and William. George's death would make Arthur the Duke of Dornoch, with the staggering fortune which went with that, but Arthur would miss the brother who'd even shown some signs of spiritual regeneration since he'd lost his wife, even if Arthur couldn't share his delusions about the spirit world.

Wilson opened the parlour door, interrupting his thoughts.

“The Dowager Duchess to see you sir.”

“Very well, Wilson. Show her in.”

Arthur was shocked when Josephine came in. Her eyes were red as if she'd been crying, and there were dark lines under them which he'd never seen before. She wore no hat and her hair, normally so neatly tressed, straggled randomly over her shoulders. Her pale complexion had turned ashen.

“Josephine!” He stood to greet her. “What's wrong? What's happened?”

She hung her head.

“I'm sorry, Arthur. I've done something so awful that I have no right to be received under your roof.”

“Josephine! Surely not? You know I could forgive you anything.”

He led her over to an armchair at the opposite side of the fireplace from his. She sat, her head still bowed, with her hands in her lap.

“Would you like some tea, Josephine? Perhaps a sherry?”

“No thank you, Arthur. I don't feel strong enough for either.”

He sat.

“What happened?”

Josephine sat in silence for a few moments, her fingers fiddling with the dark bombazine of her dress. Arthur felt the tension mounting in him unbearably. At last she spoke.

“It's your brother George, Arthur.”

“What about him?” Arthur felt a surge of anger and incomprehension. Had all his faith in Josephine been an illusion? Had Josephine come to tell him that she had given herself to George? Were all his hopes doomed to turn to ash? Josephine continued.

“George came round to my cottage just now. I know that, strictly, I probably ought not to have admitted an unmarried gentleman, but he is family after all, and a widower, so I didn't think it was any great impropriety.

“At first he was solicitous. He said that, now that he had succeeded to the Dukedom, he wanted to see that I was established more appropriately.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“I assumed he meant that he'd allow me to inhabit my old apartment in Dalcorn House. I asked him if that was what he meant and he said no, he wanted to establish me in Rock House. Was he going to move to Dalcorn House, I asked? He said no, he couldn't because his late wife's spirit was at Rock House and he couldn't leave it.”

She paused and took a lace handkerchief out of her sleeve to dab her eyes. Arthur's mind raced, imagining Josephine being taken away from him and forced to live in his brother's sick spirit-world. She went on.

“I thanked him, but said that there was no possibility of my sharing Rock House with him, that even for a brother-and-sister-in-law to live in such close proximity would be unthinkable.

“He said that there was no question of us living together in that way. He said he could only share Rock House with me as man and wife.”

Arthur felt a sudden faintness. Had she consented to marry George? Was he going to have to officiate at the wedding of the only woman he'd truly loved? The room was swimming before his eyes and he thought he'd fall off his chair.

Josephine was weeping now. He leant forward to touch her on the knee. There was something steadying about still being able to touch her.

“What did you say?” He dreaded hearing the answer.

She looked up at him with her tear-stained eyes.

“I said no, of course, Arthur.”

Arthur's relief was mixed with perplexity.

“You spoke well, Josephine, and I can understand why such inappropriate behaviour by George should upset you. But why do you torment yourself with the thought that you have done something wrong?”

Josephine put her head in her hands. Her narrow shoulders heaved with a great sob. She spoke without looking up.

“Something so awful happened after that, Arthur, that I dare not mention it.”

He touched her shivering arm.

“For God's sake, Josephine, tell me! Tell me anything! I cannot bear to see you suffer. Please, tell me and let me offer whatever help I can!”

She glanced up at him then spoke, her voice stronger and clearer now. Her face was utterly grim and her fingers pulled at the handkerchief in her lap.

“George didn't accept my answer, Arthur. He spoke rashly, saying that he'd known we were kindred spirits from the moment he'd seen me, that our souls were conjoined in the spirit world and that our bodies must follow. He said his late wife had been speaking to him from the other side, telling him that it was time for him to stop his mourning. His wife had said it was his soul's destiny to be with me. He was so vehement, Arthur, that I started to fear both for his sanity and for my own safety.

“I asked him to leave. I told him that it was very wrong of him to speak to me in this way. He refused.

“There are no bellcords in the cottage, Arthur. It's so simply built that there's no provision for summoning a servant. I stood up, and hoped that George would accept that as a signal that he should leave, and that if he didn't I would leave the room and ask my maid to show him out. Then…”

She seemed to be looking into the distance behind him, her lips pursed so tightly he could hardly see them. He looked intently at her but she didn't speak. Her arm was shaking and he could hear her slight, rapid breathing. He leant in close, and felt the warmth of her breath on his face.

“Go on, Josephine, please go on.”

“I'm sorry, Arthur, I don't think I can.”

“Please.”

She hesitated an instant then continued, looking down at the floor.

“What happened next was horrible beyond my power to describe it, Arthur. Your brother took my standing up as an opportunity to pounce and catch me off balance. He pushed me against the wall and pressed himself against me. I tried to beat at him with my feeble strength but he pressed his face against me and tried to kiss me. I kept struggling and turning my face away but he grabbed my chin in his vice-like hand and held it while he kissed me and told me that he loved me, his other hand roving over my body and even over my bosom.

“I tried to cry out to the maid but he stifled my scream with his hand and then with another forced kiss. Arthur, I felt utterly soiled and violated.

“That wasn't all. As he was kissing me he started to undo the buttons on his trousers. I felt paralysed, Arthur, rigid with fear. The assault and degradation I feared from him was so inconceivably awful that my mind was overwhelmed and I doubted my power even to scream, even if I could release myself sufficiently for that.

“I believe God gave me words to save myself at that moment when I feared the very worst. George stopped kissing me for an instant, and I whispered the words that came into my mind from Providence. ‘Too soon,' I said. ‘Too soon. Your wife's spirit is here and says it is too soon.'