The Unbelievers (23 page)

Allerdyce had just arrived in the Police Office the next morning when he was summoned to Burgess's office.

The Superintendent was pacing distractedly in front of the window, then turned round and saw Allerdyce.

“Ah. There you are.”

“Sir.”

“Take a seat, for Heaven's sake.”

“Thank you sir.”

They sat, and Burgess tapped his pen against the desk for a moment, looking at a spot somewhere over Allerdyce's left shoulder, before speaking.

“We've lost another Duke, Allerdyce.”

Allerdyce felt as if the floor was disappearing beneath him. Burgess continued.

“George Bothwell-Scott was found yesterday evening by his butler, dead in his photographic studio.”

“Murdered?”

“Without a doubt. Face down in a tray of silver nitrate in his darkroom, with a bullet through his head.”

“Why wasn't I called out? Margaret could have told you where to find me.”

“We didn't need to. The butler told us who did it, and we've brought the suspect in. He's yours to question when you're ready. And the crime scene has been sealed and guarded – nothing moved except the body, and Dr Mackay can tell you all about that.”

“Who's the suspect?”

“I can hardly believe it, Allerdyce. The press are going to love it.

“The Reverend the Honourable Arthur Bothwell-Scott.”

First of all Allerdyce went to Rock House with Mackay, the Police Surgeon. He needed to see the location of the crime, speak to the butler, and understand the mechanics of how it had been committed before he questioned the suspect.

He should, he supposed, feel some sense of relief. This was one murder, at least, which couldn't be blamed on McGillivray.

Any relief he felt was, though, overwhelmed by a dark fear of what might happen next. There would be the inevitable tide of blame, from the newspapers and from the Chief Constable, that three Dukes had died before the police had found their man. Unless the evidence showed this latest killing to be the work of the same hand as the previous deaths, the sword of justice still hung over the sergeant. And was it really possible that the mild clergyman could have murdered his way systematically through his own family?

And Antonia? Could she be involved? Had he left her at liberty to commit a further atrocity?

Anything is possible, he told himself. Just keep an open mind until you've examined the evidence.

The butler's account, after Allerdyce and Dr Mackay had been admitted to Rock House, was simple. Arthur Bothwell-Scott had turned up mid-afternoon yesterday and said he needed to see his brother on a matter of urgent family business. The butler had shown Arthur into the studio and left them in privacy. He'd heard raised voices briefly, but not felt he ought to intrude on a private family conversation. His master in any case very much disliked being disturbed unnecessarily while at work in his studio, so the butler had decided it was best to let them be.

It wasn't until six o'clock, when he usually served a drink to his master, that he felt licensed to intrude. The studio itself was empty, with no sign of George Bothwell-Scott or his guest. The only peculiarity was that the French window was slightly ajar. The butler called out to attract his master's attention in case he was in the darkroom which opened from the studio, but heard no answer. Becoming suspicious, he opened the door to the darkroom, pushed the shade-curtain aside and saw his employer, evidently taken ill since he had collapsed into a bath of developing fluid. He tried to rouse his master, before discerning that he was lifeless and rushing out to attract the attention of the nearest policeman. The butler was adamant that, unless the master had privately admitted anyone by himself, Arthur Bothwell-Scott was the only person to have visited his employer on the day of his death.

A constable standing guard at the door of the studio broke the seal and let Allerdyce and Mackay in. Allerdyce checked round the room but nothing looked suspicious or out of place – even the jumble of photographic equipment on the table had some semblance of order. Nothing indicated that there had been a mortal struggle, though the nap of the carpet was slightly disturbed at the near edge of the table as if someone had dug their heels in. He opened the French windows, hoping that there might be soil outside which had absorbed the footprint of whoever had left the doors ajar, but they opened onto a gravel path where only the faintest indentations were visible.

They went through to the darkroom, pushing the heavy curtains aside to stand in the laboratory, lit by a single red-shaded gas flare, where George Bothwell-Scott had been found dead. Allerdyce had the odd feeling that he had walked into an actual spirit-cabinet, and that he was at the heart of whatever trickery or spirit-workings went on there.

The gas-light hissed. The dark-room, with its chemical baths, clothes-lines with drying photographic prints on them, and the upright concertina apparatus of the enlarging equipment, was oppressively stuffy. The bottles of chemicals on shelves above the developing bench, and the red glow of the light on brass, wood and glass, gave the place something of the air of an alchemist's workshop.

Some of the images hanging from the lines were clear, even in the ruby light. The dead man had taken a variety of landscape pictures, and Allerdyce recognised images of Arthur's Seat and Berwick Law. He'd also taken some still-lives of flowers and fruit, and some other pictures showed void spaces where presumably the deluded photographer had believed he saw the spirits of the deceased. There were also a handful of what Allerdyce supposed would be called ‘artistic' images, clearly taken in the studio itself. They all appeared to show the same young woman, with dark hair and a delicate figure, in progressive stages of teasing undress culminating in complete nakedness as she sat sideways on the chair under the skylight. In all the images her face was turned away from the camera – either an attempt to increase the sense of erotic beguilement or to protect her identity.

One of the hanging pieces of card had no image on it, just a message in what Allerdyce would guess was masculine handwriting.

‘
An interesting development
.'

So, our droll Duke-killer strikes again.

“Has anything been moved, Mackay?” he asked.

“Just the body.”

“You examined it when it was still here?”

“Yes. And in the mortuary.”

“I should have been called as soon as the body was found. Anything – what he was wearing, the precise way he was lying, even the expression on his face – could have been significant evidence.”

“I'm sorry, Allerdyce. Burgess specifically didn't want you to be the first person to examine the scene. He asked Sergeant Henderson to come down here with me and make notes.”

“Why?”

“I shouldn't say, Allerdyce. I think he maybe feels you've been on the Bothwell-Scott case a bit too long, and maybe you've become a bit set in your views. He wants to see the case through other peoples' eyes as well – perhaps they'll notice something fresh.”

It stung that Burgess, normally such a straightforward man, wasn't giving him his full trust.

“What about the body, then, Mackay? What did you notice?”

“Well, you know the basics already. He was shot in the head and we found him, still sitting on his stool, face down in that tray of developing fluid. It's normally as clear as water: the cloudiness which you see is the victim's blood.”

“Anything else?”

“A couple of interesting things. He'd sustained a bruise to his left temple shortly before his death – certainly the same day, possibly within an hour or two. Rather nasty, looked like he'd fallen against a blunt edge. Could have caused him some concussion.”

“But presumably he was conscious at the time of his death?” asked Allerdyce. “He wouldn't be sitting here otherwise.”

“True enough, but it was a nasty blow and he'd still have been feeling it. The other interesting thing is where the bullet entered his head. We wouldn't have been able to see any bruising if it had been on his other temple, because of the bullet's entry hole and the scorching round it.”

Allerdyce looked past the spot where George had died, towards the curtains and the door.

“You mean whoever shot him was standing here.”

“Yes.”

“With the victim between them and the door?”

“Precisely, Allerdyce.”

“That's interesting, Mackay. Very interesting indeed.”

Allerdyce interviewed Arthur in a holding cell in the basement of the Police Office. Arthur was sitting on the fold-down bed in his dark suit and clerical collar, unshaven and with dark lines under his eyes. He had the cell's police-issue Bible in his hands but threw it aside when he saw the Inspector.

“Ah, Mr Allerdyce. How ironic. Last time we met you urged me to take precautions for my safety in case the family murderer struck again. Now you meet me when I'm accused of being that murderer.”

“Unfortunate circumstances indeed, sir. Or should I say, Your Grace.”

Arthur gave the hint of a smile.

“It's almost comical, isn't it Inspector? I find out when two constables turn up at my doorstep at seven o'clock in the evening that my brother is dead. So, at some stage between then and when I left George's house I'd become the 10
^th
Duke of Dornoch without my knowing it, and inherited the entire wealth of the estates and mines. And look at where I've spent my first night as a peer of the Realm.”

Better reassure the suspect, thought Allerdyce. Put him at ease and you'll get the most out of him.

“I just need to ask you a few questions, sir. Hopefully we can get all this sorted out and needn't detain you very long.”

“Thank you, Inspector. I'll help you as far as I can.”

“I appreciate that, sir. First of all, do you confirm that you visited your brother at Rock House yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes I did.”

“At approximately what time, sir?”

“I arrived at about three o'clock. After attending to various items of parish business.”

“And what was the purpose of your visit, sir?”

“A private family matter.”

“I'm sorry, Your Grace, I must ask you to be explicit. It's important that I know the full circumstances surrounding the time of your brother's death. Otherwise we will be unable to eliminate you quickly from the enquiry.”

Arthur glanced towards the barred window high in the cell wall, as if seeing the inescapability of the truth. He hesitated, as a door further down the corridor shut with a heavy clang, and looked up at Allerdyce.

“Do you think I murdered my brother, Inspector?”

Keep him calm, thought Allerdyce.

“We just want to reconstruct the pattern of events that afternoon, sir. Then everyone can get back to their business.”

“Very well. I will be completely candid with you. I visited my brother because my sister-in-law, the dowager Duchess Josephine, had complained to me that George had been pressing unwelcome attentions on her.”

“Rape, sir?”

“Thank the Lord, nothing quite as grave. But serious enough.”

“And why would the Duchess choose to confide in you, sir?”

“I suppose, barring George, I'm her closest living family on this side of the Atlantic. And she's come to rely on me somewhat, in her widowhood, for spiritual consolation.”

Spiritual consolation's a nice word for whatever you're up to with her, thought Allerdyce.

“So you wanted to confront your brother?”

“I wanted to reason with him. I wanted to help him to realise, for himself, that he'd treated Josephine wrongly and to repent.”

“And were you successful?”

“No. He refused to acknowledge that his attentions were unwelcome.”

“That must have been very vexing for you, sir.”

“Yes, Inspector, it was.”

“So what did you do?”

Arthur hesitated again before asking a question of his own.