A sharp tug released it from its anchor. No branch emerged but the singly stiletto-sharp horn of a bull. He gazed at it triumphantly. He had not the slightest doubt that what he held as once part of the pair stolen from the inn.
The murder weapon.
He examined it more closely: the ominous dark stain on the tip could be dried blood. Deciding this evidence might be useful and not wishing to be seen with it in his possession, he tucked it up his jacket sleeve for a closer inspection later.
Emerging from the copse, his back was now turned towards the cattle but the trees concealed him from their gaze. He was not consoled for although there were no animals visible except for a few grazing sheep, his mind dwelt nervously on fences and open gates.
Not only the king bull was dangerous, he realised, but a young and skittish male, moving apart from the herd and for reasons of its own, of a possible homicidal disposition, could be equally damaging when on the rampage.
He walked quickly in the direction of the road and, conscious of the lack of any shelter, glanced back frequently over his shoulder. Alert at every sound, he found himself reliving that moment in his childhood near his aunt's Deeside croft more than thirty years ago.
How terrifyingly the ground had shaken under his feet at the thunderous charge, the snort of rage as the great red shaggy beast hurtled towards him through the mist.
He knew how narrowly he had escaped death that morning and, for years afterwards, he had awakened screaming with the smell of the enraged Highland bull's hot breath on his neck, its murderous sharp horns at his heels...
Shuddering from remembrance, he was within sight of the gate leading to the road when the chill gathering about his shoulders was not from fear but from a black sky replacing what had been cloudless sunshine minutes ago.
The next moment the cloud burst overhead and hailstones pelted down on him. He began to run...
Thunder rattled across the sky, shaking the hills and, almost within safety and the fenced road, he heard the ground echoing with the monstrous sound of hoofs...
CHAPTER 10
The beast pounding towards Faro along the road was no wild bull, merely a rather stout horse and trap bearing an elderly gentleman sheltering under a large umbrella.
'Whoa!' And stopping alongside, he leaned out. 'Care for a lift?'
'I would be most grateful.'
As Faro climbed in, the man who was clad in a handsome tweed greatcoat handed him a waterproof cape. 'Keep the worst of the rain off you, although I dare say it'll pass over in a minute.'
Even as he spoke, the sun came out again, scudding across the field, and the angry clouds were swept away, their rain sheets now lying heavily to the east.
'That's that,' said the man, closing the umbrella. 'I'm Dr Brand, by the way.'
An unexpected stroke of luck, Faro thought, as the doctor continued: 'Saw you crossing the field. Out walking, were you?' Acquainted with everyone in the village, he was obviously curious about this stranger and it was in Faro's own interest to enlighten him.
'Oh, I see. An insurance assessor. Of course,' the doctor nodded sympathetically, 'the family can take no chances.'
'I suppose you examined Sir Archie,' said Faro tentatively.
'I did indeed. Nothing I could do by that time. Clearly an accident. Gored by one of the cattle. Such things do happen. We do have the very occasional accident,' he added apologetically.
'I remember reading something about an earlier incident in the newspapers,' said Faro encouragingly. 'A young fellow staying at the castle, was it not?'
The doctor nodded. 'An actor. Philip Gray, you may have seen him on the stage in Edinburgh. I only heard his Shakespearean monologues one evening at the Castle. But I was most impressed.'
'You attended him when he was injured?'
'I examined his body, if that's what you mean,' said the doctor grimly. 'Death by misadventure. His horse had thrown him, he had a fractured skull. Of course, he had no right to be in the grazing pastures at all. Guests are always warned that the cattle are dangerous.'
'But he had ignored the warning?'
The doctor sighed. 'I understood that the, er, guest he was out riding with had dared him to venture out and bring back the horns from a beast the shooting party had wounded earlier that week.'
'Not a very sensible thing to do from all accounts,' Faro volunteered.
'As he soon found out,' said the doctor grimly. 'You know what these young fellows are like, must prove themselves. Sense of honour and all that nonsense. The beast wasn't too badly wounded to charge him and gore him to death.' He shook his head. 'It's this damned archaic system to blame. Sportsmen they call themselves. Rounding up the beasts and choosing their target. All of them having a go at it with their arrows first. Shouldn't be allowed. One man, one bullet - that's the humane way.'
He paused and sighed. 'The poor lad made it to the copse over there, same place they found Elrigg.'
'An odd coincidence?'
Dr Brand ignored his interruption. 'Elrigg might have survived: he had severe but not fatal neck and head injuries sustained in the fall and was probably unconscious.'
He paused like a man who had a lot more to say on that subject but had remembered in time that his passenger was a stranger. He shrugged. 'Perhaps he never regained consciousness when the cow got him. One can only hope so, anyway.'
'Cow? I thought only the bulls were dangerous.'
The doctor smiled. 'The cow is just as dangerous if she has just dropped a calf. This is the time of year and they often choose a sheltered place, away from the herd. Like the copse. There'd been a stalking party out from the castle the day before the accident, it was deer and birds they were interested in but that would make a cow very nervous.
'That's my theory, anyway. These animals have their own laws, far older and wiser than man's. I was brought up on a farm. We were used to taking in newborn orphaned animals and raising them by hand. Tried it once when I first came here. Found this newborn calf, abandoned or orphaned, I thought. It was getting dark, a freezing cold night, so I wrapped it in a blanket hoping to keep it alive till next day when I'd see if its mother had come back for it.'
He paused and sighed deeply. 'I was young and idealistic then, couldn't bear the thought of an animal suffering. I soon learned my lesson,' he added harshly.
'Did she charge you too?'
'No. But when I went back the next day to see how the wee creature was,' he shuddered, 'there was nothing left of it but a few bones and bits of skin. But the hoofmarks were visible where it had lain. Looked as if there had been a stampede and it had been trampled into the earth. Their sense of smell is acute and if a calf is handled by a human the other animals detect the smell and kill it.'
'But surely -'
'I know what you're going to say, but you're quite wrong. I had made the crucial mistake of humans interfering with wild creatures. I had mismanaged my rescue attempt and turned the calf into an alien from the herd. They had their own ways of dealing with that,' he added grimly.
'Make no mistake about these animals. They are quite unique, they have a society evolved though hundreds - perhaps thousands of years. The herd is under complete control of one beast. Only the fittest and the strongest in the herd ever becomes king bull. And during the two or three years until he is successfully challenged and defeated in combat by a younger rival, he reigns supreme and sires all the calves that are born.'
As he talked, he let the reins go slack and the horse, finding this an agreeable change of pace, ambled slowly along.
'I've been fascinated by their behaviour for years. I've watched them, through a telescope - from my house over there,' he added pointing to the east of the village. 'Once I saw a young bull come out of the herd, it was the bellowing that drew me. I saw him pawing the ground, the old bull doing likewise. They charged - and this time it was a fight to the death.'
'You say they've been here for thousands of years - where did they come from?'
'N
o one can answer that. Bones which might belong to them have been found in the hillfort, so they provided meat for prehistoric man. At one time they were thought to be related to the Highland cattle, a sort of albino relative. But that has been disproved.'
'How have they managed to survive without inbreeding with other domestic cattle?'
'Because they've never been domestic. It's possible that being white they were regarded as sacred - kept for some ancient religious ritual. They've never been known to throw a coloured or even partly coloured calf. As for their survival, who knows? It is against all the odds since the cows are poor breeders, suckle their calves for long periods. Nature's way of preventing the herd increasing rapidly.'
'I'm surprised that they survived the moss troopers and the Border reivers. I understood they carried off everything they could lay their hands on.'
Dr Brand laughed. 'Aye, what they laid hands on, right enough. But there was no hope of laying hands on these beasts and driving them back across the border. Much too wild and fierce to be treated like the ordinary domestic variety.'
Turning, he looked back towards the hill. 'I'd advise you to take great care about walking across these fields. I was quite alarmed when I saw you. Someone should have warned you. Where are you staying?' When Faro told him, he nodded. 'I shall have a severe word with him, have a notice posted in very large letters.'
Pausing, he regarded Faro sharply. 'I don't think you are taking me seriously, sir.'
'I am, doctor, I am indeed.'
'Make no mistake about it. These animals are extremely dangerous. And they have perception beyond what we humans understand.' Shading his eyes, the doctor pointed with his whip. 'I don't suppose you've been here long enough to observe that they never take their eyes off any humans in the vicinity. We are under constant surveillance. There is always one animal watching, on guard, somewhere,' he added with an uneasy laugh.
'So you think there might have been a calf in the vicinity that Sir Archie didn't know about?'
'It certainly wasn't a wounded king bull, anyway. Saw him large as life grazing with the herd the next day. Besides the horns - the goring injury, I mean - they hadn't penetrated deep enough for a really angry charging bull. Makes a nasty mess, I can tell you. But this was just one hole, quite neat, just an inch or two deep.'
'Is that so?' said Faro thoughtfully. According to Constable Dewar there had been no hoofmarks of a charging animal either. 'You had no doubts about the cause of the death when you signed the death certificate?'
'None at all. The coroner's inquest was a mere waste of time. Death by misadventure, there couldn't be any other verdict in the circumstances. I'll let you have his report if you need it for your firm. And if you're interested in the cattle, there's some old documents in the Castle library, I'm sure Lady Elrigg would let you see them.'
The road narrowed steeply and they were passing by the tiny Saxon church with its graveyard, deep in primroses and wood anemones. A blackbird sang on one of the tombstones, the feathers on its throat fluttering, its piercing sweetness a eulogy to an awakening world.
Faro sighed. 'Gives you hope, doesn't it? I wouldn't mind lying here to all eternity with a requiem like that every spring.'
At his side the doctor had raised his top hat to reveal a mane of silver hair and lapsed into a reverent silence. 'Spring's a sad time for some people, for the ones who are left.'
'I understand, sir, only too well.' Noting the doctor's grief—stricken expression, Faro remembered that his Lizzie had died with their newborn son beside her on a June morning eight years ago. 'To lose one's partner in life...' He paused. 'Your wife, sir?' he said gently.
'Lost her long ago,' was the bitter response. 'God only knows what sky her bones lie under. It was my daughter I lost. My dearest only child.' His voice broke and, geeing up the pony, he drove fast into the village, his lips a tight line of misery, while at his side Faro cursed his own lack of tact.
Setting him down at the inn, Dr Brand spoke again. 'You must forgive my outburst, sir, to you a stranger, quite unforgivable.'
'It is I who must apologise, sir. But I do know something of the loss you have suffered. A child dying -'
'Dying. She didn't die. She could have been alive today, she was seventeen with all the world before her. She didn't die. She was murdered.'
At Faro's shocked expression, he jabbed a finger in the direction of the Castle. 'And they killed her.'
Chapter 11
As Faro entered the inn, Bowden ceased the polishing of the counter long enough to say: 'Duffy has been looking for you, Mr Faro.'
'Are you sure it was me?'
'You're the insurance mannie, aren't you?'
'Did he say what he wanted?'
'Not my business to ask, sir. But knowing Duffy I'd say there was money involved. Wouldn't you, gentlemen?'
Bowden grinned at Yarrow and Dewar. About to depart, they paused long enough to give Faro a decidedly searching glance. It suggested that they also suspected he might be involved in some of the poacher's dubious activities.
'He said he'll see you when he comes in for his pint of ale later on,' said Bowden as Faro made his way towards his room.
What could the poacher want with him? Faro was curious and hopeful too. From his vast experience of the criminal world, he did not doubt that this new turn of events indicated information was for sale.
* * *
Beyond his window was a pageant of undulating hills, cloudless skies. Trees moved in slow ecstasy to their burden of soft breeze and birdsong, a scene characteristic of any gentle sleepy village that one could hardly credit with violence. Even the ivy-clad walls of its ancient cottages seemed to have grown naturally out of the tranquil earth rather than the stones hewed by men.
A traveller passing though en route for Scotland would think nothing ever happened here, that time had passed it by, but Faro was aware of the elements of passion that lurked behind such quiet exteriors and that this was a more elemental world than the one he had left a short time ago in Edinburgh. With total recall he saw again the words written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon:
* * *
We hear every day of murders committed in the country... No species of crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries of the Seven Dials that has not been also done in the face of that rustic calm...
* * *
Words that Imogen Crowe had heavily underscored. She had written 'Elrigg?' beside them. Why?
Do not be fooled, Jeremy Faro, he told himself as he considered his evidence so far.
Philip Gray had been riding with the Prince. They had quarrelled when the Prince accused him of cheating at cards. Bertie had returned alone. Later, when the actor's horse came in riderless, a search party found him gored to death.
Sir Archie had met his death in suspiciously similar circumstances. Two men dying in identical place and manner, months apart, after quarrels with the same illustrious guest, hinted not merely at coincidence, but at murder.
If only the trail was still warm. Any clues regarding Gray's death by misadventure had vanished beneath last year's fallen autumn leaves and for the last four weeks Sir Archie had rested in his grave.
The Prince had been the last to see both men alive and Faro remembered grimly the letter Her Majesty had shown him.
He wished he had been allowed to make a copy of it for a more careful study of the schoolboy pleading: 'Don't blame me. It wasn't my fault, Mama.'
Her son's innocence was all he had to prove. Murder in this case was not his business.
If only he could leave it at that...
From the valise under his bed, Faro withdrew the bull's horn. Weighing it in his hands, he knew how Sir Archie had been murdered. Almost as if he had been present, a silent witness, he could conjure up the exact picture of Elrigg's last moments.
The horn had been broken off from the pair stolen from the public bar downstairs.
Archery was the local sport and it would not have needed an expert marksman to
realise that although it could not be fired with any accuracy from a crossbow, it presented a splendid potential as a murder weapon. By a piece of good fortune his opportunity came when he found his victim semi-conscious and unable to rise from the ground.
Faro frowned. That posed a question. It had to be someone who was in the area at the time and witnessed the accident. It might have been that Sir Archie was still alive when the first of the rescue party arrived, perhaps one of the tenants alerted by Constable Dewar on his way through the village. For a man with a grievance, a unique opportunity of settling an old score.
Once the deed was done, the murderer withdrew the horn and thrust it into the wall, where with luck he hoped it would never be noticed.
With circumstances of Philip Gray's death still fresh in everyone's mind, the possibility of foul play had never occurred. Neither Yarrow nor Dewar had thought to search the copse for evidence, indeed the constable's observation regarding the lack of hoofmarks had been mockingly dismissed.
Faro regarded the bull's horn thoughtfully. The question now was who had reached Sir Archie ahead of Yarrow and Dr Brand.
The only person he could safely eliminate was Lady Elrigg who had remained at the Castle. In a state of shock as befitted the newly widowed.
He knew nothing of any relationship with the young actor but he recalled vividly his first sight of Lady Elrigg and Mark leaving the archery field together. Had there been a sinister quality to their careless laughter?
Although Elrigg would be Mark's some day, did he see himself as a young knight ready to dare all - even murder - for the stepmother who could never be his wife?
Guilty lovers invariably provided the best motive for murder. From Biblical times to the present day that had been the case and Faro did not doubt it would continue until the final curtain descended on mankind. The male rivalry between the old and young was not unique. Just a mile away, that instinct for survival of the species was strong enough to drive young bulls to challenge the king for supremacy of the wild cattle herd.
[Inspector Faro 14] - Faro and the Royals Page 7
