The Seal King Murders

by Alanna Knight

  There had been no moon, just a bolstering fog and Stavely’s attempt at humour took on a grisly significance.

  ‘You were talking to her, Faro – did you not observe anything?’

  Faro shook his head. ‘I did notice her boots, which looked very delicate and expensive. Her hands were free but the reticule could have been concealed under that voluminous travelling cloak. Perhaps a little old-fashioned now, but some are still provided with secret pockets for ladies to conceal their jewels and money. A precaution dating from the time before railway trains, when carriages were held up by highwaymen.’

  Stavely stared. ‘We never had anything like that here in Orkney. Smugglers, yes, but highwaymen …’ he shook his head in disbelief.

  Faro was thinking ahead. Under Stavely’s watchful gaze, he looked into the wardrobe and, withdrawing a dress, decided that the shapeless one they had found more resembled a nightgown. With no knowledge of ladies’ fashions he concluded that it must be the latest Paris mode.

  He said, ‘It is most unlikely that she drowned, but there is another alternative.’

  Stavely regarded him sharply. ‘See what you mean. I’m thinking the very same. She could have been abducted and her kidnapper has the reticule in his possession.’

  With another attempt at lightening the situation with a mite of nervous humour, he grinned. ‘Seal king wouldn’t have much use for that in his kingdom under the waves.’ Then grimly, ‘Kidnapping is something we must keep closely in mind, and if that is the case, then we’ll be hearing soon enough. A ransom note delivered to Scarthbreck. After all, she is an heiress, a valuable commodity.’

  There was only one drawback to that theory. Why should a kidnapper strip her down to her underclothes and leave her outer garments neatly piled on the shore? Faro felt all indications were meant to suggest to the finders that she had walked into the sea and disappeared.

  And the question was there – a legend which no one really believed, but which obstinately refused to be dismissed. It hung in the air unspoken, while the rest of the day passed in great activity, now stretching far beyond Scarthbreck.

  The island had been alerted with its own particular method of conveying gossip and news. And this was sensational news. Ten years after Thora Claydon’s mysterious disappearance into the seal king’s kingdom under the waves, another young girl had disappeared at almost the same spot.

  Speculation was rife. Thora had survived, had reappeared walking along the shore, lost and bewildered, in the very clothes she had been wearing, with that missing year and a day blanked out of memory. Soon she would marry her faithful fiancé, Dave Claydon, who had waited so patiently, and the couple would live a perfectly normal, but sadly childless, island life.

  The question in everyone’s mind now was, would Celia Prentiss-Grant also survive to return and live a perfectly normal life as the heiress of Scarthbreck?

  But this time the seal king’s bride had left her clothes behind, an awkward matter for the police to explain, especially to her parents.

  Stavely said sternly, ‘We must keep this to ourselves. It must not be made public, at all costs. Once the newspapers get hold of that abandoned clothes story, can you imagine the whispers among the island’s salacious-minded citizens? Calendars will be consulted and a lookout kept for the anniversary of her disappearance.’

  He shuddered. ‘The curiosity must have been enough ten years ago. But she wasn’t practically naked. This time I can see a great crowd gathering to watch a young woman walk out of the sea in her underwear. Practically an occasion for selling tickets,’ he added grimly.

  It was an image to toy with in a society where clothes were rarely discarded except in the privacy of the marital bedroom. Even then not always, as most children were conceived under a modest sheltering of bedclothes. As for undergarments, they were a luxury reserved for rich folk.

  There was a stir in the newspaper office too. The weekly edition was due to be published on the day following Celia Prentiss-Grant’s disappearance and Jimmy Traill was grateful indeed for a truly new and sensational headline.

  On his way to the scene of the disappearance, he appeared at the servants’ lodge and Faro wasn’t entirely surprised to see him. It was difficult to know which was more breathless, Jimmy or his exhausted horse, which had been ridden hard from Kirkwall.

  ‘Glad to find you, Faro. Right on the spot where it all happened. Have you a story for me?’

  Endeavouring to calm the newspaperman down by offering him a cup of tea in Mary’s kitchen, Faro related the arranged story that the girl had disappeared without trace, omitting any mention of the abandoned clothes.

  Jimmy shook his head vigorously. Snapping his notebook shut, he gave Faro a delighted smile. ‘Splendid, splendid. This is just what our readers will love. The seal king legend revived once more in full detail. Something to give them the shivers.’

  As he departed for the shore to take a closer look at the scene, Faro closed the door on him, realising that in the forthcoming edition of the newspaper the seal king would receive more than his fair share of gratuitous publicity.

  Jimmy had excelled himself, and even he was unprepared for the immediate outcry from readers who believed every word written in the press was gospel truth.

  They demanded that all seals be killed immediately. Had seals been capable of reading newspapers they would have found this very offensive indeed.

  As for Stavely, he had problems of his own concerning the nocturnal activities of his son. Ed had not returned from the evening stroll with his parents, announcing that he had other plans, namely that he wanted to see some action. They heard him come in very late, stumbling about in the dark as he went to the bedroom he was sharing with his uncle Hal.

  At breakfast the next morning, he failed to appear and Hal, who Stavely decided was never a good influence on his nephew, made light of it, and said laughingly that he had probably met some of the local farmers’ lads and had too much to drink.

  ‘Lads of that age, what can you expect?’ he added. ‘We all have to sow our wild oats when we get the chance.’

  Sowing wild oats was one thing but Ed had not shown the slightest interest in Miss Celia. His boorish behaviour was hardly within the bounds of politeness. A consoling thought, but Lily, gathering Ed’s clothes to wash, discovered a bloodstained shirt.

  Thinking that he had fallen down, poor lad, she asked anxiously, ‘Did you hurt yourself last night?’

  He looked at her in amazement and said, ‘Of course not, Ma.’

  She held out the shirt and he shrugged. ‘Bit of a tussle, my nose must have been bleeding.’

  And when his father heard that story, he was a very unhappy man indeed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In the quiet of his own room, wondering how long he could evade his mother’s gloomy and tearful speculations, Faro sat down grimly to consider the events of the last twenty-four hours. Sticking to his usual procedure, he made a careful list containing everything known about victim and suspects, in the hope that by so doing it might also reveal the inescapable fact that for every crime there must be a motive.

  First of all, if Celia was the victim, why? He dismissed suicide. She might have removed the cloak, although it could have been useful, as two heavy stones in the pockets would keep her from floating to the surface again. It was doubtful, however, that she would have removed all but her underwear, and the neatly folded clothes did not suggest a sudden unpremeditated impulse by a passing rapist or the actions of a kidnapper intent on ransom.

  Without knowledge of any kind regarding the Prentiss-Grants, the facts thus far simply failed to make any sense of the girl’s disappearance. With a sigh of exasperation, he laid down the pen and, blessed with an extraordinary retentive memory, he went over every item of Celia’s brief conversation with him, in the hope he might remember any remark which might hold some significance.

  He could think of none. Only one fact was predominant. Although she was beautiful, young and rich with
, as Stavely had indicated, the world at her feet, Faro had sensed flaws, an underlying vague discontent and frustration with her life of luxury, which might in time become rebellion.

  Even that short acquaintance had revealed that she was on the threshold of a new womankind, bred by the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, a growing army rebelling against the tyrannical trappings of male-dominated centuries, where daughters in rich homes were on sale to the highest bidder in the marriage marketplace.

  Faro’s knowledge of Lizzie’s tragic background, and his recent encounter in England with the bohemian life of artists and models, had given him greater understanding of a situation which seemed to the average man quite out of the bounds of decency.

  If this could be related to Celia’s disappearance – neither suicide, nor kidnapping – was she merely determined to go against some plan for her future which had set her into violent opposition with her parents? Although this was the most logical reason for her hasty departure from London, alone, the scene of abandoned clothes by the shore hit a more sinister note.

  The question remained, why had she chosen to return to Scarthbreck? It held no magic for her, and the fact she had returned hinted at a strong personal attachment to someone who lived here. And as she was but eighteen years old, this had to be kept secret at all cost from her parents.

  Again that led to the abandonment of her clothes, which refused to fit any logical theory beyond going for a swim and failing to return, the obvious reason too dreadful to dwell upon.

  What about the missing reticule? Why was it not with her clothes? It could, of course, have started off that way but had been removed by some passer-by. However, bearing in mind the appalling weather, a casual evening stroller with dishonest impulses seemed unlikely.

  And at the back of his mind, still obstinately refusing to be dismissed, the shadow of a legend.

  The coincidence of Thora Claydon and the seal king.

  The only difference was that she had returned wearing clothes identical to those she had on the night she disappeared.

  Frustrated, he pushed aside the list and stared out of the window to be rewarded by the bleak prospect of sea and sky united in an indivisible grey line, a landscape devoid of all colour, as gloomy and solemn as his own thoughts.

  With the instincts of a born detective he loved a mystery, but preferably one in which he was not already marked down and firmly fixed as the prime suspect. Perhaps at this very moment, he thought grimly, the sergeant was also making a list of his own, headed Constable Faro.

  In that supposition Faro was wrong. Although he was the only suspect, Stavely was at that moment absorbed by problems relating to his own, and the terrible thought in the back of his mind that refused to be banished was that Ed also had those vital missing hours to account for. Although he had appeared so disinterested in the girl, Stavely realised that he did not know his son in the slightest. Being a young male, had his lusts been aroused at the sight of the pretty girl, whose presence he appeared to ignore?

  Had Ed returned to the shore, lain in wait?

  That bloodstained shirt refused to be ignored.

  Stavely shuddered, but resolved that whatever Ed had done, the world would never know that Sergeant Stavely’s wayward son also had hours unaccounted for on that fatal night. And as far as he was concerned, Constable Jeremy Faro would remain the prime suspect.

  There was one other. What of Lily’s younger brother, Hal, who was not at home when they and the three girls returned? They did not hear him come in, and although Stavely had enquired politely as to whether he had a good night out, this had been met by a sullen silence.

  Hal’s croft was also accessible from the shore, and dismally he wondered if he had two additional suspects, motives unknown, concerned in Miss Celia’s disappearance?

  To tell the truth, he had never liked his young brother-in-law, who was sly and vain, with no intentions of getting married and settling down. Occasionally he heard the two young men sniggering together (revealing a lighter side to Ed’s character), which was a surprise, as he was normally so dour and surly with his parents. But Stavely feared that it boded ill, and that Hal was a bad influence, urging them to let Ed work on the croft with him instead of joining the police or becoming apprenticed to a lucrative trade.

  Faro heard his mother’s footsteps. Any moment now she would appear, with the inevitable consequence of having to listen to her frantic recapitulation of the last twenty-four hours.

  Determined to avoid the encounter, he thought about Inga St Ola. If there was one solitary blessing in disguise in this whole sorry business, a few extra days confined to Scarthbreck meant that he could see her again.

  At that moment it was what he most needed, her practical sensible approach, and he had a sudden longing to listen to her version of the disappearance of Celia Prentiss-Grant.

  Making a noiseless exit from his room, with a sigh of relief he managed to slip out of the lodge unnoticed, although fully expecting to hear his mother’s voice behind him as he hurried down to Spanish Cove.

  As he approached the long dismal street, he was surprised and not best pleased to see a handsome young man emerging from the house where Inga lived. With a sudden pang of jealousy he recognised the ferryman, Amos Flett, who, turning his head in Faro’s direction, shouted a cheery greeting as he ambled away down the road towards Stromness.

  Inga was home. She was delighted to see him and the Orkney chair was empty.

  ‘Where’s Baubie?’

  ‘Just a couple of doors away. Taking care of the old fisherman’s wife. She has bronchitis and is receiving some of Baubie’s special remedies.’ Taking his hand, she smiled. ‘Do y’know, I was wondering how I could find an excuse to call on you, without encountering your ma.’ With a quizzical look, she added, ‘I am not her favourite person. So sit down and tell me anything you know about our missing heiress.’

  Pulling up a stool alongside, she regarded him intently. ‘Isn’t all this perfectly awful? Now the island is swimming with stories, all these hints about the seal king and how Thora Harbister disappeared in exactly the same circumstances ten years ago.’

  She paused. ‘However, apart from it being Lammastide, the whole thing, in my opinion, is not only sheer coincidence but sheer nonsense. I don’t believe a word of this seal king story – never have – but some folk here will believe anything.’ A sigh and she added, ‘As you are well aware, you have to be away on the mainland for a bit to see things in the right perspective. I’ve only been away once in my whole life, the year after you left, and although I longed for home, when I came back, I’d had time to recognise the flaws.’

  Pausing, she glanced towards the window, as if seeing for a moment that other world, then turning again she smiled at him. ‘There has to be a better theory than a superstitious legend. I’m sure you already have come to some sensible conclusions about that. So tell me – what do you think happened?’ And, chin on hand in a well-remembered pose, she waited patiently for his response.

  ‘I agree with you about the seal king theory. But what you don’t know is that I had met her that evening, just hours before – quite by accident. I was walking along the shore.’

  He was rather pleased that Inga’s benign expression changed fleetingly to one of jealousy, and for a moment he wanted to divert the conversation to the subject of Amos Flett.

  ‘Go on,’ she was saying. ‘This should be interesting. You’d just met, so what did you talk about?’

  Once again, Faro went over the details of that conversation, and in truth it sounded a little banal as Inga interrupted somewhat impatiently, ‘There’s nothing new there; everyone here knows all about the Prentiss-Grants and that Miss Celia is nothing more than a rather spoilt only child. But that doesn’t tell us why she came back suddenly to what, by all accounts, wasn’t her favourite place on earth and then promptly vanished.’

  Frowning she added, ‘There’s nothing she said to you to indicate what she had in mind, was th
ere? Although one would hardly expect such revelations, even to a lad she found so attractive that she had to force her company upon him.’

  Faro made a grimace and Inga shrugged. ‘I just get the impression, helped on, I must confess, by local gossip, that she was used to getting her own way. Every shop in Stromness and Kirkwall will tell you that from childhood Miss Celia was a little madam. Seems to me most likely that she had come back all the way from London, alone, because of a violent disagreement with her parents.’

  As those were Faro’s own thoughts, he told her about the clothes Stavely had discovered.

  ‘Now, that is bizarre. What! Abandon a lovely fur cloak – a pretty dress and petticoats.’ Inga’s shocked expression said that her reverence for elegant clothes which she could never afford was deeply outraged. ‘Had she gone into the sea in her boots? No one ever does that. That’s awful.’

  Boots were a rare luxury almost unknown among crofters. As a schoolboy Faro had gone barefoot in summer and was surprised to see boots being worn by working folks in Edinburgh, while island men and women fortunate enough to own a pair treasured them greatly, their survival watched in eager anticipation of being handed down to less fortunate members of the family.

  ‘She apparently did keep on her undergarments,’ Faro muttered.

  Inga laughed. ‘You should see your face, Jeremy. No need to look so embarrassed about under-drawers, most of us would wear them every day, if we could afford them.’ She thought for a moment. ‘But it does seem odd, her cloak and all lying there neatly piled together, just as if she had suddenly decided to have a swim. But surely not on a night like that.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ Faro said. ‘The sergeant and I went back to Scarthbreck and searched her bedroom – looking for anything that might give us a clue. Her reticule was missing …’

  ‘Now, that is odd. I can’t imagine any woman … specially one like her … Wherever she went, we can be sure it went with her,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘That definitely puts an end to any ideas about an evening swim. Was she carrying it? Maybe a man wouldn’t notice.’