The Inspector's Daughter (A Rose McQuinn Mystery)

by Alanna Knight

  The Inspector's Daughter

  A Rose McQuinn Mystery

  by

  Alanna Knight

  ALANNA KNIGHT has written more than fifty novels, (including fifteen in the successful Inspector Faro series), four works of non-fiction, numerous short stories and two plays since the publication of her first book in 1969. Born and educated in Tyneside, she now lives in Edinburgh. She is a founding member of the Scottish Association of Writers and Honorary President of the Edinburgh Writer’s Club.

  THE INSPECTOR'S DAUGHTER

  Rose McQuinn returns home to Edinburgh from the American Wild West to find her beloved stepbrother has moved to London, but she has little time to ponder her loneliness before she steps into the shoes of her father, the legendary Detective Inspector Faro. Rose's childhood friend Alice is convinced her husband Matthew is having an affair but Rose suspects he may have been involved in something much more sinister. From her home at the foot of Arthur's Seat, Rose - ever her father's daughter - begins her investigations ... but will the truth break Alice's heart and put Rose herself in danger?

  Chapter One

  Soon I would be safe.

  The journey from nightmare was almost ended. Every turn of the train's wheels, every drifting smoke wreath closed the door more firmly on the past.

  Beyond the hills, the blue glimpse of sea, Edinburgh was fast approaching, epilogue to ten years in America, so-called land of opportunity but for me a land of tragedy and loss.

  Home! The train gathered speed, echoing the magic word as it plunged into a familiar landscape welcoming the exile returned with a perfect summer's day. Under azure skies, fields spread with the delicate fuzz of green, trees radiant in blossom, were heralds of hope.

  May 1895 - a time to be remembered always, the day I began life anew and severed the past for ever.

  Or so I thought. For as I was to discover, there is no escape from the painful experience of adversity. Loss invades each corner of the mind, scars body and soul. A ruthless part of every day, of living and breathing, it waits to erupt like a malignant disease when, cocooned by new happiness and security, we least expect it.

  But mercifully unaware of what the future held, I smiled delightedly, radiant with excitement as the train steamed into Dunbar Station.

  In less than an hour, I told myself, Vince, beloved stepbrother, would be waiting on the station platform in Edinburgh. Did he feel the same emotions at the returning prodigal, I wondered? Closing my eyes, I pictured him leaving the house in Sheridan Place with his dear Olivia, the practical wife, urging him to make haste: 'Hurry, dearest - we must not keep Rose waiting.'

  Imagination painted no farther pictures beyond that blissful moment of being reunited with them both. If only Pappa could be there waiting with them, happiness would have been complete.

  But I had learned long ago the bitter lessons of one who expects perfection. All I needed of a future was waiting for me in the house in Sheridan Place. Reassurance, comfort, the safe warmth of a loving family circle would heal wounds, allow me to forget...

  'Dunbar!' called the guard and the family who had taken the five remaining seats in my compartment at York - father, mother and three disagreeable children of assorted ages - noisily took their leave, scrambling across my feet, screaming angrily at one another.

  Peace at last. I gave a sigh of relief. But their presence, although obnoxious, had not been without its reward for concealed by my shawl I had made several interesting sketches. Something of an amateur artist, this was my refuge for keeping sane and calm during many long and wearisome journeys across a continent, from Dakota to New York.

  Beyond the carriage window the weather was kinder than the rain that had poured down when I took leave of Scotland on the outset of my long voyage to join Danny McQuinn in America a decade ago, regardless of omens, brimful of confidence and quite delirious with passionate hopes for the future.

  How I had laughed at my family's misgivings, their solemn faces, dear Olivia trying not to cry, horrified at a young girl travelling unescorted, without even a maid to accompany her, halfway across the world.

  But I was determined. Danny was waiting for me. He will be there, I told them firmly.

  'A savage country, wild, untamed and dangerous. Let me get settled first, find a place for us to live. Then you can come.'

  Danny had exhausted every reason for persuading me to stay at home. And as he ran out of arguments, so I ran out of patience, believing I would thrive on danger and hardships faced together would make our love stronger.

  I would prove right Pappa's boast that his Rose was utterly fearless, no milksop ready to take the vapours at the sight of blood.

  And there was plenty of that. I thrust the thought into the black depths of my mind. I was older, wiser now. Thirty years old, bereaved of husband and child, I had seen more blood spilt in the last eight years than most genteel Edinburgh women ever saw in a lifetime-

  But what was happening on the station platform? A middle-aged couple had walked three times past the window of the compartment. Were they searching for someone on the train? Worried expressions, furtive rather than welcoming, hinted at some less pleasant motive and as the guard blew his whistle they came to a sudden decision.

  The man opened the carriage door and thrust the woman before him into the seat opposite me. He sat close to her, both ignored my polite greeting, their manner preoccupied, apprehensive, watchful.

  I didn't need Pappa's expertise to tell me that the newcomers were most likely absconding lovers, frustrated by their attempts to find an empty compartment; observations confirmed by the fact that the Edinburgh train had only a short distance to travel.

  What was so urgent? What matters needed to be discussed? Why that desperate need for secrecy? Then I noticed the man grope stealthily for his companion's hand inside her muff.

  Their behaviour suggested that they were facing some imminent crisis. Huddled close together, an occasional whisper, a nervous, darting glance out of the window.

  As they seemed completely unaware of me, here was an excellent opportunity to make further use of the journal-sketchbook. A challenge indeed to capture those fleeting expressions, their scared, furtive looks. Their true personalities, the passion latent in them that was so much at variance with their apparel.

  An unlikely pair of tragic lovers, were they a middle-aged Tristan and Isolde in modern dress?

  The man was sweating. He took out a pocket handkerchief and removed his tall hat to wipe his brow. His hair was thin, sideburns and moustache slicked down with macassar-oil.

  The indications were that they had bolted, but had not travelled far. Neither had hand luggage, cloak nor umbrella. The last a curious omission since Scottish weather in early summer is not infallible and cloudless skies are not entirely trustworthy.

  The man's rather loud checked trousers and jacket would have been more at home on the golf course and a faux diamond tiepin, rather too large and showy in his crumpled cravat, were at odds with the down-at-heel scuffed patent boots. Hands, beringed with flashy stones, were less than gentlemanly and proclaimed the dandy.

  But it was the woman who drew my attention. Nearer to me than her companion, in purple and grey half-mourning, the veiled hat did not become her and looked as if it had been borrowed by necessity in some haste.

  In the game Pappa and I played on train journeys he encouraged me to speculate from appearances the background and condition of our fellow travellers. While providing a pleasant way of passing the time it was an early and valuable lesson in observation, which I was never to lose.

  As for the woman leaning so close to her companion
, Pappa would have speculated an upper-class servant hoping to be taken for a lady. Unlike her companion, her only jewellery was a beautiful pendant, a gold dragon with jewelled eyes and wings - no doubt as false as the man's tiepin but nevertheless an impressive ornament.

  Unobserved, my pencil flew across the page. A few deft strokes to capture the hard face, the thin lips, the flamboyant necklace. Instinct, observation said that it was newly acquired, for she touched it constantly, nervously as if to reassure herself of its safety. Had it been borrowed too? If so, why?

  At last the train slowed down and slid along the track past Salisbury Crags and the ancient Abbey ruins at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

  'Waverley Station,' shouted the guard.

  Ignoring my efforts to lift down heavy luggage from the rack, the couple were in such a great hurry to leave they almost fell across my feet as they scrambled out of the carriage.

  No apology and no gentleman, either. I had been right. Even the humblest working man would have offered assistance. Curious to see what happened next, I watched them separate like strangers, with never a look or a word of farewell exchanged.

  As they disappeared I felt quite disappointed that my supposition of their illicit dalliance would never be confirmed.

  But in this, as in so much else that was to happen, I was quite wrong. Destiny had not yet finished with the ill-assorted couple and myself. We were to meet again in less agreeable circumstances.

  With my luggage piled alongside, how eagerly I scanned the platform for Vince and Olivia. As the clouds of smoke dispersed from the train I expected to see their familiar carriage.

  There was none.

  Passengers were being greeted, hurrying away on foot or seizing the waiting hansom cabs. I looked around. The platform had emptied and I was alone.

  Vince - where was Vince?

  What had happened to him? Why wasn't he here to greet me? I had sent him a telegram before boarding the train.

  I told myself to be calm, but still that rising panic. There could be many reasons. Telegrams could fail to arrive on time, be interpreted wrongly, be delivered to the wrong house.

  I had been in much worse situations than this and recently, too. There was only one sensible way to find out what had happened: go immediately to Sheridan Place.

  I closed my eyes, thought ahead to their surprised greeting. Their delight in this unexpected arrival. Some simple explanation such as: 'Rose! But we thought it was tomorrow you were arriving!'

  A porter sauntered along, noticed this forlorn, uncollected passenger. 'Carriage, miss? Follow me.'

  The rank of hiring carriages was empty.

  'Shouldn't be long, miss,' he said consolingly. 'Most of the folks are short-distance fares. It's always like this when the London trains arrive. You have to look sharp, make a dash for it. Not quite the thing for a young lady though,' he added apologetically.

  'I was expecting to be met.'

  A hansom appeared, the porter put my bags aboard, received my tip and said: 'Where to, miss?'

  'Sheridan Place.'

  He repeated this information to the cabman who had already assessed the shabby luggage. Although I appeared to be respectable enough, it was unusual for a lady with an address in that elegant area of the town to be travelling without a maid. Unless she was a certain class of woman, of course, and he got plenty of them, after dark. Curiosity overcame him: 'Been away long, miss?'

  'A while.' I looked around. From what I could see, Edinburgh seemed much as I had left it. 'Nothing changes, though.'

  In reply he pointed with his whip to the newsboy and the billboard at the station entrance: 'Horrible Murder. Killer at large. Aye, people still get themselves murdered. And in that respectable neighbourhood you're heading for,' he added, his laugh betraying a certain satisfaction. 'Make sure you're safe home before dark, miss.'

  What a homecoming, I thought. One Pappa might have relished.

  As the hansom rattled along the cobblestones down to the Pleasance towards the Dalkeith road, I saw beyond the city centre that Edinburgh had indeed changed.

  Posters advertised a Wild West Circus in Queen's Park.

  A circus! They saw the Wild West as an amusement, an exciting entertainment, not a brutal reality. But then, in ignorance, so had circuses seemed in my childhood.

  Edinburgh had more permanent changes: tall houses on the skyline hiding the view of the Firth of Forth to the north, and the once unbroken view across to Craigmillar Caste and the Pentland Hills to the south.

  Progress was with us, new buildings everywhere, the clang of hammers from labouring men perched precariously on tall scaffolding.

  What I remembered of the approach to my old home in Sheridan Place had changed most of all. The fields that had bordered Arthur's Seat with Nelson's Printing Works, flanked by St Leonard's Hall and Salisbury Green, and a few Georgian houses discreetly concealed behind high walls, belonged to a pleasant rural area no longer. They had been overtaken and sadly overlooked by streets of tenements five storeys high. For the more affluent newcomers, terraces of modest villas offered gardens, with iron railings and gates for extra privacy. And where travel to this remote part had been only by carriage or gig, there were omnibuses running on rails in the roads. A novel innovation by which a greater number of passengers, and those lacking carriages, could travel in comfort and less cost from the outer reaches of the city.

  At last, the gates of Sheridan Place. We turned the corner and there was the familiar house.

  Only it wasn't familiar any more. The garden was overgrown, the windows shuttered. It was empty, deserted.

  At my cry of astonishment the cabman said: 'Looks like someone gave you the wrong information, miss. Are you sure this was the right address?'

  I was speechless, almost in tears. I couldn't start arguing with him that I had lived in that house, that it had once been my home.

  Almost hidden by shrubbery, a 'For Sale' notice: 'Apply to Blackadder and Co., George Street, Edinburgh.' I remembered Mr Blackadder. He was the family solicitor.

  But what had happened to Vince? Had some ill befallen him and Olivia, and little Jamie?

  Bewildered, scared, I had thought that reaching Edinburgh all my troubles would be over. And as we made our way back through the city, I tried to suppress feelings of panic by observing the passing scene in Princes Street. More carriages than I remembered, new buildings. Ladies fashions had undergone a transformation too. Tiny waists and enormous hats, beset by plumed birds and vast quantities of fruit.

  The modern craze for bicycles was evident too.

  But as the hansom turned into Hanover Street and down towards Mr Blackadder's office my heart banged against my ribs, thumping with dread for what awaited me there: the terror that this was a continuation of the nightmare I had lived through and believed to be past; and with it the certainty that my strength to face any further personal disasters was rapidly fading.

  Chapter Two

  I walked up the steps and rang the doorbell of the solicitor's office in George Street, realising that I had never set eyes on Mr Blackadder in all the years he had served my family.

  Invited to enter and state my business, there was some little delay in which I was certain of being watched surreptitiously through the window which separated Mr Blackadder's sanctuary from the main office. My arrival had created a small stir and I was the object of some curiosity among the three clerks, busily writing at their high desks.

  At last the door opened and Mr Blackadder introduced himself. A gentleman of ancient vintage whose somewhat grey and dusty appearance suggested a lifetime spent in the company of dry legal documents.

  Invited to be seated, my first question concerned my step-brother: 'Dr Laurie? Is he well? And Mrs Laurie?'

  Assured that they were in excellent health, I gave a sigh of relief and told him about the telegram I had sent to Sheridan Place, my dismay at not being met and the further anxiety at finding the house for sale.

  He held up his hand.
'Allow me to explain, Mrs McQuinn. First of all your telegram must be lying in the empty house. Doubtless the delivery boy made the mistake of thinking it was occupied by a new tenant. Here is your further explanation-'

  He pushed several envelopes across the table. I recognised Vince's handwriting and my sister Emily's.

  'These were returned to us from the American bank some time ago since they had lain there unclaimed and they had received no forwarding address from you.'

  He paused and looked at me. 'Mr McQuinn?' he asked.

  'I am a widow.' How I hated that final word, closing the page with the formal acknowledgement that Danny was dead.

  Mr Blackadder sighed and placed his fingertips together. 'My most sincere condolences, Mrs McQuinn. Most sad, most sad.'

  'Dr Laurie - where is he?' I asked, trying not to sound impatient at his leisurely explanations.

  'They have recently moved down to England.'

  'Why on earth-'

  'When Dr Laurie heard from New York that you were returning home, he instructed me to deliver this letter to you. It will explain everything.'

  Handing it to me, he leaned forward confidentially. 'Dr Laurie has been looked upon favourably by Royalty.'

  A bell sounded in the outside office. 'That is a client I am expecting. No, no. I shall only be gone a few moments-'

  I stood up, clutching the packet of letters he handed me.

  'Thank you, sir, I am most grateful to you for seeing me without an appointment. I apologise for this rather unconventional behaviour but I was quite distraught-'

  'My dear young lady,' he said and compassion showed on his face for the first time. 'Please remain seated. I shall return shortly and we have many other matters to discuss regarding your future.'

  'My father - is he well?'

  He shook his head. 'I have no recent news regarding your father but the last indications were that all was well with him.'