A Quiet Death (An Inspector Faro Mystery No.5)

by Alanna Knight

  'You'll like McGonagall, he's a grand old chap, very colourful—shares your passion for the Bard,' he whispered opening the door.

  The figure who appeared was slightly unreal. Below middle height, sturdily built, melancholy dark eyes gazing from a pale face, framed by black shoulder-length curls under a wide-brimmed hat, the kind worn by priests. His frock-coat, once black but still impressive despite its green tinged antiquity, was an unlikely choice for a worker in the weaving factory.

  Seeing Vince, he rushed forward hand outstretched: 'Dear lad, dear lad. How goes it with you?' And turning to Faro, he took off his hat in a sweeping gesture which matched the theatrical bow.

  'And you, sir, must be Dr Laurie's famous stepfather, the Chief Inspector.' As they shook hands he regarded Faro shrewdly. 'Your activities in the realms of criminology are well known to me. My sister-in-law who inhabits your fair city of Edinburgh has mentioned your name.' Another bow: 'Allow me to present my card and credentials, sir.' Faro glanced in some surprise at the small package. 'If you would care to attend this evening's performance of Macbeth, there are two free tickets. The noble Inspector's presence would add lustre to your humble servant's performance.'

  Faro suppressed a smile, for there was nothing at all humble in this extraordinary man with the booming voice and eccentric garb.

  Leaning forward confidentially, McGonagall placed a hand on his arm and his face now serious, he continued: 'Indeed, I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Fate must have sent you to Dundee at this time,' he added gloomily and looking over his shoulder, he gestured towards the room at the end of the corridor.

  'But let us be comfortable, for I have a melancholy tale to unfold. If you will be so good as to follow me into our humble kitchen, Mrs M will provide us with refreshment.'

  Jean McGonagall hastily buttoned up her gown as the men entered and laid the now sleepy baby in a somewhat battered cradle. After quickly introducing her to Faro, McGonagall said in a lordly manner:

  'And now, be so good as to provide sustenance for these gentlemen.'

  Faro took the proffered seat in one of the rickety chairs by the side of a blackleaded and highly polished steel range with ashpan and fender. The room was humble indeed, shabby but again well cared for within its limits. Four wooden kitchen chairs and a large scrubbed wooden table occupied the centre floor, while a recess held a double bed. Lace curtains adorned the one solitary window above a sink with well-polished brass tap.

  Dominating the mantelpiece, a pendulum clock with ferocious tick, a brass tea caddy, and a pair of china dogs. Opposite, a dresser displayed a variety of unmatching china teacups and plates, interspersed with photographs. Mostly of McGonagall, presumably in costume from his leading Shakespearean roles.

  Faro was suddenly aware that McGonagall was addressing him.

  'As I remarked earlier, sir, it is fortuitous indeed that you should be visiting Dundee at this time. Dr Laurie may have told you that my niece and her young friend disappeared—'

  'Willie,' said Jean chidingly. They didn't disappear. You are too dramatic, dear. We had a postcard that they had found employment with a milliner's in Regent Street. They only went to London to improve their prospects,' she added apologetically.

  'Poor Polly certainly did not improve hers,' said William heavily. When his wife gave a startled 'Oh!' he withdrew a piece of newspaper from his pocket and spread it on the table.

  'You remember reading in the newspaper two days ago that the body of an unknown young woman had been recovered from the Tay—a suspected suicide—'

  'Oh dear God, not our Kathleen—'

  'No, woman, not Kathleen,' McGonagall replied impatiently, turning to Faro. 'If I had not been a tragedian I think I would have made an excellent detective—'

  'For God's sake get on with it, Willie,' cried his wife, nervously twisting the ends of her apron. 'If it isn't Kathleen, who is it?'

  'Hear me out, woman, for pity's sake. Where was I? Oh yes, I have already indicated that I have a naturally curious nature and ever since the two girls disappeared, I have been keeping a watchful eye on the newspapers and have made it my business to keep the police informed for their missing persons files—'

  'You never told me,' was the reproachful cry from his wife.

  'I did not want to alarm you unnecessarily, especially when you seemed quite content to believe they were bettering themselves in London.'

  He sighed and winked at the two men. 'I am a little more worldly-wise than Mrs McGonagall, gentlemen, and when I read of this apparent suicide I decided to give the matter my personal attention.'

  Another dramatic pause while he drank deep. Jean McGonagall had set before the company enamel cups of bitter black tea, thereby providing Faro with some difficulties. This he guessed was Irish tea, beloved of the navvies, for even the tough Edinburgh constables didn't make it this strong in the Central Office.

  McGonagall looked at each of his small audience in turn before proceeding. 'I have newly returned from the police station—'

  It is Polly, isn't it?' said Jean with a sob.

  He nodded. 'Sadly, my dear, it is Polly. I was able to identify her body in the mortuary. There is no doubt about it.'

  With a glance at his wife who was now weeping noisily, he drew them aside. 'And now do you get my drift, gentlemen? The two girls were inseparable, so where in dear God's name—is our Kathleen?'

  Stretching over to the mantelpiece, he took down a picture postcard of Trafalgar Square and studied it carefully. The question remains, sirs, is she still in this milliner's shop in Regent Street?'

  'May I see?' Faro was more interested in the postmark than the cramped ill-written message. But as was so often the case when such matters were of crucial importance, the date was completely illegible.

  Jean McGonagall, drying her eyes, snatched up a rather blurred photograph from the dresser. The girl smiling coyly through a cloud of blonde curls was little more than a child. This is our Kathleen.'

  'Bonny lass, she is,' said McGonagall proudly.

  'She is indeed,' said Faro.

  McGonagall nodded. 'Hasn't changed very much since that was taken either, three-four

  years ago.'

  'Willie insisted on it,' said Jean bitterly. 'More than we ever did for our own bairns and cost us a fortune, it did.'

  'Hush, woman.' And apologetically to the men: 'Photographs are an absolute essential for a potential thespian.'

  'Thespian, indeed,' muttered Jean. 'She didn't take much of your advice, did she?'

  Before this domestic argument swamped McGonagall's revelations, Faro interrupted: 'What about the unfortunate girl Polly's family?'

  'She didn't talk much about them,' said Jean. 'They were tinker folk, attached to a travelling circus.'

  'So you would find it very difficult to inform them.'

  'Almost impossible, sir.' McGonagall sighed deeply. 'There are bands of these folk roaming the country, making camps outside towns. Sometimes they come to Magdalen Green, set up a penny gaff, a show under canvas, and by next morning they have vanished into thin air.'

  'And mostly not empty-handed, either. They even steal clothes drying on the lines,' Jean put in. 'Kathleen always said Polly was ashamed of her background and wanted to better herself. You remember, Willie. She didn't like performing in a circus with wild animals, neither. Thought it wasn't ladylike. Said she smelt of lions all the time. Poor lass, oh, the poor lass.'

  She began to cry again and this wakened the baby who added its dismal wail to the melancholy scene. As Jean rushed to the cradle, McGonagall jerked his head towards the door, a finger to his lips.

  As they followed him into the corridor, Vince said comfortingly: 'No doubt Kathleen is still in London, but Polly changed her mind and came home.'

  'Let us hope that was the way of it. I am feeling quite desperate, gentlemen.' He bit his underlip. 'I have a feeling that there is something—more than suicide in this.'

  'What gave you that idea?' demanded Faro s
harply.

  'I detected a certain reluctance in the police officers to show me the body. And when at last they did, I was invited to sit down and answer a number of questions I would have considered quite unnecessary for the mere identification of a dead body.'

  Pausing dramatically he surveyed his audience. 'Indeed I began to feel certain that - that, well, they suspected I had something to do with poor Polly's death. I became very indignant at such an idea.' And hanging his head, 'I am ashamed, quite ashamed, gentlemen, to admit to you that I vented my wrath on the unfortunate police constable who was questioning me before storming out in an attitude of high dudgeon.'

  He leaned forward, put a finger to his lips and whispered: 'I am quite certain, gentlemen, that I was followed home.'

  And springing forward, he twitched aside the curtain on the landing window. 'To be sure, I was right, gentlemen. Look for yourselves. He is still there. That is the very man standing at the corner.'

  Faro looked down into the street and sighed. 'I'm afraid you're right.'

  'So you do believe me, sir.' McGonagall seemed surprised.

  'I believe you.'

  Faro was in no danger of mistaking a police constable out of uniform, trying with difficulty and in extreme discomfort to look nonchalant and blend into the background.

  McGonagall stared into Faro's face. 'You surely do not think they believe I have had something to do with that poor child's death?' There was unconcealed terror in his voice.

  'Let us say I think they are just doing their duty. If you are the only person who has turned up to identify the body, then they are being ultra-cautious and getting as much information as they can.'

  'But if I had committed this terrible crime, surely I wouldn't have gone near the police station? Surely my action proves my innocence,' McGonagall protested.

  Faro shook his head. 'Not necessarily. There are those murderers who get their ultimate satisfaction in a final contemplation of their gruesome handiwork.'

  McGonagall had paled visibly. 'Dear God, what am I to do?'

  'Nothing. They'll give up after they get more evidence.'

  'Evidence? You mean the invasion of my home, the terrifying of Mrs McGonagall? This is dreadful, sir, dreadful. It is bad enough having the worry of Kathleen without being involved in her friend's suicide.'

  Faro was aware of a familiar prickling sensation in the region of his spine. The presence of the constable outside McGonagall's home confirmed that the police had reason to believe there was more to the girl's death than suicide.

  Suicide was already the wrong word. Murder was more like it.

  And there was only one way to find out.

  Chapter 5

  As they left Vince's lodging. Faro was unable to resist walking past the plain-clothes constable. 'Well done, lad. Keep it up,' he whispered.

  The young man, recognising the voice of authority, saluted smartly thereby giving the whole game away. Faro raised an admonishing finger and with a sad shake of his head, still chuckling, caught up with Vince.

  As they approached the town centre he asked idly where the police station was located.

  'You are not going there, Stepfather? I thought you were on holiday?' There was no reply from Faro. 'You cannot resist a mystery, can you?'

  'There is something wrong, Vince. Take my word for it.'

  'Oh, for heaven's sake. That constable could have been watching the tenement. There's plenty of petty crime in Paton's Lane, believe me.'

  When his stepfather remained silent, he said: 'Regarding the girl Polly, there is a perfectly logical explanation which I am sure must have occurred to you almost immediately, as the reason for her suicide.'

  'One you considered too indelicate to mention to McGonagall?'

  Vince nodded grimly. 'Exactly. I suspect that neither of them went to London nor had they any intention of so doing. As you well know, in every big city, here and in Edinburgh, there are what are known in polite society as gentlemen's select clubs, patronised by the wealthy. And a positive refuge for young women whose ambitions are stronger than their morals.'

  'Would Polly not have been more use to them alive than dead?'

  'I think you'll get your answer from the police surgeon at the mortuary. I presume that is your destination,' he added in disgust.

  When Faro mumbled: 'Something like that,' Vince continued: 'The answer is easy. The wretched girl probably found herself pregnant. In eight cases out of ten, that is the reason for suicides among young unmarried girls. Either betrayed and abandoned by a lover they cannot face the future or disowned by parents unwilling to endure a daughter's disgrace.'

  Not either, sometimes both, thought Faro grimly, remembering how his dead wife Lizzie had been made to suffer, a fifteen-year-old servant girl, for bringing Vince into the world.

  'Polly must have been pretty sharp about it,' he said, 'seeing that she had only gone missing for a few weeks.'

  'Come, Stepfather, you can do better than that. I imagine that girls, the pretty ones with potential, are discovered and recruited on the weaving factory floor. Not literally, of course,' he added with a grin. 'They probably work part time in the select clubs until they soon find that working hours in both establishments and keeping up a pretence of home life are too exhausting and opt for the more lucrative nightwork. I would presume that Kathleen Neil wanted to spare McGonagall's feelings, hence the postcard from wherever it was posted.'

  Faro was not convinced nor was he to be diverted from his purpose by Vince's argument.

  He had no difficulty in identifying himself in the police station. They were fortunate, he was told, that the police surgeon had been called in to deal with a fatal accident enquiry. He was to be found in his temporary office.

  'Is this an official enquiry?' asked Dr Ramsey nervously. He was young and clearly impressed to learn that Dr Laurie had been assistant to the Edinburgh City police surgeon.

  Vince quickly explained that his visit was on behalf of his landlady, Mrs McGonagall, quite distraught about a missing female relative. Ramsey listened with an expressionless face.

  Then abruptly he led them to the mortuary and raised the sheet on a girl who had been pretty and voluptuous too. Surprisingly, however, the medical exchanges between Ramsey and Vince, including the fact that Polly Briggs had been a virgin, made nonsense of an unwanted pregnancy or indeed of prostitution.

  Vince was also puzzled. 'I wonder why she committed suicide, then. An unhappy love affair, do you think?'

  'Perhaps,' said Dr Ramsey.

  'Have you any theories?' Faro asked.

  'No. None at all. Now if you will excuse me, gentlemen...'

  Faro looked sharply at the young doctor. His negative was a fraction too emphatic, his first eagerness to be helpful had faded rather suddenly. It indicated a refusal to discuss the subject any further, unusual between two doctors with a common background.

  As they left that sad icy room of death they almost cannoned into a constable ushering a wild and distraught-looking man towards the door.

  'Another poor soul come to identify a victim. God, how I used to hate those moments,' said Vince, 'when there is nothing you can say or do to give any comfort.'

  At the front door, Faro paused. 'I think I will just pay my respects to Superintendent Johnston before I leave.'

  Vince looked up at the clock. 'And I have a surgery in half an hour. See you later, Stepfather. Enjoy the play.'

  'Are you not coming too?'

  'Not tonight. I have an engagement.' With a gentle smile, 'Besides I've seen McGonagall's Macbeth twice already.'

  'Oh. Is it worth my while?'

  Vince laughed. 'Knowing your sensitivities, I wouldn't recommend it if I had any doubts. But this is a performance not to be missed. You have my word,' he added as they parted.

  Faro was warmly welcomed by Superintendent Johnston, who had called upon his assistance on several occasions to investigate murder or fraud cases where there was involvement with an Edinburgh area.


  'What brings you here?'

  'My stepson, Dr Laurie, had business with Dr Ramsey. Concerning the girl who was found drowned. The suicide.'

  The Superintendent nodded sympathetically. 'That was Briggs, her father, just gone along to make the formal identification. Poor man, he'd just heard about it. Someone read it in the paper and told him. Apparently the lass has been missing for weeks now. Tinkers they are, left their travelling circus in Fife. He's been searching for her everywhere.'

  Faro looked up with new interest. 'I wonder, could I have a word with him before he leaves?'

  At the Superintendent's puzzled glance, he said: 'My stepson lodges with the man McGonagall who came in earlier today. A young relative, a girl, was friendly with the dead lass. She is also missing.' His enquiring glance brought no response. Obviously the Superintendent knew nothing of any misfortune to Kathleen Neil.

  'McGonagall, eh? We thought he might have done her in. Gave orders to have him watched. Looks weird and wild enough. But you can't go on appearances,' he added in what sounded like regret.

  Promising to dine with the Superintendent and his wife on some future visit, Faro excused himself quickly and walked towards the mortuary where Polly's father was just emerging.

  Overcome with grief, the tears spouting from his eyes, Briggs sobbed noisily into a large red handkerchief. To question him at such a time seemed a terrible intrusion into his agony.

  'My condolences, sir,' said Faro. 'Come, let me help you to a seat—over here.'

  'She's dead, my bonny bairn,' was the savage reply. 'What can you do to help?'

  'I am a detective inspector, sir. We have knowledge that her friend Kathleen Neil with whom she lodged at the McGonagalls' was with her a few weeks ago. She is still missing. I am trying to trace her and any information you have might be of considerable assistance.'

  'Kathleen Neil, that one. What's she done?'

  'Nothing as far as I know. My enquiries are on behalf of her relatives who are naturally very concerned.'

  'Oh I just wondered. Wouldn't put anything past that one. She was a thorough bad lot. If it hadn't been for her, our Polly would never have left home.'