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

by Alanna Knight

  His return to Edinburgh was marked by the anticipation of bad news. None came, only a letter from Vince apologising for the delay in writing. He had been very busy and there had been yet another fatal accident on the bridge:

  The watchman who tried to help us must have missed his footing on the ladder during one of his late-night inspections. He was not discovered until next morning. I cannot begin to tell you how this sad event, recalling as it did so vividly all that is still personally so unbearably painful, has upset me.

  Faro felt a shudder of dread, wondering if Vince had also absorbed the more sinister implications of the watchman's death. Besides Faro and Vince, he had been the sole witness of Rachel's suicide. The hand of coincidence seemed once more to have been seriously overplayed.

  As he wrestled with another of Edinburgh's sordid domestic crimes, Faro's thoughts turned constantly to Dundee and the notes he had made on Polly Briggs' suicide and the apparently unconnected death of Hamish McGowan.

  Once again he took up The Scotsman's report on the tragic death of Rachel Deane:

  Miss Deane took a lively interest in anything connected with Deane Enterprises. Of particular interest to her was the progress being made in the building of the railway bridge and she often dropped in on the bridgeworks to utter words of encouragement to the workers and have a lively chat with her grandfather's engineers.

  Faro was impressed by the reporter's active imagination that had completely missed the irony of an evening visit when work had ceased. On this melancholy occasion, Miss Deane had not only dropped in but had also dropped off the bridgeworks to her death.

  To Faro, the lies that had been told, white enough to protect the firm and soothe its shareholders, were so transparent he was astounded that intelligent minds could let them go unquestioned. Was this then the hidden tyranny of Deane's, the ability to buy or enforce silence?

  Like a festering sore, the incongruities of the events he had witnessed in Dundee grew deeper, stronger in his mind. Many years of training to observe and deduce from given facts could not by swamped by face-saving lies, especially when he had been there, a witness.

  And so it was, as the weeks turned into months, that he still found himself on the threshold of sleep reliving those last horrific moments of Rachel Deane's life. In vain he tried to console himself that the girl was mentally unsound, as Wilfred and Sir Arnold had stressed. For only such a sorry fact could justify her mad dash to her death to escape her erstwhile lover and his stepfather.

  Faro reconstructed again and again those horrendous scenes, trying to find some grain of sense in Rachel's irrational behaviour. Had she seen Vince and himself in some distorted mirror of her imagination as pursuers? Pursuers who meant to recapture and return her to her imprisonment in Deane Hall. Had her poor sick mind indicated that no one would have the courage to follow her on to the bridge?

  Two questions for which Faro would have given much to have answers he believed now must remain for ever unresolved. Did Rachel lose her balance and fall or did she voluntarily decide to quit this life by leaping to her death?

  Although Faro now realised that this was one of the conditions of her mental disorder, he would have given much to walk about inside Rachel Deane's mind and discover when Vince's role as lover and intended husband of her lucid moments changed into that of mortal enemy.

  Did that satisfactorily explain why she had so viciously attacked Vince after asking him to meet her at Magdalen Green? Why she had rushed out of Deane Hall without changing her footwear into something more adequate for heavy rain?

  Again and again he saw Vince's pathetic attempts to replace those frail slippers on her feet when he tried to revive her, to warm life into her still body.

  But most disturbing of all was the presence of a large round stone in her reticule—and nothing else. Did this indicate a desperate notion that it would help her to sink to the bottom of the river? If so, this clearly implied she had premeditated suicide before leaving Deane Hall. In that case why had she dropped it beside the discarded slippers?

  Faro could not get rid of the alternative notion. That the stone had been intended for a more sinister role, as a weapon of self-defence should any attempt be made to divert her from her deadly purpose.

  And he shuddered with dread, when he realised how fatally effective it could have been, aimed at a pursuer. Namely Vince, coming up the ladder directly behind her.

  Another picture recurred and remained poised, solid and unshakeable.

  As the boats searched those dark waters, suddenly illuminated in the flares, the figures of two workmen in overalls inspecting the place from which Rachel had fallen to her death.

  One was tall, well-built, the other smaller, more like the night-watchman in build. Their instinct of shielding their faces was natural, but it seemed in retrospect that they stepped back hurriedly, guiltily, as if agitated at being observed or recognised.

  What were they doing there? Were they taking their work seriously, hurriedly repairing or replacing some evidence of neglect or malfunction that might have caused Rachel's death?

  Another thought crept in. Had they been her executioners? Had a trap been sprung to make it look like suicide?

  After another dawn of birdsong which defeated his attempts to continue sleeping or make sense of the notes sprawled about the bed, Faro realised he was getting nowhere. One pointer remained: since the tone of her note to Vince indicated that their meeting was to be secret, it seemed hardly likely that Rachel had advertised her intentions of going to the bridge at Deane Hall.

  It followed that if no one had known of her purpose and no one could have foreseen that her flight would take her to the bridge, how then could that fatal trap have been sprung?

  Unless she had confided in someone in Deane Hall.

  Faro sighed wearily. That didn't make sense but still the picture of the two men in overalls refused to be banished.

  Remaining uneasy, anxious on Vince's behalf without ever quite knowing why, he was relieved as well as delighted to receive a letter informing him to expect his stepson home on a brief visit:

  My old friend Dr Sam has recently taken up a post as assistant to the police pathologist and is getting married. I am to attend the wedding. You will be interested to learn that since I last wrote you the McG. have had word from the missing Kathleen. She did not care for London and is now working in a milliner's shop in Rose Street (yes, Edinburgh). The McG. are jubilant at the news and plans are afoot to visit her. I have promised to find time to call in and pay their compliments.

  Going downstairs to the kitchen to give Mrs Brook the glad tidings, Faro was relieved to know that there was now a happy ending to what seemed like the ominous disappearance of the two young women. Charlie McGowan's widow had returned for her father-in-law's funeral with a perfectly logical reason for her absence. Now Kathleen Neil was safe and sound in Edinburgh.

  Faro remembered having decided many years ago that suspicions without foundation were chronic and incurable diseases of the detective's imagination. But he had also discovered in twenty years with the Edinburgh City Police that, left alone, time often provides simple explanations for the darkest and most baffling mysteries.

  Perhaps it was mere curiosity that directed him towards Rose Street as the shops were putting on their shutters. As he stared into a milliner's shop window, he observed a pretty fair-haired young woman arranging bonnets.

  This must be 'the fair Kathleen' and on impulse he opened the door, bravely determined not to be overwhelmed by such an entirely feminine establishment.

  To his enquiry, the girl shook her head. 'I wish I was Miss Neil,' she said wistfully. 'I only work for her.'

  Disappointed, Faro left with the distinct impression that Kathleen Neil must have her own private reasons for concealing from the McGonagalls that her position was grander and more affluent than she had led them to believe.

  Faro now awaited his stepson's arrival with pleasure not untinged with misgivings. Remembering the sh
attered condition in which they had parted company, he was not quite sure what to expect. Although confident that one day Vince armed with the natural resilience of youth would pick up some of the pieces of his life, Faro would not have speculated with certainty that he could also put them together again.

  Remembering how long it had taken him to sort out his own life when Lizzie died, he expected Vince to be inevitably changed by the bitter experience of loss.

  On the surface, he was relieved to see that his fears and gnawing anxieties were groundless. Here was the cheerful, well-balanced young man, his impish sense of humour undiminished.

  Only in sudden silences, a sentence left unfinished, did the cracks below the surface reveal themselves and a sudden bleakness in his eyes showed that Vince's mind had drifted again to that sad shore where he had lost his Rachel Deane.

  It was not, however, until they sat at supper together that Vince drained his glass of claret and sighed heavily: 'Well, Stepfather, how long does it take to recover, would you say? I cannot forget her, you know. I see her everywhere.

  'The Deanes have been unfailingly kind and considerate. I was wrong about them, I know that now. They were trying to protect poor Rachel from herself. Wilfred was very decent to me at the funeral and asked me to dine with them at Deane Hall. He told me much the same story as I understand he told you. And Sir Arnold too.'

  With a sad smile he added: 'Seems that my services as doctor are well thought of, at least.

  Although I had behaved so outrageously, they were prepared to forget the past. All very heartening, Stepfather, especially as they have seen fit to accompany their goodwill towards me with a substantial rise in salary.

  'I was very touched when the old man said there was no one they would rather have seen Rachel marry, as he thought very highly of me both as a doctor and as a young man with excellent qualities.'

  He darted a look at Faro. 'Are you pleased? I was.' And without waiting for an answer: 'I am now a constant visitor to Deane Hall, free to use the library too. You would love that. Once a week I go and examine Sir Arnold, listen to his heart and that sort of thing. Then afterwards I have dinner with Wilfred and a game of billiards or a hand at cards. Who would have thought it?'

  Who indeed, wondered Faro somewhat cynically, feeling uncharitable for his newly aroused suspicions that Vince too might have been bought by Deane's. Hiding his thoughts, he merely smiled, remarking that he had recently encountered Wilfred Deane on Princes Street on his way to a business meeting.

  'Yes, I gather he comes fairly often, so he has very good reasons for wishing that accursed bridge was complete.'

  'So he said.'

  'He didn't mention me?' Vince asked.

  'We were both in a hurry, we only had time to exchange the civilities.'

  Faro would not easily forget his reaction to recognising Deane emerging from a carriage outside the Royal British Hotel. That familiar figure jolted him back to their last unhappy meeting and wishing heartily that this encounter could be avoided, he realised that this was impossible. Since one had to step aside to allow the other passage, a lack of acknowledgement would have amounted to rudeness.

  It had to be said for Deane that Faro saw in his fleeting expression of annoyance and even embarrassment, an equal eagerness to avoid this meeting. But the politenesses had to be observed.

  Both men bowed, raised their hats, wished each other good day, enquired earnestly about each other's health and agreed that the weather was abominable.

  Deane went further. He felt obliged to explain: 'I am here for a meeting with our Edinburgh shareholders. More frequently than I would wish with that infernally tedious train journey in both directions.'

  But each saw in the other's face how even indirect reference to the unfinished Tay Bridge touched unpleasant memories. And it was with considerable relief that they bowed and parted once more.

  Vince sighed. The fact that we both loved Rachel is a bond between us. It keeps her alive for us.' His eyes suddenly filled and he shook his head. 'I'm not in any danger of ever forgetting her. As I told you, I see her everywhere. At first—after the funeral, I was in a daze, those early days.

  'Can you imagine, I used to follow perfectly innocent young ladies in the Overgait, terrified them by my approaches. I just wanted to speak to them, be comforted, if you like, because there was something, the way they walked, or the set of a bonnet, a laugh or a cloud of dark hair that reminded me of Rachel. Even such glimpses were oddly consoling. I can see now that I was always searching—and will continue to do so, alas, for that lost happiness.'

  He shrugged apologetically. 'I know this isn't making sense, Stepfather.'

  It was Faro's turn to be sympathetic. He knew all about such reactions as a phenomenon of loss, and had entertained a persistent belief that Lizzie must still be alive somewhere if he could only find her again.

  'After your dear mother died, lad, I found myself looking for her in shops, walking down the High Street, haunting crowded places, staring into strangers' faces, just longing to see someone who reminded me of her so that I might relive a tiny fragment of our life together.'

  'That's it exactly. I thought I was going mad.' Vince sounded relieved. 'Does the search ever end, I wonder? At the moment, I imagine going on to the end of my days trying to find someone exactly like her and yet knowing deep down that I never will.'

  They were interrupted by Mrs Brook's arrival to draw the curtains and attend to the fire. When she departed Vince told him about the wedding at St Giles and added: There is something I have promised McGonagall. I must find time for this.'

  He took from his pocket a brooch in a velvet case. 'This belonged to his grandmother who was Kathleen's great-aunt.'

  The brooch was of diamond and pearl in the shape of a shamrock. 'I suspect it's been the lifeline of the McGonagalls, in and out of pawn, but things are looking up now and he wants Kathleen to have it. Says it will bring her luck. Have you seen the shop, by the way?'

  'Aye, and very smart it is too. Prosperous. She should do well in there.'

  When next day Vince returned from visiting the Rose Street shop Faro was very glad he had kept his suspicions about Kathleen's modest establishment to himself. His stepson, at least, was oblivious to any interesting possibilities as to how she might have suddenly acquired a thriving millinery business.

  Faro wondered if in fact Vince was aware that Kathleen was the owner not the employee when his thoughts were diverted by a happy glow long absent from Vince's countenance.

  'I must say, Stepfather, that she is quite a stunner. I was quite captivated. I'm only sorry we did not meet earlier, when she was in Dundee,' he added ruefully.

  And Faro that night felt more cheerful than had been the case for many a day, for Vince could talk of nothing but the fair Kathleen.

  'I should have liked to have taken her to the wedding. I fancy she would have enjoyed that. She would have been a sensation in one of her delicious bonnets too. Oh, incidentally, there was one familiar face. Remember Dr Ramsey?'

  'I do indeed. The dour young police surgeon at Dundee.'

  'The same. He was Sam's best man. Seems they are cousins. And let me tell you, away from those doleful surroundings, he is anything but dour, quite the contrary.

  'As for the fair Kathleen, I haven't much time now but I'm hoping to be better organised when next I come home for a weekend. And, of course, there is always the possibility of her visiting Paton's Lane to see the McGonagalls. She did mention that.'

  Faro was intrigued. 'I should very much like to meet her.'

  'And so you shall, Stepfather. I thought we might have luncheon at the Café Royal before I leave.'

  Faro had a table near the window and as the couple approached and he shook hands with Kathleen he suppressed a smile. His first impression was that Vince had in fact succeeded in his search. Whether consciously or not, he had found a girl who reminded him of his lost love.

  True, on closer acquaintance he realised that any resembla
nce to Rachel Deane, whom he had met so briefly and under somewhat trying circumstances, was quite superficial. And during the meal it faded completely as he studied this pretty girl, so shy and overwhelmed by her surroundings that they had the effect of rendering her almost inarticulate.

  When later he mentioned those first impressions, Vince shook his head firmly. 'They are not in the least alike, Stepfather. But I do know what you mean. Perhaps that's what attracted me to her when we first met. I can't explain it, except that they are basically the same type, rather than anything more definite.

  'I had only seen her photograph at Willie McGonagall's and that was taken when she was very young. She's much prettier now.'

  A now buoyant Vince departed for Dundee, leaving his stepfather gratified by promises of fairly regular visits home in future, for which Vince was even prepared to endure cheerfully that abominable train journey. To be near his new love, thought Faro, seeing through any other excuses Vince had readily available.

  And so the day came when Vince threw casually into the conversation that he was seriously considering the possibility of a situation in Edinburgh again.

  As Faro suspected, the fair Kathleen was the main reason.

  'Who knows, Stepfather, perhaps in the not too distant future I may be able to achieve the circumstances which would allow me the right credentials to set up successfully as a family doctor,' he added with a shy smile.

  'Are congratulations in order?' Faro asked, his first feeling of delight mingled with gratitude that Vince was making a spectacular recovery from his tragic infatuation for Rachel Deane.

  Chapter Fifteen