Murders Most Foul

by Alanna Knight

  Faro hated funerals and decided against wearing his uniform. This was agonising enough for the dead girl’s family without a reminder that she had been murdered, her killer still at large.

  The fact that the servants from Lumbleigh Green were likely to be there and that would doubtless include Lizzie, well to the fore and marked down as Ida’s friend, did nothing to cheer him. He wasn’t looking forward to meeting her at the graveside.

  Gosse had got the time wrong and the Requiem Mass in the church redolent with incense – as a non-Catholic, a ceremony way beyond Faro’s Presbyterian upbringing – was almost over, and he decided to head on to the graveyard a short distance from the church. Under the lofty shadow of Salisbury Crags, it offered little shelter for grieving relatives.

  Mercifully, this was a clear, sunny but cold afternoon, and after a short wait, the trail of mourners arrived, headed by the Watts behind the coffin followed by friends and members of the congregation. He went forward and offered condolences to Ida’s parents; her distraught mother looked as if she had not stopped crying or slept for a week.

  In a tearful acknowledgement to Faro, she was leaning on the arm of her husband, who was losing the battle to keep a stiff upper lip on the loss of a devoted daughter. He asked sharply and somewhat accusingly: ‘Well, have you got him yet?’

  Faro shook his head. Never had he felt more helpless. The grief of those two, as well as the memory of Doris Page’s bereaved husband, strengthened his resolve to find the killer, see him brought to justice and hanged for his crimes.

  Listening to the committal service at the graveside, he was surprised to see that the priest was a man younger than himself: tall, athletic-looking, with exceptional looks and a splendid voice that would have served him well in the theatre. Faro thought wryly that such attributes were lost in a life of celibacy.

  He looked round the mourners. Lumbleigh Green was represented by Clara in a respectful black bonnet, with Mrs Brown, Betty and Lizzie, who wore dark clothes as their servants’ uniforms, and had added black ribbons to their bonnets. The four women were driven over the short distance but Brown did not join them at the graveside, remaining with the carriage nearby. In the traditional manner of coachmen used to coping with Edinburgh’s uncertain weather and chill winds blowing from the Firth of Forth, Brown sat muffled up and, as fashion dictated, abundantly whiskered. Faro preferred to remain clean-shaven and thought that having so much facial hair must have seemed like regarding the world from behind a thick hedge.

  Clara’s arrival had been greeted with courtesy and bows from the women and raised tall hats from the men. Alongside the chief mourners, Mrs Brown at her side appeared regal and dignified, hands clasped, suitably respectful.

  Lizzie was looking pale and sad in her servant’s dark costume; mourning had demanded that those rich, fair and abundant curls be securely bonneted. Her arm supported Betty, sobbing uncontrollably and distraught as befitted the chief mourners, despite her short acquaintance with Ida.

  Faro was conscious that Lizzie was gazing in his direction, but with a feeling of helplessness he avoided her eyes and concentrated on the heartbreaking scene being played out before him. Despite Gosse’s instructions, it was impossible to see among some forty strange faces surrounding him, a loyal turnout of the church’s entire congregation, as well as local friends of the Watts, whether they included a murderer lurking in their midst.

  And suddenly it seemed no longer important. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, a flower thrown into the grave by Ida’s father and it was over … the benediction.

  Lizzie lingered; her eyes tear-filled, she came towards him.

  ‘It is so sad, Jeremy … I am so sorry …’

  Although he took her hand, bowed briefly over it, so cold in the warm depth of his fist, she was conscious that he was hardly aware of her. He indicated the priest shaking hands with the mourners, anxious not to lose contact with him.

  ‘I can’t talk just now, Lizzie. I will call on you in the next day or so.’

  Raising his hat politely he bowed and hurried away. Feeling let down, rejected by his manner – so alarmingly casual – and with tears for her own sadness and disappointment now, needing his comforting presence so much at this tragic time, she watched him approach the priest.

  It was time to return to Lumbleigh Green in the carriage, with Brown, patient for so long in the cold, trying to calm the horses stamping their feet. At last, trotting briskly, they passed Faro in earnest conversation with the young priest. He did not glance in their direction and that hurt Lizzie too.

  Clara sitting at her side took her hand in a wordless gesture of comfort while Betty continued to stare out of the window, her eyes red with weeping, her frightened glance indicating a very uncertain future of possible murderers lurking around Lumbleigh Green.

  Fr Burren’s first question to Faro had been: ‘Are you a friend of the family?’

  Faro shook his head. ‘No, Father.’ Out of uniform and in the midst of the mourners he was reluctant to declare himself as a policeman, although the Watts were aware of his identity. ‘Just a word in private.’

  A hand touched the priest’s sleeve. It was a woman, come to thank him. Ida’s auntie from Kelso.

  The priest stopped sharp, his eyes flooded with tears. ‘Dreadful, dreadful.’ He put a hand briefly on her shoulder, she turned away and he looked blankly at Faro who repeated:

  ‘I was hoping to have a few words …’

  The priest regained his composure, stared wildly ahead and said: ‘I cannot talk to you just now – I have daily offices, you understand. Perhaps you could come across to the church in an hour or so.’

  Faro duly presented himself as the priest had requested, after spending that hour sitting on a wall nearby and taking the opportunity to make notes of his somewhat unhelpful observations to present to Gosse.

  The church door creaked open. It was dark inside after the sunlight and at first glance seemed empty, apart for the serene faces of the saints looking down on him, the lingering smell of flowers and incense.

  ‘Hello!’ he called, and as his voice echoed round the walls, another sound: Fr Burren emerged from the direction of the vestry, donning his white surplice over his clerical black garb.

  Smiling gently he invited Faro to follow him and indicated a pew in the aisle. Adjusting the sacred velvet stole around his neck, he laid it reverently to his lips and asked: ‘What can I do for you, sir? Is it confession you are after, then? Friday is the normal day …’

  Faro shook his head in embarrassment. ‘No, Father. I am not a Roman Catholic. I’m a policeman – Detective Constable Faro – and my presence at the funeral is to further our enquiries into the death of the young woman.’

  Again the priest seemed overcome by emotion. Lowering his head, he nodded a few times as if shaking away those terrible thoughts, then recovering he said stiffly, ‘I am not aware how I might help you, Constable. I only knew Ida’ – pausing he took a deep breath – ‘the young lady, as a parishioner. I am new to the parish and indeed to Edinburgh. I came over from Dublin a few weeks ago to take up this parish.’ As he spoke Faro noticed again the fine voice, the pleasing Irish brogue.

  That was indeed a setback but Faro went on: ‘I wish to get to know those of her circle who were acquainted with her movements. Perhaps you could give me some advice in that direction.’

  The priest looked at him intently and frowned. ‘I am not sure what you mean by “advice”.’

  Faro took a deep breath. ‘We have been led to understand that Ida was in a difficult position, regarding her family, and she had no one in whom to confide her problems.’

  Burren bit his lip and thought about that for a moment. ‘And what sort of problems would they be, now?’

  ‘She had some wealthy young man who she claimed wanted to marry her. On the night she … disappeared, she was intending to elope with him.’

  The priest was watching him, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles shone white, but his face gave no
thing away. He took a deep breath and asked softly: ‘And how is it that you think I can help you?’

  ‘If you could give us the name of this young man …’

  Burren seemed startled by the question. ‘Was he not present at the graveside, then?’

  ‘Not that I am aware.’

  ‘Then how do you think I can help the police?’ He stood up sharply, bowed towards the altar – a clear sign of dismissal. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘A moment, Father. Did Ida come to confession regularly each week?’

  ‘Of course.’ And Burren realised too late that he had fallen into a trap. His shoulders slumped but he regarded Faro sternly. ‘Such matters are not for public scrutiny. What is revealed in the confessional is sacred between priest and penitent and God’s forgiveness.’

  ‘But she did tell you something of her intentions?’ Faro insisted.

  The priest shrugged, folded his hands before him. ‘Perhaps so,’ he said uneasily. He did not want to lie.

  There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence before Faro said: ‘I realise you are in a difficult situation, Father, but you must realise that if you know and are withholding some detail of importance regarding Ida’s unfortunate death, your silence is hampering police investigations and the capture of a murderer. I might add that he has already claimed two women victims and might well claim more.’

  The response was a shudder of horror, a genuflection, then in a calm voice, Burren repeated once more: ‘I can tell you nothing, officer. I am responsible to a higher authority than the Edinburgh City Police and to break the Church’s vows is to sacrifice the future of my calling as well as my immortal soul.’

  ‘Then you do know something,’ Faro insisted.

  A shake of the head. ‘I cannot discuss this but I can assure you that Ida Watts is – was – a God-fearing young girl, a good Catholic, and I do not believe she would have given her heart to an evil killer.’ He made a move towards the door. ‘You must look elsewhere for your information, Constable.’

  Faro stared at him. Incredible that he was stubbornly refusing to help by telling them the name of Ida’s lover, her killer who had probably also murdered Doris Page.

  ‘Now I must leave you,’ the priest said sharply. ‘I have offices to perform.’

  Watching him walk firmly towards the altar, Faro thought of his eloquence, those exceptional good looks, somehow wasted on this servant of God, with his splendid reverberating voice, that lilting Irish brogue.

  As he walked away from the church he thought that this short acquaintance with Fr Burren had made a rare and lasting impression on him. Remembering that first sight of him at the graveside intoning the solemn words of the burial of the dead, yet stumbling through it as if for the first time, reading from the book through suppressed tears. The handsome young man, strong, virile-looking and less like a celibate priest than any cleric he had ever encountered. Faro was curious as to what, when he had so much going for him, had made him choose such a profession.

  Later he would learn that Burren had said: ‘We do not make choices, God chooses us to do his work.’

  And on his way back to the Central Office, a new thought struck him: the emotions that mention of Ida had aroused in Burren, who had known her so briefly. Remove the clerical garb of this unlikely priest and he fitted neatly the description of the mysterious, handsome young man who wanted to marry her. Wealth was the only missing ingredient.

  However, was it possible that after seducing her he had suffered an attack of conscience and murdered her?

  And a final thought. Did he have a pack of cards hidden away in the vestry, including the nine of diamonds? But unless that priestly garb concealed a ruthless killer, he could think of no possible motive to link him to the murder of both women.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  There was a message awaiting Faro at his lodgings. It was from Macfie, inviting him to dine that evening, and, always glad to see his old friend, Faro was even more pleased at the offer as the funeral and the aftermath of his unsuccessful interview with the priest had left him depressed.

  An evening with Macfie was something to look forward to with even more than his usual pleasurable anticipation. Dining and wining with his old friend was one of the highlights of his present sorely troubled existence.

  Macfie would want to know all the latest developments at Central Office, his crafty means of keeping in touch with the police whom he had never quite forgiven, after serving for so many years, for forcing him reluctantly into retirement when his faculties were sharp as ever, his physical strength undiminished.

  Faro felt a sense of relief that here was a man whose experience of the criminal world might well be of assistance to the police in this particular case, detecting what was beginning to look like a spate of serial killings. If Jock Webb’s testimony was correct, as Faro believed, then he had narrowly escaped becoming the second victim.

  Over a dram, the two men sat by the window in the handsome parlour overlooking the ancient wall which once marked the boundaries of the city and was built to keep the English king’s army at bay after the Battle of Flodden.

  Fascinated by living in the lap of history, Faro found it strange to sit in this elegant house in the tranquil surroundings of Nicholson Square. Often he wondered what poor, unhappy ghosts still haunted the nearby buildings of Edinburgh University raised on the rubble of what was once Kirk O’ Fields – in the sixteenth century an ecclesiastical site high on the breezy outskirts of the city and noted for its health-giving properties but to be forever associated with the murder of Lord Darnley, unhappy Queen Mary’s insufferable second husband.

  As the rosy glow of an autumn sunset touched the skyline of Salisbury Crags and slowly faded, a cheerful fire cast its gleams beyond the new gaslight which had replaced the candle sconces still lining the walls. They remained Macfie’s preferred illumination, disliking the gas mantles which he claimed were an abomination and an irritation, their constant hissing disrupting consecutive thought processes.

  Realising the value of Macfie’s advice built on his thirty years with Edinburgh City Police, Faro produced his notebook. Faro explained that he had just come from the funeral of the last victim, the maid Ida, and as he described the young priest who conducted the service, Macfie looked up and gave him a questioning glance.

  ‘Something troubling you?’

  Faro shrugged. ‘I wasn’t prepared for a priest like Fr Burren conducting a funeral service, a burial. He seemed … well, just out of the seminary. I expected priests to be older somehow, more experienced and much less handsome and worldly.’

  Macfie smiled. ‘We all have to start somewhere – even the clergy – and detectives, when they emerge into the world, are very young.’ Pausing he gave Faro a wry glance. ‘And some are very good-looking too.’

  Faro said: ‘That may be so, but detectives begin as raw young peelers, start their apprenticeship on the beat seeing all the worst aspects of human nature.’ He shook his head. ‘This fellow seemed so ill-equipped for my idea of a priest, but he already had what I call the voice of authority. You know what I mean, the accent of the well-to-do, used to issuing orders.’

  It was Macfie’s turn to shake his head; he clearly didn’t see what Faro was getting at or what all the fuss was about.

  ‘Wish you could have seen him. Even his looks, the physique of a man of action. A superb voice as he stumbled through the prayer book, losing the place at the graveside, as if it was the first time he had read the words, like an actor forgetting his lines.’

  Faro paused thoughtfully. ‘Very emotional too. Once or twice I thought he was going to burst into tears – and this, remember, was just for the member of a congregation he had only been with for a few weeks.’ He frowned, again that helpless shrug. ‘All this … somehow didn’t quite add up, if you know what I mean, sir. Just a feeling that it didn’t fit, an instinct that there was something wrong, that I was missing something important – some fact I should recognise that was missing.’
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br />   Macfie had been listening carefully. He knew Faro’s observations and deductions well enough not to ignore these signals. Now he regarded him intently. ‘Right from the beginning if you please, lad.’ As he tried to describe the scene at the graveside in detail, Macfie was arching his fingertips together in a manner Faro was familiar with. An attitude of deep concentration. At the end he sat back and smiled.

  ‘Ah, now I realise what is troubling you. Our young priest fits remarkably well into the description the girl Ida gave your young lady companion. That is so, is it not?’

  Faro didn’t answer and Macfie continued consolingly. ‘But let’s face it, lad, you must realise that this is an unlikely and difficult role for a killer to adopt. Of course, it has been attempted and does exist in the annals of crime, the perfect disguise for the perfect crime which no one would suspect.’ He laughed. ‘Never a priest, a man of God!’

  Macfie paused. ‘Perhaps you are being unconsciously influenced by the idea that this particular priest’s appearance suggested an actor, and actors lead you to the Vaudeville and the first murder of Doris Page. You are applying logic in a baffling case – all those playing cards for instance – and perhaps looking for a killer with theatrical connections. Am I correct?’

  Faro hadn’t actually got that far in his assumptions. He said: ‘It is an interesting theory, sir, and the description also fits Jock Webb’s description of his attacker as a tall, strong man who he wrestled with.’

  ‘A young man?’

  Faro shook his head. ‘Webb didn’t specify age. Asked, he merely emphasised the man’s physical strength but his actual age and appearance would be difficult seeing that he was tackled from behind, and as it was dark, he never actually saw the man’s face clearly.’

  Macfie sighed. ‘We will need to know a great deal more about Fr Burren and I think I can help you there. The head of the Catholic Church here in Edinburgh is an old friend from a fraud case I investigated some years ago. Perhaps any information he can obtain will confirm or put an end to your suspicions.’