Blood Line (21 page)

From his pocket Faro withdrew the Queen Mary cameo. 'Do you recognise this, by any chance?'

Jess laughed delightedly. 'I do indeed. That's part -the only part, I might add - of the treasure he's always going on about. Shows it to everyone who'll listen, "My only brother died for this and one day I'm going to find the rest of it." He's devoted his whole life to this quest, Inspector, he even went to the United States and Canada, worked as a lumberjack and a gold miner, to try to raise money . . . '

This was the second time he heard of Femister's work abroad and although he had only half-listened to Mrs Wheeler's account, he felt there was something else he should remember, some vital fact here that was in danger of being overlooked.

'What did you say?' He was aware of Jess Porter's anxiety as she pointed to the cameo.

'I said, Inspector, that my uncle never lets that out of his sight - or his possession. So how did you come by it?'

Solemnly he opened the parcel containing the jacket. At the sight of it, realisation slowly dawned, and she raised her hands to her mouth with a small scream. 'Oh - oh - something's happened to him . . . '

'I'm afraid so, miss.'

'Oh, how dreadful, poor Uncle. Is he - is he ... '

'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

The tears welled from her eyes unchecked and suddenly helpless in the face of her grief, Faro took her hand. 'Oh poor dear Uncle. What was it?' she sobbed.

'He met with an accident in Edinburgh.'

'An accident? Him too? And he's dead? Dead,' she repeated. 'I can't believe it - I just can't believe it. Is he in the hospital?'

'No, miss. In the city mortuary. And I wonder, could you come back with me, just to identify him?' A convulsive shudder shook her and Faro stretched out a comforting arm. 'I know, miss, I know. It's not a nice thing to ask a young lady, but you seem to be his nearest relative.'

'I am that,' she sighed. 'His wife Jean was my mother's sister. I'm all he has since his other niece went up in the world. Her that married a title. I'll never forgive her, she could have done so much to help him. He wasn't asking for charity, just wanted a little money to help with his enquiries and he was willing to work for her, to earn something. Bitch that she was, she had him put from her door. "Don't let that mad old man come near my house again, or I'll get my husband to have him put away in the asylum.'"

She began to sob again and Faro put his arm around her plump shoulders. 'Come, we have a carriage waiting down the drive, it'll take you into Edinburgh and bring you back home, of course. It won't take long,' he ended lamely.

'That's kind of you, Inspector, but I can't come this instant,' she said, with a glance towards the ovens. 'I have my batch of loaves to take out. That'll be another half-hour - and oh dear, there's my morning rolls to get in and by the time I get back . . . ' She made a helpless gesture. 'I'll never manage. And then . . . ' Again that glance towards the window.

'Are you expecting a visitor?' asked Faro gently.

'Well, not for me really. A man wanting to see Uncle urgently about some enquiry he had made.'

'Does that happen often?'

'Sometimes. He's always asking about history. I don't think he'll be coming now, but I'll leave a note on the door for him. If you'll wait till my baking's ready, please . . . '

In desperate need of breathing fresh cool air, Faro decided that sitting in this over-heated kitchen any longer was a frightful penance which even delicious home-made lemonade could not comfort. 'I'll wait for you down the drive.'

With his hand on the door, he turned: 'Those letters you mentioned - did your uncle keep them, by any chance?'

'Yes, he did, and they'll be in a big tin box he has hidden away in his bedroom.' She smiled sadly. 'I never let on that I knew about it, and I've never looked inside.' Her eyes filled with tears, and she took a handkerchief out of her pinafore. 'I don't suppose it will make any difference to him if I read them now, will it?'

'There might be something to help us with our enquiries. We'd be very grateful, especially as your uncle seemed certain that his brother's death wasn't an accident and if there is some evidence in those letters, then the police should know.'

'You're quite right, Inspector. He would have wanted that- oh poor Uncle,' she sobbed again. 'I'm sorry, Inspector, I just can't believe that all this is happening. He went out so bright and cheerful, just the way he always does -and now - this.' Drying her tears, she went to the table and with an air of determination floured the board and took up the huge baking bowl.

Faro watched her and asked, 'Did he have any friends in Edinburgh that you knew of?'

'A few drinking cronies and he used to visit an old friend who was in the hospital.'

'One thing more. Did your uncle ever mention a fellow he used to know - Dowie by name, dead long since, I imagine.'

'Peter Dowie, you mean.'

'The same.'

Jess Porter smiled sadly. 'He didn't die, Inspector. He's still alive - the one in the hospital.' She coloured and added, 'The East House.'

'The asylum, you mean.'

'Yes. Uncle just told folks it was the hospital. He didn't like to say asylum because folks round here thought he was a bit of a daftie, himself. And he knew it.'

'What about Dowie?'

'He's been there for years, he was a lot older than Uncle and he'd been crippled and gone the way old folks do sometimes, so they said, because of the accident long ago. Same one as killed poor Uncle John.'

So Femister was fey and simple and Dowie was senile. They must have made a pretty odd pair, thought Faro, as Jess continued, 'Uncle hasn't visited him for a while now. They told him at the hosp - asylum that he wasn't well enough to have visitors any more. That he'd turned violent. For a while Uncle went faithfully each week, but he gave up when they kept on turning him away.'

'Did you know him at all?'

She shook her head. 'When I was a wee lass, I went to the hospital with Uncle, but it frightened me, you know the way bairns are.' She smiled. 'But he seemed a gentle, quiet soul. It was a great shame, they were great mates, loved talking all about the past.'

Faro decided on an immediate visit to Dowie. Even in madness, there could be lucid flashes of the past which might yield useful information.

As he was leaving, with a reminder about the letters, she nodded. 'I'll just have a quick scan through.'

'The whole box would be a great help, miss, if you would.'

She smiled wanly. 'I don't suppose the dead have secrets any more, do they?'

He bit back the rejoinder, 'You would be surprised, miss, how many of them do. A look at our files in the Central Office would convince you.'

This was better, far better than he hoped. If it hadn't seemed like an intrusion on her grief he would have offered to read the letters on the spot. Poor lass, she was very upset and taking it very well, trying hard to be normal.

As he limped back in the direction of the main drive, he discovered that his feelings of triumph and jubilation on having solved the dead man's identity had been overtaken by that strange sense of foreboding.

The closed-in path was overgrown and dim, the uneven ground made rapid progress difficult and when the bushes rustled at his side, he felt his scalp tingle with apprehension. This was so strong that several times he stopped and looked over his shoulder with his walking stick clutched as a ready weapon.

After the third time, he shook his head: I'm being fanciful, this won't do at all. But the shadowy arm of nightmare poised above the Castle Rock persisted, the moving shadow at the corner of his eye which swiftly melted into invisibility. The feeling of being followed by someone who was no fool, no newcomer to the business of tracking his quarry.

He was greatly relieved to emerge in the drive, where he found that McQuinn, at the housekeeper's invitation, had established himself in the kitchen and the handsome young Sergeant was surrounded by the usual bevy of twittering, admiring females.

As always, the sight annoyed Faro out of all proportion. McQuinn, who had so little to offer in the way of entertainment as a companion to his superior officer, beyond a taste for tuneless Irish jigs whistled uncomfortably shrilly at close quarters, was once again showing that he had hidden depths when it came to amusing the ladies.

'We're ready to move now, McQuinn,' he said with a brusqueness that quelled the maids and sent them scuttling away on their kitchen activities, with reproachful sniggers in his direction.

'Right, sir. Back to Edinburgh.' McQuinn, who could move very fast, could also on occasion act with such deliberate slowness that amounted almost to insolence. Heavy footed, reluctant to withdraw from his circle of admirers, he followed Faro on to the drive.

'Where are we off to now, sir? Carriage is down the drive.'

'I know that, McQuinn. I've found out who the dead man is - his niece is coming back with us to identify the body. We'll take the short cut - this way.'

'That was a piece of luck, sir,' said McQuinn prepared to be agreeable for once. He adjusted his long stride to his superior officer's stumbling gait, while Faro briefly supplied the details regarding Jess having recognised the jacket.

'The cottage is over there, where you see the smoke.'

'Looks like the lum's gone up,' said McQuinn.

'It's a bakery,' said Faro impatiently.

'Smells like burning thatch to me.'

Faro sniffed the air. McQuinn was right. 'Come on, hurry, man.'

Faro, using his stick to propel himself along, left the clearing just as McQuinn reached the cottage door. From every aperture smoke billowed out and flames shot from the chimney and the burning roof thatch. As he hobbled across with a growing sense of disaster, he saw McQuinn trying to open the door, his efforts encouraged by a small band of estate workers who had also raced towards the blaze.

When the door refused to move, McQuinn put his shoulder against it. Smoke billowed out and Faro limped after him.

'Don't come in here, sir. You stay clear, I'll bring the woman.'

Jess lay just behind the door and before McQuinn picked her up and carried her outside, Faro heard the crack of breaking wood.

'Keep away, sir,' yelled McQuinn.

Ominous sounds from above indicated that the roof was about to cave in. Through the smoke, Faro saw on the floor, near where Jess had fallen, a tin box. He seized it, winced with pain and threw the jacket over it. The roof collapsed with a thunderous roar as McQuinn laid Jess on the ground, her body hidden by the curious watchers. Faro pushed them aside.

'She's dead, sir,' said McQuinn, 'hit by a falling beam, by the look of it.'

Faro gazed helplessly down at her, the tin box in the jacket under his arm. Before them the cottage was already subsiding in a volley of small explosions and smoke, while Jess Porter's eyes were wide open, staring in disbelief as death had overtaken her.

One of the men pushed forward. 'We've warned her, haven't we?'

A woman took up the chant. 'Those ovens - far too hot, such heat she had for her baking.'

'With a thatched roof, we thought something like this would happen.'

'Mark my words, haven't I always said it ... '

'Aye, a spark, that's all it would take.'

But was a spark all that had caused the inferno and why had it happened in such a short time? Turning his back on the curious watchers, Faro unwrapped the tin box. The lid was open and the papers in it, those letters dating from 1830 that he was hoping would shed so much light on Queen Mary's jewels, were charred, blackened.

Summoned by McQuinn's whistle, alerted by the smoke, the police who were waiting in their discreetly concealed carriage on the drive now raced across the clearing. Someone, smelling smoke and anticipating trouble, had had the foresight to bring a canvas stretcher and a blanket.

'Accident, would you say, sir?' said McQuinn.

Faro shook his head. 'It was no accident. The fire was deliberate.'

'The door was locked, sir.'

'Did she usually lock her door?' Faro asked a woman nearby.

'Never.'

'No, never.' The chorus was taken up. 'You could come by at any time of the night or day and Jess Porter's bakehouse door was always open.'

Faro walked carefully round the tiny garden. The glint of metal, in the sun beside a rose bush, was a key. The cottage had been set on fire, and Jess locked inside. When she died clutching her precious box she had been struggling to escape.

'I can't understand it at all, ye ken,' said one old man. 'Heavy thunder shower we had last night, thatch was wet through.'

'I ken that fine, Archie, I have a cottage just like this at east lodge.'

'I can't understand it. That thatch should never have gone on fire today.'

But it had and it had burned like a tinderbox, thought Faro, following the sad cortège across the clearing.

But the murderer wasn't to know that.

Faro cursed silently. This tragedy need never have happened. It was his own fault, he should have stayed, read the contents of the tin box while he waited for her.