Enter Second Murderer (2 page)

There was an Othello-like dignity about the shabby little Irishman who had killed for love gone wrong, and despite the evidence of that second murder Faro had an unhappy feeling that he had listened to the truth and was assisting a miscarriage of justice, as well as ignoring the important and very disquieting implication raised by Hymes's protestations of innocence: the existence of a second murderer.

Returning to the Central Office, he took down the remarkably small packet which contained an account of the trial, and found that in retrospect the case made very curious reading. There were too many coincidences by far. From his long association with criminals, Faro suspected that the solution with Hymes as the double murderer was just a shade too convenient.

Superintendent McIntosh, a man of large proportions with a voice like an army sergeant major, looked up from his desk.

"Seen him, have you? Still protesting, is he?"

"Yes. Frankly, I'm a bit uneasy about the whole thing. Doesn't it seem strangely out of character that Hymes should have murdered Lily Goldie? I mean, it was quite motiveless."

"Motiveless? Of course it wasn't motiveless. The man's a damned villain. Totally unreliable. Can't expect people of that class to reason things out. Blood lust, that's what it was. His wife was a whore, so it follows that any woman like her is a whore. Simple for anyone to understand that." And at Faro's doubtful expression, he thundered, "Do you know what you're suggesting, man?"

"I'm only suggesting further enquiries."

"Further enquiries? You must be mad. Authority has to be appeased and the public's demand for justice satisfied with a hanging. And in the very unlikely event that Hymes didn't murder Goldie, he still has to hang for the self-confessed murder of his wife."

"He claims it was an accident—manslaughter rather than murder."

McIntosh banged his fist on the desk. "Ridiculous, Faro, the case has been tried and he's proved guilty and that will have to satisfy you as well as everyone else." He paused. "Are you suggesting that in your absence there has been a miscarriage of justice?" When Faro was silent, he said, "You'll have to produce a second murderer." And jabbing a finger at Faro, he said, "And you'll have a mighty hard job doing that, I fancy. You won't get much help from the police either, quite frankly, because any idea that Hymes didn't kill Goldie puts forward the nasty suggestion that we have failed in our duty and there's a murderer still on the loose, roaming the streets of Edinburgh, with other innocent lives—particularly young female lives—in danger."

With a clumsy attempt at placating Faro, he said, "Be reasonable, man. A public investigation, an admission of what you suspect in the newspapers and there would be chaos. You've been very ill, I realise. And you've had your holidays. The High Court is almost into summer recess. Sheriffs have families and domestic obligations too," he added plaintively.

Faro suppressed a smile, remembering that Mrs. McIntosh, though pint-sized, was a Tartar, who would not hesitate to resort to husband-beating and similar violence upon her husband, should he dare suggest cancelling or delaying the annual family holiday at North Berwick.

Faro sighed. It was fairly obvious that such events, in the absence of the senior detective, had led to a hasty conviction which assumed that Hymes, in common with most murderers, was a consummate liar, who wished only to embarrass and perturb the police further and hamper their investigations.

"It's all there for you to read, Faro."

Faro glanced at the papers. "He doesn't bear much likeness now to the drawings. Did he ever look like this?"

McIntosh shifted uncomfortably. "Oh yes. But he was determined not to eat until he could get someone to believe his fantastic story. We didn't think force-feeding was called for in the circumstances—I mean, once he had been found guilty." He smirked awkwardly. "Seemed quite set on dying, although we tried to tell him that hanging's easier for a heavy man-takes a shorter time than for a light one."

Faro cut short these unsavoury explanations. "If, as you tried to prove, Lily Goldie was murdered because she had seen Hymes visiting the kitchen and had been a witness to the pair departing together for that last ill-fated walk on Salisbury Crags, why didn't she inform the police during the routine questioning which I conducted myself? She seemed baffled and shocked as everyone else at St. Anthony's, her statement made no mention of lurking strangers."

"Oh for heaven's sake, Faro. The man was found guilty. The case is closed. And you take my advice if you know what's good for you. Let sleeping dogs—and hanged murderers—lie.''

Chapter 2

Faro walked briskly down the High Street, its eight-storeyed "lands" looming above his head. This was market day and the noise of vendors, the yelling of fishwives in from Newhaven, the jostling of the crowds and the smell of hot, unwashed flesh were too much for him. Aware only that he was badly in need of some air, fresh and bracing, he hurried down past the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The romance and stormy passions lost for ever behind those grey walls never failed to move him, associated as they were with the story of his beloved Mary, Queen of Scots, beset by villains, tricked and cheated, betrayed. He often wished he had lived in those turbulent days and had been able to wield a sword in her name.

The noise of raucous bustling Edinburgh faded. Salisbury Crags, the distressing scene of the two murders, seemed to stare down at him reproachfully from its lofty heights. Quickening his steps beneath its grim shadow, he walked up the ancient Gibbet Lane towards his new home.

After Lizzie's death he had decided to remove himself from the more convenient house they had occupied in Cockburn Street. He needed a new beginning, and one day, walking in King's Park, he decided to take a look at Newington, which was rapidly developing as a popular suburb on the south side of Edinburgh.

The recently built villas lacked the splendid proportions and classical character of the New Town's Georgian architecture and the house in Sheridan Place was too large and altogether too modern for his taste, having just managed to evade the gross exaggerations of the presently fashionable Gothic style, upon which curlicues and turrets ran rampant.

Faro had been captivated by the views from its windows. Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh's dramatic extinct volcano, filled the eastern skyline, the Pentland Hills, with their ever-changing light, drowsed in the west. By coincidence, the house's first tenant had been an elderly doctor, recently deceased. The fully equipped surgery on the ground floor suggested the benign workings of fate, that this would be the perfect home for Vince and himself. He considered himself unlikely to remarry and enjoyed the most harmonious relationship with his stepson, who would soon be setting up his own brass plate, once he had served his term as assistant to the police surgeon, Dr. Kellar.

The house had the added attraction of a nearby gig-hiring establishment, in addition to one of the new horse-drawn omnibus services, very convenient for the Central Office in Parliament Square.

Perhaps most tempting of all, he had acquired with the house a modest but ready-made domestic staff: two kitchen-maids, who he decided were not at all necessary, and a housekeeper, Mrs. Brook, who would be a great asset, especially as she had long and faithfully served the deceased doctor and was well acquainted with the rapidly growing Newington area.

Mrs. Brook agreed with him on the matter of living-in maids and seemed anxious to dispense with this additional expense. Thus Faro settled happily in 9 Sheridan Place, a move he most urgently needed as a lifeline back into some semblance of lost family life.

"Ah, Inspector sir, the doctor was a widower, just like yourself." And with a vigorous nod. "Ye ken what it's like then, all too well. My late sir was right pleased wi' ma services. Came to him when the paint was just dry on the house-his poor wife was an invalid and I saw her through to the very end." She sighed deeply. "A melancholy life for a well-set-up gentleman like yourself," she added with a slyly admiring glance, "and that bonny young lad, too. Both of you surrounded by so many corpses. At least your last landlady didna' die on you, and that's a mercy."

Faro was amazed that she knew so much of his history already and guessed that she had wheedled the story out of Vince, always eager for a gossip in her kitchen—an unfortunate trait which he would have to overcome in his chosen profession.

Mrs. Brook had regarded him sympathetically. Not that she could blame any woman taking a fancy to the Inspector. Although she would have found it difficult to describe his features or his bearing exactly, beyond saying that he was tall and strong-looking, youngish still, with a good head of fairish hair and good features. "Stern he is, but he can make a body laugh sometimes. Mind, ye'd no want to get on his bad side. He's no' the kind of man ye'd care to cross. He'd make a terrible enemy, that he would," she whispered with an expressive shudder to her cronies, eager for more details.

And, flicking away invisible dust from the photographs on the mantelshelf, "Have you no' thought of having these bonny wee lasses here with you?" And, with a sly look, "Perhaps wi' them to take care of, we may expect another lady-wife in God's good time." At Faro's expression, she realised she had gone too far and continued hastily, "There are some nice schools ..."

He hoped she wasn't about to recommend the convent school with its unhappy association with two recent murders.

"It's a weary life for those of us who lose a loved one. My own dear man has been gone these twenty years, but I still remember him in my prayers. We who have been spared should stick together."

And stick together was quite plainly Mrs. Brook's earnest intention. She talked too much and too often for Faro, who was of a somewhat taciturn disposition, but otherwise he hadn't any real objections. She was an excellent cook and an admirable housekeeper.

After Lizzie died, in those terrible weeks of disbelief and anguish that followed, he had been easily persuaded by his mother to let Rose and Emily remain with her in Kirkwall, in far-off Orkney. Mary Faro was a sensible woman. She had recognised her son's helplessness confronted by grief and the bewildering demands of two children under ten years old. Indeed, he seemed little more than a shocked child himself, this big strong man who could cope with violent crimes but when death knocked at his own door was found totally unprepared. His wounds must be allowed to heal before he was strong enough to resume the role of parenthood, and so he had moved into Leith with a remote cousin, a middle-aged spinster who ran a boarding-house. Her intentions were soon apparent. After the observation of the requisite period of mourning, she had expected to become the second Mrs. Faro, a revelation which involved Faro in speedily removing himself to a safe distance.

Mrs. Brook met him in the hall as he picked up his mail. "Another wee postcard I see from Kirkwall," she said with a sigh. "Those bairns must miss their Da." And, with a return to her favourite theme of absent daughters, "There are always gentlefolk willing to act as governesses hereabouts."

"My salary won't rise to private teaching," said Faro, promptly disabusing Mrs. Brook of any idea that detectives belonged to the wealthy classes. "They are happy enough at their school mean time."

"They have proper schools up yonder?"

Faro laughed. "Indeed—and very good ones. I was educated there myself."

Mrs. Brook regarded this miracle with new respect. "Well I never, Inspector sir, who would have ever thought that. You have come a long way, haven't you? Like that hamper—"

"Hamper?"

"Yes, Inspector sir. It arrived this morning by the carter and I got them to put it in your study."

Faro recognised the hamper, which had belonged to his father. As Mrs. Brook put it, Inspector Faro had come a long way. But perhaps not as far as Constable Magnus Faro, the Orkney-born policeman who had served with the Edinburgh Police Force in its earlier days. He had died in an accident, which his wife refused to believe was anything else but deliberate murder. Mary Faro had taken their only son back to her own people, never having got used to living in the city and wishing only to leave behind Edinburgh, which had held out so much promise for their future and had brought only bitter grief and sad memories.

Memories of his father for young Jeremy were far from sad. Possessed of remarkable and almost total recall, which was to prove invaluable in his profession, he could remember in vivid detail the father who had gone out of the house one morning, waving him goodbye, and had returned, carried into the house, cold and still on a bloodied stretcher that evening.

Jeremy had been four years old. But he was never to forget his father's stories of crimes solved and other baffling mysteries unexplained. These had so stimulated his childish imagination that, to his mother's surprise and much against her wishes, he had resolved early in life to make the police force his career. Later, he sometimes wondered whether hero-worship and stories from his mother had built an image that did not exist beyond the silhouette of the handsome policeman on the mantelshelf.

"There's the young doctor now," said Mrs. Brook, "with another load for the washtub, I see. It's a good job I'm not queasy by nature being as how I'm used to doctors. All that blood, turns a body's stomach."

Faro watched Vince striding down the street. Cornbright curls, deep blue eyes framed by black eyebrows and eyelashes, it was little wonder that the boy's presence was such a comfort, when his sweet Lizzie haunted him every day from out of her son's face. Vince was twenty-one. Lizzie had been but four years older, mother of a nine-year-old son, when they first met. Faro thought wistfully of the future and of his strange fancy that if Vince and he stayed together in this house until they too were old, then his dear wife too would remain with him, never lost, through the years.