The Unbelievers (21 page)

“Those words seemed to calm him. He let go of me and said he was sorry he had been so rash, that our souls were rushing to join themselves before our minds were ready. He left, with a promise to return before long.”

Arthur felt as if he had, himself, been assaulted. He had been plunged into a horror blacker than he had known possible. The last of his brothers had proved to be the worst, in his unspeakable evil against the best of women. He wanted to get up and go straight to his wretch of a brother and punch him, as hard and repeatedly as his strength would allow, until he lay broken on the floor. But, for now, he had to steel himself to be calm and pastoral to his wretchedly abused cousin. He spoke words which he prayed would help her.

“You did no wrong, Josephine. I can offer no apology for my brother, though. He has behaved with a wickedness I had not thought possible.”

Josephine was weeping again.

“I feel so soiled, Arthur. I acted so weakly. I should have had the moral strength to dissuade him. The guilt is mine too.”

“No, no, Josephine, the guilt is all his.”

“Do you not think me contemptible?”

“No, Josephine. I love you. I love you with all my heart as the best and bravest of women.”

He was shocked to hear himself speak the words he had, till now, only dared to think. He shivered with a fear that, like his brother, he was assaulting her with an unwelcome love.

She reached out and laid her hand on his.

“I love you too, Arthur, as my strength and guide and comforter.”

At any other moment, he would have been overwhelmed by a rush of joy at hearing her speak frankly of love. But, now, the spark of joy was extinguished instantly by a stronger, darker force.

Hate.

What George had done went beyond forgiveness. Forgiveness was too cheap. It would be a moral failure if Arthur didn't accept his duty as a man, and make sure that George was punished. He deserved to be shot like vermin.

He felt his soul hardening into steel as, in his mind, he buckled on the armour of retribution.

Allerdyce kept looking round to see whether he was being followed. Perhaps one of Jarvis's men was tailing him, as he led them towards another suspect. To his relief, there didn't seem to be anyone on his tail. He'd taken precautions – coming back from Bavelaw he'd taken the cab to Ravelrig Station and then got off the train at Haymarket, where he was less likely than at Waverley to meet anyone he knew. He'd not gone back into the Police Office before setting off to walk circuitously to Stockbridge. To avoid a chance encounter with any beat constables he'd taken the shadowed path in the deep gorge of the Water of Leith, which emerged back into the light barely a hundred yards from his destination.

Danube Street.

He'd promised himself, as Alice struggled for life, that he'd never come here again, but fate had dragged him back within days. As he pulled the doorbell he felt a heavy sickness in anticipation of another betrayal.

Antonia's maid opened the door.

“Oh, Mr Allerdyce, we weren't expecting you. I'm sorry, Miss Antonia is engaged.”

He took out his warrant card and showed it to her.

“Police business. It can't wait.”

“I'll let her know. Come in.”

He sat down, as so often before, to wait in Antonia's parlour. He tried to ignore a shout of male anger and the running of heavy steps down the stairs, and the slamming of the front door.

Antonia entered in her dressing gown, her blonde hair streaming down on her shoulders. She smiled weakly at Allerdyce.

“Not a social call, I gather, Archibald.”

“No. I'm sorry. Police matters.”

“Well then, we'd better speak here. More suitable for this sort of business than the boudoir, I think.”

Antonia stood by the window, the light streaming through her hair. As he looked at her, and at the parlour with its upright piano, its potted palm, the dark silk wallpaper with its pattern of vines and grapes, and the canary in its cage, he was irresistibly reminded of Holman Hunt's
The Awakening Conscience
. Antonia, though, looked like a stronger, more difficult, person than the kept woman, with her core of innocence, in the painting. Antonia's posture was erect, and her gaze firm. The floral scent of her perfume couldn't fully mask a musky, more carnal smell. In the unforgiving daylight the fine lines radiating from her eyes and mouth spoke of fixity of purpose rather than laughter.

The image of McGillivray's bare, whitewashed cell came into his mind as he looked at the over-decorated parlour and he wondered what the sergeant was doing at this moment – picking oakum in silence in his cell, trudging drearily round the circle of the exercise yard, or, perhaps, being beaten discreetly by some inmates in a quiet corner of the prison while the warders turned a blind eye. He felt ill. It isn't Antonia's conscience that's the problem, he thought. It's mine.

“So, Archibald,” said Antonia. “To what do I owe the privilege of this unusual visit?”

“I'm looking for a lady by the name of Augusta Mitchell. I was directed to enquire after her at this address.”

“Well, you won't find her here, Archibald.”

“The name clearly means something to you, though.” He hated himself for having to adopt his assertive, investigatory tone with Antonia.

“Of course it does. It's my mother's name.”

“Your mother?” He felt a dizziness as inevitability closed round him. “And where is she?”

“Gone, Archibald.”

“Gone where?”

“Dead.”

“I'm sorry.”

Antonia sat down. As she sat he couldn't avoid a glance at the beautiful curve of her pale breasts. She pulled her dressing gown tighter around her and he looked away, cursing his weakness.

“You'll appreciate, Archibald,” she said, “that mention of my mother causes me some upset. She died in quite distressing circumstances. Do you have a particular reason for your enquiry?”

Allerdyce paused.

“It's in connection with a murder investigation.”

Antonia laughed, mockingly he thought.

“Well, I don't think my mother can honestly be a suspect, Archibald. I buried her ten years ago.”

“I still need to know some details of her life and relations. I'm sorry.”

“An unhappy subject, Archibald. May I know the subject of your investigation?”

“The murder of William Bothwell-Scott, Duke of Dornoch. And also of his brother, Brigadier Sir Frederick Bothwell-Scott.”

“I should have known.”

“I recall that you said, last time we met, that the Duke's name had some unhappy associations for you.”

Antonia paused before answering, looking Allerdyce directly in the eye.

“Yes. William Bothwell-Scott was my father.”

Damn, thought Allerdyce. He felt like he'd been hit with a hammer. It's true. Like it or not, she's at the centre of all this. And if she is, so am I.

“Did you know him?”

“He used to visit from time to time. He'd rented a secluded house for my mother out in the Pentlands where he could visit her secretly.”

I know, he thought, but I'm not going to tell you that I know.

Antonia continued.

“Of course, he didn't say he was my father. I was told to call him Uncle Bill. My mother made up a story that my father had gone to India as a missionary and got sick and died, and that Uncle Bill was his brother who was helping to look after us.

“I suppose I probably believed that when I was little, though as soon as I started noticing things I thought it was strange that, after he'd asked me how I was and given me a shilling, he'd go away to mother's bedroom with her. And as I got a little older I thought it was strange that mother hadn't displayed any mementoes of my father's life – no photograph, no locket with his hair, nothing. Though frankly I was so seldom out in the world that I was poorly-equipped to know what was normal.”

“So when did you learn that Uncle Bill was your father?”

“Only shortly before mother died. She'd been quite animated for a while, talking about how we might be able to go to Europe with Uncle Bill, how we might even be able to live sometimes as a family together. I'd heard it before, so I wasn't expecting anything. Then there was a visit when they shouted and swore and I heard things being thrown in mother's bedroom. He stormed out ignoring me and slammed the front door behind him.

“I went into her bedroom and saw her sitting on the floor, holding a handkerchief to a cut in her forehead. She was crying. I asked her what had happened. That's when she told me – she'd been secretly married to Uncle Bill, I was his child, and for over two decades she'd lived for his visits and for the hope that, at last, they might be able to share more of their lives together. Now, he'd told her that he wanted to cast her utterly aside, and that he would cut her off without a penny unless she surrendered her marriage certificate to him. Her poor, shrunken life had been ripped apart.”

God, thought Allerdyce, that's a harsh story. He felt wretched for re-opening Antonia's pain, but his duty – to the law and to McGillivray – meant that he had to press on with his questions.

“Were you sorry when you learnt that William Bothwell-Scott was dead?”

She laughed again.

“Sorry? Sorry, Archibald? If you knew even a fraction of how he'd blighted my mother's life and my own you'd have held a party to celebrate his death.”

A voice in Allerdyce's mind said, stop her now. Stop her from incriminating herself. You've already allowed one friend's candour to place himself in mortal danger – don't let Antonia follow him. But a stronger voice said that this was evidence and needed to be heard. He held his tongue and Antonia continued.

“Do you know how my mother died, Archibald? Do you? She didn't want to live after the Duke had discarded her, but she didn't know how to die. At first she just seemed to be wasting away through depression and not eating. Then she asked me to go to a pharmacist and obtain prussic acid. She said it was to poison the mice that infested the house, but I suspected her true purpose and said I wouldn't go. So do you know what she did, Archibald? She drank a cup of neat bleach.

“I found her on the kitchen floor, still alive. Her lips were burnt as if someone had held a red-hot iron to them. Blood was frothing out of her mouth. She might have been screaming or she might have been trying to speak – I couldn't tell because the bleach had burnt-out her voice box. Her eyes were rolling around like a lunatic and her legs were kicking out in mad spasms.

“I tried to make her drink water but she only choked. I knew it would take me at least half an hour to ride to the doctor's house in Balerno, and another half hour to come back with him even if he was in, and that that would be too late. So I held her in my arms, trying again and again to get her to drink some water or some milk to put out her inner flames, with no success. She died in sheer terror, Archibald, and I hope that I never have to see such suffering again. So, frankly, it gave me nothing but joy to hear about his death. I only pray that it was painful.”

“And when did you last see the Duke?” Please, he thought, don't let her answer incriminate her further. “Was it when he last saw your mother?”

“No. I was cursed with seeing him once more. As a client.”

Allerdyce swallowed, feeling nauseous. Could the Duke have been such a degenerate that he even lay with his own daughter?

“I'm sorry.”

“This business isn't what I'd ideally have chosen, Archibald, but I'm good at it. In fact, I like to think that I'm at the top of my profession, and my fees reflect that. My mother was an intelligent woman and she gave me as good an education as she was able. I could have made my living as a governess or a schoolmistress, if anyone would have given a job to an orphan girl with no references. But frankly, that didn't appeal. And no-one was going to marry a fatherless girl whose mother was a suicide.

“My mother, days before she died, said something that stuck with me. She said she'd thought for many years that she was a wife, but only now realised that she was a whore. She'd just been a sexual outlet for William, for which he'd paid by renting the house and giving her a small allowance.

“I was determined my life wasn't going to be like hers. I was going to take control. I would use men on my terms, and for my profit. So if men routinely used woman as whores, I would make sure I profited handsomely from it.

“Have you ever thought about how I set myself up here? About the expense of buying this house? William gave my mother enough money in exchange for the marriage certificate for me to buy this house after her death, but not enough to maintain me in the comfort I thought I deserved for the rest of my life. So, I set out to earn an income that would give me complete independence from any individual man.”

“You were going to tell me how you last saw the late Duke,” prompted Allerdyce.

“I was coming to that, Archibald. I'm a quick learner, and I soon learnt the tricks, both conversational and sexual, that keep a man interested. I flatter myself that some of my clients quickly came to think of me as a friend as well as a whore – a quality of relationship which my father had denied to my mother. My reputation spread quickly and new clients arrived daily.

“I was horrified when, a few months after starting the business, my maid showed William Bothwell-Scott into my bedroom.

“I could have killed him right there and then. If I'd had a pistol in my room I could cheerfully have shot him in the stomach and watched him die.

“Fortunately for him, I didn't. He recognised me instantly. He stared at me for a second of disbelief and horror then turned round and left.

“So that's it, Archibald. I haven't seen him since and I'm glad he's dead.”

Or was it, thought Allerdyce. Could you have blackmailed him? Could you have found a means to do what you thought was right and kill him?

He took out his notebook and flicked back a few pages.

“I'd like to be able to eliminate you completely from the investigation, Antonia. It would help me if you could confirm where you were, and with whom, on the nights when William Bothwell-Scott and the Brigadier met their deaths.”

Antonia stood up, clasping her dressing-gown tightly around her.

“You swine, Archibald. I confide in you as a friend, and you make me a suspect. I had genuinely thought you were my friend, and is this the loyalty I receive? To be identified as a murderer?”

Allerdyce felt the black despair welling up inside him. He pressed on.

“It's purely a matter of routine, Antonia. A matter of elimination.”

“Elimination of who, Archibald? Whoever visited me as a client on those nights would deny it in court, if they had a wife to think of or if they wanted to keep their position as a judge or a minister of the church. Plenty of them give me false names anyway. I can't give you a reliable alibi for any night when I've entertained clients.” She put a slim hand against her neck. “I could hang, Archibald, if you choose to make me a suspect. Is that what you want?”

He visualised the rough hempen rope around her pale neck. He thought about the other friend whose life was already in jeopardy as a result of his suspicions.

Had McGillivray killed the victims? Maybe – he'd had the means and the motivation. Had Antonia killed them? She'd had the motivation in abundance to murder William Bothwell-Scott. The means? Perhaps – if she'd been meeting him to blackmail him. And the Brigadier? The motivation was less clear, unless she was working her way through the family until she was sole heir, but the circumstances of his death suggested a woman, and the droll messages which had accompanied both deaths suggested someone of Antonia's intelligence.

It could be either, it could be neither. In his heart he would like to be able to tell them both that they were free from suspicion, but that would be in defiance of reason and evidence. In the absence of other clear suspects he appeared to have a stark, dreadful choice.