An Orkney Murder (A Rose McQuinn Mystery)

  An Orkney Murder

  A Rose McQuinn Mystery

  by

  Alanna Knight

  ALANNA KNIGHT has written more than fifty novels, (including fifteen in the successful Inspector Faro series), four works of non-fiction, numerous short stories and two plays since the publication of her first book in 1969. Born and educated in Tyneside, she now lives in Edinburgh. She is a founding member of the Scottish Association of Writers and Honorary President of the Edinburgh Writers' Club.

  Chapter One

  Murder only happens in other families.

  So we all pretend to believe. But domestic murder is more widespread than one might imagine.

  According to James Payn, editor of Cornhill: 'One person in every five hundred is an undiscovered murderer. This gives us all hope, almost a certainty, that we may reckon on one such person at least among our acquaintances.'

  When he expounded his theory to three members of his London club, they were able to name six persons of their various acquaintance who were, or had been suspected of being, successful murderers. To read such sensational opinions in popular magazines is one matter, but as I was soon to discover for myself, the face of murder hides behind many benign masks.

  The idea that the family of my father, Chief Inspector Jeremy Faro, lately retired from the Edinburgh City Police, might harbour an undetected murderer was as unlikely as his proud boast that his grandmother was a seal woman.

  Having laid aside for the immediate future the mantle of Rose McQuinn née Faro, Lady Investigator, Discretion Guaranteed, I stepped off the steamer in Stromness that August day of 1896 with no thought of anything more violent than the certainty that I would have cheerfully killed for a cup of tea after a somewhat stormy crossing from Leith.

  This was the prelude to a long-awaited visit to my younger sister Emily. We had been close as children and now I was looking forward to seeing her after a separation of more than a decade.

  Emily had been content to remain in Orkney. After I left to become a schoolteacher in Glasgow, she settled down and married Erland Yesnaby, a widower of ancient lineage, somewhat her senior. The intervening years since that event had been inexpertly bridged by a succession of vague communications, a weakness shared, I might add, with the majority of the Faro family. As I learned to my cost while I was in America, letter-writing is sadly not one of our finest accomplishments.

  Happily anticipating a joyful family reunion, I made my way gratefully along a static quayside, on terra firma once more, first checking that my luggage was safely anchored on the back of my bicycle in a container artfully designed for that purpose by Jack Macmerry.

  The machine had aroused some interest among my fellow passengers for such equipages were still regarded with cautious amusement despite the emergence of an occasional horseless carriage on the streets of Edinburgh - an event assuring those citizens of a lugubrious nature that this was a mere whim, a passing phase. There was no future in such outlandish, noisy, smelly means of travel, beyond a clear indication that the world was going to the dogs.

  Bicycles? Yes, perhaps, but they were still deemed undignified, a little outré if not downright improper as a means of transport for ladies, displaying to the general public their lower limbs. Quite disgraceful.

  As I disdained to include myself in society's definition of a lady, I cared little for such opinions. Years of pioneering life in the American West had set at naught the notion of behaving according to the conventions of middle-class Edinburgh.

  To return to more practical matters. As Hopescarth lay some distance to the north-west of Stromness, I considered the advantages of a bicycle where only the fortunate few owned carriages and most folk still travelled by cart, on foot or on horseback.

  Prepared for the worst, I pictured a bleaker, more remote and less populated area than Kirkwall, our home with grandmother Mary Faro after Mamma died in Edinburgh with our stillborn baby brother, leaving Pappa grief-stricken and at his wits' end about the future of two small daughters.

  As for dear Emily, her worst fault over the years had been an irritating habit of ignoring what I regarded as urgent family matters. Her one-page replies to my letters contained little information beyond stressing that she was well (which was not always true as I was to discover) and ended as speedily as possible on a cheerful note in the hope that this also found me in good health and spirits (often a far from accurate assessment).

  I tried to stir her interest from time to time by laying claim to a more dramatic existence in Arizona, mentioning occasional Indian raids, cattle lifted and property burnt. All of which failed to arouse any comment from Emily in her eventual replies.

  After Danny's disappearance and the loss of our baby son, I kept my promise to him that if one day he walked out and failed to return, I was to wait for six months and then, presuming some fate had befallen him in the course of his employment with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, I was to return home to Edinburgh.

  Ever since I arrived in May 1895,1 had been confidently expecting an invitation to Orkney, perhaps even the suggestion that I make my home with them at Yesnaby House. The distant tone of Emily's infrequent letters, hinting that our grandmother, frail and needing extra care, was now living with them, made me suspect that only a sense of duty directed her to reply at all. Indeed in moments of depression and doubt, of which there were many in those early days, I felt that she wished to banish memory of the tragic circumstances of her only sister's return to Scotland.

  As time passed, I often asked myself if it was unreasonable of me to expect an immediate invitation to Hopescarth, and I believe I could be forgiven for nursing bitter disappointment at not even the suggestion of some future visit.

  Reluctant to think Emily heartless, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed a total inability to express her emotions in letters of some pressing domestic anxiety of her own - which indeed proved to be the case.

  To my anxious requests for more details regarding our grandmother's health her replies were carefully veiled.

  There was no mention of yet another relative, older even than Gran. A great-grandmother, whose existence had never been mentioned in our Orkney days.

  Certainly, had I given the matter of Sibella Scarth considered thought, a simple calculation based on Gran's eighty-four years would have set her own mother's age at past a century, her bones presumably laid peacefully to rest long since in the local kirkyard.

  But to return to Emily's eagerly awaited invitation.

  It had arrived at long last, at what seemed the most opportune of moments. In Edinburgh, an indifferent summer had already given up in despair, rain and cold winds sought out every crevice in the stone walls of my ancient home in Solomon's Tower at the base of Arthur's Seat. Already there was a touch of mellow autumn in the slanting sunlight on harvest fields, an air of melancholy bringing with it the stealthy return of bitter memories.

  This was the second anniversary of Danny's disappearance and I was not yet reconciled to the inevitable conclusion. I still hoped - with faith undying - that somewhere he was still alive.

  So many deep-rooted scars were miraculously healed in dreams. There was one where a door opened. Danny was there smiling, holding out his arms awaiting our rapturous reunion.

  The dream faded rapidly into a sad reality as, once again, I opened my eyes to an empty room, an empty heart and a door obstinately closed against the one person I longed to resurrect, totally ignoring what common sense screamed at me.

  That I was willing back to life a dead man.

  True, I had found another love. Detective Sergeant Jack Macmerry of the Edinburgh City Police. And Jack was growing impatient. His practical, logical mind could not accept that my desire not to commit myself was due to my deep-seated faith in Danny's return. Jack wanted marriage - now - and children - before it was too late. Reminding me that I was thirty-one years old, he believed that I was making an excuse.

  Lately he had accused me of not wanting to settle down and be a policeman's wife. Perhaps he had guessed my secret, knew me better that I did myself, for I enjoyed my detective role as a lady investigator.

  I now had a logbook of domestic mysteries and hotel robberies which had called for utmost discretion. All had been successfully solved without calling in the police and losing the desired anonymity of the victims: in most cases, a wealthy bored married woman with a young lover or a well-kenned gentleman with a mistress or a taste for the seamy side of Edinburgh life, for whom disclosure and scandal would mean ruin.

  There had also been two very alarming and dangerous encounters with murderers where my own life had been in deadly peril and I had narrowly survived, in part due to Jack's intervention.

  However, as I have already remarked, Emily's letter was opportune. I needed an escape clause. I was between cases. With no clients for the past three months, I had begun to despair of unfaithful husbands, indiscreet wives, thieving domestics and fraudsters.

  How Jack gloated over my lack of business, certain that this would persuade me to set the date for our wedding, heartily sick of our 'on-off' arrangement, for I was neither mistress nor wife. It was all too casual, too unconventional for him. He - and his parents, whom I had yet to meet - had set their hearts on a Christmas wedding.

  And what was more important, it seemed that a wife would strengthen his chances of promotion. For some reason he believed that the Board would look kindly upon the non-flighty, well-settled famil
y man.

  No wonder I fled! Too cowardly for a definite 'No' - for I did not want to lose Jack. I loved him in my way, and as Gran was to point out when we talked later, I had every intention of having my cake and eating it! In that she was quite correct, without my adding 'as long as I can!'

  But I did not doubt Jack's determination to bring the issue to a conclusion. When I returned from Orkney, Jack must have his answer one way or the other.

  As we said our goodbyes, in the prickly manner of one who feels himself ill-used, Jack said: 'You're not concerned about Thane, I trust.'

  I smiled. The deerhound Thane, my strange companion for the past year, was the least of my problems. He needed no human carer. He had his own life. Long before we met - how long I had not the least idea - he had survived and would continue to do so, returning to the existence he had always known in the wild secret haunts, the hidden caves of Arthur's Seat.

  'Three weeks and we'll be together again,' Jack had sighed as he kissed me and added in a quite unnecessary tone of consolation, 'Don't worry, it will soon pass.'

  I forbore to mention that this was a holiday, one I was greatly looking forward to, as he continued: 'You'll be back home in plenty of time to plan everything. Everything, Rose.' The firm set of his jaw left me in no doubt of what he had in mind: our wedding date.

  And so I closed the door of the Tower behind me, confident of my return, with not the remotest idea on that sunny morning of how a family visit to a beloved sister might erupt into danger greater than that involved in any of my Edinburgh cases.

  And this time, without Jack or Thane in a last-minute rescue bid, delivering me from evil.

  Or death.

  Chapter Two

  As I bicycled down the road to Hopescarth, my progress assisted by a stiff seaward breeze, I realised that this terrain was different to Kirkwall, the town where I had grown up.

  This was a new land, a foreign soil. I had forgotten there would be no trees, at least none worthy of comment or sheltering charm, like sturdy oak, horse chestnut and elm. The only trees bold enough to inhabit these cold northwest isles were timid sycamore and melancholy willow. Offering no airs of protection and benevolence, they hugged close to house walls in a manner suggesting despair if not downright apprehension, their continual fight for survival clearly visible in twisted and distorted limbs.

  Orkney may lack trees or mountains and display little of the grandeur of the Scottish highlands or the tamed splendours of shady glens in suburban Edinburgh, but there is adequate compensation in wild beauty and an atmosphere which is unique. Infinite space, the great sweeping confluence of sky, sea and rolling landscape, undulating hills in a sea-bitten, wind-torn pastiche of greens, greys and peat browns, interrupted here and there by a patchwork of scattered crofts, few out of sight or sound of the sea.

  As I puffed up hills and soared down them again, the wine-clear air, so bracing and familiar, seemed to hold out a promise of recapturing the nostalgia of youthful days. Of returning to sunlight and long golden beaches from Edinburgh's close-packed smoky city, rightfully termed Auld Reekie.

  That confused blur of excitement tinged with sadness. Goodbyes to Pappa and beloved stepbrother Vince, clutching my memory of Mamma, a smiling photo, that last bedside farewell. The disbelief that she would not open her eyes when I kissed her. Or that the little wax doll at her side was the baby brother who would never grow to run out into the street to play with Emily and me.

  A fate, at the time mercifully concealed from me, that one day would also befall me: I too was to have a waxen baby of my own, that now lays in a lonely unmarked grave, lost for ever in the Arizonian desert.

  Here in Orkney, home of my carefree child- and girlhood, I was confident that I would again find the surroundings healing, for Edinburgh still pressed hard upon me, scarred with memories of Danny unfolding at every street corner. This island was different, part of my world before Danny McQuinn.

  Now Stromness lay a mile or two behind and fragments of that happier past returned as I sailed effortlessly downhill. Eventually I stopped to wipe my nose, with a wry smile, for cool breezes always had that effect. That little matter taken care of, putting away my handkerchief, I set off with an increasing sense of pleasurable anticipation that I would enjoy every moment of the weeks ahead, that Orkney's magic of old would work for me, and a change of scene would be followed by a clear sense of purpose and faith in the future.

  On my return to Edinburgh, I would give Jack his answer. Already I had to confess to missing him just a little and imagining us returning together and introducing him to the places of my early life.

  At that moment I had no doubts about the future. I could hear myself saying, 'Yes, I will marry you. And we will honeymoon in Orkney.'

  For suddenly it was all easy, simple. Too simple. I was brought down to earth with a grinding wobble on my front wheel.

  I had picked up a stone in the spokes.

  Perhaps that was an omen, the first of many I should have heeded.

  There was worse to come.

  Removing the offending stone I discovered that the front tyre was punctured. Cursing under my breath in a very unladylike fashion, I took out the tin box containing the repair kit and stared at it blankly, never previously having had any reason to use it with Jack always at hand.

  At that moment I wished most heartily that I had him here now to make soothing noises, allowing me to stand by and marvel at his skill and dexterity, assuring him that he was so good at such things and I was all fingers and thumbs.

  As I set to work, to crown all the rain began. Where was that lovely sunlit sky? Even the skylarks had taken cover in disgust. Wishing I could do the same, I took out my rain cape.

  Then suddenly from the direction I had travelled, the road, hidden by the top of the hill, began to vibrate. Straightening up, I stared at the sky.

  Thunder? And at that moment the most splendid sight in the world. Wheels and the blunt nose of a snorting asthmatic monster appeared over the brow of the hill, quickly reassembling itself into a motor car.

  Wonder of wonders! The horseless carriage had found its way across the sea to Orkney.

  Scrambling well aside, overwhelmed by smoke and fumes, I gave it ample room to pass on the narrow road.

  The driver, goggled and helmeted, looked down and saluted me gravely. Then, with a squeal of brakes, the gleaming machine slid a few yards forward. A series of groans announced some misgivings as it came to a standstill and puffed more blue smoke in my face.

  The driver jumped down.

  'Having trouble, Miss?' he asked, as if kneeling on the side of the road with a bicycle's wheel in the air was not sufficient evidence for even a mildly observant eye.

  However, the question was encouraging; it suggested that help might be at hand. So I smiled sadly and decided to become very feminine. Men, Jack told me, liked that. And although nature decreed that I should be small with a cloud of yellow curls, appearances are deceptive. The role of helpless female does not come naturally, as many males, gentlemen and otherwise, have found to their cost.

  On this occasion, however, I decided that a measure of innocent deception would never have more reason to be called upon.

  'I am indeed. I haven't had to deal with a puncture before.' I made a desperate bid at fluttering eyelashes in a helpless fashion. They are glossy black and thick, like my eyebrows, inherited from Pappa. Completely at variance with yellow curls, the continual despair of my sister-in-law, Olivia, who considers such eyebrows not only unfashionable but rather coarse and unladylike.

  Shaking his head, the driver gazed down on me from his lofty height of six foot-something. Frowning, he gloomily contemplated the bicycle with its injured wheel whirring gently.

  'It's these infernal roads, Miss, they're a menace. Nothing more than sheep tracks in places.'

  I had hoped for more than this dejected appraisal but his tone warned me sadly that he was helpless to deal with a punctured tyre. And at that moment what I needed most was a man of action.

  Of swift action, I thought anxiously, if I am to see Hopescarth, still six miles distant, before dark.