To Kill a Queen (An Inspector Faro Mystery No.6)

  To Kill A Queen

  An Inspector Faro 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.

  TO KILL A QUEEN

  Away from the stresses and dangers of his job with the Edinburgh City Police, Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro looks forward to a peaceful holiday in the beautiful Deeside region of the Royal Estate at Balmoral Castle. He plans nothing more strenuous than to celebrate his aunt's ninetieth birthday and enjoy a little fishing. But Faro's reputation travels with him and his skills are called upon by none other than Queen Victoria, in residence at the Castle. While he is flattered that the Monarch should require his assistance, Faro is somewhat put out to discover from John Brown that he is to track down whoever has killed the Queen's two favourite spaniels. It is not long, however, before Faro has a killing of far greater magnitude to concentrate on ... Scotland Yard have got wind of a plot to assassinate the Queen.

  Chapter One

  As the train steamed into Aberdeen station, the promising morning of glittering sunshine was under threat from a shroud of mist creeping in from the North Sea.

  The foghorn's dismal note did nothing to dispel the persistent chill and was less than welcoming to the two men who emerged wraithlike from the smoke enveloping the platform.

  Both were fair-haired and blue-eyed but there all likeness ended. The elder had a countenance curiously in keeping with the legends of Viking raiders in the north of Scotland. Tall leanness concealed considerable strength. A somewhat arrogant face defied the popular fashion for beards. High of cheekbone and nose, only a mouth full lipped and well shaped conceded to curves and hinted at a gentler disposition than first glance suggested.

  As for his companion, a frivolity of blond curls sought to escape from the tall hat he clasped firmly against a shrilly unpleasant wind. It cut like a knife, moaning through the open roofs, making its presence felt day and night. With a countenance curiously innocent and vulnerable, this younger man could have passed for seventeen.

  But the appearance of both men was deceptive. Closer acquaintance might have detected tight-drawn precision, an ability to make rapid and often life-saving decisions about the younger man's almost cherubic countenance. And in the elder, a certain steeliness about the eyes told a tale of authority, of power and hidden springs coiled taut and ready for instant action. Here was a man used to danger, a man who could be loyal friend, or deadly foe.

  His name was Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro. His companion who constantly deplored the lack of evidence of a maturity more befitting his chosen profession was somewhat surprisingly, considering the still youthful appearance of the elder man, his stepson, Dr Vincent Beaumarcher Laurie. He had just been appointed as locum tenens to the resident doctor at The Prince Consort Cottage Hospital at Beagmill on the edge of the Balmoral Estate.

  Carrying their light luggage, they walked smartly towards the far end of the station where, almost invisible behind a platform high in wooden boxes, the train for Ballater was being loaded. Both men pressed handkerchiefs to noses. Even the strong breezes were no armour against the pungent aroma around them.

  'High in coffined kippers,' muttered Vince.

  'Aye, with everything boxed but the smell,' Faro added and Vince looked at him enquiringly.

  'Did you write that?'

  Faro shrugged. 'No. Read it somewhere.'

  'Fortunate that you aren't here on business, Stepfather. Any self-respecting Central Office bloodhound would be put off by the scent, his nose permanently put out of business, I shouldn't wonder. Ugh!' Vince added, as they hurried aboard the waiting train.

  The kippers were a delicacy destined for the Royal breakfast table at Balmoral where Her Majesty was very partial to Aberdeen's famous export. In one of the estate cottages Faro and Vince would partake of less redolent fare, notably the traditional porridge provided by Aunt Isabel, or Bella as she was known, a grand old lady on the eve of her ninetieth birthday.

  Faro's mother was never slow to remind him of family obligations and her original intention had been to travel down from Orkney for this important occasion, bringing Rose and Emily to be reunited with their father on Deeside. She had shown great enterprise by reserving accommodation in one of Ballater's excellent hotels on the excuse that Aunt Bella's cottage was quite inadequate for a whole family which included two grown men. But as they prepared to set out disaster had struck. Mary Faro wrote that the two girls had gone down with chicken-pox.

  Faro was bitterly disappointed. Chances to see Rose and Emily were rare and ninetieth birthdays were even rarer. He had no desire to add to his aunt's distress by the absence of her heart's darling. Himself. Her favourite nephew, treasured by her as the son she had never had.

  Throughout the years Aunt Bella had been his constant refuge in times of stress, providing a retreat whenever he was convalescing from illness, or from injuries resulting from violent encounters with criminals. Faro had many but, as his enemies grumbled, he bore a charmed life.

  As for his children, he bore enough guilt and suffered enough sleepless nights for his neglect, real or imagined, of his motherless daughters, whose rightful place, according to Mary Faro, was with their father in Edinburgh. Diplomatically he tried to justify himself in the face of her reproaches—without ever revealing the constant dangers of his life with Edinburgh City Police.

  He was a marked man, frequently the target for incidents from which he had narrowly escaped death, making light to her of broken limbs and gunshot wounds. But criminals were no respecters of a policeman's family and he knew from past experience that the presence of two small girls could add a nightmare vulnerability to his daily life.

  His thoughts were distracted by Vince reeling up the carriage window and settling back into his seat gratefully.

  'I suppose all you have to do is enjoy yourself for a few days, Stepfather. How do you fancy a life without crime for a change?'

  'Exceedingly well. Let's hope there is nothing more unlawful than whisky illicitly stilled and salmon illegally gaffed.'

  Unbuttoning his greatcoat, Faro took the brim of his tall hat between two fingers and spun it adroitly on to the rack above.

  'How do you do that?' asked Vince in admiration.

  'Trick of the wrist, lad. Something my late uncle taught me long ago at Easter Balmoral. Quite deadly, I assure you, with the skean dhu. But I wasn't considered old enough then for sharp knives.'

  'I must say I'm looking forward to seeing Great-aunt again,' Vince sighed. 'I fancy a comfortable pastoral hospital where the patients are few and the population healthy. And uncomplicated. For a change.'

  A slight tremble in his voice, another, deeper sigh, told all too bitterly how his own happiness had been recently blighted.

  Faro regarded him sharply. Vince was staring out of the window. His eyes, suddenly bleak, reminded Faro, in the unlikely event of his ever forgetting the tragic details, how the lad's appointment as factory doctor in Dundee had been marked by heartbreak and near breakdown.

  The lad was still looking far from well, but putting his faith in youth's resilience, Faro was confident that Vince would soon find the new job much more agreeable. And he hoped he would also find a more enduring love.

  Meanwhile he was convinced that the splendid Ballater air would do the lad a pow
er of good, with Aunt Bella's cosseting close at hand as an excellent substitute for Mrs Brook, their admirable housekeeper.

  He hoped Mrs Brook was enjoying her few days' holiday in Perth. Deliberately he pushed to the back of his mind the ominous shadow that now hung over 9 Sheridan Place. He shuddered from the turmoil that must ensue should Mrs Brook's invalid sister, recently bereaved, need her constant attention.

  A widower in a large family house, at the mercy of inefficient servants, he saw himself seeking board and lodgings nearer the Central Office.

  Staring out of the window he gazed at the magnificence of an undulating landscape which suddenly replaced his gloomy thoughts with the excitement and pleasurable anticipation of long-lost boyhood. For if there was any place on earth he could call his spiritual home, then it was Deeside. In that sad childhood summer after his policeman father Magnus Faro was killed, he had found healing with his aunt, and with his uncle a passion for fishing, albeit of the net and jar variety.

  Gradually, he began to relax as every mile distanced him from a battle of wits with the villains who lurked behind the noise and grime of Edinburgh's High Street and continually harassed the Central Office.

  There Superintendent McIntosh tended to be absent-minded about his chief detective's right to have holidays.

  Grumbling as always, he had stared moodily out of the window. 'A deuced inconvenient time, I might say, Faro. I'm away to a family wedding in Aberdeen.'

  McIntosh's expression had then changed to one of suspicion. 'Easter Balmoral, did you say? Near Crathie, isn't it?' And snatching a paper off the pile on his desk, he added, 'I thought so. Came this morning. Woman murdered.'

  Pausing for reaction and finding none forthcoming, he demanded, 'Wouldn't have anything to do with your sudden desire to go up there, would it?'

  Assured that this was a holiday and family occasion only, McIntosh sighed. 'Ah, well, in that case, I suppose if you must.' His impatient gesture signalled that permission was given somewhat grudgingly and the interview at an end.

  About to leave, Faro turned. 'This murder case...'

  'Person or persons unknown. That's the verdict. But between you and me, the evidence points to a jealous lover,' said McIntosh. 'Nothing you need concern yourself about.'

  'Where exactly did it happen?'

  'I was just reading it when you came in.'

  But as Faro stretched out his hand towards the papers, McIntosh quickly covered them.

  'Never you mind, Faro. You are on leave, remember.'

  'I know that but—'

  'But nothing. Case is closed and you stay out of it, Faro. We want no meddling, if you please. It's out of our province and the Aberdeen police won't thank us for poking our noses in. You know the rules,' he added sternly. 'Inspector Purdie from Scotland Yard is up there right now. Called in because of the proximity of Balmoral Castle, I imagine.'

  When Faro mentioned this to Vince, the latter had smiled. 'Doesn't sound as if that one would be difficult to solve even for the local constable. The old crime passionel again.'

  'But presumably without enough evidence to hang him.'

  'It happens.'

  As stations flashed by and the Dee Valley unfolded its backdrop of grandeur, the two men were soon absorbed in the passing scene: gurgling streams, a gleaming ribbon of silvered river, and through lofty treetops a tantalising glimpse of turreted castle. Houses great and humble were overshadowed by the Grampian Mountains and Lord Byron's 'dark Lochnagar', its secret crevasses, even in summer, white-scarred with snow.

  And everywhere towered the Scots pine, sole survivor of the most ancient woodland in Britain, the Caledonian forest, from which the bowmen of Flodden had taken their arrows and more than a thousand years before them, the Roman army had built their war chariots.

  A pastoral scene, no doubt, but behind grey castle walls ancient when Mary Queen of Scots had visited the area, murder had been done. The bloodied pages of history opened everywhere. Here Montrose camped with his troops on the way to the sack of Aberdeen. There Jacobites rode out for Prince Charles and a cause already lost, to die savagely on the battlefield at Culloden.

  Now it seemed the butchery was limited to sport. As the Ballater train steamed into intermediate stations, carriages bearing coats of arms of noble houses awaited descending passengers. This was the heart of the shooting season. A few weeks and it would be over. Golden October would cover the land, the guns would be silent and deer, freed from man's ritual slaughter, would again go about the business of survival.

  These sombre hills would echo by moonlight to that most eerie and primeval of sounds, the crash of antlers, the bellowing roar as King Stag went into the rut, a fight to the death to maintain his territory and his harem against the young bucks who annually threatened his supremacy.

  When Faro spoke his thoughts, Vince's dry response was 'Sounds remarkably as if your old monarch of forest and mountain gave lessons to humans. Seeing that the deer were probably here first.'

  There was no answering smile from his stepfather, suddenly aware of a more vulnerable monarch and the periodic attempts on the Queen's life. The fact that there were fewer at Balmoral, where she was considerably more exposed, never failed to surprise him.

  Earlier that year in London a youth named Arthur O'Connor had pointed an unloaded pistol at the Queen, the idea being to scare her into releasing Fenian prisoners. Prince Arthur had made a weak attempt to jump over the carriage and save his mother. But John Brown was quicker; he seized the 'assassin', and was rewarded by his grateful sovereign with a gold medal, public thanks and an annuity of £25.

  The Prince of Wales, who did not like Brown and enjoyed any chance of discrediting his mother's Highlander among his siblings, complained that his brother had behaved with equal gallantry and had been rewarded with only a gold pin.

  As for O'Connor, the Queen greeted his one-year imprisonment with dismay and told Gladstone to have him transported, not out of severity but to prevent him trying again when he came out of prison. O'Connor received this verdict magnanimously, his only stipulation being that his exile should be in a healthy and agreeable climate.

  The attempts reported in the newspapers had now reached six. It was a sombre fact, as Faro knew, that there had been many more. Never admitted to the popular press, such outrages were confined to the secret files of Scotland Yard and Edinburgh's Central Office, where Her Majesty's visits were Faro's responsibility and a constant source of anxiety.

  'She is either the most foolhardy or the most courageous woman we have ever encountered,' he had told Vince.

  'Puts her faith in the divine right of kings as sufficient protection, does she?'

  'Possibly.'

  'There is another explanation.'

  'Indeed? And that is?'

  'I'd hazard a complete lack of imagination,' was the short reply.

  Faro shuddered as he now thought of that distinctive imposing figure, a boon to the caricaturists and eminently recognisable even at a distance. Stoutly clad in black dress with white streamered widow's cap, the Queen presented a perfect target for a desperate man with a gun.

  And here she was at her 'dear Paradise' oblivious of danger. Most days found her traipsing happily about the lonely Deeside hills regardless of weather, without the small army that any cautious monarch would consider necessary. Her security guards, Captains Tweedie and Dumleigh, were sternly commanded to remain behind at the Castle where they idled away many boring hours with nothing better to exert their wits on than playing cards as Her Gracious Majesty set forth accompanied only by her two favourite ghillies, Grant and John Brown. A formidable pair doubtless on their own terms, but no match for a determined assassin.

  The Queen's only real protection, Faro knew from his aunt, was that in the country every newcomer was scrutinised and gossiped about via a bush telegraph system in many ways swifter and more efficient than the electrically operated version in Ballater. It was the simple truth that strangers could not walk these country paths
without being observed, their presence questioned, remarked upon and neighbours alerted.

  'Safe as houses she is,' Aunt Bella had said on his last visit. 'Ye ken there's not a blade o' grass stirs, not a new tree grows that isna' observed.'

  When he had smiled at this exaggeration, she went on, 'Look out o' yon window. Naething but space ye'd guess? Aye, a body would ken that the whole world is empty. But it's no', that's no' the case at all.'

  And sweeping her arm dramatically in the direction of the hills, she said, 'Fair seething wi' watchful eyes, it is. There's naught else for a body to do but mind ither folk's business. That's what.'

  Upon that and upon the devotion and loyalty of her Scottish subjects and servants, the slender thread of the Queen's life and limb and the future of Great Britain and its colonies depended.

  'Here we are at last, Stepfather,' Vince interrupted Faro's reverie and he saw that the vista of hills had been transformed into a town by a cluster of grey roofs and tall spires.

  As they emerged from the station there were few remaining passengers unclaimed by the waiting coachmen. Faro was suddenly aware that he and Vince earned some curious glances, lending a comforting verisimilitude to his aunt's remarks.

  At the station entrance a man saluted, came forward. 'Ye'll be for Mistress MacVae's place.'

  'Indeed yes,' said Faro in surprise as the man took their bags and put them in the cart.

  As they drove off, Faro glanced back over his shoulder. Among the faculties of self-protection developed through years of battle with violent men was a sixth sense warning him when he was under careful scrutiny, and he knew that he was being watched.

  Now one solitary passenger remained. A heavily veiled woman was cautiously emerging from the station.

  At the sight of him, her footsteps had faltered. And as he looked back for a moment he was certain that he knew her although her face was well hidden.