Killing Cousins (10 page)

'I can answer that, Stepfather. No one. The lad was an orphan. Only Saul Hoy stood to gain ...'

'Indeed?'

'By having one less mouth to feed,' Vince replied grimly. 'And that's a callous assessment for, according to everyone, Saul was devoted to his simple brother. And I think we'll find he didn't even have an insurance on him which might have made him only a few pounds richer or would pay for the funeral wake.'

They had reached the Balfray vault. 'Let's go inside, shall we?'

'Vince followed him reluctantly, obviously regarding with distaste a prospect only minutely more daunting than the weather outside.

As Faro lit the lantern and lifted the coffin lid they both took a step back at the chilling odour of death.

'We know that Troller was in the sea, for what reason it isn't yet clear. But when he reached Thora's tomb did you notice that it was quite dry inside, immaculately tidy, in fact? There were no wet marks, no sand or seaweed, as you would imagine from a man whose clothes were dripping wet.'

Faro lifted the lantern so that its light illuminated the coffin. 'Now what sort of implement did he use to unscrew the lid?'

'The pocket knife we found in his pocket would have been quite adequate.'

Vince shuddered as Faro paced across the vault carrying an imaginary burden. 'So, he takes out Mrs Balfray and carries her to the Odin Stone.' Turning, he regarded his stepson gravely. 'What were his reasons for such extraordinary behaviour, do you think?'

Vince frowned. 'Are we to believe he was still fuddled enough with drink to imagine that the stone had powers to resurrect dead lovers?'

Faro smiled. 'Ah, now you are getting close, lad, for that is precisely what we are meant to believe.' Frowning, he added, 'But was that all he intended? There is another highly unpleasant possibility, which I expect has already occurred to you.'

'Necrophilia, you mean?'

'The same. Perhaps by the light of an indifferent moon.'

Vince looked shocked. 'I think you are quite mistaken. I'm sure his love was absolutely pure for Thora.'

'In moments of sanity and sobriety, yes. But mad drunk...he had the mind of a child, Vince, but his body was that of a young and virile man. So who knows what desires overwhelmed him when he opened that coffin?'

'You're wrong, Stepfather. We both saw Thora's corpse. Her grave-clothes weren't even disarranged... '

Faro smiled. 'Exactly. They were remarkably well starched - pristine, in fact.' Leaning forward, he added, 'Observe closely the satin lining of the coffin.'

With a certain repugnance Vince looked over his stepfather's shoulder in the lantern light. 'Not a stain there, either, of any kind.'

'Nor was there any such mark when we replaced her. Now, does that not strike you as remarkable?'

'It does indeed since the blood on his hands had not yet congealed when we found him,' said Vince.

'Yet, considering the frightful condition of Troller's person, not so much as a spot of mud or blood, not even a peck of sand on Mrs Balfray, who he must have clasped quite firmly in his arms to negotiate the narrow door and the steps up from the vault.'

Faro smiled grimly. 'And what does he do next? He arranges her on the Odin Stone, lies down and conveniently expires beside her.'

Vince shook his head. 'Whatever impulse, pure or impure, drove him, I don't believe a word of it.'

'And neither do I,' said Faro, thumping his fists together. 'Not a single word.'

'Do you think we have seen enough in here?' said Vince anxiously. Even in the lantern glow, Faro observed that he was beginning to look a little green, the effect of holding his breath for long intervals.

'For the present, yes.' And closing the coffin lid, Faro gratefully followed his stepson into the moist air. After wiping their faces with handkerchiefs, they sat down on the steps and Faro lit a pipe.

'Most distressing, most distressing, this whole business. And, alas, I fear there will be worse to come ...'

'If Troller didn't perform these miraculous feats, then who staged the dramatic death scene?'

'Someone deuced anxious to make it look as if there was a connection.' Faro shook his head. 'Find the answer to that, lad, and we have our murderer. Let's not be blinded by the obvious, and keep always in sight the vital question - motive, lad, concentrate on that. Find out who had motive and opportunity, and we're halfway there.'

'Who should want to destroy a harmless simpleton, liked by everyone?'

'Precisely. Let us presume that the two deaths are connected and that whoever murdered Thora Balfray had good reason for wanting rid of Troller.'

'Such as?'

'Let us say that he had stumbled on something important - the identity of Mrs Balfray's murderer.'

'It's a fantastic theory, Stepfather, but you could be right.'

Faro was silent for a moment before replying. 'There is another alternative. That Troller's murder was an accident.'

'An accident?'

'Let's leave aside for a moment his maudlin love for Thora Balfray. Picture instead a very frightened murderer - on the verge of being discovered. Only in such dire necessity would he, or she, have resorted to this quite unplanned violence.'

'He or she,' Vince repeated. 'But it must have been a man, Stepfather. No woman could ever have grappled with Thora's corpse.'

'Difficult, I admit, but not impossible.' Faro paused.

'Not for a woman used to lifting a sick person in her bed over several months.''

'Of course. You have something there,' said Vince triumphantly. 'Why didn't I think of that before? Hospital nurses tell me there's a knack in it.' And, with a look of faint horror, he added, 'You mean... ?'

'Well, perhaps it is a little far-fetched, a little early for that. Let's concentrate on the likelihood of a man being involved, on our earlier theory of the murderer waiting for Troller when he staggered up the cliff path and attacking him with a heavy implement that split open his skull and, I suspect, killed him instantly.'

'What did he use?'

Faro looked around. 'In all probability whatever was nearest and most effective for the job. In these surroundings, with an unplanned attack, I'd hazard a guess that he'd use a spade. There are always plenty lurking about kirkyards, the natural implement for digging graves. I dare say it isn't far away.'

As Faro spoke he walked rapidly towards the tiny woodshed where the grave diggers kept the tools of their trade. A moment later he gave a cry of triumph.

This, I think, is our murder weapon. See for yourself.' He held up a spade for Vince's inspection.

'By heaven, you're right, Stepfather. Blood stains...and hair on the blade.'

They were silent, struck by the enormity of what they had discovered. The murder weapon between them, they were isolated in a gloomy kirkyard where all contact with life had long since ceased, and even the comfort of horizons had vanished. Their range of vision was now limited to a few yards, bound by swirling shadows of heavy vapour, shrouding the church and turning the tombstones into the shapes of lurking ghosts.

Suddenly it was not a place in which to linger. With only the echoes of the seals barking, Faro was seized by an ominous feeling that this was one case he was never going to solve. Defeated already, a fit of sneezing did nothing to lessen his depression.

Vince looked at him anxiously. He knew the signs well. 'Cheer up, Stepfather, a good hot bath is the answer. And that, thanks to the ingenuity of Balfray plumbing, can be instantly provided.'

Chapter Eight

An hour later, Faro sat in front of a large fire in his bedroom, wrapped in a bathrobe. Under the disapproving eye of Mrs Faro, Vince generously replenished their whisky glasses.

Mrs Faro raised her eyes heavenward, frustrated that the management of her son's health on which she prided herself had been entirely removed from under her ample wing. Drams, except for high days and holidays, she regarded as instruments of the devil.

As he sipped his drink, Faro unashamedly encouraged her to tell him all about Balfray. She was not unwilling and a lively interest in local gossip was exactly what he most needed, with an idea that Mrs Faro's ear for seemingly irrelevant information could be of considerable importance.

He soon got more than he had bargained for and found his eyelids drooping under a barrage of life histories of the entire population of Balfray but was, in effect, only the staff inside and out, past and present, of Balfray Castle.

'Poor as church mice they are. That poor Miss Balfray, she has such a job making ends meet'

Faro's head sank a little lower.

'Paid off most of the servants. All new now except Annie.'

Faro jerked awake. 'Who's Annie?'

'Haven't you been listening, dear? Annie, the upper housemaid, has been with them since before Dr Francis married.'

'And everyone else is new?'

She smiled reproachfully. 'Like I've just told you, dear.'

Faro was fully alert again as he made a mental note to talk to Annie. Why should this complete change of servants bother him? Had it been coincidence, as his mother claimed, or was there some carefully thought out pattern behind it all - a sinister reason that might be connected with the two deaths?

When Mrs Faro took her departure full of anxious concern and advice for his future well-being, Faro felt considerably more cheerful.

Vince settled himself comfortably in the opposite armchair. 'Do you get an odd feeling that we might have dreamed the last few hours, Stepfather?'

'I wish we had, Vince, since it now appears without much shadow of a doubt that we have two murders to consider.'

'I've been thinking. And, since it is highly unlikely that Troller's death was for any motive of gain, the connection between the two deaths does seem rather far-fetched, don't you agree?'

Faro did not reply. A moment later, he said, 'Francis Balfray - let us consider him, shall we?'

'As far as he knows his wife died of natural causes ...'

'Pneumonia as a result of chronic malnutrition occasioned by gastric disorders. Was that what you wrote on the death certificate?' Faro watched his stepson wince.

'Not quite. Of pneumonia and heart failure brought about by the effects of a long debilitating disease.'

'Who was with her at the end?'

'Francis, Norma and myself.'

Faro stared into the fire. 'And only Francis stood to gain by Thora's death?'

'As I've told you, Stepfather. There are no other heirs.'

'A pity, since they have been married for several years.'

'Three to be precise. Presumably they still hoped for an heir, before Thora's illness.'

'And if Francis should die, then, and only then, will all his wife's fortune go to her stepsister,' Faro repeated slowly.

'I'm told that Norma and she were the last of their line, the last direct link with the Balfrays who had been on the island since the fourteenth century.'

'What about heirs in that cadet branch of Gibb's?' Faro demanded.

'You would have to ask Francis or the Captain the answer to that.'

Faro rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 'I still want to know what made Francis choose the younger plainer sister.'

'Thora had a very sweet nature, very loving and trusting.' Vince did not sound altogether convinced and Faro smiled.

'I've seen her wedding photograph in the drawing-room. To be more practical than romantic, let us admit that her fortune was sweeter than her face. It's an old, old story, lad.'

'We are being cynical and cruel,' said Vince. 'Poor Francis, I don't know how he is going to take the news of Thora's poisoning in his present condition, and to learn that we have a murderer in our midst.'

Observing his stepfather's expression, he added in awed tones, 'You can't possibly suspect Francis?'

Faro ignored the question. 'He was laird of Balfray, it was as good as his. He had achieved his great ambition, so why the devil didn't he marry Norma?'

'From what I've told you already, and Grandma has confirmed it,' said Vince in tones of slight exasperation at his stepfather's persistence, 'Balfray estate is nothing but unpaid bills, and a vast upkeep which Norma is finding very hard to manage, even with the help, or hindrance, of Captain Gibb as factor.'

'What makes you think he might be a hindrance?'

'An old sea-dog, as he calls himself, can't be much of a hand with the pennies, do you think?'

'That depends. I imagine that managing finances on a Navy ship would be in the hands of the purser, but if it was a merchantman...'

'He calls himself Navy retired.'

Faro's shrug was expressive and Vince continued, 'To get back to Francis, if you're hinting that he might have planned to marry Norma after getting rid of Thora and inheriting her fortune, I don't think that's feasible. And I doubt whether marriage with a deceased wife's sister is permissible in the Episcopalian Church.'

Faro frowned. 'Norma Balfray's motive could have been a little more primitive, a festering human emotion.'