Killing Cousins (13 page)

'Followed him? You mean, to do him harm?'

'There is that possibility. Someone drunk, wanting to frighten him,' he added awkwardly.

Saul laughed harshly. 'Not on this island. Everyone thought the world of Troller. And I'll tell you one thing, they'll be just as keen as I am to see justice done and his name cleared. So, Mr Policeman, anything you can do will be greatly appreciated.'

Leaning forward, he shook a large fist in Faro's face. 'Someone else put Mrs Balfray beside him and when I find the bastard who did that to my brother, I'll kill him,' he added ferociously.

Faro left with a very clear picture in his mind now of the first part of the puzzle, that prelude to murder. The simple Troller walking down the cliff path, as he had done a thousand times before in his life, for his lone vigil with the seals. Perhaps they knew the answer, the only ones who saw what really happened and could never tell. .

'Jeremy!'

It was Inga hurrying towards him, wrapping a shawl about her shoulders. 'Thank you for spending so much time with Saul. It will have helped him, I know, to have you to talk to,' she added breathlessly. 'My goodness, you do walk quickly.'

He smiled. 'Especially when I'm thinking.'

'You always did that.' Her smile was tender, the words spoken softly. There was a short silence and, almost embarrassed now, her tone brusque, she said, 'Well, is there anything I can tell you?'

'You were at the wake?'

'Until the end. And I had a clear head. I never touch the stuff.'

'So you would have seen if Troller had got into

any disagreement with anyone...anything like that?'

She stopped walking, staring down at the sea. 'It's like Saul told you, Jeremy. Troller didn't have an enemy in the world. Besides, they would have Saul to reckon with - physically he's the strongest man on the island.' They walked in silence and then she said, 'Poor Troller, that climb, injured as he was and then taking Thora out of her coffin. The effort must have been too much for his poor heart. He just lay down and died. There just isn't any other explanation, whatever Saul wants us to believe.'

Faro considered her thoughtfully. Interesting that she had abandoned the arsenic theory.

'Besides, none of the young folk except Troller would dare walk down the cliffpath when the moon is full and the seal king is on the rampage,' she added firmly.

'They surely don't believe that, Inga, this is 1871... '

'1871 or 1371 - it's all the same to them. They believe that the seal king takes human form and steals a mortal bride. And there isn't a girl on Balfray would walk down this cliff on a dark night at this time of the year. Or any other time of year.'

She paused to let the words sink in and then added,

'The very day Mrs Bliss was drowned, in broad daylight, Letty, who is Saul's cousin and was maid at the castle, was going out to meet her young man's boat coming across from Kirkwall. And she saw, or so she claimed,' she said with a sidelong glance at his mocking expression, 'a seal leap up from the water and drag poor Mrs Bliss under...'

Faro stopped walking. 'Is that so? I understood no one witnessed the accident'

'No one would believe her, being Troller's cousin and always a bit, well, highly strung.'

'Highly strung, indeed. The girl might have been witness to a murder.'

Inga laughed. 'Murder? By a seal man? You can't possibly believe that Jeremy Faro, after all these years in Edinburgh, I'm surprised at you.'

Faro ignored the taunt. 'And I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this before, Inga. That it was kept so very quiet.' He looked at her. 'Even by you. When you told me how you discovered her.'

Inga shrugged. 'I didn't want to be laughed at,' she said uncomfortably.

'Laughed at indeed. I think I had better have a talk to this...Letty, did you say?'

Inga shook her head. 'She left Balfray just after the accident. Terrified to stay any longer, according to Saul, so she went to Kirkwall and married her fisherman.'

'How can I get in touch with her?'

'Oh, Saul will have her address if you want it.'

'I most certainly do - and soon.'

Inga regarded him steadily. 'You're wasting your time, you know. Letty is only one stage brighter than poor Troller, Alas, it runs in Saul's family. Too many cousins intermarrying.'

'That was one good reason for you not marrying him.' Faro smiled. 'Aren't you glad now that you didn't?'

Ignoring the question, Inga said, 'Fortunately my side of the family didn't inherit madness, only the second sight.'

Faro was silent 'You should have married, Inga.'

'What makes you say that?' she asked sharply.

'On the evidence of the house we've just left, you would have made a good wife.'

She stopped in her tracks. 'Aren't you a little late with that observation, Jeremy Faro? About twenty years too late,' she added bitterly.

'I'm sorry.'

'Oh, don't be sorry. I've had enough regrets for both of us. Especially when I see Vince. Do you realise we could have had a son about his age?' she added softly, watching his face intently. 'A pity you never had a son of your own.'

'But I did. For a whole week. And then I lost him... and my wife too ...'

She took hold of his arm. 'Oh Jeremy... I'm sorry ... I'm so sorry.'

'You can never be as sorry as I am,' he said harshly. 'As for Vince, he is like my own son, the only one I am ever likely to have.'

His deep sigh, his look of anguish told her how much he still suffered. 'And now, please, may we change the subject? Aren't we getting a little too personal?'

She returned his smile. 'Just about ready to quarrel. Just as we used to. But there'd be no reconciliation this time, would there?'

Determined to be immune to that soft whisper, the wistful pleading, he replied shortly, 'And no quarrel either, if I can help it.'

They walked in silence and then he asked, 'How well did you know Thora?'

Inga thought for a moment. When she replied Faro detected a certain diffidence, as if she was holding something back.

'Until she took ill, I didn't know her particularly well. I knew Norma much better.' Her tone also indicated that she liked Norma better and Faro, encouraged, asked, 'Tell me about Norma.'

'Oh, I suppose I was sorry for her, having Francis stolen from her by her rich young stepsister. Everyone guessed that Francis was weak and had married Thora for her money. You're not to take anything sinister from that, Jeremy. Women are always sorry for older sisters who are jilted more or less at the altar steps.'

'Norma seemed to have forgiven her, by all accounts.'

She looked at him sharply. 'Yes. Remarkable, wasn't it? Once Thora took ill, Norma couldn't do enough for her. Wore herself to a shadow sitting with her night and day when she had bad turns. Poor Thora, how she did suffer towards the end. Not an ounce of strength and so terribly sick all the time.'

'Did you ever think that her illness was unnatural?'

'Unnatural? I'm not sure I know what you mean by that.'

'Let me put it another way. Did you ever suspect that she might have, been poisoned?'

Inga stopped in her tracks. 'Jeremy Faro. You're

impossible, really you are. Stop being so suspicious. Forget you're a detective for once and for heaven's sake act like a normal human being. People in Balfray don't go round poisoning each other.'

'It has been known for husbands to poison wives and vice versa. In my profession it's fairly commonplace.'

'Well, let me tell you, there's nothing of your commonplace here. Everyone loved Thora. Fancy even thinking such a thing about poor Francis. You just have to look at the poor man. It breaks my heart to think of all he has suffered. I've never heard anything so ... so dreadful...'

Stamping her foot indignantly, her colour suddenly high, she gave an exclamation of indignation and turned on her heel.

Faro seized her arm. 'Whoa, Inga. Whoa. I didn't mean to offend you. It's just that the symptoms sound awfully like arsenic poison.'

'Well, they can't be, or Vince wouldn't have signed the death certificate,' she said defiantly. 'There's your answer, plain and straight.'

She stopped and looked down at his hand, still holding her arm. Suddenly she smiled and raising her free hand stroked his fingers in a gentle tender gesture.

'Jeremy, Jeremy,' she said softly, looking up at him. Her touch was no more than the supplication one would give an unruly child but it jolted him. After all those years there was something alarmingly intimate about this contact, this innocent gesture, and it was like a charge of electric current through his veins.

'Inga, Inga,' he said in gentle mockery and firmly released her arm, placing it at her side. The gesture cost him dear, for at that moment he experienced an almost uncontrollable urge to return to a past more than twenty years dead. What would it be like to take her into his arms and hold her trembling to his own wildly beating heart?

That impulse, however, which might have considerably changed his future, was halted by a shout and a wave from the boat which was approaching the landing stage.

A moment later two small figures leaped ashore. Rose and Emily. And behind them trailed Vince.

Chapter Eleven

Faro's first reaction was that he failed to recognise his own daughters instantly. Each time he saw them they looked different from the image he carried in Edinburgh. Guiltily he was aware how quickly children grow and how many changes can take place in a few months.

He was delighted to see them and in the next moment angry that he had not been warned of their imminent arrival, which he would certainly have forbidden, appalled that they should have come to Balfray while he was investigating two, and possibly three, mysterious deaths.

What of the dangers that lurked on the island until the murders of Thora and Troller Jack, for such they undoubtedly were, could be solved? And, as always, the detective was the prime candidate for a cornered assassin's further violence and his family, if accessible, targets for immediate and savage retribution.

'Papa, Papa.' Kneeling, he clasped them both in his arms.

This is a surprise. I wasn't expecting to see you.'

'But we always come to see Grandma at weekends,' said Rose.

'Now that school has started again,' added Emily.

A quick kiss and they wriggled free to throw themselves into Inga's waiting arms, thrusting the posies they carried at her, hugging and kissing her, while she laughed, breathless and delighted by this onslaught.

She was their friend. Faro listened as they whispered, 'Guess what, Inga? We've been dying to tell you all week...'

The world-shattering confidences were only about school and lessons and classmates. Occasionally they glanced in Papa's direction with a shy smile as if they would like to include him. But Papa would not understand. This tall grave man, who sent them gifts but rarely came to see them, was a stranger.

Their shyness made him unaccountably angry and resentful. Vince misinterpreted his expression and murmured apologetically, 'Aunty usually puts them on the boat on Friday, but they were invited to a birthday party last night.'

'Damn,' said Faro, not quite sure who he was cursing at that moment.

Over their heads Inga smiled at him and, firmly detaching the two little girls, said, 'Go and talk to Papa. He's waiting to hear all your news too.'

Faro sensed a slight shuffling of feet as they approached and lined up before him, studying his face intently, unsmiling. They walked towards the castle, carefully holding their father's hands, deferential strangers giving him their doleful, dutiful attention but with many backward glances in Inga's direction. He felt cut to the heart at this reception, jealous and indignant with Inga because they preferred her.

Having successfully stolen his children's affection and loyalty to their father, she walked a short distance away from them. But, turning towards her, he thought he saw something fleeting and forlorn in her expression. It made him suddenly ashamed of his uncharitable emotions.

'Come and join us,' he said.

'There isn't room for us all on the path.'

'Oh there is, Inga,' wailed Rose. 'Plenty of room.'

'Please,' said Faro. 'I want a word with Vince.'

He noticed how they needed no second bidding, clinging to her arm as they raced ahead, laughing, their voices ringing back to him, bell-like with shrill excitement.

Vince mistook his solemn expression. 'Don't worry about them, Stepfather. They'll be all right. No one at Balfray would harm a child.'

'No one but a murderer who might not share your finer feelings, Vince. Well, did you see the Fiscal?'

'Alas, no. He had to go north for an inquiry only yesterday, and, communication between the islands being what it is, he isn't expected back before Monday.'

'Monday,' said Faro in exasperation. 'Hasn't he an assistant?'

'Yes, but he's away to a wedding in Glasgow.' Vince grinned. 'I was told that I had come at a bad time for accidents, they aren't usually as busy as this.'