Killing Cousins (6 page)

'Your first debt, lad, let me remind you, is not to Francis Balfray. It is to his wife, an unfortunate young woman, loved by all for her many virtues it seems, who was put to an agonising slow death by someone close to her. Someone I don't doubt that she loved and trusted. You know as well as I do that arsenic has always been the most popular and easiest way of getting rid of unwanted relatives. It began with the Caesars, so much in demand in Imperial Rome that food tasters were as numerous and as necessary as chefs.'

'Very popular with the Borgias, too, I seem to remember, Stepfather. "Le poudre de succession", that's what the French call it'

'And with good reason. You're being blinded by the closeness of these tragic events around you, Vince. But I beg you, cast all sentiment aside and think calmly and coldly about what really happened and why.'

Vince gave him a horrified look. 'You mean that until we know the motive for Thora's death, some other member of the family might also be in danger. Is that it?'

Leaning on the table, Faro continued, 'Precisely. We now have a murderer on the loose and having got away with it once, he - or she - might decide to strike again. I'm presuming that Francis stood to gain by his wife's death and so he must be watched very carefully.'

Vince sat down suddenly. 'Come to think of it, he told me something, oh, just last week. He was riding back from the harbour along the cliff path after dark when someone leaped out waving a cloak or something. His horse was terrified and threw him, luckily on to the grassy slope. But they both had a lucky escape - another yard and they would have been over the cliff and into the sea. Very nearly a tragedy. Doesn't bear thinking about,' he added with a shudder and, springing to his feet, he looked down at his stepfather. 'Poor old Francis, I wish you could have seen him. He staggered in, all muddied and shaken. Got the fright of his life, although he passed it off as a practical joke.'

'Some joke,' said Faro grimly.

Vince looked at the mantelpiece clock. 'We'd better start dressing for dinner. Too late to summon the Procurator Fiscal, I suppose, even presuming we could get a boat to take us to Kirkwall.'

'I doubt that would be a popular request with everyone preparing for the wake. Besides, he'd hardly welcome being summoned at this hour.'

Vince's sigh sounded suspiciously relieved. 'If I'm for the chop I'm glad to delay the evil hour.'

'Let's not think about that, lad. There were extenuating circumstances. After all, you're a young doctor...'

'Please don't make excuses for me, Stepfather. I'm making enough for myself without your help. And whatever you say by consolation doesn't alter the fact that I compounded a felony. I'd like to get it over as soon as I can, so can we now talk about motives and opportunities?

'She was an heiress in her own right, distaff side. Francis inherits her fortune and, as there is no direct heir in the event of his demise, Thora willed everything to Norma Balfray. Thora was the child of Sir Joseph's second marriage, so she could only inherit Balfray if she outlived her stepsister.'

'Interesting,' said Faro thoughtfully.

'Norma inherited a penniless Balfray, heavily in debt. As for Francis, he has no direct claim to it. He belongs to a cadet branch of the family - you can look at the family tree sometime if you're interested. They share the same great-great-grandfather.'

'Sounds like everyone else in Orkney, when you go back that far.'

Vince smiled. 'Francis has been a constant visitor since his childhood. Sir Joseph was very fond of him - the son he never had. When he put Francis through medical school it was implicitly understood that he set up practice as resident doctor in the castle, for the benefit of his tenants, and be referred to by the courtesy title of "laird". Sir Joseph had another reason. Francis and Norma had been childhood sweethearts and he approved of the match.

'Sadly, it didn't work out like that at all and Francis married Thora instead, who insisted that Norma be made a generous allowance.'

Faro gave him a cynical smile. 'Decent of her, in the circumstances. And, although Thora might be termed the goose with the golden eggs where Norma was concerned, let us not forget that fortunes are not the sole reason for murdering close kin.'

'No one in the household would have harmed her, that's for sure. They all made their devotion to her perfectly clear. Ask Grandma, she'll tell you. Nothing much passes her by in the way of gossip.'

Faro considered for a moment 'What about opportunity? Administering poison without giving a dose massive enough for immediate demise means constant access, for just a little at a time.'

Vince laughed grimly. 'Opportunity certainly wasn't lacking. Grandma tells me that everyone in the household was trying to tempt her jaded appetite: egg nog, soup, tonics, home-made remedies,' he enumerated. 'And for those with less noble motives every country house and estate has access to arsenic in the form of rat poison.'

'Who chiefly nursed her?'

'Norma. She was with her almost constantly, except when she was relieved by Grandma—' there was the slightest hesitation '—or Inga.'

'You mentioned jealousy. There was no enmity between the stepsisters?'

Vince shook his head. 'None that was apparent. To any observer they seemed devoted to each other.'

'Despite the fact that Thora stole Francis? And that generous allowance might have been less charitably regarded by Norma as conscience money?'

'Oh, that was forgotten, and, I imagine, forgiven long ago. Especially as Norma found happiness elsewhere. She is going to marry Reverend Erlandson, the family priest'

'Priest? I thought you said he was a minister.'

Vince laughed. 'Not of the Church of Scotland. The Balfrays are Episcopalians. In my opinion, the services are just one step removed from Roman Catholicism. Probably the Balfrays compromised on religion,' he added doubtfully. 'They've remained staunch Jacobites in our stronghold of Calvinism.'

Faro smiled. 'My first thought when I arrived in Balfray was that if Bonnie Prince Charlie had returned to Scotland in 1845 and had included Orkney in his triumphal itinerary, he wouldn't have noticed a great deal of difference in the passing of over a hundred years.'

He paused and added, 'I shouldn't have imagined there was much call for a resident churchman in a place the size of Balfray.'

'There isn't, Erlandson has one or two other parishes that he serves. Mostly by boat if the weather and the tide are right,'

'Interesting.'

'He's very enlightened, you know. He and Norma are deeply enamoured of each other.' He smiled. 'You'll see. Much in love and don't care who knows it.'

Faro laughed. 'Indeed. Then I shall look forward to meeting our resident chaplain and his lady love. What about kitchen staff?'

'Norma is nominally in charge of housekeeper, maids and so forth. But even she retired gracefully when Grandma took over from the last housekeeper, the one who was drowned.'

'Oh yes, the unfortunate Mrs Bliss.' Faro placed his fingertips together and studied them thoughtfully. 'And so, Vince, what are your present theories about who might have wanted rid of Mrs Balfray?'

'Theories are easy, Stepfather.' Vince hesitated. 'I'd like you to meet the family and form some ideas of your own, then well talk about my theories.'

'Before that melancholy confrontation, it would help if you would bring me up to date on all that has happened since you arrived on the island.'

There isn't much to tell.' Vince sighed. 'Do you really want me to go right back to the beginning?'

'If you would be so good.'

'It was obvious the moment I arrived here that I was too late, that Thora was on the point of death. There was nothing I, or anyone, could do to save her. She lingered in a coma for a day or two but I was too late to do anything but comfort her husband as she breathed her last.'

Vince stared gloomily into space. 'A terrible scene, Stepfather, one I shall never forget. Francis sobbing, calling her name, shouting that he couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it As if the whole tragic business had happened quite suddenly without any warning. You know the sort of thing I'm talking about God knows you had it with Mama...'

Vince paused and gripped Faro's arm as if in apology for mentioning the subject still so painful to both of them. 'But this was different She hadn't been taken ill and snatched from him. As a doctor, he must have known by her wasted body, by the steady decline, that she had not long to live.' With a sigh he added, 'Everyone else in the household, although they maintained attitudes of cheery hopefulness for Francis' sake, they all knew she was going to die.'

As he fell silent Faro said, 'Even when we expect death, lad, we always keep hoping for a miracle that will divert it from our own door - that the man with the scythe will decide to pass us by.'

Vince shivered. 'She was, by all accounts, a very remarkable lady. A great pity you'll never have a chance to meet her now.'

In that Vince was wrong. Faro was to see Thora Balfray very soon and in the most unexpected of macabre circumstances.

The nausea that had been threatening ever since he arrived on Balfray, a product of unwise eating on the ferry, seized Faro in a violent attack of sickness as he was about to set foot in the great hall where the laird's loyal tenants waited respectfully to receive from his hands their golden guineas.

Faro reached his room in time and afterwards lay sweating feverishly on his bed as the waves of griping pain swept over him. In the light of what was to come, he was infinitely to regret having missed Thora Balfray's wake. His absence was noted by Vince who came in search of him as soon as he could reasonably leave. He gazed at his stepfather's ashen countenance in some alarm and quickly mixed a sedative.

A few minutes later, Faro announced that he felt considerably better while Vince continued to chide him about his confounded eating habits, his careless lifestyle.

'Stop it, Vince. Stop it at once. It's bad enough having a miserable stomach upset without a lecture that would do my mother proud. And I'll strangle you, lad, if you breathe a word of this to her. Now, tell me about the wake.'

'All very feudal. I'm sorry you missed it. Almost a return to the Barony courts of old. Poor Francis, he's a fine solid laird, exactly what this island needs. Never spares himself where the welfare of the tenants is concerned. You'll see what he's done for agriculture, not to mention a drainage system and sanitation almost non-existent before Sir Joseph's day.'

As he listened, Faro found himself remembering that earlier conversation with his stepson in Edinburgh when Francis Balfray's letter had arrived. He remarked on the improvement in their relationship.

Vince smiled. 'Yes, I like him a lot and respect him. Seeing him through the traumas of this last week has added a new dimension to poor old Francis.' He shrugged. 'At medical school, we didn't have a lot in common. He wasn't exactly popular. Bit of a swot. Not good at athletics.'

'Perhaps he was just too poor to stand his round of drinks.'

'How did you guess that?'

'Students being put through college by relatives are frequently impoverished. And you have already volunteered that piece of information.'

Vince looked shamefaced. 'I think I guessed something of the sort at the time. He didn't strike me as being mean, but he had to be careful. Now I know why. Francis had no rich father's fortune to squander. He was an idealist and under a moral obligation to Sir Joseph. Observing him in company, standing back, I knew his pride suffered and in a way it made me kinder to him.'

He shrugged. 'I made plenty of excuses for him, but Rob and Walter disliked him intensely, didn't want him trailing around with us. He didn't womanise either, a little stuffy, terribly respectable. No Leith Walk howffs for Francis. There was this sweetheart in Orkney he mooned about, never tired of telling us how marvellous she was and how he was going back to marry his Miss Balfray.'

'Very admirable and loyal. And so they were married.'

'Well, yes ... and no, Stepfather. He didn't marry her.'

'I thought...'

'I mean it was Thora he married, not Norma. Yet I could have sworn the elder sister was his intended.'

'Of course, if he referred to her as Miss Balfray, the younger sister would be known by her Christian name - Miss Thora Balfray.'

'When I arrived I nearly put my foot in it, I can tell you. I was quite taken aback to find that he'd married the wrong sister, especially as Thora was, well, not to put too fine a point on it, rather plain.'

Faro smiled. 'You put too much importance on looks, lad. They aren't, and never will be, everything a man needs in a wife. Perhaps on closer acquaintance Francis discovered that Thora had a nicer nature. How did Norma react to being jilted by her lover?'

They all continued to live in the castle while Francis set up his medical practice. It was Norma's home after all. She had very little option to move elsewhere, being virtually penniless until Thora came forward with an allowance to save her pride. But her closeness to Thora who she nursed devotedly suggested that there was no jealousy between the stepsisters, especially when she became engaged to John Erlandson.'

'When did this happen?'