A Dangerous Past

by Clare Jayne

  “Then it happened some time in the morning or middle of the day yesterday?” he checked.

  “That is right.”

  “It might sound cruel to disturb the family’s grief again but you said you only spoke to Morag’s mother and that there were things she seemed to be hiding. I think we need to talk to both parents and ask them to tell us all they know before we can proceed any further.”

  It was the parents who most wanted answers about Morag’s death so she did not think they would mind answering more questions. “If her father has a job with regular hours, he is likely to be at home in a few hours.”

  “Shall I call here so that we can go to the house together at that time?”

  “Yes, please do.”

  He left her and, despite the murder and the unresolved problems between them, she felt a thrill of pleasure to be working on a new criminal enquiry with Ewan.

  Chapter Seven

  “IT WAS only a matter of time before something like this happened,” Mr Duncan said, a dark look in his eyes as he shot a glance at the body lying on the table a few feet away. He was a large man with broad shoulders and a restlessness to his movements. “She mixed with all the worst kinds of people.”

  “She was friends with my lady’s maid, Lucy,” Ishbel pointed out, offended at the idea that he could be speaking about her in this way.

  “Lucy is a good girl, the sort of daughter parents can be proud of. She hadna seen Morag in years and didna know what she’d turned into.”

  “Fergus!” his wife objected, tears in her eyes.

  “She had money on her – a lot of money – when she died. You know what that means?” His tone to his wife was savage.

  “We do not know what it means,” Ewan said quietly.

  “It means she stole it!” Mr Duncan shouted. “It means that her last act on this earth was cheap and illegal.”

  He pushed past Ewan and left the room, the front door slamming a moment later.

  Mrs Duncan wiped the tears from her face. “He’s grief-stricken, that’s all. He canna show it any other way.”

  “We never meant to cause you more grief in telling you about the guinea,” Ishbel said.

  “You havena, Miss. I dinna believe she stole again after promising us she wouldna. She canna have. Something else was going on.”

  “Perhaps we should sit down?” Ishbel suggested and put a hand under Mrs Duncan’s arm, helping her to a chair, which she did not so much sit in as collapse into.

  “I’ll make a pot of tea,” Connor, Morag’s brother, said. He had kept out of the argument and his face remained shuttered, thoughts unreadable. He had been introduced when they arrived and described as working with his father as a sawyer, although he could not be more than thirteen years old. He had the same dark hair as his father but otherwise took after his mother, with the same blue eyes and thin face.

  He vanished from the room and Ewan and Ishbel took seats facing Mrs Duncan, who looked over at her daughter’s corpse as she said to them, “I ken what you must think of her after hearing that, but Morag had a good heart. She stole money that first time from another worker on impulse.”

  “This was when she lost her factory job?” Ishbel checked. She had clearly already heard something about this, although it was new information to Ewan.

  “Yes, Miss. It was awful for her the way she was treated and it embarrassed our family. She was nearly taken to trial over it and realised she might have been transported or had a hand chopped off as punishment. It terrified her and she swore an oath to us that she’d never do anything like it again. We dinna see her every day so she could have had a new job, couldn’t she?”

  She appealed to Ishbel, who nodded. “Yes, she could.”

  Connor appeared with a wooden tray containing a tea pot, jug of milk and cups, a couple of them chipped. The water must already have been heating over the fire for it to be hot so quickly. Mrs Duncan immediately got up and poured each of them a cup, Connor taking his and sitting on the wooden floor beside his mother’s chair. He was either wary or shy of the two strangers in his house.

  Ewan took a polite sip of his tea, which tasted a bit sour, as if the milk used was going bad. He asked, “When had you last seen Morag?”

  “Three days ago, sir,” Mrs Duncan said. “She came round on the Sunday evening, as she always did.”

  “Did she seem preoccupied – upset – about anything?”

  Mrs Duncan hesitated. “No, sir.”

  “She asked about her father,” Connor said, then flushed when all eyes turned on him.

  Mrs Duncan said his name in a warning tone and then explained reluctantly, “I was married once before and my husband died. Mr Duncan doesna like it being spoke about.”

  “What did Morag want to know?” Ishbel asked in a careful tone.

  “Just the usual: what was he like; how did he look.”

  “Did she say what made her ask about him now?” Ewan asked.

  “She dinna have to, sir. It was her birthday a week ago and that often makes her think about him. I dinna know why – Mr Duncan loved her as much as he loves Connor. He was her real father.”

  “Could she have asked for another reason?” Ishbel asked. “Could a member of her father’s family have got in touch with her?”

  “No,” Mrs Duncan said quickly. “That’s impossible.”

  “Did she talk of anything else when she saw you?” Ewan checked.

  “I canna think. She asked how we all were and helped me with the cooking. What else?” She looked at Connor.

  “She said she was trying to find work,” Connor said, “but she always says that.”

  “She meant it this time, I’m sure,” Mrs Duncan said firmly. “Perhaps she wanted to surprise us and only tell us about the job once she’d started it or maybe she hadna got it yet.”

  “That is very possible,” Ishbel said, although Ewan could see that she was just trying to ease Mrs Duncan’s mind.

  “Mr Duncan said that Morag mixed with the wrong people,” he said. “Do you know the names of any of them?”

  “There were several women – lassies her own age – she spent time with.” Mrs Duncan told them their names and Ishbel wrote them down, using the parchment, quill and bottle of ink she had brought with her.

  When she had finished writing, Ishbel glanced at him and he interpreted the look and said, “We should leave you now.”

  “You’ll let us know what you discover?” Mrs Duncan asked with a look that was part hope and part dread, as they got to their feet.

  “Yes, of course,” Ishbel said.

  Ewan looked over at the dead body of Morag, neatly laid on the dining table. She had been dressed in white and he could see the gash across her neck. It occurred to him that it must have taken someone – probably her mother – a long time to wash all the blood off her body and hair. An act of love by a grieving parent and he knew then that, whatever they found out, it would not help this family.

  Chapter Eight

  “I CANNOT see that her real father is relevant,” Ewan said the next morning, sitting in the library of Ishbel’s home. It felt odd to be back here in the room that had become so familiar, as if the estrangement between him and Miss Campbell had never occurred. It had, though, and he could not afford to let himself forget it.

  “He might be,” Ishbel disagreed. “She was thinking of him a few days before her death and her mother’s reactions were, once again, guarded. If he had been a criminal and Morag had asked about him to the wrong person, it could have been dangerous.”

  “Perhaps. But who could she have asked? Mrs Duncan said he had no other family.”

  “She said it was impossible that anyone could have contacted Morag, which is not the same thing.”

  “Well, Morag certainly does not seem to have told her family much about her life, which means we need to speak to one of her current friends or acquaintances in order to learn more about her. It might also be useful to visit the factory she was fired from and ge
t the full details of the theft.”

  “Lucy will probably know which factory it was,” Ishbel said. “We could go there now to discover more about her early problems.”

  “Certainly,” he agreed. “While you ask your maid, is your cousin at home? There is something I wanted to ask her.”

  Ishbel looked at him with interest in her dark eyes. In the past she would have asked him what he wanted to know but now, probably because of the uncertainty of their current relationship, she held her curiosity in check. “I believe you will find her in the drawing room.”

  They stood up and, with a touch of awkwardness, headed in different directions. He did indeed find Lady Huntly in the drawing room and, unusually, her husband was with her. After they had all exchanged greetings and Ewan had asked about Lord Huntly’s job, he got to the subject he had wanted to bring up. “My sister is returning to Edinburgh with her husband and three children. I wondered, since you know everyone in the ton, if you had heard of anyone who had a house to rent? There is no urgency as they will want to look over anywhere for themselves but I thought it might assist them to know what is available.”

  “Would I have met your sister?” Lady Huntly asked.

  “You might have. Matilda is seven years older than me so she was out in society earlier, although she married Lord Picton and left Edinburgh for London six years ago.”

  “Lord and Lady Picton,” she said with satisfaction. “Yes, I recall them both. They will likely want a good-sized establishment in the new part of the city.” She tapped her fan on her hand, silent for a while, and Lord Huntly returned to his book. “Lord Ashton and Mr Daniel MacRay both have houses that might be suitable. Are you acquainted with them?”

  “I am not.”

  “I will ask them to have their cards delivered to you.”

  “I am much obliged to you, My Lady.”

  She waved this comment away with her fan. “I imagine it will be pleasant for you to have your family nearby.”

  He smiled. “Very much so. Matilda and I were always extremely fond of each other.”

  “How nice.”

  He could tell she was getting bored of the conversation now and so he got to his feet and took his leave of them, still thinking of Matilda as he left the room. He could see her now, a young girl with long dark ringlets, reading him stories and racing about with him across their country estate. They had both grown more sombre after their mother’s death, Matilda taking over the running of the house, busy with adult responsibilities but always finding time to spend with her little brother. He knew it would never be like that again but he hoped they could regain the affectionate relationship they had always shared and that he could be a good uncle to her children as they grew up.

  Nearby voices penetrated his thoughts and he saw Ishbel walking down the curving staircase, her maid beside her. He smiled at them and Lucy said, “Thank you for agreeing to help with this, sir. It means a lot to me. It’s just such a shock having someone you know die suddenly and not having any idea how it came about.”

  “I fear we may discover things about your friend that you might not like,” he said.

  “I know Morag wasn’t perfect,” Lucy said. “She always had dreams of being wealthy and, for someone of our class, that’s the kind of ideas that can lead to trouble. I just want to know what happened. I didna keep in touch with her and perhaps I coulda helped her if I had, so I feel as if I owe that much to her.”

  Chapter Nine

  JED CASSELL whistled softly to himself as he strode away from Mr MacPherson’s house and back towards the High Street. It had been a few months since he had last worked for him and he enjoyed the work Miss Campbell and Mr MacPherson gave him. They always paid generously for his time too.

  He reached the busy street and saw several of his colleagues, visible at once in their blue aprons, standing at the Cross, waiting for someone to hire them.

  His friend, :Billy, looked round as Jed approached and grinned. “Where’ve you been then?”

  “Mr MacPherson wanted me to ask around for a new murder he’s enquiring about for the family. The dead woman is Morag Duncan?” He made the last sentence into a question to see who knew the name and Lachlan Brown, the oldest man there at around five and twenty years, gave a knowledgeable nod.

  “Oh, aye,” he said. “The lass who was murdered in the alley a few streets away.”

  “That’s her. Do you know anything about Morag?”

  “I’ve heard her name somewhere,” Lachlan said, scratching on his beard.

  “Caddy!” called out a smart looking gentleman from the window of his carriage.

  “My turn,” Billy said and ran over to find out what errand the man had for him.

  They watched him go and then Jed turned back towards the group. “There’s good money in it for anyone who can help me find out anything useful: who the lassie’s friends were; if she had any enemies or was caught up in anything illegal; what she was doing when she was killed; that kind of thing.”

  “Aye, I’ll ask around,” Lachlan said and the others agreed.

  Jed left them waiting for hire and headed to the alley where Morag Duncan had died. It was good to be back out in the streets where he felt at home, having spent yesterday forced by the Town Council to have a day of schooling. They took it seriously that the men they employed should be intelligent, strong and of good character, since they might be entrusted with money or expensive goods or be needed to show initiative. As a result, caddies had a good reputation, better than the Town Guards they sometimes worked for.

  Jed paused to take in the blood stain on the ground. Someone had scrubbed at it but the cobblestones still had a slight red glaze. The woman had apparently been only slightly older than him and it made him think that Death was a companion to everyone, waiting to claim each person. He gave a shiver and hurried out to the shops in the street where the alleyway began.

  Everyone nearby had heard of the murder, so it only took one question to have the milliners shop pointed out to him, whose owner had seen the body and alerted the Town Guards. The man was middle-aged, with grey eyes, light brown hair and an accent Jed – who was knowledgeable about such things – recognised as being from the north of England.

  “Had you ever seen the woman before?” Jed asked, after the man had told him about finding the body.

  “To be frank with you, I don’t know,” Mr Carter said. “There was so much blood that it was obvious from five or six feet away that the woman was dead, so I never looked properly at her. Miss Campbell told me her name, though, and I didn’t know it, although some of the other shopkeepers said they’d spoken to her.”

  He told Jed their names but, before Jed could leave, Mr Carter said, “We don’t often have murders in this part of the city, particularly something that brutal, and it’s got people worried. Some of the people – particularly some of the women who work along here – would likely pay for you and some of your colleagues to light the way to their homes. Most of them probably couldn’t pay much, though.”

  “I’d be glad to do it,” Jed told him, “and I’ll mention it to the other caddies.”

  He bowed to Mr Carter and walked out, heading for a nearby jewellers shop. The owner – a small, portly gentleman – said, “Aye, I met the dead woman. She came in here about four months ago looking to sell a necklace and two rings. She told me they’d been gifts but I didna believe she’d come by them honestly, so I sent her away.”

  “Have you seen her since then?”

  “No.”

  Another shopkeeper had a similar story but no one nearby had seen the woman on the day she died or, at least, without knowing what she looked like, none of the street sellers were aware of having seen her. The young lad who had first found her could give no more information than Mr Carter had: he’d been running an errand for his ma, had seen the body covered in blood and had run to tell the nearest person he knew about it. No, he hadn’t known her, although he’d had nightmares about her death since then.<
br />
  Lachlan caught up with him several hours later with some extra information and agreed to help him provide protection while walking sellers to their homes.

  Jed would ask about some more before letting Mr MacPherson and Miss Campbell know what he’d found out so far. His own guess would be that Morag Duncan had not been as honest as she should have been. Whether or not that had got her killed, he didn’t know.

  Chapter Ten

  “MORAG DUNCAN, aye, I remember her,” said Mr McLain, the manager of the linen factory where the dead girl had worked. He spoke loudly to be heard over the noise and bustle around him, the large building full of men, women and children who were weaving flax, using looms and carrying bolts of material about. “A pretty girl but too outspoken. I’m not shocked to hear that she got herself killed, although I woulda thought it would be a hanging.”

  “She was only twelve when she came here,” Ishbel said, disliking the way he dismissed Morag’s death.

  “Many of our workers start at that age or younger. We expect their parents to have made sure they understand right and wrong. Morag was always chattering away, bothering the other workers.”

  “Did she admit to the theft?” Mr MacPherson asked.

  “Aye. She didna have a choice as the money was found in her pocket. She took half the wage of an older woman, Mrs Black, and thought sobbing over it and saying how sorry she was would be enough to save her.”

  Ishbel imagined the terrified child Morag would have been. “What happened?”