The Inspector's Daughter (A Rose McQuinn Mystery)

by Alanna Knight

  Aware of protection, I slept fearlessly, undisturbed, for the night silence on Arthur's Seat is profound. I awoke with sun streaming through the window, to sheep bleating, and close at hand a lark's song soared heavenwards, rapturous in the clear air.

  For a moment I wondered if I'd dreamed the whole sequence of last night's events, especially as when I sped down the spiral staircase Thane was gone, the kitchen empty.

  Standing with my hands on the table in front of me, I felt strangely empty too, and sad. Opening the door, I looked out past the garden to the summit of the hill and, shading my eyes, called 'Thane!' several times.

  Only the sheep continued their grazing and I went back indoors, blew on the peat. With a steady blaze going and a kettle boiling, I made myself a comforting pot of tea, feeling very clever at having conquered the first access of the kitchen range. Some day, if I stayed long enough, I resolved to put that oven to good use.

  And so I sat down and wrote to Emily and Vince, telling them only that I had arrived home alone and that I would relate the whole sad story when we met again. As I had only two envelopes I'd write to Pappa later via Mr Blackadder for forwarding to Ireland.

  The milk laddie from Bess's farm came past and I asked him to post my letters.

  'I will that, missus. I'm always willing to take letters and wee messages from remote houses like yours and deliver them into the city for you.'

  He said his name was Billy as he looked up at the bulk of the Tower behind us, dark against Samson's Ribs. 'Seen anything yet, missus? I mean, now that you're living in the house on your own.'

  I smiled. 'What sort of thing had you in mind?'

  'Well, ghosts and suchlike.'

  'I'm afraid not.'

  'Folks swear that they often saw the Mad Bart wandering about, long after he had a Christian burial in the kirkyard,' said Billy eagerly. 'They saw him staring out of the window, shaking his fist at them as they walked past.'

  I knew that the Mad Bart, alias Sir Hedley, had a strong sense of property and if his ghost haunted Solomon's Tower that was certainly the way he would behave. But I didn't feel his presence. And he didn't resent mine, of that I was certain. 'I don't think there are any ghosts here, Billy.'

  Disappointed that I had no gory story to relate, he sighed and then added encouragingly: 'Aye, but there's time yet.'

  Billy knew the area well and went rabbiting he told me. 'I can bring you one, if you'd like. There's good eating and your maid will ken fine how to cook it.'

  When I said I hadn't a maid as yet, but I knew how to skin and cook a rabbit, he seemed mightily surprised by such an admission and even a little embarrassed to discover that Mrs McQuinn wasn't turning out to be such a lady as he had thought her at first.

  I made amends by offering him a cup of tea with some bread and cheese. He responded with alacrity and, as he ate, I asked casually if he had seen a deerhound on the hill lately when he was rabbiting.

  His mouth was full and I had to wait a moment for his reply. He shook his head. 'Never missus. A deerhound you say. What do they look like?' An obvious question for a city lad.

  I said: 'Big - the size of a pony. Shaggy grey coat.'

  'Folk hereabouts favour wee dogs, spaniels, terriers and the rest.' He thought for a moment and laughed. 'Now that you mention it, I heard tell of something like the beast you're on about long ago, in my great-grandpa's day.'

  Pausing to drain his teacup, he went on: 'But you won't find any here, not nowadays. They're hunting dogs and you'd have to go to the Highlands to some laird's estate for the sight of one now.' I gave him a refill and asked: 'Have you encountered any tinkers on the hill?'

  He grinned and then looked serious. 'Give them a wide berth, missus. Don't be inviting them in for a cup of tea and a bite of cheese or you'll never be rid of them. They're like flies around a midden.'

  And as if this weren't warning enough, he added: 'Be sure to lock your door and keep an eye on your washing line. The men are rogues and their women too. They'll steal anything that isn't nailed down.'

  After he left I had that awful flat feeling again. I was suddenly lonely, the house too silent for comfort. Billy was a jolly lad and it was good to have someone to talk to.

  The Tower had taken on one of its gloomy moods, shrouded by mist drifting down from the hill. I could no longer see the top of Arthur's Seat, but the bleating of lambs sounded louder, nearer and more distressed. I was miserable, too, conscious of my isolation and vulnerability.

  At that moment I would have given anything to hear from Emily. And when she replied to my letter and insisted, as I knew she must do, that I should go immediately and stay with them in Orkney, I knew I'd say yes - yes, please. I wanted the warmth of kin around me. Gran and Emily, and her husband, too, although he was a stranger to me whom I had met only a couple of times.

  The possibility was that I was more scared than I cared to admit about those drunken rapists. Last night came back with sudden force. This rural area of Edinburgh used to be a safe place. Now, people like Bess and Foley who had lived here longer were right to have misgivings.

  Progress had its price and these new streets of houses attracted predators. Or should I blame the circus, which also drew the broken men of society, the bitter dregs of humanity in search of pickings?

  Everything around me in the Tower seemed useless then, comfortable but inanimate. I desperately needed living creatures to talk to. At this rate, if Thane failed to return, I'd be reduced to talking to squirrels and wild birds. Even the sheep with their lambs, if I could ever get close enough to them.

  I was delighted to hear footsteps outside the kitchen door and to see Constable Macmerry's smiling face. 'Just passing by, Mrs McQuinn.'

  I decided I had better report my attack on the hill last night.

  Macmerry was very concerned and out came the notebook. 'What did they look like?'

  I shook my head. 'Youngish, black hair, dirty faces, filthy clothes, whisky-sodden tinkers.'

  'Tinkers? Are you sure, Mrs McQuinn, that they were tinkers? They might have been, well, strangers, Indians from the circus down the road.'

  'Not in those white men's clothes stinking of drink. I know the smell of Indians, Constable, and I know the smell of tinkers.'

  He looked at me curiously. I could see him wondering where I got such knowledge but I wasn't prepared to enlighten him.

  He shrugged, disappointed. Clearly this wasn't enough to go on. 'I need something more definite to make an arrest,' he said.

  'Like my body, bleeding and broken,' I answered angrily. At his shocked face I relented. 'Look, it was dark - I was terrified, too busy fighting them off to make a careful note of what they looked like. I can tell you only what they smelt like ... a midden. Foul.'

  He put the notebook back in his pocket. 'You'd say they were definitely not foreign, though?'

  'Foreign - no. I've seen enough tinkers in my life.' I looked at him. 'Had you someone in mind?'

  He frowned. 'Well, we're still looking for one of those Indians from the circus, seen lurking about Saville Grange before the Dunn murder.'

  I shook my head. 'Sorry to disappoint you, Constable, but I do know the difference. I recognise broad Scots when I hear it, not something your Indians could manage. And I don't think it was murder the tinkers had in mind, just something of a few minutes' entertainment, too trivial to remember,' I added bitterly.

  He shrugged. 'Pity, it might have been a useful lead.'

  'Getting me raped, you mean?' I said indignantly. 'Very useful!'

  'I didn't mean that, Mrs McQuinn.' He looked hurt.

  'Tell me something. Was the girl raped before she was strangled?'

  Although this was doubtless a routine question regarding female murder victims, he looked uncomfortable and embarrassed.

  'I'm a married woman, Constable,' I reminded him.

  Consoled, he nodded. 'Well, let's say by the disarray of her underclothing an attempt at, er, intimacy had been made. But the evidence point
s to only one man being involved.'

  'No tinkers, eh.' I shook my head. 'Poor girl.'

  There was a short silence when he seemed lost for words, then, eager to change the subject he said: 'If you should see these tinkers again, or any strangers lurking about, let me know, Mrs McQuinn. You were lucky to be able to fight them off and escape.'

  'I was indeed. But then I had a rescuer. A dog - a deerhound I found on the hill. He scared them off.'

  He looked at me as if I'd taken leave of my senses. 'A deerhound, did you say?'

  'Yes. Do you know of anyone who has lost one?'

  He shook his head. 'Probably from the circus.'

  'No, I tried them.'

  He looked puzzled. 'They're valuable dogs. There are certainly none that I know of in this district. Size of ponies, too big to keep in your average garden or house. Cost a fortune to feed, too. We'd certainly have heard if some owner had lost a dog like that. I'll make a note of it.'

  He paused and looked at me. 'And you say this dog chased off the tinkers. Savage was he, too?'

  'He wasn't exactly gentle in his dealings with them. They didn't hang around I can tell you. But he saved me.'

  Macmerry shook his head. 'I've never heard of a strange dog saving a human before.'

  'You're hearing it now and some day, I promise you, I'll prove it to you by showing him to you.'

  But even as I said the words I was beginning to guess I had little hope in keeping that promise. Unless I was going mad, I was sure Thane was real. The fact that others hadn't seen him - drunken tinkers apart, who would ken him well enough - was a mere coincidence.

  The constable went on his way, and the day stretched long and empty until my meeting with Alice Bolton, and I no longer cared to stay indoors nursing a severe bout of melancholy. So, taking advantage of a windless warm day, I would put my riding to the test by bicycling into the city and exploring the High Street.

  Changing into my outdoor clothes, I was about to collect the bicycle from the stable when I heard a scratching sound outside the kitchen door.

  I rushed to open it. Thane had returned!

  The newcomer wasn't Thane. The cat who squinted up at me and hissed so menacingly was an extraordinary sight. She looked as if she might have been dug out of Pharaoh's tomb, or was a sole survivor from the Ark when Noah put to sea: not for elegance or dignity, but from antiquity. Mummified with age, a travesty of a cat, a rickle of bones on four unsteady sticks of legs, gnarled and furless.

  Her coat, once tortoiseshell in colour, looked as if it had suffered from a severe case of moth. At one end of her anatomy was a hairless bent tail, at the other a head with the remnants of one ear, a half-closed eye and a considerable lack of teeth. Where on earth had she come from? Then the truth dawned upon me. I realised that she must have been one of Sir Hedley's feline tribe who had lived with him in the Tower and occupied the fourposter bed, treated by the eccentric old man like animal aristocrats. She must be ancient indeed. How long do cats live? And then I remembered Alice Bolton née Peel proudly presented to us at a party a cat who had celebrated her twenty-first birthday. A cat, I might add, in much better condition than the one who confronted me so savagely just a few feet away.

  I did a quick calculation of this lone survivor of a bygone age. The others of Sir Hedley's feline tribe had disappeared, gone feral, mixed their blood with the wildcats that still roamed in the deeper reaches of Arthur's Seat.

  There was no cause for concern about their fates or feeding. Although they lived by courtesy in Sir Hedley's home, his half-starved erratic lifestyle could never have supported them. But there was an abundance of mice, rats and small vermin, enough indoors and out to keep any cat with a taste for the hunt in health and strength.

  According to history that rodent population of Arthur's Seat had been called upon to provide for less fortunate mercenaries during bygone ages as they marched across the hill to do battle in the city far below.

  The forlorn creature at my feet miaowed soundlessly, but with a hint of warning. For some unknown reason she had abandoned those secret caves and hollows on the hill and had chosen to return to the Tower. Observing that it was occupied again had suggested to her, with no knowledge of human frailty and mortality, that her kind old benefactor might have returned. And so had she, ever hopeful.

  Now the poor beast looked more hunted than hunter and my heart was filled with pity - although I did not care for a closer encounter. The flotilla of fleas I fancied were infesting her shaky body at every movement would have deterred the most determined cat lover from any attempts at further intimacy.

  She looked up and gave a strange, shrill scream. I turned and found that a large, soundless grey shadow had appeared at my side. The next moment was quite extraordinary, beyond anything in my experience.

  I have been present at many a scene of the vapours among the females of my acquaintance but never of the feline variety. I watched fascinated. This promised to be interesting. Cat leaped into the air, showing amazing agility with all feet off the ground at the same precise instant. Then she keeled over and lay panting, a paw raised to her chest in exact imitation of a female swoon. Extraordinary! Feeling heartless, I could not suppress my mirth.

  At my side Thane regarded this eventuality with solemn interest. 'Woof!' he said. It continued to amaze me how much expression and feeling he could put into one bark. It sounded like a gentle reprimand and a note of reassurance at the same time. 'Woof again. Don't be afraid, was that it?

  Cat opened her eyes, rose unsteadily to her feet, shook herself and, instead of taking off in the opposite direction, she staggered towards Thane and, proceeding to rub herself against his front legs (to the consternation and disruption of her resident flea colony), she began to purr like a steam kettle coming to the boil.

  ''Ware fleas, Thane,' I hissed all too late.

  Thane regarded her from under those majesterial bushy brows, seemed to smile and, bending down from his lofty height, deigned to lick the back of her neck. She purred in ecstasy and the bond of friendship was sealed.

  Thane gave me one of his intense stares that spoke volumes, even without the accompanying woofs. It commanded me to do something about Cat.

  I sighed deeply. I had not the heart to turn the poor wretch away and, with a sigh, I realised it looked as if I had yet another occupant for Solomon's Tower. This one would stay outside in the old stable for the summer months. There was straw enough to keep her warm and comfortable at least until I had won her confidence and had the measure of dealing with the insect army that infested her.

  She looked half starved. I decided to offer a bowl of milk. She had no objections and accepted a second and a third. Thane, meanwhile, watched approvingly.

  When I opened the stable door for her, she had no objections to that either and walked in as daintily and with as much dignity as those old, shaky legs would permit. She even sank into the straw gratefully with an old lady's sigh of content.

  It appeared that Thane too had decided to take up residence. He settled in a corner some distance away from her. I was overjoyed.

  An hour ago I had been quite alone. I now had two creatures to share the Tower with me. There's nothing like a little modest success to build one's confidence in the future, I thought, as I wheeled out my bicycle and set off towards the city.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Before visiting Alice I had in mind another purpose: to put into effect my role as 'lady investigator' by calling into the offices of Bolton and Bolton in the Canongate. Some pretext would do nicely, such as having lost my way.

  At this stage I was still certain of a perfectly innocent explanation for Matthew's behaviour. I could not believe I would find him involved in an adulterous relationship with Lily of the Lodge.

  I had no wish to encounter him, hopeful only that some of his clerks - helped by a little tactful probing - might provide valuable information, a starting point to my investigation.

  Alice was prone to exaggeration, but I reme
mbered that Pappa was a great believer in idle chat spewing out some very interesting clues. If only I knew what I was supposed to be listening for.

  As I approached the Old Town lying in the shade of the Castle, I had forgotten the squalor of the High Street, the smells from the closes, the ragged children and beggars.

  At least in the so-called Wild West, among the emigrants being poor was a condition of everyone's life. Things were shared and there was good fresh air to breathe and fresh water to drink. People appeared healthier, the children stronger physically, than they did in this piece of the civilised world. I need look no further than the overcrowded 'lands', with whole families living in one room or in stinking closes, to realise the extent of my good fortune.

  It had a sobering effect on my self-pity and provided a moral lecture on counting one's blessings, when I guessed at the conditions of other widows and young women who had fallen on adverse times. It did not need a discerning eye to observe the fate of prostitutes who looked old at thirty, desperately plying their trade in daylight hours.

  My life, my position in society, by comparison with such women as well as the more respectable folk who watched me pushing my bicycle up the steep winding High Street, was that of a lady of privilege.

  In the offices of Bolton and Bolton, Solicitors (the original and long deceased senior members of Matthew's family) one solitary elderly clerk, the sole staff it appeared, looked up from his ledger as the doorbell clanged.

  His attitude as he asked my business was clearly hopeful. He looked at once depressed and quite dejected when I explained that I was searching for directions to a bookshop which I knew quite well - or at least it had been there some time ago - on the South Bridge.

  As he told me the road I should take I noticed that the office shared his depression and appeared to be seriously in need of upgrading. Spiders' webs were visible in corners and the paintwork was faded and flaking, but a firm and regular onslaught with broom, mop and duster might have worked wonders.