Quest for a Killer

by Alanna Knight

  He sighed and touched the scar down the left side of his face.

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘A bullet. It narrowly missed my brain, in one of our gangside encounters. I’m fine, I’ve got used to it, but my vision isn’t as great as it used to be, as I discovered when I was part of Miss Adela’s equestrienne act. No more circuses for me.’

  We were both silent, sitting there in the firelight, surrounded by peace and safety. At least for the next hour or two.

  I closed my eyes. Danny back. Wasn’t this the miracle I had been praying for? My miracle answered, one moment out of time when I wished the world would stop turning and that we could stay like this for ever.

  ‘What do we do now?’ he asked.

  He looked so ill, even the firelight couldn’t change that. ‘You have some ideas?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘I’ll answer that in the morning. Meanwhile we get you off to bed. It’s a bit spartan,’ I added apologetically.

  He nodded, rose to his feet, slowly, almost painfully. Like an old man. ‘Can’t be worse than the floor in that hostel for down-and-outs. Staying with the clowns was too dangerous.’

  ‘Sleep well, my darling,’ I whispered, kissing that poor ruined face goodnight. Grateful that he didn’t take me in his arms, for I didn’t think I could have coped with the emotions that would arouse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I slept badly, dozing, to suddenly awake thinking I had dreamt a dreadful nightmare, and in the next moment, knowing that it was real: that Danny McQuinn had returned, wanted by the police as a dangerous criminal, and was sleeping on the other side of the wall just a few yards away.

  Once dawn broke over the hill, I abandoned any further attempts to sleep and began weaving elaborate plans, fantastic ideas of how he could escape from Edinburgh, none of which, I knew, would seem feasible reviewed in the cold light of morning.

  The result of all this nocturnal planning was that when I finally fell asleep it was to be awakened by a hammering on the door.

  Nine o’clock. I had overslept and the caller could only be Jack Macmerry, come for breakfast as usual.

  Groaning, I flung on a robe and rushed downstairs, opened the front door.

  ‘Sorry, you told me to keep the back door locked.’

  ‘Of course I did, but I thought you would have been up and about by this hour,’ he said with a disapproving look at my dishevelled state, curls wild and disordered as if I had been giving hospitality to nesting birds.

  I listened. There was no sound from upstairs. Thankfully Danny would remain out of sight until this visitor departed. Except, alas, that Jack was no visitor but a lodger and I was glad indeed that there had been no extra key to the Tower, or it would have been even more difficult to keep him from arriving without warning.

  That had been one of my dozing nightmares. How on earth was I to keep Danny and Jack from meeting? Knowing human nature, however carefully one planned, there was bound to be a slip-up somewhere. The tenuous state of Danny’s residence in the Tower certainly could not be maintained for an indefinite period.

  I opened the kitchen door, let Thane out and, returning, prepared breakfast, conscious that Jack was watching me with a rather puzzled expression.

  ‘What’s wrong, Rose? You’re all flustered. Something bothering you?’

  I turned rapidly from the frying pan. ‘Of course not, why should there be?’

  ‘I just wondered. You seem more hassled than usual.’

  ‘It’s just oversleeping. Always upsets my day.’

  Jack considered that for a moment; then, helping himself to a cup of tea, ‘Well, what was the concert like? Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘Concert?’ I had forgotten all about the concert. No point in lying, he would soon find out.

  ‘I didn’t go.’

  ‘But we had tickets. I’d reserved them – what a waste.’ He sounded annoyed, and no wonder.

  ‘I didn’t want to go on my own. It’s quite a distance—’

  ‘You could have taken your bicycle, that’s your usual means of transport,’ he reminded me sharply.

  ‘Not to a concert, Jack. The clothes I wear would hardly be appropriate.’

  ‘Who cares about that, for heaven’s sake? No one would have noticed…’

  ‘In Edinburgh – at a Beethoven concert? As you know, most of the audience would be in evening dress, arriving in carriages,’ I said angrily.

  ‘You could have always asked your friend Elma to accompany you.’

  ‘Hardly, at such short notice,’ I said.

  The last thing I wanted was an argument so I shrugged it aside. ‘I just didn’t feel like making the effort. However, something happened yesterday that will interest you…’ And I told him about the cabbie and the two drunks, one of whom I suspected was Hodge, already dead.

  He wasn’t as excited by this story as I hoped.

  ‘It could be true, if Hodge was murdered. But how are you going to prove it?’ When I didn’t answer, he said wearily, ‘This is more of your circumstantial evidence. Hard evidence is what we need, without it we can prove nothing. It was dark and your cabbie could possibly have been taking two genuine drunks home.’

  I was convinced my theory was right but I knew Jack would never be convinced. Disappointed by his reaction but without further comment, I asked. ‘What was your evening like?’

  ‘Oh, the usual dull routine stuff, we had to go down and talk to someone in Peebles. However, when I was in the vicinity of home, I decided to go the extra miles and see the folks.’

  He paused. ‘They were asking after you, Rose.’

  I hadn’t seen his parents since the time of our wedding that never was, two years ago.

  ‘I hadn’t seen my father since he came through to Glasgow for the funeral.’ I realised Jack meant his late wife’s funeral.

  ‘Is your mother pleased at having a new granddaughter?’

  I realised that was a mistake as he visibly winced. ‘She didn’t say much about that. She’s hardly likely to see her much. Glasgow’s a fair distance away and Ma doesn’t care for travelling.’ Another pause. ‘She was very sorry about us, always fond of you, Rose.’

  I was silent. There was nothing I could think of as a suitable reply.

  He helped me clear the table. ‘It’s their golden wedding this Friday. They both said they hoped you’d come with me.’

  I put the plates into the sink. ‘Jack, they’re a sweet couple and I’m fond of them, but don’t you see it wouldn’t be fair?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean – ‘wouldn’t be fair’.’

  ‘Well, think about it. If I appear in their lives again, they’ll be hoping that means we’re back together and I couldn’t bear to give them false hopes, disappoint them—’

  ‘You can only bear to disappoint me,’ he interrupted with a bitter smile.

  ‘Oh please, Jack. Let’s not go into all that again, I beg of you.’

  I could see that he certainly wasn’t going to make it easy for me to add that I wanted him to move out.

  He shuffled his feet a bit and said, ‘Well, I do have one interesting piece of information. Knowing your interest in Sam Wild.’

  I almost jumped when he said the words.

  ‘What…what interest would that be?’

  ‘Come now, Rose. Joey the Clown and all that stuff. Well, here’s something for the record. You won’t have forgotten all your theories about the bank robbery?’ When I shook my head, he went on, ‘We have at last received the results of the autopsy on the bank clerk.’ He shook his head. ‘They’ve certainly taken their time about it, but seems that the poor chap had a congenital heart defect. And that’s what really killed him. He was alone in the bank, the junior clerk had gone across the road to the baker’s shop. When he came back and saw the back of a man running away down the street, and found his colleague dead, he assumed that he had been murdered. And that went into his statement. But there were no marks of intent to kill, nothing that
could be described as a death blow or any real violence apart from a bruise on his jaw.

  ‘I’ve always had my doubts, especially as there were only a few pounds taken from the drawer behind the counter and some dollar bills scattered about. An attempted robbery, serious enough for an arrest, but that’s one murder we can write off the slate.’

  I could have told him what really happened but had to remain silent. I hoped the man’s widow had his life insured. Jack agreed and I felt like laughing out loud, so relieved that Danny wasn’t a murderer, at least not on this side of the Atlantic.

  A great relief but Jack continued that he would still be guilty of attempted robbery and assault instead. Where was the evidence, the proof? Had the other assistant witnessed that he wanted to exchange dollar bills into pounds sterling and that the ensuing argument led to an exchange of blows, there would have been evidence, but he hadn’t.

  That was bad enough. But there was still the Pinkerton’s man in New York.

  And Danny McQuinn, by his own admission, was his killer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Jack did not delay his departure. I could hardly contain my relief, almost certainly obvious to someone who knew me as well as he did. He made no comment, merely promised that he would try to be home early for supper. My heart sank at that piece of news.

  I said, ‘Don’t promise.’

  He smiled wryly for this had been the pattern of our lives together, a continuation of my early life in Sheridan Place. A list of last-minute cancellations of Pappa’s presence at two small daughters’ school events. As for fairs and the circus, we soon learnt to accept that Edinburgh City Police came first; his substitute on such occasions was our housekeeper Mrs Brook, or Vince, and this state of affairs appeared as quite normal, part of the vows taken at the altar by a policeman’s wife.

  After the door closed on Jack, Danny cautiously came downstairs. Perhaps I had expected some transformation by a night’s sleep, but I was alarmed to see that he still looked so ill, worse in fact than yesterday, a troublesome cough, paler than ever, unshaven, his hair too long. A contrast, indeed, to the Danny of Pinkerton days, always clean-shaven, even imbuing rough and shabby clothes with a certain dignity. A man who had an inborn style and charm, whatever the circumstances.

  I presumed he had a razor in that valise he carried and would use it when his arm hurt less. As he sat down at the table he was curious to know about Jack, so I gave him the carefully edited version of our relationship, with no hint that we had ever been lovers. Depending on what Danny had in mind, that might have been too great a blow to bear.

  He listened silently and then asked, ‘Do you love him, Rose?’

  ‘What a question! He is an old and trusted friend, a widower and awaiting a new home; it is merely a convenient arrangement for him to be a temporary lodger.’

  Danny gave me a shrewd look and said quietly, ‘You haven’t answered my question. Do you love him?’

  ‘It is you, Danny McQuinn, I have always loved and waited for here in this house for five years.’

  He gave me a mocking glance. ‘Not this Danny, my darlin’. I’m a wanted man, remember. A man who has killed—’

  ‘What nonsense! Wasn’t that always a possibility of your life tracking down criminals at Pinkerton’s?’

  ‘In the line of duty, yes.’ Slowly he shook his head, looked at me, almost with pity. ‘But the Danny you loved and waited for was lost – lost a long time ago.’

  It was so exactly like what I was thinking that I wondered if he had read my mind, that I was so transparent.

  ‘Never had your willpower to resist temptation. After we parted, no longer with your good influence, there was gambling, getting into bad company – yes, and killing too. The rough life that living out west demanded for survival.’

  He spread his hands wide. ‘And now you see before you the mess it got me into. I was once a good Catholic, but I lost my God too. Haven’t thought about him or even said a prayer in years. Adding up my list of transgressions, the Devil would find me a suitable candidate for hell, in fact.’

  He cut short my protestations with a shake of his head, smiled wryly and said, ‘So what about this admirable policeman of yours?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I’m still married to you, Danny. Still your wife in the eyes of the law.’

  ‘And so you are, my darlin’. Till death do us part,’ he added sadly.

  As I cleared away Jack’s dishes and reset the table, I noticed him touching his bandaged arm, the knife thrust I had inflicted. I was so bitterly sorry. As if he did not have enough to bear.

  ‘I’ll have a look at that.’

  ‘No, no. It’s fine really. Later, maybe.’

  He took the porridge I set before him, but before he had taken the last spoonful, his head dropped forward. He was asleep again. I touched his forehead. Did he have a fever?

  I panicked. Where could I find a doctor? I knew none who would not feel it was their duty to inform the police about being called in to attend Sam Wild.

  He stirred, his eyes opened, sighed. ‘Sure now, you always had nice cool hands, my Rose.’

  ‘You had better go back to bed.’

  He rose from the table and, with a brief nod, slowly climbed the stairs, heavy-footed. An old man, I thought sadly. Seeing him safely into his room, I said I must go out for a while, and not to emerge – ignore all sounds downstairs.

  ‘Don’t come out until I get back.’ I looked at Thane who was at our heels and now prepared to lie on guard outside Danny’s secret hideout. ‘Thane will take care of you.’

  With two extra mouths to feed I needed more provisions and, as I bicycled down to St Leonard’s, I noticed that Will Sanders’ door was open.

  He was home again. In answer to my call, he came out, grinning, wrist in splints but still deftly managing his crutches.

  ‘Come in, lass, come in.’ I handed him the sealed envelope. A word of thanks and I offered to make tea for us both. He accepted, watching gratefully as I buttered scones and set them out on a plate.

  ‘Right glad to be home again, lass. Out of that awful place. Like my own fireside and my own bed and knowing what’s going on – and what I’m eating.’

  I made up the fire and, although he objected strongly, I tackled a pile of dishes, brushed the floor and tidied the room.

  ‘That’s enough, lass. Come and sit down. I want to talk to you. I did some serious thinking while I was in yon place and decided that I had to tell someone – about Belle.’ He paused and regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Something that maybe another lass might understand.’

  He extracted the letter from his wallet. ‘This was what I told you about. This letter from Belle. She tried to explain it all.’

  And taking a deep breath, ‘She wanted me to know wh-why she killed Amy and herself.’

  I stared at him in disbelief. ‘She killed Amy? You must be wrong.’

  ‘No, lass, it’s all written down here. This is the suicide note the police were wanting and I kept it from them. Amy and Belle were always close even when they were bairns. And when they grew up, they never were interested in lads, never wanted to get married. Watch out or the two of you’ll be old maids, I used to warn them. And my Belle would say, “Why should we care about husbands when we’ve got each other?”’

  He sighed, remembering. ‘Then she said, “I could never love a man as much as I love Amy.” I tried to explain to her that it was different. But I couldn’t find the words about loving a man, having his bairns and so on. She didn’t want to hear, just clammed up. That’s how it is between us. But you’re not to tell anyone. Understand?’

  Will shook his head sadly. ‘But I didn’t understand then and I don’t now. I know about love between a man and a woman, but between two lasses, that’s beyond me.’

  A pause, he sighed deeply. ‘And then, out of the blue, this awful thing…it all went wrong. Amy met this sailor, crazy about her, wouldn’t leave her alone. That was bad enough, Belle and her could
have laughed about that. But worse was to come. His uncle had a sheep ranch in Australia, keen for them to settle with him, promising a great exciting new life. Amy was tempted, sick, and fed up of her dreary existence: hard work, no money and no future to show for it. She might never get an offer like this again. She was fond of the lad and decided to get married and go with him.

  ‘My Belle was appalled, screamed and cried all night, like someone demented, heartbroken. She could talk of nothing else: this man was taking Amy out of their life together, taking her away for ever. She tried to tell Amy that she was making a big mistake, that she would find out too late that she could never be happy, not really happy with a man, or with any other living soul but herself.

  ‘Amy wasn’t to be persuaded, there were words between them, harsh words. When Belle heard that Dave was on his homeward journey and the banns were called, she was suddenly calm, said she would make it up after all.’

  ‘It was a washing day and Amy had been doing the bedclothes so Belle went upstairs and said she’d help her, as she always did, to put them on the drying rack. But instead, she took the rope and wound it round Amy’s neck and strangled her. And having killed the one person she loved above all others in the whole world, she went to her own flat, and hanged herself.’

  His eyes were full of tears. He began to sob and I put an arm around his tired old shoulders. ‘I found her and this note.’

  He tore the envelope open. ‘Here, you read it.’

  ‘“Dear Grandpa. I killed us both. You know why. It was the only way. We’ll be together always. Your loving Belle. PS. I don’t want anyone else blamed.”’ I felt like crying too as I handed it back to him.

  Folding it carefully away in his wallet, he said, ‘I couldn’t bear the police to read it. What if it got into the newspapers, for everyone to read about “an unnatural love” as they would call it. That was my secret and Belle’s. But when I read that the police were considering that the two girls might have been murdered and were investigating possible clues – what if some innocent chap got the blame?’