McQuinn shrugged. 'They'll have sore heads and that's about all, sir.' And, at Faro's angry explosion, 'They're on our side.'
'Indeed. They tried to kill Lachlan Brown, so whose side is he on?'
'It was McNair they were after. They nabbed him leaving the Assembly Rooms, didn't know how much he'd told Lachlan and that a warning might be timely. Just obeying orders, sir.'
Whose orders?' Faro demanded.
'Those of a higher authority, sir. And you know the identity of that higher authority better than most. God knows she has more reason to be grateful to you than most of us.'
Faro stopped walking. He felt suddenly sick at the significance of McQuinn's remarks, as he added:
'They are very high-ranking officers in her security force, sir.'
McQuinn paused to let his words sink in and then said gently, 'Everyone who knew the contents of the journal was a threat Even a respectable and greatly prized Chief Inspector is expendable when the throne is in danger.'
'They made that plain enough when they took a pot shot at me in Stirling,' said Faro bitterly. 'And they had doubtless taken into account that I was suspect having taken Imogen Crowe, a known terrorist, on an outing to Inchmahome.'
'You were under constant surveillance, sir. Regardless of all you've done in the past risking your life for the monarchy, that's all the thanks you—or any of us—can expect.' And McQuinn muttered something under his breath. It sounded suspiciously seditious, like: God save Ireland.
Faro knew it was true. He had been involved in a very similar situation when he tried to prove that his policeman father had been murdered—because he knew too much to keep Royal posteriors at ease on the throne of England.
He found, however, that he was not as expendable as McQuinn believed.
Superintendent Mcintosh was to retire that summer and hints reached Chief Inspector Faro that he was to be offered his job. Which he had no intention of accepting, guessing that it was a ruse to get him safely behind a desk and away from embarrassing situations such as the McNair murders.
No doubt the whisper had been: Let him work at such matters in theory only, where we can keep an eye on him.
Meanwhile he returned to the routine crimes that made up the majority of his cases and his domestic life settled down into its usual ordered existence with Mrs Brook once again a contented woman in the kitchen where she ruled alone and supreme.
The recent drama involving a Sheridan Place servant had confirmed her belief that maids were trouble and, wise after the event, she wasn't surprised to find that May Moray had been an impostor and possibly a murderess too.
'There was something about her, Inspector. I never liked her.'
Meanwhile Vince and Olivia resumed their joyful expectations planning for the new baby while Rose returned to Glasgow in a happy glow about McQuinn, the hero who had rescued her for the second time in her life. She declined, however, to comment on whether she would be marrying him when he returned from America.
As for Faro, he was surprised to realize that he was ready to welcome Sergeant Danny McQuinn as a desirable and suitable son-in-law. All his former doubts had vanished, but he remained in constant anxiety that Rose, in Danny's long absence, might yet choose Lachlan Brown.
A week after the newspapers had exhausted 'Fenian Terrorists Captured' and 'Leith Warehouse Destroyed by Fire', Faro was at work on less sensational matters when he had two surprising visits.
He found Sir Hamish Royston Blunt awaiting an interview with him at the Central Office.
Aware that he was visiting Edinburgh on official business connected with his Parliamentary activities, Faro asked what the Police could do for him.
Sir Hamish shook his head and smiled.
'This is a purely personal visit. And a sad one, I'm afraid,' he added, handing Faro a small velvet box. Watching him open it Sir Hamish said, 'It is, I believe, a Viking ring and Inga asked me when I was next in Edinburgh to give it to you for its safe return to Orkney.'
'Inga—St Ola?' said Faro. 'I had no idea you two were acquainted.'
Sir Hamish regarded him sadly across the table. 'Inga was my wife.'
Faro's astonishment at this news faded rapidly at Sir Hamish's grief-stricken expression.
'Is she—is she—?'
Sir Hamish nodded. 'She died a week ago. Lachlan was with her at the end.' He paused and then said, 'Lachlan is our son.'
At Faro's startled glance, he said, 'We weren't actually married, although it was my dearest wish. As you may know, I have been a respected Minister for some years. You may also be aware that I had a wife and a grown-up family.
'I was living in Glasgow, a Junior Minister with a promising career, when Inga came to work for us from Orkney. We fell in love. I wanted to marry her when I knew she was to have my child. Mine had been an arranged marriage, without great passion but with a great deal of affection and respect on both sides. Neither my wife nor myself had ever pretended it was a grand passion but Inga knew that divorce would ruin my career.
'And she could not bear to inflict such misery on my wife who had been so good to her—and my children whom she loved. She knew the scandal would blight all their lives, destroy the respect they had for a father whom they believed to be good and true.'
He paused. 'One day she disappeared. I was frantic but I had no idea where to look for her. I set discreet agencies to work to find her. And at last I walked into a boarding house where I found her with my baby son. She had decided to return to Orkney and, as I am not without influence, I persuaded her to let a childless couple in John Brown's family bring him up. That way I could keep an eye on him when I was at Balmoral.
'My wife never knew of Lachlan's existence. She died five years ago at the time Lachlan began his career. I met Inga in his dressing room in London last year and we discovered we still loved each other. Such a discovery, and then she told me she had only a little time left. She was incurably ill. Nevertheless I insisted that we should be married. You know the rest.'
As he talked Faro realized the reason Sir Hamish had seemed so familiar when they met in the Stirling courthouse. All these years since he first met Lachlan he had been tormenting himself that Inga's son was also his, but he could not mistake Lachlan's physical resemblance to his real father, even his gestures, head and hand movements were the same.
Yet Inga had never told him the truth. She had been his first love. He had left her and she had never forgotten or forgiven him. Now he understood. She had her revenge, he thought, opening the velvet box.
He had almost forgotten the ring he had given her. They found it on the beach in Kirkwall where they had first made love. It had seemed like a good omen. Inga had laughed and said she would keep it always and it was as if the old Viking gods blessed them.
There was a note folded beside the ring: 'Dear Jeremy, By the time this reaches you, you will have heard the whole story from Hamish. And an answer to an old riddle. Inga.'
Now he need worry no longer if Rose chose Lachlan. Or hoped that he was putting the right interpretation on Inga's note. Inga had always been an enigma. Love and Lachlan had not changed her.
Faro had hardly recovered from the shock of Sir Hamish's revelations when a second visitor arrived at the Central Office.
'There's a lady waiting for you. In your office, sir,' said the desk constable.
For a moment his heart leaped. He raced down the corridor. This could only mean one thing.
The miracle he had prayed for had happened—
Imogen had returned.
Chapter 26
Faro threw open the door to his office and discovered the last person he ever wished to see again.
Mrs Carling, with the reluctant surly-laced Andy cowering at her side. She thrust him forward.
'Go on. Tell the Inspector.' She quelled his rebellious look by adding shrilly, 'There's been killings involved, murder most like. I don't want you, or my house, mixed up in it. I worked hard for you all these years, trying to give you a r
espectable life after your father left us and went to prison. He died there.'
She paused and looked at Faro helplessly. 'It was fraud he was in for, Inspector, and I don't want my lad to go the same way, really I don't. It would break my heart. He's not much—' she said with an angry look in his direction, 'but he's all I've got and he has good in him, of that I'm sure. I took my maiden name and I've slaved all my life trying to keep him out of trouble. And I'm not throwing it all away now.'
So saying, she seized Andy and shook him none too gently. 'Do you hear your mother when she's speaking to you?' She emphasized her words by cuffing him sharply across the ears. 'Tell the Inspector, Andy Carling, or you're no son of mine and you'll leave my house and never come back to it. Do you understand what I'm saying?'
Andy nodded feebly.
'You'd better. Because I mean every word of it.'
'All right, Ma. All right.'
Mrs Carling turned to Faro. 'Andy has something to show you, Inspector. I discovered it hidden in his room when I was cleaning. Under the mattress it was, deceitful young devil,' she screamed at him, waving a threatening fist inches from his nose.
And from her reticule she took out a large envelope and pushed it across the desk.
Faro picked it up. The address read: Miss McNair, Holly Cottage, Duddingston.
'He was paid handsomely by poor Mr Glen to deliver it to her, but he never did. He kept the money instead. Then when poor Mr Glen died and he discovered the cottage was burnt, and the police were interested, he got the idea that there was trouble and that he might be involved. Then when that constable was stabbed he lost his nerve. When I saw the seals an' all, I thought it might be valuable.'
'Do you know what this packet contains?' Faro asked Andy.
Andy looked uncomfortable and exchanged a glance with his mother who wasn't going to help him. 'Just a wee book wi' writing, poetry and suchlike,' he added contemptuously. Obviously he had been bitterly disappointed in the contents.
'I've told him a thousand times,' Mrs Carling interrupted, 'I'll kill him if he gets into trouble with the Police and brings disgrace on me after all I've suffered in the past. I've hardly slept at nights since I knew Andy had this.'
They were both obviously very scared and with good reason, thought Faro, guessing that the envelope contained the missing Royal journal, and the love letters exchanged between the Queen and John Brown, stolen by Bessie McNair when she was repairing the Royal riding dress in Balmoral.
'Is it valuable, mister?' Andy's eyes gleamed.
'It might well be that there is a reward for it,' said Faro and he unlocked a drawer and took out ten sovereigns, which he handed across the desk.
Mrs Carling was voluble in her thanks and practically took it on herself to swear to keep Andy a law-abiding citizen in future.
Seeing them out, Faro inspected the envelope, which had been carefully opened and resealed. Doubtless it would never have been returned had it contained, as the pair had hoped, money which would have been quickly pocketed.
It was unlikely that Mrs Carling realized the true significance of 'poetry and suchlike' or the author's true identity. As for Andy, Faro suspected that his reading capabilities were severely limited.
It was a bright day heading towards a magnificent sunset over the city skyline and he decided to walk home through Holyrood Park. On the tiny loch below St Anthony's Chapel, swans sailed, remote as magical creatures from a fairy tale. An Irish legend, he remembered had turned seven princes, the sons of Usna, into swans.
Tonight he could believe it, but it didn't bring Imogen back to him.
Sitting on a rock near the rippling surface of the waters, he opened the envelope and took out the journal. Reading anyone's private and intimate thoughts filled him with distaste and anger too, at the lives this little book had cost, but curiosity overcame his scruples.
It did not take the scanning of many pages to realize that if the information it held was made public, this could bring down the throne.
The words leaped out at him: John Brown addressed as husband of my heart' and 'secret vows taken together'. He had read enough. If these words were true and not the fantasies of a lovesick woman, then they signified the existence of a secret marriage, long suspected.
He closed the book and stood at the water's edge. Authority now believed the journal had been safely destroyed by him, burnt to ashes in the stove during the warehouse siege at Leith.
Let them continue to believe it.
Only one other person guessed the truth.
Imogen Crowe.
And he remembered how safely aboard the Erin Star, she leaned over the rail and, looking down at him she had laughed.
'You're a sly one, Inspector, so you are. Seamus described the Queen's journal as bright blue leather with the royal insignia. The one in your hand was red. So what was that little book you threw into the stove back there?'
And the ship's siren drowned out his reply. That he had burned Constable Thomas's love poems to his traitorous sweetheart.
Now he lifted his arm and threw the journal as far as it would go, watching it skim across the water, its pages fluttering open briefly to be pulled down into the depths of the loch.
The swans circled curiously at this disturbance then they too lost interest. Faro lingered for a moment but there was no Arthurian magic here, no arm arose from the waters clutching the fatal journal in its hand.
And, turning, he walked briskly homewards.
There are fifteen titles in the Inspector Faro series available from bookstores and on www.amazon.co.uk. Available on Kindle:
Enter Second Murderer
Bloodline
Deadly Beloved
Killing Cousins
A Quiet Death
To Kill A Queen
The Bullslayers
Also available on Kindle in the Rose McQuinn series:
The Inspector’s Daughter
Dangerous Pursuits
An Orkney Murder
Also available on Kindle in Romance and Intrigue:
The Legend of the Loch
Lament for Lost Lovers
Connect with Alanna online:
Author’s homepage: http://www.alannaknight.com
Murder by Appointment: Inspector Faro No.10 Page 16