What nonsense, he thought. Nothing would change. They would hang his Desdemona, whatever her excuse. Hang her by that lovely slender neck until she was dead. He wanted to rush from the room, fly from the inevitable, but he was aware of Vince's hand heavy on his shoulder.
"How did you convince her to go with you, Mrs. Aird?"
Alison looked at Vince, smiling, and then stared across at McQuinn as if puzzled by his presence, and then with a shrug, she said, "It was quite simple. Her natural greed. I told her that Tim had left in my keeping, at St. Leonard's, a large package for her, just before he—he walked under the train. I indicated that I was certain it contained money and items of valuable family jewellery. That brought her out, faster than summer lightning." She shrugged. "The rest was easy. That isolated path, no one around so early. I told her, 'I have a nice surprise for you. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.'"
Faro shuddered at the suddenly boyish treble. She must have had no trouble deceiving anyone. "But your reason? I suppose Tim Ferris was your lover, was that it—jealousy?"
"Tim—my lover?" She laughed, and then turned her head away and looked at Vince, a long, tender appraisal. "Not my lover. Tim was my son."
"Your son?"
"My son, my only child, and she destroyed him as readily as if her hands had pushed him to his death. She deserved to die. I knew that and I was determined that if I couldn't make her feel the horror of being pushed under a train, at least she would know the full horror of violent death, of being pushed from a great height—"
"Tim was your son?"
"Timon, I called him, after Timon of Athens, the play I was in in London when I met his father. Oh, his father was so like him in looks, and, alas, in nature. A handsome plausible rogue who couldn't resist wine, women and a more than occasional flutter on the gaming tables. He married me because it was the only way he could get me into his bed, persuade me to leave the theatre. I was seventeen. Everyone said I was a fool to give up a promising career, but I didn't mind. Marrying him was a triumph and I was blissfully happy—for a little while. Happy as I shall never again be in this life."
Her face darkened. "Then, one day when I was pregnant, a woman came to see me with three young children. One glance at them, and she didn't need to tell me that they were his. She handed me a marriage certificate. She was Julian Aird's wife and I was bigamously married. She was determined on vengeance and he was still in prison when Timon was born."
She clasped her hands. "Timon was the most beautiful baby. I loved him, he was my whole world, and I could hardly bear to let him out of my sight. I gave up all hope of being an actress until he was older. I was determined that he should have the life he would have had if Julian had really been my husband. I found a rich protector—I'm not ashamed—a dear elderly man who was my lover. He died when Tim was eight years old and left me all his fortune.
"Then, one day, I decided to tell Tim the truth. That the man he regarded as his father was my lover. That I wasn't a widow and that he was illegitimate."
She stopped, and even through the make-up he saw the tragedy lurking in her eyes. "He never forgave me. He was a child still but he called me terrible—filthy—names. It was dreadful, but I knew how I had hurt him. He was broken-hearted, so ashamed of the awful stigma I had branded him with. We were living in Yorkshire, in a lovely country mansion, but he had always wanted to go to Scotland. I had told him so much about it. I decided to send him to boarding school in Edinburgh, to St. Leonard's. So far away from me, but I hoped that one day when he was older he would understand that everything I had done was for his sake, for his future. Then I set up the trust fund, put every penny into it, so that he could enjoy a good life. I went back to the stage and tried to work with Scottish companies, so that I could be near him.
"I hardly ever saw him. Going back to the stage made matters worse—a mother who was an actress, as well as a kept whore. He did not want to see me in Edinburgh. I thought it would be different when he went to medical school. He would be a man then, he would understand about life. But time made matters worse. He made excuses not to meet me, forbade me to visit his lodgings. When we did meet, he would hardly spend time to speak to me. Then, early this year, I saw a new side of him, besotted with this girl who was out to ruin him. Now all he wanted from me was more and more money, to buy her trinkets, to persuade her that he was a rich man who wanted to marry her. It wasn't until he failed his qualifying exams that I learned—from his own lips—that he had gambled away the entire trust fund that remained on this woman. And when it was all spent, she wanted no more of him.
"Even then I didn't realise how much he loved her. I couldn't believe that anyone could make him suffer so much that he would walk under a railway train. He did so, without a moment's consideration of what I might suffer as his mother," she added harshly. "Not one thought as to my agonies, a fine end to all my sacrifices and devotion. I had given up everything for him, a stage career as a Shakespearean actress—I mean a real one—on the London stage, not this absurd company.
"Now it was this woman's turn to suffer and I was determined to destroy her. But how? Then one day, when I was out walking, I found a St. Leonard's cap on the railings. Some boy had dropped it. I knew I made a convincing boy—I could convince her, strike up an acquaintance as Tim's heart-broken young brother. She was flattered that a schoolboy should seek her out, pay court to her.
"Soon I saw the perfect opportunity to destroy her. The murder of Sarah Hymes. I could make it look like a double murder." She laughed. "You know, I never realised that murder could be so easy. I went back a few times afterwards, hung about the convent gates. That took some courage, just to be seen as a lovesick schoolboy grieving."
"So that you would never be suspected. And you succeeded."
She looked at him sadly. "When I first met you, you seemed determined to fall in love with me, so I felt quite safe, even though I did have occasional qualms. I knew you were clever and I didn't think I could fool you for ever, which was why I was determined to keep you at arm's length. Yet luck was always with me. Even the night you were attacked, Vince."
She swung round and faced him for the first time. "I was so fond of him," she said to Faro. "He reminded me of my own son, the same age, both studying medicine in the same year."
Faro exchanged a startled glance with Vince, for the parallels were even closer. Both were illegitimate, both fighting the stigma of bastardy.
"It was because I was so concerned about your toothache, poor suffering darling, that I came to your house and succumbed to the temptation of planting the two notes. It seemed such a perfect chance to plant some evidence that pointed to his attackers. And if I received a warning, who then could possibly suspect me? I'd seen Mrs. Brook take out paper and ink in the kitchen to give to the Constable."
"That was your fatal mistake. I might never have guessed, if you hadn't used that special notepaper."
She shrugged. "How was I to know? I thought all paper and ink were the same. And now, Inspector-what are you going to do with me? I presume that the Constable is here to arrest me?"
When he didn't reply, she sighed. "I have one request. In Desdemona's immortal words, 'Kill me tomorrow, but let me live tonight.' Will you ask him to do that for me, Vince?" And, turning to Faro she said, "Please, Jeremy, because you loved me once."
Because I still love you—desperately, were the words he longed to say and could not.
"My last Cleopatra. The Constable may sit outside the dressing-room, quite discreetly." She gave him a flashing smile. "I won't run away. You have my word. Besides," she added, looking wistfully across at Vince, as if seeing in him again the son she had lost, "there is no place to run to any more. Without love, there isn't very much worth having in a woman's world."
Or in mine. Oh my dearest . . .
Outside her dressing-room, McQuinn took a seat. "You go to the front, sir, just in case. I'll stay here, at that rate we'll have both exits covered."
Vince was waitin
g for him in the green room and handed him a large brandy. "Drink it, Stepfather. You look so ill."
"I feel ill. If finding out the woman you love is a murderess can count as illness, then I feel like death."
"What about her? Will you let her carry on with the performance?"
"Yes. I don't see why not. There won't be much theatre where she's going," he added grimly.
"Has it got to be. . . ?" Vince shrugged. "Tim was so unworthy of her. I never liked him, but what a brute. How could he have treated his mother like that, especially one so sweet and loving."
"We will never know his reasons now, that's for sure."
"Quite candidly, one could almost be glad he's dead. He and the Goldie woman. The world's a cleaner place without either of them." Pausing, he looked at Faro. "You realise she's not quite sane, don't you, driven mad by his cruelty. If ever there was a crime passionnel, this was it."
"We'd have a hard job convincing the judges."
"Surely you'll do your best, try for manslaughter?"
"Oh God, Vince lad, don't ask me. Not just now."
The bell rang for curtain up and they stood at the back, but neither had much concentration left for the play which now enthralled and held its audience captive for the last time.
Between the acts, the green-room was filled with noisy enthusiastic students, and with nothing left to say, Faro and Vince walked outside. They stood gazing up at Arthur's Seat with a pale moon rising, although the sky was still cloudless and blue. A warm, windless, seductively romantic night, but for Faro its beauty merely mocked his agony.
Vince took his arm. "I think, Stepfather, that we've always known there was something like this. I didn't want to face it." He looked at the scene before them thoughtfully. "Remember the night I was attacked, and she stayed, afraid to go home?"
"What happened?"
"I was half asleep, dozing, but I thought—I thought I saw her turn up the lamp and slip something into my coat pocket. Then she picked up paper and ink from the table, as if she had been writing, and carried them out of the door, looking over to where I lay. There was something about her manner, very nervous and furtive. Of course, I'd been so knocked about, I could have been slightly delirious, and next day, when I learned that she too had received a warning note, I decided that I had dreamed the whole thing."
They heard the bell for the last act. "It's turning cold, let's go inside, Stepfather." At the door, he said desperately, "Look, can't you possibly let her go, pretend none of this ever happened? They're leaving Edinburgh tomorrow."
"Vince lad, I can't, and you know I can't. My whole faith in myself, in my job—and in justice being done—would be gone for ever if I did. I might as well crawl into a hole, for I'd never live with myself again."
"And yet the demands of justice have been met. The case is closed."
Faro felt chilled to the heart. "Morally, that makes no difference. There is a murderer going free, however you choose to interpret it."
There were no seats available, but from where they stood near the front they could see the stage plainly, with McQuinn and two uniformed reinforcements hovering discreetly in the wings.
Cleopatra's death scene was played before a hushed audience, that lovely bell-like voice echoing, holding the playgoers spellbound. For them, Edinburgh had vanished, the greasepaint, the over-acting of Antony and the supporting cast was forgotten. This was Egypt and Cleopatra was about to die by her own hand.
"Give me my robe, put on my
crown; I have
Immortal longings in me . . . . . .
...Husband, I come . . .
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life . . .
Come then, and take the last
warmth of my lips.
Farewell, kind Charmain-Iras,
long farewell."
Beth, as Iras, reeled dramatically and fell with a mighty groan. Cleopatra knelt beside her, regarded her tenderly.
"Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?"
Again a mighty groan and writhing on the floor announced that Iras was loath to lose :his dramatic moment, despite Cleopatra's comment,
"If thou and nature can so gently
part,
The stroke of death is as a lover's
pinch,
Which hurts and is desir'd ..."
Faro watched as she took the asp, saw the red jewels that were its eyes glint and flash fire. He stood transfixed, unable to believe that this was Alison Aird, a confessed murderess, and not the Queen of the Nile, Shakespeare's "lass unparallel'd" as he listened to the dying words, saw the asp's bright jewels plunge.
"What, should I stay—"
And then she fell, not back on her funeral couch to lie there regal and dignified. Instead, she jerked once, like a puppet, and slithered to the floor. Her last words were lost as Charmain screamed out loud and the curtain descended abruptly to tumultuous cheering.
Now the audience were on their feet. They began to applaud wildly, stamping feet, unaware apparently that the play was not yet over. Where were the guards and Dolabella and Caesar's entry and triumphant oration?
There was something wrong. Vince took one look at his stepfather and began to struggle through the cheering students. There was movement on stage, a great hush. But it was only Antony. Antony without Cleopatra at his side, who staggered forward and looked somewhat ashen-faced under his make-up.
Trembling, he held up his hand for silence. His plea was ignored; the stamping, cheering began again.
"Cleopatra.We want Cleopatra."
"We want Mrs. Aird, Mrs. Aird."
The stage-hands, unaware of any disaster, set in motion the machinery. Antony's shout—"Keep the curtain lowered, for God's sake"—came too late.
The curtain rose slowly to reveal Cleopatra lying where she had fallen. It was no ornamental asp at her breast, but the jewelled dagger, embedded to its hilt, and the dark red on her white robe grew to a monstrous rose, as slowly her lifeblood seeped away. It ran, a thin red line, flowing unevenly across the boards to where Faro, with Vince at his side, was already leaping on to the stage.
####
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
Also available on Kindle in the Rose McQuinn series:
The Inspector’s Daughter
Dangerous Pursuits
An Orkney Murder
Connect with Alanna online:
Author’s homepage: http://www.alannaknight.com
Enter Second Murderer (An Inspector Faro Mystery No.1) Page 17