‘Nothing.’
‘He never mentioned why he was so interested in Miss Deborah?’
‘Never. He – he likes girls.’ Murray was visited by a sudden image of him with Beatrix on his arm. His stomach turned. ‘What shall I do, Mr. Murray?’ she whispered. ‘I need protection. My reputation ...’ He felt, with alarm, her hand on his arm. He could not move. Her scent wove around him, a scent of wood and water, night and starlight. Her face turned up to his, her other hand reaching for the back of his neck, pulling him towards her.
He broke away, much, much later than he meant to, and went to the fireplace to light a taper for the candles.
‘It will do your reputation no good to be found in a darkened room with another man, Mrs. Bootham. Miss Croft. I should recommend that you go home and pack your possessions, and return to your father.’
‘A strange contrast:’ she gave a little laugh, ‘last night I left here with him, and Mr. Tibo was alive, and the world was a different place.’
‘Did he really leave with you?’ He lit the last of the candles. The warm yellow light made her look a little more of this world, but he could feel, still, the pressure of her cool fingers on his neck. He tried not to look at her.
‘Yes, he did.’
‘And stayed at home?’
‘You are not interested in me at all!’ she cried. ‘Will you at least see me to my carriage?’
‘Certainly.’ He reached over and rang the bell, and opened the library door wide, destroying their privacy before she could take advantage of it again.
‘I have no idea whether or not he stayed at home,’ she said quickly. ‘As far as I knew he was up late writing poetry.’ She invested the word with a degree of bitterness. ‘He did not come to bed for several hours.’ She caught his eye, but he looked away quickly, not wishing to be invited to think of her in bed.
Naismyth appeared in the doorway.
‘Mrs. Bootham wishes to go home, Mr. Naismyth.’
‘I shall call her carriage,’ said Naismyth, bowing. He stood long enough to exchange a significant look with Murray before he went.
‘Do you think he could have killed Tibo? Do you think he would have?’ Murray asked, as soon as Naismyth had gone.
‘I don’t know!’ Bootham would not have approved of her display of emotion, anyway. ‘He’s strong, but I have not known him to be violent. And anyway, I don’t think he cares enough.’ Her chin came up defiantly, and he knew she needed very little protection. She was strong. ‘It means nothing to him that we are not married: I was the one who wished to be discreet about it. What would he find embarrassing about an affair that passed nearly twenty years ago?’
‘Why did you come here? Whose idea was it?’
The thought had not struck her, he could see that, and it made her angry.
‘It was his idea,’ she said slowly. ‘So all along he was expecting this to happen. He came back here to see her. Deliberately.’ She met his eye, and there was nothing of seduction in it now: there was only revenge, and rage. ‘I’m going back to that miserable house and I’m taking everything in it. I paid for most of it, anyway. Maybe that was all he wanted, my mother’s money. And when he comes back – if he comes back – he can sleep on the doorstep, for all I care. I’m going home.’
Murray opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the sound of carriage wheels on the drive outside.
‘Your carriage, I believe,’ he said instead.
In the hall, Naismyth was ready with her cloak and gloves. Murray handed her into the carriage and stood politely as it left. He had a feeling that he would never see her again, and it filled him with relief – and a little regret.
Naismyth closed the door, scowling, and disappeared back into the servants’ corridor. Footsteps on the stairs made him turn, and he saw Bea coming to look for him.
‘Who was that?’ she asked.
‘Mrs. Bootham. Or rather ... Bea, the Boothams are not married.’
‘They aren’t?’
To his dismay, all he could see in her face was a rekindled hope, none of the shock he had hoped to cause.
‘Bea, he took her away from her family under false pretences, and deceived her for her money.’
‘But he wouldn’t do that to someone whom he really loved, who really loved him.’ She had a little smile on her face, a kind he had never seen there before. He took her by the elbows, making her look into his face.
‘If you went with him, he would only use you until he tired of you. Then where would you be? What friends would you have? And would he take you, anyway? Lord Scoggie would never let your dowry go to him, not after this evening.’ She did not seem to hear him. He gave her a little shake. ‘Bea, you’re worth more than him. Forget him. I’m sure he’ll be going soon, anyway. You deserve better than that.’
‘But I don’t want any more than that,’ she said at last. ‘All I want is him. I would live with him in a ditch.’
‘Bea, I think we can be fairly sure that there are no circumstances in this world in which Philip Bootham would condescend to live in a ditch.’
She pulled away.
‘It’s my decision, Mr. Murray. Don’t make me angry with you.’
He sighed. There was no sense in pursuing it just now: there were more urgent things to think of.
‘What’s happening upstairs?’
‘Nothing much. They’re going round in circles. Lady Scoggie insists that the boys are hers and Lord Scoggie’s, but Andrew is her son by Mr. Bootham. Lord Scoggie is asking her for all the details: it was when she was staying in London, just after they were married, when Lord Scoggie was up and down between London and Edinburgh. I think – I think maybe Major Keyes knew something about it. Lady Scoggie was staying with his mother at the time. Andrew was born here, though, because she came back, but Lord Scoggie was still away. Mrs. Kinkell was a maid here until just after she was married. That was how they knew about her.’
‘How is Deborah?’
Beatrix shook her head, unable to describe Deborah’s anguish. Then she looked up.
‘Do you hear voices? Outside?’
Murray listened. He could indeed hear voices, and the crunching sound of many footsteps in the snowy gravel. He glanced out through one of the slit windows. A large crowd of men with torches was approaching the castle, looking unnervingly like a violent mob. At the front, he recognised the Kinkell brothers and Joe Baillie. With a gasp, once again he remembered the search party.
‘Fetch Naismyth,’ he hissed at Beatrix. ‘I must run and warn Lord Scoggie.’
With a last glance at the crowd, he pushed her towards the servants’ corridor and bounded up the stairs.
Chapter Nineteen
Lord Scoggie left the parlour with the speed of a man looking for an excuse. Behind him, Murray could see Major Keyes, still staring at Deborah, whose face was the colour of chalk. Bootham, propped against the wall by the fireplace, looked entirely at home, and appeared to be asking Andrew some questions about his life. Lady Scoggie, a frail old woman, huddled into her shawl on a sofa.
‘They’re downstairs, my lord,’ Murray explained, and followed Lord Scoggie down towards the servants’ quarters.
‘I should have asked you about this earlier,’ Lord Scoggie muttered, annoyed with himself.
‘I should have told you.’
‘Too many things happening.’
In the kitchen, the men of both up and down town St. Monance were standing and sitting about the servants’ table, eating, from cups and tankards, the wonderful asparagus soup that had been intended for higher guests than them. They straightened when Lord Scoggie came in, but the informality of the kitchen meant that several of them did not stand up until Naismyth poked them.
‘Chrissie Farquhar is still missing, then,’ said Lord Scoggie.
‘We think they still have her,’ Sandy Kinkell spat, pointing at Joe Baillie.
‘We ken we don’t,’ said Joe Baillie, though Geordie Kinkell was already restrainin
g his brother.
‘Naismyth, will you go and rouse the gardeners and the stable lads, please. Murray, you are happy to go with them?’
‘Of course, my lord.’
‘And I shall go, too,’ announced Major Keyes, from the kitchen door. ‘I could do with some fresh air.’
‘Good, good, Major. Now, I shall divide you into four groups, with fishermen and uptowners in each group, so that you can keep an eye on each other. You’ll start up town. Come up and we’ll look at a map of the parish.’
In the room with no name, Lord Scoggie spread a large map over the billiard table and directed operations like a general. The parallel may have occurred to him, too, for he turned to Major Keyes.
‘Does this all make sense, Alec?’
‘That seems grand, cousin, for all I know the land in question.’
‘Is everyone else happy?’ Lord Scoggie looked around the room: there was a warm smell of wet wool and asparagus breath.
‘When do we do down the town?’ asked Sandy, distrustfully.
‘Do the up town, then come and report to me and have some breakfast. Then we’ll start down town.’
‘There are no so many houses up town,’ Joe Baillie pointed out. ‘Not if you count the salt workers’ houses in with our end.’
‘There are more sheds, barns and so on up here, though,’ Lord Scoggie explained, indicating examples on the map. ‘It’s the middle of the night, so you’ll wake fewer people up here for now.’
‘They’re all awake anyway,’ said Geordie, one hand on Sandy’s arm and the other drawing his son Peter back from the gun cabinets.
‘Then let’s keep them up no longer than we have to. Ah, Naismyth, have you brought the others?’
Naismyth, appearing at the door, nodded. Behind him were the forces of garden and stables, and other outdoor servants, carrying unlit torches and lanterns and wrapped up against the snow.
‘I have a taper ready for the lights, my lord,’ he said.
‘Very good. Now, your groups.’
In a few minutes he had sorted the two crowds into four mixed bands, fishermen and others, named leaders, and marked out on the map the borders of their search area. None of his decisions was disputed by anyone. One group was led by Joe Baillie, another by Richie Shaw, another by Geordie Kinkell, and the fourth, to his surprise, by Naismyth, who hurried away to find outdoor clothes. Murray and Keyes were allocated to Geordie Kinkell’s group, and Murray was about to leave in the wake of Kinkell when Lord Scoggie drew him back quietly.
‘Keep an eye on Major Keyes, will you? I don’t want any of the fishermen ... thinking of old grudges.’
‘I’ll do my best, my lord.’
Lord Scoggie stood by the front door with Naismyth’s taper, lighting each torch or lantern as they disappeared into the snow. By the time Murray’s team was on the drive, the snow had been trampled flat and slithery, but more still fell, and they staggered close together, trying not to lose each other in the soft dark.
There then began a dreadful night. Every house had to be examined: every family roused from their sleep, every barn, loom house, shed or loft turned out as the owners shivered beside them, clutching coats over nightshirts with grey hands. Pig sheds were a bone of contention – the fishermen would not go into them, but did not trust the uptowners’ accounts – until Mallie, the great butcher from down the town, finally agreed to go into each of them himself. Women pressed them to come in to the fire, to a hot drink and a moment of shelter, and in one or two places they agreed and stood, crushed and dripping, in tiny kitchens filled with pipe smoke and wide-eyed midnight children. But as the night went on, and they forgot what day and daylight looked like, or how it felt to be warm and dry, they began to avoid such encounters, to excuse themselves and press on. In between houses they searched ditches and hedges, poked their sticks under walls where the snow lay thick, held their torches for each other as they hunted amongst the roots of ancients trees, and upset sheep and cattle in the fields by chivvying them apart, in case she had hidden there for warmth. Sometimes they searched so hard they almost forgot what they were looking for, and overturned stones or peered up trees where no woman could hide. And all the time the snow fell, weighing on their eyelashes, slipping into their lungs with every breath, its irresistible, smooth descent making it look as if the world was slowly floating upwards.
When Murray finally sneaked a look at his watch by the light of a failing torch, he was surprised to find that it was six o’clock in the morning. He had lost most of the feeling in his fingers, toes and nose, and had also lost count of the number of times he had hauled Major Keyes to his feet, or foot, after a fall, but it was not that unusual: most of them had fallen once or twice. They were now on the road outside the gates of Aberardour Lodge, with only a few more houses to cover before they went to report to Lord Scoggie. They had already done the Lodge: Murray was interested to note that, according to the maid, Mrs. Bootham had packed a few personal effects and left for the inn at Elie, leaving instructions for the servants to refuse admittance to Mr. Bootham. To the marked disappointment of the maid and a manservant who lingered about the hallway, Mr. Bootham had not yet returned home to have admittance refused him: presumably he had been forced by the snow to stay at Scoggie Castle, a very welcome guest, no doubt. There was no trace of Chrissie Farquhar anywhere on the premises, even though Murray admitted to himself an unspoken longing to find something criminal about Philip Bootham.
Geordie Kinkell drew back to allow his group to search his cottage, which they did as quietly as possible out of respect to the sick woman asleep in the recess bed. Murray himself searched under the bed, taking a lantern to set beside him on the floor. There was nothing, which was hardly surprising. There was, if possible, less at his neighbour’s house. The searchers gathered outside again in the road, and looked to Geordie for instructions.
‘One more house to go,’ Geordie said loudly, fighting the dampening snow in his face. ‘Mr. Tibo’s.’
‘We can’t search there,’ said one of the fishermen. ‘He’s no buried yet.’
‘Aye, we can.’ Geordie only considered the question for a moment. ‘If she’s there, and she’s alive, she might be dead by the time he’s buried.’ There was a mumble of approval from some of the searchers.
‘If we do it quiet-like, like we did in your place, Geordie,’ suggested another fisherman, ‘we should be in the right.’
‘Aye, that’s the way. On we go.’ He urged the party on, but waited for Murray before falling into step with him. ‘Will you talk to Mr. Tibo’s brother, then?’
‘Certainly,’ Murray agreed, ‘but why me?’
‘Och, it needs someone of his own kind, ye ken? Since he’s near a stranger to us, he’s been away so long.’
‘All right.’
There were no lights visible to the front of Nathaniel Tibo’s house. The others in the group hung back while Murray climbed the few steps and rattled the risp. To judge by the snow, no one had disturbed the household for hours. In any establishment where they were not sitting up with a corpse, it would have taken much longer than these few seconds for the door to be answered. The windows on either side of the door were softly illuminated by candlelight, and the door shook as the locks were withdrawn. Then the man that Murray had seen in the carriage earlier opened the door, holding up the candle to see Murray’s face.
‘Who are you?’ he snapped, without much sign of welcome.
‘Forgive us for disturbing you, please,’ said Murray, assuming a look that he hoped indicated worthy anxiety and polite respectability. ‘We are looking for a missing woman. We’re searching the whole parish, and we hoped you might give us your permission to search here. Indoors and out,’ he added.
The dim candlelit circle had brushed the edge of the group of villagers behind him, and the man looked suspicious.
‘Please allow me to introduce myself,’ Murray added quickly. ‘My name is Murray, and I am Lord Scoggie’s private secretary. We are searc
hing on his orders.’
‘Oh aye?’ said the man. ‘And who’s the missing woman? No his daughter?’
‘No!’ Murray was surprised. ‘Her name is Chrissie Farquhar –‘
‘Hugh’s sister?’
Murray had forgotten that this man must also have grown up in the village.
‘That’s the one, yes. She’s been missing a few days, but no one realised till yesterday evening, so it’s very urgent.’
The man considered.
‘Aye, indeed,’ he said in the end. ‘Yes, your men may search where they will. You –‘ he jerked the candle at Murray, ‘come in and tell me why Chrissie Farquhar could go missing for a few days and no one notice – for if it’s the same Chrissie Farquhar I remember, she’s hard to miss.’
Murray looked back at Geordie, who nodded, with a wry smile. He led his men off to the back of the house. The snow was easing, and Murray watched them go, before he stepped into the hallway.
‘You’re soaking,’ the man remarked. ‘How long have you been out?’
‘Since last night. And we’ve only done the up side of the village.’
‘The weather has been devilish.’ He led the way towards the back of the house. ‘Do you mind sitting in with my brother? It’s the only warm room in the house.’
‘Ah ... no.’
In the main bedchamber, the air was so thick that walking in was like being smothered with a hot pillow. Nathaniel Tibo had been laid out smoothly on the bed and covered to the chin with a sheet, in a manner which would have satisfied even him. His brother was not up to the same sartorial standard. His cravat had been untied and his collar was loose, his coat flung on a chair and the top few buttons of his waistcoat were undone. His hair, dark with threads of the grey that had distinguished his brother, was tousled, and his face, though bearing a clear resemblance to Nathaniel, was at once less handsome and more approachable. He was closer to Murray’s age, but a little older. There was a decanter of brandy on a table by the fire. Zachariah Tibo set the candlestick down beside the bed, and poured a glass for each of them: it was not his first.
Knowledge of Sins Past (Murray of Letho Book 2) Page 29