Killing Cousins (An Inspector Faro Mystery No.4)

by Alanna Knight

  'Before that melancholy confrontation, it would help if you would bring me up to date on all that has happened since you arrived on the island.'

  There isn't much to tell.' Vince sighed. 'Do you really want me to go right back to the beginning?'

  'If you would be so good.'

  'It was obvious the moment I arrived here that I was too late, that Thora was on the point of death. There was nothing I, or anyone, could do to save her. She lingered in a coma for a day or two but I was too late to do anything but comfort her husband as she breathed her last.'

  Vince stared gloomily into space. 'A terrible scene, Stepfather, one I shall never forget. Francis sobbing, calling her name, shouting that he couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it As if the whole tragic business had happened quite suddenly without any warning. You know the sort of thing I'm talking about God knows you had it with Mama...'

  Vince paused and gripped Faro's arm as if in apology for mentioning the subject still so painful to both of them. 'But this was different She hadn't been taken ill and snatched from him. As a doctor, he must have known by her wasted body, by the steady decline, that she had not long to live.' With a sigh he added, 'Everyone else in the household, although they maintained attitudes of cheery hopefulness for Francis' sake, they all knew she was going to die.'

  As he fell silent Faro said, 'Even when we expect death, lad, we always keep hoping for a miracle that will divert it from our own door - that the man with the scythe will decide to pass us by.'

  Vince shivered. 'She was, by all accounts, a very remarkable lady. A great pity you'll never have a chance to meet her now.'

  In that Vince was wrong. Faro was to see Thora Balfray very soon and in the most unexpected of macabre circumstances.

  The nausea that had been threatening ever since he arrived on Balfray, a product of unwise eating on the ferry, seized Faro in a violent attack of sickness as he was about to set foot in the great hall where the laird's loyal tenants waited respectfully to receive from his hands their golden guineas.

  Faro reached his room in time and afterwards lay sweating feverishly on his bed as the waves of griping pain swept over him. In the light of what was to come, he was infinitely to regret having missed Thora Balfray's wake. His absence was noted by Vince who came in search of him as soon as he could reasonably leave. He gazed at his stepfather's ashen countenance in some alarm and quickly mixed a sedative.

  A few minutes later, Faro announced that he felt considerably better while Vince continued to chide him about his confounded eating habits, his careless lifestyle.

  'Stop it, Vince. Stop it at once. It's bad enough having a miserable stomach upset without a lecture that would do my mother proud. And I'll strangle you, lad, if you breathe a word of this to her. Now, tell me about the wake.'

  'All very feudal. I'm sorry you missed it. Almost a return to the Barony courts of old. Poor Francis, he's a fine solid laird, exactly what this island needs. Never spares himself where the welfare of the tenants is concerned. You'll see what he's done for agriculture, not to mention a drainage system and sanitation almost non-existent before Sir Joseph's day.'

  As he listened, Faro found himself remembering that earlier conversation with his stepson in Edinburgh when Francis Balfray's letter had arrived. He remarked on the improvement in their relationship.

  Vince smiled. 'Yes, I like him a lot and respect him. Seeing him through the traumas of this last week has added a new dimension to poor old Francis.' He shrugged. 'At medical school, we didn't have a lot in common. He wasn't exactly popular. Bit of a swot. Not good at athletics.'

  'Perhaps he was just too poor to stand his round of drinks.'

  'How did you guess that?'

  'Students being put through college by relatives are frequently impoverished. And you have already volunteered that piece of information.'

  Vince looked shamefaced. 'I think I guessed something of the sort at the time. He didn't strike me as being mean, but he had to be careful. Now I know why. Francis had no rich father's fortune to squander. He was an idealist and under a moral obligation to Sir Joseph. Observing him in company, standing back, I knew his pride suffered and in a way it made me kinder to him.'

  He shrugged. 'I made plenty of excuses for him, but Rob and Walter disliked him intensely, didn't want him trailing around with us. He didn't womanise either, a little stuffy, terribly respectable. No Leith Walk howffs for Francis. There was this sweetheart in Orkney he mooned about, never tired of telling us how marvellous she was and how he was going back to marry his Miss Balfray.'

  'Very admirable and loyal. And so they were married.'

  'Well, yes ... and no, Stepfather. He didn't marry her.'

  'I thought...'

  'I mean it was Thora he married, not Norma. Yet I could have sworn the elder sister was his intended.'

  'Of course, if he referred to her as Miss Balfray, the younger sister would be known by her Christian name - Miss Thora Balfray.'

  'When I arrived I nearly put my foot in it, I can tell you. I was quite taken aback to find that he'd married the wrong sister, especially as Thora was, well, not to put too fine a point on it, rather plain.'

  Faro smiled. 'You put too much importance on looks, lad. They aren't, and never will be, everything a man needs in a wife. Perhaps on closer acquaintance Francis discovered that Thora had a nicer nature. How did Norma react to being jilted by her lover?'

  They all continued to live in the castle while Francis set up his medical practice. It was Norma's home after all. She had very little option to move elsewhere, being virtually penniless until Thora came forward with an allowance to save her pride. But her closeness to Thora who she nursed devotedly suggested that there was no jealousy between the stepsisters, especially when she became engaged to John Erlandson.'

  'When did this happen?'

  Vince thought. 'Fairly recently, soon after Erlandson came to Balfray. Love at first sight, I gather, and neither of them in the first flush of youth. Norma is older than Francis, you know. Anyway, she and John are a very sentimental pair, very romantic. None of this stiff upper lip in company as befits a man of the cloth and so forth.' He smiled. 'A pretty sight they make, but not everyone approves. Some of the older island folk feel that the chaplain is a little lacking in dignity and too easy-going in general.'

  'That will make a pleasant change, don't you think?'

  As bigotry was one of his stepfather's favourite hobbyhorses, Vince said hastily, 'You must come to the Balfray chapel and hear him preach.'

  'I'm not sure whether I'm quite ready for that.'

  Vince laughed. 'Come now, Stepfather. Everyone goes to church here, it's the social event of the week, with Norma sitting in the front pew looking proud as Punch.'

  'Did Francis ever explain the sudden change in betrothed?'

  'No, he merely implied that I had got the wrong end of the stick.'

  'As well you might. Thora, Norma. The names are sufficiently similar for anyone to make a mistake.'

  Vince shook his head. 'It was definitely Miss Balfray - Norma. He told us how lovely she was. No one could ever have described Thora as pretty, let alone lovely.'

  'Love is well known for its blindness, lad. She might have seemed so to a besotted lover.'

  In the pause that followed, Faro was overwhelmed by a sudden yearning to know whether Inga was at the wake and if she had expressed any anxiety about his absence.

  Instead he asked, 'Mother wasn't curious to know where I was this evening?'

  'She didn't comment upon it'

  'Thank God for that' The last thing he wanted was for his mother to know of his malaise and come pounding upstairs with trays of her special vile-tasting remedies accompanied by the firm pronouncement, 'They made you well when you were a peedie lad and they'll still work. Nothing like old-fashioned cures for an upset stomach.'

  'She didn't seem to think your absence in any way odd.'

  'What about Francis?'

  'I don't imagine he eve
n noticed it He wouldn't expect you to attend the wake when you had just arrived on the island. He went through the whole evening gallantly, in a daze of grief. I imagine he won't remember a moment of it And, after all, it wasn't as if you had known Thora.'

  So saying, Vince stood up and stretched his arms above his head. 'Well, if you're sure you're feeling better, I think I shall retire. Call me if you need anything.'

  'I think I'll live until morning. Before you go, would you open the window?'

  Vince did as he was asked. There was a moon swaying unsteadily through racing clouds. The sound of barking rose, a weird lament from the shore.

  'The seals are noisy tonight The islanders will all be shaking their heads, those sober enough to dare, that is, and saying that they too are mourning the lady of Balfray.'

  Faro shivered. 'I would have laughed at you in Edinburgh if you'd made such a statement But here...'

  He shrugged.

  'I know, here anything seems possible, doesn't it? An extra sense that perhaps we were all born with, but living in cities we lost contact with the earth.'

  Faro smiled. 'You're right, lad. We've successfully buried our sixth sense under tons of bricks and mortar.'

  Instead of leaving, Vince sat down on the edge of the bed and regarded him solemnly. 'There are dark gods here, darker than a Presbyterian Sunday in Newington, Stepfather. I can feel it, and I'm learning about you. Here you take on another dimension. Even in the short time you've been here, I hardly recognise you.'

  'Come, lad, what nonsense.'

  'Don't laugh at me, Stepfather. It's true. How could you ever belong to that other world we've left in Edinburgh, to Sheridan Place and Mrs Brook and afternoon tea on a silver tray?'

  And even though they both laughed, Vince thought that looking at Faro was like watching the shedding of many generations. Here was the ultimate Viking, the man who had stepped back in time and was one with the wild seas, the bird-haunted mockery from cliff and sky.

  He was amazed to find that his stepfather seemed to have grown in stature and he suspected that this Detective Inspector Faro was an infinitely more formidable opponent to the murderer of Thora Balfray than to the criminals in Edinburgh's High Street.

  Suddenly, without quite knowing why, Vince was afraid.

  Fear is catching and knowing that his astute stepson was right, Faro lay restlessly wide awake. Here his roots were deeply entrenched and he could never quite escape. His beginnings: superstitious, ignorant, and fraught with omens, with ancient gods to be placated, creatures to be revered and avoided.

  Strange that, even as a man of forty, the senses of childhood were undiminished. Sounds and scents and textures lured back the laughing father he barely remembered in Edinburgh. Here in Orkney, most disturbing of all, a glimpse of Inga St Ola brought back vivid memories and set his mind fleeing down a path that led to the all-devouring ecstasies of first love.

  At last he fell asleep, as his ancestors had done for more than a thousand years, to the elemental call from the seals on the rocks far below the house and the susurrus of the floodtide beating upon the shore.

  It was a cry that awakened him. A human cry of terror.

  Chapter Five

  The cry was swiftly followed by a door banging. Another cry dispelled any notion that this might have been part of a dream. The sound of running footsteps had Faro wide awake and leaping out of bed. He was seizing a robe when the door opened and his mother rushed in.

  'Oh, Jeremy, come quickly. But you can't go out like that, dear, you'll need your outdoor clothes. There's been a terrible accident. In the kirkyard ...'

  As he pulled on trousers and a shirt, she continued breathlessly, 'Mr Erlandson came and told us, he's gone back to see if he could do anything.'

  'What happened, Mother? Who's been hurt?'

  'I don't know. He just said what I've told you. There's been a terrible accident and I was to get Vince to come immediately. He didn't want Dr Francis to go back with him, so it must have been something dreadful. I heard them arguing. "I urge you to stay here, I implore you," ' she said dramatically. Those were his exact words—'

  She was interrupted by Vince, fully dressed, looking round the door. A few minutes later the two men were hurrying down to the kirkyard, where torches blazing near the Balfray vault suggested that a small crowd had already gathered.

  Pushing his way through, Faro beheld a macabre sight. The flickering light, a torch held high over the Odin Stone, revealed two figures lying side by side. One was Troller Jack, whose grief-stricken sojourn by Thora Balfray's tomb he and Vince had interrupted on their cliff-top walk. And stretched out beside him was the corpse of a young woman.

  The condition of her grave-clothes indicated that she had been newly interred and the fact that decomposition had not yet destroyed her features made Vince's horrified whisper quite unnecessary. At that moment an awakening breeze ruffled the satin and lace of the wedding dress she had been buried in, giving an uneasy illusion of life to the disinterred corpse of Thora Balfray.

  Faro wondered if he was still dreaming. The setting, eerily lit by flickering torches and a moon scurrying between storm-tossed clouds, with seals barking and the elemental sea sounding on the cliffs below, seemed utterly detached from reality.

  Again he blinked incredulously at this reconstruction of the death scene from the last act of Romeo and Juliet. There was only one difference: this macabre Juliet had been dead for several days. Horrifying as it was, the first consideration was Troller Jack. Vince was already bending over him.

  'No need for that, sir. He's dead. I've already tried to revive him without success.' The speaker was a young man who smelt strongly of whisky.

  'And who might you be?' demanded Faro.

  'Sergeant Frith, Kirkwall Police.'

  Faro smiled. 'Well done. You arrived here with amazing promptitude. Congratulations.'

  Frith stared at him and then saluted smartly. 'You must be Inspector Faro. I was hoping to have a word with you.'

  At Faro's astonished expression, he gave a somewhat sheepish grin. 'I was here already, sir. Came to the wake. The Friths have served the laird's family for three generations. My dad was factor until he died two years ago.' He nodded in the direction of the tall thin man who approached. 'Minister came for me when he found Troller.'

  'Is he ... is he ... ?' enquired the minister.

  Faro nodded. Even without the clerical collar, ascetic features, with their Imperial beard reminiscent of a saint from a medieval fresco, identified Reverend John Erlandson.

  Tm afraid so.'

  'Dear God, how awful. I couldn't move him, but I hoped he was only injured. Dear God. To do such a thing.' The minister covered his face with his hands, overcome by grief.

  Vince turned to Faro. 'It must have happened very recently. His body is still warm and' he added in a whisper 'still bleeding.' And pointing towards the other corpse, he said to Erlandson, 'Does Francis know?'

  Erlandson nodded miserably. 'There was no way I could spare him. I tried to keep it from him, told him only about Troller but he insisted on coming to see for himself. It was dreadful, dreadful. As long as I live I shall never forget his face when he saw her lying there.'

  'Where is he now?' Vince demanded.

  'He is in a state of collapse, complete collapse. Captain Gibb has kindly taken care of him. I believe they went to the Tower, the house the Captain leases from Dr Balfray.' And, wringing his hands, he whispered, 'Dear God, what are we to do ... ?'

  But Faro was no longer listening. Closely observed by Sergeant Frith, whose balance was none too steady, he touched Trailer's still bleeding hands, his clothes wringing wet. Beneath his head a trickle of blood ran down the stone, uncomfortably reminiscent of the sacrificial legend.

  Faro frowned. The Odin Stone itself was quite dry. Why should it be wet all around Troller yet just a foot away Thora Balfray's grave-clothes were bone dry? He walked round the stone examining the grass, Frith at his heels. 'Has anyone but yourself wa
lked round here?'

  Frith gave a bewildered shake of his head. 'Maybe. I don't think so. Reverend Erlandson and I were the first ones here ...'

  Faro pointed to the watchers who gathered a few yards away, their silent ranks broken only by an occasional murmur, a woman's sob. 'Are you sure?' he asked.

  'Look at them, sir. See how afraid they are. It did not take much persuasion from me, I can tell you, to keep them at a distance.'

  'I implored them to go home immediately, I wanted to spare my little flock this dreadful scene,' added the minister agitatedly as he again turned to the scene on the Odin Stone. 'I cannot imagine Troller doing such a wicked act as this.'

  He looked across at the crowd which had grown, with torches approaching singly or in bands from the village. He made a helpless gesture. 'What devil put such an idea as this into his poor sick mind?'

  'I'm not sure what you mean, sir,' Faro interrupted.

  Erlandson frowned grimly. 'The resurrection stone, that's what the heathens of old called it. That it could heal the sick and bring dead lovers back to life.'

  He paused to let the words sink in and continued. 'Preposterous, I know that's what you're thinking, gentlemen. Superstitious nonsense, but in spite of our teachings these ideas die hard. But to do this, to hint that poor Mrs Balfray could be brought back to life.'

  He shook his head angrily. 'It's quite intolerable and I still cannot believe the evidence of my own eyes. Simple, Troller Jack was, and immensely strong, but quite, quite harmless. He loved animals and children and they trusted him.'

  'We encountered him this afternoon, sir,' said Vince.

  'He was crouched by the vault here, sobbing his heart out, poor chap.'

  'Is that so?' asked the minister. 'He was utterly distraught when Mrs Balfray died, so perhaps we should have been prepared for something like this. If only I had known, been able to offer him words of comfort from the Gospels. I blame myself, Dr Laurie, I should have guessed...'

  'No one could guess die reactions of a sick child-like mind,' said Vince. 'Thora's death must have been his final break with reality. It isn't all that unusual. Grief can destroy even quite normal folk, you know.'