'Norma seemed to have forgiven her, by all accounts.'
She looked at him sharply. 'Yes. Remarkable, wasn't it? Once Thora took ill, Norma couldn't do enough for her. Wore herself to a shadow sitting with her night and day when she had bad turns. Poor Thora, how she did suffer towards the end. Not an ounce of strength and so terribly sick all the time.'
'Did you ever think that her illness was unnatural?'
'Unnatural? I'm not sure I know what you mean by that.'
'Let me put it another way. Did you ever suspect that she might have, been poisoned?'
Inga stopped in her tracks. 'Jeremy Faro. You're
impossible, really you are. Stop being so suspicious. Forget you're a detective for once and for heaven's sake act like a normal human being. People in Balfray don't go round poisoning each other.'
'It has been known for husbands to poison wives and vice versa. In my profession it's fairly commonplace.'
'Well, let me tell you, there's nothing of your commonplace here. Everyone loved Thora. Fancy even thinking such a thing about poor Francis. You just have to look at the poor man. It breaks my heart to think of all he has suffered. I've never heard anything so ... so dreadful...'
Stamping her foot indignantly, her colour suddenly high, she gave an exclamation of indignation and turned on her heel.
Faro seized her arm. 'Whoa, Inga. Whoa. I didn't mean to offend you. It's just that the symptoms sound awfully like arsenic poison.'
'Well, they can't be, or Vince wouldn't have signed the death certificate,' she said defiantly. 'There's your answer, plain and straight.'
She stopped and looked down at his hand, still holding her arm. Suddenly she smiled and raising her free hand stroked his fingers in a gentle tender gesture.
'Jeremy, Jeremy,' she said softly, looking up at him. Her touch was no more than the supplication one would give an unruly child but it jolted him. After all those years there was something alarmingly intimate about this contact, this innocent gesture, and it was like a charge of electric current through his veins.
'Inga, Inga,' he said in gentle mockery and firmly released her arm, placing it at her side. The gesture cost him dear, for at that moment he experienced an almost uncontrollable urge to return to a past more than twenty years dead. What would it be like to take her into his arms and hold her trembling to his own wildly beating heart?
That impulse, however, which might have considerably changed his future, was halted by a shout and a wave from the boat which was approaching the landing stage.
A moment later two small figures leaped ashore. Rose and Emily. And behind them trailed Vince.
Chapter Eleven
Faro's first reaction was that he failed to recognise his own daughters instantly. Each time he saw them they looked different from the image he carried in Edinburgh. Guiltily he was aware how quickly children grow and how many changes can take place in a few months.
He was delighted to see them and in the next moment angry that he had not been warned of their imminent arrival, which he would certainly have forbidden, appalled that they should have come to Balfray while he was investigating two, and possibly three, mysterious deaths.
What of the dangers that lurked on the island until the murders of Thora and Troller Jack, for such they undoubtedly were, could be solved? And, as always, the detective was the prime candidate for a cornered assassin's further violence and his family, if accessible, targets for immediate and savage retribution.
'Papa, Papa.' Kneeling, he clasped them both in his arms.
This is a surprise. I wasn't expecting to see you.'
'But we always come to see Grandma at weekends,' said Rose.
'Now that school has started again,' added Emily.
A quick kiss and they wriggled free to throw themselves into Inga's waiting arms, thrusting the posies they carried at her, hugging and kissing her, while she laughed, breathless and delighted by this onslaught.
She was their friend. Faro listened as they whispered, 'Guess what, Inga? We've been dying to tell you all week...'
The world-shattering confidences were only about school and lessons and classmates. Occasionally they glanced in Papa's direction with a shy smile as if they would like to include him. But Papa would not understand. This tall grave man, who sent them gifts but rarely came to see them, was a stranger.
Their shyness made him unaccountably angry and resentful. Vince misinterpreted his expression and murmured apologetically, 'Aunty usually puts them on the boat on Friday, but they were invited to a birthday party last night.'
'Damn,' said Faro, not quite sure who he was cursing at that moment.
Over their heads Inga smiled at him and, firmly detaching the two little girls, said, 'Go and talk to Papa. He's waiting to hear all your news too.'
Faro sensed a slight shuffling of feet as they approached and lined up before him, studying his face intently, unsmiling. They walked towards the castle, carefully holding their father's hands, deferential strangers giving him their doleful, dutiful attention but with many backward glances in Inga's direction. He felt cut to the heart at this reception, jealous and indignant with Inga because they preferred her.
Having successfully stolen his children's affection and loyalty to their father, she walked a short distance away from them. But, turning towards her, he thought he saw something fleeting and forlorn in her expression. It made him suddenly ashamed of his uncharitable emotions.
'Come and join us,' he said.
'There isn't room for us all on the path.'
'Oh there is, Inga,' wailed Rose. 'Plenty of room.'
'Please,' said Faro. 'I want a word with Vince.'
He noticed how they needed no second bidding, clinging to her arm as they raced ahead, laughing, their voices ringing back to him, bell-like with shrill excitement.
Vince mistook his solemn expression. 'Don't worry about them, Stepfather. They'll be all right. No one at Balfray would harm a child.'
'No one but a murderer who might not share your finer feelings, Vince. Well, did you see the Fiscal?'
'Alas, no. He had to go north for an inquiry only yesterday, and, communication between the islands being what it is, he isn't expected back before Monday.'
'Monday,' said Faro in exasperation. 'Hasn't he an assistant?'
'Yes, but he's away to a wedding in Glasgow.' Vince grinned. 'I was told that I had come at a bad time for accidents, they aren't usually as busy as this.'
'What about the newspapers?'
Vince shook his head. 'No luck there, I'm afraid. They only keep one copy of old papers on file which they're reluctant to let out of the office. You'll have to go in and consult them yourself, I'm afraid.'
'Damn!'
'Why not take the girls back to Kirkwall on Monday morning? You could do it then. Any developments to report?'
Faro told him of his meeting with Saul Hoy. 'He doesn't believe in the necrophilia theory. Everyone, according to him and to Inga, thinks the world of everyone else on this island.'
Vince smiled. 'I know that story. Devoted to Troller, while Thora didn't have an enemy in the world. Grandma will tell you the same thing. It could never occur to any of them that Thora had been poisoned and Troller hit over the head with a spade. It's all sweetness and light here. And you don't believe a word of it?'
Faro nodded. 'Not one word, Vince. There's a cesspool of human emotions underneath it all. Someone's lying. That same someone who has killed twice, and maybe even thrice, if we take Mrs Bliss's unfortunate demise into account.'
His brow darkened with sudden anxiety as he looked towards the happy trio of Inga and his two daughters at the castle door. 'And I suspect the killings might have just begun.'
Mrs Faro was waiting to greet her grandchildren and carried them off to the kitchen, from whence appetising smells of baking were ready to supplement her warm welcome in the material sense, calculated to appeal to children everywhere.
Faro declined one of her nice fresh scones m
ore sharply than was polite.
She looked at him. 'What's wrong, Jeremy? You're looking very sour. Come on, eat something. That'll cheer you up, won't it, Vince?'
Without giving Vince a chance to reply, Faro eyed the scene at the table where the two girls had already forgotten his existence and said, 'I wish you'd consulted me, Mother, before bringing Rose and Emily over.'
Her eyebrows raised. 'Consulted you, dear? Why, I thought it would be a lovely surprise. Your two lovely bairns.'
Her reproach set him shuffling his feet uncomfortably. 'It was ... it was, of course, but.. . ' He scratched his forehead, torn between the necessity of self-justification which would prove him a devoted father but would scare the wits out of his parent. Even he did not feel strong enough to face her reaction to information that within the shadows of Balfray's much-vaunted sweetness and light, there lurked a murderer.
'With the present situation.. .the bereavements and so forth. There'll be the lad's funeral...' he ended lamely.
'Not until next week.'
For once the rather excessive eight days' wake that was traditional on the island was in his favour. At least the Procurator Fiscal should have made his report long before the coffin lid was screwed down.
'Oh, they'll be sad, the little darlings,' said Mrs Faro. 'Troller was always so kind and nice to them. But he's gone to Heaven now - like their poor dear mama. They understand that and they'll be happy for him, knowing he's with Jesus.'
Jeremy Faro shrugged. It was a long time since he had believed in the white-clad harp-playing Heaven of his childhood. Years of man's inhumanity to man, of the close confines of the Edinburgh City Police had killed off his innocent piety.
Now, an indifferent churchgoer he had to confess, the faith that had once been his daily bread was the lip-service to be exhibited by his presence at family funerals, weddings and baptisms. It bore no relation to the love of God that had sustained his mother through bitter years of widowhood.
His reaction to a similar situation had been quite different: instead of being fortified by faith, he now bore the Almighty a grudge, wondering if he would ever forgive Him for taking Lizzie and his newborn son.
'Besides, you needn't worry about them getting in the way. They dote on Inga, she's their willing slave,' Mrs Faro added, thereby heaping coals of fire upon his self-doubts. 'She would make a grand wife for somebody.'
Faro closed his eyes and smiled grimly. His mother was nothing if not predictable and he could have won a substantial bet that those would be her next words.
Mrs Faro was saved from a cutting reply when Norma Balfray entered the kitchen.
'Oh, I'm sorry, I'll come back later.'
'No, please stay.'
'Well,' she said doubtfully, 'I only wanted to talk about food.'
Vince had gone up to his room and Faro decided to linger.
'I do apologise once again for neglecting you, Mr Faro. I have been hoping to have a word with you. Perhaps later?'
Faro was pleased she had seized the initiative. Here was a chance, not to be missed, of gaining additional information about the inmates of Balfray, past and present.
He bowed. 'I'll await you in the garden, Miss Balfray.'
She looked puzzled and he left it to his mother to explain that, regarding all smokers as instruments of the devil, as such they were banned from her kitchen. Mary Faro had been trying for many years, quite unsuccessfully, to prise her only son away from the obnoxious habit that had become a necessity for his often frayed nerves. He did not like also to tell her that pipe smoke, so diabolic to her, was a blessed disguise for the viler smells of death and decay that were his daily lot.
A pipe also helped to clear his head remarkably, so while he waited for more pressing domestic matters to be settled, he sat on a bench in the sheltered courtyard whose worn cobblestones had survived three hundred years.
Light laughter and chatter drifted from within the kitchen and as he relaxed in the still warm sunshine, somewhere close by a robin's song pierced the air with poignant sweetness. Not to woo a mate, nor for humans' pleasure and delight, he knew, but from ancient barbarities old as time. Master Robin was marking out his territory for the cruel winter months ahead, when it would be a duel to the death for any of his kind, kin not excluded, to set beak, wing or claw upon this patch he had marked out as his own.
At the sound of Norma Balfray's quick footsteps he doused the pipe. She saw the action and held out her hand.
'Please, Mr Faro. Not on my account. I have no strong feelings about tobacco. Indeed, I enjoy the fragrance much better than cigars. Francis smokes cigars, you know,' she added - an unnecessary apology.
Faro smiled, pocketed his pipe, and indicated the basket she carried. 'May I?'
She seemed surprised at the offer. 'Oh no. I am just going round to the kitchen garden to collect some vegetables. You might be interested in seeing this part of the castle policies.'
Faro offered to accompany her. As a mere man who ate delicious soups regularly but never questioned where the vegetables originated, how they were planted as seeds and grew to maturity, he doubted that his interest in such a hive of domesticity could be long sustained.
The garden surprised him by its size and the fact that it had been laid out with considerable thought. Every vegetable known to the islands had been included and flourished exceedingly. Even the sheltered walls supported apple and pear trees.
'We are safe from the worst of the autumn gales here. And this,' she pointed to a small enclosure, 'this is Inga's herb garden. Here she makes the potions which are guaranteed to cure all ills. I can't tell you how, with the nearest doctor in Kirkwall before Francis arrived, we all came to rely on dear Inga. It's a gift. She knows everything about medicines. She would have made a marvellous doctor, you know.'
What a sublimely ridiculous notion, thought Faro.
From what Vince had told him, the idea of women doctors was considered preposterous and shocking by those in authority. Apart from a few eccentrics it would never catch on, and was greatly to be discouraged. Only a step above nursing, it was considered a less than respectable profession for gentle ladies.
Curiously enough, he could have imagined Norma in such a role. She looked a tougher version of womankind than he normally encountered in Edinburgh upper-class circles. At first glance she was extremely attractive, even seductive. Closer acquaintance revealed a distinctly mannish quality about her walk. As she matched her steps to his, he observed large hands and feet and a sad lack of those deliciously feminine curves demanded and emphasised by the fashions of the day.
'Have you seen the arbour?' asked Norma.
Faro made a non-committal reply, hardly wanting to explain why Vince had taken him the long way round when he had arrived in Balfray.
Norma led the way. 'It's so pleasant and warm. Shall we sit down here?'
A moment later Faro found himself seated on the same seat where Vince had told him that he suspected Thora Balfray had been poisoned and that her stepsister Norma might well be one of the chief suspects.
He now had a chance to observe her features more closely. Each judged apart was a model of perfection: well-shaped mouth and long straight nose, large expressive grey eyes. But it was as if they had been hastily assembled on her face by a creator in such a hurry to finish the task that the wax had not been quite set and they had slipped out of proper alignment.
But all imperfections were forgotten in that next moment when she laughed. Gone was the polite charming mask he had first encountered and he was taken aback unexpectedly by laughter which was ravishing and invested her countenance with a totally unexpected radiance.
Was it this quality of full-blooded mirth that had once captivated Francis Balfray and now had Reverend Erlandson eager to make her his wife? An attractive, strong and competent wife she would be too and, he did not doubt, blithe in bed and at board.
Anxious not to lose this opportunity of delicately framing his first questions, Faro saw that laughte
r had faded, a slate wiped clean.
'It was about my stepsister Thora I wished to speak to you.' She hesitated. 'I understand that you are a policeman.'
'A detective inspector, actually.'
'That is even better. Detective Inspector,' she sighed. 'Is that how we address you?'
Faro smiled. 'Inspector will do. Or Mr Faro, if you wish.'
She nodded. 'Perhaps you can help us through this dreadful business of the Fiscal's inquiry with as little upset as possible. Like everyone else who knew him, we find it rather hard to understand why poor Troller took Mrs Balfray out of her coffin and laid her on the Odin Stone. But I think we have all, like yourself,' she added with a sidelong glance, 'come to the obvious conclusion.'
'And what would that be, Miss Balfray?'
'That, to his poor demented mind, the stone had magical powers to bring her back to life, of course. Doubtless the effort of lifting her, combined with his injuries when he stumbled and fell down the cliff face in the dark and climbed up again - a little too much to drink, poor boy. Don't you agree?'
'It's certainly within the bounds of possibility,' said Faro, hoping to sound suitably vague and refraining from adding Saul Hoy's testimony.
'And you will impress that upon the Fiscal?' she said anxiously.
'The Fiscal, Miss Balfray, will come to his own conclusions. That is what he is there for.'
'John said he is only called for accidents or suicides.'
Faro saluted the minister's delicacy in not adding murders to the list as she went on, 'We all know it couldn't be suicide. Troller would never have taken his own life. He loved Thora, everyone did, but he was a regular churchgoer. You can ask John about that...'
And Faro found himself listening to protestations which were all becoming rather tiresomely familiar. Statements that were firmly qualified by a considerable amount of 'John says' or 'Francis says'.
Sadly he realised that Norma Balfray had nothing to offer which might throw any new light on his investigations and her sole reason for seeking him out was perfectly obvious. To impress upon him, once again, that Troller's odd behaviour had been for the best possible motives and that there was nothing ignoble or impure intended in his removing her stepsister from her coffin.
Killing Cousins (An Inspector Faro Mystery No.4) Page 10