The Ghost of Helen Addison

by Charles E. McGarry

  Fordyce gently called him out of his coma. His friend was cradling his head, pressing a white handkerchief to his scalp in order to stem the bleeding. Behind him towered Detective Inspector Lang, who looked on from atop the vestibule steps.

  ‘Oh, I feel terrible,’ croaked Leo.

  ‘You’ll be all right, old stick.’

  ‘Why did you . . . come over?’

  ‘After you left I went back to my suite. Just after one o’clock I wandered down to the boatyard and you evidently still hadn’t returned. I started to get a bit worried about you, so I sought out Detective Inspector Lang and he kindly agreed to take me over in the police boat.’

  ‘Did you see anyone approaching or leaving the island?’

  ‘No. As I said, I had repaired to my hotel room.’

  ‘The hammer and chisel?’

  ‘Gone,’ confirmed Fordyce.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ll get you new ones.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, old stick, as long as you’re all right.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Lang. ‘Let’s get you back. Any ideas as to who it might have been?’

  ‘It could have been the baron’s man,’ proposed Leo.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t McKee, Dreghorn or Rattray. They’ve been in the hotel bar since opening time,’ stated the policeman.

  Lang and Fordyce each hooked an arm under Leo’s shoulders and half dragged, half lifted him towards the boats. Lang took the police boat while Fordyce piloted the Fairy Queen with the stricken Leo languishing in the bow. As they ploughed the grey water he had begun to shiver uncontrollably, having been lying in the cold for some considerable period of time, and Fordyce stopped to drape his coat over him. Once they had landed, Lang drove them the short distance from the boatyard to the hotel. He was unimpressed by Leo’s escapade, and before dropping them off he murmured some vague threat in legalese about ‘violation of sepulchre’. The policeman had already briefly assessed the scene for clues with an eagle eye. The only items of note were fresh male footprints leading to and away from the top of the vestibule steps which were too large to match those of the killer. Two of them were superimposed upon Leo’s recent imprints, meaning they doubtless belonged to the assailant. Lang said he would have Forensics come over to take a look at them.

  Leo was made comfortable in his bed by Fordyce, who insisted that he call the local GP. Dr Fitzpatrick was a small, quietly-spoken Englishman who inspected Leo’s head through severe black-rimmed spectacles. The patient winced as he applied iodine to the cut and mended it using butterfly stitches before swathing his head in bandages. The physician recommended going to Oban for an X-ray but Leo stubbornly refused. Leo enquired about Helen, who had briefly been the doctor’s colleague, but received no information of value from the taciturn man, who then left without ceremony.

  A concerned Bill Minto dropped by with some beef tea. They chatted pleasantly and Minto happened to mention the fact that the baron had dined in the hotel at lunchtime with his manservant.

  ‘You’re sure the baron’s man was with him – that tough-looking fellow?’ checked Leo.

  ‘Yes, Kemp was there. I know because I served them myself, in our private dining room.’

  ‘So,’ said Fordyce, once Minto had gone, ‘it doesn’t sound as though the baron is to blame.’

  ‘Hmm,’ agreed Leo reluctantly.

  ‘Could it have been the murderer who attacked you?’

  ‘Possibly. Although Lang said the shoe size won’t be a match. I’d like to find out what’s so special about that tomb.’

  ‘Well, you won’t be doing any more finding out today, laddie!’ commanded Fordyce.

  Leo was happy to obey. He felt groggy and nauseous and his head hurt, and even he struggled to concoct an excuse for taking a drink. He did however see an opportunity to use the situation to his advantage and make peace with Stephanie. He texted her, informing her of his mishap.

  She responded within two minutes. ‘OMG! RU OK?!!!’

  ‘I am beaten but unbowed,’ he replied after a while. ‘The doctor wishes to hospitalise me in Oban but I will resolutely stick to my task.’

  ‘FFS! Was it the killer?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘U shld cum home!’

  ‘I never realised you cared,’ he teased, detecting real anxiety in her abridged messages.

  Fordyce proceeded to nurse his friend attentively for the remainder of the afternoon and early evening. Leo fervently wished to avoid having to reject his rather clumsy overtures. He didn’t want to hurt Fordyce’s feelings, but also, if truth be told, he felt rather flattered by the interest. And so their mutual, unspoken little game endured: Fordyce – subtly, so as to allow deniability should it be required – playing the incorrigible flirt; Leo either pretending not to notice, or else coyly fending off the advances.

  Just after eight in the evening an official-sounding knock at the door announced Lang’s arrival. Fordyce left the room.

  ‘How’s the head?’ enquired the inspector.

  ‘Its magnificent exterior gives me complaint, but thankfully its precious cargo is undamaged.’

  ‘Why were you trying to break into that tomb?’

  ‘I had a vision,’ replied Leo weakly.

  ‘Two days ago you reproached me for not sharing information on the case. Now you tell me you’ve had one of your hallucinations and decided to act upon it alone – and illegally, I might add – without telling me. I’m decidedly unimpressed, Mr Moran.’

  ‘I am legitimately rebuked. It’s just that you would never have been granted a search warrant on the strength of a man’s dream.’

  Lang paused. ‘You’re right. But you could still have let me know what you had planned.’

  ‘I give you my word, Detective Inspector, that from now on I will be fastidious in sharing everything with you, even items of apparently the least significance.’

  ‘All right then, in that spirit, tell me the exact content of this latest vision.’

  ‘I saw Helen and Craig together in the woods, being watched by the murderer, which chimes with the diary entry you found.’

  ‘Perhaps the diary entry invoked the dream,’ suggested Lang.

  ‘I saw black rites being performed on Innisdubh,’ continued Leo, ignoring the detective’s interruption, ‘which correlates with the theory I expatiated to you two days ago. Then I was inside the tenth baron’s mausoleum, where I again saw the figure dressed in robes and hood. It smote at me with some sort of talisman, conjuring up an explosion of light. In none of these images was the key protagonist’s identity revealed to me.’

  Lang seemed to consider this data for a moment, then said, ‘I wonder if it was the baron’s man who attacked you. He’ll be of a large shoe size, and the old boy did seem awfy offended at your presence on that island the other day.’

  ‘No,’ replied Leo. ‘Bill was here earlier and informed me that Kemp was dining at the hotel with his employer.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ll need to have a good think about today’s events. If it’s got anything to do with Helen’s murder then I want to know everything about it. I’ve asked around, to find out if anyone saw a boat approaching or leaving Innisdubh while you were over there, but I drew a blank. I’ve also had some men search the vicinity of the mausoleum, for any other clues as to who attacked you, but they found nothing.’

  Lang left, and Fordyce came back in, and once he had been persuaded to stop fussing and leave his patient in peace, Leo clicked off his bedside lamp and fell into a deep and unusually dreamless slumber, which soothed his wound and troubles like a heavenly balm.

  18

  THE next morning Leo felt slightly hungover, and had to remind himself that he had been unusually abstemious the night before. His skull continued to ache somewhat, but the sensation had reduced to a dull throb, and he felt steady on his feet when he got up to use the lavatory. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he washed his hands: the wounded hero with the picturesque dressing on his head.

>   He ordered a late breakfast in bed, just porridge drizzled with golden syrup and a pot of strong coffee. He also took an immodest nip from his hip flask – purely medicinal, he assured himself.

  Fordyce looked in on him. ‘How’s the patient?’

  ‘Much better, thank you,’ replied Leo, foregoing his customary hypochondria.

  ‘You certainly look a bit brighter. You should take it easy today, old stick.’

  ‘Hmm. I’m thinking of getting out and about. The fresh air will do me good.’

  ‘Sorry, old man, I can’t permit that – doctor’s orders, don’t you know.’

  ‘I need to speak with the Grey Lady.’

  ‘You mean Lady Jane Elizabeth Charlotte Audubon-MacArthur, Laird of Fallasky.’

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘They’re old friends of the family.’

  Leo harrumphed. His allegiance to left-wing ideals was typical of West of Scotland Tims; socialism was imbibed with their mother’s milk along with the other two aspects of the holy trinity: the Roman Catholic Church and Celtic FC. If there was one aspect to Britain Leo despised it was the class system, and sometimes this objection spilled into inverted snobbery.

  Fordyce, meanwhile, decided for once to resist the usual sense of guilt for his wealth and status, and enquired: ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I should have known.’

  ‘Known what?’

  ‘That you privileged lot are all pals together.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Leo.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you are filled with class hatred. It is unworthy of you.’

  ‘I’ve always been a great champion of the underdog. I’m well known for it,’ Leo ventured feebly, suitably chastised.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll let her know you’re planning to call,’ said Fordyce. ‘She’s a very private person. She doesn’t like to be taken by surprise by unexpected visitors.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Leo said grudgingly. ‘I’m hoping to find out more about this Bosco character.’

  As Leo washed and dressed he ruminated over the events of the last few days: the attack upon his person, the people he had met, the places he had been. And he brooded over how speculative his efforts at finding the killer seemed. It was as though his unconscious was leading him a merry dance.

  Fordyce, exasperated by his friend’s insistence that he get out of bed and go about his business, had struck a compromise whereby he enlisted Robbie to drive Leo to and from his destination in his beat-up Land Rover, despite the Grey Lady’s abode, Fallasky House, being a mere knight’s move from the hotel. Fordyce escorted Leo as far as the hotel portico and took his leave of him.

  Leo felt rather peculiar as he faced the morning and waited for McKee to arrive. The day was filthy and drab. A cruel wind, which threatened to swell to gale-force, scourged his face with drops of rain. To the west, a cumulonimbus incus cloud formation stacked up ominously against the horizon.

  Shona Minto happened by, and enquired as to his wellbeing.

  ‘I’m perfectly all right, thank you for asking,’ replied Leo politely.

  ‘Off out, are we?’

  ‘I’m waiting for Robbie.’

  ‘Oh, tell him I have a job of work for him, would you? I need some things moved. Mind you, the way he’s been acting lately I’m not sure he’s fit for it.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to pass that on,’ Leo said stiffly.

  ‘I saw you heading up towards the glen the other day. Visiting James Millar, were we?’

  ‘Just taking my constitutional,’ fibbed Leo, irked by the woman’s nosiness.

  ‘It’s easier walking up there since they put in the stepping stones, though they put me off somewhat. I much prefer the wild country for hiking. Too much of a free spirit,’ she declared with a false smile, before disappearing into the hotel.

  ‘Free spirit indeed!’ muttered Leo, ‘you’re a bloody Tory!’

  McKee duly arrived in his ancient vehicle, the bodywork of which was a rust-lined patchwork from different paint jobs and panel replacements. The inside of the cab had a musty smell like stale breadcrumbs, and the journey was conducted in silence, but for the monotonous thudding of the windscreen wipers, which were on at a higher speed than was necessary and only served to spread grime over the glass. Leo’s head was still cloudy from the attack and from being so absorbed of late in intense meditations regarding the murder case. Therefore he simply could not come up with any topic for conversation. The saturnine McKee, meanwhile, wore a haunted expression on his face and remained quite oblivious to convention’s demand for social intercourse. He seemed somewhat anaesthetised to the cold, wearing only a sleeveless jerkin on top of a faded Rangers away top, which was a size too small for his bulky chassis, and he had evidently forgotten about the dead roll-up cigarette tucked between his lips. In spite of his driver’s foibles, Leo felt sure this fellow was innocent of Helen’s murder. He had by now equated McKee with one of the people from the vision he had experienced at church in Glasgow: the slow-witted man, the man who had been drowning in a sea of false accusations. And apart from anything else, the real killer had covered his tracks with great effectiveness, and Robbie surely lacked such guile. Also, the crime clearly had an occult element, and McKee just didn’t fit the bill. Leo therefore worried about something Fordyce had told him a few days ago: that the police seemed to view Robbie as a prime suspect.

  McKee dropped Leo at the impressive gates of Fallasky House, which were entwined with two wrought-iron serpents. Fading coats of arms were embossed upon the gateposts. He tried the handle and the right-hand gate opened with a creak worthy of any Hammer film. He walked up the cinder path towards the house, beneath a louring sky, taking in the environs as he went. Within thickets of rhododendron, laurel and holly he could discern a grotto shrine to Our Lady of the Snows with a perfect-white statue in ecstatic contemplation. Set upon the splendid lawn were dormant display beds, various classical statues, a bird bath, a lectern-shaped sundial and, by a pond, a weeping willow which Leo imagined would look magnificent in summertime. He had a sense that acres of enclosed policies stretched out from the opposite side of the mansion. The breeze hissed in a chase of huge fir trees which overlooked the southern side of the lawn and house, and a pair of hooded crows croaked irascibly as they hopped around, patrolling their territory. The brisk wind seemed to add a melodramatic edge to Leo’s mission; he fancied for a moment he was being filmed in movie close-up.

  Fallasky House itself was beautiful if rather creepy. The façade was of blond stone which had been aged by more than a century and a half’s exposure to weather, and further darkened by spreading tendrils of ivy. The south wing was a square tower with parapet, from which extended the main spine of the edifice. Off this projected three front gables with the original sash windows still in place. These gables were craw-stepped in a paler stone from the facing, and ten magnificent chimneys and several dormer windows protruded from the roofs. Leo pretended not to notice the figure watching him from one of these. He must have presented rather a curious customer as he strode forth armed with Fordyce’s walking stick, his head swathed in bandages, a tuft of unmanageable mouse-brown hair sticking up, his expressive face betraying his every thought as he surveyed the scene.

  The rain had intensified, so Leo was glad to make the porch and pull the bell. As he waited he scraped his shoes and admired the fine, dark-red wrought-iron lacework. In a while the door opened.

  Leo could barely discern the person framed by the gloom of the hallway, but after a pregnant period a voice called out stridently, at last putting him at his ease: ‘You must be Leo! Do come in out of that beastly dreich weather.’

  ‘Thank you, madam.’

  ‘Please, call me Jane – any friend of Fordyce’s, and all that.’

  Once in the hallway Leo’s eyes quickly adapted to the light. It was a fine, late Georgian chamber, the floor tiled in an oblique geometric pattern of gold, rose and violet which shot off down corridors to either side. A s
tunning chandelier filled the stairwell. A grand staircase with heavy mahogany banisters curved up from the left to a half-landing, beneath which was an archway leading to the rear quarters. Above the landing was the hall’s, and indeed the entire house’s, centrepiece: a marvellous window depicting the birth of spring, and Leo, ever the aesthete, couldn’t help but stare at it in awe.

  ‘You like the window?’

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything so perfect!’

  ‘You are most kind. Grandpapa, like his father, was a Victorian Romantic and polymath, and among other architectural items he championed stained glass. He had it commissioned after we lost the original – a far plainer affair – in a storm. When the sun shines in through it on a summer’s morn it is like standing inside a Kandinsky.’

  Suddenly, Leo could feel his father’s eyes upon him, and he resolved not to be seduced by the opulence and glamour of nobility. Such is how the Establishment recruits its minions and perpetuates itself, he chided. Instead, think upon the poverty wages that built this mansion. Think upon the crime behind every great fortune. Think of the skilled, hardworking craftsmen who were paid a pittance as the rich luxuriated amid splendour they hadn’t lifted a finger to create.

  Yet Leo couldn’t help but like the Grey Lady. She had the inevitable Anglicised accent, with a slightly husky smoker’s catch, but something about her demeanour was down-to-earth and not in the least stuffy. She was aged approximately seventy and wore her grey hair, which was straight and quite long, down. Her eyes, too, were grey, and sparkled with wit and intelligence. She was attired in a mocha long-sleeved dress with a crocheted bodice. However, these muted tones clashed eccentrically with her bright stockings and loud silk scarf, printed with images of botanical blooms, under which she wore purple heliotrope beads and a yellow-gold Celtic cross. Such vibrant colours were converse to her local sobriquet, Leo noted.