Ignoring her plea, I said: ‘I’ll take Thane – we’ll find them.’
Thane had come to my side as if he understood the conversation and the urgency. She eyed him doubtfully. ‘He is only a dog. It is a man, a policeman you need.’
There was a logic in that but the clock was ticking relentlessly. I told her again not to worry, that I would find them both, and pushed her towards the door. As she stood there wavering, torn between losing her job and finding Rowena, I made a promise I was far from certain I could keep. I would find them, while reason told me that with several hours’ start, they could be far away indeed.
As I was closing the door, Mabel appeared. ‘What was all that dreadful noise about? That servant screaming her head off about children being kidnapped?’
She had overheard the conversation and instead of consolation said grimly: ‘After my attack, anything is possible. Dark forces are at work,’ she added, echoing Yolande’s sentiments. ‘Would you like to take the pony cart? Where will you start searching?’
I had no idea but there were hours of daylight left. ‘My bicycle is easier to negotiate than the cart over rough ground.’
Thane had been listening. I said to him, ‘We’ll find them, won’t we?’ and he gave me that eager look, that almost human response. I decided I would have to rely on his instincts that were more appropriate to a shooting party and retrieving game than finding little girls who had gone astray.
And I was by no means as confident as I had sounded.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
‘The gipsy camp, Thane.’ I decided that would be the first place to look, but where was it now? Would it still be by the roadside en route to the castle as we had seen it on our journey almost a month ago?
Retracing our steps took some time and I was about to give up in despair when smoke and the distant smell of peat fires indicated the road. The camp was still there.
Our approach had been noticed. I could have wept with relief as Meg and Rowena raced toward us.
They weren’t interested in me or in Yolande’s anxiety.
‘Thane! Oh, Thane!’ They shrieked, laughing with delight, Meg tearful with emotion at her precious pet restored to them.
They flung their arms around him, ignoring my stern remonstrations about Rowena’s mother being out of her mind with worry.
It got through to them at last. Meg looked up and said: ‘It was for Thane we came here, Mam. Rowena knew that her great-grandmother who is the chieftain of the Faws here would have a cure for him. She has wonderful remedies. Rowena says she has cured people who were hurt in battle long ago or poisoned. Isn’t that so?’
Rowena nodded and took my hand shyly. ‘I am sorry to have upset Mamma, but I knew if we told her she would not allow us to come here. I would like you to meet Great-grandmother Katya.’
She led the way through the camp to an exquisitely painted caravan and sitting on the step enjoying a clay pipe was a very, very old woman, her long white hair in braids. Once, when young, she had been beautiful and the remnants of that lost beauty still lingered in her finely carved features.
The introduction was in Romany, I presumed. I wasn’t sure whether a curtsey was indicated. There was no doubt about her regal manner, she was still Queen to her tribe.
After Rowena finished speaking, Katya, who had been observing me closely, nodded and in perfect but halting English, indicated Meg. ‘You are not her mother.’
Rowena looked embarrassed. ‘But she is—’
Katya held up her hand. ‘Be silent, child.’ And pointing to Meg she said: ‘This child you call your daughter, but you did not carry her and bring her into the world.’
I looked at Rowena, I doubted that Meg had ever told her that I was her stepmother.
Katya had not taken her eyes off me. She shook her head. ‘She is not your child, she is Romany.’
That was absurd. I thought of Jack her father, of how like him she was and then I thought of her mother, a woman he met in a Glasgow bar about whom he knew nothing, about whom he never spoke, just as he never spoke of that brief marriage of necessity.
Katya was saying: ‘We keep track of our Faws, those who are the highest in the tribe. This child’s mother and sister did not keep to the rules so they were sent away. Margaret, the child’s mother, and her sister Pam were wilful and disobedient. They wanted a different life but neither had any knowledge of what it was like to be a Faw living in a great city like Glasgow.’
She paused, sighed. ‘It was soon apparent that there was only one means of staying alive. In the age-old tradition of starving women, by selling their bodies. They had good looks to offer. Pam was fortunate, she met a working man who offered her marriage. Margaret met a gringo who set her to work in his public house.’
Pausing, she glanced at Meg who was sitting a few yards away from us laughing happily with Rowena. Thankfully they were not interested in Katya and me as all their attention was on making a great fuss of Thane.
‘Margaret met a policeman.’ Katya pointed to Meg. ‘She became pregnant and he married her but she died shortly after the child was born. Her sister Pam took the little girl, and all was well until she died.’
‘Wait a moment,’ I interrupted, ‘how do you know all this?’
She smiled, a gap-toothed smile which did not mask the ghost of a once lovely face. ‘Because they were inheritors of our dynasty, of the Faws – and we have means of keeping track of important members.’
I shook my head. All she said I knew was true but quite unbelievable. She saw my expression and said: ‘We do more than sell clothes pegs and tell fortunes, dear lady. We have still extra senses which we inherited from the nomadic races centuries ago, like the ability to see into the future, what the gringos call telling fortunes. We believed that everyone on earth was born carrying a map of their future in the palm of their hand.’
I looked at Meg. Was she some sort of a gipsy princess? Jack would never believe that and suddenly I wondered what this queenly old woman intended.
I said: ‘She is our daughter now. We love her, her father, who is a policeman of high rank, absolutely adores her. We had some difficulty tracking her down after her aunt died.’
Katya nodded. ‘Your activities on her behalf were noted, dear lady. We were glad to see her restored to her rightful father. Had the situation been different, then we would have moved in and brought her back to her rightful place in the tribe, where one day she would sit where I do this day.’
I wondered if that was where being kidnapped by gipsies originated, and watching Meg with new eyes, I could not imagine her being happy – and yet, she was fascinated by gipsies. Perhaps something in her being, a strand of recognition she had inherited. Suddenly I was afraid.
As if Katya read my mind, she stretched out a hand and touched me. ‘Do not fear, dear lady, the Faws are happy that she has a good home, we have no intentions of taking her from her father.’ Pausing, she looked towards Meg and said: ‘She has a great inheritance and will go far in your world.’
‘She is very clever, so her teachers tell me.’
Katya smiled. ‘Ah yes, the good nuns. They mean well, but there are other spiritual forces at work as well as the ones they teach.’
I think I knew now how Meg was just a little different from her schoolmates, and had always been so. And seeing her with Rowena, why the two girls had an instant friendship.
Katya followed my gaze. ‘They are not related, except by their tribal origins.’ She pointed to Rowena. ‘Her mother Yolande was also sent away. She also brought disgrace upon the Faws by bearing a child to a gringo man who was already married. But Rowena has made her way back to us, and has been welcomed—’
She was interrupted by a commotion, laughter and shouts of greetings which erupted as a tall man strode across and my heart made its usual giddy jump.
Mr Brown or Elder again. Thane left the girls and raced over to him. A scene repeated of recognition between the man and the deerhound.
Then sti
ll stroking Thane’s head, talking to him, he saw Katya. She had stood up and held out her thin arms.
‘Tam, Tam, it is good to see you, son.’
So he had a first name that wasn’t Saemus, the Gaelic for Thomas.
She hugged him and they spoke in Romany, about me and the girls, judging by their glances in our direction.
He smiled at me, shook his head and sighed. ‘So we meet again.’
My thoughts were racing. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I met Yolande in hysterics. Rowena had been kidnapped, Meg with her, and that you had gone in search of them.’
‘And you just guessed that I had come to the gipsy camp.’
Again he smiled. ‘Just as I told you, I know everything.’ Then he added, ‘These people are old friends of mine, miss. And I guessed if the two lasses weren’t with them, they would certainly be the people to find them. Now, shall we go, get Rowena back to her mother as fast as we can?’
Katya had been listening, so he didn’t need to translate, she was nodding approvingly. Meg and Rowena came over, explaining about the cure they thought Katya would have for Thane, but it had taken longer than they thought. They had lost track of time but fortunately Thane didn’t need a cure.
Katya took my hands in parting. ‘It has been good to meet you, dear lady, and to know that you will be a good mother to our lost child. She will be happy and content with you and her father, a good man for a gringo policeman.’ And nodding vigorously, ‘We are very pleased with him. It seems that all worked out well in the end. Sadly, not at all well for poor Pam, whose husband is one of your people and a ne’er-do-well.’
And so we left them, the girls holding a hand each of the man whose first name I now knew.
This was the twilight hour known romantically in Scotland as the gloaming where the world takes on a special glow and the tall trees settle down to sleep. It was a romantic night, for there was a full moon, and I felt a little isolated, listening to the gentle laughter of the trio in front, Thane and I walking behind as I pushed my bicycle through the narrow tracks in the wood.
Suddenly I realised we had missed the track back to the cottage. A moment’s panic. Where were we heading?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Ahead of us, the girls stopped and waited.
‘What is wrong?’
‘Nothing wrong.’ He pointed. ‘This is the quick way back to the castle. Yolande will be waiting anxiously for Rowena.’
It was considerably shorter. He certainly knew his directions and a few minutes later, Rowena was restored to her tearful mother who couldn’t decide whether to slap her for disobedience or cuddle and kiss her in relief.
Her rescuer was thanked profusely and turning about we were heading back down the road to the cottage. With Meg and Thane leading the way, I cursed the bicycle that kept me apart from the man who kept appearing in my life, so full of surprises.
‘Let me,’ he said and took over the bicycle, pushing it with one hand, he offered an arm.
I decided thanks were in order. ‘You were very clever to guess about Katya’s camp. You headed in the right direction.’
‘Thane pretty much led the way.’ He smiled.
I said: ‘I remembered seeing you with the gipsies on the day we arrived to take up our holiday cottage at Balmoral.’
‘As I told you, they are my friends. I am always welcome with them. Katya is an old friend.’
All too soon for me, the cottage was in sight. Meg turned, ran back and threw her arms around him. ‘Thank you, sir.’ And with a reproachful look in my direction. ‘We were never in any danger, Mam. It seemed a good idea of Rowena’s that her great-grandma could make Thane better.’
‘And someone succeeded, didn’t they, old chap?’ Thane was having his head stroked and added his thanks by wagging his tail energetically. With Meg he ran down the path and vanished indoors, leaving me alone with the man who I had reason to believe, however reluctantly, had attacked Mabel and killed Lily and Bobby.
I thought of the clues, the evidence I had lined up against him. My prime suspect. If he hadn’t killed them, then who had? It was a sickening thought but I had to know.
‘The girl who drowned,’ I said slowly. ‘She was Miss Penby Worth’s maid.’
He seemed to know that. He nodded. ‘The lady with the pony-cart. Ah, yes I often see her watching the shooting party.’
‘As you know, she was attacked in the wood. Did you see the man?’
He shook his head. ‘All I saw was this lady in hysterics, saying a sack had been thrown over her head and someone had tried to kill her.’
He sounded faintly amused. I gave him a hard look and said. ‘Apparently your arrival saved her. He ran off.’
‘Was she hurt?’ He didn’t sound very concerned.
‘Fortunately, no. Just shocked, terribly scared.’
He nodded. ‘Are you sure she didn’t imagine it?’
‘Of course not. Why should she?’
He was smiling again. ‘Ladies can sometimes let their imagination run away with them where men are concerned.’
I couldn’t think of a reply and didn’t feel like defending Mabel, but the time had come to thank him and not knowing quite where to begin, wanting to extend the moment, I said: ‘You must have thought us very foolish, Yolande and I getting into such a state about our little girls.’
‘Children are very precious, the greatest of gifts,’ he said. There was a sadness in his voice.
Was he married then? ‘Have you any family?’
He looked away, his expression unreadable, blotted out by the moonlight behind us. ‘I had once, a very long time ago, I think.’
It was an odd statement and the silence indicated that I was not to hear any more about that. The moment was almost over. I could think of nothing to say to extend it, to detain him.
As he took my outstretched hand, the moonlight touched a curiously shaped scar on his bare wrist.
‘Have you been hurt?’ I asked.
He put his hand over it. ‘No, that is my passport.’
‘Passport to what?’
He didn’t answer, perhaps there was no answer.
I said, ‘Thank you, Mr Elder – or is it Tam?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not Elder, it’s Eildor. Tam Eildor.’ And leaning forward, his face blotted out the light as he kissed my cheek. So gently, a butterfly touch, so swift that later I would wonder if I had dreamt it. ‘Fare you well, Rose McQuinn.’
I wanted to say something about our paths crossing again. But the words stuck in my throat for those five words of his held finality and I knew that this was farewell, that we were never to meet again.
Thane had returned. He was watching us both intently. ‘And you too, old chap, watch over her.’
Inside the cottage everything was normal again. Mabel had retired long ago and Meg had her supper, full of chatter about the gipsies and how she would love to live in a caravan. I thought of what Katya had told me and decided that maybe one day when she was grown up I would tell her the story of her Romany mother. But not now and certainly not before I told Jack. And I wondered about that too. Would it stir the old unhappy memories? Was this a secret best kept to myself?
I didn’t sleep well that night. The evening’s events had given me so much to think about.
I also came to my senses that night and realised that he was not really like Danny at all, after that first impression. As I now knew him I saw that the illusion was mine alone. Clever Vince who knew me well had spotted the superficial likeness, the dark hair falling over his brow, his height, the way he walked.
But those eyes, strange, luminous, amber-coloured, by no stretch of imagination could they be described as Irish blue eyes, and I knew now that I had been writing him into the role of Danny.
Tam wasn’t a gipsy, but having seen him with Katya I knew there was something beyond the powers of explanation. A common bond, like the one Thane recognised, man and deerhound sharing that strange extra s
ense most humans had lost long ago, existing in only a few of us still as rare flashes of intuition. The precious link between the present and an ancient forgotten code that rules still in secret places on our earth, like Arthur’s Seat that had carried Thane into the present day and into our lives.
And even with all my ingenuity for interpreting clues, real or false, and for once losing my prime suspect, here was one mystery I could never hope to solve.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
With only a couple of days before the Games and our departure, it was time to think about repacking, leaving the cottage in the same immaculate condition as it was when we moved in. Vince said not to bother, that the two servants would do it. But my pride would not allow that, especially for Rowena’s mother. I felt I must leave Yolande with a good impression.
I approached the task thankful to be returning home in normal circumstances, but I would never cease to regret that having lost my prime suspect I had not been able to solve what I would continue to regard as the murder of Lily, and of Bobby who had known her and had met with an unfortunate fatal accident, with all the evidence pointing to the fact that he had been killed by whoever he was blackmailing for more money.
Then there was Mabel’s attacker. Inspector Gray had got no further with finding him. Finally the attack on Alice von Mueller. Although her assailant’s description could also have fitted that of Mabel’s, I was not convinced that there was any connection. It sounded much more like a hit man at the sinister instigation of her husband.
If all of these incidents were connected and no killer had been apprehended, then we had to conclude that there was a potential assassin in Balmoral, who bore all the marks of an insane creature who would kill again when I, along with Inspector Gray, had walked away leaving two murders and two attempted ones unsolved.
And always, there was no escaping that one vital element.
The motive. In Lily’s case, her death seemed motiveless. When I talked to Bobby at Crathie, he was terrified. He said he had been threatened by someone in authority, a man with a posh voice, who had given him ten quid to clear out. And although that fitted Vince’s interpretation of Biggs having given offence to someone at the Castle, I was sure that there was a deeper, more sinister reason. His association with Lily. Was he killed because believing he loved her, Lily had confided in him or asked for his help?
The Balmoral Incident Page 20