Ghost Walk (17 page)

It all came out then. I was telling someone, my dear Vince, for the very first time that I was pregnant. At once, it seemed the farm kitchen was transformed into a doctor’s consulting room and across the table, placing his fingertips together, he asked the questions and I gave the answers.

At the end, he sighed, ‘This isn’t an unusual situation by any means, Rose. Rather the reverse, in fact.’ He paused. ‘Does Jack know?’

‘Of course not. We’ve never discussed such possibilities.’

Vince’s eyebrows shot heavenward at that and shaking his head, he said softly, ‘He might even like the idea.’ Watching my
expression
, he added gently, ‘Don’t you think it’s about time –’

‘I certainly do not. I would never want Jack to feel under an obligation of any kind.’

Vince smiled and leaned back in his chair. ‘I hardly think obligation is the correct word, Rose dear. Jack simply adores you – he has been waiting for an opportunity to slip that wedding ring on your finger since I first met him.’

‘So now is his big chance,’ I snapped, sounding grimmer than I felt.

Vince looked at me sharply. ‘I take it that you do want to marry him?’

‘Oh yes – sometime. I’m fairly sure of that.’

‘There isn’t anyone else?’

‘Of course not!’ (Except Danny, conscience whispered.)

Vince smiled. ‘I don’t see the problem then. All seems pretty straightforward.’

‘His mother is a bit of a trial,’ I added weakly. ‘Do you know, she hasn’t even told people here in Eildon that I am a widow. Introduces me as Miss Faro,’ I said indignantly.

Vince shook his head and, leaning across the table, he took my
hand. ‘Cheer up, Rose. You don’t have to live under the same roof as Jack’s mother. An occasional visit is all that will be required of you.’

I was silent.

‘Come along, Rose,’ he said just a trifle impatiently. ‘This isn’t the end of the world.’

‘Oh, is it not? It might well be the end of my world though. I can’t see myself pushing a perambulator while I search for clues.’

Vince laughed, obviously he found that image more amusing than I did. ‘Then Jack might well be pleased about that too. After all, solving crimes is what the police are paid for.’

On an impulse I decided to tell him about my discovery of Father McQuinn’s body and Mrs Aiden’s mysterious death. He listened attentively but I was disappointed in his reaction.

‘Accidents, both of them, surely.’

I was taken aback, having had expected him to be rather more concerned than a mere dismissive shrug.

‘Surely it’s obvious to you that the priest was murdered? – the candlestick, the bloodstains – so carefully removed afterwards.’

‘The candlestick might not have been a murder weapon,
perhaps
he merely reached out to try and save himself as he fell. Besides who would want to kill them, Rose? Think about it. It doesn’t make sense. Where’s the motive? Remember Pappa’s words. There must be a motive for murder. Find it and you’re halfway to solving any crime.’

That was true. There was no apparent motive but I was certain that the priest had been murdered.

‘Even Constable Bruce thought I might be right – especially about the housekeeper.’

Vince laughed, shook his head. ‘Then leave it to your
policeman
to solve the mystery. That’s his business, not yours, Rose. You are here to get married in a few days’ time, not to play
detective
. I should have thought that as bride-to-be, you would have more than enough to keep you occupied.’

I looked at him angrily. First Jack and now Vince. Men can be so infuriating and that goes for beloved stepbrothers too. I had expected better things of Vince so I told him about the stalker, the man watching me from the Abbey Tower shortly after I arrived.

He didn’t find that in the least alarming. He grinned and gave me an appreciative glance. ‘Let’s just say that you’re well worth watching.’

So here we were, back with a man’s favourite taunt. Any pretty woman, a good excuse for a voyeur.

But there was more to it than that. Vince had another ready explanation. Scratching his cheek, he said seriously, ‘Have you ever considered another possibility? That it wasn’t you he was watching in particular, Rose. With this security scare about Royal safety and the Jubilee celebrations, perhaps the police already have the whole area under careful surveillance.’

I still had two more cards to play. The Claddagh ring lying upstairs in my jewel box, the ring I thought was Danny’s. The message Sister Mary Michael had received, or believed she had received from Danny. Sadly I guessed that my very practical
stepbrother
would dismiss the former as coincidence and the latter as the confused memory typical of a nonagenarian.

At that moment, however, footsteps announced the return of Jack’s mother with his father, commanded to change out of his muddy boots at the back door.

Vince was welcomed. Invited to take a dram – or two, which Vince did most willingly, it was some time before he felt free to leave for Verney Castle, the coachman already seated statue-like on the carriage as if impervious to time’s passing.

As we walked outside with Vince, I said, ‘There’s someone else I want you to meet. An old friend,’ I said triumphantly and led him to the stable to see Thane who greeted him with polite
interest
.

As Vince had never been quite certain that the deerhound was
not another figment of my imagination, I was glad to watch his expression as Jack’s father related the story of Thane’s dramatic recovery and for the first time I observed that Thane was now devoted to Andrew Macmerry.

I was faintly jealous although I should have been grateful that he spent so much time in the farmer’s company, since the walks I took him on each day were strictly limited in the kind of exercise a large deerhound needed.

At last it was time for Vince to leave. Suddenly he turned to me and said: ‘I’ve been thinking about Jack’s letter. If you’re really anxious about your wedding gown arriving in time, you could come back to Edinburgh with me – I can’t bring you back –’

‘What a great idea,’ I said excitedly. ‘I can catch the evening train. It stops at Eildon.’

‘Very well. I’ll call for you on the way back from Verney – in about an hour.’

I promised to be ready. What bliss, I thought, a few more hours with Vince and the chance to be in my own home again for even just a short time would be extremely useful.

Should I take Thane with me, give him the chance to resume his old life on Arthur’s Seat?

I wondered about that. Had living with a family changed him? Had we turned my mysterious deerhound into a mere
domesticated
pet dog?

I decided to rely on the strange telepathy we shared. I would give Thane the chance to accompany me back to Edinburgh in the hope that his reactions to seeing me get into the carriage with Vince would provide the answer.

It didn’t happen. When Vince returned for me, Thane was not in the stable.

‘He’ll be off again with Andrew,’ said Jack’s mother. ‘That Dog might be a very useful animal some day, if Andrew goes about it and trains him the right way.’

The thought struck horror into my heart. What had I done?
Thane as a mere farm dog herding sheep was somehow a shaming thought.

Feeling somewhat sheepish myself, I got into the carriage beside Vince, consoling my conscience with the thought that Thane’s disappearance was his way of telling me that he knew my mind and that he was quite happy to stay in Eildon and await my return.

Jack’s mother rushed out as we were about to leave.

‘Here, you’ll need these,’ she said handing us both a neatly packed parcel.

When we looked surprised, she said, ‘Food for the journey. There’ll be not a bite for you back in that place you live, Rose.’

I smiled. Like Mrs McQuinn she always found it difficult, not to say impossible, to get around to Solomon’s Tower as my home.

‘I’ve made some sandwiches and things so you’ll not starve before you get back tonight,’ she added sternly.

And then, with one of her more endearing smiles to Vince, her eyes actually twinkled, I thought, as she said, ‘And this for you, lad. There’ll be nothing to eat on that train you’re catching. This’ll keep you going till you get to yon castle at Balmoral.’

We were both grateful, thanked her profusely. To be honest I certainly hadn’t thought of food for the day and neither had Vince.

‘Take care of yourselves,’ and to me, she added sternly. ‘Andrew’ll see That Dog is properly fed.’

‘Wasn’t that nice of her,’ said Vince and I cast aside anxious thoughts about Thane, eager to hear Vince’s reactions to the Verneys.

As we bowled along so smoothly in the well-sprung carriage, I gathered he had been made most welcome, Lady Amelia a willing patient. That was all the information I could expect from Vince, respecting the law of confidentiality between doctor and patient.

‘Lord Verney is an anxious husband, most amiable and concerned and they are a very devoted couple – but quite
bewildered!’

‘In what way?’ I enquired.

Vince shook his head. ‘There they are living in a castle, striving to keep abreast of modern inventions. His lordship is proud of being a model landlord, keen to impress on me that, like Her Majesty, he has electricity and even the cottages on his model estate now have gas installed.

‘As for the castle itself, I generally take little notice. I’m fairly immune to ostentatious wealth and only wish H M had not made it de rigueur to fill every tiny space with some object d’art.

‘Verney Castle is an exception in that I have never seen so many original great works of art outside a gallery. Everywhere one looks there is evidence of wealth and there is the irony of it all. His lordship takes it as a personal affront that surrounded with so much of the world’s goods, nature has denied them the simple blessing bestowed on the humblest mortals of an abundance of children. A blessing I have to say that many of his tenants would be pleased to avoid.’

Pausing he smiled and looked at me. ‘I take it that you have not yet been invited to the castle –’

I shook my head. ‘Indeed I have. I’ve been specially requested to attend Alexander’s birthday party – and instructed to bring Thane too.’

Vince laughed. ‘I wish I could be there. That will bring a touch of mayhem to Lady Amelia’s caste of small very noisy lap dogs.’

‘Did you meet Alexander?’ I asked.

‘No, just a fleeting glimpse – Lady Amelia pointed him out – walking in the gardens with his governess –’

‘Who is his lordship’s young cousin, Annette Verney. And thereby hangs a tale –’

But the complicated story of Annette’s love life was to remain untold as the carriage cornered sharply, narrowly avoiding
collision
with a farm cart and earning our inscrutable coachman a
steady flow of ripe abuse.

‘That was nearly a nasty accident,’ said Vince as the
coachman
, having ascertained that we were unhurt, set off again. ‘And talking of accidents, it was as well I had my bag of tools with me at Verney, as I had to administer first aid to Lord Verney’s new secretary. Just arrived a few days ago – from Dublin. Fell running for the train.

‘I had some patching up to do and I must say, the condition of his back and chest would suggest a lifetime in boxing or other aggressive sports, rather than the peaceful life one would attribute to a don from Trinity College.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Indeed. Dr Finbar Blayney had some very interesting scars for the scholar Lord Verney has engaged in the belief that he will add his expertise to cataloguing ancient family documents and his collection of art.’

‘You sound doubtful, Vince. Was it just the scars?’

Vince shook his head. ‘For a classics scholar, his knowledge of Latin was extremely shaky. There were some medical terms in
frequent
use which seemed well above his head. And you know how fond I am of my Latin tags.’

Pausing he grinned at me apologetically since they had been a sore trial to my sister Emily and I in childhood days.

When I groaned, he laughed. ‘You still remember “nunquam non paratus”?’

It was my turn to smile. ‘“Always ready” is engraved on my heart!’

Vince grimaced. ‘The simplest most common quotation that every schoolboy or schoolgirl with a decent education might recognise. But not so Dr Finbar Blayney, Classics scholar. He just frowned, stared at me blankly.’

And shaking his head, ‘the incident left me with considerable doubts about his abilities to perform the cataloguing task that Lord Verney has in mind.’

‘There might have been a simpler reason, Vince.’

‘Indeed. Name one!’

I smiled. ‘A very ordinary reason the clever doctor failed to diagnose. Perhaps the scholar is a little deaf.’

‘Hmphh,’ grunted Vince, who did not like to be put at fault.

And there the conversation ended. The carriage was now bowling along the Dalkeith Road. Arthur’s Seat held the skyline to the east, dominating, majestic.

I felt a growing sense of excitement, once we reached Coffin Lane, Solomon’s Tower would be in sight. I would be home once more.

The carriage stopped outside the Tower, its ancient stone
suggesting
that it had evolved independently as an extension of that extinct volcano, Arthur’s Seat, looming above us.

Waving the coachman’s assistance aside, Vince handed me down and, taking the key, opened the front door. Staring into the dark interior, he asked anxiously: ‘Are you sure you will be all right, Rose?’

I said of course and, solemnly consulting his watch, he sighed: ‘I would love to come in for a while, but – the Ballater train. I have so little time –’

A kiss, a hug and an assurance that we would meet soon and he was back in the carriage, a hand out of the window. I waved back, watching it disappear down the road again towards the city, momentarily overcome by sadness at yet another brief interlude with Vince and that inevitable parting.

True, he always tried to leave me in good heart, holding on to the promise of an early meeting which, alas, mostly failed to materialise and, as I stepped into the Tower, I already had doubts whether he would manage to fit my wedding into Her Majesty’s erratic and constantly changing plans for the Royal household.

However, my gloomy thoughts were soon overcome by the excitement of this temporary homecoming as I thought of the many times in Eildon when I had been longing for just this moment.

But like all such dreams the reality was somewhat different and homecoming not quite as I had imagined. I was alone for the first time in weeks and once inside the Tower with the door closed, I felt its vast emptiness, the high ceilings and stone walls closing in on me.

Suddenly I felt vulnerable, bereft without Jack, without Thane and even without the Macmerrys: Jack’s father’s warm geniality,
his mother’s warm food. How large, cold and dark the rooms seemed, the ancient tapestries on the high walls with their Biblical scenes somehow threatening.

It was as if in my short absence the ghosts of Solomon’s Tower’s long lost history had settled in again. The past had taken
possession
and I had become a resented intruder from a future world incomprehensible to them.

At that moment I realised how fortunate I had been in having found Jack Macmerry – at least I would never be lonely again – even if our short absences when duty called him away for days on end infuriated me. He was mine and he was my reality.

I wandered across the cold flagged stone floor into the kitchen, my footsteps loud and strangely echoing. This was not my usual kitchen. In my absence, a rare tidiness had set in. Bleak and sterile surfaces, a well-scrubbed table with cupboard shelves immaculate and starkly empty, apart from a few neatly stacked tins.

Opening the pantry door set off the scuttling sound of a mouse’s hasty exit – although there had been little left for sustenance.

Up the stone spiral stair to my bedroom. The air was stale and I opened the window, moving aside spiders’ delicate webs with a feeling that I was marooned in Sleeping Beauty’s palace, especially as the garden below had become overgrown with weeds and in my short absence lush but alien vegetation had choked my pretty pot plants out of existence.

I turned round with a start as the cheval mirror reflected a ghostly image – a different ‘me’ from the Rose McQuinn who had stood before it just a short while ago.

Quickly moving out of range, I smoothed the coverlet of the vast ancient bed with its oak panels, its carvings of angels and Biblical characters which had escaped the ravages of invaders or changing fashion. Since the problem of moving it down the
narrow
spiral staircase was beyond man’s ingenuity, the logical answer to its survival intact was that it had been built into the
Tower sometime in the fifteenth or sixteenth century.

Beyond any guess of mine the vast procession of those who had been born and died under the once handsome tapestried canopy. But I was fond of my great bed and when I returned to slumber in its depths, I would be married. Jack would sleep at my side and we would take our place in its long cavalcade, its
unwritten
history.

With less than two hours before the train back to Eildon left Waverley Station, I quickly opened the wardrobe, gathered my wedding gown, bonnet and shoes, new lace camisoles,
nightgowns
and underwear. Closing the door, I had a fleeting thought for Jack and remembered just in time the handsome new shirt and cravat I had bought for him.

Packed in two valises, carrying one in each hand, they were evenly balanced, and no great weight. I had a quarter hour walk into Waverley station and thought longingly of my bicycle, out there in the garden shed, abandoned and forlorn. How I wished I could take it back with me to Eildon.

All this effort had made me hungry and I returned to the kitchen. Without lighting the stove or fire, never among my
shining
achievements, even boiling a kettle for the cup of tea I longed for would take hours. Grateful to Jack’s mother, I eagerly unpacked the parcel of beef sandwiches, cake, apples and a
container
of milk that she had so thoughtfully provided and while I ate, on an impulse I wrote to Jack.

His almost daily letters were brusque and businesslike, irritable bulletins about the progress, or lack of it, in the Glasgow criminal court. Even the most imaginative reading between the lines could hardly have placed them in the category of love letters.

I never responded. Truth was, I always expected him to arrive next day. Now, in case he was not too busy or harassed with other matters to notice or feel anxious about my lack of
communication
, I assuaged my conscience by writing him an affectionate
letter
. I told him how much I was missing him and of my trip to
pick up the wedding clothes, sealing it with the satisfaction that post from Edinburgh would reach him in Glasgow next day.

As my walk to the railway station would take me down the Pleasance passing close to the convent of the Little Sisters, I wished I had left enough time to visit Sister Angela, to once again be reassured that the old nun’s certainty that Danny had written to her belonged to the confusions of age.

I decided I would write to her. For a moment at the gates I hesitated, but then popped my note into the post-box and
hurried
on.

After Eildon’s pure air, I was very conscious of the acrid smell as I reached the city centre. Edinburgh had well-earned Robert Burns’ epithet of ‘auld Reekie’. Even on an early summer evening, smoke from a thousand chimneys in houses cooking supper, as well as bakeries, laundries and small factories clouded the
sunshine
.

The peace and country air of the Borders that I had taken for granted was replaced in the busy city streets by carriages, cabs and horse-drawn omnibuses noisily clanging their way along the North Bridge.

Bicycles were now a common sight, especially among the young blades who regarded ringing their bells as a great lark. However this mode of transport was still considered somewhat unseemly for young ladies, as one newspaper described it; ‘shamelessly revealing their nether limbs.’

As for the ‘horseless carriage’, the Benz motor-car I had encountered last year as a phenomena in Orkney was no longer a nine-days wonder in Edinburgh. Adding its acrid belches of blue smoke to the air, it bounced along, drivers swathed in goggles leaning on the horn and putting pedestrians to instant flight.

Such behaviour occasionally aroused shouts of anger and indignation, including some fists shaken by gentlemen of an older generation who consoled themselves that such
monstrosities
were but a new-fangled idea.

‘The horseless carriage would never last, it could never stand the test of time.’

As I walked into the railway station, the air was heavy with yet another version of black smoke and grime. The train from London had just arrived and descending passengers were
hurrying
along the busy platform.

Edinburgh had long enjoyed the popularity of a holiday resort with Scottish families, particularly the nearby beach at Portobello. In more recent years, thanks to the Queen, towns and villages in the Highlands, particularly on Deeside now readily accessible by train were enjoying a boom in holiday
accommodation
.

This was evident by the dialects from south of the Border as harassed parents gathered together children and luggage,
shouting
for porters, as they hurried in the direction of connecting trains.

In the now emptied train which had arrived late and was leaving almost immediately, I managed to get a compartment to myself and, as we steamed out past the ruined Abbey of Holyrood Palace, I remembered that other journey on the way to Eildon, my fellow passenger the young nun who I now knew as Annette Verney.

So much had happened in the space of a very short time. Two fatalities: Father McQuinn’s ‘heart attack’, which I was certain was murder and as for his housekeeper Mrs Aiden, I was firmly convinced her fall was no accident either, but was linked
somehow
to the death of the priest.

Staring out of the window I found myself recalling Mrs Fraser’s remarks about having gone to visit her friend that fatal night, fearing that she would wish for company with the priest lying newly dead in his parlour. And how, on hearing voices, one of them belonging to a man, she had returned home without making her presence known.

This man I was now certain had probably killed them both, but I was well aware that there was little hope of finding a
solution
to the two deaths or of bringing their killer to justice before the weekend when, along with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Jack and I would be celebrating our marriage in the Scots kirk.

I sighed in exasperation, two unsolved mysteries to add to my log book. For a Lady Investigator, Discretion Guaranteed, two admissions of defeat I would certainly not advertise.

Outside the sun was setting, throwing a golden glow over the fields. Away to the west, the Firth of Forth glistened and the hills of Fife settled into sleep. A pleasant uneventful journey, through local stations including Musselburgh, Dunbar where we gathered a few more passengers.

At last we steamed out of Berwick, the shreds of a castle around the railway station as a reminder of the bad old days. Walls built by the Romans in the first century AD were still standing, remarkably preserved despite it all, for they had been of little interest or significance to raiders from the south when Berwick became a constant target for vengeful medieval English kings.

We would soon be at the whistle stop at Eildon. What news from Jack, I wondered –

Suddenly the train jolted forward and ground to a halt. Doors opened, and the guard who I realised must be Mrs Fraser’s
husband
ran along the track.

Passengers opened doors, leaned out of windows. Shouts of, ‘What on earth has happened? Has someone been hurt?’

I joined the curious, leaning out of the window.

In the next compartment, a lugubrious passenger saw me and nodded sadly: ‘Aye, it’ll be another o’ yon suicides – d’ye no’ ken, it was all in the papers last week.’