The Coffin Lane Murders (14 page)

'Ida knew a thing or two about that second husband. He deliberately kept her at the door. Shame it was too when that baby, her only grandchild, should have brought them all closer.'

Faro realised he was hearing the not unusual story of a mother and daughter who had nothing in common but the accident of birth.

Mrs Kerr told him that Dora, the daughter, lived in one of the big houses facing the Botanic Gardens. 'Mr Milthorpe works for a chemical firm, travels a lot. Not a very inspiring choice for a second marriage,' she added with obvious satisfaction. 'Not that she needs money; she inherited the big house from her first husband. He was well off and a lot older than her. Left her everything.'

With Dora's married name, Faro found the house after a couple of tries. His ring at the bell was answered by the housekeeper whose careful scrutiny seemed to declare 'tradesman's entrance'. She said stiffly that madam was not at home.

He announced that he was a policeman and that the matter concerned Mrs Milthorpe's mother's recent death.

The housekeeper showed no emotion but merely nodded. 'Madam will wish to inform all her late mother's friends. She would appreciate the name of the person Mrs Simms was visiting - in Edinburgh,' she said, contriving to make it appear that no one could really be surprised that more people were not struck down in that lawless city.

While she sought pen and ink he took the opportunity to look around the parlour, a dull impersonal room with a complete absence of pictures on the walls or the fashion for groups of family photographs and children.

'Has Mrs Milthorpe any family?'

'There is a baby two months old.' Seeing his glance around the somewhat bare room, she added apologetically, 'The house is up for sale. They are moving abroad very soon.'

On the doorstep, Faro was delighted to see a hiring carriage approaching, just what he needed to take him to the other side of town where the Pursleys lived.

Hoping it was unoccupied he held up his hand.

'Yes, sir.' The coachman touched his hat, nodding assent, as Faro assisted his present fare, a black-clad young woman with a crying babe in arms, to descend to the pavement. He was rewarded by thanks and a harassed smile.

As he took her place inside and the carriage moved off, he looked back and saw her entering the house he had just left.

Mrs Dora Milthorpe, no doubt. He sat back. She looked a pleasant, pretty woman, not at all like the cruel, hardhearted vixen he had been led to expect.

The Pursleys lived some two miles away in a quiet residential district. The house overlooked the park and was only slightly less imposing than the one he had just left, but a warmer welcome awaited him for although this was his first visit to Conan's home, he had met his parents several times when they had visited their son and daughter-in-law.

Mrs Pursley, staring over her husband's shoulder as the maid showed him into the drawing room, wore an expression of anxiety which swiftly changed to one of delighted welcome at Faro's cheery greeting.

Explaining that he was in Glasgow on police business and Conan had asked him to call, he handed over the small package with their son's message and apology, assuring them that the young couple were very well and sent their love.

'How is our lad coping with this influenza epidemic?' asked William Pursley anxiously. 'Has your family escaped?'

At Faro's reassurances Mrs Pursley sighed and rang the bell for tea. 'I do so worry about our dear Kate. She's so frail - she's had so many disappointments. I wish things could have been otherwise.'

The look she exchanged with her husband said they would love to have a grandson to carry on the family name. Annie had married long ago and there were two grown-up grandchildren.

'But Canada's a long way off,' William said sadly. 'Perhaps Inspector Faro would like to see their photos, Maggie,' he added enthusiastically.

Mrs Pursley needed no second invitation to produce the family album. There were the new generation of grandchildren, and turning back the pages, Conan and Kate's wedding and a photograph of Conan and his sister as children.

They were not in the least alike, Conan as fair as his sister was dark. Annie was as plain as her brother was strikingly handsome, dark and thin, the image of her father, while her brother resembled neither of his homely parents and was obviously a throwback to some remote relative. Faro found himself remembering how often siblings could look like strangers and strangers by blood show remarkable resemblances to one another. It was a situation he had encountered more than once. No doubt scientific theory would someday produce an answer.

Meanwhile he was no nearer to finding any answers to three murders in his own area.

Chapter 15

Every available constable was out searching the area for the missing 'Lady Killer'. There were no new incidents, no further attacks, only some very frustrated policemen praying that she would be apprehended before their family Christmas plans were ruined.

'It's all right for the superintendent and for Inspector Faro,' they complained, 'they aren't trudging about poking over snowdrifts day and night, getting their feet frozen.'

Meanwhile, Rose returned from her friend Sally's wedding. Laying aside her bonnet her first question was, 'Is the loch still frozen over?'

Reassured that there was no sign of a thaw yet, she clapped her hands. 'Where's Vince?' she demanded.

Olivia smiled. 'He'll be home shortly. It's his half day. Conan and Angus take the afternoon surgery.'

Impatiently they awaited his arrival. At the sound of his footsteps in the hall, both rushed downstairs.

'Let's go immediately, while there's still some light left,' said Rose anxiously, afraid that Vince might be unwilling.

'What a splendid idea,' said her half-brother. 'Coming with us, Livy?'

'Wouldn't miss it,' said Olivia. 'Jamie loves the ice. Skates, Rose? You can hire them at the loch.'

Rose pointed to her father. 'You too! I insist.'

'Yes,' said Vince enthusiastically. 'We can all do with some healthy exercise.'

Exercise and the possibility of breaking an ankle were the last things Faro needed.

'I'll come and watch you enjoying yourselves.'

Refusing to be cajoled into joining them on the ice, he was content to sit in the carriage at the roadside with Brent.

The coachman was not a talkative man and Faro's silence might have been mistaken for idleness and relaxation had such words existed in his vocabulary. Immediately his young ones reached the loch he took out his notebook and once again studied all the baffling facts, the inconsistencies regarding Conan's patient that were available so far.

Absorbed in his task, oblivious to the chill shadow of Arthur's Seat, the brightness of the early afternoon vanished behind heavy clouds.

Torches were lit to give illumination to the skaters, tiny figures, wraithlike in the gentle light, curving their way across the ice, like a tableau from a ballet. They laughed excitedly, their faint voices echoing back to him.

And then it happened.

The noise like gunfire. He started up, opened the door and ran towards the loch.

Another violent crack.

A scream. This time there was no mistaking the sound, or the wavering torches across the loch which dipped and fell.

The ice on the southern shore of the loch, more exposed to the sun's rays, had become treacherously thin. It had begun to melt.

Figures whirled, shouting warnings, stumbling back to the safety of the Duddingston side.

Faro ran down to the edge of the loch.

Vince. Olivia. Rose and Jamie.

There was no sign of them emerging from the panic-stricken group of skaters.

Dear God, where were they?

He called their names, stumbling on to the ice, shouting as the cracks continued ominously, growing closer.

Horrified, he watched a split, like an open wound, appear across the ice and water gush forth.

'Stepfather!'

And there they were.

Vince with Jamie close in one arm, Olivia and Rose clinging to his other arm.

'Thank God, thank God you're safe.'

A moment later he was helping them off the ice, Brent at his side. Sobbing, breathless, they were safely on the bank, Vince helping Rose and Olivia remove their skates.

But all was not over. They were safe, but the sounds echoing across the loch towards them were screams of terror.

Vince thrust Jamie into his mother's arms. 'I think someone's gone under the ice.'

As he turned to go back, Olivia seized his arm, cried, 'No - Vince, please, it's too dangerous.'

He shook his head. 'They may be injured. They'll need all the help they can get.' So saying he thrust jacket and scarf into Rose's hands.

'I'll come with you, sir,' said Brent.

'Thank you, Brent, but no. You can't skate - and you're too heavy. Stay with the family. Please.'

Olivia, still protesting, watched him in horror, breathing, 'No, Vince, please, I implore you.'

And Faro knew what his stepson intended. He was an excellent swimmer. He would go under the ice if he thought it necessary to save a man's life.

'I'm coming with you, lad,' he said. 'No argument. I'm as light as you are. Give me your skates,' he demanded of Olivia.

'No, Stepfather. You can't skate.'

'Of course I damn well can skate. I don't do it for fun, that's all. Come on, Livy, hurry.'

He wasn't very good at it: seriously out of practice, he hadn't been on the ice for years. Much as he would have once enjoyed such sport and activity, he had realised that there were enough daily hazards in pursuing criminals without uncalled-for broken limbs.

Twice he almost fell. Vince told him to go back and when he refused, Vince seized his arm. 'If you're determined to risk your neck then hang on to me.'

As they skated across to the scene of the accident, the ice beneath them continued to shudder and crack ominously.

At last Vince pushed his way through the sombre group huddled together a safe distance from where the ice had broken.

'I'm a doctor. What's happened?'

'A young lad fell in. They're trying to reach him.'

'He's gone under the ice-'

'He'll be drowned,' cried a girl. 'What can we do?'

'He's a goner, I'm afraid,' said her companion.

'Let me through,' said Vince firmly, watching a small figure a few yards ahead of them, lying on his belly, sliding across to where the raw edge of the ice spurted brown water.

'That's his brother,' said the man next to Vince.

They could hear him shouting: 'Timmy - Timmy, it's me. Hold on.'

Vince moved quickly. Lying down he began sliding across the ice, using his elbows gently to propel himself to the boy's side.

Faro couldn't stand and watch. In his mind's eye, he saw the ice like some distorted sheet of glass flipping over, carrying Vince and the boy's brother into the murky waters below.

On the terrified faces around him, he saw recrimination.

'You dared him to go,' said one girl, sobbing, hitting out at the boy who stood silently at her side. 'It's all your fault.'

The boy, a student by his appearance, looked shamefaced. 'It was all in fun. We were having a bet as to who could go farthest.'

Faro turned to them. 'A bet,' he said in disgust and anger. 'Innocent people may die because of your stupid bets.'

He moved aside from the group to get a closer view of Vince. Beside him the young girls in the party shivered and sobbed, clinging to each other, turning their backs on the students who had been escorting them and had been showing off with such disastrous consequences.

Faro guessed what had happened. The lads, full of bravura, desperate to impress, had been vying with each other. It was a game as old as nature itself re-enacted in every wild species God had created.

Now unsure whether to be brave and foolhardy before the girls or cowardly and circumspect, they hesitated, appalled by the implications of what was happening a few yards away.

They were very young, Faro felt with sudden pity. And most had elected to be cautious. One accidental death was enough.

It was not in his own nature to stand and watch, and unable to bear the suspense any longer, he tore off his greatcoat, and following his stepson's example, face down he edged his way across the ice alongside Vince and the boy's brother.

Vince heard him slithering over. 'Get back, Stepfather. Get back.'

'No. You may need me.'

'You're a damned nuisance, and you're an extra weight. I don't want to have to drag you out too.' And to the boy's brother: 'For God's sake, can't you grab his arm and keep hold of it this time?'

His shoulder deep in the icy water, Vince held the boy to stop him from slipping over the edge.

'Timmy - Timmy. Oh damn - damn - I had him and I've lost him again,' he sobbed.

'How long's he been under?' gasped Vince.