The Coffin Lane Murders (20 page)

'Where is it now?'

He shrugged. 'Your wee lad was playing with it on my desk. Said he could take it away with him-'

'If only you had told the Pursleys, sir.' How could he begin to explain the dreadful truth? 'People have died-'

The old man stared at him and grinned. 'People have always died, innocent and guilty alike, where money is concerned.'

Another voice came from behind them. 'And it isn't over yet, I'm afraid.'

Conan stood framed in the doorway, with Jamie in his arms. 'I'm sorry to inform you both that Kate is dead.'

Chapter 22

'Kate has just died,' Conan repeated in a voice devoid of all emotion.

Sir Hedley gave a shout of disbelief and ran towards the door. 'Let me go to her, let me go to her.'

Conan stood aside. 'As you please.'

They heard him shuffling along the corridor as Conan turned to Faro and, still carrying Jamie, indicated a chair. 'We might as well be comfortable for a while.'

'Let me take him.'

'No, no, you'll wake him.'

Faro looked at Conan with the sleeping child in his arms, trying to reconcile what he saw and what he had believed of this man's essential goodness, his dedication to saving lives, with this terrible reality, this gross betrayal.

'You killed Kate, didn't you?'

Even as he uttered the words he hoped for a passionate denial or for some shattering rational explanation which he had overlooked in the evidence that pointed so steadily at Conan.

'Of course I didn't kill her.' Conan shrugged. 'She was dying; we all knew that.' But as he spoke he avoided Faro's eyes and there was a sense of triumph he was unable to hide, of matters that had gone according to plan.

'For God's sake, why did you hate her? What had she ever done to you?' Faro demanded.

'I didn't hate her. That's too strong a word. Indifferent, yes, I have been indifferent for years.' He paused and looked down tenderly at Jamie. 'I suppose it began when I knew there would never be a live child.'

Faro regarded him steadily. 'It was always Kate, wasn 't it?'

'I don't take your meaning.'

'Kate was always the intended victim. You wanted rid of her so you killed the others to make it look as if your patient Lady Celia was responsible.'

'That's a preposterous suggestion. Are you out of your mind? Celia killed them all.'

Faro's face was expressionless and with a sigh of exasperation Conan said, 'I'll tell you what I know of the first murder. She went that afternoon to call on Dr Ben in his bookshop, as she so often did. Well, she found him dead. She thought someone had killed him and that she'd be blamed. That threw her back over the edge. She heard someone at the door, ran into the kitchen, picked up a knife to defend herself. Panicked and ran for her life.'

He shook his head. 'She needed me desperately. I was the only one who could help her. She was madly in love with me - I think you probably guessed that. I still don't know, and we never will, why she killed that maid Molly. Perhaps she was lost, asking the way to Solomon's Tower and the maid got in her way...'

As Conan spoke, suddenly Faro could see it all happening. The maid rushing out of the house into the night after a bitter quarrel with her mistress. Distraught, running away - and running towards Celia, also distraught. But with a knife in her hand.

In that last moment did she believe that Molly had been sent to pursue her, take her back to the asylum?

'And when she did reach you,' Faro said, 'and you knew she had killed Molly, you realised you couldn't help her any more. She'd be locked away for the rest of her life. Was that when you got the idea? Why not make it worthwhile. Another couple of murders she'd be blamed for. And then Kate.'

'They weren't meant-' Conan bit back the words.

'To die.' Faro completed for him grimly. 'But die they did. First of all, however, you had to get rid of Celia.'

'It wasn't like that at all. I never intended to harm her. I even tried to persuade her to go back to the asylum with me, give herself up. She turned violent at that - hitting out at me. Madness and fear gave her terrible stength. I had to defend myself. We struggled and she fell. It was an accident.'

'Accident or no you now had a new dilemma,' Faro continued relentlessly. 'How to hide the body until Kate's murder was accomplished. Was that when you remembered the frozen loch? You could take her body there and put it at the far end of the loch where the ice was thinner, where it could be broken and the body pushed under the water. Weighted down with stones, she might rot away long before she was found. Another two victims-'

The woman Rita. She died of shock because she was asthmatic. She wasn't murdered,' Conan interrupted angrily.

'Precisely. You wanted her to live long enough to confirm that the killer was a woman. Afterwards-' Faro shrugged. 'If it hadn't been asthma then an overdose of laudanum would have worked as well. You might still have got away with it, and scared Kate into a heart attack by appearing at the kitchen window and writing a threatening note - but your timing was wrong. You were seriously out of luck. Celia's body had been discovered when the loch was being dredged for the drowned student.'

Conan stared at him. 'This is ridiculous. Your case is pretty thin, Inspector. You will have considerable difficulty proving any of this or that I had anything to do with the Glasgow woman's murder.'

'Ah, but there you are quite wrong. As well as Kate, there was one other person you wanted out of the way. Fate seemed to play into your hands when you were returning from visiting your parents in Glasgow and you met Mrs Simms on the Edinburgh train. Unfortunately Rose recognised you talking together.'

'So? I remember the incident. She asked for directions. A mere coincidence-'

'Not quite. Since Mrs Simms was your mistress's mother.'

Conan paled visibly, his knuckles showing white as Faro continued, 'Mrs Simms had never liked you. Until you went through a form of marriage when Dora was pregnant she suspected, quite correctly, that you already had a wife.

I don't know what means you used to lure her to Coffin Lane, but you had to keep her with you at all costs until it was dark.'

Faro paused and Conan smiled, no longer seeing any reason to deny it. In fact he sounded rather pleased with himself for the first time. 'I took her for a drive in a carriage around Edinburgh, to see the sights. She liked that, it made her feel important. She was such a bore but I had a hip flask. She always enjoyed a drink. I promised to drive her to Musselburgh.' He shrugged. 'The rest would be easy.'

He laughed. 'This is all conjecture, is it not, Inspector. A game between us. You haven't one shred of proof, not even one witness.'

'Perhaps not. Except that I have been to Glasgow. And I have seen Dora and her baby-'

'What did you tell her about me?'

'Nothing-'

'If you've hurt her, I'll kill you, Faro,' Conan said with low menace.

'I told her nothing. I wanted only to know the truth and saw your child, Conan, your son, who is your image. I would have known even before she showed me the photograph-'

'You've seen him, my son.' Conan smiled.

Still holding Jamie close, he sat back breathlessly. 'My son, a beautiful healthy son, at last. I have no shame about it. Wouldn't any man do the same, be driven to desperation after years with a barren wife? I now have the responsibility of a child. My own flesh and blood. Why should I stay with Kate, who could never give me a son? Besides, she had betrayed me, lied to me about the Tower's hidden gold - there never was a treasure connected with the owl stone-'

He paused and looked round the chapel's bleak stone walls. 'As for being a rich heiress, that was a lie too. There was no fortune to be inherited. Uncle Hedley could have told you. When her father, the laird, died a couple of years ago, he was over the ears in debt. Gambling, speculation, the usual excesses - it runs in the family. Uncle Hedley was better off out of it-'

Faro stared at him. 'Wait a moment. You are admitting that you cold-bloodedly killed Kate because she couldn't give you a child?'

Conan shrugged, unrepentant. 'Let's face it. She was pretty useless as a wife. Had been for years. She had a bad heart and wouldn't have lived more than two or three years at most.'

'And you couldn't wait that long to be free and marry Dora? She seemed the sort of woman who, had you told her, would have waited for you.'

'No, by God. I've waited long enough, wasted enough years already!' Conan shouted. 'I want Dora and my son - now. I won't wait and I hate this place. So I'm going now. And I don't advise you to try and stop me.'

'You won't get very far, Conan,' said Faro sadly.

But Conan's wild eyes, staring, and his trembling told Faro for the first time that he was no longer talking to a sane man. He looked at Jamie and saw the nightmare that was to follow as Conan said gently, 'Oh yes I will. You see, I have Jamie.'

'I love Jamie.' He hugged him. 'And if anything happens to me, if anyone threatens me, then his life will be endangered too.'

His eyes gleamed as watching Faro's face he said, 'And you wouldn't want that, the blood of an innocent child, your grandson, on your head. Would you now, Inspector Faro?'

Conan's sudden movement alerted Jamie, who opened his eyes and yawned. As Conan kissed the top of his head, he looked across at Faro, held out his arms and said, 'G'npa here.'

Faro's move towards him was instinctive.

'No. Stay where you are.' Conan made a threatening gesture. 'I am armed and will kill anyone who stands in my way this time.'

And Faro did not doubt him. Not even Jamie would be spared.

'Let me tell you. At first Kate was in it with me, we planned it together, all the way. We'd search for the treasure and once we found it we'd go. Then she got softhearted, got fond of her uncle, a useless old man, filthy and disgusting-'

'Did you kill Dr Benjamin to obtain the antiquarian book?' Faro interrupted

'I did not. What do you think I am - a common thief? I wanted to buy it, but he wouldn't sell-'

'So you tried to persuade him by threats and when that didn't work you pushed him downstairs.'

'Of course I didn't,' said Conan heatedly. 'I got around him by telling him that we lived in Solomon's Tower. He said he didn't want to sell the book but that we were most welcome to borrow it to read if we promised to return it. I wished him no harm. The book's around somewhere, but it was a waste of time after all our hopes, utterly useless.'

He regarded Faro triumphantly. 'Uncle Hedley told us that the owl moons clasper was an anagram of Solomon's Tower Chapel. He showed us the secret aperture and told us there was nothing there, nothing but a piece of wood some joker had left at some time. He'd given it to Jamie.'

Jamie looked up at him and smiled trustingly.

Hugging him, Conan said softly, 'We have to go soon.' And to Faro, 'Please don't try to stop us. Jamie is my ticket to freedom. He'll be with me every inch of the way. Try to stop me and you'll kill us both.'

Jamie, fully awake now, looked across at Faro and, wriggling on Conan's knee, stretched out his hand. 'Jamie -go - G'npa.'

Faro was aware of stealthy movement behind him. The door opened and Vince came in.

Conan was unperturbed by his friend's arrival. He looked up smiling, stroking Jamie's curls. 'You've come just in time. Your stepfather's got the wrong end of the stick. Some extraordinary idea that I'm a killer. Does it run in the family, old chap?'

'I think not,' said Vince sadly. 'And I've heard most of what you have confessed-'

'Prove it!' snapped Conan. 'If you can. And now, if you'll be so good, please stand aside. The wee fellow needs some fresh air.'

'Where do you think you're taking Jamie?' demanded Vince.

'Home - my home.'

'And where is that?'

'If you heard it all, you must know. To join Dora and my own son.'

'Then go to your own son, but give me Jamie.'

Conan shook his head sadly. 'Can't do that, old chap. Sorry. You see, Jamie is my ace card, my hostage. Where I go, he goes. As long as I have him like this,' he said, holding him in his arms, 'my freedom is guaranteed.'

'Give him to me!' Vince shouted and started forward.

The hand hidden behind Jamie's back suddenly revealed a small pistol.

'As I warned you, I have this - so stay where you are, both of you. Or else-' and idly he pointed the pistol at Jamie's head. 'I think you get my message.'

'Conan, give me Jamie and I - we-' Vince paused to look at Faro who nodded assent. 'We will do whatever you say. We will guarantee your freedom, no police - nothing. The whole incident will be closed.'

'You can go to Glasgow, we'll give you all the time you need,' Faro added. 'We won't notify the authorities, or interfere-'

'In the name of our friendship,' Vince said desperately,

'I beg you - give me Jamie.' His voice ended on a sob, but his passion left Conan untouched.

'Not now, not now. Maybe later - if all goes well, you may indeed see him again. But if not you can be sure that Dora and I will give him a good home, a very good home. We both love children and eventually he will be one of a big happy family, I can assure you. We intend to have lots of children and we'll take excellent care of him. There are excellent opportunities for doctors in Canada. Besides,' he added consolingly, 'I dare say Olivia will give you many more sons. You'll soon get over losing Jamie.'