The Coffin Lane Murders (3 page)

Olivia felt that people who had lived then had a high old time of it one way and another. She was impressed that Sir Hedley's acquaintances at aristocratic shooting parties had included many notorious actresses, as well as members of the Royal Family, and he had some interesting and wicked scandals to relate.

Now helping himself to a second piece of cake, Faro listened idly to the conversation around the table.

Kate was having problems since Sir Hedley had met her maid in the area of the barred rooms on the upper floor.

'He was furious, sent her packing on the spot.'

'How awful,' said Olivia. 'What on earth does he keep there that is so precious?'

Kate shrugged. Not even Conan or herself were allowed across the threshold of what he called his 'old charter room'.

'An old man's junk room, according to Conan, full of mementoes of a misspent youth. A locked room, with the keys conveniently lost. I do confess that I feel it might be something more sinister he keeps up there.'

Faro remained silent. He decided not to enlighten them on his own knowledge of what that upper room of the Tower contained. Such knowledge might lead to overwhelming and ill-advised curiosity. Best let the past be.

Resisting further offers of tea, Kate groaned: 'I'll never eat supper after this.'

Olivia went to the window. 'Kate dear, you can't possibly walk back to the Tower. The snow's heavier than ever - look, the garden's covered completely since we came in.'

'Why don't you both stay the night here?' said Vince. 'Brent can go round and collect Conan from the surgery.

'A great idea,' said Olivia enthusiastically. 'I'll get Mrs Brook to make up a bed for you-'

But Kate was adamant. 'I must go. Nero has to be fed and Uncle Hedley will go to bed hungry unless I prepare supper for him. He's terribly absent-minded about mealtimes, you know.'

'Then take our carriage, if you must go. And take some of this food with you,' said Vince firmly.

'Do,' said Olivia. 'Mrs Brook will be delighted. She hates waste.'

Ten minutes later Kate was on her way home. Good-nights said, the carriage departed through the snow and Olivia carried a sleepy Jamie up to bed while Vince and Faro returned to the dining room where Mrs Brook had stoked up the fire.

Stretching out their legs to the blaze they shared a nightcap, a splendid single-malt whisky.

Faro sighed contentedly. This was his favourite time of the day.

It was a great life. A great life, here with his beloved family. Who could ask for more?

Who indeed?

He was to remember those happy hours that evening with the snow falling gently in the garden beyond the windows.

It would be a long time before such content was to be his again.

Chapter 3

They found the first victim lying beneath the blood-soaked snow in Coffin Lane.

PC Dean, heading towards Dalkeith Road on his normal beat, had taken the short cut and made the discovery by the merest chance of observing a hump of newly fallen snow with an effusion of pink.

His immediate idea was that some wounded animal lay beneath. Closer inspection revealed a white hand, a cold, dead, unmoving woman's hand. She had been thrust into the snow-filled ditch during the night and the heavy fall of snow had hidden the terrible sight until morning.

PC Dean knew what he was about. A practical, well-trained policeman not given to bouts of panic, he knelt down and, carefully scraping the snow away, followed that dead hand up to arm, shoulder and then to neck, although there was little possibility of the woman still being alive.

At last the dead face was revealed, a ghastly grey with the snow melting on eyes that were wide open and frozen in death.

She had been stabbed through the chest.

He looked desperately around the still-empty landscape. The procedure to be followed was particular.

Find a doctor in case there was hope of resuscitation and then summon his superior officer. In this case he was fortunate in having both nearby.

It was unlikely that anyone would disturb the corpse or be in the vicinity in such weather but PC Dean lost no more time. Leaving the scene he plunged towards Sheridan Place. He moved as quickly as was humanly possible through several inches of snow, marking as he did so that, apart from a few animal tracks, the whole of Edinburgh seemed to have been brought to a complete standstill.

He had the world and the corpse he had just left to himself, and trying not to keep looking back over his shoulder as if the old man with the scythe might be following, he was greatly relieved to find Inspector Faro and Dr Laurie at their breakfast.

Dr Conan Pursley was with them, having been benighted and unable to return to Solomon's Tower after attending the deathbed of a sick patient in the influenza outbreak.

Within minutes all three were hastening back to Coffin Lane with Dean, a passing errand-boy entrusted with a shilling in his pocket to alert the Central Office that the mortuary carriage would be required.

Faro knelt to examine the woman's body, wondering why murders at Christmas time seemed so much more gross, their brutality a further blasphemy against the season of goodwill. As PC Dean explained the circumstances of his gruesome find, he knew that the heavy snowfall also helped to establish the time of death as sometime during the hours of the previous night. It also destroyed any hope of finding clues.

PC Dean stood by watching them carefully scrape the snow off the body. Meanwhile the small crowd who wait in readiness to gravitate towards any disaster were gathering and had to be kept at bay.

Faro shuddered for as the body was uncovered a great effusion of blood spread across the snow. The stab wound in the woman's chest re-opened allowing the blood to run freely again.

The three men stepped back sharply and Faro remembered in horror the old adage about victims bleeding when faced with their murderer.

He glanced quickly over his shoulder. Was one of the faces in the group of onlookers staring so curiously at the horrific tableau that of the killer returned to the scene of his crime?

Vince and Conan rose from their knees and he wondered if the same thought was in their minds as the woman's open eyes stared beyond them, beyond the confines of Coffin Lane towards the heights of Arthur's Seat.

Even so, the gaze of the three men followed in the same direction and rested on the only habitation, Solomon's Tower, which would have been encompassed in that wild-eyed, horrified last look at the world.

In ancient times this area had known many such grisly occurrences, thought Faro grimly: men slain in battles over the centuries, criminals hanged whose last earthly sight had been thus.

The silence was broken by the clanging bell of the police carriage; swerving dangerously, it finally came to rest some fifty yards away. There were sounds of protesting wheels and horses, men's shrill curses and at last two policemen struggled through the snow carrying a stretcher.

Young Dr Spens followed at their heels. 'Am I too late then?' His eagerness and barely concealed excitement as he stared down at the dead woman seemed all out of context with his young rosy face.

Conan muttered, 'Obvious, isn't it?'

'Been dead long, has she?' asked Angus cheerfully.

'Some time,' said Conan.

'Oh really?'

'Yes. If you were hoping for a chance to practise survival methods you are several hours too late,' was Conan's sarcastic reply.

Angus ignored him, pushing Vince aside. 'One moment please. May I?'

Kneeling down he carefully scrutinised the body on the stretcher as if he saw a murder victim every day. He pursed his lips at the stab wound and nodded authoritatively while over his shoulder Vince and Conan shook their heads.

As the policemen prepared to carry the corpse to the waiting mortuary carriage, Faro stretched forth his hand and carefully removed the woman's reticule, which was twisted round her wrist. 'I was about to do that myself, Inspector,' said Angus indignantly, a spoilt child deprived of a trophy. 'It may contain evidence, you know.'

'Indeed? Her murderer's name and address, perhaps?'

Angus coloured. 'No, her own, of course.'

Faro nodded. 'All right, lads, you may proceed.'

The small crowd let out a sigh as the body was bundled out of their sight as swiftly and in as dignified a manner as rigor would permit in the circumstances.

'You may accompany them if you so wish, Dr Spens, said Faro, anxious to be rid of him.

'May I really, Inspector?' Angus replied with almost indecent eagerness to visit the mortuary.

Turning, he smiled sarcastically at Faro: 'Knowing your reputation, sir, no doubt you will have solved the case or at the very least produced a promising list of suspects by the time I get to the Central Office.'

Faro merely nodded. He had reached a few conclusions about the woman's identity, merely from observation. The soaked, shabby, dark dress and thin cloak indicated a servant girl, most probably from this area. Death had not been kind; she could have been anywhere between eighteen and forty.

The onlookers lingered and then dispersed unwillingly, trudging away back whence they had come, their drama over for the day. There was nothing more to see, but it gave them plenty to talk about for some time.

Vince and Conan remained with PC Dean in attendance, carefully scraping the snow from where the corpse had lain, but apart from the blood-stained ground there was a complete absence of any clues as to why the unfortunate woman had been murdered.

'Any sign of the murder weapon?' asked Vince.

'It could be anywhere in the vicinity,' said Faro. 'But we'll have to wait until the snow clears to be absolutely sure.'

They were aware that it could lie hidden for weeks before the thaw set in and indeed the heavy grey sky suggested there might be considerably more snow to fall, further hampering investigations.

Vince frowned. 'A broad-bladed knife was used and with considerable force, I should think.'

'Possibly a knife of the domestic kind. Kitchen, most likely.
Crime passionel
, perhaps. Looked like a servant,' said Conan, pointing to the reticule Faro was opening which the woman had not relinquished in the attack.

'It wasn't theft, that we can eliminate,' said Vince.

Faro nodded. 'Which leaves us with the first question of why, if this wasn't a random attack merely for theft, and rape seems unlikely.' They would not know for sure but there had been no disturbance or dishevelment of the woman's clothing.

'A jealous swain, tormented and angry,' suggested Conan.

Faro shrugged. The woman's body and the lack of evidence of a struggle had not suggested an attack where the victim had exchanged angry words with her assailant but rather that she was taken by surprise.

He opened the reticule, praying silently that it held some means of identification so that the search for her killer would not be impeded.

'Ah,' he said triumphantly. Their guess that she was a servant girl was correct. He took out a letter, wet but still legible, a former employer's reference recommending Molly Blaith for her excellent qualities of honesty and industry. It was headed 'To whom it may concern', and such letters were always the most guarded possession of anyone in domestic service.

'And there's more. Here!' He produced another letter with a stamp on it addressed to a solicitor's firm in Queen Street. Opening it gingerly, he said: 'This is all we need. The poor girl had been sent out to post this by her employer, a Miss Errington in Minto Street.'

'Then we have something to go on,' sighed Vince.

Faro frowned. 'We do indeed. But why should she have chosen to walk down Coffin Lane right past a postbox at the end of her road?'

'The answer isn't too difficult. No doubt she had an assignation,' said Vince.

'Of course,' said Conan, 'with the murderer. A crime of passion, I'm surer of it every moment. He stabs her, rushes off in a panic. Let's face it, if he had had time to think it out, then he wouldn't have left anything to reveal her identity.'

Faro considered this possibility thoughtfully, staring at the sodden patch of snow-cleared ground where she had lain.

'Perhaps and perhaps not,' said Vince. 'She might have met him earlier, he attacked her and she ran away from him - ran down here.'

Faro put an end to speculations which merely confused the issue. 'I expect much will be revealed by a visit to Miss Amelia Errington.'

He was dreading the encounter, expecting tears, vapours, fainting and the application of smelling salts.

He felt his worst fears were to be confirmed when he encountered Dr Mills leaving the house.

They had a slight acquaintance through Vince's practice and Dr Mills looked at him curiously after an affable greeting.

'You are Miss Errington's physician?' said Faro.

'Indeed, yes.'

'Is she ill?'

Dr Mills smiled. 'Not exactly ill, but in poor health generally. She has a heart condition - why do you ask?'