To Kill a Queen (17 page)

'Let us take some refreshment before we return.'

He blessed Vince for thus taking the situation in hand. And for gallantly leading the way ahead with Lachlan, who after one swift frowning glance at his mother, followed.

He was grateful to have Inga on her own, although she displayed a sudden reluctance for his company. As she seemed anxious and determined to keep up with the two young men, Faro put a hand on her arm.

'Stay, Inga. Talk to me, for God's sake. Talk to me.'

'What about, Jeremy? What would you like to hear? The weather I left in Orkney? This year's crops?'

'No, dammit. Other times and things. We are old friends. When did we last meet?'

'Only last summer,' she said sharply. 'No need to make it sound like the last century.'

He made a despairing gesture, able to think of nothing but the question mark hanging above Inga's son, Lachlan.

'So what is the weather like in Orkney just now?' he said with a weak attempt at humour.

Inga gave an exasperated exclamation, regarded him angrily. 'Just like it is here, Jeremy. You know that perfectly well.'

Her sweeping gesture encompassed the sleeping mountains with their burdens of sheep and boulders. 'Just like this,' she repeated, 'without the trees.'

'I didn't mean that—'

She laughed shortly. 'I know you didn't.'

'Are you really in mourning? Or is that part of the role you are playing, Mrs—what-is-it?'

She stopped in her tracks, stared at him defiantly. 'Saul died three weeks ago. Or has that news not reached you yet?'

Saul Hoy was the blacksmith at Balfray Island, to whom Inga had been housekeeper and more than that, she once confided, for many years.

'I've been away from Edinburgh. I am truly sorry. How did it happen?'

'He'd been ill for some time. I found him sitting in the kitchen in his chair one morning.' Her eyes filled with sudden tears.

'I'm sorry, Inga,' he repeated.

Slightly mollified, she sighed. 'I shall miss him.'

'What will you do now?'

She shrugged. 'That was my main reason for coming to Scotland. Lachlan and I have always been close. He was always begging me to come to Deeside. Saul left me comfortably well off so now I may be able to purchase a house for us.'

'A moment, Inga. Did you by any chance give him money? Five hundred pounds to be exact?'

'Yes, I did. Saul left it to him. But I don't see—'

Faro groaned. 'No, you couldn't. Please go on.'

'Ever since Saul first took ill and we both knew it was final, we discussed what might happen. Saul, bless his heart, worried so about me. He urged me to think about coming here to Lachlan. The wedding came as a complete surprise—'

'Saul knew about Lachlan?'

She smiled slowly. 'Oh yes. He was the only person in the world I trusted with my secret.'

Faro stopped in his tracks. 'Inga. Tell me. I have to know—is Lachlan—is he—'

She smiled up at him defiantly. 'Go on. Finish it.'

She wasn't going to spare him and Faro took a deep breath. 'Is he my son?'

Again she smiled. 'And if he is, Jeremy Faro, what then? What will you do about it?'

'I will marry you, of course,' he said sternly.

Inga doubled up with laughter. So sudden, so shrill was her laugh that Vince and Lachlan halted, looked back, hesitated, until Faro signalled them to proceed.

'Jeremy Faro,' she gasped, 'you'll be the death of me. Really you will. You'll marry me, indeed. What about me? Am I not to be considered? What if I don't want to marry you?'

'But—'

'But nothing. I've lived very comfortably without you for more than twenty years, thank you very much.'

'Had I known...' And Faro remembered his youthful flight from Orkney. Longing to be free, his ambition had made him luke-warm in his proposal that Inga might come with him. He had added, 'Eventually, when I am properly settled.'

Instead, she had passed out of his life and he had met Lizzie, with her young son Vince. And he had married her.

'To propose marriage to legitimise a child is, I consider, almost the greatest insult you could offer.'

So she had not known the details of Lachlan's Scots marriage?

Overwhelmed, confused, reduced again to stammering boyhood, all he could say was, 'I didn't mean—'

'I realise you didn't mean to be insulting. You thought you were being kind. And proper. Edinburgh manners have got through to you, Jeremy Faro,' she added bitterly.

Then suddenly she laughed again, laid an imploring hand on his arm. 'Let's not talk of it any more,' she said gently. It's past. Dead and buried with all the pain of long ago.'

They walked in silence the few yards towards the hotel Vince and Lachlan had indicated.

At the door, Faro said, 'I don't want to go in there yet. Come, let's walk round the square.' She made no resistance and he went on, 'You haven't answered my question yet, Inga.'

'Oh, I thought I had politely declined your proposal.'

Stopping, Faro seized her arm. 'Don't be evasive. Damn you, Inga. I want the truth. Is Lachlan my son?' And at her stubborn expression, 'I can count perfectly well, you know. I can ask him—'

'Don't you dare, Jeremy Faro. That would be unforgivable. How could you even consider such a thing?'

'That story about a father killed before he could marry you—'

'You have got it wrong, as usual. I was much more imaginative than that. When he was young I told him I was friends with his mother who lived in Aberdeen. She died when he was born. I was with her at the time so I brought him here to grow up with the Brown family—'

'And he believed you?'

She shook her head. 'Not entirely. Not after we once stood by a mirror and looked at our reflections together. That told all. He was about fourteen. He gave a sob. Took me in his arms and said, "Mother, mother. I've always known you were my mother. Why did you tell me you weren't? Do you think there was anything in this whole world I would not be able to forgive you?"'

She paused to wave to the two young men who had reached the hotel door and hovered indecisively.

'Coming,' Faro called.

'We were very close, Jeremy. Like you and your stepson.'

That was the moment when Faro guessed why Inga St Ola had never liked Vince when they had met in Orkney. It was quite understandable, for the love Faro lavished on his stepson could, by a single word, have been transferred to Lachlan.

As they made their way slowly across to the hotel, Faro said, 'Eating, at this moment, is an activity I can well do without. I hope you are hungry.'

'Oh, I am. Deeside gives me an enormous appetite. You can always take a dram and watch us eat,' she added mercilessly.

'Look. We must talk.'

But now, bleakly indifferent, she said, 'I don't see what else we have to say to one another. Really I don't.'

Watching the two young men with their hearty appetites and Inga not far behind them, Faro did his best to carry on a normal conversation.

It was not easy, especially with Vince's anxious 'What's wrong, Stepfather? Come, you must eat something. Is your stomach playing you up again?'

With his lack of appetite the centre of attention, Faro snapped angrily, 'Oh do stop fussing. Keep your doctoring for the hospital, if you please.'

Vince's eyebrows went up a little. Eying his stepfather narrowly, he refilled Inga's wine glass. 'Very well, very well. Only asking, you know.'

Having been so ungracious, Faro insisted on paying the bill.

'Will you be all right?' Lachlan asked Inga anxiously. He had observed that she had been somewhat reckless in her consumption of wine. 'I am on duty shortly. The Queen's picnic.'

Faro took Inga's arm firmly. 'I shall see her safe back to her lodgings.' Then to Vince, 'Get Lachlan to drop you off at Beagmill.'

And without waiting for their reactions he led her to the railway station. There the small boy left holding Steady and the pony-cart was agreeably surprised by the unusually large coin pressed into his hand for these services.

Once aboard, Inga gave directions and said, 'Thank you, Jeremy. I'm grateful, truly. I just wish we could have met under happier circumstances.'

In answer to his question, she sighed. 'I have no idea how long I'll stay. Lachlan is going to need me now. This terrible business. I can't believe it. Murder? That's something that happens to other people, not to one's own family.'

'Did you know Morag?'

'I met her on my last visit. Before she got involved with this other fellow at the Castle. I found it unbelievable; she was so utterly besotted with Lachlan. And who could blame her?' she added with a proud smile. 'First love and all that.'

She laughed softly, leaning towards him so that her head almost touched his shoulder. 'We know how that can hurt, don't we, Jeremy? Everyone else sees the holes and crevasses, the yawning pit of disillusion, but we go on our happy blinkered way. Just like Steady here—'

'What did you think of the girl?'

'Very pretty, very flighty. A tease. But such a horrible end. And yet although I was shocked, when I thought about it, I found I was not completely surprised. Girls like that, who entice men, often end up disastrously.' With a shrug she added, 'And I do get instincts, feelings about people.'

She looked at him. 'You know how it is. The witch in me, Jeremy. It's still active. Something from that first instant of meeting. I often see very clearly. Like looking down a long lane, with an uninterrupted view.'

'"Look well upon the face of the stranger. .."'

She nodded. 'Yes, Jeremy. You have it too, I realise that. Perhaps it accounts for your survival all these years in your dangerous job.'

'Tell me, what did you feel about her?' Could Inga contribute something vital that he had missed, never having met Morag Brodie?

'I seemed to see deep inside her, behind her eyes. She was not what she pretended. It was as if she played a part and sometimes hesitated, trying to remember her lines, as if the role she had chosen was too hard for her. I realised that she had tremendous vulnerability. That men would love her for it and would use her too. This extraordinary appeal, but she wasn't clever enough to handle it. In that instant I almost pitied her—'

She held out her hands. 'I wanted to gather her in. Warn her. And then I knew it was useless, whatever lay ahead I could do nothing to prevent it happening. It was already written,' she added heavily.

'And I made a resolve. If she was what Lachlan wanted, then I would do all in my power to help them. But I didn't think it would come to that. I also knew it was very one-sided. Lachlan was not enamoured. So when he wrote me that they had been married by habit and repute, I was taken aback. Hurt, too, that I had not been invited even as a witness.'

'Did he give you any reason for the haste?'

'I presumed the worst. That she was carrying his child. When I heard of the tragedy, of course, I came at once. I was shocked to learn that she had left him immediately after the marriage, such as it was, and that he had never seen her again.'

Faro wondered if she knew the full story, of the £250 and the mysterious benefactor, but she was asking the question he dreaded.

'I gather they have not found the murderer yet? Who do they suspect?'

Faro was saved an answer when she continued, smiling, 'I'm sorry, I suppose that is secret information. At least no one could suspect Lachlan, for which I must be thankful. And I gather he has been very helpful to the police.'

That was news, thought Faro cynically; obstructive would have been a better term.

On the outskirts of Ballater was a tiny private hotel, set among pretty gardens.

'This is where I leave you,' said Inga.

'When shall I see you again?'

Inga's face was in shadow. 'Do you really want to?'

'Of course I do.'

'Do you think that is wise?' A vestige of pain sounded in her voice this time.

He took her hand, held it tightly, not wanting to let her go. 'Wise or not, I would like to see you.'

'Very well. How about tea this afternoon?'

'Splendid,' he said, taken aback by her unexpected eagerness.

'Here, about four? Till then.' She smiled and he saw in the sudden dazzling radiance Lachlan's resemblance to her. Whatever Inga St Ola pretended, unless she had a twin sister, Lachlan was undeniably her flesh and blood.

And probably his.

Helping her down, wondering whether he ought to kiss her or not, he found the decision was spared him. Turning abruptly she hurried up the gravel path to the hotel door.

Watching her disappear inside, disappointed that she did not once look back, he climbed into the pony-cart. His emotions in turmoil, he arrived back at the Crathie Inn. There his appointment with Inspector Purdie served to remind him that at four o'clock he could not take tea with Inga St Ola, for he would be on his way to Glen Muick and the Queen's picnic.