Murder in Paradise E-Book

Alanna Knight

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Inspector Faro
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 339

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The year is 1860 and Inspector Faro has been transported back to one of the darkest moments of his career - the chase of the notorious Macheath across the Scottish border to the Kent countryside. Whilst there, Faro meets an old school friend, Erland Flett, who is working alongside the artist William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites whose unconventional lifestyle is a startling revelation. Erland is about to marry a beautiful but mysterious young lady, Lena Hamilton. Faro recognises her as the famous Madeleine Smith, accused of murdering her lover, but never convicted. Now Faro realises that he must apprehend Macheath and save his friend from certain death at the hands of the ruthless Miss Smith.and time is running out.

Leseprobe

Murder in Paradise

An Inspector Faro Mystery

ALANNA KNIGHT

For Fran Nicholson, with love.

Contents

Title PageDedicationPROLOGUECHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENCHAPTER ELEVENCHAPTER TWELVECHAPTER THIRTEENCHAPTER FOURTEENCHAPTER FIFTEENCHAPTER SIXTEENCHAPTER SEVENTEENCHAPTER EIGHTEENCHAPTER NINETEENCHAPTER TWENTYCHAPTER TWENTY-ONECHAPTER TWENTY-TWOCHAPTER TWENTY-THREECHAPTER TWENTY-FOURCHAPTER TWENTY-FIVECHAPTER TWENTY-SIXCHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENCHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTCHAPTER TWENTY-NINECHAPTER THIRTYAUTHOR’S NOTEACKNOWLEDGEMENTSOther titles by Alanna Knight available from Allison and BusbyABOUT THE AUTHORAvailable from ALLISON AND BUSBYCOPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE

Rich and famous, poor and obscure, whatever the condition there is no escape. Every memory holds forbidden places, places of shame or terror not willingly revisited, sometimes merely a cruel word said in haste and never forgotten, a mean or thoughtless action, but sometimes that memory is a monster, foul murder left untried.

Fate had not forgotten Jeremy Faro and the dark shadow might have remained where it had lain, buried deep for thirty years of a brilliant career in the Edinburgh Police Force. Ironically, it was his true love, his dearest companion Imogen Crowe, who threw open the door and let his demon escape and turned the knife in the wound once more.

After his retirement as chief inspector in the 1880s, Faro travelled far and wide with the always restless Imogen, and was made welcome in so many artistic groups and political societies. Inevitably their brief return visits to Scotland were via London, where Imogen had access to a friend’s apartment in Park Lane.

Imogen loved London, she loved the concerts, the galleries and the high living. Faro didn’t and told her that the gallery openings, the lavish society occasions, with Imogen and himself as honoured guests, were overcrowded and overheated, and, most important, his feet (from years of chasing criminals) soon hurt and the conversations shouted across crowded rooms bored him. He was a little reluctant to admit to his forty-year-old companion that he did not always hear what was being said in the din and that an Orcadian’s lifetime dedication to drams of whisky regarded champagne with a cautious dislike.

Imogen listened, sighed and kissed him fondly. She loved people, was always the writer, searching, gathering material for another travel book – another biography – that was her lifeblood. She couldn’t understand but was always patient about what she called Faro’s dour Calvinist reception of some of her more outrageous friends. The truth, he confessed, was that they made him nervous.

‘Nervous, not you of all people, Faro,’ she laughed.

Then one day as they toured the exhibits at yet another gallery opening, she realised that he wasn’t listening. Instead he was staring transfixed by the painting of a smiling young woman, rich blue satin draped over one seductively bare shoulder, her face turned coquettishly towards them.

‘Faro – you haven’t heard a word.’

Then as Imogen stared into his face she was taken aback by his expression. Desire, lust – natural enough in a man, but this was different. As if the gates of hell had opened, she thought afterwards, little guessing that for Jeremy Faro they had indeed opened and shoved him down a path into a nightmare of events, ghosts he thought laid for ever, never to confront again in his mortal life.

‘Gorgeous, isn’t she?’ Imogen said lamely, squinting at the name, Portrait of Lena.

Faro nodded, said slowly. ‘Lena. Lena Hamilton.’

‘And by Rossetti too.’ Imogen smiled. ‘A Pre-Raphaelite.’

‘It is indeed,’ Faro replied.

‘You knew her?’ Imogen demanded sharply.

Again Faro nodded.

Imogen turned to the portrait. ‘Scotch, is she? I thought you never came to London.’

Ignoring that, he said, ‘She is – or was – from Glasgow.’

Imogen took his arm. ‘Tell me more, Faro. I’m intrigued, how did you come to meet her?’

‘Imogen, darling – oh, there you are!’

The interruption came across the crowded floor as Olivia, Faro’s stepdaughter-in-law, rushed towards them.

The two women embraced and Olivia planted a kiss on his cheek.

‘Vince not with you?’ Faro asked.

‘An emergency – at the palace.’ Vince was a junior physician to Her Majesty’s Household and such emergencies were common among the hordes of young royals.

Olivia grinned. ‘The usual story, not that he’s bothered. You know what he’s like, doesn’t care for these grand occasions – took that from you, Stepfather, badly brought up,’ she laughed. ‘Count van Schütz is dying to meet you, Imo, he’s read one of your books. Will you excuse us, Stepfather?’

She didn’t get an answer and Imogen darted Faro a look of concern as she was led away.

He wanted very much to be alone at that moment. His heart was beating wildly. He could hear it and in that atmosphere of heat, expensive cigar smoke and heady perfumes, he hoped that he wasn’t going to collapse, make an exhibition of himself and embarrass Olivia and Imogen, as the portrait of Lena refused to release him, holding him hypnotised as her smiling eyes had once held him more than thirty years ago.

The gate to hell had indeed opened. There was no escape, the world of 1887 had dissolved, had never been born and 27-year-old Jeremy Faro was in Kent.

The nightmare was about to begin.

CHAPTER ONE

1860

Constable Jeremy Faro was in pursuit of a notorious criminal who had made his escape over the border. This villain was a man of many disguises with as many crimes, including murder, to his name and only Faro had ever seen him face to face. In the fight that followed, beaten to the ground and left for dead, he survived his injuries with one important fact to offer.

He would recognise Macheath again.

‘We have had one piece of luck, Constable,’ said Detective Sergeant Noble, recently seconded from the Glasgow police. ‘He is down in Kent, at present held in custody at Abbey Wood. So you had better get down there sharpish and bring him back to stand trial. You are the only witness who can identify him.’

Faro had little option in the matter, despite misgivings that he refrained from outlining. He knew his enemy and, more importantly, that all the restraint that the Kent police had on offer might be totally inadequate to detain this wily character in one of their cells. In addition, an added complication apparently unnoted by DS Noble, Faro realised that the Macheath he had encountered could be completely transformed by shaving off his beard.

But an order from above was a command and there were hints of promotion in store. Young Constable Faro was proving competent and trustworthy, and the success of this assignment carried with it hints of promotion. His remarkable powers of observation and deduction in solving baffling cases had already much impressed Chief Inspector McFie, recently retired. These were, however, somewhat cynically regarded by DS Noble, who showed a regrettable tendency to throw all the impossible jobs his way and make them sound deceptively simple. And tracking down Macheath on a very inadequate description fitted this category extremely well.

* * *

Faro loved trains and leaving Edinburgh behind brought a great sense of excitement whatever awaited him at the end of his journey. Fascinated by what was still the novelty and daring of travel by railway, this would be his first visit to England as he had never been further south than the Scottish Borders.

Taking his seat in an empty compartment as the train steamed out of Waverley Station, he relaxed and stared out of the window determined to enjoy the outward journey in this good spell of early autumn weather with its dramatic glimpses of changing colours.

He determinedly thrust aside gloomy presentiments about the future since neither DS Noble, nor anyone else for that matter, had advised him how he was expected to accomplish his return journey on a London train bound for Edinburgh, armed only with a set of handcuffs to restrain a wily criminal and murderer whose attempts at escape had been remarkably successful so far.

As what lay ahead was for him a foreign territory as well as one that predictably involved pursuit of his quarry, to be well read was also to be well armed, so he had purchased a guidebook and a map for the journey – he had a particular fondness for maps – to acquaint himself as much as possible with the south of England.

He read that the area in which he was to be involved, between Deptford and Dartford, was poor and ugly and in the Twenties, according to social commentator William Cobbett, ‘such ugliness received a considerable addition by the sticking up of some shabby genteel houses surrounded with dead fences and things called gardens. Together bricks and sticks proclaimed “Here dwell vanity and poverty”.’

Laying aside the guidebook, he stared out of the window. Certainly as they left Northumberland and Yorkshire behind, the countryside that the train steamed through was beyond any in his experience, mostly flat and occasionally undulating, like some vast deserted meadowland stretching to the horizons, intersected by tiny hamlets, green trees, farm animals and the occasional mansion house of a great estate.

The approach to the industrial towns filled the sky with their smoking chimneys, a glimpse of narrow streets and mean hovels, overshadowed by the smoking monsters of Blake’s ‘dark Satanic mills’. Reaching London at last he was delighted to find the North Kent railway line led directly to Abbey Wood eight miles distant. As he changed trains, the final descent into the lush greenery of the countryside made him sigh with relief, a feeling that was to be short-lived. He was not completely surprised at the end of that long train journey to be met at the local police station, no more than a cottage in the village street, by a flurry of activity, apologies, red faces all round and considerable embarrassment. He was a day too late. The pathetically inadequate prison cell might have struck terror into the heart of a local poacher or a disruptive drunk but was never intended to house a dangerous criminal, and his quarry had found little difficulty in making his escape by wrenching out two very insecure iron bars on the window.

Sergeant Wilson was suitably apologetic for his wasted journey. ‘We understand that yesterday night he entered Brettle Manor, three miles distant down the road at Bexleyheath, broke a window and stole some food from the pantry. As there was nothing else taken, it looks as if this was a survival burglary only. Here are the details, Constable.’

Faro took the sheet of paper and sighed deeply. He would interview the owner but had scant hope of any clues. Macheath and his lunch would be miles away. It now remained his painful duty to telegraph Edinburgh and acquaint DS Noble with this dire news, showing remarkable restraint in respectfully not adding: I told you so.

While awaiting a reply, hopeful that it would be for his immediate return journey to Edinburgh, Faro’s hunger was appeased by mutton pies washed down with the excellent local ale. The constables beamed on him, so relieved to find a decent sort of chap who, after travelling all that way, understood their predicament regarding the escaped prisoner and took it all so calmly.

Not so DS Noble, alas. Never the most patient of men, his telegraph in return was made to sound almost as if Faro had been personally responsible for this calamity. As he read the words, he could almost hear that roar of anger and frustration.

‘Do not return to Edinburgh until quarry found. Our last chance to recapture. That is an order.’

When the red faces had subsided a little, Sergeant Wilson said, ‘You’d better prepare for a long stay, mate. The local alehouse will give you a room.’ He was sorry to depress Faro but felt it his duty to add, ‘Like as not your villain headed for London. He could hide there for ever and a day.’

This dismal prophecy echoed Faro’s own feelings on the matter.

Exasperated at the prospect of a trail gone cold and a fruitless local search with few clues to follow, he began walking briskly along the village street towards Bexleyheath, three miles distant, when he was hailed by a once familiar voice.

‘Hello there, Jeremy!’

The man who rushed across from the direction of the railway station, carrying what looked like a roll of canvas under his arm, belonged to his far distant Orkney schooldays.

‘Erland Flett. What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I might ask the same thing,’ Erland chuckled. ‘Were you on that train by any chance? I was just collecting this parcel from the luggage van.’ Frowning, he looked Faro up and down and grinned. ‘Well, well, I heard you were in the police. In Edinburgh. What brings you down to England’s green and pleasant land?’

‘Just police business,’ Faro replied.

‘No uniform?’

Faro shook his head. ‘No. For obvious reasons.’ And without further explanation: ‘Just here for a few days,’ he added, more in forlorn hope than certainty. ‘And yourself?’

‘Still painting. I expect you’ve heard of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood even in Edinburgh. Well, I’m staying with William Morris.’ He grinned. ‘Topsy, we call him, on account of his mop of curls. Red House is just a short distance away, fairly newly built and although I’m a watercolourist, he asked me to help out on some of the extensive decor, murals and so forth.’ And suddenly excited, ‘Where are you staying?’

‘I’ve just arrived.’ When he mentioned the local alehouse, Erland shook his head violently.

‘No, no, that won’t do at all. You must come back with me – and stay at Red House.’

‘Where’s Red House?’

‘At Bexleyheath.’

‘That’s a coincidence – I have to see someone at—’ and consulting the note, Faro said, ‘at Brettle Manor.’

‘They’re almost our next-door neighbours.’ Erland grinned. ‘We’ll soon arrange that for you. Come on, that’s settled then—’

Cutting short his protests, Erland went on, ‘I insist. You’ll be made most welcome, accepted as my guest. And you’ll love it. It’s a free house, painters, their models, their families all drift in and out. Gabriel Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown – they are here almost all the time.’ Pausing he frowned and asked wistfully, ‘Do you paint, by any chance?’

‘I once tackled the front door at home.’

Erland shook his head. ‘Don’t mean that kind. Thought being a watercolourist might be included in your many talents.’

‘’Fraid not. Can’t even draw a straight line. And where did you get that “many talents” from?’

‘You were so good at school. At everything. Remember?’ And Erland pointed across the road to an alehouse. ‘Look, let’s go in there. It’s not much but we can have a pint of porter and a pie, chance to catch up on things while we wait for the Morris wagonette. Collecting me in half an hour. Still have my game leg, you know,’ he added cheerfully.

Faro had already noticed the slight limp, the game leg that was in fact a club foot. In addition Erland had suffered from fainting fits, what the Orcadians called ‘doon-fallin’ sickness’.

As for that school friendship, tall and strong and ready with his fists, Faro had defended the smaller, lame, white-faced boy against his tormentors. From that first day Erland had looked upon him as his saviour and as the Fletts and Faros were distantly related to each other, as were almost every family in Orkney, he proudly claimed Jeremy as close kin.

The ale served them at the rickety table was acceptable, and Faro insisted that he had already eaten, but the dismal surroundings were not impressive nor was the prospect of hospitality at all promising. It suggested that Faro would be wise to consider his extreme good fortune in finding a more comfortable lodging near the site of his investigation.

Erland leant forward and said excitedly, ‘Having you here is the most marvellous coincidence. You’ll never guess what? My great news is that I’m about to be married. Next week. And you can be my best man. My best friend at school and my cousin! What could be more appropriate? Are you married yet?’

‘Not quite. But I have a young lady.’

‘Oooh.’ Erland leant forward, laughing delightedly. ‘Your intended! Tell me all about her.’

Faro was grateful that the arrival of one of the Red House grooms saved an explanation to Erland of the sensitive domestic situation he had left in Edinburgh, the one fly in the ointment so to speak. The young woman he was keeping company with, Lizzie Spark, had an illegitimate son Vince, aged twelve, who hated him.

As they left the alehouse, waiting outside was the most extraordinary conveyance Faro had ever encountered. There was certainly nothing in Edinburgh to equal the horse-drawn coach with curtains made of leather and a canvas, chintz-lined canopy. Erland explained that it had been specially built at Morris’s instruction by Philip Webb, the designer of Red House. Faro wondered what passers-by thought of this relic from another age that bore a weird resemblance to something from a medieval tapestry. As it swayed and pulled up the hill to swing along the road, Erland pointed out a few labourers’ cottages built from the remains of the Augustinian priory suppressed during the reign of King Henry VIII.

Thin plumes of smoke rising into the clear air indicated Upton, which Erland explained, as its name suggested, was an upper or higher settlement within the large parish of Bexley with ninty-seven dwellings; homes to farm workers, gardeners, carriers, plus an alehouse – the Royal Oak.

The approach suggested an early development of suburban villas, the march of bricks and mortar over the fields of Bexley as London’s population sprawled ever outwards.

Later he read in his guidebook that by the Thirties Bexley’s new town was growing in popularity with more than 2000 inhabitants and ten years later the vicar instigated the building of a new chapel close to Watling Street for his parishioners. Soon afterwards the railways arrived: one line running through Bexley via Lewisham and another further north through Woolwich.

As they entered the village street, Faro begged to be excused, saying that he must first call at the local police station, which Erland pointed out was conveniently, or inconveniently for the criminally minded, almost directly opposite the alehouse.

He thanked the groom, saying that he would walk the rest of the way, but Erland would have none of it.

‘We will wait for you,’ he said cheerfully. ‘There is no hurry.’

That this was a peaceful community was indicated by the fact that there was no constable in evidence in response to the bell on the counter.

Returning to the wagonette, Erland laughed at his stern expression.

‘No one there, eh? My dear old chap, the explanation is perfectly obvious. Not at all unusual. This is a haven of peace and as so little crime is anticipated, Constable Muir is either out after the local poacher or at home having his supper. And having come all this way, surely your business can wait until tomorrow morning.’

As they approached their destination, Erland pointed out Brettle Manor, on the east side of Red House.

Faro was immediately interested, and as the wagonette lacked windows, he slid along the leather curtain and stuck his head out for a closer look, to see a thin thread of smoke drifting skywards from a decrepit thatched cottage. Almost hidden by an overgrown garden of hedgerows and trees, it was very much at odds with this area of neat suburbia encountered thus far.

Bewildered, he turned to Erland: ‘Brettle Manor?’

Erland laughed. ‘No! You can’t see it from this angle. That is Hope Cottage on the edge of the Brettle estate – belongs to a wily old devil who refused to sell out to Sir Philip. The manor is in fact a new villa built just before Red House, carved out from the original orchards.’

A short distance and a long wall followed. ‘There’s the manor now. Near neighbours. Not long now.’

Craning his neck, Faro glimpsed a projecting porch flanked by square window bays as, with a gesture to take in the countryside, Erland continued, ‘Once this heath was pitted by sand and gravel diggings traversed by Watling Street, the old Roman road linking London, Canterbury and Dover and in the last century it was the wild haunt of footpads.

‘Red House stands on what was the pilgrims’ road to Canterbury, a fact dear to Topsy’s heart, a devoted Chaucerian. Such a romantic, he fell in love with the medieval ruins of Lesnes Abbey and Hall Place, the old Tudor mansion over yonder.’ And a confidential whisper, ‘Built a couple of years ago and cost a small fortune, don’t you know, £4000—’

A fortune indeed and an almost unimaginable amount of money to an Edinburgh policeman, thought Faro, as Erland went on:

‘Morris is rich, of course, but he couldn’t afford a country estate and Red House was over five times his annual income from his father’s legacy. But newly married, you know, he wanted a new house. Ah, we are nearly there.’ He laughed. ‘And his great friend, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was delighted to hear that his friend Topsy had chosen to build on a place known as Hog’s Hole.’

Suddenly the wagonette swung and swayed through the gate of a high wall.

‘Home at last!’ said Erland. ‘Welcome to Morris’s “Earthly Paradise”!’

CHAPTER TWO

The first sight of Red House gave Faro a feeling of astonished pleasure to see a building so vividly picturesque and uniquely original, startling in red brick, an unusual colour for one used to the grey stones of Scotland. An immense, red-tiled, steep roof, a gable shaped like a giant pepper pot and high, small-paned medieval windows suggested the house of a religious community rather than an artist’s domestic residence.

As they approached the low, wide porch with its massive oak door, Erland chuckled. ‘This is called the Pilgrim’s Rest. Appropriate, don’t you think?’

Stepping out of the wagonette Faro paused, breathing in the thin fresh air, welcomed by sweet garden smells of apples from the gnarled old fruit trees glimpsed over the orchard walls.

The tall figure of a girl standing in the porch disappeared inside.

‘That’s Janey, Topsy’s wife,’ Erland whispered. ‘I’ll introduce you and she’ll soon find a room for you.’

Already somewhat apprehensive at the prospect of encountering professional and famous artists, a strata of society of which his life in Edinburgh and Orkney had offered no experience, Jeremy, following Erland into the now empty hall, put a hand on his arm and whispered:

‘I have only one request. No word that I’m a policeman. Keep that to yourself, if you please.’

Erland laughed. ‘Your secret is safe with me. I have no intention of giving the game away, old chap. A policeman in their midst would cast a definite blight on their behaviour – that is, of course, until they get to know you,’ he added hastily. And with an apologetic cough, ‘You will have to get used to it, ignoring things, I mean. Some of them behave a little odd. A law unto themselves, as we say. Use laudanum and chloral, as well as opium, not just for health reasons, to keep minor aches and pains at bay, but just to keep their spirits up.’

‘Do you?’ Faro demanded.

In answer, Erland shrugged and then, looking anxiously at Faro’s expression, he said: ‘You know what I mean, I’m sure. After all, artists often need this sort of stimulant, Rossetti in particular. And of course the wine flows continually. I’m sure you won’t judge them. They mean no harm, they’re decent, good souls.’

Harm or no, and with hopes of a dram of whisky after his travels fast disappearing, Faro decided it was none of his business. He must temporarily forget his Calvinist upbringing and the law’s rulings on illegal drugs, and assuring Erland he understood perfectly, he cut short his own misgivings.

As well as being a splendid location and certainly more comfortable than the brief glimpse suggested the local alehouse might have on offer, whatever went on in Red House, he was prepared to ignore. This impromptu visit was only for a few days. An interesting experience for the beginning of his investigation, an investigation which he was under orders to conscientiously follow, although he guessed that Macheath would be far from Kent by now, with London fairly accessible.

Erland went in search of Janey Morris and he had a chance to take in his surroundings, the wide entrance hall through the porch with its red flagged floor and unpainted woodwork, plain, well lit, but quite ordinary, not at all what he had expected from the exterior, with high windows excluding any views of the gardens.

Gazing up the handsome oak staircase with its extended newel posts, used to the overblown clutter of present-day domestic architecture, he recognised that this more closely resembled the earlier Georgian age, for there were no cornices, no mouldings, no ornamentation, just plain skirting boards.

The exterior had suggested a religious community but the interior, with its sturdy simplicity, would have done credit to a village school or a country parsonage. There was more to it. This tall turreted house, plain and functional, was also playful with an amalgam of surprises: in the absence of conventional decoration inside there were small arches showing sills and sash windows of all shapes, little casements of a size to shoot an arrow through, the kind of imaginative home a child would love.

Awaiting Erland’s return he strolled back to the open door and realised that this was also a place for knights of old. That inner courtyard with its well house like a giant candle-snuffer suggested a departure point for long-forgotten battles and crusades.

Gazing upwards at the great tiled barn-like roof with weathervane and turret to the fountain splashing up just yards away, again he felt that he had set foot in a foreign land, a time of legend and fairy tale. Although Edinburgh had more than its share of Gothic architecture, mostly devoted to church buildings, there were few models for architects to use for the smaller detached domestic dwellings which the new affluent society demanded.

Back in that inner porch of welcome he looked up at the exposed roof beams and trusses, as well as some brick arches, forming external features brought indoors and asymmetrically positioned.

He was to discover that Philip Webb’s creation had been designed not as a vertical London townhouse nor a stuccoed suburban villa but a house commodious but not grand, handsome but not flashy, medieval in spirit but modern in function with family rooms for a clutch of children, as befitted the newly married William and Jane. There were also guest rooms, servants quarters and a studio. An artist’s house and a gentleman’s residence.

He wandered into an open room with a huge fireplace and a wide shallow grate, its scaled-down medieval shape including a hood but lacking a mantelpiece.

Footsteps! Erland had returned. ‘So this is where you are. Isn’t it magnificent? Gabriel describes it as more a poem than a house. Nothing like it in dear old Orkney – or in Scotland,’ he added proudly.

Faro nodded in agreement as Erland went on, ‘Janey is rather busy at the moment. She told me to show you to your room.’

Faro hesitated. ‘Are you sure this is all right?’

‘Of course it is all right, old chap. You are most welcome. You’ll meet Janey and Topsy and the others at dinner.’ Turning as Faro followed him upstairs, he said, ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I’m most impressed.’

As they reached the landing Erland indicated a small arch. ‘This way. Mind your head, it wasn’t intended for anyone as tall as you. Topsy is quite short, you know – like me.’

As he threw open a door across a wide floor, Faro glimpsed a postered bed, almost the sole furnishing in a room with high, narrow, arched windows.

‘You’ll be happy here, Jeremy, mark my words. This place is magic. Pure magic. Make yourself at home, I will see you shortly.’

Glancing around, Faro considered his good fortune. He could believe Erland; this place was magic.

But magic had another darker side. However there was no indication of what the future held as he took in his surroundings, the prospect of a pleasant and completely unique adventure, Red House near enough to the local police office to keep in constant touch for news. Though what he was expected to do he was not quite sure until someone sighted Macheath. Of that, Faro had little hope and unless matters moved at an alarming speed, which a brief experience of the local police at Abbey Wood did not suggest was at all likely, he would be here for Erland’s wedding.

Unpacking his valise, he sat down at the small table and brought up to date his logbook, which would be required as evidence of his investigation. The task completed, laying it aside, he decided this might be a great adventure after all. He was unlikely to ever be in Kent again or to have the opportunity to meet a group of famous artists once he returned to the everyday duties of an Edinburgh policeman.

An experience indeed. As for Orkney – by comparison with Edinburgh, how dull the simple life his family had enjoyed for generations must have seemed before his father made the momentous break from tradition, joining the Edinburgh City Police, only to be killed by a runaway cab while on duty. An accident that his mother flatly refused to accept, certain that he had been deliberately run down, a fact that, in a life still far in the future, was to be one of Chief Inspector Jeremy Faro’s greatest cases.

A tap on the door announced Erland’s return. ‘Supper will be ready soon. What do you think of your room?’ Bouncing on the bed he smiled. ‘It is so good to see you again. I still can’t believe my luck. Amazing, isn’t it – that we are both to be married soon. You did mention a young lady, tell me about her.’

So Faro told him all about Lizzie and Vince, watching his friend’s face anxiously as he spoke. Not that he was ashamed of Lizzie, despite the fact that she was regarded as a social outcast because of her illegitimate child. Faro was intensely proud of the way she had overcome adversity and had borne and lovingly reared this child, the result of rape by a visiting guest one summer while she was employed as a maid in a big house.

From Edinburgh she could expect no sympathy or help, only contempt and condemnation. In many cases, girls less fortunate than Lizzie had their babies torn from their arms and thrust into workhouses until they were old enough for slave labour, while their unfortunate young mothers often spent the rest of their days in asylums for the insane.

Such appalling treatment Faro found difficult to forgive in a society that he was dedicated to protect, seeing so much of the lowlife of the higher echelons, the guardians of Edinburgh society emerging from brothels on his beat in Leith Walk. These were the very men who had disgraced and ruined his poor Lizzie.

At the end of his story, Erland nodded vigorously. ‘Don’t you worry, old chap, don’t give it another thought. The fellows here will be entirely on your side. They consider it a noble duty to rescue unfortunate women and give them status and education.’

Enthusiastically he went on to quote examples of the Pre-Raphaelites who had taken girls from humble backgrounds as models and elevated them to higher ranks, even marrying them. Models such as Rossetti’s new bride, Elizabeth Siddal, another Lizzie, who had been seen working in a milliner’s shop, and Janey Morris, daughter of a stableman and a laundress, living in a backyard hovel in Oxford, kept out of society for two years while Morris educated her before they married, much to his upper-class mother’s disapproval.

‘What of your Lena?’ Faro asked.

Erland laughed. ‘Oh, she’s well off, grandfather a rich Glasgow merchant.’

Asked how they met, Erland smiled. ‘So romantic, old chap. Quite by accident – or fate as you wish – on a train journey. An orphan, from Glasgow, lost her parents when she was quite young, she had been living with an aunt who had died recently. I helped her with her luggage. She had missed her train, and was in quite a state.

‘I was meeting Topsy Morris and Rossetti, who took one look at her and insisted she had a meal with us. As we talked, we learnt that she was a seamstress and had considered going to London in search of work perhaps as an embroideress but had no idea of where to begin looking for employment. As well as being a stunner, as they call lovely girls here,’ he paused to sigh and close his eyes, ‘she was quite beautiful and I could see Gabriel watching her, narrow-eyed, surveying her as he does prospective models, already positioning them in some of his Arthurian paintings.

‘Janey – who you’ll be meeting – and Burne-Jones’s wife, Georgie, are great embroiderers. Well, over that meal we shared, I guessed how nervous Lena was about going to London. At a crossroads, she didn’t want to return to Glasgow either and it was as if I could see into Topsy and Gabriel’s minds at that moment. I knew exactly what they were going to say. She was to come back to Red House. There was plenty of employment there for a seamstress or an embroideress.’

Erland laughed. ‘Oh, it was so wonderful, as if Divine Providence had stepped in. At that time I must admit I had little hope; Gabriel Rossetti so handsome – all his models fall in love with him, although he was officially engaged to his Lizzie for several years before they got married. That was a bit of a heartbreak for her, knowing he’s not the faithful type and she’s past thirty.

‘Anyway, I was wrong about Lena, I soon found out that although she loved modelling for him – he said she was one of his best, so serene, she could sit quite immobile for hours on end, so very still – I thought her face always lit up when she saw me. At first I told myself it was only because she was grateful to me for introducing her to the artistic community here – I didn’t dare hope for more than that.’

Pausing, he frowned. ‘I couldn’t believe that she was in love with me – how could any woman find me attractive by comparison with these men of genius – yet she wanted to marry me – be my wife.’

He looked astonished and shook his head. ‘I have to confess to you, old chap, since we are old friends and cousins, that although we are to be married in a few days, we have – well, er, my lovely Lena is already my wife in everything but the marriage ceremony,’ he added proudly. ‘Not that such matters are regarded as important here. Jeremy, I am the luckiest man in the whole world for soon we will be together for ever, till death us do part. Wait till you meet her, see if you don’t agree with me. Everyone loves her.’

A bell sounded. ‘That’s dinner now.’

Faro set aside his frustration at failing to contact the local constable. Evening would be too late to call on Brettle Manor – without his uniform. Besides, he told his conscience, the trail for Macheath in Upton had almost certainly gone cold.

CHAPTER THREE

As they assembled in the dining room Faro decided this was as remote in its setting from any table he had ever supped at and, looking at the painted walls and ceiling, he doubted if there was one to match it in the rest of Britain.

The centre of the large room was held by a great round table and huge armchairs straight from the Tales of King Arthur and His Knights and the company were in keeping with their setting. The ladies in rich medieval gowns, vividly coloured, looked as if they might have stepped from the murals painted on the walls, for which they had doubtless modelled.

All took their seats and awaited the arrival of their host, William Morris, who to Faro’s astonishment was wearing a suit of mail and a helmet complete with visor.

Erland whispered that Morris had ordered it for one of his paintings and it had just arrived. Trying it on he liked it so much he was giving it an airing. Everyone seemed to like it too, and his choice was applauded. Faro, looking round, felt the scene at the dining table was one of their paintings personified, lacking only a title from some medieval romance. William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, bearded, both comfortably rounded and neither as tall as himself, suggested that, like their ladies, they might have stepped down from some painting, in their case the background of some early saint’s martyrdom.

Erland rose and introduced him to the assembled group, saying this was his cousin from Orkney. Rossetti immediately responded, stretching a hand across the table.

‘Dear chap, you are most welcome.’ And to Erland, ‘Did your cousin come direct and, if so, where is his dragon ship? I demand we see it and I trust we have found room for it.’

Everyone laughed and Erland looked bewildered as the men roared with mirth and Rossetti said, ‘Congratulations, Erland dear fellow. Don’t you know you have brought a Viking into our midst. Most acceptable. Don’t you agree, Topsy old chap?’

Morris chuckled. ‘I do indeed. Put a horned helmet on him – see if we have one somewhere, Gabriel – and he would look the part.’

Their reflections in the large mirrors showed Erland and the new man, Jeremy Faro, were a complete contrast. Faro was tall and slim with thick fair hair and dark eyebrows over deep-set, dark-blue, strangely watchful eyes. With the keen eye of the artist, Rossetti noticed the high cheekbones, long straight nose, and that sensual wide-lipped mouth, vulnerable in such a stern face, suggesting warmth, tenderness and even passion, unconcealed as it was by the fashion for facial hair run riot. Rossetti decided that, according to the Orkney legends, Erland belonged to the short dark-haired hunters who had built the mysterious brochs and the early cairns while Faro’s forebears, the tall, fair Viking invaders, had come many centuries later.

And Rossetti, who knew a lot more about human nature than most, shrewdly guessed that as a schoolboy in Kirkwall, Erland’s stammer and slight limp had made him the target of cruel torments and mimicry from other boys and that Faro had fought many a battle on his behalf, thereby winning his undying devotion.

Rossetti could not know that the story went further. When later the village girls in Orkney gravitated to handsome Jeremy, he did not seem to notice what was on offer, the one exception being Inga St Ola, the strange wild girl who was his constant companion. But his dreams and ambitions were to leave Orkney to follow his policeman father over to the mainland – to Scotland and the Edinburgh Police Force. Aware of the frailty of human hearts, where beauty was often all where love was concerned, Rossetti could well imagine that Faro had tried to direct the flutter of eager females in his friend Erland’s direction – without success.

The truth was that women of all ages had always found Jeremy Faro dynamic and, even in his short time in Edinburgh, he chose to ignore appraising glances from young females. He could not know how Erland had envied him, wistful that his friend could so easily find love if he wanted it, love that he had sought in vain until Lena, that miracle of his life, came along.

Now Gabriel Rossetti clapped his hands and, rising from the table, walked round and treated Faro to an inspection. ‘You’re right, we must find a painting to have him model for us. What have we – something suitably historical from those islands at the World’s End.’