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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Rose McQuinn
- Sprache: Englisch
For Rose McQuinn the invitation to holiday at a luxury hotel on the isle of Bute is an unexpected delight until she discovers the real reason is to investigate a twenty year old non-proven murder case. With close links to a strange local family of ancient origin whose modern castle holds many dark secrets, Rose's involvement in this challenge unleashes a web of intrigue and sinister happenings as she realises too late when a drowned man is a murder victim and someone decides she is close enough to the truth not to leave the island alive.
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Seitenzahl: 379
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Murder Lies Waiting
A Rose McQuinn Mystery
ALANNA KNIGHT
To George and June McKenzie, with love
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
‘You’ll be safe enough there,’ said husband Jack about my intended visit to Bute. He called it a neat, tidy island. Nothing exciting ever happens, the only murder – and that not-proven – was twenty years ago. You’ll be safe enough there. His final words, somewhat cynically expressed, related to the fact that wherever I went, murder always seemed to be waiting for me.
Safe enough. Those words were to haunt me.
But to go back to the beginning. A clash, between my essential appearance as a lady investigator on a client’s behalf in the court at Glasgow – details of which have no place in this narrative, including the possibility that matters might not be concluded in one day – and Chief Inspector Jack Macmerry’s long-planned annual family holiday: dates non-negotiable and set in stone by the Edinburgh City Police, daughter Meg’s half-term school holiday and, most important of all, his parents’ golden wedding day at Eildon, a farm in the wild Border country near Peebles.
Sadie Brook, our housekeeper at Solomon’s Tower, had been given a week’s holiday. ‘Seemed grateful and delighted, probably had plans of her own. And if you don’t go with us, Rose, then she will feel obliged to cancel them. And who is to look after you?’ Jack added anxiously.
‘No need for that, I am used to being here on my own. A few days will hardly be a hardship.’ In a curious way, I hated to admit that I was rather looking forward to having the Tower on my own when I returned from Glasgow, no immediate investigations and time to attend to much neglected domestic matters, discarding items from Jack’s much loved but extremely shabby wardrobe, Meg’s outgrown clothes and toys, as well as the contents of forgotten cupboard shelves.
‘Are you sure? You’re still not yourself again,’ Jack said.
I found his concern touching. I was hardly at death’s door, merely recovering from what seemed a lingering head cold and cough. Listening to that cough disturbing his night’s sleep, Jack said desperately: ‘You’re not well, Rose, you’re needing this holiday. A change of air and some of Ma’s cooking will work wonders. Make a new woman of you.’
‘Do you really want a new woman of me?’
He grinned: ‘You know the woman I want.’ His accompanying look said it all and proved that even after ten years it could still bring a blush to my face.
He went on to enthuse about the golden wedding long regarded as an exciting local event, a rare gathering of the clans, not to be missed. The Macmerrys were a popular couple and families from miles around would converge on the farm, none too young or too old to be excluded, as long as they had breath in their bodies and were capable of eating and drinking, particularly the latter, and with the inevitable ceilidh, for those not rendered completely legless.
The prospect of a whole week of social invitations to more remote farms and cross-country bone-shaking journeys, more food, drink and hangovers, very bad fiddle playing and ear-splitting shrieks from would-be dancers, did not, if I am honest, seem that enticing.
But as all the arrangements had been carefully planned by his mother Jess, Jack was furious with the clash of dates. She would be so disappointed. Although as a high-ranking officer in the Edinburgh Police he was liable to cancel more personal engagements than he had hot dinners, and frequently both, as I knew to my cost through the years, it was a totally different matter for his wife. I tried to muster interest in his suggestion that I might come for part of the week as the Glasgow meeting might involve two days’ travelling with little in the way of transport – unless he collected me from Edinburgh on my return. I knew from the slight frown and immediate change of subject that this idea did not appeal to him.
‘They’ll be getting enough of me. I’ll be here when they come back with you next week.’
Andrew Macmerry’s birthday also marked his retirement, the farm handed on to his nephew having long ago been declined by Jack, who decided to be a policeman, much to his parents’ disappointment.
Jess Macmerry wistfully fancied a few days in Edinburgh, with memories of her one and only visit on their honeymoon fifty years ago. She had never been to Solomon’s Tower and there were hints that a large amount of luggage might also be transported separately – Jess would be indulging in an orgy of baking and food preparation and since Jack’s motor car could barely squeeze in Meg and I, plus Thane, there would be little room for another passenger. And there was no question that Thane would be travelling too. He went everywhere with us and was a popular favourite with Jack’s father, who declared Thane the most extraordinary dog he had ever set eyes on, something most folk would agree with.
I sighed. Although they both boasted to being fit as fiddles, as Pa Macmerry was fond of stating, Jack decided that an aged couple used to living in a low-lying, one-level farmhouse should not have to cope with an ill-lit perilous and ancient spiral staircase, the only access to the Tower’s upper floor.
We often slept in Jack’s study in winter, cosy and close to the warm kitchen when the rest of the Tower was impossible to heat, and Sadie was set to work immediately transforming the Guard’s Room into a pleasant bedroom.
We had no idea where the name for the study originated, but I suspected from similar rooms on the upper floors that the Tower had once served as a soldiers’ barracks. Solomon’s Tower, resting on the now peaceful slopes of the extinct volcano that was Arthur’s Seat, had Edinburgh’s grim history confirmed by relics of battle – rusted swords, helmets and even the occasional skull – unearthed from time to time through the passing centuries.
My change of plan being discussed, I looked around the supper table. Angry, tight lips from a now grumpy Jack. Meg seemed slightly sad and was making all the right noises – but those grandparents in Eildon, who could resist them? She loved the farm and the animals, to say nothing of the overindulgence.
Like all young creatures she didn’t seem to feel any discomfort from cold draughts, doors left wide open and faulty chimneys belching forth smoking fires. Certainly not with so many good things to eat, all proudly home-baked and with a loving grandma who also applauded her desire to help in the kitchen and learn how to cook, seeing in Meg the potential for what she called growing up to be ‘a real woman’, unlike her daughter-in-law, Jack’s wife, seriously neglecting family duties by doing an unwomanly and potentially dangerous job involving nasty people and occasional dead bodies, activities best left to the police.
Jack had another cup of tea and was considering a final plea. He had also observed that there wasn’t much work for the ‘lady investigator, discretion guaranteed’ coming my way in Edinburgh at the moment. It wasn’t as if I was turning prospective clients away from the door, he said.
That was true, I had to agree. A temporary hiccup or perhaps Edinburgh society was also becoming more modern, in keeping with King Bertie and that loosening of the shackles of tight morals, a code put down, sternly fixed and adhered to in his mother’s long reign.
Her son, perhaps because of that stern upbringing, showed more understanding of the frailties of human nature. And that, most folk agreed, was a good thing. 1906 was the twentieth century after all, and ready for a lady investigator.
CHAPTER TWO
The following morning Jack left for work and after waving goodbye to Meg as she hurried down the road to the Pleasance and the convent school run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, I sat in the big kitchen enclosed by the grim and ancient walls, and the lost history of Solomon’s Tower.
Life was becoming a little dull. Sadie was washing the breakfast dishes. She looked across at me, heard me sigh and smiled. ‘Is it as bad as all that? Anything I can help with? Here, have another cup of tea, still warm in the pot,’ she added, her favourite antidote to all ills.
Sadie had been invaluable during the past two years, showing remarkable abilities as a nurse as well as running our lives with her customary efficiency, duties awakening memories of childhood afflictions and the devotion of her aunt Brook to whom Chief Inspector Faro frequently abandoned his two daughters, Emily and me, during our stay in Sheridan Place from Orkney on our annual school holiday.
Grandma Faro had taken us to live with her in Kirkwall after our dear mother died when I was eight, giving birth to a stillborn baby, the son she and Pa had longed for.
Sadie took a seat opposite, and the next moment, I was drinking more tea and pouring out my tale of woe, glad to have someone whose sympathetic ear I could bend for a change. We had become close in recent times – Sadie Brook the housekeeper had suddenly become Sadie the companion and secretary. I needed help and she was so good, not only keeping the house but also keeping my study in order. While I was laid low recently, she had taken the opportunity to update my filing system, which would make life much easier in future, that is if Jack’s dismal prophecy of my lack of clients was not fulfilled.
She had said apologetically: ‘I hoped that you would be pleased. That it would help. You are always so busy taking care of Mr Jack.’ I had on request dropped the respectful title of Mrs Rose and guessed that she understood from observing, without my putting it into words, that sometimes I had problems with Jack. We were happy together and had much to be thankful for, in harmony most of the time, but like all married couples there were brief moments when we stared angrily at one another across that kitchen table and harsh words were not always bitten back.
I sighed. ‘Forgive me. I am at this moment in danger of being sorry for myself.’
‘And you have every right to be,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re not your usual self at all. You’ve been very poorly with that wretched cold and that takes its toll—’
I shook my head. ‘This golden wedding and my absence has brought it all to a head. I should be ashamed to admit any of this to anyone. I have absolutely no reason for moans.’ Feeling defensive and that an excuse was needed, I added: ‘Jack is a great husband and we have had ten years of a good marriage.’
She sighed. ‘Aren’t you lucky! Sounds wonderful to me.’
Such statements like ‘good marriage’ always suggest perfect happiness to the unmarried and I said: ‘I might as well tell you I have another reason for not being tempted by a whole week at the farm. A brief visit is quite enough. Jack’s parents are somewhat stoical – I’m not implying mean … just careful – about heating cold rooms and keeping doors shut against draughts.’ That I always felt cold was a matter of amusement, and dare I add, even contempt to my mother-in-law, who saw it as a slackening of the moral fibres to admit to such weakness.
Sadie’s eyebrows rose. ‘Considering this house is not the warmest, perhaps they just think that you are used to the cold.’
I looked around me and smiled. ‘I never get used to it, but I love living here so much.’ And looking out of the window at the vast height of Arthur’s Seat, I added: ‘Living here in an ancient tower that looks as if it was built from the very boulders and stones that flew down millions of years ago at its last eruption as a volcano, is a rare and exciting kind of home. I feel privileged. I would never want any other place.’
She followed my gaze, a grey dull day outside, and she seemed surprised. ‘Not even one of those grand houses in the New Town,’ she said wistfully, ‘if Mr Jack had that kind of money?’
I laughed. ‘Not even then. Besides, as you know well, we live mostly in this kitchen.’
She smiled. ‘I hope it’s always warm enough …’
‘It is indeed. And you make sure that our bedrooms are too.’
She stood up and put the kettle on to boil. ‘You know, it is quite natural for Mr Jack’s parents to be disappointed. They are devoted to him and Meg, and so proud of you and all your achievements.’
‘Are they? I wonder. I’m not at all sure about that. Perhaps I have never been quite forgiven for not presenting their only son with an heir for the farm.’
‘But they have wee Meg and they adore her.’
That was true and I made no comment, but it had long been obvious that I was not the light of my in-laws’ lives. That position was unassailably and rightly held by Jack, always had been, and in more recent years by his daughter, ever since Meg came into the Macmerry family six years ago. A newcomer, a ready-made granddaughter, she was their flesh and blood, after all, and blood was for them far, far thicker than water.
I didn’t say any of this to Sadie because she just believed that Meg was my daughter and I was happy to let her go on thinking so. She had made another pot of tea and as she handed me a cup I thanked her and said: ‘I’m afraid Mrs Macmerry never quite approved of a daughter-in-law tainted by a life investigating crime. She’s very proud of her chief inspector son but crime and other such sordid things – that is a man-only business, very brave and commendable, but definitely not for women!’
I paused, wondering how best to rephrase Meg’s arrival. ‘As soon as we had Meg, she firmly decided that I should have immediately cast aside my career and devoted every moment to my new role—’ I stopped just in time. I almost said ‘as stepmother’. Although to give Meg her due, she regarded me as her mother, the only one she had ever known.
‘Mrs Macmerry is like most women, you can’t blame her for that.’ And giving me one of her intense looks, Sadie went on: ‘You are quite different, a new species, a career woman, it’s not her fault if she doesn’t quite understand that. She’s puzzled by you, I expect.’
I smiled wryly. ‘I know. I see it in her eyes each time we meet. She looks at Meg and then at me and I feel that I am falling short by not fulfilling what she regards as a woman’s only role in life. That is, spending all my waking hours cooking, sewing and making clothes, darning socks and being quite content to wait on my two, hand and foot.’
I stopped, suddenly embarrassed as I realised this described Sadie’s role as a housekeeper exactly. With sudden compassion, I wondered how she felt about it and whether she had secret ambitions stretching way beyond biding her time in Solomon’s Tower.
Sadie seemed unaware of my discomfort. ‘But you are much more than a career woman. I noticed from various things in your study that you are also fighting for votes for women. And I approve of that.’
‘You do? Well, I am glad to hear it.’ For another convert in the making, I added enthusiastically: ‘You must come to our next meeting.’
‘I’ll be delighted. I should like to join your movement, take an active part, become a suffragette.’
My eyes widened at that. The word ‘suffragette’ made Jess Macmerry blanch and I tried my best to keep that other piece of grey evidence against me well under wraps, with visions of a mother-in-law’s agonies concerning this weird woman her son had brought into a respectable God-fearing family. Grievances suppressed under a polite and smiling surface but doubtless unearthed as the door closed on our visits and poured into Andrew Macmerry’s long-suffering ears, used as they were to considering only the vicissitudes of poor harvests and sheep-farming matters.
Sadie was clearing the table, opening cupboards to make a list of what we needed for a meal that evening. Leaving such matters to her, I was only to be consulted on special occasions like birthdays and entertaining visitors.
‘Such a pity you have to go to Glasgow midweek,’ she said, ‘if it had been Monday or a Friday you might have been able to go with them.’
‘Jack knows there is no way I could be in both places on this important day. We’ve discussed it plenty, as you well know.’
She had been present, trying to look invisible through sharp discussions, seeing Jack looking angry and resentful, and me making matters worse with reminders about how often being a policeman’s wife, not to mention a policeman’s daughter, arrangements had been changed in the past.
I said: ‘My sister Emily and I had our childhood blighted by hardly ever seeing our father, without a mother; we grew up in many ways closer to your aunt Brook when we visited Edinburgh.’
She smiled. ‘Aunt Brook was wonderful. She brought me up after I lost my parents.’
I remembered that in Orkney this summer for Emily’s husband’s funeral, Pa and I had thrown a safe bridge to travel over this sad omission of parental care. We loved each other, and having much in common he was well pleased and proud of his daughter’s role as a lady investigator.
Sadie was about to take my bicycle down the Pleasance and then into Princes Street. ‘I have parcels to collect from Jenners for Mr Jack,’ she said.
That would be the wedding anniversary present for his parents and from the children’s department something special for Meg to wear, chosen by Jack on their visit to the shops while I was ill.
Sadie left and I went into my study. I had nothing to do and the Tower now so still and empty, I felt very alone. Being sick had drained me of energy and enthusiasm. Sorting idly through papers on my desk, my mind backtracked to my soul-bearing with Sadie. I thought of her collecting the parcel for Meg and that I should have been the one to decide what she would wear. It was no comfort to know, as I had always known from the moment she came into our lives, that given a straight choice, however much Jack had once loved me, now he would always choose Meg.
She was his child, she was his image and these days I noticed an increasing movement of our world around ‘Meg thinks … Meg says … Meg wants …’
Not for a moment must this imply that I was resentful, the wicked stepmother. I loved Meg with all my being. She was the child I had never borne, the replacement for that beloved infant son with my first husband Danny McQuinn. The baby who still lived in my heart, whose frail ghost still rose from the unmarked grave in the Arizona desert that I had dug with my own hands and laid him to rest.
After several miscarriages I knew I was unlikely to bear Jack a child. The St Ringan’s curse my sister Emily and I called it, by which all Faro women could bear only one live child. If Jess Macmerry never forgave me for Jack’s baby I had lost in those early months and was at that particular time my only reason for getting married at all, I had sought and found a granddaughter for them, reunited with her father but with no past memories. She loved both of us, her mother and father. But Jack was first – and the thought came unbidden and sometimes too often that now in my early forties, I was almost there, stepping over the threshold into middle age. With a loving husband and step-daughter, I had nothing to complain about, but it didn’t help to know that somehow I had failed as a wife.
I was not – or ever likely to be – the first person to live and die for anyone’s love; for blood, as previously mentioned, is thicker than water and that no amount of devotion can equal. Once I had prided myself, preened secretly, that I was first with Pa – now he had Imogen, happy together and settled in Dublin. Now there was no one wanted me above all others, and that included Thane, rushing to Meg’s side, tail wagging in delight, as soon as the door opened or he heard her footsteps on the stair.
I made a resolve that morning. Unburdening myself to Sadie had been a catharsis, a confessional Meg would have said, like the Catholic pupils at the convent. Yet Sadie had seemed impressed, even envious.
I stood up, cleared away the papers from my desk and made careful notes of what was required for the Glasgow court, telling myself to get a grip, stop feeling that life was slipping away. Be grateful, and be like Meg, say thank you, God, for every day. And go now, feed Thane.
Yes, there was Thane, my beloved deerhound. What about Thane? Thane had always been Meg’s from the first day they met, his allegiance was to her. He would go with them to the farm, sure of a warm welcome, indulged by Andrew Macmerry. And give Thane his due, he knew when he was on to a good thing.
Sadie had returned and smiled as she unpacked the groceries. ‘You’re looking better, Rose. A bit more cheerful than when I left.’
‘I’ve been gathering the threads, busy with things, that’s always good for the spirit.’
‘I was going to ask you something,’ Sadie hesitated, frowned. ‘I’ve been thinking just now. If you had been going with them, I would be off on a week’s holiday. Now that you are staying—’
‘No! You must still have that holiday. I insist. You deserve it, you work so hard for us all the time. And I can look after myself for a few days.’
‘Are you sure?’ She looked at me doubtfully.
‘Of course I’m sure. Have you somewhere to go?’
‘Yes. I was planning to go to Bute, catch up on old relations,’ she added.
‘Is that where your family came from?’
‘My parents, yes.’
I laughed. ‘I had no idea. I thought Mrs Brook being your aunt, Edinburgh born and bred …’
She nodded vaguely and I realised that was a foolish presumption as she said: ‘I was born near Rothesay.’
She said no more, retreating up the spiral stair to tidy Meg’s bedroom and put out her change of clothes when she returned from school. Scrambling about with Thane outside on the hill in her uniform was strictly forbidden after one or two disasters.
Suddenly I was aware of how little I knew about Sadie or of what had been the pattern of her life before coming to Solomon’s Tower.
She came downstairs, looked at me and said: ‘I’ve just had a great idea.’ Pausing, she smiled eagerly. ‘Why don’t you come with me, Rose? To Bute.’
CHAPTER THREE
Sadie’s suggestion took me by surprise. The idea of going on holiday with her had never entered my mind. I had never been to Bute, although Pa had long ago and he once compared it to Orkney. He liked it, reminding him that he was also an islander, an Orcadian born and bred, he said proudly.
Sadie was saying: ‘Look, I have to go through Glasgow, change trains there for Wemyss Bay, go across on the ferry.’ She laughed excitedly. ‘Why don’t we go together? I’ll do some shopping while you’re at your court case, then you come to Rothesay with me. You like islands, don’t you – brought up on Orkney with your grandmother? You’ll love it,’ she ended enthusiastically.
I think we both realised that a change of scene was called for and I suspected that apart from my slow recovery from what had seemed a particularly bad cold, another reason for my discontent might well be that I was perhaps now entering what the ladies of my acquaintance delicately whispered as ‘the change’, something all women dreaded, heralding the approach of middle age. The idea hadn’t occurred to me so far to be scared, but maybe the symptoms were imminent and at that moment Sadie’s suggestion seemed like a small miracle. The perfect answer, and I was certain that Jack would be happy about it too, with his insistence that I needed a holiday.
I considered Sadie as a possible holiday companion. Thirty-six, unmarried, she had no objections to being what they called a spinster or ‘being on the shelf’, as she laughingly described herself. I discovered that she had made a lot of man friends through the years and she always seemed to have some chap on the go. And that worried Jack more than it did me, especially when we met her in Princes Street, walking in Holyrood Park or Salisbury Crags’ Radical Road nearby. And always on the arm of yet another man.
‘Never the same one twice,’ and Jack would frown. Once pressing on, with polite bows exchanged, but no introductions, he whispered: ‘I was wondering, do you think we’re paying her enough?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, Rose, surely the same thought must have occurred to you – that she’s maybe making a bit of extra cash on the side.’
‘Jack! That’s awful. What a dreadful thing to say.’
But now that he had mentioned it, I gave Sadie’s behaviour a certain amount of thought. Certainly there was nothing in her appearance to arouse such suspicions. She didn’t behave flirtatiously towards Jack, she didn’t dress flashily nor was she a beauty, a stunner as men called them, although she had pretty chestnut hair and elegant hands – what Grandma Faro called a lady’s hands. She used to say they were a real giveaway of age too. Something you can’t disguise, she insisted, and made me very self-conscious in childhood about my short fingers and toes, haunted by the fear that they might be webbed, like those of my selkie Orcadian great-grandmother.
Certainly with Sadie, it was more than pretty hair and elegant hands that gave her that mysterious sex appeal, an irresistible chemistry that had men flocking to her side. If I had ever attempted to discuss such matters with Gran, she would have been quite shocked that I could let such notions ever pollute my innocent young mind. She would have said firmly she knew about such disgusting things and that particular appeal I was referring to, in her opinion, had more to do with the farmyard than the farmhouse. They belonged in the same category as rude or naughty words that, when uttered, I had to go and wash out my mouth, but alas there was no means by which I could wash out my childish mind of certain sordid and unexplained images.
Discussing this with Jack, I told him how at school long ago I had encountered any number of Gran’s wicked women. We laughed and concluded that in another age Sadie might have had the right qualities for a courtesan, a breed where beauty was not quite enough.
Once, I decided while we were sewing together to cautiously ask why, since she was so domesticated, she had escaped the matrimonial net. She shrugged and said she knew men and she liked them, they liked her too but marriage – she held up the sock she was darning – no, that was out of the question. I nodded sympathetically; she was one of this new age of emancipated women, like many of my suffragette colleagues, who refused to abandon their freedom and become men’s slaves.
The subject closed, I decided wryly that perhaps she saw too much of what it might become, aware of those threadlike cracks in my marriage. Jack was a good husband and a fine policeman, but he was also a very ambitious man and had no scruples or hesitation in putting every hour of his career ahead of his domestic life.
Later I was to be told that when she was orphaned in Bute in her early years, she had been fostered by a couple who seemed right enough, but behind closed doors there was a horror story. Strangely enough, although the man abused her, it obviously hadn’t put her off men altogether.
My thoughtful look at the suggestion of a holiday in Bute hadn’t gone past her. ‘Oh, do come, Rose, you’ll love it,’ she repeated.
‘Where will we stay?’
‘My family connections are near Rothesay, an ancient castle, and if any of them are still alive – it’s twenty years since I left – I thought I might look them up.’ She shrugged. ‘Remote cousins.’
The mention of an ancient castle was enough to make me shudder and have second thoughts. Although Solomon’s Tower was what it said, an ancient pele tower built some centuries ago, I never wanted to live anywhere else. But while it was dear to my heart, I wanted a change from stone walls that seeped in draughts, cold, vaulted ceilinged rooms with only the kitchen warm enough to survive the winters. The thought of a voluntarily chosen holiday in another ancient ruin sounded like utmost folly.
Sadie observed my doubtful expression, and smiled. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but what I have in mind is this chap I met in Duddingston – his uncle has a first-class hotel. It has all modern luxuries, as well as lifts, a bathroom for each floor, bedrooms overlooking the bay. All the rich folk from Glasgow go there, so it really is something. And we can stay there. Plenty of room out of the main tourist season.’
‘How much will it cost – sounds very expensive?’
She shrugged. ‘If you can pay your way, Rose, don’t worry about me.’ A small hesitation. ‘I have savings put by – you and Mr Jack are very generous with my weekly wages.’ And as my thoughts drifted inevitably to Jack’s outrageously wicked suggestion about her extra cash, she added: ‘I have a small legacy, from another aunt, put by. So I can afford it.’
And that finally made up my mind, I decided that I owed it to myself, and at this moment what I needed most was a warm, luxurious hotel for a few days, and Sadie’s description had definite appeal.
It remained to persuade Jack. Sadie was with me when he came in from work, as if for moral support. I need not have worried. He thanked her and, I fancied, with a sigh of relief, making me wonder if perhaps he knew more about those threadlike cracks than I thought and that, after ten years of marriage, the petals in that bed of roses were beginning to wilt a bit. But as Sadie went out, with a delighted smile, Jack gave me one of his big hugs and kisses, making me feel guilty of such disloyal thoughts.
‘If you can’t come to the farm then this seems the perfect answer,’ he said reassuringly. ‘A great opportunity going with Sadie, a nice woman I can trust to take care of you.’ I had no chance to register a protest about needing care as he continued: ‘A great place Rothesay, very popular, especially for ordinary Glasgow folk with big families in the old queen’s reign. They called it going “doon the watter”.’
Warming to the subject, he nodded eagerly. ‘I’ve been there a couple of times and one of our lads from there was never tired of singing its praises. So go for it!’ A wide grin spread as he grasped my hand across the table. ‘The change of scene will do you a world of good. I know that hotel too, but it’s very expensive, top-class.’ He frowned. ‘We can manage, but what about Sadie?’
‘No. It was her idea. The uncle of a man she knows owns it and she assured me that she can afford it.’
Jack’s eyebrows rose at that. ‘Can she indeed? Hardly from what we pay her.’
‘She has savings, apparently, a legacy she inherited from an aunt. Not our Mrs Brook.’
Jack gave me one of his wry looks and shook his head. I could read his thoughts, which took me back to our earlier conversation about her making a little extra on the side.
‘I don’t doubt her, Jack,’ I said sharply. ‘Perhaps this fellow from the hotel is getting her a discount. Especially as she is from Bute,’ I added indignantly.
‘She never told us that,’ Jack said. ‘We thought she was from here, being Mrs Brook’s niece.’
Meg who had been listening silently to our conversation came over, took my hands and wailed: ‘I’ll miss you, Mam. It won’t be the same without you. And Thane will miss you as well, won’t you?’ she added, giving him a pat.
At which Thane looked wise as always, not having anything dog-like to add in the way of words.
I didn’t say a word to Meg but Thane was one of my chief worries these days. How old was he? I had no means of knowing his age when we first met on Arthur’s Seat, where he seemed to be living wild when I returned to Edinburgh from the wilds of Arizona, after the disappearance and presumed loss of my first husband, Danny McQuinn. The huge deerhound, who appeared in my life and saved me from rape by drunken tinkers, looked fully grown and I would have said in the prime of dog life.
That was in ’95, and although eleven years had fled, Thane didn’t look a day older. He hadn’t aged like the rest of us and yet I knew, having made careful enquiries, that hounds as large as Thane don’t live as long as the smaller breeds. I often sighed, aware that the inevitable must happen, preparing myself mentally for when, sooner now than later, he must leave us. A day as inevitable as life itself but we couldn’t bear to think about it.
Jack and I were well aware that Meg would be inconsolable. He was so much part of the furniture of our lives, of Solomon’s Tower and Arthur’s Seat. Jack tried to be very philosophical about it all, insisting that Thane was ‘just a dog, after all’, despite the many instances I had recorded through our years together that he was more than just a dog. He had remarkable qualities, a kind of telepathy that existed between him and Meg – and me. He knew when we were in danger, knew when we needed him. Difficult to explain to anyone, but we were very conscious of it.
At this moment Jack and I shared a rare moment of telepathy. He squeezed my hand gently and said: ‘Go and enjoy yourself and stop worrying about Thane, he’ll be waiting for you when you get home again.’
And so the plan to visit Bute went ahead, Sadie saying she would let the hotel know, as with our heads together we went over timetables of trains and ferries. Each day it drew nearer, Rothesay with its luxury hotel, when my dreams of having a few days relaxing in warmth and comfort would soon become the reality of prepared meals and sitting by a window overlooking the sea. Sadie’s ancient castle and her odd relatives I had mentally resolved to avoid at all costs.
When the day of departure arrived, Jack saw us off on the Glasgow train, surprised at our lack of luggage, just one large case each. He grinned. ‘Is that all? I expected hatboxes and sundry small cases and valises,’ to which I responded sharply:
‘You know me better than that.’
I had a good training. The years of my life in the Wild West with Danny had not included the acquisition of possessions beyond the minimum required for surviving attacks from hostile Indians and bandits.
Jack grinned. ‘You’re looking very smart, in your best city costume – for the Glasgow court, no doubt.’ His eyes widened. ‘And a hat too. That’s a rarity.’
I never wear a hat if it can be avoided, at constant war with my unruly mass of yellow curls resistant to combs, brushes and the passing years. However, I have a code of dress for business assignments, which Jack doesn’t often see.
He smiled at Sadie. ‘You travel light, for a young woman. I wondered if the motor car would be large enough for all your luggage.’
She laughed. ‘Spinster ladies have to adapt. We do not always have escorts and porters can be expensive.’
On the platform, I was saved a dreaded tearful farewell from Meg, who was not allowed by the nuns to miss school except in extremis – sickness or a death in the family – into which category seeing her mother off on a week’s holiday could not be included.
The train slid towards us, and halted noisily, billowing steam. Jack saw us into our compartment; luggage stowed, he kissed me and shook hands with Sadie. The whistle blew, we were off, Jack left behind on the retreating platform, a diminishing smiling figure, hand raised.
As we sat back in our comfortable seats, Sadie sighed. ‘We’re on our way, Rose.’ She clasped her hands. ‘On holiday! Oh, isn’t this just marvellous?’
I love trains. Even the shortest journey is exciting for me, although shrouded by a landscape lost under heavy grey skies with the threat of imminent rain offered nothing worthy of note and had us both resorting to magazines from the newspaper stall.
And as Edinburgh retreated, folded back into the gloom, I found myself remembering last night as Jack and I prepared for bed. Maybe he was having second thoughts about me leaving when he said: ‘Bute’s a neat, tidy island. Nothing exciting ever happens; only one murder and that not-proven was twenty years ago. You’ll be safe enough there,’ he added with a somewhat cynical laugh.
‘Safe enough …’ The train’s wheels whispered. Those words were to haunt me.
CHAPTER FOUR
At the end of an uneventful, dull journey for a train-lover who yearned for splendid landscapes, we arrived in Glasgow, left the station and walked across the square in the direction of the court. With no idea how long my presence would be required and the delay that might be involved to our onward journey, I had warned Sadie that I might have to meet her in Rothesay, but thankfully all went smoothly and with a modicum of preliminaries and a few statements to witness and sign, my part in the proceedings was ended in a couple of hours and I was free to leave.
Free. I caught up with Sadie as arranged in the nearby railway hotel and she grinned cheerfully. She had done some shopping for things that might be scarce in Bute. She added that you never knew with ferries: a spot of bad weather, wild seas and we could be stranded, our return journey delayed. I sincerely hoped not, with the vision of Jack’s parents in Solomon’s Tower and no Sadie – an imposing presence as our housekeeper – there to greet them.
With her usual efficiency she had been busy, consulting timetables and brochures. ‘There’s one in thirty minutes and we leave at the terminus, Wemyss Bay station, and catch the steamer across to Rothesay.’ She seized my hand and laughed. And as everyone seemed anxious to assure me: ‘You’ll love it.’
We learnt that we were too late for the last train to Wemyss Bay that would connect with the ferry. ‘Might as well take it, anyway. Better than spending the night here in Glasgow.’ She looked around at the lounge and frowned. ‘Staying here will be costly. Unless you know anywhere?’
I had to confess that I didn’t know Glasgow well and the only hotel accommodation provided by the court for judges and visiting lawyers or witnesses was, I suspected, even costlier than this railway hotel.
My negative response didn’t worry her and I learnt something else about Sadie. Her efficiency included being very knowledgeable about Wemyss Bay and where we could get cheap lodging for the night.
‘Don’t worry. Leave that to me. I know it well, had my first job there. When I was fourteen, some people I got to know in Rothesay had rich friends with a holiday home there. They got me a job as assistant lady’s maid. Maid of all sorts would have been nearer the truth.’ She added that she had seen little of her employers, and spent most of the time doing endless piles of washing and ironing and keeping a kind of peace between eight unruly children between the ages of two and fourteen.
I was increasingly thoughtful. Greater even than my excitement about trains was a growing apprehension regarding the ferry crossing tomorrow morning. The weather had not improved and as well as rain there was now a high wind. With my tendency to seasickness I prayed for a good day with a smooth sea, grateful that Sadie kept my full attention and fears at bay with her knowledgeable information as we waited on the platform and at last took our seats on the Wemyss Bay train.
The railway line had been opened some forty years ago in 1865, advertised as being superior to other local lines, such as Greenock. And Wemyss had one attractive difference to recommend. All the carriages contained proper seats. Before the advent of railways, steamboats had been the fastest means of transport, five hours from Largs to Glasgow at 7/6d cabin fare, single. Wemyss reduced the journey to an hour and a half and an all-in fare of 2/7d. An hour to Glasgow. I was aware that railway travel had revolutionised public transport, enabling people from all levels of society to travel about the country, but I must have looked surprised at Sadie having all these details at hand.
She smiled. ‘Fares may have gone up but I remember it well. The family I worked for that summer went back and forth to Glasgow, the father to keep an eye on his business and the women to spend money on gadding about. They had inherited their fortune from forbears in the slave trade, although he pretended it was sugar.’ She laughed. ‘Sugar, for heaven’s sake! Well, money was no object and he didn’t mind spending it, taking the whole family, servants as well, practically everything but the kitchen stove went with them on holiday.’
The outskirts of Glasgow had given way to Paisley and rural areas around the Clyde – there was even a glimpse of a loch. A pretty journey for a hopefully sunny day tomorrow as at last we steamed into Wemyss Bay. Gathering our cases, we stepped off the train and Sadie said: ‘Lovely, isn’t it? Well, twenty years ago, there were two platforms and two steamer berths, and to complement the large private homes being built in the area around the station – what the newspapers called mini-Balmorals – it was vitally important that the station did not lower the tone.’
Outside the station, she pointed triumphantly across the road to the treelined hill. ‘There it is, still there. That’s the house.’
It was huge. I gasped. And she laughed. ‘Yes, a big mansion, and this was just a second home. Oh yes, these holiday homes were for rich folk and industrialists from Glasgow and others who could afford to pack off their wives and hordes of bairns for the summer. Not too far away, near enough so the lord and master could travel back and forth with ease.’ She grinned and shook her head. ‘And I would be prepared to bet there were more than business deals in the offing, a chance to sow some more of those wild oats while the wife was safely offstage.’
She looked thoughtful for a moment, remembering. ‘Things were different on Bute, though. Rothesay was for the poorer folks, crowds of a new breed of workers and their families escaping the grime and toil of industrial Glasgow to breathe some fresh sea air into their lungs for a change.’
We walked across the road on the lookout for a suitable place to spend the night. Sadie pointed. ‘That one looks promising. They are advertising vacancies.’ It didn’t look
