The Bull Slayers: Inspector Faro No 9 Read online

  The Bull Slayers

  An Inspector Faro Mystery

  by

  Alanna Knight

  ALANNA KNIGHT has written more than fifty novels, (including fifteen in the successful Inspector Faro series), four works of non-fiction, numerous short stories and two plays since the publication of her first book in 1969. Born and educated in Tyneside, she now lives in Edinburgh. She is a founding member of the Scottish Association of Writers and Honorary President of the Edinburgh Writers’ Club.

  Chapter 1

  'It will be our secret...'

  As Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro walked briskly away from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's words echoed through his footsteps.

  'It will be our secret, Inspector Faro.' And stretching out a small white hand, still girlish despite her increasing bulk, she had beamed on him.

  There was no encouraging or polite smile from Faro as he returned the letter. He was reeling from the words he had just read. Momentarily speechless, watching her fold and replace in a drawer what might be damning evidence, enough to hang an ordinary man in a court of law, he gasped out: 'Your Majesty - would it not be, er, advisable perhaps to destroy that?'

  The Queen was very small, and neither Faro nor anyone else was permitted to sit in the Royal Presence. It would never have occurred to her to be this thoughtful, that a chair might be welcome to one of her loyal subjects who walked considerable distances each day.

  Although Faro towered over her by more than a foot, she was not in the least intimidated since she froze statesmen twice as big as herself on any day of the week.

  'We take it that you are not indicating that His Royal Highness is in any way involved in this unfortunate affair,' she said sternly.

  Faro was doing exactly that, but thought better of it. He shook his head, in a valiant attempt to banish the ghastly realisation taking shape as the Queen's glance changed to one of icy displeasure calculated to demolish even a senior detective of the Edinburgh City Police. If looks could have killed...

  The imperial hand moved in a gesture of airy dismissal.

  'You have our permission to withdraw, sir.'

  As Faro bowed himself out of her presence, followed by that ferocious glare, she added: 'His Royal Highness is quite innocent. Oh yes, entirely innocent, we expect you understand that.'

  Faro didn't understand in the slightest, after the condemnation he had just read. Bewildered and with that sharp reprimand ringing in his ears as the footman closed the door on the Royal Presence, he marched smartly past equerries, attendants and various hangers-on hopeful of achieving an audience.

  Moments later he emerged thankfully into the frivolous breeze of Holyrood Gardens.

  'Sir... Follow me, if you please.'

  A breathless footman waving frantically indicated that the Royal Command was still in operation. As Faro was wondering what further nonsense Her Majesty had in mind, he was led into the equally intimidating presence of her Prime Minister, with whom it must be confessed Inspector Faro had never been on the best of terms.

  Ushered into Mr Gladstone's sanctuary, he noted that gentleman consulting his watch in the urgent manner of one who suspects that every waiting second is diminishing his not inconsiderable bank balance. And that those who wasted his time would find themselves in deep trouble.

  At Faro's approach the gold watch was closed with a snap and returned to the Prime Minister's breast pocket.

  'Further to your interview with Her Majesty, I must impress upon you the importance of your assignation. That on no account must you involve or invoke the Edinburgh Police. And that includes your Superintendent. Absolute confidentiality is vital. Do I make myself clear?'

  'So Her Majesty has given me to understand. That is precisely why I am to go incognito.'

  'A new role for you.' Gladstone's thin-lipped smile was mirthless. 'Her Majesty may have neglected, er, omitted to inform you of two paintings at Elrigg she is keen to possess?'

  Without waiting for Faro's response, he continued: 'One is of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales with a wild bull from the Elrigg cattle herd, shot on a previous visit. Her Majesty is very keen to have it for Balmoral. Painted by Landseer, of course. The other painting is of the state visit of King George the Fourth to Edinburgh. The Family is very sentimental about such connections and His Royal Highness has informed his mother how it reminds him of his late father. Hence her interest,' he added with a knife-like smirk.

  While Faro was considering a tactful response and how anyone with reasonable eyesight could see any likeness between such dissimilar men, Mr Gladstone came rapidly to the point.

  'Unfortunately His Royal Highness discovered on his recent visit that the two paintings had disappeared from the Castle. Stolen, he was told. No one knew quite how or when.'

  He sighed heavily. 'We expect that you will do your best to recover these two items and acquire them for Her Majesty. This part of your, er, duty is, I need not tell you,' he added, heading Faro to the door, 'of a most secret nature.'

  Secret, indeed. Her Majesty's childlike greed regarding possessions, especially paintings for her ever-growing collection, was as well known as her childlike delight in secrets. Regarding possessions, however, few were ever bought, most were acquired - demanded from their owners who, according to Her Majesty, had been 'pleased and honoured' to hand them over to her.

  The Elriggs, however, had forestalled her. Even as the Prime Minister spoke, Faro had already put together one or two ideas of where they might be found. Knowing human nature, he did not envisage any problem in solving this particular mystery, the easiest part of his assignment.

  Much more serious was the Prince's possible involvement in the mysterious death of his equerry, Sir Archie Elrigg. Faro, who had total recall where documents were concerned, found himself seeing again the letter Bertie had written to his mother, a damning but oddly boyish epistle, stressing the very unfortunate coincidence that on an earlier visit to Elrigg, a fellow guest, an actor, had also met with a fatal accident while they were out riding together.

  'It was not my fault, Mama.' There was a whining note of schoolboy complaint as if such communications were regular and betrayed a desperate anxiety to get in his excuses before the headmaster's report had a chance to raise the parental wrath.

  Presumably Her Majesty's anxiety was capable of innocent interpretation, as a fond mother's desire to protect her firstborn and to prove to herself that the future King of England had nothing at all to do with the extraordinary coincidence of two fatal accidents during his visits to Elrigg. Her particular concern was his equerry's unfortunate end, an almost desperate anxiety to prove to all who knew him the impossibility that Bertie could be guilty of the eighth deadly sin for the English gentleman: cowardice. Bertie had left an injured comrade to face the enemy, in this case a wild bull.

  Such monstrous accusations had destroyed many a noble family. Less exalted men than princes had been forced by an unforgiving society to take the 'decent way out' while loading a conveniently inefficient shotgun.

  Redemption was the name of that particular game. But in a royal house, there existed an even more sinister motive: the anxiety of a ruling monarch whose reprobate son's conduct failed to live up to the high moral standards implanted on the unwholesome Georgian society at her coronation. Such standards, admirable for the nation, were totally ignored by the heir to the throne as he lusted after yet another actress or society beauty.

  Nor could his mother forgive or forget that his affair with actress Nellie Clifton while at Cambridge University had contributed to the premature death of her beloved Albert and her long and bitter widowhood.

  In a poignant letter announcing his visit (and carelessly abandoned in Bertie's rooms at Madingley Hall), Prince Albert had written: 'You are the cause of the greatest pain I have ever felt in my life. You must not, you dare not be lost. The consequences for the country, for the world, would be too dreadful.'

  But Bertie remained unrepentant, an unwilling student who stated publicly that he 'preferred men to books and women to either'.

  After her husband's death, the Queen wrote that she never could or would look at their son without a shudder. Her hopes for his marriage in 1863 to Princess Alexandra of Denmark -'one of those sweet creatures' (she wrote) 'who seem to come from the skies to help and bless poor mortals' - were doomed to disappointment as the bridegroom soon demonstrated an easy ability to accommodate a wife as well as a succession of mistresses.

  Faro felt sympathetic; knowing a great deal more than would ever be made public about His Royal Highness's 'scrapes', he could understand Her Majesty's concern about the future of Britain.

  'If he succeeds, he will spend his life in one whirl of amusements. There is a very strong feeling against the frivolity of society, everyone comments upon my simplicity.'

  Simplicity was admirable, Faro thought, remembering her words, but cowardice never. For if coward Bertie was leaving one man - his equerry - to be gored to death by a wild bull, how in heaven's name would he deal with the future of whole regiments of soldiers and the glory that was the ever-expanding British Empire?

  Faro sighed. As for understanding, he was certain of only one thing, that he was being asked, or rather commanded, to divert the course of justice if necessary on what might well turn out to be yet another royal scandal involving the future King.

  It was a hopeless investigation with a trail long cold, Sir Archie dead and buried, while t
he Queen had taken some time to decide whether or not she should take the Prime Minister's advice regarding her son's letter.

  The situation was by no means unique. In the past, Royal persons had been revealed as suspiciously close to fatal accidents. The pages of history books were littered with prime examples. But such knowledge offered little consolation to the man whose unpleasant job was to throw a bucket of whitewash over the sordid business at Elrigg. Especially a man whose instinct for justice was equally as unyielding as his sovereign's moral code.

  'There'll be a knighthood in it for you,' smirked Superintendent Mcintosh, who had been eagerly awaiting the outcome of Faro's summons to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. In the unhappy position of following instructions in the form of a Royal Command that his chief detective was to be granted leave of absence to undertake a personal and confidential mission for Her Majesty, he tried with difficulty to conceal his curiosity.

  Regarding Faro narrowly, he signed the paper releasing him from duty. The Inspector had done it all before many times, of course, protecting Her Majesty and the Realm, but never with such secrecy. What were things coming to when a superintendent of highest character and spotless record could not be trusted with such confidential information?

  ‘Thank you, sir,' said Faro. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.' 'Do that,' was all that Mcintosh could say in the circumstances. 'Do you need anyone - McQuinn, perhaps? I could spare him.'

  'That's very good of you, sir, but that would be complicated.'

  'In what way? I mean, you will be in Edinburgh, of course?' Faro shook his head. 'No, not even in Scotland.' Mcintosh's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. 'I won't be far away, though, just over the border, only a day's ride. And now, sir, if you'll excuse me.'

  Nodding agreement, a very puzzled Mcintosh went to the window and watched Faro leave the building and head across the High Street, as if such action might reveal some indication of his plans.

  With a sigh he returned to his desk. Borders, eh. Then this could not be a police matter, hence his own exclusion from the details. Besides, the English police had very different ideas of how the law should be administered and were, as far as he was concerned, a race apart.

  No doubt time would reveal all.

  Faro, however, hoped most fervently that it would not as he walked rapidly homewards through the crowded, odorous High Street and emerged at last in the quiet villa quarters of Newington.

  All around him Edinburgh blossomed, touched with the gentle splendour of Maytime. Arthur's Seat, proud and majestic, bloomed richly under the gold of broom while roadside hedgerows and gardens beguiled him with the scent of hawthorn blossom, of meadowsweet and delicate wild irises marching in sedate regiments shaded by mighty trees.

  He breathed deeply. The warm breeze and gentle sunlight carried sweet odours of new grass and distant peat fires.

  Approaching the tree-lined avenue leading to Sheridan Place with its handsome Georgian houses, he observed his housekeeper, Mrs Brook, industriously polishing the brass plate outside the home he shared with his stepson: DR VINCENT B. LAURIE, FAMILY PHYSICIAN, to which a new name, DR STEPHEN BALFOUR, had been added recently, a partner to accommodate the growing practice in this ever-expanding suburb of prosperous merchants.

  Mrs Brook looked up at his approach. 'This is a grand day to be alive, sir,' she said cheerfully.

  'It is indeed, Mrs Brook.'

  Alive, he thought grimly as the sudden cool darkness of the interior hallway engulfed him and he climbed the stairs to his study. Beyond the window the distant Pentland Hills glowed in the late sunlight. This room containing all his books, his most precious possessions, had never looked more desirable, more comfortable and protective. And he sighed, with an ominous feeling that there might be precious few days like this in the immediate future.

  As far as he was concerned, for 'incognito' read ‘Royal spy' and he winced at having to conceal his identity. Once a policeman, always a policeman.

  That he was incapable of successfully wearing any other disguise was a possibility that Her Majesty obviously had not taken into consideration.

  He shuddered as a sudden vision of the Tower of London loomed before him. He had seen gloomy and alarming lithographs of its grim interior and, considering its bloody and dreadful history, it was one place he had no desire to visit either outside or in.

  What if he discovered that the Prince of Wales was guilty of worse than cowardice. What then?

  The Queen's displeasure for a mission failed and a scandal might at best merit discreet exile to the Colonies, or at worst a rather splendid civic funeral financed by Edinburgh City Police.

  Such were his sour thoughts as he prepared to assume the new role necessary for what promised to be a most trying investigation. Given a straight choice, he would have taken on an Edinburgh murder any day.

  Chapter 2

  'A pity you are no actor,' said Dr Vincent Laurie, who sympathised with his stepfather's present predicament.

  For the sake of his two young daughters, Rose and Emily, living in Orkney with their grandmother, Faro realised that he must disregard the Royal Command to the extent of taking a member of his family into his confidence. In case a similar fate awaited him in Elrigg and he too was victim of a mysterious fatal accident.

  And who better to be trusted with the details of his secret mission than his stepson, whose quick thinking had on many occasions saved his life?

  'Elrigg Castle?' said Vince. 'Sir Archie Elrigg's place - equerry to the Prince of Wales, was he not?' Wide-eyed, he looked at Faro. The one who has just been gored to death by a bull? A bit about in the paper few weeks ago. Didn't you read it?'

  Faro shook his head rather irritably. He had been particularly busy chasing a notorious villain, a fact that seemed to have escaped his stepson's memory. As he gently reminded him, Vince shook his head.

  The wild cattle are notorious. I seem to remember there was a similar accident in the papers a while back. An actor - Philip Gray. Entertaining guests with monologues from Shakespeare. Remember we saw him in Hamlet at the theatre...'

  As Faro listened, he wondered if the actor had also been the Prince's rival for a lady's love. From the few veiled hints Her Majesty had vouchsafed in this sorry tale - hints that were all he had in the way of clues - he guessed that Bertie was more than a little interested in the laird's wife, Lady Elrigg, the former actress Miss Poppy Lynne.

  Such knowledge was enough to support the theory that Bertie was following the usual pattern of his seductions. Fancy a married lady and, providing the social stratum was correct, the first step on the road to her bed was to appoint her husband as equerry. Next, suggest a weekend shooting party; grouse, deer, wild cattle, nothing on wing or hoof was safe from His Royal Highness's attentions. If the lady was willing and the mansion large enough to conceal indiscretions, the husband was more often than not only too honoured at enjoying Royal patronage to care about being cuckolded.

  There were scores of such stories, at least one a year, but for Bertie, Royal sportsman, the thrill was in the kill. Once the lady had succumbed to his arms, the Royal eyes soon wandered. An expensive piece of jewellery for the lady, a knighthood and a bit more land for the husband and there the affaire ended. When next the ex-lovers came face to face, a chilly bow of polite acknowledgement was all the lady could reasonably expect to receive for services rendered.

  Bertie was always very discreet. Having the husband meet with a particularly nasty accident while his Royal person was on the premises, to say nothing of the publicity such a story might invoke, was clearly most embarrassing.

  'What happened exactly?' Vince asked curiously.

  'At the moment all I have are some vague theories,' said Faro with a sigh. 'Doubtless I'll have more to tell you when I get back.'

  'Wish I could come with you.'

  'So do I.'

  'Wait a minute. Elrigg's quite near Wooler, isn't it?'

  When Faro nodded agreement, Vince said triumphantly, 'I might just be able to look in, see how you're getting on...'

  The prospect of Vince's presence on any investigation was immensely cheering. Appearances were deceptive, none more than in his stepson's case. Bright curls and a boyishly handsome countenance innocent of guile disguised a keen brain, austere and analytical. Slighter in build than Faro, he was also capable of swift and often deadly movement when danger threatened.