Dr Brand laughed. 'Aye, what they laid hands on, right enough. But there was no hope of laying hands on these beasts and driving them back across the border. Much too wild and fierce to be treated like the ordinary domestic variety.'
Turning, he looked back towards the hill. 'I'd advise you to take great care about walking across these fields. I was quite alarmed when I saw you. Someone should have warned you. Where are you staying?' When Faro told him, he nodded. 'I shall have a severe word with him, have a notice posted in very large letters.'
Pausing, he regarded Faro sharply. 'I don't think you are taking me seriously, sir.'
'I am, doctor, I am indeed.'
'Make no mistake about it. These animals are extremely dangerous. And they have perception beyond what we humans understand.' Shading his eyes, the doctor pointed with his whip. 'I don't suppose you've been here long enough to observe that they never take their eyes off any humans in the vicinity. We are under constant surveillance. There is always one animal watching, on guard, somewhere,' he added with an uneasy laugh.
'So you think there might have been a calf in the vicinity that Sir Archie didn't know about?'
'It certainly wasn't a wounded king bull, anyway. Saw him large as life grazing with the herd the next day. Besides the horns - the goring injury, I mean - they hadn't penetrated deep enough for a really angry charging bull. Makes a nasty mess, I can tell you. But this was just one hole, quite neat, just an inch or two deep.'
'Is that so?' said Faro thoughtfully. According to Constable Dewar there had been no hoofmarks of a charging animal either. 'You had no doubts about the cause of the death when you signed the death certificate?'
'None at all. The coroner's inquest was a mere waste of time. Death by misadventure, there couldn't be any other verdict in the circumstances. I'll let you have his report if you need it for your firm. And if you're interested in the cattle, there's some old documents in the Castle library, I'm sure Lady Elrigg would let you see them.'
The road narrowed steeply and they were passing by the tiny Saxon church with its graveyard, deep in primroses and wood anemones. A blackbird sang on one of the tombstones, the feathers on its throat fluttering, its piercing sweetness a eulogy to an awakening world.
Faro sighed. 'Gives you hope, doesn't it? I wouldn't mind lying here to all eternity with a requiem like that every spring.'
At his side the doctor had raised his top hat to reveal a mane of silver hair and lapsed into a reverent silence. 'Spring's a sad time for some people, for the ones who are left.'
'I understand, sir, only too well.' Noting the doctor's grief—stricken expression, Faro remembered that his Lizzie had died with their newborn son beside her on a June morning eight years ago. 'To lose one's partner in life...' He paused. 'Your wife, sir?' he said gently.
'Lost her long ago,' was the bitter response. 'God only knows what sky her bones lie under. It was my daughter I lost. My dearest only child.' His voice broke and, geeing up the pony, he drove fast into the village, his lips a tight line of misery, while at his side Faro cursed his own lack of tact.
Setting him down at the inn, Dr Brand spoke again. 'You must forgive my outburst, sir, to you a stranger, quite unforgivable.'
'It is I who must apologise, sir. But I do know something of the loss you have suffered. A child dying -'
'Dying. She didn't die. She could have been alive today, she was seventeen with all the world before her. She didn't die. She was murdered.'
At Faro's shocked expression, he jabbed a finger in the direction of the Castle. 'And they killed her.'
Chapter 11
As Faro entered the inn, Bowden ceased the polishing of the counter long enough to say: 'Duffy has been looking for you, Mr Faro.'
'Are you sure it was me?'
'You're the insurance mannie, aren't you?'
'Did he say what he wanted?'
'Not my business to ask, sir. But knowing Duffy I'd say there was money involved. Wouldn't you, gentlemen?'
Bowden grinned at Yarrow and Dewar. About to depart, they paused long enough to give Faro a decidedly searching glance. It suggested that they also suspected he might be involved in some of the poacher's dubious activities.
'He said he'll see you when he comes in for his pint of ale later on,' said Bowden as Faro made his way towards his room.
What could the poacher want with him? Faro was curious and hopeful too. From his vast experience of the criminal world, he did not doubt that this new turn of events indicated information was for sale.
Beyond his window was a pageant of undulating hills, cloudless skies. Trees moved in slow ecstasy to their burden of soft breeze and birdsong, a scene characteristic of any gentle sleepy village that one could hardly credit with violence. Even the ivy-clad walls of its ancient cottages seemed to have grown naturally out of the tranquil earth rather than the stones hewed by men.
A traveller passing though en route for Scotland would think nothing ever happened here, that time had passed it by, but Faro was aware of the elements of passion that lurked behind such quiet exteriors and that this was a more elemental world than the one he had left a short time ago in Edinburgh. With total recall he saw again the words written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon:
We hear every day of murders committed in the country... No species of crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries of the Seven Dials that has not been also done in the face of that rustic calm...
Words that Imogen Crowe had heavily underscored. She had written 'Elrigg?' beside them. Why?
Do not
