That made Faro laugh out loud. It was so totally out of character with his hostess. 'Are there no Irish ladies then?'
Miss Gilchrist frowned. 'There must be, I'm sure - a few. But most of the ones I've met have been gypsies or vagrants. Not very clean. And there were occasional Irish servants at the Castle in my time. Not very clean or very honest either. Twice I had coins stolen and a brooch I was fond of.'
'Perhaps poor immigrants faced with the necessity of survival cannot afford high principles,' Faro said gently. 'Famine recognises only the fight for survival.'
When he first came to Edinburgh as a policeman in 1849, the potato famine was it its height and every boat to Glasgow and Leith was packed with Irishmen and women and their vast families, ragged, desperate, starving. A terrible sight, his mother used to weep for them and although the Faros had little, she gave them money and food - and clothes too when they came to her door.
'God bless you - and yours,' they'd say.
That was enough for Mrs Faro. For her, money and goods had nothing to do with it. There were only good people and bad people and the good ones were welcome to her last crust.
Other than Sergeant Danny McQuinn, the only Irishmen Faro had encountered as a policeman had bombs in their pockets and were a constant threat to Her Majesty and a menace to Edinburgh's law and order. But he felt obliged, as one who also belonged to a vanquished race, to say a word or two in defence of another nation similarly and more cruelly affected.
'There have been noble Irish ladies,' he said, 'Like Deirdre of the Sorrows.'
'Yes, indeed. Such a sad story. And so depressing, like all their legends. Never a happy ending anywhere. Indeed, when they are honest they are so mournful.'
Faro was not to be defeated. He pressed on. 'There were saints among them too. Patrick and Columba who brought Christianity from Ireland when the rest of Britain were all heathens.'
Miss Gilchrist stiffened. She was not convinced. 'But our St George was a knight,' she said proudly. 'And he slew dragons.'
They went down to the little church at Evensong. For his own reasons Faro would have preferred to remain where he was but politeness demanded that he accompany them.
The vicar, recognising Miss Gilchrist had brought strangers who swelled out his tiny congregation, was eager to give a good report of his church. Proudly he welcomed the visitors from the pulpit: 'These walls sheltered the dead of both warring nations after Flodden. There are no enemies once death has ruled the line. Then men are all equal, all differences forgiven in the blood of Christ.'
When they trooped out afterwards, Faro, always a practical man, considered that frenzied burial, with a nightmare vision of what ten thousand corpses heaped together looked like to the men whose task it was to bury them.
Half hoping there might be some forgotten memorial among the scattered tombstones, he wandered around reading inscriptions, deciphering weathered stones with their skulls and crossbones, their intimations of mortality.
There were names famous on both sides of the border: Elliott, Armstrong, Scott - so many young people. Thirty to forty was the average age. And there were sad reminders. A 'relict' aged nineteen, 'beloved wife aged twenty-three' with an infant one week old.
Like his Lizzie, many had died in childbirth. Children too. Died in infancy. 'Died in an accident - Elrigg - aged eleven.'
He was still staring at the stone, aware suddenly of Vince looking over his shoulder. He whistled softly and pointed to the stone. 'I think you have found your murderer, Stepfather.'
But Faro was still unconvinced.
Miss Gilchrist's party having been invited to dinner with the local doctor, the twins were returning to Edinburgh next day and they had persuaded their great-aunt, much against her will, to allow Vince to sleep that night on the very comfortable sofa in the parlour.
The arrangement pleased him. 'I like to be informal and I love this house.'
Imogen Crowe declined his somewhat reluctant invitation to share the governess cart back to Elrigg. Her excuse that Hector was coming for her later was a relief for Faro, who pleaded a necessary return to the inn before setting out on holiday with Vince.
As Faro paid his bill at the Elrigg Arms, Bowden said: 'By the way, a lad came a while ago with a message from Mr Hector Elrigg. You're to meet him at the hillfort. He said it was urgent.'
The fickle weather had changed once again and it would be dark soon. A dull evening, heavy with mist, and Faro was suddenly reluctant to leave the warm fire.
Vince would say: 'Let well alone, leave it. The case is closed.'
But Faro was tempted. This might be the last link in the evidence. He told himself of course it wasn't necessary, but to ferret out the truth was the habit of a lifetime. He had to know the murderer's identity for his own satisfaction, otherwise he would always be plagued by a case unfinished, a question forever posed.
He realised that the mist was thicker than ever on the road. The ground underfoot was wet with visibility limited to a few yards, a few ghostly hedgerows. He shivered as the atmosphere gripped him like a clammy shroud. Peering into the gloom, he realised that the standing stones had also vanished, hidden behind that dense grey curtain.
At the boundary fence he hesitated, caring little for the idea of crossing the open pastureland to the hillfort. The mist now clung heavily to his eyelashes, blinding him. He blinked, feeling sick with apprehension, searching the mist for shadows
