opportunity to call on Mrs Aiden to offer my condolences.
An informal visit to find out how she was getting on. But I wasn’t fooling myself for an instant, I knew exactly what I had inmind.
The house door was open, no one heard my knock, so hearing voices I presumed it was all right to enter, to be greeted by the sight of a room packed with black-clad women. Prayer books and rosaries were in evidence.
Awareness of this new arrival in their midst put an end to all conversation. Heads swivelled in my direction, expressions anxious and embarrassed.
I knew the reason why. This was a wake for their dead priest and as a non-Catholic and a stranger, I didn’t have any role to play.
However Mrs Aiden spotted me leaving, rushed over and said: ‘Miss Faro, the funeral’s on Friday. Our new assistant priest is already on his way, sent by the Bishop to help the Father – his rheumatism is – was – bad and the outlying districts a bit too much –’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Come to the funeral if you wish.’
Had she forgotten that I was related to Father McQuinn by marriage?
‘I’d like to meet the man who helped you with him –’ I said awkwardly.
She stared at me. ‘So would I. But as I told you, I had never seen him before. That isn’t unusual, a lot of strangers pass through Eildon on their way to the Abbey.’
‘What did he look like? Could he have been visiting one of the farms?’ I added loudly in deference to her deafness.
Mrs Aiden shook her head and seemed bewildered by the question. ‘I didn’t take much notice of what he looked like.’ And with a stifled sob, ‘he might have been Satan himself – for all I cared at that moment. All I wanted was a big strong man to help me carry the Father from the church into the house. I thought he might be still alive then. That we might save him. But we were too late.’
Wringing a handkerchief in her hands as she spoke, she wasclearly at a loss as to why I was so interested and I felt bad for upsetting her like this.
Tomorrow, perhaps in a calmer light, she might remember some important detail about the stranger who had arrived on the scene so fortuitously.
The man I regarded with utmost suspicion as his killer. The shadowy figure lurking in the confessional who, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover, was also my stalker.
But why I should be stalked on my arrival in Eildon, I had not the least idea or what was the link with the murder of Danny McQuinn’s elderly cousin.
Chapter Eleven
Cheerful lamplight from the kitchen window illuminated my walk up the farm track. Somehow it failed to lure me into spending the rest of the evening by the fireside having a cosy chat with Jack’s parents.
Their two topics of conversation would be a wedding – mine – and a funeral – Father McQuinn’s. In no mood for answering awkward questions on either, I tiptoed past and went to the stable .
There Thane greeted my arrival with delight, springing up on his three good feet. I put my arms around his neck and sat on the straw beside him.
Charity looked down at us and snorted in thinly veiled contempt . She wasn’t a particularly friendly old animal, kept herself to herself, I thought, as I whispered to Thane. Telling him all my troubles, my worries about Jack and whether I was doing the right thing. Or whether I had any alternative.
Thane seemed to understand and held out the splinted paw for my sympathy.
‘I wish we were back home,’ I said. ‘How I long for Solomon’s Tower.’
Thane understood that too.
I retired to my bedroom feeling depressed. The thought of being static with Jack’s parents for another week was like being confined in a cage, a very comfortable well-fed cage, but still a trap. So I resolved that as soon as Thane was out of his splint and pronounced fit by Mr Macmerry, I would return for a respite, however brief, to Edinburgh.
Meantime, completely ignoring Jack’s warning, I would fill in my time with some discreet
An informal visit to find out how she was getting on. But I wasn’t fooling myself for an instant, I knew exactly what I had inmind.
The house door was open, no one heard my knock, so hearing voices I presumed it was all right to enter, to be greeted by the sight of a room packed with black-clad women. Prayer books and rosaries were in evidence.
Awareness of this new arrival in their midst put an end to all conversation. Heads swivelled in my direction, expressions anxious and embarrassed.
I knew the reason why. This was a wake for their dead priest and as a non-Catholic and a stranger, I didn’t have any role to play.
However Mrs Aiden spotted me leaving, rushed over and said: ‘Miss Faro, the funeral’s on Friday. Our new assistant priest is already on his way, sent by the Bishop to help the Father – his rheumatism is – was – bad and the outlying districts a bit too much –’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Come to the funeral if you wish.’
Had she forgotten that I was related to Father McQuinn by marriage?
‘I’d like to meet the man who helped you with him –’ I said awkwardly.
She stared at me. ‘So would I. But as I told you, I had never seen him before. That isn’t unusual, a lot of strangers pass through Eildon on their way to the Abbey.’
‘What did he look like? Could he have been visiting one of the farms?’ I added loudly in deference to her deafness.
Mrs Aiden shook her head and seemed bewildered by the question. ‘I didn’t take much notice of what he looked like.’ And with a stifled sob, ‘he might have been Satan himself – for all I cared at that moment. All I wanted was a big strong man to help me carry the Father from the church into the house. I thought he might be still alive then. That we might save him. But we were too late.’
Wringing a handkerchief in her hands as she spoke, she wasclearly at a loss as to why I was so interested and I felt bad for upsetting her like this.
Tomorrow, perhaps in a calmer light, she might remember some important detail about the stranger who had arrived on the scene so fortuitously.
The man I regarded with utmost suspicion as his killer. The shadowy figure lurking in the confessional who, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover, was also my stalker.
But why I should be stalked on my arrival in Eildon, I had not the least idea or what was the link with the murder of Danny McQuinn’s elderly cousin.
Chapter Eleven
Cheerful lamplight from the kitchen window illuminated my walk up the farm track. Somehow it failed to lure me into spending the rest of the evening by the fireside having a cosy chat with Jack’s parents.
Their two topics of conversation would be a wedding – mine – and a funeral – Father McQuinn’s. In no mood for answering awkward questions on either, I tiptoed past and went to the stable .
There Thane greeted my arrival with delight, springing up on his three good feet. I put my arms around his neck and sat on the straw beside him.
Charity looked down at us and snorted in thinly veiled contempt . She wasn’t a particularly friendly old animal, kept herself to herself, I thought, as I whispered to Thane. Telling him all my troubles, my worries about Jack and whether I was doing the right thing. Or whether I had any alternative.
Thane seemed to understand and held out the splinted paw for my sympathy.
‘I wish we were back home,’ I said. ‘How I long for Solomon’s Tower.’
Thane understood that too.
I retired to my bedroom feeling depressed. The thought of being static with Jack’s parents for another week was like being confined in a cage, a very comfortable well-fed cage, but still a trap. So I resolved that as soon as Thane was out of his splint and pronounced fit by Mr Macmerry, I would return for a respite, however brief, to Edinburgh.
Meantime, completely ignoring Jack’s warning, I would fill in my time with some discreet
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