Killing Cousins by Alanna Knight Page A

you any theories of your own as to what happened?'
    Inga shrugged. 'Only what Frith said. Poor Troller set off with some insane idea that he could bring his beloved Mrs Balfray back to life. On the way in the dark he lost his balance, took a tumble down the cliff. He climbed up again, put Thora on the Odin Stone but when its magical powers didn't take effect, well, he decided to end it all.'
    'How?' demanded Faro sharply. 'By what means? You're not presuming that his injuries were enough to kill him?'
    She looked at him, as if bewildered by the question. 'Perhaps, perhaps not. In his distraught condition, he might have helped matters along, taken poison, always accessible to a handyman on the estate.'
    'You mean, he had it with him, just in case? What sort of poison had you in mind?'
    'Oh for heaven's sake, Jeremy,' she said irritably. 'I don't know.' Then, mollified by his expression, she added, 'Probably arsenic, there's plenty of it about.'
    'Is there indeed? Where do they buy it?'
    'Kirkwall, and Stromness too, I believe.'
    'Are we to presume they also sign the poisons register?'
    Inga shook her head, laughing. 'You may presume what you like, my dear Inspector Faro, but I don't think anyone sets much store on signing registers here. It's not as if it was being asked for by strangers, just the local folk, known to all the shopkeepers as having trouble with vermin and the like.'
    'Interesting.'
    She gave him a hard look before continuing, 'Everyone here uses arsenic at some time or other. Killing rats or on flypapers - flies are cruel in the summer.' In a gesture that was becoming endearingly familiar, she pushed back her hair from her forehead. 'Why is it so important, Jeremy?' she added softly.
    He could not risk telling her that Troller had been murdered, as had Thora. Ignoring the question, he said, 'My mother tells me you've been indispensable these last few weeks.'
    Inga looked pleased. 'And so has she. Absolute marvel. The way she stepped into poor Mrs Bliss's shoes.'
    Taking her arm, he led her down the steep and winding path that led to the shore, a wide expanse of empty beach broken by occasional large rock formations. The tide was out and rock pools gleamed full of coloured stones and red sea-anemones.
    Once Inga stopped and climbed across a tiny wall of ancient stones. 'Do you realise that this was once the foundation of someone's house? Long, long ago. Who they were and where they went has been washed away, lost for ever under the sea.'
    She indicated a place beside her on a large flat stone and together they contemplated the vast loneliness of the scene, the great stretch of shell sand uninterrupted into the far distance where the lighthouse was the only habitation.
    Above their heads the sky was strangely empty of seabirds, the seals having temporarily deserted their rocks. Now only a few sheep grazed among the seaweed left by the tide.
    'You'll find this hard to believe, Jeremy, but had you sat here even six months ago, the scene would have been quite different.'
    'Indeed? It looks to me as if it's been here since the beginning of time.'
    Inga shook her head. 'Not so. The sea is so strong, it moves sand and shingle with such rapidity and in such a short time that the miles of shoreline are completely altered and every year landmarks, huge stones that have been used for years and years as anchorage for boats, completely vanish almost overnight. Landmarks long forgotten just as suddenly reappear from under the sea, like this house wall we're sitting on.'
    'Remarkable.'
    'Remarkable it is. It gives living on a small island a feeling of impermanence. Once this place must have teemed with life, Jeremy. But we are at the mercy of the sea and we must never forget it. We are constantly reminded that we must honour and do reverence to the sea and fear it. Never, never take it for granted,' she added solemnly.
    Faro looked at the stretch of sand before them and lit his pipe, smiling at her as he did so. 'I take it we