Chapter 18 Sleuthing
Amaryllis couldn’t wait to get rid of Christopher. It took longer than she had expected to persuade him to take the sledge away with him and not leave it lying around the lobby of her apartment building, where she knew at least one of her neighbours would complain, claiming they had fallen over it. It was a miracle that hadn’t happened with the skis. But perhaps everyone else was away for Christmas, or in hibernation.
She was on the case and her skin bristled with excitement as she got ready to go out. She considered whether she could fit her PI vest under her coat and if not, whether she was prepared to look ridiculous by wearing it on top. In the end she had to leave it at home. She wasn’t really expecting to get shot at tonight anyway, although she knew from previous experience that when you didn’t expect it to happen was actually the most dangerous time.
The black leather jacket she usually wore for this kind of expedition wasn’t warm enough, so she had to wrap up in her big parka again, and the woolly scarf Christopher seemed to think was highly amusing. The parka would slow her down and make her movements less lithe, but on the other hand there was no point in freezing to death just looking for someone who might after all turn out to have nothing to do with anything.
She decided to start at the wool-shop, on the grounds that she had often seen him there, and to work outwards from there in big circles, concentrating on sheltered spots slightly off the beaten track but not too far off. Someone like that might spend a bit of time rummaging in bins, for instance, just as the Tibetan children had done before she introduced herself properly to them. She wasn’t sure if anyone had slept rough in the lane behind the former glitzy furniture shop, now a designer florists’, for a while. The new owners might be even less forgiving about that sort of thing than the previous lot.
She was proceeding down the High Street, heading for the wool shop, about halfway down, when she became aware that someone was watching her.
Because Amaryllis was highly trained in carrying out and equally in avoiding surveillance of every kind, she didn’t immediately look round, hoping to catch a dark mysterious stranger popping out from behind a lamp-post or a wheelie-bin. Instead she carried on down the road past the wool shop, paused in the shadow of the fish-shop awning, staring at the plastic lobster in the window with apparent fascination for exactly two minutes, then she walked on and turned down the lane that led to the harbour, took the first turning on the right, which she happened to know led into the back garden of Jan from the wool shop, who wouldn’t mind if she ran across it and climbed the fence at the far side before sliding into the dark lane that went uphill very steeply and came out next to the war memorial gardens. From there she returned to the top of the High Street, from which vantage point she observed a uniformed police officer and a tall-ish man in plain clothes who might be Charlie Smith. They were staring down the lane that led to the harbour and Charlie was saying something to the uniformed officer.
Interesting.
Well, only mildly interesting, if she were to be honest with herself, which she usually tried to be. She couldn’t think why they were out and about at all in this weather and at this time in the evening, when surely their shifts must have finished and they should be on their way home. Then she remembered Charlie Smith lived out of town, somewhere in Dunfermline, and was presumably cut off from his home comforts by the snow. So this ramble down the High Street was just a way of passing the time until he went to bed on the police station floor or wherever he had found to lay his weary head. She didn’t think she would be offering him her sofa any time soon.
‘Psst!’ said a low voice from behind the war memorial.
She turned round.
The Big Issue salesman was trying to attract her attention. She wouldn’t be offering him her sofa either, but she didn’t like the idea of anyone sleeping rough in these temperatures.
‘Buy the Big Issue?’ he muttered.
‘Got one already,’ she lied.
‘Want a drink?’ he said.
‘No, thanks. Do you?’
He got a bottle out of his jacket pocket. The jacket itself had seen better days and didn’t look heavy enough to keep the cold out. He beckoned to her. There was a small shelter behind him with a bench in it, and inside she could see a heap of blankets, a bag of chips and a dog, curled up in a ball but shivering even so.
‘It’s too cold for him to sleep outside here,’ she said, trying not to make it sound critical. ‘Can’t you find anywhere?’
He shrugged. ‘We’ll live. We have done up to now.’
She supposed he and the dog snuggled up together to keep warm. It was what she would do.
He suddenly ducked back into the shelter, out of sight. Turning away, she saw that Charlie Smith - if it was indeed him - and the uniformed policeman had started to walk up the road towards them. She didn’t particularly want to speak to them, but she decided it would look suspicious if she hid from them now, and it might draw their attention to the homeless man, something she was sure he didn’t want.
She walked towards them as they came up, their breath swirling in front of them and making pale wraith-like shapes in the icy air.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Charlie.
‘Just paying my respects at the war memorial,’ said Amaryllis.
‘Funny time to do it,’ he said suspiciously.
‘I was out for a walk - I don’t like being cooped up.’
‘I know that,’ he said. ‘But weren’t you down past the fishmonger’s a minute ago? What’s going on?’
‘I’ve been doing some experiments in my secret lab,’ she said, ‘and I’m on the verge of a breakthrough in teleportation. The trials are in their final stages.’
‘Cool,’ said the uniformed officer, who was much younger than Charlie.
‘She’s joking, Keith,’ he said. ‘Don’t believe anything she says in this mood.’
‘I don’t think you should be casting aspersions on me in front of a junior officer,’ she said.
‘For goodness’ sake just get on home,’ said Charlie Smith impatiently. ‘I don’t want to find myself digging you out of a snowdrift some time tomorrow.’
‘That’s highly unlikely,’ she said.
‘Go on, before I arrest you.’
‘What for? Behaviour likely to cause a rise in your blood pressure?’ Amaryllis parried. She wished they would get on back to the police station. She wanted to have a few more words with the homeless man and these two were seriously getting in the way. ‘Mustn’t keep you,’ she added. ‘Thanks for your concern.’
‘Come along, Keith,’ said Charlie. At least he knew when he was beaten. They turned and walked off again in the direction of the police station. She hoped young Keith wasn’t having to sleep on the floor too.
When they were out of sight, she joined the homeless man in his shelter. The dog glanced up and wagged its tail. She gave it a pat. The only food she had about her person was a squashed Nutrigrain bar.
‘Is it OK to give this to your dog?’
‘It doesn’t have chocolate in it, does it?’
‘No, just nutritious wholesome ingredients. And sugar. It’ll help keep the cold out.’
‘All right then.’
They sat there for a while watching the dog as it turned the cereal bar into a horrible gooey mess and then licked up every last crumb of it.
‘You’re not from round here, are you?’ said Amaryllis. She had noticed a slight Liverpool accent, probably moderated somewhat by years of travelling - the man, although his skin was greyish with cold at the moment, had the sun-battered appearance of someone who had spent some time in a hot climate.
‘Not exactly,’ he said with an attempt at a smile.
‘Have you been sleeping rough for long?’
‘A while.’
She didn’t want it to seem as if she was interrogating him. She leaned down and patted the dog. It wagged its tail again. Communicating was simpler if you were a dog.
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He volunteered some information. ‘I used to sleep in one of those houses they’re building down in the field behind the railway track. But they found me and threw me out.’
‘So have you been sleeping around the town then?’
‘Yes - easier to get a bite to eat if you’re on the spot.’ He frowned. ‘The past few days there’s been a lot of food thrown out but it’s not always any good - that bin round the back of the police station, you can sometimes get a sandwich in there, only it was full of mushy sprouts last night.’
She reflected on how desperate he would have had to be in order to go so close to the police station.
‘The supermarket’s a good place to go,’ he said. ‘But you have to watch in case they get security on to you.’
‘Did you hear the shots down there on Christmas Eve?’
He looked quite blank for a moment. ‘Shots?’
Amaryllis imagined his voice trembled. Was he afraid of gunfire? Had he been in the army at one time? She knew some soldiers had trouble adjusting to civilian life when they came out, and perhaps some of them ending up sleeping rough at Christmas in places far from home.
‘There was an armed robbery. They shot some people during the getaway.’
‘That’s bad,’ he said, frowning.
‘Can’t you go to a shelter or something, at least over Christmas?’
‘There isn’t one around here,’ he said. ‘Even if there was, they might not take the dog. I can’t leave him out in the cold.’
‘There might be one in Rosyth if you could get along there.’
‘Not much chance of that in this weather though.’
She stood up, took off the heavy parka and handed it to him. ‘There’s ten pounds in the pocket. And some change. And if you come along to the Queen of Scots tomorrow lunchtime I’ll buy you a drink. They don’t mind dogs.’
She shivered but tried not to show it.
‘Thanks - but I can’t take your coat.’
‘Just take it,’ she said. ‘And don’t forget to buy something for the dog. See you later.’
He was still sitting there holding the coat as she set off for home, as fast as she could manage on the icy streets.
Frozen in Crime Page 18