Closer to Death in a Garden (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 10)

by Cecilia Peartree

  ‘They shouldn’t have been blocking her drive though,’ Keith pointed out. He took a long drink of his orange juice, and turned his gaze on Christopher again. ‘You went into the garden with her and the alpaca, didn’t you? Did you notice anything unusual in there?’

  ‘I was in the house as well,’ said Christopher. ‘It was very clean and tidy. Nothing on the worktops.’

  ‘That isn’t unusual with people like that,’ said Keith with authority. ‘They have help.’

  ‘No – she said something about Madeleine being away on holiday. She made me coffee herself.’

  ‘Do you know this Madeleine?’ Keith asked Ashley.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s been into the garden centre. But then, she wouldn’t do. They get all their gardening done for them by somebody in a van from Kincardine. They don’t need to buy any of our plants.’

  She delved into her large handbag and brought out a packet of muffins with lemon icing, which she put on yet another plate – there would be quite a bit of washing-up to do after they had finished - and offered them round to the two men as if she were officiating at some sort of children’s tea-party.

  ‘They’re skinny ones,’ she said. ‘In case you’re worried about putting on weight.’

  Christopher immediately began to worry that she thought he was already overweight, but Keith winked at him reassuringly. ‘She’s the only one who worries about that,’ he said affectionately, patting Ashley’s knee. ‘And there’s no need for that, Ash. You’re the perfect shape for your size.’

  She smiled mistily at him.

  Just as well Amaryllis wasn’t around, Christopher reflected. She might easily have been tempted to spoil the moment with retching noises or something, like an embarrassed teenager. Even he was slightly tempted. He wasn’t used to people staring into each other’s eyes in his office at lunchtime. The nearest thing to it had been when Charlie Smith and his dog had been in a couple of days before. But even then, Christopher had suspected the dog’s adoring look was directed at the bone-shaped dog biscuit Charlie was holding up in front of its nose.

  ‘... don’t suppose they do their food shopping locally either,’ Keith was saying gloomily. ‘Nobody seems to know much about them.’

  ‘They maybe get it delivered,’ Ashley suggested. ‘But then, anybody can do that now. My Mum orders all hers on the internet.’

  ‘But can’t you just go and interview them if you need to?’ said Christopher, puzzled. ‘Like you did with me this morning.’

  ‘Sorry to have bothered you so early in the day,’ muttered Keith.

  ‘It’s all right. You probably wanted to catch me before I came into work.’

  ‘We can’t get any reply at the house,’ Keith admitted. ‘Nobody’s answering the door. The two constables who went round there didn’t think anybody was in.’

  ‘What about the alpacas?’

  ‘In the stables...’

  ‘Maybe they’ve gone into Edinburgh for the day or something,’ said Ashley. ‘You’d better send somebody round again this evening.’

  ‘Not sure if we can get the overtime authorised,’ said Keith.

  ‘That’s just stupid,’ Ashley commented. ‘You can’t expect to catch people at home during the day. What if they were out at work? Or away on holiday?’

  Keith sighed. ‘That’s just the way it works. I expect we’ll catch them in tomorrow. They won’t both be out at work all day every day with those animals to look after. Then there’s this Madeleine. When she comes back from holiday, that is.’

  Keith’s phone rang at that moment. He went out to the corridor to take it, and a few moments later they saw him out in the car park, pacing to and fro as he spoke. His face seemed to get grimmer and grimmer as the time passed.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Ashley. ‘I wonder what’s happened. I hope the alpacas are all right.’

  When Keith came back into the office, it was evident from his expression that the alpacas were the least of his worries.

  ‘Sorry, we’ll have to cut this short,’ he said. ‘Stay and finish your lunch just now, Ashley. I’ll see you later on.’

  Christopher went to the office door with him.

  ‘I can’t tell you anything,’ said Keith. ‘Thanks for the information, Mr Wilson. You’ve been very helpful. We may need to speak to you again at some point.’

  Christopher nodded, and Keith left, with one more apologetic glance at his girl-friend. She gave him a little wave.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said to Christopher before he could speak. ‘I’m used to this.’ She picked up a few skinny muffin crumbs and tidied them away into an empty sandwich packet. ‘It comes with the territory. I wouldn’t have started going out with a policeman if I hadn’t known that.’

  He would almost have preferred her to burst into tears. Almost, but not quite.

  Chapter 9 Grilled

  Jemima was cross with herself, and she had translated that into being cross with Dave.

  She still didn’t feel quite right after her night in hospital. In some corner of her mind she remembered reading about all the illnesses you might catch just by being in hospital, regardless of what was wrong with you in the first place. She hoped she wasn’t coming down with something like that.

  It was obvious that Dave wasn’t feeling quite right either. Neither of them had gone out of the house the day they came home, and now it didn’t look as if they would go anywhere the following day either. This was quite unusual for them. Even if Dave didn’t want to drive, they would still pop down to the fish shop or to the Queen of Scots. Maybe by this evening they would feel like going there. In the mean-time Jemima couldn’t summon up the energy to go out, but she deeply resented being trapped in the house.

  She was pleased to see Keith Burnet when he arrived on the doorstep halfway through the afternoon. That new Chief Inspector, the woman, was with him. It was strange to think of a woman being high up in the police force, but that was progress, of course.

  ‘Sarah Ramsay,’ said the woman helpfully, holding out a hand. ‘Chief Inspector. And you know Keith, I’m sure.’

  They went into the front room. The Chief Inspector glanced at Jemima’s family tree chart on the wall.

  ‘I heard you were keen on family history,’ she commented. ‘That’s quite impressive.’

  ‘I had help from some other people in the family,’ said Jemima. ‘I have a lot of cousins.’

  ‘Just not as many as you had at one time,’ said Dave, laughing.

  ‘It’s nothing to joke about,’ Jemima snapped. Several of her cousins had been murdered a few years before. Although she hadn’t known most of them up until then, it had still been a shock, particularly when the murderer turned his attention in her direction. She shivered suddenly.

  Dave put his arm round her shoulders and she moved away and sat down.

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ said Dave to the others.

  Neither of them wanted anything. It sounded very much as if they were going to treat this as a very official occasion. Jemima sat up straighter.

  ‘Sorry to hear you’ve both been in hospital,’ said Sarah Ramsay. ‘We just need to ask you a few questions about the garden centre. We’ll be as quick as we can.’

  Keith took out a notebook. He seemed to be acting as the Chief Inspector’s assistant in this case. Jemima wondered how he felt about that. But then, he had endured a spell working as Charlie Smith’s dogsbody, so he must be used to it.

  ‘When did you begin to feel ill, Mr Douglas?’ asked the Chief Inspector. After Dave replied, she added, ‘Can you run through the sequence of events? As far as you can remember, anyway. I understand you were only semi-conscious some of the time.’

  ‘I was a wee bit out of things,’ Dave admitted. ‘But I still gave those paramedics a good run for their money.’

  Jemima sighed. She didn’t want to remember Dave’s escape attempt. It had just been embarrassing. But at least it was a further s
ign, if that were needed, that he had never really been at death’s door in the first place. Maybe it was just as well they had taken him to hospital after all. At least he had more or less got a clean bill of health out of it. But she hoped it wouldn’t stop him from taking his blood pressure pills.

  She became conscious of a silence around her, and glanced up.

  Chief Inspector Ramsay was looking at her expectantly.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jemima. ‘I must have missed a bit. Were you asking me something?’

  ‘Yes – I wonder if you could run through events as you remember them. In case there’s something your husband didn’t notice, or has forgotten.’

  ‘Well, we went round the side of the garden centre building,’ said Jemima. ‘There was a very rude man there – Mr Anderson. I didn’t think he had any need to say what he said...’

  Sarah Ramsay took her back over the account again, this time asking her to talk about the alpacas and the woman with them, and then she sat back in her chair and asked, trying to appear casual, ‘And when did Amaryllis Peebles come along?’

  Jemima wasn’t convinced by the casual air. She had the feeling this had been what the Chief Inspector had been leading up to all the time, and that all the previous questions had been designed to mislead them about her true purpose in interviewing them.

  ‘Oh, not until much later,’ she said. ‘It was when Dave was in the ambulance. She drove me to the hospital, you know. I don’t know what we would have done without her. She drove us home again the next day too.’

  ‘Hmm. Do you know why she came to the garden centre in the first place?’

  Jemima glanced between Keith and his superior in surprise. ‘I thought she heard about what had happened from Keith, and wanted to help.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sarah Ramsay. ‘That’s what she’d like everyone to think.’

  ‘Amaryllis doesn’t lie about things,’ said Jemima, ‘even if she does break into people’s houses sometimes and make toast, and play tricks on Christopher, and make Charlie Smith angry.’

  The Chief Inspector blinked. ‘She makes toast?’

  ‘Not every time,’ said Jemima.

  Keith Burnet, face bright red, intervened at this point. ‘With all due respect, Chief, there’s no reason to suppose...’

  Sarah Ramsay glared at him. ‘Just don’t think for a minute that because we were at school together I’m going to be doing Ms Peebles any favours. She’s a serious suspect here, and – oh, damn!’

  Jemima got to her feet. She was now feeling even more cross than she had earlier in the morning. So cross, in fact, that she didn’t care any more what she said or did. She raised an arm and pointed to the door of the room. ‘I’d like you to leave now, Chief Inspector Ramsay. If you’ve got any more questions for us, David and I will come to the police station to answer them. You aren’t welcome in our house now.’

  She hoped the Chief Inspector and Keith wouldn’t assume that just because she wasn’t shouting and screaming at them she didn’t mean every word of it. She decided they had got the message, though, when they got to their feet without saying anything and more or less scuttled out of the room. She stayed where she was until she heard the front door slam.

  Dave put his arm round her again, and this time she didn’t move away.

  Chapter 10 Curiosity

  The house behind the alpaca farm, as Amaryllis thought of it, didn’t have security gates. Or alpacas, as far as she could see from the path that led from the rustic wooden gates through the trees as if it were wandering in a rural meadow miles from anywhere instead of sternly marching straight up to the front door, as most people’s front path’s did.

  It was quite surprising to come upon the modern bungalow it led to. She had half-expected a white-washed cottage with roses round the door.

  Staring at the letter-box after she had rung the door-bell, she wondered what the postman thought about the winding path among the trees. Perhaps it was a welcome foray into the countryside after he had spent most of his working day trudging up and down the mean streets of Pitkirtly. Perhaps it was the last straw, especially in winter or on a wet day when the trees would shed their stored-up rain on him just as he imagined he was getting a bit of shelter.

  Amaryllis shook her head to get rid of these fanciful thoughts.

  ‘Sorry – who are you?’ said the man who opened the door.

  ‘Amaryllis Peebles,’ she said, holding out a hand and stepping forward. She had found from experience this usually resulted in the other person taking a backward step and so allowing her to cross the threshold. Not that she had a lot of experience of entering houses by their front doors. She often preferred to enter silently and secretly through an upstairs window, or in extreme circumstances an air-vent in the attic.

  ‘Are we expecting you?’ he said, not stepping back as far as she had thought he would. He kept one hand on the door. She noticed he wore several rings, and for some reason that made her think of gangsters. But then, she probably had gangsters on the brain after what had happened in the spring. The light from outside glinted on his spectacles and made it seem as if he were frowning hard.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said with what she thought of as a friendly smile. This time he did step back a bit further.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just making house to house enquiries,’ said Amaryllis, taking refuge in a vaguely official phrase. She took another step forward, looming over him in rather a satisfying way. She could take him out with one chop of her hand.

  Looming didn’t work on him.

  ‘May I see some identification, please, if you’ve got any?’

  Now she came to think of it, he spoke like a gangster too. Was he a Cockney, or perhaps Australian? She detected elements of both in his accent.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ said Amaryllis. She got out her favourite id card from the pocket of her leather jacket. ‘Here you go.’

  He looked at it very carefully, and then handed it back without relaxing his stern expression. ‘I don’t see how a fake Californian driving licence entitles you to gain access to my house.’

  ‘Oh – sorry,’ she said, cursing inwardly. This meant she would have to show him something she was becoming more and more reluctant to use in this kind of situation, mostly because strictly speaking she was breaking the law by even having it on her. She delved into an inside pocket and brought it out. ‘This is completely classified, of course,’ she told him as she handed it over. ‘You’ll have to forget you saw it – and that you saw me.’

  ‘Is this a forgery too?’ he enquired.

  She smiled. ‘Do you really think I would attempt to forge a security pass in the name of Her Majesty’s security services? I could get into serious trouble for even thinking of it.’

  ‘It’s out of date,’ he said.

  ‘Really? Oh, damn, I’ve brought out the old one. I got a new one only last week.’

  She tried to keep the veneer of confidence in place, but she was now losing faith in her ability to get past his defences. There was something suspicious though, surely, about someone who tried so hard to keep people out of his house. In her experience most normal people – the kind without very much to hide except for the odd unpaid parking fine, or a history of getting drunk and taking all their clothes off at New Year - were inclined to be flattered when they thought they were going to be questioned by someone from her branch of the authorities. It was only the hardened criminals who objected.

  ‘I can’t possibly let you into the house,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’ve a good mind to phone the police and let them know you’re in the neighbourhood. Then we’ll see who you really are.’

  ‘You do know there’s been a suspicious death over at the garden centre, don’t you?’ she said in desperation. ‘Do you want to help with our enquiries, or would you prefer to be treated as a hostile witness?’

  ‘You’re making all this up,’ said the man scornfully. ‘You’re no more a member of the security services than I
’m Barack Obama. You’re just some nosey old woman or an opportunistic thief going round people’s houses looking for their valuables.’

  Even Amaryllis knew it was time to make a strategic withdrawal.

  ‘Don’t blame me if you get murdered in your bed!’ she shouted at him from what she judged was a safe distance, halfway down the path among the trees.

  ‘Get lost!’ he shouted back, and slammed the door.

  She was surprised he hadn’t slammed it sooner, all things considered. His attitude was extremely annoying, however, and she knew she would want to get her own back in due course. In the meantime she still hadn’t got inside the garden centre, which had been her main aim, and she had once again had to abandon the idea of investigating the alpaca farm because the security gates were firmly locked and she already knew the fences were fairly well protected against intruders too.

  She walked on up the road, but this one turned out to be a cul de sac, which curved round in the opposite direction from the garden centre. A little old white-washed cottage, similar to the one she had imagined earlier, stood at the end. As she approached it, a huge hound galloped round the corner from its back garden and flung itself at the garden gate, growling and barking. Then – worse still – a little old lady followed it round the side of the house, peered at Amaryllis and said in a surprisingly loud voice, ‘We’ve got Neighbourhood Watch here, you know. I’m going inside now to call the police. Come along, Frizzy.’

  Oh well, Amaryllis told herself as she made her escape, at least she could smile about the dog’s name. The dog, some sort of wolfhound with long grey hair drooping all around it, was anything but frizzy. Perhaps the woman didn’t know what the word meant.

  It was an odd little street altogether. Perhaps the inhabitants were members of a coven and met after dark to practise magic together. Perhaps they had planted the man’s body in the garden centre because they had been playing games of sacrifice and needed to get rid of the evidence. After all, she mused, the body had many of the hallmarks of having been moved after death. The lack of blood from the bullet wound, the neat and tidy way it was positioned... Amaryllis almost broke into a run as she started to envisage herself requesting an interview with Keith Burnet to tell him he should be trying to uncover more evidence of a ritual killing.