4 Death at the Happiness Club

by Cecilia Peartree

  'That was stupid too,' he agreed.

  Zak scuffed his feet on the ground, perhaps to indicate utter embarrassment with his father.

  Amaryllis couldn't imagine this man and Penelope getting together in the first place. It was a wonder she hadn't thrown him out years ago. Maybe she had put up with him for Zak's sake. And after her experience of marriage, why, oh why had she gone to the Happiness Club, apparently with the aim of making the same mistakes all over again? Amaryllis shook her head as if trying to clear it of other people's idiocy.

  'Were you the one who was heard shooting here earlier today?' she asked.

  'Yesterday,' he said.

  'Yesterday?'

  'It's one o'clock in the morning.'

  'Yesterday or today, who's counting?' said Amaryllis, irritated with him for trying to confuse her with detail. 'At least one gun-shot was heard, and your wife is now in police custody.'

  'So that's where she's got to,' he said. 'Well, I suppose she's safe enough there. Have you been to see her, Zak?'

  'Not yet,' muttered his son.

  'They won't let us see her until morning,' said Amaryllis. 'I think they'll be interested in meeting you, Mr Johnstone.'

  'Please, call me Liam. Yes, I need to see them too. I want to report my car stolen. And somebody locked me in the camper-van, but I won't be pressing charges on that one.'

  'Interesting,' said Amaryllis, raising her voice a little. 'That reminds me, can we go inside the camper-van to talk? I think the neighbours are starting to wake up and take notice.'

  Someone had opened a window further along the terrace, and a head that popped out was hastily withdrawn as she spoke.

  She stared round the interior of the van with interest. Jemima Stevenson had a static caravan in which Amaryllis and Christopher had spent a few days, but this was quite different. It was much narrower, for one thing, and so the furnishings were more compact with none of the big squashy settees that the static caravan had had. Instead the interior was more like a narrow-boat, with bunks and specially made small kitchen appliances.

  'Who does it belong to?' she enquired.

  'Search me,' said Liam Johnstone. His son was investigating the kitchen cupboards.

  'Any crisps?' said Zak.

  'There's some of those cheesy biscuit things in the cupboard over the sink,' said Liam. 'Do you want a drink?'

  He had put his gun down on one of the bunks, Amaryllis was pleased to note. She wondered whether to confiscate it just in case he felt tempted to use it again, but she decided on balance it was better not to run the risk of being caught in possession of it. For all she knew, it could be a murder weapon.

  Liam's story wasn't that complicated, but it would have sounded unbelievable to anyone without the varied life experience of Amaryllis.

  'Penelope had thrown me out - I don't blame her, it was really stupid of me to fire the gun when I knew there might be people around. Completely against the rules. She freaked out at me after the police had been round. Started shouting and screaming, no wonder the kid had turned out the way he had with my example to follow - sorry, Zak.'

  'It's cool, Dad,' Zak murmured. It seemed that he had been here before. Not in this camper-van, obviously, but in this kind of situation with his father behaving like an obnoxious teenager.

  'I took the Porsche and went to stay at the Holiday Inn - you know the one, up at the back of Pitkirtly? I couldn't think where else to go on the spur of the moment. I should have been back at my desk in the City, of course, but I had a moment of scales falling from my eyes, that sort of thing, and I thought I'd better stick around for a while, see if I could straighten everything out, get her to take me back or something.'

  Liam Johnstone really was a complete idiot, thought Amaryllis. Why had he married someone as patently unsuitable as Penelope? Had he always wanted a mother figure in his life? It sounded as if he needed one, certainly.

  'I spent a while sitting there feeling sorry for myself - and I popped up to my sports club a couple of times, just to get out of the hotel room. Then yesterday I was reading the local paper, must have been desperate I know, it really is the most useless drivel, and I happened to see something about a boat exploding on Inchcolm and I saw it was a Happiness Club outing. Ridiculous name. What's the point of it?'

  'I think it claims to help people find happiness by finding each other,' Amaryllis suggested, quoting from some of the publicity material she had glanced through, but managing to keep a straight face, which was difficult for many reasons.

  'Well, Penelope had no need to go there for happiness. She had more happiness than she could handle at home. I knew she was there, on the island - there was a picture of her in the paper.

  'I was there too, Dad,' said Zak, sounding weary.

  'Were you?' said his father in surprise. 'I got the idea it was just a bunch of worn-out old forty and fifty somethings clutching at the faint possibility of a bit of romance to brighten up their declining years.'

  Amaryllis didn't even know where to start contradicting this, but she didn't want to interrupt his narrative with an argument, or indeed with a demonstration of her karate skills, so she kept quiet, again with difficulty. She thought Christopher would have been amazed by her restraint on this occasion.

  'Anyway, I decided to check out this so-called Happiness Club for myself - see if it was the kind of operation I wanted my wife to be involved with - so I found out where the local premises were and I came round here yesterday morning and waited outside in the Porsche.'

  'Ah,' said Amaryllis. That explained the presence of the car when Maisie Sue had looked out into the yard.

  'Nothing wrong with that,' he said, glaring at Amaryllis as if the whole thing was her fault. 'I waited a bit, then I fell asleep. I haven't been sleeping well lately,' he explained. 'A lot on my mind.'

  'Mmm,' she said, trying to find a sound that wasn't too disapproving.

  ''When I woke up, I was curious about the camper-van. There was nobody about, so I thought I'd take a look inside.'

  'Yes?' said Amaryllis, this time actively encouraging him to say more. But he was frowning, and hesitating.

  'I'm not sure what happened next. I've been trying to put it together in my head, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.'

  'Just tell it the way it seems to you,' said Amaryllis. 'Zak and I can help you make sense of it.'

  She fervently hoped that was true.

  ‘I was still in here when I heard a gun-shot,’ he said. ‘It sounded kind of muffled – it wasn’t out in the yard there – there wasn’t any echo or ricochet. I looked out the window and Penelope was outside so I ducked down to make sure she didn’t see me. I thought I'd wait and see what happened next, and she didn’t seem to have been shot… Then somebody opened the camper-van door and flung the gun inside and closed and locked it. I heard my car start up, but it took me a couple of minutes to get up from the floor, so I didn’t see it leave. By the time I looked out the window again, there was nobody about.’

  ‘Nobody at all?’ said Amaryllis. His story sounded plausible, if only because it was slightly silly and if he was making it up it would have made more sense. It didn’t show him in a very good light, and she thought if he was going to invent a story it would have starred himself and he would have presented himself in a more heroic light. Skulking in a camper-van and peering out from behind the net curtains wasn’t exactly what Superman would have done.

  ‘There was a white van out there. Or maybe two. And the Porsche had gone, of course. I had to get after it right away. But I didn't have the key to this thing.'

  'Did you find it?'

  'Well, it took me a couple of minutes. I couldn't see any keys lying around. People always have a spare somewhere. I'd almost run out of places to look when I thought of the sun visor.'

  Amaryllis had to stop herself from repeating the words ‘sun visor’ with another incredulous question mark at the end. She must have spent too long with Christopher the previous day. That was the kin
d of speech pattern he often used, particularly when talking to her about something unorthodox she had done.

  'So you went after the Porsche in this thing,' she said, trying not to sound too scornful.

  'It's not as silly as it sounds,' he said defensively. 'Whoever took the Porsche had to have gone through the town centre, and the traffic can get well snarled up around there, what with old women jumping out in the road, and that maniac in the pick-up truck who seems to think he owns the place, and - '

  'But you didn't catch up with the Porsche,' Amaryllis interrupted him before she recognised any more of her friends from his throwaway descriptions.

  He shook his head. 'Not a sign of it… I parked up for a while near the shore, in case they popped up on the coast road, but nothing… I might have dropped off to sleep again but I really can't remember.'

  'You went to sleep? How long for?'

  'I don't know - a couple of hours. I was tired.'

  Amaryllis glared at him.

  'And what time did you get back here?'

  'When it hit me that I'd theoretically stolen this van, I thought I'd better bring it back. In my position I can't afford to get caught doing something dodgy. Of course, I could have sorted it out afterwards with the police, but it would have caused a bit of a stir all the same.'

  'What about the police tape?' said Zak.

  His father shrugged. 'I drove straight through it, then tied it back up again after me… Easy peasy.'

  ‘So is this the gun?’ said Amaryllis, indicating the one he had put down on the bunk. ‘It isn’t yours, then?’

  ‘Of course not! My gun is in a locked gun cabinet at home, just as it should be… This one doesn’t handle that well. It’s old and it hasn’t been looked after properly.’

  ‘So you’ve handled it, and it might be a murder weapon?’ she said, fixing him with a hard stare. ‘I don’t think the police are going to be very pleased with you.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ he said, sitting down heavily on one of the uncomfortable-looking bench seats by the built-in table. ‘I never thought of that. I just wanted to scare you away – before I knew it was you, of course. I thought it might be the person who locked me in here, or whoever had fired the shot yesterday.’

  ‘What was Penelope doing when you saw her outside? Around the time of the muffled gun-shot.’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘Nothing. I mean, she was standing there with a stupid look on her face. Dazed, I suppose. If she’d heard the gun-shot she must have got a bit of a fright, but there was nothing I could do. I didn’t want her ranting at me again in the middle of some sort of other scene that was going on here. It could have been dangerous. For both of us.’

  ‘So you left her alone for her own protection?’ said Amaryllis. She saw Zak consider this, and wished she had been able to remove the snarkiness from her tone. But he must already know what an idiot his father was, surely. As she knew, Zak himself had his faults, but nobody had ever suggested he lacked intelligence, even if he didn’t always use it.

  ‘Well, it worked, didn’t it?’ he said indignantly. ‘She left, and she didn’t get caught up in anything else, and she’s safe with the police now.’

  ‘She could be facing a murder charge, for all we know!’ snapped Amaryllis. She had never been a close friend of Penelope Johnstone, although of course they had met at Cosy Clicks from time to time, but as Darren spoke she was starting to feel more and more sympathetic towards the woman.

  ‘That isn’t my fault,’ said Liam.

  The expression on his son’s face suggested he had a different opinion about this.

  'Then what?' said Amaryllis.

  'What?'

  'Then what did you do - once you'd got back here?'

  'Then I started to think it was time to get out of the van, maybe go up to the Holiday Inn for what was left of the night. I had only just decided on that when you got here. I saw the security light go on, so I just opened the door and shone the torch at you.'

  'And fired the gun,' said Amaryllis, trying hard to keep the accusing tone to a minimum. Surely the man must feel some guilt about risking his own son's life by firing an unfamiliar gun in a semi-confined space?

  Apparently he didn't, for he continued, 'I suppose I'd better get on down to the police station and report my Porsche stolen. The sooner they know about that the better. I left my mobile in the car too, so I haven't been able to call anyone and get help.'

  He had particularly guileless blue eyes, Amaryllis noticed. No doubt that was how he had managed to get Penelope to put up with him for such a long time. He probably hypnotised women routinely just for the hell of it. Fortunately she was immune.

  'Not so fast,' she said, pushing him in the chest to force him to sit back down just as he tried to stand up. 'They won't listen to your car problem at this time of night - you might as well wait until morning to report it.'

  She thought she should have turned him in to the police immediately, but they wouldn't have thanked her for producing another possible suspect right now. They would be better equipped to deal with him in the morning, after Charlie Smith had a few hours sleep. And after all, he had sent her and Zak away quite decisively.

  'But they might catch the people who - ' he began to say.

  'They won't find the car,' said Amaryllis, 'unless either they're very lucky or the people who've stolen it are really stupid. For instance, if the same people stole it that I'm thinking of, they might try and take it across to Ireland on the ferry. That would be pretty stupid. Or they could cross to Zeebrugge from Rosyth, of course,' she added, thinking of Christopher and Caroline and their little jaunt.

  'But I want it back,' he said. Now he had turned into an obnoxious toddler. Amaryllis wondered how Zak felt, seeing his father regress at this speed. But maybe he was used to it: maybe this was another of Liam's techniques for getting round women. Once again, it wasn't going to work on her.

  She shrugged her shoulders. 'It's in the lap of the gods,' she told him. 'Now, are we going to settle down here for the rest of the night, or what?'

  'What?' said Zak and Liam, both at the same time.

  'I could go up to the Holiday Inn,' said Liam. 'I wouldn't want to waste a night there. I've paid for it, after all.'

  'I think you should stay here with Zak,' said Amaryllis.

  'What about you?' said Zak, his eyes sending some sort of message. She couldn't quite work out whether it was a desperate plea not to leave him alone with his dad, in case something even sillier happened, or the opposite, a sort of get out and leave us alone to talk it through man to man thing.

  She had already resigned herself to staying, just to keep an eye on Liam Johnstone, who was a slippery customer if ever she had seen one, so she didn't really need Zak's approval or otherwise. She didn't expect to sleep, so after confiscating the keys to the vehicle, and using rubber gloves and kitchen roll to pick up the gun and lock it in a drawer to which she also confiscated the key, she persuaded Liam and Zak to lie in the bunk beds while she took the very much less comfortable bench seat.

  There were things about Liam's story that didn't make a lot of sense, but paradoxically that made her more inclined to believe it all. His utter selfishness and disregard for any obligations to other people, for instance. She had seen these qualities before, not exclusively in men but more often in them than in women, especially women with children, who once their nurturing switch had been clicked on, never quite seemed to be able to switch it off again. Or maybe a valve was a better analogy. Whatever.

  Both Liam and Zak had started snoring by this time. Great, thought Amaryllis. Stuck in here for the rest of the night with men and their noises. Just as well I don't really want to go to sleep. Just as well I can stay awake for forty-eight hours at a stretch and still have all my faculties undimmed…. Just as well I'm superhuman and…

  She woke up with a start and saw the daylight outside. That didn't mean much of course: up here at this time of year daylight began at about three-thirty in the morning and didn
't finish until ten in the evening, which could be a little annoying if you wanted to snoop round the town under cover of darkness as she often did.

  Something had wakened her: some noise that wasn't to do with snoring men or the creaking of the camper-van as people turned over in their sleep. Just before the door burst open, she jumped off the bench and stood alert, back to the wall, waiting. The two armed police officers said nothing as they stood there in the doorway, one pointing a gun at her and one facing towards the bunk beds where, unbelievably, Zak and his father still slept. Another officer who followed them spoke at last.

  'Don't move,' he said unnecessarily to Amaryllis. 'Who are your friends?'

  He gestured towards the beds.

  'Liam Johnstone and his son, Zak. Be careful where you point these,' she added. 'They can be dangerous in the wrong hands.'

  Inspector Forrester sighed heavily.

  'Don't get smart with me, Ms Peebles. You're coming down to the station and staying where we can see you until we sort a few things out.'

  She was just about to fling herself forward and deliver a swift karate chop when Liam Johnstone unwittingly created a diversion by rolling out of the top bunk on to the floor. He landed with a huge crash, and the policemen all jumped. One of them dropped his gun, swore and reached down to pick it up. Liam got there first, wriggling along, and got hold of it. He sat up on the spot where he had landed and levelled the gun at Inspector Forrester.

  'For goodness' sake,' said Amaryllis. 'Don't be so silly, Liam.'

  She brushed past the others and disarmed him with minimal fuss, presenting the gun to Inspector Forrester with a slight flourish. 'I would take care of this, if I were you. I don't think your trained monkeys can be trusted with it.'

  He handed the gun back to the officer who had dropped it.

  'You might as well put these away, guys,' he said. 'Ms Peebles, you're under arrest. And you two. Don't try and struggle, you'll only get into more trouble.'

  He had brought plenty of reinforcements, and Amaryllis decided it would be more interesting to go along with them than to fight. She hoped this wasn't a sign of impending senility on her part. After all, there was no knowing what she might find out once she was inside the police station. And getting Liam locked up in the interests of public safety was definitely a big plus.