4 Death at the Happiness Club

by Cecilia Peartree

  'Yes, it was the fact that Mr McLean's pipe was apparently the chief culprit that distracted us from the more important question: why did the boat fill up with gas in the first place? Once we re-focussed, we realised that was the first attempt to kill Sean Fraser.'

  'Once Dilly had confessed to everything, you mean.'

  'Yes, well… They had planned to let the gas out of the heater into the cabin, then get everybody else off the boat and send Sean back for something. Two things went wrong for them. First of all, as soon as everybody got on to the island, Sean was button-holed by some old lady who wouldn't stop talking to him… I know the feeling... Secondly, Mr McLean sent the whole thing up with a carelessly dropped match.'

  'It was always going to be a bit chancy though, wasn't it?' said Amaryllis.

  He nodded. ‘Chancy for them, and dangerous for anybody else who got in the way. As you probably know, both the Johnstones then got in the way of our investigations into the shooting. Mrs Johnstone – Penelope -made herself so visible that we had to pull her in for questioning. The Happiness Club neighbours were insistent she was the only person they'd seen anywhere near the place.'

  'Sorry I'm late,' said Christopher breathlessly, sliding into a chair next to Amaryllis. 'Have I missed much?'

  'Only two rounds of Old Pictish Brew,' said Amaryllis with mock severity. She was irrationally pleased to see him, despite the fact that his presence would interfere with her plan to get Chief Inspector Smith to reveal all in return for the vague promise unspecified female favours, or at least the chance to partner her in a slow foxtrot. ‘Charlie’s just telling me how he worked everything out.’

  ‘I didn’t think – I mean, that’s interesting,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Then of course there was Mrs MacPherson herself. We did have our suspicions about her, because we knew her husband had a gun, but apparently he’s overseas now.’

  ‘In Gdansk with a blonde floozy,’ added Amaryllis.

  ‘Yes. She was due to be deported but they changed their minds at the last minute,’ said Mr Smith casually. Amaryllis glanced round to see if Maisie Sue was within earshot, as she would undoubtedly have got very upset to think of her near miss, but she was waltzing quite energetically with the man from the fish shop. He didn’t look like her type but you never knew when and where romance would blossom. Amaryllis didn’t really believe in romance, but if people wanted to convince themselves it would make their sad boring little lives better, that was their own lookout.

  ‘So Maisie Sue came on to your radar,’ Amaryllis prompted.

  ‘Yes. She seemed to have been the last person in the office before Mr Fraser was shot: her application form for the Happiness Club was right under his body on the desk and got saturated with blood. It was still quite legible, though. Interesting that she’s fond of Labradors. Can’t stand them myself – unbelievably stupid.’

  ‘But on closer questioning,’ he continued after a slight pause – surely he didn’t expect either of them to enter into a discussion of the merits of Labradors? ‘On closer questioning it turned out she had heard the gunshot on her way towards the building. She thought it was a car back-firing. It’s nothing like that, of course, as you know, but that’s what most people think.’

  ‘So where was Sean Fraser before he was face-down on the desk?’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘Ah, that’s where traditional detective work came in. We did a fingertip search of the whole Happiness Club premises, and we found the bullet and a strand of Dilly Fraser’s hair that had got caught in the cupboard door hinges. He was actually killed in the cupboard in the office. Mrs MacPherson heard a noise from there as she went into the office, but the sisters must have kept themselves and Sean Fraser’s body hidden until she had put the form on the desk and left. Then they brought him out and dumped him at the desk for a few moments deliberately to get his blood on the form.’

  ‘That was a bit weird,’ Amaryllis observed. ‘Why didn’t they just go straight out to the Porsche with him?’

  ‘We think they were thinking ahead, trying to incriminate Mrs MacPherson and confuse us about the time of the shooting.’

  ‘If there was anything that involved thinking ahead, it must have been Dee Fraser who did it,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Dilly didn’t seem capable of thinking past the end of her nose.’

  ‘Yes, you may be right. We’re not sure who did the actual shooting. Dilly seems to think it was her, and certainly she would be more likely to pull the trigger on the spur of the moment, for the hell of it, but if they planned it in advance then it was almost certainly Dee.’

  'But why?' said Christopher.

  'Why did they do it?' said Charlie Smith, and smiled in a particularly irritating way. 'Ah, well, I'm not sure I should be telling you this…'

  'Oh, get on with it!' Amaryllis snapped. She saw his expression and added hastily, in what she imagined was a soft, feminine tone, 'I mean - the tea-dance will be over soon and we still haven't had our fox-trot.'

  She saw Christopher's face register incredulity, followed by bewilderment.

  'The key was in some information from Mrs MacPherson,' said Mr Smith. 'Statements made in her hearing by Dilly Fraser, about the other one.'

  'The other one?' Christopher repeated. Amaryllis smiled, and enjoyed seeing him blush over his own predictability.

  'The other one who kept coming back in Dilly's dreams,' said Mr Smith, nodding once again in that smug way that made Amaryllis want to take him on a mission with her and abandon him in the secret underground headquarters of a ruthless Middle Eastern dictator in the middle of a people's uprising, or on the banks of a river in Tibet surrounded by Chinese militia and perhaps menaced by the odd stray panda.

  'Coming back from where?' said Christopher.

  'Back from the dead,' said Mr Smith. 'Dee and Dilly killed someone.'

  Amaryllis's fingers itched to cover up Christopher's mouth so that he couldn't provide an echo. She glared at him instead, and he closed his mouth.

  'Yes, they knocked down a pedestrian in the camper van, coming along the coast road by Kinghorn on a wet night in the spring,' Mr Smith continued. 'Sean was asleep at the time and either Dee or Dilly was driving - they still haven't said which of them it was. According to Dee, Sean then helped them to dispose of the body by dropping it down one of those mineshafts near Lochgelly. About time the Council filled them in or put up sensible fences, if you ask me.'

  'Have you recovered the body?' enquired Amaryllis quietly. Even she understood it wasn't exactly the right topic of conversation for a tea-dance, although as far as she was concerned it added a certain frisson to the occasion.

  'Yes,' said Mr Smith in an undertone. He leaned closer to her. So did Christopher.

  If anyone else invades my space I'll bang some heads together, Amaryllis vowed silently, leaning back slightly.

  'I suppose that's why they moved on from wherever they were based before,' she mused. 'And then Sean got too friendly with Penelope and they were afraid he'd give the game away.'

  'Exactly,' said Mr Smith. 'They got in a right old state. Dilly says she and Dee suggested moving on again, but he wouldn't hear of it. So they had to kill him, she said. Quite breezy and open about it, too. Not a sign of remorse. Their own brother.'

  He sighed.

  'That's sisters for you,' said Amaryllis, testing Christopher to see if he was still awake. She nudged him. He jumped.

  'I can't imagine Caroline doing anything like that,' he said. 'I hope,' he added with a hint of uncertainty in his tone.

  'Here's something funny,' said Mr Smith unexpectedly. 'You know how they made a big thing about computers matching people up?'

  'Did they?' said Amaryllis, who hadn't paid much attention to that aspect since she didn't want to be matched up with anyone.

  ‘Yes, they made out it was some special program that analysed everyone’s replies to the questions and tested for compatibility. Well, anyway, there wasn’t a computer in the office, and we couldn’t find one anywhere a
mong their stuff. In the end we asked Dee Fraser about it, and she said they had done it all themselves.’

  ‘Themselves? You mean by hand?’ said Christopher, showing some interest at last.

  'She was quite proud of it - said they had a good laugh looking at people's answers, and they sometimes deliberately matched up completely incompatible people to see what happened.'

  'I bet that worked just as well as using a computer,' said Amaryllis.

  'So after they took Sean out to the Porsche?' she asked. 'What happened then?'

  'They flung him into the boot and drove off. Having first put the gun away safely, as they imagined, in the motor-caravan. They weren't to know Mr Johnstone was already in there. They drove to the coast, stole a boat, dumped Mr Fraser's body offshore somewhere and kept the Porsche, thinking they could go back for the caravan later. There were one or two sightings of them driving around in the Porsche, but of course most people just thought it was Mr Johnstone. That's why we didn't pick up the car. It just wasn't on our radar.'

  'But they hadn't reckoned on the tide coming in over the mud-flats,' said Amaryllis slowly.

  'Or on Maisie Sue being on the beach at the wrong time,' added Christopher.

  'You took a big risk going into the middle of that situation,' said Mr Smith sternly.

  Amaryllis was slightly taken aback. If anyone was going to be stern, surely it should be Christopher, who cared whether she lived or died. Detective Chief Inspector Smith had no stake in the matter at all.

  'Amaryllis takes risks the way most people eat breakfast,' said Christopher gloomily.

  'Just as well I did anyway,' said Amaryllis. 'If I hadn't got Christopher to call and tell you where we were, the sisters might have killed Maisie Sue and got right away.'

  They watched Maisie Sue waltzing. She looked as if she had completely forgotten the danger she had been in from Dee and Dilly.

  'How do you think she'll get on with this quilting thing?' said Mr Smith.

  'She's determined enough to make a go of it,' said Christopher with feeling. 'She was in the Cultural Centre yesterday, nagging away about me commissioning a community quilt. In the end I gave in just to make her go away.'

  'Ah,' said Chief Inspector Smith. 'That's a woman's tactic if ever I heard one.'

  'Present company excepted?' asked Amaryllis.

  A deafening silence ensued.

  Chapter 27 A head of steam

  Christopher couldn't understand why Amaryllis was so insistent on taking him down to the harbour that Saturday morning. He knew she usually operated at night, slinking through the town like a shadow, discovering all the darkest secrets of the place and only sharing a small fraction of what she found out with her friends.

  A creature of darkness - that was how, he realised, he liked to think of her.

  Now the sun was out and the sky was relentlessly blue. There wasn't even the slightest breeze, so that by afternoon he knew they were all going to have to go indoors - perhaps to the Queen of Scots - to get out of the sun for a respite. For the moment they stood looking at the railway track.

  'Wasn't it near here they found Sean Fraser?' he said.

  'Yes, out on the mud-flats.'

  At the moment the tide was in, so even the mud-flats didn't look slimy and grim and sinister but were well covered with greenish water, rippling very slightly in a picturesque way. For some reason it was very crowded here this morning, with amateur photographers standing all along the railway fence. Some of them even had tripods and spare lenses. Even Christopher realised there was something going on. But he didn't want to admit, even to Amaryllis, that he didn't have a clue what it was.

  Jock McLean appeared at his side, now walking with only one crutch.

  'Train's late,' he commented.

  'Train?' said Christopher.

  He didn't think this many people would have turned out to see the coal train to Longannet, but there was no knowing with Pitkirtly people. Maybe it was the last time a certain engine would be travelling along this track, or the first time for a new one. For once he wished he had found the enthusiasm to read the local paper.

  'You don't know what's going on, do you?' said Jock, who knew Christopher too well for anyone's good. 'You haven't been paying attention.'

  'It's a special train?' Christopher ventured.

  Jock gave a long sigh. 'Oh, all right, go to the top of the class.'

  Amaryllis intervened. 'Stop teasing him, Jock, or you'll be the one standing in the corner.' She turned to Christopher and spoke clearly and simply, as if he were a very small child or a very old man. He felt like both of these from time to time so it wasn't a huge stretch of the imagination.

  'It's a special steam train. And Jemima and Dave are on board.'

  'Jemima and Dave? They're not driving, are they?'

  'I shouldn't think so. No, they're passengers. In the royal coach.'

  'That figures,' said Maisie Sue, who had appeared at Christopher's side as he focussed on Amaryllis.

  'Do you think Jemima will be wearing her woolly hat under the crown, or over it?' said Jock.

  There was a 'whooooo' in the middle distance.

  'That'll be it now,' said Jock.

  'What's all this about the royal coach?' said Christopher.

  'You'll see,' said Amaryllis. 'Jemima had pictures of it the other day round at the Queen of Scots. If you hadn't gone off to see to the fire alarm you'd know all about it.'

  'So I should have left the Cultural Centre to burn down - just like the village hall did - to look at Jemima's pictures?' said Christopher huffily. He didn't think the others understood the importance of his job.

  Amaryllis patted him on the arm. 'Never mind, you'll know the next time.'

  ‘Is Jemima planning to do this again?’

  ‘Oh, not for another fifty or so years,’ Amaryllis told him.

  She looked as if she were about to burst out laughing. Jock beamed at him. Maisie Sue smiled serenely: she had just had her visa granted now that she was starting up a quilting business and planning to employ a school-leaver. Christopher was in the process of considering a commission for a quilt depicting the history of Pitkirtly, but he was trying not to give in too easily. Council procurement rules said he had to get at least three quotes, but he was having a lot of trouble finding two more quilt-making companies within a reasonable distance of the town.

  All this merriment, however, was unnatural. Was there something nobody had told him? Christopher was uneasily conscious that he had buried himself so deeply in work that he hadn’t really been paying attention to anything else. When Jemima held forth in the Queen of Scots about the good old days or scrapbooking or her family history project, he had either gone outside with Jock McLean and watched Jock smoke his pipe, or switched off from all the talk and tuned his mind into the latest Cultural Centre issue, such how to persuade Andrew to agree to an artist or writer in residence, and why visitor numbers were so miniscule on Tuesdays.

  One reason for this, he realised, was that he wanted to avoid having a proper conversation with Amaryllis. There were things he wanted to say to her, and he was worried that if he didn’t get round to them soon he never would, but it was a huge effort for him even to think about the subject. And he didn’t want to say anything without knowing in advance what her reaction would be, which rather defeated the purpose anyway.

  What he needed, he thought suddenly, was a visit from Caroline with her new in-depth knowledge of psychology and various therapies. She might know the answer. Maybe it was a case for neuro-linguistic programming, or lateral thinking, or mind-mapping. Or group hugs.

  He shuddered slightly.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘Not really,’ he said as the steam train came round the corner. He cleared his throat. ‘Would you like to go out to the pictures next week?’

  The noise from the train overwhelmed his faint, nervous words.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Amaryllis.

  The engine stopped
right in front of them with a lot of grinding of pistons and screeching of brakes. All sorts of people were going mad with cameras. Steam billowed around them.

  'What did you say just now?' she asked.

  'Nothing,' he muttered.

  He panicked immediately that he had missed his one chance to take his odd relationship with Amaryllis to a new level; the idea that if it was meant to happen, it would, didn't really convince him. This could be a great turning point in his life, when the fact that he hadn't asked Amaryllis out caused some sort of hideous ripples to spread out in all directions and eventually cause the end of the universe or something equally, or less, momentous. In any case, something much more interesting was happening on the train.

  Jemima and Dave, both dressed up to the nines, were descending regally from a coach that was painted royal blue with a gold crown on the side. They seemed to have been the only passengers in this particular coach.

  'She isn't wearing a woolly hat!' said Christopher, feeling as if the world had turned upside down.

  'She looks great,' said Amaryllis, and went forward to meet them. She shook hands with each of them in turn, and he saw them all laughing. What on earth was going on?

  As they approached, coming down the slope where the station platform became a riverside path, Jock McLean darted forward - insofar as he could dart on his bad leg - and flung confetti over them. Christopher put a hand up to the back of his neck and rubbed it, confused. Was he dreaming? How had he missed out on this?

  'Congratulations,' said Jock McLean to Jemima and Dave. 'You'll have to explain to Christopher - he's managed not to find out about this.'

  'We've got married,' said Dave proudly.

  'To each other?'' he asked, knowing it was an extremely silly question he would be teased well into the next decade for asking.

  Jemima laughed so hard he thought she was going to have a seizure.

  'You silly boy,' she said fondly.

  'I win - hand over your money, Amaryllis,' said Jock.