The Christmas Puzzle (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 8)

by Cecilia Peartree

  ‘We’ll get into trouble from Christopher if he finds out,’ said Jock.

  ‘He won’t,’ said Amaryllis.

  Chapter 11 Laying down the law

  Christopher had the feeling all along that Amaryllis and Jock had arrived in the Cultural Centre looking for sanctuary, but until the police appeared he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why.

  Amaryllis had pulled a chair over to his office window, where she was drinking her second cup of coffee from the staff tea-room, and staring out at the wet, gloomy car park.

  ‘It’s them!’ she said to Jock suddenly.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ said Jock, apparently on the verge of the kind of panic attack Christopher had never imagined was possible for him. Jock usually took life as it came, and avoided situations where he might be tempted to panic.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Christopher, glancing up from his correspondence, which wasn’t very interesting in any case. He couldn’t even think why he had come in on a Saturday to catch up on it.

  ‘Can we go out the back way?’ said Amaryllis. ‘Or hide in the fire exit corridor anyway?’

  ‘Better to get out while the going’s good,’ said Jock. ‘But what if they’ve sent somebody round the back? We might run straight into them.’

  ‘What have you two been up to?’ said Christopher. ‘Anybody would think you’ve been throwing snowballs at the head teacher or something.’

  ‘It’s worse than that,’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘The hard men from Dundee are after us,’ said Jock.

  ‘Who are the hard men from Dundee?’ enquired Christopher, starting to get a sinking feeling.

  Amaryllis sighed. ‘The police, of course. Charlie says Keith’s been taken off the case and they’ve brought a bunch of thugs down from Dundee to hammer us into shape.’

  ‘That wasn’t exactly what Charlie said,’ Jock pointed out.

  ‘Why should the police be after you?’ said Christopher, trying not to get distracted.

  ‘No reason,’ said Amaryllis very quickly. ‘They don’t need a reason.’

  There was a knock at Christopher’s office door. Mollie, the librarian, came in.

  ‘It’s the police, Mr Wilson,’ she said. ‘They’re waiting outside. They want to speak to you and Ms Peebles.’

  ‘What about me?’ said Jock. Evidently he felt affronted at being left out.

  ‘Let’s hide under the desk,’ suggested Amaryllis.

  ‘Just let them in,’ sighed Christopher. ‘Thanks.’

  Two uniformed officers walked into the room. It immediately felt smaller and more airless, but that didn’t have much impact on the damp coldness that permeated everywhere in Pitkirtly in the winter months.

  ‘Um – hello,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Mr Wilson?’ said the first one.

  He nodded.

  ‘I believe we’ve already met, Ms Peebles,’ said the other one to Amaryllis. She nodded.

  ‘We’d like you to check and sign your statements about the events of yesterday,’ said the first one. He glared at Jock McLean, who shuffled his feet in a patently guilty manner. ‘Is this a good time?’

  Were these really Charlie’s hard men from Dundee? They seemed quite polite.

  ‘I’ll just be getting off, then,’ said Jock. ‘Don’t forget,’ he said to Amaryllis. ‘Two o’clock sharp at the Queen of Scots.’

  The two policemen watched him go, suspicion stiffening their spines and sharpening their features.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ said Christopher. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

  ‘We wouldn’t want to put you to any bother, sir,’ said one of them, taking a seat. The other one was staring at Amaryllis.

  ‘So what’s happening at two o’clock, then?’ he said, rather jovially.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just the Christmas market and stuff.’

  ‘Amaryllis has to dress up as an elf,’ said Christopher.

  She fixed him with a stern gaze.

  ‘That would be worth seeing,’ said one of the policemen with a smile.

  Christopher willed him to stop smiling and not to make any further comment. There was no knowing what Amaryllis would do if provoked. Well, actually, there was some knowing. It would certainly be violent and unexpected, and could result in the parties concerned making urgent hospital visits or being locked up.

  ‘Jock McLean’s Santa Claus,’ said Christopher. He gestured towards the door. ‘You met him just now.’

  ‘He wasn’t in the group on Pitkirtly Island yesterday, was he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s fine, then. We just wanted you and Ms Peebles to go through the statements you both gave Constable Burnet. But if it isn’t a good time, we can come back later.’

  ‘Isn’t Constable Burnet off the case?’ said Christopher, but in a mild, conciliatory tone to show he didn’t really care one way or the other.

  ‘He’s not on shift today, that’s all... It’s just to double-check, and make sure we’ve got it right,’ said one of the officers soothingly.

  He wondered if this was one of those good cop, bad cop things. Amaryllis would know the answer to that. On the other hand, there didn’t seem to be any bad cop. They were both being pleasant and polite. But maybe he would only find out about the bad one when his head bounced off the desk or something. He shuddered.

  ‘Chilly today,’ observed one of the policemen.

  ‘I could put the electric heater on.’

  ‘Don’t bother just for us.... Here we are, then. Read it through carefully and make sure it’s ok. Then you can sign it at the end there. Take your time, sir. No rush.’

  They gave a typed-up statement to Christopher and another to Amaryllis. Within a short time it was all over and they had gone again.

  ‘That wasn’t too bad,’ said Christopher, sitting back.

  ‘They’re just lulling us into a sense of false security,’ said Amaryllis darkly.

  ‘Or Charlie Smith was just having you on about them being hard men from Dundee,’ Christopher suggested.

  She stared at him. ‘Charlie wouldn’t do a thing like that!’

  ‘Maybe he’s just getting his own back,’ said Christopher. ‘After all, you’ve tormented him a fair bit over the years.’

  ‘It was only for fun,’ said Amaryllis. ‘And I helped him too, when he was stuck with cases.’

  ‘That reminds me – what were you and Jock up to this morning? Why were you both so keen to hide from the police?’

  ‘It was nothing much,’ said Amaryllis modestly. ‘Jock and I borrowed a boat and wrecked it on the rocks by Pitkirtly Island just before first light this morning. Jason and Tamara gave us a hand to help us out of the water, and we would have been all right, only we heard a police car so we had to make a run for it.’

  Christopher blinked. The sequence of mental images conjured up by her description was too difficult to process. ‘Whose boat was it?’ he enquired, seizing on the fact that seemed simplest.

  ‘Charlie’s,’ said Amaryllis, her tone showing a small amount of remorse for the first time that day. ‘It’s all right – I’ll go and salvage it once the police are out of the way.’

  The beginnings of several sentences collided with each other in Christopher’s brain. He knew from past experience that phrases such as ‘What were you thinking of?’ and ‘How could you?’ would make very little impact. And yet ‘You ought to be locked up’ seemed a bit too harsh and unforgiving.

  ‘I don’t think the police are making much headway with the case,’ she added before he could disentangle his thoughts. ‘Do you think we should go and have a word with Mr Whitmore? We could ask him if Jackie had any mortal enemies.’

  ‘Neil Macrae would be top of the list,’ said Christopher, restraining the urge to tell her not to go and speak to Jackie’s father.

  ‘And us,’ said Amaryllis. ‘That’s three, for a start… Let’s make a list of suspects and do things properly!’

  ‘You make a list,�
� said Christopher. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘Can I sit here and make a list? I’ll be as quiet as a mouse. Or an elf.’

  ‘All right,’ he agreed, content to keep her out of Mr Whitmore’s rapidly vanishing hair for a little longer. ‘How quiet is an elf?’

  It turned out that an elf could be fairly quiet for most of the time, except when she left the room and returned with a flipchart she had scavenged from the library staff, and again when she called to him over to view her list. She had written it out in red capitals with a marker pen borrowed from his desk.

  ‘We should really have one of those acrylic screen things you see in tv detective shows,’ she said. There was an accusatory undertone in her voice, as if she thought he should have one in his office or have sourced one for her use. Or maybe he was imagining it.

  She used his umbrella, folded up, as a pointer and touched the word at the top of the first sheet. ‘Who,’ she said, as if he couldn’t read it for himself.

  ‘What does that mean? Who are the suspects?’

  ‘No. Who was the victim?’

  ‘We know that already. It was Jackie Whitmore.’

  ‘Yes, but who was Jackie Whitmore?’ she said. He could tell she was making a huge effort to control her impatience. ‘What sort of person was she?’

  ‘Well, a criminal, for a start,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Ah, but that wasn’t the start, was it?’ said Amaryllis. ‘She was a criminal at the end. Before that she was just some teenage girl. She had friends and enemies, and favourite sweets and boy bands and clothes. The answer lies somewhere in all that.’

  He read out some of her notes, commenting as he looked down the page. ‘School. Paper shop. Queen of Scots. It isn’t much of a life, is it? Do you really think the answer’s in there?’

  ‘You never know,’ said Amaryllis. She ripped off that page. ‘I need something to stick this up with.’

  ‘On my office wall?’

  ‘There isn’t anywhere else to stick it in here, is there? Or would you rather we stuck it up in the corridor?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Christopher grudgingly rummaged around on his desk and produced a small roll of sticky tape, left over from the day he had forgotten Mollie’s fiftieth birthday and had to buy her some chocolates in the supermarket and wrap them up at his desk in a hurry. She had come into the office and burst into tears as he was doing it, but there was no evidence later that she had been crying, apart from an unusual excess of make-up, and she had thanked him almost sincerely for the thoughtful gift.

  The next page was headed ‘Why?’

  He read down it and nodded. ‘Enemies from prison? That seems quite likely. Enemies from school? Boyfriend grudges? Favourite T-shirt theft? Is that really enough to make somebody think of killing her? Ah. Here we are. Revenge - Neil Macrae. Well, we know all about him. But he’s still in prison, isn’t he?’

  ‘I think they’ve thrown away the key,’ said Amaryllis. ‘But he might have associates. They could be in Pitkirtly right now.’

  ‘They’d stick out a mile though. And if they’re around, the police will know about them already. The whole thing will be in their records.’

  ‘Hmph,’ she said. Evidently she had been spending too much time with Jock McLean. She ripped off that sheet, laid it on his desk, and showed him the next one, headed ‘How?’

  ‘How did she die? I suppose she was pushed into the hole.’

  ‘If you don’t stop nit-picking, I’ll be sorry I started this,’ said Amaryllis.

  Christopher was already sorry she had started it, but he knew better than to say so.

  ‘Or I suppose she could have fallen in,’ he added after some thought. ‘Or jumped in.’

  ‘I’ve allowed for that,’ she said, using his umbrella again to indicate the last line of text, which read, ‘Self harm.’

  ‘It wouldn’t necessarily be that, though,’ objected Christopher. ‘She might have jumped in to have a look at something. That bone, for instance.’

  ‘It wasn’t all that obvious it was a bone,’ said Amaryllis. ‘I thought it was a tree root at first... Anyway, she had a head injury. I think someone came up behind her and hit her on the head, then she fell in the hole face first and – well – she stopped breathing.’

  Somebody knocked at the office door.

  ‘Tell them to get lost,’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘It might be important,’ said Christopher uncertainly.

  ‘This is important!’ said Amaryllis.

  He wanted to tell her that the police had undoubtedly been through it all by now and reached their own conclusions, and that as they had access to all kinds of resources she didn’t have, they were more likely to find the correct answers, but he didn’t have the heart for it. Neither did he want to start a colossal argument that could take all day to get through.

  ‘Yes, it’s important,’ he said instead. ‘We’ll get back to it in a minute. But I just have to see why somebody wants to see me. It might be something I can deal with quickly...’

  That hope disappeared as soon as he opened the door. Bruce and Tamara barged in as if they had every right to interrupt whatever he was doing and take up half his life with their trivia.

  Of course in a sense they did have that right, he told himself. They were members of the public and he was a public servant. But it was Saturday and he wasn’t even supposed to be at work... And Bruce was in shirt-sleeves and a silly-looking beige quilted body-warmer, and had binoculars dangling round his neck as if he were a bird-watcher.

  ‘Hope I’m not interrupting anything, Chris,’ said Bruce, looking as if he hoped the opposite. ‘We were wondering if you’d seen Jason at all today.’

  ‘No,’ said Christopher, vaguely wondering why Amaryllis and Tamara had both jumped as if they had been stung by something, more or less in unison, and had then glared at each other fiercely. ‘I’d have thought he’d be in by now.’

  ‘He was due in at ten to review the plans for phase two,’ said Bruce. ‘It isn’t like him to be late.’

  ‘I expect he’s just been detained somewhere,’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Tamara.

  ‘He could have got tied up with something,’ suggested Amaryllis. ‘It can happen to anyone.’

  ‘Not Jason,’ said Tamara.

  Christopher glanced uneasily from one to the other. Even he, with his limited understanding of the subtleties of women, had the sense of a sub-text underlying their clipped sentences. There was something going on, in other words.

  ‘Do you think something’s happened to him?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Jason would never let anything happen to him.’

  Bruce was less patient than Christopher. ‘If you know where he is, just say,’ he said, staring at Amaryllis. ‘This isn’t the time to play games.’

  ‘He was about earlier,’ said Tamara.

  ‘Where?’ said Bruce.

  ‘Around town,’ said Amaryllis.

  It was an unlikely alliance, but Christopher now had an even stronger feeling that the two women were ganging up together to hide something. Had Jason persuaded them to keep his whereabouts secret for some bizarre reason? Or was it something else? Did it have anything to do with the boat trip and the police chasing them? He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He didn’t particularly want to take Bruce’s side against Amaryllis. Even if Bruce was a member of the public and so on, he didn’t have any loyalty to Bruce, and didn’t even like him very much, now he came to think of it. What he wanted at that moment was for Bruce and Tamara to leave his office, to give him a chance of getting some sense out of Amaryllis.

  Bruce sighed heavily, and turned to leave the office. ‘I can see I’m not going to get any sense out of you,’ he said to Amaryllis. ‘If he does turn up, can you let me know?’ he added to Christopher. ‘I’ll be in the research room.’

  ‘So will I,’ said Tamara, following him. She cast one conspiratorial glance back a
t Amaryllis, who ignored her.

  ‘I know I’m always asking this, and you never really tell me,’ said Christopher mildly, sitting back down at his desk once the door closed behind them, ‘but what’s going on?’

  Chapter 12 Liberating Jason

  Amaryllis was conscious that her explanation to Christopher had been somewhat sketchy. Minimalist, even. In fact she had left the office quite closely on the heels of Bruce and Tamara, having said over her shoulder, ‘I think they’ve got Jason.’

  She comforted herself for her brevity by thinking about how little Christopher really wanted to know. In this case ignorance wasn’t just bliss but safety too - hers as well as his. What he didn’t know, he couldn’t confess to the police on his own or her behalf. She needed to keep a clean slate with the police if she were to have any chance of achieving her political ambitions. But she wasn’t going to let that stop her from putting right any grave injustice that might have been committed by the forces of law and order.

  There wasn’t much time. She had to meet Jock again at the usual place so that they could drop into their respective roles in the Christmas extravaganza and forget about all the actual stuff that had been going on in the real world. Amaryllis found this quite restful in one way. In another, she couldn’t wait to get through their shift, as she thought of it, and be free to carry on with the investigation, such as it was.

  She pressed the bell outside the police station without much hope of anyone being inside. It was a constant worry of hers that the police authorities would decide to close down Pitkirtly police station altogether. They had certainly reduced their opening hours drastically in the time she had been living in the town. Nowadays if you were going to be burgled or murdered, it was much better if it happened between eleven a.m. and two p.m. on a weekday, otherwise there was the risk that someone from the police would have to travel over from Dunfermline or even Edinburgh to do anything about it.

  ‘Yes?’ said a crackly voice on the entry system.

  ‘Amaryllis Peebles.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m not going to have a conversation with an entry system. Especially one that crackles. You’ll have to let me in before you find out what I want.’