‘That was a grand meal we had in the restaurant the other night,’ observed Jock. ‘Just as well we don’t eat there every day – we’d all be the size of houses.’
‘Haha – she wouldn’t,’ said Giancarlo, leaning round and patting Amaryllis on the arm. She moved it away as if he had stung her.
‘No touching the elf,’ she said. ‘That reminds me, Giancarlo, are you doing anything later this evening?’
‘No!’ said Jock.
‘I wasn’t asking you,’ she said rudely, turning slightly away from him. ‘Giancarlo?’
‘Don’t agree to anything,’ said Jock.
‘I might be,’ said Giancarlo cautiously. ‘It depends what you’ve got in mind.’
‘Just don’t,’ said Jock.
‘Hello,’ said Christopher, who had arrived while they were reaching this impasse. ‘What’s going on here? Is everything all right?’
Chapter 26 Arriving at a strategy - or is it a tactic?
They waited in the shadows by the gate until the man and dog turned the corner and vanished from view.
Christopher hadn’t stopped wishing he had chosen to go straight to the Queen of Scots instead of saying hello to Jock and Amaryllis first. If he had known what was afoot he would probably have gone home from work, barricaded himself into the house and not answered the doorbell or the telephone. But he knew Amaryllis would quite possibly still have managed to break in if he had done that, and she would have frogmarched him down here to take part in her nefarious plans.
Jock had reluctantly agreed to keep watch just outside the gate. He had claimed he was too old to go to prison, and not being on the property gave him a sporting chance of running away if the police came along.
They had found the address on the electoral roll at the library. Until that moment Christopher had harboured the faint hope that the man with the wee white dog – Mr Greig – wouldn’t have allowed his name and address to be on the published version. Or that he had been a poll tax dodger and wasn’t registered to vote.
‘Come on, round to the back,’ hissed Amaryllis in his ear. ‘We can’t do anything out at the front here – it’s far too exposed.’
There was a slim chance that the back garden was overlooked by neighbours or illuminated by one of those powerful lights some people used to deter intruders, but Christopher wasn’t surprised to find an eight-foot conifer hedge all round this particular property.
‘He likes his privacy, doesn’t he?’ he commented.
‘That’s another sign he’s up to no good.’
‘Not necessarily. He could just be a very private person.’
‘They’re always the worst... Come and shine the torch here so I can see what I’m doing.’
Christopher had a burst of panic. ‘What if somebody catches us?’
‘Too late to worry about that now,’ said Amaryllis. There was a clicking, rattling sound and she opened the back door. ‘It isn’t locked, so it’s his own fault if someone gets in.’
‘Isn’t locked? But what did you need those twiddly things for in that case?’
‘It isn’t locked any more, I mean,’ she said.
‘What if it wasn’t him at all?’ said Christopher as they went into the kitchen. Amaryllis grabbed the torch back and shone it round as he spoke. It was a perfectly normal kitchen: fridge, washing machine, cooker, microwave. Large freezer.
‘I expect he keeps massive chunks of meat in there for the dog,’ said Amaryllis, laughing. She was enjoying herself, apparently. Christopher felt like crawling under the table and staying there.
‘Let’s try the front room.’ She led the way through the house.
‘How are we meant to hear Jock if he raises the alarm?’ asked Christopher uneasily.
‘He’ll shout through the letterbox. Before scarpering, of course. We don’t want him to get caught. One of us has to be on the outside sending us food parcels and cakes with files in them.’
He stared at her, open-mouthed. She shone the torch on his face and laughed again.
‘We won’t get caught either. I promise, on the grave of my goldfish. R.I.P. Goldie. September 1985.’
‘Goldie? What sort of a name is that?’
‘It’s the right name for a goldfish,’ she said solemnly, shining the torch on each piece of furniture in turn. The beam came to a little side table, wavered, and stopped. ‘Oh! I hadn’t expected that.’
She walked slowly over to the table and picked up the framed photograph. She stared at it for a moment, and then silently held it out to Christopher. He took it from her and stared at it in the torchlight, and then he stared at Amaryllis and back at the picture again.
‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ she said at last.
He nodded, too taken aback to construct a sentence.
Out in the hall, the letterbox rattled.
‘Look out!’ said Jock’s voice. ‘He’s coming back!’
‘It’s too soon,’ said Amaryllis. ‘He must be getting suspicious, or else he’d have stayed out longer.’
She stuffed the photograph, frame and all, down the front of her black leather jacket, and led the way to the back door.
‘No time to lock it – he’ll probably think he left it unlocked by mistake,’ she muttered optimistically.
They ran out to the back garden. A small white thing rushed at them, yapping.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Christopher, flinching as it went for his shoe.
‘Quick, in the hedge,’ said Amaryllis. She pushed him into the middle of the tall conifers.
He collided with a tree trunk and only just avoided screeching with pain. He could feel something trickling down his nose – was it blood? He wasn’t very keen on blood, particularly his own. But at least he couldn’t see it.
Amaryllis had pressed a bit too close to him. She was intruding on his personal space, but that was the least of his worries.
The dog had stayed out of the hedge, luckily, but it was still yapping in the garden.
‘Hamish!’ somebody called. ‘Come away out of there.’
There were footsteps, worryingly close, and then the dog yelped a bit. Christopher hoped the old man hadn’t lost his temper and struck out at it or even kicked.
‘He just grabbed it by the collar,’ breathed Amaryllis in his ear. She must have sensed his concern. Either that or she was trying to prevent him from rushing to the dog’s rescue and giving them both away.
‘Damn cats!’ muttered the man, still too close by for comfort. ‘Haven’t you got homes to go to?’ he added, raising his voice.
‘Don’t answer that,’ breathed Amaryllis. ‘He’s talking to the cats.’
She was trembling a little, he suspected with suppressed laughter.
‘There’s blood on my nose,’ he whispered.
‘Sssh! He’s still there.’
Christopher began to picture himself in the police cell, and then in court charged with breaking and entering. They hadn’t exactly broken anything, although Amaryllis could easily have damaged the back door lock with her tools. And she had taken the photo, of course. That was undoubtedly theft. They would both be sent to prison. A small groan escaped him.
‘He’s gone now,’ said Amaryllis at about the same time. ‘Give him a minute to get into the house, and then we can leave.’
At least the blood had stopped trickling. There couldn’t have been very much of it, and he was sorry he had even mentioned it to her.
Instead of walking round to the front and exiting through the garden gate, Amaryllis insisted they should climb over two fences and a neighbour’s back gate, which took them to a very narrow lane at the back of the gardens in the old man’s street. There were nettles and brambles. Christopher knew he would find scratches and tears on his legs as well as on his face by the time they got out of there.
Eventually the narrow lane widened out and there were parked cars and a couple of wooden garages, and then they came to a real street again. Christopher looked up and down it. Joc
k McLean was unsuccessfully trying to conceal himself behind a car fifty yards or so away. He crept out when he caught sight of them, and waved.
‘Did he see you?’ said Jock as they rendezvoused in the middle of the road.
‘No, but it was a close thing,’ said Amaryllis. She reached inside her jacket and pulled out the photograph. ‘Look at this.’
Jock looked at it in the light of the street lamps.
‘It’s her! Isn’t it? She’s a bit younger though... Why didn’t she say anything?’
‘That’s a very good question,’ said Amaryllis. She glanced at Christopher. ‘Is that blood on your face?’
‘I told you there was blood,’ he grumbled. ‘What didn’t she say anything about?’
‘About why the old man – Mr Greig – had her picture on display.’
‘Do you think she’s his wife? The one who disappeared?’ said Christopher.
‘Too young,’ said Amaryllis.
Jock took another look. ‘She could be his daughter,’ he said doubtfully.
‘We might be able to look that up,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Jemima would know how to do it.’
‘We can’t get Jemima involved in this,’ said Christopher.
‘Come along, let’s talk as we go,’ said Amaryllis. ‘We shouldn’t really hang about here too long. We don’t want to attract any attention. Don’t say any more until we get round that corner.’
They were walking across the car park near the Cultural Centre by the time Christopher dared to say any more. ‘It isn’t fair on Jemima to ask her to do anything. She’s out of action, anyway.’
‘It’s just helping us to look something up,’ argued Amaryllis. ‘It’s no more than all the family history research she’s done in the past.’
‘Aye, and look how that ended,’ said Jock.
‘That’s water under the bridge now,’ said Amaryllis. ‘It hasn’t put her off family research, anyway.’
‘You’re right,’ said Christopher, slightly surprised to find himself agreeing with her despite the situation she had dragged him into that evening. ‘I suppose it isn’t a lot to ask.’
‘Can we do it now?’ said Amaryllis, sounding like a child wanting to unwrap her Christmas presents early. ‘It isn’t all that late.’
‘Getting on for eleven,’ said Jock, glancing at his watch. ‘They’ll be in bed for the night.’
‘And I’m not opening up the Cultural Centre at this time either,’ said Christopher, ‘so you might as well just go home and go to bed yourself. We’d be better to do this tomorrow when everybody’s wide awake.’
‘She doesn’t live with him, does she?’ said Jock as they walked up the hill together.
‘I don’t know where she lives,’ said Amaryllis. ‘That doesn’t matter, anyway.’
‘Do you think she’s ever been to Niagara Falls?’ said Jock.
‘I think that was the wrong question,’ said Amaryllis.
If Christopher hadn’t known her better he would have thought her confidence had been slightly dented by the discovery of the photograph. As they passed under a street light he saw that she had faint frown lines across her forehead that he hadn’t noticed before, and her eyes were downcast.
‘Well, the fact that she didn’t mention it must mean there’s something to hide,’ he said encouragingly. ‘So either she or her father – if he is her father – must be involved in the case somehow.’
‘Thank you for calling it a case,’ she said. ‘It seems to me it’s just one big muddle.’
‘What we need is a strategy,’ said Christopher.
‘I think you mean tactics,’ said Amaryllis.
He laughed suddenly. ‘This is a fine time to be arguing about terminology.’
‘It’s the best time to argue about it,’ she said.
‘If we’re going to be arguing,’ said Jock, ‘we’ll need a fish supper to fuel it.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Amaryllis. ‘We’d only start arguing about sauce versus salt and vinegar.’
They happened to be within feet of the fish and chip shop, which looked as if it was just about to close.
‘Last one there’s buying,’ said Jock, and scurried up to the door of the shop and stuck his foot in the opening as the owner began to slam it. ‘Ow!’
He drew his foot back, not quite quickly enough, and stood there on the other one haranguing the shopkeeper, who was behind the door making gestures.
Christopher shook his head in disbelief. ‘Is it broken?’ he enquired.
‘Of course it is. Have you ever had your foot stuck in a door?’
‘Try walking on it,’ Amaryllis advised.
‘You can come up to mine if you like,’ said Christopher. ‘I’ll make some toast.’
Jock hobbled away from the fish and chip shop, grumbling to himself about ‘clowns’.
‘Twas the night before Christmas,’ said Amaryllis, ‘and all through the town, not a creature was stirring, not even a clown.’
‘How much did you have to drink before we went round to Mr Greig’s house?’ said Christopher suspiciously.
‘It’s the adrenalin rush,’ said Amaryllis. ‘It’s only just kicking in now. You should try it some time.’
Chapter 27 Tidying up
‘I’m in position in the research room,’ said Jemima’s voice.
‘Have you found it yet?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘Is it as we thought?’
‘Yes, dear, of course it is. You were clever working it all out like that… I’d better get off the line now, hadn’t I?’
‘Check. Over and out.’ Amaryllis was just about to press the button to stop the call when Jemima spoke again.
‘Roger, wilco.’
‘I don’t think you need to say that, dear,’ said Dave’s voice faintly in the background. ‘She’s gone, anyway.’
‘No, I’m still here,’ said Amaryllis. ‘But I’m going now.’
She clicked to stop the call. Her phone rang again immediately.
‘Standing by,’ reported Jock.
‘Standing by? I’d have thought you’d be walking along by now.’
‘Yes, well. We’ve been waiting outside his house a while. But I think there’s still time.’
‘Make sure he knows it’s urgent.’
‘Fine. Thanks,’ said Tricia, who must have grabbed the phone from Jock.
Amaryllis made a mental note to try and break Tricia of her habit of thanking people all the time, even when she was doing them a favour. She would never learn not to let them take advantage of her otherwise.
Still no word from Christopher. In some ways his part was the most problematic, and she had hesitated before letting him do what he was scheduled in to do. After all, he wasn’t trained in dealing with those situations as she was. But he had been quite adamant about it. Unusual for Christopher to be adamant, she mused, wondering whether to call him or not. His face more naturally fell into an expression of resigned agreement.
The phone rang again.
‘We’re at the old army huts,’ said Zak. ‘We’ve set it all up. We’re going over to the boat now.’
‘Just keep out of sight, and wait for the signal,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Don’t get too near the action, whatever happens.’
‘You’ve got it,’ said Zak.
‘And call me back if you see anything unexpected.’
‘Check.’
The phone rang again.
‘Did you want us all to call in?’ said Christopher uncertainly.
‘Yes, that was the idea. Is everything all right?’
‘Fine, I think. We’re on our way out of the restaurant now.’
‘Good. I’ll activate the plan.’ She paused for a moment and said, ‘Take care.’
It wasn’t the kind of thing Amaryllis usually said. She tended to assume most rational people would look out for themselves first and worry about anyone else later even if she didn’t remind them to be careful. But Christopher just might be an exception
to that rule.
Giancarlo had helped her to arrange the meal in the restaurant, and he had even convinced the woman it was a prize she had won in some sort of Christmas raffle. Nobody ever remembered buying tickets for that kind of thing, so there was little chance of being caught out.
Amaryllis was very surprised that all her friends now seemed to have learned to use their mobile phones at last. Perhaps her nagging over the years had paid off. Time would tell whether they still had the things switched on when she tried to call them, but so far, so good.
‘Hey, there!’ shouted someone.
Her heart sank. It was Bruce, crossing the road to speak to her. He was one of the last people she wanted to see at the moment. He would only hold up the final phone call, or complicate things in some way even she hadn’t been able to foresee.
‘Amaryllis!’ he said as he came up to her.
‘Bruce,’ she replied, her tone carefully neutral.
‘Are you waiting for the bus?’
It was a reasonable enough deduction, as she was standing at the bus stop opposite the Queen of Scots. She had to suppress annoyance all the same.
‘Not really.’
‘I’m going into town.’
‘Edinburgh?’
‘Dunfermline. I’m staying the night with my brother and his wife – he hasn’t been too well, you know – and going shopping in the morning. My wife wants some buttons. She’s been knitting again.’
He said it as other people might announce their spouse had taken to drink again, or developed some serious illness, in a lugubrious voice with accompanying grimace.
‘Good,’ said Amaryllis.
‘You can’t get buttons in Pitkirtly these days. I remember when there was a little haberdasher’s shop just about where that takeaway is. You know the one with the big banner outside. It used to sell all sorts of useful stuff – ribbons, elastic, buttons, just about everything a woman might need.’
‘If the woman’s doing something domestic,’ said Amaryllis.
‘Oh yes, and then there was the hardware shop further up the road. I think it was about where the newsagent’s is now. But it was bigger then – I think it must have taken in the shop next-door too.’ He sighed. ‘Nowhere to get those little hinges either. Or model railway paint.’
The Christmas Puzzle (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 8) Page 19