‘Oh, no!’ said Zak, coming up behind him. He was hand in hand with Harriet from the library, and Christopher couldn’t help wondering – although he tried not to – whether they had spent the night together. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Um,’ said Christopher, feeling suddenly unprepared to do any of the things he had set out to do this morning, whether it was communicating to the staff that they might be getting an unexpected holiday, speaking to the police again with a view to helping them track down the perpetrators of the crime, which it might not be but certainly seemed to be, or breaking the news to Maisie Sue that her craft work had fallen victim to an art-related disaster.
‘Morning, all!’ said Keith Burnet, moving the tape his colleague had just put in place and coming out to greet them. ‘We’re just waiting for the guys to come along, then we can get started.’
‘Guys?’ said Christopher.
‘Oh, the scene of crime team. They’ve got to come over from Edinburgh, and this time they’ve got to go and pick up the computer forensics man as well, and there’s a traffic jam on the motorway so it’ll take them a while longer. Gives us a chance to get set up.’
‘Computer forensics?’ said Christopher faintly. It was the only part of what Keith had said that he didn’t understand. He knew about the traffic jam on the motorway, of course. Every emergency that ever happened in Pitkirtly was affected by traffic jams on the motorway.
‘We might as well have them all here at once,’ said Keith. He nodded to Zak and Harriet. ‘I’m afraid you won’t get in until we’ve finished.’
‘Is it – a murder?’ said Harriet.
Keith laughed. ‘No, nothing like that. But I’m afraid I can’t divulge what’s happened. Just that there seems to have been a crime. We can’t even say that for sure until we’ve investigated.’
‘You’d better just take the day off,’ Christopher told Zak and Harriet. ‘If I thought it would be longer than a day or so, I could try and get you temporarily transferred to another library or museum, but I can’t imagine it’s going to take all that long.’
‘So it isn’t anything serious?’ said Zak.
‘Now, now, you know I can’t tell you that,’ said Keith, adding with stern emphasis, ‘and neither can Mr Wilson, of course.’
‘Of course not,’ said Christopher. He knew Keith was taking it fairly seriously, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have asked for not only the scene of crime team but computer forensics. ‘I’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as I can.’
Zak and Harriet exchanged anxious glances and went off towards the High Street. Once they were out of earshot, Christopher said, ‘Have you found the artists yet?’
‘No sign of them in the immediate vicinity,’ said Keith. ‘But once the others get here they can take over at the scene and I’ll have a look a wee bit further afield with Constable Martin.’
‘I could go and speak to Mr Cockburn, the minister, if you like,’ said Christopher. ‘The whole thing seems to be his project. He must know something about the artists. Maybe he’s got contact details for them.’
‘No, don’t do that!’ said Keith. ‘Leave it to us. Please. And try not to let her interfere either – for once.’
He didn’t need to ask who Keith was referring to. ‘It might be difficult to stop her, but I’ll do my best. She’s standing for election to the Council, so maybe that’ll keep her busy.’
‘Hmm,’ said Keith, looking as if he wanted to add something like ‘if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’
Keith went back into the building. Christopher hung around outside, giving the same unsatisfactory story to everyone who arrived for work, except for Maggie Munro, the last to come along. She was technically much too early, because she didn’t usually start on her evening cleaning round until most people had left for the night, but he could understand why she was there.
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Wilson,’ she said, looking as if she might burst into tears. ‘I can’t believe I did it.’
‘What do you mean? It wasn’t your fault.’
‘The keys,’ she said with a half-stifled moan. ‘The spare set for the whole building. I’ve lost them.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘When do you think that happened?’
‘Some time last night. I had them on me to lock up when the three of us left – the two young ones and me. But they weren’t in my bag this morning. I thought I’d keep them in the inside pocket – here.’ She opened her handbag to show him. ‘I can’t remember putting them anywhere else.’
‘Not in your coat pocket?’
‘No.’
‘Not even if you were distracted by something?’
‘No – I just always put important things in here. In the exact same place... Oh, Mr Wilson, and I was enjoying this job so much, too. Now I’ll have to leave.’
He stared at her. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Well, you’ll have to fire me, won’t you? It was such a responsibility, having a whole set of keys on me. I was that worried about it, but you wanted to get away to your meeting and I just had to take them. I’m not fit to do the job any more.’
She burst into tears.
Christopher put his hand on her shoulder, but tentatively. He didn’t want to be accused of sexual harassment, after all. He gave her a gentle pat and said, ‘That’s all right, Maggie. It’s not your fault... I think we’d better tell Keith – Sergeant Burnet – though. It might have something to do with this – thing... I think somebody must have stolen your keys.’
She stopped crying for a moment, although when she stared up at him he could see she still had tears in her eyes. ‘Has something happened here, in the Cultural Centre? Is that why you phoned me last night?’ She looked from the police car to the tape at the front door, and shook her head. ‘Of course it has. I should have seen that in the first place. Was it something terrible? Did somebody die?’
‘Not as far as we know,’ said Christopher, although he wasn’t sure if Keith Burnet would have wanted him even to divulge that much. ‘They’re still investigating. There’s a team coming over from Edinburgh.’
She gasped. ‘From Edinburgh?’
‘It’s all centralised now,’ said Christopher, trying to sound as calm as possible to counteract her apparent fear of people from outside Pitkirtly. ‘There’s hardly anything local any more, as far as police work goes.’
Keith Burnet came out again and stood on the step at the front of the building.
‘There’s Keith now,’ said Christopher. ‘Come on, we’ll have a word with him before the rest of them arrive. Don’t worry, he’s very nice.’
He could tell from the expression on Keith’s face as they approached that he had overheard this description and wasn’t very impressed with it. Being nice probably didn’t rank very highly on the list of qualifications for being a policeman, although in Christopher’s opinion it should have done.
They went into the office and, with a lot of prompting, Maggie told Keith about the keys and he asked her some questions about the two young artists, what state the Folk Museum had been in just before they all left, and when and where she had last seen them.
‘I do my best at cleaning that place,’ she told them earnestly. ‘It’s hard though, with all the stuff lying around in there. Specially after that quilting lot’s been in – bits of thread all over the place, things on all the surfaces. I never know what to move and what not to move. I usually just clean round it all. I hope that’s all right, Mr Wilson?’
Christopher assured her it was all right. She had exaggerated a little, he knew, but the quilting class did leave a certain amount of chaos in its wake. In some ways, although he knew Maisie Sue wouldn’t agree with him, he thought the destruction of the quilt represented a kind of cosmic retribution for all the mess they had made over the past months. Completely out of proportion, of course, as cosmic retribution tended to be.
Keith firmly rejected Maggie’s plea to be allowed in to tidy up, and she and Christopher left
the building just as a couple of dark cars drew up outside and a number of men in dark clothes got out and immediately began to unpack and put on white suits before heading into the Cultural Centre.
Amaryllis materialised while all this was going on. Christopher was relieved to see she wore her usual black outfit. She had seemed subtly different when dressed for politics, and he didn’t like subtle differences. It was as if his brain couldn’t cope with the fine distinctions involved, instead becoming blurry and dysfunctional.
‘This is a bit over the top, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘I suppose it’s standard procedure,’ said Christopher. ‘When there’s so much blood involved.’
He had forgotten about Maggie. Her mouth fell open in shock as she heard his words.
‘There wasn’t any blood when I left,’ she said, when she recovered the power of speech. ‘What’s been going on?’
‘It probably isn’t human blood,’ said Amaryllis. Maybe she was trying to sound reassuring. It didn’t come out that way.
‘Probably?’ said Maggie in a high quavery voice.
‘We’d better go for a coffee,’ said Amaryllis.
‘I don’t know if I should leave just yet,’ said Christopher uneasily. ‘They might need to talk to me.’
‘Phhhtt,’ said Amaryllis. ‘They’re detectives – they’ll find you.’
The café near the foot of the High Street had just opened. Jan from the wool shop was already in there for a take-away coffee, and while they waited to be served Maisie Sue appeared. Of course. Christopher decided he must have conjured the woman up by hoping so hard not to have to face her just yet. He hustled the two women to a table and told them he would go and order.
‘Don’t say anything about the blood to anybody,’ he said urgently to Maggie Munro. ‘The police wouldn’t like it.’
‘All right... Will they want to speak to me again?’
‘Maybe. But it’ll be fine. You’ve got nothing to hide.’
Amaryllis had her sceptical look on – the one that said everybody has something to hide, and the less often you speak to the police the better. He ignored her.
‘Do you want scones? Jam? Butter? Cream?’
‘They don’t do scones and cream in here,’ scoffed Amaryllis.
‘I think you’ll find they do,’ he said, glaring at her. ‘Tea or coffee?’
He went to the counter.
‘Oh, my, Christopher, what a grim face this morning!’ commented Maisie Sue. ‘I guess Jemima would ask who stole your cookie if she could see you now.’
‘I guess she would,’ said Christopher. How could he persuade her not to go anywhere near the Cultural Centre? Even if she got as far as the supermarket she would see the police car across the car park, and knowing her she wouldn’t rest until she had found out what was going on. Well, to be fair, nobody he knew would rest until they’d unearthed all the grisly details. It wasn’t just her.
He puzzled over this until they had placed their orders and were moving towards the table. It was too much to hope, of course, that Maisie Sue wouldn’t want to sit with them.
Where was it Maggie Munro lived? He could ask Maisie Sue to take her home – but would Maggie be able to keep the blood story to herself all the way? It seemed unlikely. That would start Maisie Sue off wondering what was going on, and that might send her down to the Cultural Centre anyway.
He could maybe persuade Amaryllis to feign illness, but would it be at all convincing for her to need anybody’s help to get home? Christopher didn’t think so.
As they sat down, the café door-bell jingled again and the local minister, Mr Cockburn, came in. Amaryllis kicked his foot hard under the table.
‘Ow! I mean – how much longer are we going to have to wait? You’d think they were harvesting the coffee beans or grinding the flour out there in the kitchen.’
‘It isn’t like you to be so impatient, Christopher,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘I just love the way there’s no hurry here. You can sit for hours visiting with people or looking out the window. I always say, I’d trade our great customer service skills any day for the way your waiting staff can slow the pace right down.’ She glanced round in the direction of the service counter. ‘Why, there’s Mr Cockburn the minister! Do you think he’d like to join us?’
‘No,’ said Christopher just as Amaryllis said, ‘Yes, of course! What a great idea.’
‘I don’t go to church,’ Christopher added grimly.
‘That won’t bother Mr Cockburn,’ said Maisie Sue helpfully. ‘He’s very broad-minded.’
‘I’m not,’ growled Christopher.
‘But he’s working on a real interesting project,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘He’s been planning to speak to you about it. As long as you’re not working today, maybe he’d like to run through it now.’
‘Is that the time?’ Christopher improvised desperately, pretending to look at the watch he knew he had forgotten to put on that morning. ‘I’ve just remembered – I promised to be somewhere else. In Inverkeithing. Meeting somebody off the train... Can I have a quick word with you, Amaryllis?’
‘Yes,’ said Amaryllis, not getting up from the table.
He gritted his teeth. ‘A quick word outside.’
‘All right.’ She took her time. Why had she chosen this morning to be at her most annoying?
‘Don’t tell her anything,’ he said to her as soon as they were on the street outside the café. ‘And don’t let her see what’s going on at the Cultural Centre. And don’t let her speak to Mr Cockburn. Oh, and don’t speak to him yourself. About anything.’
‘I might as well go on a retreat, in that case,’ she said.
‘Keith told me not to speak to the minister. He told me to tell you as well. We’ll get into trouble with the police if we do.’
‘Do you really think I’m bothered about that eventuality?’ she said.
‘Well, I am!’ he snapped. ‘And you should be too – if you want any chance of getting elected to the Council.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘If I’d known that was going to be an excuse to stop me from ever doing anything interesting again, I wouldn’t have put myself forward as a candidate.’
‘Fine,’ he said.
She considered that for a moment, and then smiled. ‘Don’t be silly – of course I won’t do any of these things. But I might try smuggling Maggie Munro and Maisie Sue in through the fire exit and taking them on a murder mystery tour of the Cultural Centre... You should think about offering that kind of thing, you know. It might pull in the visitors.’
He relaxed slightly, knowing she was teasing.
‘You just do that, then.’
‘Right then, I will.’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine.’
He walked off, heading up the High Street. He was hoping not to have to go to Inverkeithing, because he had no earthly reason to do so. With luck he could get safely home before Maisie Sue came out of the café.
He had never considered it before, but going on a retreat was beginning to seem like an excellent idea.
Chapter 4 A Policeman’s Lot – rants, apologies and interviews
Keith Burnet heaved a long sigh of relief as he closed the door of the Cultural Centre behind the last of the crime scene team. He leaned against the reception desk in the foyer and wondered what would happen next. The team of specialists had taken away with them everything that could even have been slightly relevant, from the rogue security camera to the table where the blood-soaked quilt had been found and the display case through in the other room with its disturbing contents. And of course the blood-soaked quilt itself, complete with the bin bags Christopher and Amaryllis had intended to put it in. He had been allowed outside in the middle of the day, but not to fetch sandwiches as he had originally hoped, instead being expected to track down the two of them and collect DNA samples. He had finally run them to earth after following a few false leads – the Queen of Scots, the now abandoned coffee kiosk near the harbour, Jock McLea
n’s house - in their own separate homes.
Christopher was in his kitchen with a hazy far-away expression on his face and a number of yellowing letters spread out on the table in front of him, while Amaryllis claimed he had interrupted her in the middle of her daily martial arts refresher routine. She had protested long and hard about having to give another DNA sample, saying that the authorities already had enough of her DNA to construct a whole new person – a concept that had caused a distinct shiver to run up Keith’s spine. He found the existing version of Amaryllis more than enough to deal with. If there had been another one of her, he would probably have been taken away by the men in the white coats long ago, along with Charlie Smith, Sergeant Macdonald and many other innocent bystanders.
Left to his own devices, Keith knew he could have made much more progress that day in establishing exactly what had happened, as opposed to just watching people collect the scientific evidence. If he had worked on into the evening he might have been able to carry out some interviews then. But with Inspector Armstrong away on long-term sick leave and nobody to stand in for him, it was almost impossible to get overtime authorised, so Keith, although a conscientious worker who liked to get things done, decided he could best recover from the tribulations of the day by cycling round to the Queen of Scots and having a word with Charlie Smith.
‘... so those two nutters could be up to no good right now while I’m talking to you,’ he ranted, standing at the bar while Charlie rearranged glasses and nodded sympathetically. ‘And nobody’s bothered about it. They could be running riot round the town leaving a bloody trail of – um – blood and stuff wherever they go and calling it art!’
‘There’s no knowing what people will call art,’ Charlie murmured. ‘Are you ready for another pint yet?’
‘Just keep them coming,’ said Keith, taking a long slurp of Old Pictish Brew.
There was nobody else in the bar yet, otherwise he wouldn’t be talking like this. Charlie wouldn’t pass on anything. You could rely on him. Solid as a rock. Good old Charlie.
Realising he was in danger of sobbing into his pint, Keith pulled himself together.
Death in a Cold Spring (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 9) Page 4