‘A sort of Schrödinger’s cat situation,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Only nothing to do with quantum mechanics. Or cats.’
‘Hmm,’ said Christopher, not sure he understood.
‘You don’t believe in alien abductions, do you?’
‘No. Did you really think I did?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know any more about how the police are getting on?’ he asked after a pause during which she wandered over to the window and gazed out across the car park.
‘Only a bit... There were extra officers around last night. Young Dave and some other man got themselves arrested.’
Christopher sighed. ‘I suppose it was only a matter of time.’
‘Keith threatened me with handcuffs, but I managed to get away.’
He frowned, uncertain about whether she was making it up or not.
‘There are some pictures of me in the Face of Pitkirtly thing – did you know?’ she added.
‘I don’t know anything about it – except what happened here, of course. And I know next to nothing about that.’
He didn’t really want to know any more about it, but Amaryllis evidently wanted to set out the information she had and talk it through, so he sat quietly while she paced the office and talked about the men in the van, and the missing girl, and what had happened at the church hall. It sounded as if even Jemima and Dave had been more aware of what was going on than he had. Of course that wasn’t entirely surprising, what with Jemima’s network of contacts around the town and Dave’s ability to be in a crowded pub or cafe taking in all that was going on without anybody really noticing him, despite his size.
‘So you think the girl might have been hiding in the coffee kiosk for a while, then?’
‘It’s close enough to the harbour, where I found the tablet, for her to have run and hidden in there. And there was the sandwich wrapper. But I haven’t a clue where she went after that.’
‘She isn’t hiding out at Charlie’s, is she?’
‘Charlie would have turned her in by now,’ said Amaryllis slowly, as if something had just tugged at the corner of her mind to try and attract her attention. She shook her head. ‘I almost had a thought then, but it’s gone.’
‘That happens as you get older.’
She scowled, and returned to the window.
‘Keith’s on his way to see you,’ she said after a while.
‘That’s all I need. Are you sure?’
‘He’s heading this way in a purposeful manner.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I ought to go and do some more leafleting.’
‘Is the novelty wearing off?’
‘I don’t know... I thought I wanted to do something to make a difference, but now it seems irrelevant. Anyway, Stewie’s gone off somewhere and I don’t want to do it on my own.’
‘I could help you at the weekend,’ Christopher offered without thinking.
He immediately wished he hadn’t, but fortunately Amaryllis said, ‘You can’t do that. You’ll infringe your neutrality.’
There was a subdued knock at the door.
‘That’s how you do it,’ said Christopher.
Amaryllis went over and opened the door. Keith Burnet came in.
‘What’s that mop doing in the corridor?’ he said.
‘You didn’t just come in here to ask us that, did you?’ said Amaryllis.
‘We were debating whether Maggie Munro had been abducted by aliens,’ said Christopher with dignity.
‘She doesn’t really need to be abducted to live with aliens,’ said Keith. ‘Have you seen her family?’
‘They seemed very nice,’ said Christopher.
‘Sorry. That isn’t what I wanted either... I’ve come to speak to you, Amaryllis. Is it all right to talk in front of Christopher?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘That depends.’
‘I don’t have any time for games,’ Keith warned her.
There was something different about him today. Christopher couldn’t quite work out what it was. He looked older – no, that wasn’t it. He did have a firmer expression, especially around his mouth, as if he were gritting his teeth. But he still had that baby-faced innocence he would probably never grown out of, because it reflected a quality of inner goodness that not many people managed to survive in the real world with.
Inner goodness! What had got into him today? What with that and the aliens...
‘It’s fine,’ said Amaryllis to Keith. ‘As long as it isn’t too confidential. From your point of view.’
‘I just wondered if you’d noticed anything odd about the officers from Queensferry. Last night.’
‘Odd?’ She thought for a moment. ‘I hardly saw them – you hustled me past them almost as if you were ashamed of me... One of them came barrelling up the road just as we were leaving. I remember wondering what had kept him.’
‘That’ll be it!’ said Keith. ‘Now that you say that, I remember nearly bumping into him. That,’ he said in a significant tone, ‘was Murray Williamson.’
Amaryllis looked blank. Thank goodness. Christopher had expected to be the only one of the three of them who hadn’t heard of the renowned war hero, or retired footballer, or tiddlywinks champion of West Fife, whichever the man was.
Keith slumped into the nearest chair. ‘I don’t think he’s a real police officer. He offered to keep an eye on the prisoners last night when I – um – dropped off to sleep, and in the morning they were all gone.’
‘All? You mean – Young Dave and the other one...’
‘And this so-called Constable Murray Williamson,’ said Keith.
‘So they’re at large? And it’s just you and Sergeant Macdonald holding back the forces of evil?’ said Amaryllis. She sat in the chair next to Keith. It almost looked as if she wanted to hold his hand, or at least pat it.
‘Sergeant Macdonald’s ringing for reinforcements,’ said Keith gloomily.
‘You could swear us in as Special Constables,’ said Christopher. Where had that thought come from? Maybe Amaryllis had used psychic powers to plant it in his mind. ‘Or was that just in war-time?’ he added uncertainly.
‘It isn’t as simple as that nowadays,’ said Amaryllis. ‘You have to fill in application forms and provide cvs and references and things. I looked it up online once when I had nothing better to do.’
They both looked at Keith, who unexpectedly burst out laughing. ‘The day I have to resort to swearing you two in as Special Constables is the day I hang up my handcuffs for good.’
‘Anyway, do you want us to help?’ said Amaryllis eagerly.
‘You know I can’t do that. I only came round to interview you as a witness to the existence of Murray Williamson. In the unlikely event that we ever catch up with him, do you think you might be able to identify him?’
She nodded. ‘Lumbering man, small moustache, not much hair on top, little brown eyes.’
‘That’s him all right. We’ll have to try and gloss over what you were doing up at the church hall at that time of night in the first place, but it should be OK.’
‘In that case,’ said Amaryllis, ‘I’ve got something for you. I didn’t want to give it to you at first, and then I forgot about it...’
She went over to the window, where she had left a small backpack. Christopher had imagined she only used to cart around her election material, but she now drew out of it a flat smooth black thing.
‘A tablet?’ said Keith, getting to his feet.
‘It isn’t mine,’ Amaryllis told him. ‘I found it. I meant to hand it into the police station, but I lost track of the opening hours. It’s been out in the wet, so it may be damaged.’
‘Where was it?’
‘On the harbour wall. The day after the incident here. I remembered you saying they would need a device – the people who installed the camera in the Folk Museum, I mean. And then there was the sandwich wrapper.’
Keith took the tablet and tried to switch it on. ‘It won’t start up. I’ll need to get it to forensics.
.. What was that about the sandwich wrapper?’
Amaryllis told him. He listened, but with a sceptical expression on his face. That was new as well. Christopher watched him closely. Maybe he should have a word with Charlie Smith about the boy. It seemed as if the police had been taking his energy and work ethic for granted.
‘I’d better get going, then,’ said Keith. ‘I’ll need to have this checked out as soon as possible. If it is the device I was looking for, and if we can recover any camera footage from it, we might understand a bit more about what happened in the Folk Museum... It’s hard to see how the whole thing fits together, though.’ Just before going out the office door, he turned and said suddenly, ‘Is there a problem with Maggie Munro as well?’
‘I don’t think there is really,’ said Christopher. ‘She doesn’t usually leave mops and stuff lying about though.’
‘Hmm,’ said Keith. ‘Let us know if you don’t see her by the end of the day... And no rushing into investigations of your own,’ he added sternly to Amaryllis.
‘Would I do a thing like that?’ she said, batting her eyelids.
‘Yes,’ he said and left, closing the door behind with a sharp click.
‘I don’t know why he has to be so annoying about it,’ said Amaryllis. ‘It isn’t as if we haven’t helped him in the past. And I found the tablet, after all. And the sandwich wrapper, but he didn’t seem all that interested in it. I thought he might have wanted to send it for forensic tests too.’ She pulled the wrapper out of her bag and stared at it mournfully. ‘I might as well throw it away.’
‘Feel free to use my bin if you want.’
‘Maybe I’d better hang on to it a bit longer in case he changes his mind.’
She wandered round the office for a while. He was just about to ask her if she didn’t have some leafleting to get on with, when she heaved a sigh and asked hopefully,
‘Would you like me to go round to Maggie’s house and see if she’s all right?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said after a pause for thought. ‘I’m sure she’s in the tea-room or chatting to the librarians. Or maybe she was in the tea-room and noticed we were short of something and she’s popped over to the supermarket to get more coffee or whatever.’
Christopher realised halfway through this little speech that he was actually a bit worried about Maggie Munro and her whereabouts. He didn’t want to encourage Amaryllis to go off and start poking her nose in, though, so he had tried to play it down.
‘Does Maggie usually have to go out and buy coffee?’ said Amaryllis, pouncing on the weak spot in his argument with all the vigour of a kitten following a trailing strand of wool. ‘Isn’t there someone else who takes care of that? And doesn’t she usually finish her morning cleaning before you open to the public?’
‘Her timing’s been all over the place this past week,’ said Christopher. ‘But it’s not her fault, of course.’
There was a crash and a high-pitched bark from just outside the office. Jock McLean burst into the room, towing the wee white dog behind him.
‘Strictly speaking,’ said Christopher, ‘we don’t really allow dogs...’
He gave up.
‘Here, what’s all that cleaning stuff doing out in the corridor?’ said Jock indignantly. ‘How are you meant to see it in those lighting conditions?’
‘Lighting conditions? Has the bulb gone again?’ Christopher got up to have a look, while Amaryllis leaned down to pat the dog.
He might as well tidy things up a bit before anybody sued the Cultural Centre for damages. He knew Amaryllis and Jock were unlikely to do so, but you never knew when some trouble-maker would come along. El Presidente, for instance. Or Young Dave would probably have the nerve to get himself seen around town and the stupidity not to realise it would enable the police to discover his whereabouts. He stacked the mop and cleaning materials in a neat pile for the moment. He would ask Zak to put it all away in the cleaner’s cupboard near the Folk Museum if Maggie didn’t come back by the end of the day. He had a sinking feeling about that. Calling the police in would make it seem so serious.
‘Maggie’s gone off somewhere,’ he told Jock.
‘Or been abducted by aliens,’ said Amaryllis.
Jock made a derisive noise. ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything... You don’t believe it, do you?’
‘We think she’s more likely to have gone over to the supermarket for a sandwich,’ said Christopher.
Jock frowned. ‘I’d rather be abducted by aliens than have to eat a sandwich from there.’
‘What are you living on while Tricia’s away, then?’ Amaryllis teased him.
‘We don’t live in each other’s pockets, you know,’ said Jock. ‘I’m still at home for my tea most nights.’
Christopher had begun to feel uneasy about Maggie’s failure to return to her cleaning equipment. Maybe he should check the tea-room and the library just to set his mind at rest.
‘I’m just going to have a quick look round the building,’ he told the others.
‘For Maggie?’ said Jock.
‘I’ll run over to the supermarket and see if I can catch her there,’ Amaryllis offered.
‘What can I do?’ said Jock.
‘Stay here in case she comes back,’ said Christopher. The last thing he wanted was to make it appear as if they were panicking about a disappearance that was undoubtedly temporary and had a reasonable explanation.
But, putting this together with all the other unsettling recent events, he couldn’t help worrying just a bit.
Chapter 14 Amaryllis knows too much
Amaryllis hurried up and down the supermarket aisles, looking for Maggie Munro. She had been away from her post at the Cultural Centre too long just to be buying sandwiches. But there was always the possibility that she had got chatting to a friend. Amaryllis knew some people treated supermarkets like their own front rooms, hosting large convivial get-togethers of friends and family at the intersections between aisles, and exchanging information they seemed to imagine no-one else could hear.
She didn’t know whether they or the parents of the feral children who darted under people’s feet and in front of their trolleys annoyed her more.
Oh, God help me, she thought suddenly, coming to a standstill and causing a man in overalls to swear at her under his breath, I’m turning into a grumpy old person. I thought it would take a bit longer than this. Perhaps I’ve been spending too much time with Jock McLean. And Christopher. He was born old, if anyone was.
As far as she could tell, Maggie Munro wasn’t anywhere on the premises. But that wasn’t the end of the world. Christopher might still have run her to earth in the tea-room or having a quick smoke outside the fire exit, by the wheelie-bins. She had never seen Maggie smoking, but then she didn’t know the woman all that well.
‘Why Amaryllis!’ exclaimed someone just by the ice-cream cabinet in the freezer section. ‘I didn’t know you had time to do this kind of thing.’
‘Maisie Sue,’ said Amaryllis with resignation. ‘Even I have to stop and eat sometimes... You haven’t by any chance seen Maggie Munro in here, have you?’
‘The cleaner from the Cultural Centre? I don’t think I have. Not today.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome. I hope nothing’s wrong?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Certainly, if something did turn out to be wrong, Maisie Sue was almost the last person Amaryllis would ask to help. No, that was a little unfair. Maisie Sue, as she had proved on several occasions, was a good person to have on your side in a crisis. As long as the crisis didn’t involve quilting or anything related to that, in which case her natural common sense often tended to go out the window. Amaryllis almost wished she hadn’t even thought about quilting. Would Maisie Sue sense that it had crossed her mind? Would she start asking more of the awkward questions she would be perfectly entitled to ask about what had become of the precious quilt she had last seen hanging in the Folk Museum?
It
was time to make an excuse and leave.
‘I’m going to try the café in case she’s popped in there,’ Amaryllis lied, hurrying towards the exit.
‘I sure hope you find her!’ Maisie Sue called after her.
Damn! The woman had followed her to the exit. Amaryllis felt bound to turn up the High Street and head for the café. She would have to sneak back to the Cultural Centre by a circuitous route. Fortunately Amaryllis was a connoisseur of all the circuitous routes in town. Considering Pitkirtly was only a small town, it was surprising how many there were.
She glanced over her shoulder as she reached the café, saw that Maisie Sue had lost interest and gone back into the shop, possibly because she had set off a security alert by going beyond a certain point with her trolley without paying. Amaryllis turned back to face the front and moved on at the same moment, which was a mistake. She ran into someone rather larger and more solid than she was.
‘Oof!’ she said for the second time in a few days. This was a habit she badly needed to break.
‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’ growled a voice that was only too familiar.
‘Oh, sorry, I’m sure,’ she said, taking a step back and regarding Young Dave with hostility. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in custody somewhere?’
‘Time off for good behaviour,’ he said, trying to step round her but finding the way somehow blocked at both sides.
‘Not according to Keith Burnet.’
‘What are you going to do about it, then?’ he challenged her.
She took out her mobile phone. He grabbed at it, and she snatched it away, chopping down on his arm with her free hand, flattened so that she could use the edge as a weapon. He yelped in pain.
Amaryllis was about to say something devastating and then turn her back and leave the scene, when strong arms came round her at about chest height from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. At the same time she became aware that a van had drawn up to the kerb only feet away.
‘Where is it?’ snapped a man’s voice.
‘Where’s what?’
Death in a Cold Spring (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 9) Page 13