‘For heaven’s sake, Charlie, it wasn’t the nineteen-thirties, and we weren’t even at boarding-school. We played in the same hockey team, that was all.’
He gave her an assessing look. ‘Out on the wing, I’m guessing. With Sarah as centre-forward.’
‘She was goalie. But you’re right about me – I did play on the wing.’
‘Charging up the field on your own, running away with the game,’ he said.
‘I think we’ve stretched this metaphor as far as it can go.’
‘Have you seen Keith Burnet?’ he enquired.
‘Not for a while... Have you?’
‘I bumped into him when I was out with the dog,’ said Charlie. ‘Some time this afternoon. Funny, though.’
‘Yes?’
‘He was standing outside the old Petrelli place. The restaurant. He was staring at it as if he’d never seen it before.’
‘Maybe he hadn’t.’
‘Don’t be daft. Everybody who was in the police at the time remembers the Petrelli case and knows all the family hang-outs.’
‘I haven’t been in there for a while,’ said Amaryllis thoughtfully.
‘It isn’t looking great,’ said Charlie. ‘Could do with a coat of paint. The boy could have taken care of that if he hadn’t gone off.’
‘Giancarlo,’ said Amaryllis. ‘I expect he’ll be back...They were all friends, weren’t they?’
‘Who?’
‘Zak, Giancarlo. Stewie... I suppose they all knew Mrs Petrelli quite well too.’
‘I suppose they did,’ said Charlie. He straightened up and spoke to someone behind Amaryllis. ‘Hello, there. This’ll save her the bother of coming to get you. A pint, is it?’
‘Evening, all,’ said Christopher, and collapsed on to another of the bar-stools. ‘Yes, a pint of the usual, thanks, Charlie.’
‘You’re not at the Beetle Drive then?’ said Amaryllis.
‘Apparently not,’ said Christopher. ‘It isn’t that I wasn’t invited,’ he added, as if his lack of an invitation might make him seem like a social leper, ‘but I wanted to pop in and see how Maggie Munro was. There wasn’t time to do both.’
‘How’s she getting on?’ said Charlie, pulling the pint of Old Pictish Brew.
‘She’s looking a bit battered,’ said Christopher. ‘I think she knows more than she’s saying, too. But she’s worried about making a fuss.’
‘A fuss?’ said Amaryllis. ‘She was thrown out of a car, wasn’t she?’
Charlie Smith shook his head. ‘You can’t force somebody to make a fuss when they’d rather forget about the whole thing. It’s a different way of coping.’
‘But what if it’s all part of the same case?’ said Amaryllis. ‘She could be holding back some vital piece of evidence.’
‘Could well be,’ said Charlie. ‘But we don’t usually torture people to get information out of them. Especially if they’re the innocent victims.’
He slid the pint glass along to Christopher.
Amaryllis took a dainty sip of her drink this time. ‘Maybe the woman’s touch...’
‘No,’ said Charlie and Christopher, almost in unison. The dog growled too. All the males were ganging up on her.
‘The family won’t let you in anyway,’ Christopher told her. ‘They’re even more protective now.’
‘Protective... Hmm. I wonder...’
‘Just don’t do it,’ Charlie advised. ‘Whatever it is.’
Amaryllis lost the thread of what she had been thinking anyway when she heard the voice of an unfamiliar woman just behind her.
‘Hello, Mr Smith. You don’t happen to have seen Keith Burnet in here tonight, do you?’
The voice was young and tentative, as was the woman who approached the bar. Pale blonde hair, a pale face, a pale fleecy jacket.
‘Hello, Ashley,’ said Charlie with an encouraging smile. ‘I last saw him this afternoon. Up the hill a bit, when I was taking the dog out. We had a chat, but he didn’t say anything about his plans for the evening.’
‘He didn’t say anything to me either,’ said the young woman, her voice wobbling just a little at the end of the sentence.
Ashley was just the right name for her. Now that Amaryllis looked at her properly, her skin had an unhealthy, greyish tinge and under the beige fleece she was wearing a pale grey top. She should try black instead of all these non-colours. Amaryllis knew you couldn’t go wrong with black.
But this wasn’t the time to harangue the girl about her fashion choices. She seemed to be in serious danger of bursting into tears, and the three of them were the last people anyone would want to be with when they were in the throes of any kind of emotion.
‘He’s maybe got held up at work,’ said Charlie. ‘What’ll you have? It’s on the house.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Smith, but I don’t know if I should...’
‘Go on,’ said Amaryllis. ‘It isn’t every day Charlie’s in such a generous mood. Take advantage of it.’
‘You can sit up here if you like,’ said Christopher, sliding off the bar stool and glancing round to see if there were any others available.
Ashley climbed obediently on to the stool and asked Charlie for a vodka and lime.
‘I expect he’s been very busy with all that’s been happening,’ she said in a near-whisper.
‘That’s no excuse,’ said Amaryllis, although she didn’t entirely agree with herself. She knew how hard Keith Burnet worked, and what sort of pressure he had been under. If this girl couldn’t cope with that, then she shouldn’t be a policeman’s girl-friend. On the other hand, the girl seemed nice enough in a pale sort of way, and might even mature into a real person one of these days. ‘I expect you have busy spells in your job too, though.’
‘Not as busy as Keith,’ said Ashley, with a sigh. ‘I work in the garden centre. It only gets busy at weekends, and that’s only if it isn’t raining.’
After living in Pitkirtly for several years, Amaryllis knew that the number of dry weekends in the average summer could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
‘What do you do there, Ashley?’ said Christopher, who had now decided to lean on the bar instead of fetching another stool.
‘Oh, I just look after the plants,’ said the girl vaguely. ‘I sometimes give people gardening advice as well. But most of them seem to know more than me.’
‘They’re only pretending,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Were you definitely supposed to meet Keith tonight?’
‘Yes. He had to cancel a couple of times, but this time he said he’d definitely get away from work. He said there was a new boss there and she’d told him to be sure to take the evening off. But he’s an hour and a half late, and I thought he might have popped in here to talk to Mr Smith. He does that sometimes.’
‘You’re right, he does,’ Charlie confirmed. ‘It’s not like him to be unreliable, though. Have you tried his mobile?’
‘Yes, and I’ve even sent him a tweet,’ said Ashley. She blushed slightly. The colour was an improvement. ‘We do that sometimes. It’s a sort of private joke.’
Heaven help us, thought Amaryllis. Is that supposed to be romantic?
‘He hasn’t answered at all,’ Ashley went on. ‘I’m a bit worried about him. What if something’s happened?’
Amaryllis glanced at Christopher and found he was staring back at her. Maggie Munro, she thought. What if Keith’s been taken away like that? What if it’s worse and he’s ended up in the river like the two others?
‘I’ll ring the station,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s probably just got held up there.’
He went over to the phone on the wall behind the bar and pressed some buttons.
‘I expect he’s got a hotline to the police,’ said Amaryllis in a stage whisper.
‘We’d better not listen,’ said Christopher. He deliberately turned away from the bar and said in a louder voice than was necessary, ‘Do you think the weather will warm up a bit now the clocks have gone forward?’
‘It’s been colder than usual this spring,’ said Ashley. ‘The forsythia’s a bit slow to come out. And the daffodils were a week or so later than they sometimes are.’
‘What’s forsythia?’ said Amaryllis, feeling she should contribute something to the conversation, although she would prefer to have heard what Charlie was saying on the phone.
Christopher and Ashley gave her very similar pitying looks.
‘It’s a shrub,’ said Christopher. ‘I’ve got some in my back garden. Just by the wheelie bin.’
‘I’ve always wondered why you keep your wheelie bin out at the back,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Isn’t it more awkward putting it out for the bin collections?’
He shook his head. ‘Best to keep it out of sight. You never know, some spy might come along and start going through it.’
‘Oh, ha ha. As if I would waste my time...’
‘It has nice yellow flowers in the spring,’ said Ashley. ‘It’s always encouraging to see them.’
‘He isn’t there,’ said Charlie, returning to his post. ‘Mrs Ramsay told him to go home after he’d done his last interview of the day.’
‘Who with?’ said Amaryllis.
‘Sergeant Macdonald didn’t tell me this officially, and I’m not telling you, but it was Mr Cockburn.’
‘The minister?’ Amaryllis tried to jump up from the tall stool, forgetting her feet hadn’t been touching the floor. She landed with a crash, and it was only because Christopher caught her arm that she didn’t end up in a messy and painful heap. She shook off his grip easily enough. ‘I knew there was something wrong there.’
‘Something wrong?’ said Ashley, jumping down off her stool a lot more lithely than Amaryllis had.
‘The minister – he isn’t all he seems,’ said Amaryllis.
Christopher laughed, annoyingly. ‘How on earth did you work that one out? Is it because of the art exhibition?’
She glared at him. ‘It isn’t funny. Keith’s in danger.’
‘Are you sure you’re not over-reacting?’ said Charlie. ‘It won’t do any good for you to...’
The last few words of his sentence were lost as she headed briskly out of the pub, going through the door with a dramatic swoosh and then carrying on up the street without pause.
‘Amaryllis!’
The cry came from somewhere behind her. She didn’t turn round.
‘Wait for me! I’m sorry I laughed. It was just a nervous laugh – you’re right, it wasn’t funny.’
‘I’m coming too!’ cried someone else, and Ashley appeared at her side, giggling a little. ‘It’s nerves with me too,’ she added hastily.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Amaryllis, coming to a stop at last, hands on hips. ‘I suppose Charlie’s just closing up the pub so that he can follow on with the dog.’
‘No,’ said Christopher, puffing up the hill. ‘He’s calling for reinforcements.’ He caught up with Amaryllis and Ashley. ‘At least he realises he’s not a policeman any more.’
She was in too much of a hurry to take offence. ‘You’ll have to keep up. I can’t hang about waiting when someone’s life might be at stake.’
Ashley made a sort of faint whimpering sound, but her step didn’t falter. Amaryllis had now decided she was quite a good match for Keith, despite her pallor and tiny voice.
They made good time as far as the turn-off and were just about to start along towards the church and the manse when Amaryllis’s phone rang. It was Charlie Smith.
‘You’d better come back here right away,’ he said.
‘But we’re nearly there!’
‘Never mind that – Keith’s here. Outside the Queen of Scots. Mrs Ramsay’s on her way.’
Chapter 19 Waking up is hard to do
Somebody’s head was pounding from the inside as if there was a man with a sledgehammer trying to get out. A disembodied voice came from somewhere above him. It could have been a woman’s voice but he didn’t really care at that point.
‘Sergeant Burnet – Keith – can you hear me?’
Silly question. ‘Course I can.’
He tried to move, and the next moment he was on his hands and knees being sick. If only he had made it to the kitchen, he thought, then he wouldn’t have messed up the carpet. There was lino on the kitchen floor and it would have been easier to clean.
Then he realised the carpet had turned to tarmac beneath him, and he had grazed his hands on it.
‘It’s all right, son,’ said somebody else, patting him on the back.
He was wide awake now. He turned his head and saw Charlie Smith and Sarah Ramsay leaning over him.
‘My head hurts,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s my brain.’
The two of them exchanged glances. What weren’t they telling him?
‘What am I doing here?’ he asked. It felt like the wrong question, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Jock saw you being dumped out of a car,’ Charlie told him.
‘Maggie.’
‘What?’ said the Chief Inspector.
‘Same as Maggie Munro.’
The Chief Inspector leaned down towards him and stared into his eyes.
‘Could be barbiturates of some kind,’ she reported. ‘I’d better get him tested. Is there a doctor’s surgery anywhere near here?’
‘Hmph,’ said Jock McLean from behind Charlie. ‘You’ll be lucky to catch anybody there at this time of night. And I wouldn’t count on getting an ambulance here before tomorrow morning either – there’s bound to be roadworks on the motorway. Or an accident.’
Sarah Ramsay straightened up again. ‘I’ll turf a doctor out of bed if I have to.’
She sounded very fierce.
‘Glad you’re on my side,’ commented Keith, wondering what had happened to him. His head felt alternately fluffy, as if it were stuffed with whatever they used to fill pillows with, and blurry, as if all his thoughts were being refracted through water. He experimented with turning to one side and then to the other, to see if that made a difference. It didn’t. He just started to feel sick again.
‘We’ll see if I’m on your side or not once we get you straightened out,’ said the Chief Inspector, still just as fiercely. She turned away from him and took a set of car keys out of her bag. Presumably she was going to try and find a doctor straight away. Good luck with that.
He closed his eyes for a moment. It was less exhausting not to have to look at things.
He heard running feet, and the next time he opened his eyes, Ashley was staring at him, quite close up.
‘Keith!’ she exclaimed, and burst into tears.
Fortunately she didn’t hug him, the state he was in.
‘I’m all right,’ he told her.
‘You look terrible. What happened? Can’t they get you to hospital? It can’t be good for you to be lying at the side of the road in the cold.’
‘Don’t mind... ambulances in the roadworks.’
‘What?’
‘They always get stuck in the roadworks,’ Christopher explained.
Just as well somebody was awake enough to do that. Ashley needed answers. She deserved answers. She deserved a boy-friend who was around in the evenings, and took her out on dates, and didn’t get called away to look at blood-soaked quilts.
Keith took this rather complex sequence of thoughts as a sign he had recovered, and began struggling to get to his feet.
‘You shouldn’t get up too quickly,’ said Ashley, grabbing him by one arm.
‘How did it happen?’ said Amaryllis, materialising at his other side. ‘Did they just take you off the street like Maggie Munro?’
‘A cup of tea,’ said Keith, frowning. ‘Young Dave...’
‘I thought he was in custody again. Who gave you the cup of tea?’
‘Sssh, Amaryllis,’ said Charlie Smith. ‘He’s in no fit state for one of your interrogations.’
‘That’s always the best time,’ said Amaryllis, but she paused in her questioning, which was just as
well because it was all Keith could do to get on to his feet and stay there.
‘Maybe you’d better come into the Queen of Scots,’ said Charlie. ‘I can’t give you a drink because that would mess up the blood test, but maybe later.’
A little procession, led by Jock McLean, or more accurately by the wee white dog, who was dragging him along, made its careful way into the pub and over to a table where Charlie pushed Keith into a chair and told him to stay there. Ashley took up position next to him. She put her hand on his knee. He thought it was a gesture of possession but he wasn’t sure who it was aimed at – Amaryllis? If he hadn’t felt like a shadow of himself, he would have laughed at that idea. Charlie, Christopher and Amaryllis seemed to be arguing somewhere in the distance. He didn’t want to know.
He had to close his eyes again, and he wasn’t sure how much time passed, but after a while somebody else replaced Ashley on the chair next to him, and he was awake enough to know it was a doctor, who took a blood sample, told him to take it easy for a day or two and to use paracetamol if anything hurt, and left again.
‘Better get you home now,’ said Sarah Ramsay.
‘He can stay here if it’d be easier,’ said Charlie.
‘That probably would be better,’ agreed the Chief Inspector. ‘You can keep an eye on him in the night if you wouldn’t mind. Or I could ask a constable to come down and do that.’
‘I’ll be fine with doing that, or I can get the dog to stay with him,’ said Charlie. ‘Unless Ashley...’
Ashley’s mouth fell open in surprise. Keith blushed.
‘Well then,’ said Sarah Ramsay hurriedly. ‘Come along – can somebody get his other arm? I don’t know if he’s quite...’
There was a blur of activity, they more or less hoisted him bodily up the stairs to Charlie’s flat, and then at last a dim and blissful silence surrounded him, broken only by the funny little snuffling noises the dog made as it was dropping off to sleep at the side of the bed.
It wasn’t quite so bad waking up the next time. He could see the greyness that passed for morning light in Pitkirtly, and he could hear the dog snoring discreetly not far away. There was a shapeless blob on the settee. When it moved he could see it was Charlie Smith. The only downside of having the dog in the room turned out to be that it woke up when Charlie moved, and padded over to the settee, where it sat and whimpered in a quiet but insistent tone until he got up.
Death in a Cold Spring (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 9) Page 17