2 Reunited in Death

by Cecilia Peartree

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Let’s try looking at this from another angle,’ said the Detective Chief Inspector after a pause during which Jemima wondered if he was getting exasperated. ‘What do you know about the family?’

  ‘Well, I have this,’ said Jemima, inspired at last. She opened her shopping bag and took out the family history scrapbook she had spent some happy hours compiling. Not that it was complete, of course - no family history could ever be complete, even if it went right back to Adam and Eve.’ I got the information about the Murrays from my Auntie Mima’s old family Bible.’

  ‘Religious lot, were they?’ said Mr Smith.

  ‘Not particularly,’ said Jemima, calmly refusing to take offence but holding it in reserve to take later if the occasion arose. ‘It was just what people did in those days.’

  She put the scrapbook on the table. She hoped it was the right thing to do – Jemima Stevenson, unlike some people she could name, did always try to do the right thing.

  ‘So,’ said the chief inspector, opening it at the first page. ‘Where are the Murrays then?’

  ‘About the middle,’ said Jemima. ‘It’s still in progress, you know. I’ve got a couple of brick walls to knock down.’

  He turned the pages slowly and carefully, studying each one as he progressed through the book.

  ‘Fascinating,’ he said. ‘Where did you get all those little captions – Holiday Time and Childhood Days and so on? Do you make them yourself?’

  ‘No, they came in a scrapbook kit.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ he repeated. ‘Have you ever seen anything like this before, Constable Sandilands?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the woman officer. ‘My mum goes to a scrapbooking class. Have you been to a class, Mrs Stevenson? This is really good.’

  She and the chief inspector were studying the scrapbook with interest.

  ‘Yes, I did go for a term or so,’ said Jemima. ‘But you’ve really just got to practise... Some of the craft magazines are very good too. Giving you ideas, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Amazing,’ he said. ‘I had no idea this went on... Ah! Is this the page?’

  He turned the book back towards her. It was open at the page where she had pasted in the copy of the information from the family Bible.

  ‘Yes. There’s my granny – Bella Murray.’ She indicated a name in the middle of the page. ‘And then there’s a list of all her children. Eleven of them.’

  ‘All daughters?’ said Mr Smith.

  ‘Mostly daughters. There was one son – look, there, in the middle – Graham. I think he was killed somehow, in his twenties or thirties. He’d gone south by then anyway, to work in a car factory. It was maybe an industrial accident.’

  ‘Graham Murray. And the rest?’ He peered at the page. ‘Jessie, Dotty, May, Janet, Phemie, Aggie, Kirsty, Maisie, Mima, Annie... You’d think they’d have run out of girls’ names!’

  Jemima smiled politely.

  ‘So which one was your mother?’ he enquired.

  ‘She was Annie. The youngest. She and Mima were very close. We lost touch with most of the others...’

  It occurred to Jemima to wonder why he was asking all these questions – but the police had their reasons, she assumed.

  ‘So you didn’t know you had cousins in America and Australia?’ he said.

  ‘Not exactly. I thought there might be some, but I never really bothered about it too much. I didn’t think I would ever see any of them.’

  ‘Do you know how many of your mother’s sisters emigrated?’

  ‘Well, Mum and Mima stayed in Pitkirtly. Mima lived in my granny’s house in Hillside Street for the rest of her life. Graham went to England, May went to Australia and Dotty went to America... Let me think...’

  She lapsed into silence, trying to dredge up fragments from her memory. She had a vague recollection of Auntie Mima once getting a box of fruit from... Yes! It was from South Africa. The apples had labels on them saying 'Cape'. The name ‘Aggie’ popped into her head.

  ‘I think Auntie Aggie went to South Africa,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Auntie Mima got a whole box of fruit from there once. After the war, I think it would have been.... And I think maybe Auntie Kirsty was there too. They lived in Durban. I don’t know if either of them had any children.’

  ‘So that’s – let me see – seven of them accounted for,’ said the chief inspector after counting up on his fingers. ‘I’m not sure how relevant this is, Mrs Stevenson, but you’ve been a big help, and it gives us something to think about. We’ll try and get in touch with Mr Halloran, and see if he has anything more for us... Can we take a copy of this page of the scrapbook? I expect the minister has a photo-copier, so we should be able to do it now and get it back to you before you leave... Fascinating,’ he said again, flicking back through the pages and stopping to admire a particularly artfully positioned decorative ribbon.

  ‘I’ve been grilled,’ said Jemima with satisfaction to David when she at last emerged from the little room. She sat down on the nearest chair.

  ‘Are they not letting you go yet?’ said David, concerned.

  ‘They’re taking a photo-copy of part of my scrapbook,’ said Jemima. ‘It’s going to help them with their enquiries.’

  She thought David looked sceptical, but he didn’t make any comment.

  ‘The chief inspector really liked my layouts,’ she said. ‘And the police girl in there said her Mum goes to a scrapbooking class.’

  ‘Good,’ said David. ‘Let’s get a bit of fish for our tea.’

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking.’

  Chapter 16

  Close encounters

  Against his better judgement and without prejudice to his previous experience, Christopher was worried about Amaryllis. He had last seen her disappearing through the tiny window in the church hall kitchen larder, saying something cryptic about homeless Tibetans. He hoped she hadn’t suddenly been summoned by her former employers to do something dangerous in one of the world’s trouble spots. It could be, of course, that she had some sort of project of her own going on. It would be nice if she would share that kind of thing with him instead of locking all the tensions, stresses and excitement up inside herself – he wasn’t quite sure about whether she was actually protecting him or whether she did want to shut him out of this part of her life.

  This time it wasn’t going to work. He set off from the church hall after giving his name and address to the police officers on the door, determined to find Amaryllis and discover what was going on. He didn’t know where to start, of course. She might just as well have broken into the police incident room again as anything; she could have returned to the Cultural Centre and be getting into trouble there. But he had the feeling it was something unconnected with recent events, something she was following up independently.

  He glanced round the Cultural Centre car park. The mobile incident room still sat there, and he saw a uniformed officer standing at a window staring out. There was another uniformed officer standing guard outside the Cultural Centre. Grumpy Graham had engaged him in conversation as he sneaked a crafty cigarette in the porch. Ms Farquharson wouldn’t have allowed that.

  Belatedly, Christopher felt sorry for Ms Farquharson. She had been feared or at least disliked by her colleagues, and now her death, which seemed to have been fairly dramatic, had been completely eclipsed by this latest incident. He wondered if some long-lost relative of hers would come out of the woodwork and organise the funeral, or arrive later on to claim an inheritance. Maybe some of the family historians in town should turn their attention to tracing her ancestry; there might be surprises.

  Christopher turned away from the Cultural Centre hastily in case Graham spotted him and made him work another shift. He found himself heading for the High Street. What was it that Amaryllis had said, just after mentioning homeless Tibetans? He had a feeling it was about a specific kind of shop. Card shop? Mobile phone shop? Fish and chip shop? He thought he might be getting warmer. Fru
it shop? Fur shop? No, surely there were no fur shops any more.... Furniture shop! That was it!

  ‘Behind the furniture shop’, he muttered, speeding his steps and narrowly avoiding collision with a fierce-looking pair of women.

  He hurried on up the street. Furniture shop... furniture shop... He considered, and dismissed a charity shop with some odd chairs in the window, and even crossed the road to see if there was a furniture shop he had previously overlooked up a stair where he could see an advertising sign. It turned out to be a sauna. He made a hasty retreat.

  He didn’t even see the glitzy furniture shop at first, since it was so glitzy he thought it must be one of the temporary Christmas shops that attempted to spread their own particular lack of magic around town any time from early November onwards. He had already passed it by the time he worked out what it was: he retraced his steps to have another look. There was even a conveniently located lane that he thought might lead round behind the store.

  By this time it was getting dark and the streetlights had come on. The lane wasn’t illuminated except where it was overlooked by the windows of a couple of tenement buildings. Christopher crept furtively into the increasing darkness, feeling his way along the wall as much for the comforting solidity of it as anything. However once he got round the first bend in the lane, he was glad he hadn’t made himself too conspicuous. Something was going on ahead of him, and he wanted to stay hidden until he was sure what it was.

  Suddenly he felt a sharp coldness at the back of his neck, and heard a hoarse voice saying, ‘Don’t make a sound, or it’ll be the worse for you!’

  Christopher gulped once, worrying that it would count as making a sound. Evidently it didn’t, because the pressure on the back of his neck didn’t get any worse, and his captor or assailant continued, ‘Just walk forward very, very slowly. Ten steps and then stop.’

  He did exactly as he was told. Ten steps ahead, he could see the shape of a giant wheelie-bin right in front of him.

  The pressure eased, and someone said, ‘OK, Christopher, now walk round the wheelie-bin and I’ll explain everything.’

  He whirled round.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Sorry – I couldn’t resist it!’ said Amaryllis, holding the ballpoint pen out in front of her in what was probably meant to be a conciliatory gesture.

  There was laughter from behind the wheelie-bins.

  Christopher walked round to the far side.

  Three teenagers of a vaguely oriental appearance sat on a rug laughing at him.

  ‘Kids, this is Christopher. He’s a friend of mine so you treat him with respect,’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘I’ll earn my own respect, thanks very much,’ said Christopher. He stared at the teenagers. He could see now that they were of varying sizes and shapes. At least one of them looked vaguely familiar. Where had he seen the boy before? He racked his brains.

  ‘The Big Issue!’ he said as it all came back to him in a wave of remembering. He had seen the same boy engaged in wheelie-bin diving. Were all these children really homeless? Where were their parents?’

  ‘Dorje sells the Big Issue,’ Amaryllis confirmed. ‘This is Amrita And over here is Kurukulla’

  ‘How do you know so much about them all of a sudden?’ said Christopher.

  ‘I know their parents,’ said Amaryllis calmly. ‘They’re on their way to the UK now from Tibet – I’ve been trying to find the children and let them know.’

  ‘But – what are they doing in Pitkirtly?’

  ‘It’s a good place for them to be,’ said Amaryllis. ‘But they were never meant to be homeless. Something’s gone wrong.’

  Christopher could have echoed that. He quite often felt as if something had gone wrong with his own rather less complicated world.

  ‘I paid some people to bring the kids here and look after them until I got back,’ she continued. ‘But I obviously didn't pick them carefully enough - they haven’t fulfilled their part of the bargain. The kids were just dumped on Inverkeithing Station and left to fend for themselves. Luckily they’ve been in worse places,’ she added proudly. ‘They knew they were meant to be in Pitkirtly, so they found their way here and got themselves somewhere to live, and Dorje got himself a Big Issue contract – God knows how. They’ve done really well.’

  She and the oldest of the teenagers exchanged words rapidly in a language Christopher couldn’t begin to make sense of.

  ‘How long have they been living like this?’ he said.

  ‘Two months. They arrived not long after I went away, unfortunately – if I’d overlapped with them I could have let them stay in my flat. I’ll take them there now.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Christopher, seeing his cosy wine-filled evenings with Amaryllis disappearing round the corner with one desultory wave. 'But why didn't you ask me to look out for them in the first place?'

  'I couldn't ask you to do anything like that!' she said. 'Not that I don't trust you - it's just that it might have turned out to be dangerous. Their parents are seen as trouble-makers in Tibet. People could have come here after them.'

  Christopher was silent. He didn't really buy her claim not to want to put him in danger. She hadn't been quite so concerned about that on occasion in the past.

  ‘Why don’t you come along too?’ she said. ‘They aren’t sure if I’m going to protect them from the authorities, being a woman. They might feel safer with you around.’

  ‘Ha! They’ve got the wrong end of the stick there!’ said Christopher. She gave him a look. ‘Of course I can come along if it helps,’ he added. ‘I can’t go into the supermarket for my shift now anyway, I’ve told them I’m locked in the church hall.’

  ‘There you are, you see!’ said Amaryllis. ‘You can maybe help Dorje get a proper job, with all your experience. I only know about breaking into places, and firing guns, and holding people hostage. I don’t know anything useful.’

  This picture of Amaryllis as a ruthless spy who was incapable of functioning in civilian life sustained Christopher all the way to Merchantman Wynd. Even later that evening, in bed at home, his lips curved into a smile as he recalled it.

  Chapter 17

  Opening the door

  Jemima wasn't all that keen to go to the fish and chip shop, especially to eat in; she really had in mind to see if the good fishmongers’ in the High Street had any lemon sole – they didn’t often get it in these days because of the expense, and sometimes the fish were much too small and skimpy to make a meal for a grown woman – but after spending the whole day so far in the company of family historians it was quite a relief to be amongst ordinary people again. And of course, nice to have a meal cooked for her instead of having to cook for herself and perhaps David as well.

  The fish and chips meal came with sliced white bread and butter and a pot of tea included in the price. There was something very comforting about eating it all, although she couldn’t finish all the bread and David ate the second slice for her as she didn’t want to leave it on the plate.

  At the end of the meal, as they were both sitting back, afraid to stand up in case they were no longer capable of it, David said,

  ‘Good to get away from those people for a bit. No offence, Jemima, but some of them were completely barking mad.’

  ‘I know,’ she said sadly.

  ‘But you did meet a cousin, though.’

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? Or is it the cousin you didn’t meet that’s bothering you?’

  ‘It was a bit of an anti-climax meeting Mr Halloran,’ she admitted. ‘And of course the other thing is terrible. We only just heard about Ms Farquharson, and now this....’

  ‘It’s a coincidence, isn’t it?’ said David thoughtfully. ‘Do you think there could be a connection?’

  ‘Ms Farquharson probably just fell in the water on her own,’ said Jemima. ‘I don’t see how there could be any connection.’

  ‘Oh, well, if there is one the poli
ce’ll find it, no worries,’ said David. He held out a hand to help her to her feet. ‘Come on then, we’d better get you home.’

  Halfway up the hill, he said suddenly,

  ‘What about that phone message from Ms Farquharson?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

  Her heart sank. She had just started to look forward to getting into her own familiar house and shutting the door behind her – and behind David, if he wanted to come in – and forgetting all about the day’s events. She had even planned a new scrapbook page in the other scrapbook, not the family history one but something else she had started on for fun, a book of Pitkirtly through the seasons.

  ‘You should maybe have told the police about that,’ he suggested tentatively. She knew why he was being tentative: it was because he knew that she didn’t like making a fuss.

  ‘I don’t think it’s important,’ she said.

  ‘It might have been Ms Farquharson’s last message,’ he said.

  ‘No! Don’t say that!’

  ‘Well, it might have been,’ he insisted. ‘If you don’t report it, the police might think you’ve got something to hide.’

  Jemima frowned. She was quite cross with David in a way for bringing this up, and she just didn’t think they would be interested - and why should she provide free amusement for the whole incident team?

  ‘You listen to it first, and see what you think,’ she said.

  She hoped he would forget about it before they reached her house, but the first thing he did once they were in the hall was go straight to the house phone and pick it up.

  She went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. He joined her a few minutes later, looking very upset by his standards – David was a stoical man and his emotions didn’t usually show in his expression.

  ‘There’s a new one,’ he said.

  ‘New what?’ said Jemima, getting the biscuit tin down from the shelf.

  ‘A new message,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you sit down for a minute and let me do that?’

  ‘What I’d like to know is this,’ said Jemima quite snappily. ‘Why does everybody suddenly think I might fall over if I hear something bad? What’s going on?’