'Next on her list? We'll see about that!' said Amaryllis.
As usual it was hard to tell what Amaryllis was thinking, but it sounded as if she had a plan. Jemima felt a little bit better. At least she had told someone, even if it wasn't the police.
‘Let’s go and meet the kids,’ said Amaryllis. She led the way over to the living area, where the middle one of the three teenagers was picking up board game pieces and putting them in the box in some sort of order. ‘This is Dorje, Amrita and Kurukulla. They’re from Tibet. They were meant to liaise with a Tibetan organisation but there was a mix-up and they ended up sleeping in a wheelie-bin behind that glitzy furniture shop and selling the Big Issue to make ends meet. I know their parents – we’ve been trying to get them to safety for months. I’m waiting to hear what’s happened to them.’
‘Hello,’ said Jemima and Dave awkwardly.
‘Hell-o,’ said the Tibetan teenagers awkwardly.
‘They like playing Monopoly,’ said Amaryllis. ‘At least, they did until Christopher won and did his victory dance. You can hang on here for a bit and play another game if you want. Unless you need to get away, Christopher?’
‘Day off,’ said Christopher. ‘Although I suppose I should go down and see what’s happening at the Centre.’
‘That can wait,’ said Amaryllis. ‘You must have done enough overtime yesterday to last about a year, anyway.’
‘Graham may not see it like that,’ said Christopher uneasily.
‘OK,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Anyone for Monopoly?’
‘I’ll give it a go,’ said David. He eyed the big white rug. ‘I’m not sure that I can get down there though, not with my back. Could we maybe play it on the table?’
They transferred the Monopoly board up to the glass dining table, and battle re-commenced. Christopher opted out this time, saying he had to go and speak to the manager at the supermarket, but he promised faithfully he would call back for Jemima later in the morning. She realised that in being suddenly homeless she had something in common with the Tibetan teenagers. She smiled at them, and they smiled back.
Jemima was pleasantly surprised half an hour later to find herself the owner of a hotel on Mayfair. It was an improvement on reality, at any rate.
Chapter 19
Christopher's walk
Walking down towards the foot of the High Street, where the Cultural Centre and the supermarket faced each other across the car park, Christopher realised that he was dreading his return to the Cultural Centre. He didn’t want to face the anger of Grumpy Graham after deserting him the day before; he certainly didn’t want to have to cope with any more family history researchers. He found himself dawdling down the hill, looking in shop windows to slow himself down. He couldn’t believe the number of Christmassy windows there were, and the range of decorations for sale in some of them. Who would want a giant illuminated reindeer on their roof?
He went and bought a bottle of irn bru to cheer himself up, realised what he had done and wanted to throw it away, but something in his nature wouldn’t let him do that. He wondered if he should have bought whisky instead.
‘Hello stranger!’ said a voice from nowhere. He jumped. Grumpy Graham was standing at his left elbow.
‘Hello,’ said Christopher. Graham loomed over him.
‘Couldn’t get away yesterday, eh?’
‘That’s right. I got stuck in the church hall,' said Christopher. The police were taking names and addresses.’
‘Aye, right,’ said Graham. ‘They could have got your name and address any time.’
‘So – did you have to stay on late in the Centre?’ said Christopher.
‘Hmm. Not that late. I’ll be putting into the Council for overtime though. And maybe danger money too.’
‘Did they tell you anything?’ said Christopher.
‘No more than they told you.’
‘Any more about Ms Farquharson?’
‘No, they’re playing their cards close to their chests.’
Graham mimed keeping cards close to his own massive chest. His eyes were a bit bloodshot, and Christopher wondered if he had already been drinking that morning.
‘Do you think the Council will replace Ms Farquharson soon?’ he asked, not really expecting an answer.
Graham shrugged his shoulders. ‘She was a bit of a waste of space anyway.’
‘Is the Centre shut today then?’ asked Christopher. It obviously was, otherwise Graham wouldn’t be roaming the streets. But he couldn’t think of anything else to say to the man. Normally they exchanged monosyllables in the course of the working day, or at most short pithy statements.
‘Anybody’s guess when it’ll open again,’ said Graham. He leaned towards Christopher. ‘Maybe never.’
‘What about people’s library books?’ said Christopher, feeling idiotic. ‘Will they get huge fines for being overdue?’
‘Not our problem,’ said Graham. 'I don't care anyway - more time for fishing.'
There was a pause, then he added, ‘This family history. More trouble than it’s worth. Long lost cousins turning up out of the blue – it’s all a load of rubbish. They don’t belong here in Pitkirtly. Why don’t they just stay put where they are?’
This was quite a lengthy rant by Graham’s standards, and Christopher was surprised by the underlying emotion. But then, perhaps Graham’s own family were flawed in some way, a theory which was only too believable, and he had lost faith in the power of family altogether. Christopher could sympathise with him there, having had a far from satisfactory relationship with his own sister.
‘I suppose it helps the local economy,’ he suggested.
‘Ha!’ said Graham.
Both men decided to move on at the same time, and moved in the same direction, blocking each other’s way on the narrow pavement. They then repeated the manoeuvre, but just as it looked as if it might happen again, Graham gave a huffy snort and stepped out to cross the road instead, muttering to himself. Christopher watched him go, still wondering at the man’s vehemence. Mind you, he had never exactly been a ray of sunshine. He wouldn’t have been nicknamed Grumpy Graham if he had.
The manager at the supermarket was reasonable but firm, and Christopher found himself promising to work an extra shift the following week. On the way back up the hill it started raining hard. Mrs Stevenson wouldn’t want to come out in this. He pictured all of them holed up in Amaryllis’s flat for the rest of the day, getting on each other’s nerves, and then told himself not to be so grumpy: he must have caught it from Graham or something. His life, which had been busy and active, and even full of promise with Amaryllis’s return from overseas, was now starting to look dim and dreary, like the November weather.
He was approaching the same glitzy furniture shop where he had found Amaryllis and the Tibetan teenagers when he heard a familiar voice.
‘Christopher! It must be Fate! I was just thinking about you.’
Maisie Sue launched herself from across the street, almost causing a major traffic incident, and by some miracle landed safely on the pavement just in front of him.
‘Maisie Sue,’ he said. Although dressed in dazzlingly bright colours and wearing a smile that could have illuminated the Forth Bridge, Maisie Sue always had a profoundly depressing effect on him, through no discernable fault of her own. She was relentlessly cheerful in all weathers, could apparently pick him out in a vast and unruly crowd, as she had done in the church hall, and was guaranteed to talk on long after everyone had stopped listening to her. Oh well, Christopher told himself, this meeting had one advantage: he would appreciate Amaryllis more after spending time in Maisie Sue’s company. Even if Amaryllis was an adrenalin junkie who thought nothing of killing enemy agents with one hand while she leapt across chasms and freed innocent victims from the clutches of ruthless dictators with the other, at least she didn’t hang on his every word and then match it with twenty of her own, or wear cerise with scarlet and an emerald beaded fringe, or assume everyone in the world woul
d be interested in quilting if they only knew of its existence.
‘... so I said, Christopher will know the answer,’ she finished, fixing him with a bright blue stare that didn’t seem natural to him, although he couldn’t think of any way she could have faked it.
‘Um,’ he said. He certainly didn’t know the answer, or indeed the question in this case, since he hadn’t been listening. ’I’m not sure that I do.’
‘Well, you know more about Pitkirtly than I do, that’s for sure?’ she said. ‘And your friend Mrs Stevenson knows even more, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes, but it depends – ‘
‘Well, then,’ said Maisie Sue, as if that settled it. Fortunately she didn’t recognise the natural break in the discussion, and carried on regardless. ‘I just said to him, Christopher Wilson’s the person you want to speak to, he knows all kinds of people around here and he’ll be able to help you with whatever you want to know. You’re the beating heart of Pitkirtly, Christopher, you see?’
Be still my beating heart, thought Christopher, panicking as he so often did when he encountered Maisie Sue.
‘So who was this?’ he said aloud.
‘Now, haven’t I just been telling you? I bumped into him at the Cultural Centre – well, not exactly at the place, because it’s all closed up with one of those ‘police incident’ tapes all round it as if it was a parcel being wrapped up for Christmas – but in the car park between there and the store. He was wandering about looking like a lost soul. I just said to him, you won’t be lost any more once we find Christopher...’
It sounded so like a religious thing that Christopher almost burst out laughing. You won’t be lost any more if you find God. Not that he was comparing himself to God, even in his own head. Not that he believed in God anyway. Why was he justifying himself to himself? He started to worry that he was going mad. If anyone could cause someone to go mad within ten minutes, it would be Maisie Sue.
‘But I guess he must have gotten some other idea in his head, because I was figuring to show him the way to the Queen of Scots when I looked round and couldn’t see him anywhere,’ continued Maisie Sue, sounding, as often happened when she became agitated, more like someone who might live in a trailer park in some southern state than a US citizen who had acquired a slight Fife accent during her sojourn in this small town.
‘Why the Queen of Scots?’ said Christopher.
‘Because that’s where I figured you might be,’ she said. ‘You and your friends – drinking and laughing together.’
She sounded almost as if she resented him and his friends enjoying themselves. If Christopher hadn’t had so many bad experiences with Maisie Sue he might just have started to feel sorry for her at this point, but he couldn’t in all conscience feel sorry for someone who had almost got him killed the previous year.
‘We don’t live in the Queen of Scots,’ he said mildly.
She opened her blue eyes very widely and retorted, ‘Whoever said you did? I just thought that was a likely place to find you at about this time of day. And I didn’t know if you’d want me to direct him to your house.’
‘But what did he want? Was he looking for me, or did you just think he wanted to find his way around?’ said Christopher, by now completely baffled.
‘I guess he was looking for Ms Farquharson,’ she said, frowning. ‘I didn’t tell him the news – I thought it best for it to come from somebody who knew her... Maybe I should have told him.’
‘Ms Farquharson? Have you heard the news, then?’
‘It’s all over the town,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘No way you can hush that up – especially after the murder yesterday.’
Her grapevine didn’t seem to have been efficient enough to spread the news of the second murder this morning.
‘What d’you figure happened to her?’ said Maisie Sue, still wider-eyed than he would have thought physically possible.
‘Ms Farquharson? I think she may have accidentally drowned,’ said Christopher. He had really no idea whether it had been accidental or not. Surely it would be stretching coincidence too far to have three people murdered in the same small town in three days? Or perhaps not. Perhaps Maisie Sue was actually a homicidal maniac under that bright patchwork of colours. The idea rather appealed to him, and he decided to run it past Amaryllis when he next saw her. She had never liked Maisie Sue very much.
‘Maybe this man should be speaking to the police,’ said Christopher uneasily. ‘What did he look like, in case I happen to bump into him?’
‘Medium height, medium weight but I’m not sure how many pounds, kind of brown hair and muddy-looking eyes – ‘
‘Muddy-looking?’
‘You know, like a muddy river – one of your Scottish burns,’ she said. ‘He wore – ‘
‘No, let me guess,’ said Christopher. ‘A brownish jacket and maybe a mud-coloured shirt.’
‘Have you met him already?’ she said suspiciously.
‘No, I just guessed,’ he said.
‘You should be helping the police, with your talents,’ she said. Unfortunately Maisie Sue hardly ever joked, or at least not in a way that Christopher understood. He hoped she wouldn’t go straight up to the next policeman she meant and make that suggestion.
‘Well, must be getting on,’ he said. ‘See you around- some time.’
‘Yes, I guess we’ll bump into each other - we usually do.’
Was it his imagination, or did she look a bit wistful? He didn’t want to turn into one of these men who imagined every woman he met was just biding her time to ensnare him into a relationship, but on the other hand, he certainly didn’t want to give her any kind of encouragement whatsoever. Even talking to her for this long was a high-risk strategy.
He hurried on up the road, not looking back. He didn’t really want to bump into any strange men with mud-coloured eyes either.
Chapter 20
Jock to the rescue
In some ways Amaryllis was sorry not to have been able to help out Jemima by providing her with a temporary roof over her head, and in other ways she was quite relieved she didn't have to. She was very fond of the older woman and even of Big Dave, but that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to live with either of them. Then there was the embarrassment factor of possible displays of affection she might witness if Jemima was staying with her. Just the thought of seeing Big Dave giving Jemima a good-night kiss was enough to make her want to throw up.
When the door-bell rang, she breathed a sigh of relief. That must be Christopher – she didn’t know how he had got down to the supermarket and back so quickly, but she would be glad to see him anyway. He could take Big Dave and Jemima off her hands to let her concentrate on the Tibetan teenagers, with whom she still had to have some potentially difficult conversations. And her flat would stop being like Waverley Station.
Jemima called through from the living area, ‘Don’t answer it, there might be a dead body there!’
‘Well, I’m not dead yet,’ said Jock McLean, on the doorstep.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Jemima had an unfortunate experience this morning.’
She held the door for him to come in. Politeness really was ingrained in people, she reflected. She wouldn’t have thought of herself as someone well versed in etiquette, or particularly caring, but here she was looking after three refugees and two friends in trouble, and now she was inviting more trouble into her home.
‘I was passing and I thought of something I wanted to ask Christopher,’ was his excuse for bothering her.
‘He’s not here,’ said Amaryllis. She tried to leave it at that but somehow more words came out. ‘But he should be back soon.’
‘’That’s fine,’ said Jock, strolling through the flat and surveying its occupants. The three teenagers halted the animated conversation they were having amongst themselves and looked up anxiously at him as he stood over them. They were playing the only other board game Amaryllis had in her possession apart from Monopoly, the aptly named ‘S
py Chase’ which Christopher had jokingly given her to try and cheer her up after the village hall fire.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Jemima to Jock. ‘You won’t be able to smoke, you know. Amaryllis doesn't like it.’
‘I see you’ve got Tibetans,’ said Jock, like a pest controller announcing the presence of rats. Then he suddenly squatted down on the floor beside the teenagers and started chattering away with them in what might have sounded to a casual observer like Klingon, or possibly Elvish. Amaryllis knew it was Tibetan.
‘I didn’t know you knew Tibetan,’ she said to him in Tibetan.
‘I had to learn it just in case,’ said Jock. ‘National service. Nineteen fifties.’
They plunged into a linguistic extravaganza. The kids seemed to be very grateful that somebody was talking to them in their own language, and they started to relax a bit and divulge more about their life in the wheelie-bin. Amaryllis had been relying on some people traffickers she knew to deliver them to foster parents when they came to the UK, but because of a mix-up in train times or negligence on the part of the people traffickers they hadn’t been met at the station, and had found their own way to Pitkirtly to look for Amaryllis, whom they knew lived there. On reflection she knew it had been silly to rely on criminals to do anything they were supposed to do, but she had first encountered these particular criminals when they had saved her life in Nepal a few years before, and she considered them generally reliable.
The children had come to the flat, but she had still been away then, so they had lived rough in the town centre for some weeks, having taken over an elderly man’s Big Issue round for him in exchange for a share of the meagre profits. Sometimes the people at the glitzy furniture shop had seen them and shouted at them, but the usual delivery van drivers didn’t bother, and one in particular had been very nice, buying them a poke of chips – they said the phrase in English, which sounded incongruous but made Big Dave and Jemima laugh, at least. Sometimes they hadn’t had enough to eat, but then they just looked in other wheelie-bins until they found something. Apparently they liked Scotland more than Tibet, a claim which Amaryllis at least took with a pinch of salt, but they were worried about their parents.
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