5 Frozen in Crime

by Cecilia Peartree

  ‘Do you like the pig?’ said the desk sergeant, grinning, as they went into the building. ‘Took me half the morning to get the head looking right.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s that funny,’ said Charlie. ‘Any more news in?’

  ‘They would have called you, sir,’ said the desk sergeant. ‘Even if you didn’t have your mobile on, they would have tried the radio.’

  ‘Sergeant Whitefield back?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’

  Charlie sensed the sergeant wanted to say something else.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. Well, there is something.’

  ‘For God’s sake, I’m not that frightening!’ said Charlie, raising his voice. Constable Burnett took a step back away from him, and the desk sergeant winced. ‘Just tell me,’ he added in a subdued tone.

  ‘There’s more snow forecast, sir. A blizzard. We could get power lines coming down, and we’ll definitely have roads blocked by morning. One or two of us were wondering - but I can see this isn’t a good time -’

  ‘What are you talking about, Sergeant McDonald?’

  ‘Should we get in some extra food in case we get stuck here over Christmas? A turkey, trimmings, sprouts, Christmas pudding?’

  ‘Only if we can microwave it all, Sergeant. I doubt very much if any of us will have time to stand over a hot cooker on Christmas morning peeling sprouts. Even if the cooker in the kitchen would cope with it all, which I doubt. I’ve been asking for a new one for about eighteen months. It’s a wonder the gas board haven’t condemned that one.’

  ‘And another thing.’ Charlie Smith was on a roll now. ‘We’ve got our hands full already with this serious incident in town, and the roads are like ice-rinks. We’ll have a spate of RTAs tonight and then we’ll have to spend most of the next few days looking for damn-fool drivers who think their journeys are essential and then get stuck in drifts all up and down the main road. If we don’t have to get a search and rescue helicopter in I’ll be very surprised.’

  Constable Burnett muttered something about looking on the bright side, but Charlie decided to ignore it. He did feel better, at least temporarily, after his rant, but he was sorry to see that Sergeant McDonald had now gone into a huff and was banging away on the computer keyboard as if trying to batter it into submission. It didn’t do to annoy the desk sergeant. But honestly! Turkey and all the trimmings!

  After sitting at his desk reviewing the statements collected so far about the robbery, and having taken some related phone calls, he decided he would have to go out again to have a word with the jeweller. It was thoroughly unpleasant having to put on his wet parka and the heavy shoes he had taken off and placed under the radiator in the hope of drying out the insides a bit. He didn’t like having to drag Constable Burnett out again either, but he couldn’t go on his own.

  An hour later, staggering into the station again from the driving snow, weighed down with shopping bags and followed by a bemused Constable Burnett, he wondered if he had over-reacted. The sergeant glanced at him and said, ‘You got some sprouts after all, did you - sir?’

  ‘Frozen ones,’ said Charlie. ‘‘Nobody’s going to be peeling sprouts on my watch. Life’s too short.’

  Sergeant McDonald abandoned his post and came through to the kitchen to see Charlie putting the food away. It only just fitted into the fridge. But evidently his efforts weren’t unappreciated, for the sergeant said, ‘Cup of tea, sir?’

  ‘I could murder a mug of scotch,’ muttered the chief inspector. ‘But I suppose it’ll have to be tea.’

  ‘There’s some tablet,’ said the sergeant. ‘Jemima Stevenson tried to bribe me with it.’

  ‘Did she indeed? And isn’t she Mrs Douglas now?’

  ‘Right enough, so she is.’

  They were leaning on the reception desk, drinking tea and eating tablet when Karen Whitefield came back with a junior officer.

  ‘Hmph! It’s all right for some!’ she said, stamping her feet on the door-mat. Huge slices of compacted snow flew across the floor.

  ‘Here! I’d just got that cleaned up!’ said Sergeant McDonald. ‘It’s a health and safety hazard when it gets slippy, you know.’

  ‘Our whole job is a health and safety hazard,’ murmured Karen, pushing back the hood of her parka.

  ‘Have a cup of tea,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ said Charlie.

  ‘No sign of them,’ said Karen. ‘We think they may have been parked in that road behind the Cultural Centre. There were tyre marks from a Land Rover or something. They’ll be covered up now.’ She accepted a cup of tea. She peered at the accompanying tablet suspiciously. ‘Whose is that?’

  ‘Jemima Stevenson - now Mrs Douglas,’ said the sergeant. ‘Christmas treat for the boys.’

  ‘OK, then.’ Karen took a piece. ‘Have you spoken to the jeweller again?’ she asked Charlie.

  ‘Yes. He says they made him open the safe and they took everything out of it. He’s making a list.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Apparently not…’ Charlie slumped against the desk again. ‘Makes me wonder what was in that safe that made it worth taking a gun along.’

  ‘Guess we’ll find out when we get the list,’ said Karen. ‘Is there any news on the casualties?’

  ‘Two on their way to Edinburgh - if the bridge is open. Others being treated locally.’

  ‘What about interviewing witnesses? We’ve got a list.’ She gestured to the constable beside her. He held out his notebook.

  Charlie sighed heavily. ‘There’ll be hundreds of them. We’re never going to manage to get round them all this side of Christmas.’

  ‘We’ll never get help from anywhere else either,’ said Karen helplessly. ‘Not with the weather…’

  ‘We’re all doomed,’ said the desk sergeant, shaking his head.

  ‘We’ve taken all the preliminary statements, though,’ said the young constable, possibly trying to cheer everyone up. Charlie stared at him critically. He was very young - the kind of officer who made people go on about policemen getting younger - and had a cherubic pink face and blue eyes. It seemed a shame he had to be the only one who remained positive in this situation.

  Charlie stood up straight again, squaring his shoulders. It was up to him to take charge and start motivating his tired subordinates, although he knew when they had volunteered to work over Christmas they hadn’t expected anything like this. That was the trouble with crime. It always happened at the most inconvenient moments. Of course, in many cases criminals did this deliberately and took advantage of the inconvenience of the moments, such as the chaos caused by Christmas shoppers.

  If only they were more considerate…

  He coughed.

  ‘We’ll start the interviews tomorrow. We’ll get as many as we can to come here. Karen, you make a rota just now and start phoning them. Don’t stay on late though. We haven’t got enough in the overtime budget.’ He knew she would be glad of some time at her desk before setting off homewards in the cold. ‘Keith, you can fetch them in if they can’t make it under their own steam,’ he said to Constable Burnett. ‘Liaise with Karen. I’ll go through the jeweller’s list when we have it. Bruce, maybe you can give me a hand tomorrow with that if we don’t get too many other customers.’

  ‘There’s no knowing about that,’ said Sergeant McDonald darkly. ‘Christmas seems to bring out the worst in some people.’

  ‘Only one more shopping day to go,’ said Charlie. ‘And can somebody find out if Liam Johnstone’s in town?’

  Chapter 4 One shopping day

  In some ways Christopher was glad Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday this year. It gave him the chance to do his shopping in the time-honoured male way, rushing around town a couple of hours before everything closed, spending too much money and buying extra, unsuitable presents for people. He was also glad Caroline and the kids weren’t going to attempt the journey over from Edinburgh before Christmas, although he had pro
mised to go over to see them between Christmas and New Year if the weather improved. It was more fun for the kids spending the festive season at home, where they could chill out and play computer games all day if they wanted, and eat what they liked, without having to be nice to their boring old uncle. Caroline had made friends with another single parent down the road and the two families were going to share Christmas dinner. He hadn’t heard much about this friend and didn’t even know whether it was a man or a woman. Either would be fine, if it meant Caroline wasn’t completely dependent on him for adult company. He and his sister hadn’t always got on well together, although in the past six months or so they had arrived at some sort of an adult relationship with each other.

  By mid-afternoon, when it was starting to get dark, he had almost finished his shopping - he and Amaryllis were to spend Christmas Day with Jemima and Dave, so he didn’t need to buy much in the way of festive food. He was more or less happy with the presents he had bought: as he got older, he was more easily satisfied on that score, considering his job done if he had actually got something to give each of the people who were likely to expect a gift from him.

  Jan in the wool shop had advised him to get beads and some of the little twiddly things she sold for making jewellery. Apparently Jemima had recently taken up creating necklaces for unsuspecting friends. He wondered if Amaryllis was due to be the lucky recipient of one. He was tempted by a children’s knitting kit as a joke present for Amaryllis, who had been trying to learn to knit for some time though with very little success, but he decided he didn’t want to risk annoying her on Christmas Day. She had been moody for the past few weeks, but he wasn’t sure why. He wondered if it was restlessness. It was quite a while since she had been away on one of her mysterious missions, and he had suspected her of losing her nerve slightly, but of course he would never have dared to suggest this even as a theoretical possibility.

  He trekked through the snow to the Queen of Scots to see if she was there. The blizzard of the day before had left the whole town under a layer of fresh snow so thick that it could hardly be called a blanket any more - it was either a duvet or a bundle of loft insulation, he decided as he trudged along on the road, which was slightly less impassable than the pavement, but freezing over fast in the rapidly plummeting temperatures around dusk. He hoped Dave and Jock had got up to the cattery all right this morning. The main roads at least should have been cleared and gritted. Maybe he should give Jemima a ring and see if Dave was back yet. He took out his mobile phone but the battery was dead. Even giving it a good shake didn’t revive it, and then he dropped it in a clump of snow and had to dry it off with some new thermal socks he had been planning to give Dave because the bottle of whisky he had bought weeks ago suddenly didn’t seem exciting enough.

  The Queen of Scots was unnaturally quiet. The landlord stood morosely behind the bar, polishing glasses.

  ‘Marie Celeste, or what?’ he said.

  ‘Has Amaryllis been in?’

  ‘Haven’t seen her. So she probably hasn’t - she wouldn’t exactly be able to hide in the milling throng.’

  It was unusual for the landlord to be so talkative. He must be desperate. Just to keep him company, Christopher ordered a pint of Old Pictish Brew and sat at the bar instead of going to the usual table.

  ‘Do you know what the main roads are like?’ he asked, making conversation.

  ‘Bad,’ said the landlord. ‘The Forth Road Bridge is closed. The trains have stopped running. You aren’t going anywhere for Christmas.’

  ‘No, I’m not, but how did you know?’

  ‘Neither is anybody else. Going anywhere.’

  Suddenly Christopher wondered whether the landlord had anywhere to go, or anyone to spend the festive season with. Of course he would be occupied in the pub a lot of the time, but did he have any existence outside it?

  He had opened his mouth with the intention of asking some personal question or other that he knew he would at some later stage regret asking, when the phone rang at the end of the bar. The landlord answered it. He listened for a moment and then said to Christopher, ‘It’s for you.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘You’re Christopher Wilson, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes but -’

  ‘Here you go.’

  Christopher, still mildly surprised, put down his pint glass, walked along to the end of the bar and accepted the receiver from the landlord.

  ‘You’re there. Good,’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Just a wild guess. It was either the Queen of Scots or Jan’s wool shop. That’s where I saw you last.’

  ‘Have you been following me?’

  ‘No. I just happened to be in the High Street getting last-minute socks for Dave, and I saw you.’

  ‘I got last-minute socks for Dave too!’ Then Christopher remembered what had happened to the socks, and fell silent.

  ‘I’m phoning about Dave, actually,’ said Amaryllis. ‘And why don’t you have your mobile on? I thought we talked about that before and you agreed it was pointless having a mobile if you didn’t charge it up and keep it switched on.’

  ‘Sorry. What’s happened? Is Dave all right?’

  ‘Promise not to panic?’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, just tell me what’s wrong. Have they had an accident?’

  ‘They got up to the cattery all right. Jock’s there now, with Rosie.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Jemima phoned me and I’m at her house now. Dave hasn’t got back yet.’

  ‘OK,’ said Christopher, trying not to sound as if he was panicking, but actually feeling as if he had been hit in the stomach by a football. ‘What time did he leave Rosie’s?’

  ‘They went up about ten o’clock this morning. They got there at twelve and then the weather started to close in again so Dave turned round and started to come straight back.’

  ‘Idiot! He should have stayed up there!’

  ‘But he didn’t want to disappoint Jemima,’ said Amaryllis. ‘It’s their first Christmas together.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Christopher, knowing he was only quibbling to avoid having to think this through. ‘They were together last year - and maybe the year before too.’

  ‘The first one since they were married, though. It means a lot to Jemima.’

  ‘Yes, I know… So he’s been on the road for - what, four hours?’

  ‘About that.’

  There was a pause. Christopher couldn’t think of anything he could say or do that would help in any way. Why had she even bothered ringing him? He was such a waste of space.

  ‘Have you called the police?’ he asked at last.

  ‘They said it could easily take him that long to get down from the moors, with the roads the way they are, even if nothing went wrong. They said they can’t go and scour the area for him because they don’t have the man-power. If he was out overnight then -’

  Amaryllis stopped in mid-sentence, her voice trembling slightly. He couldn’t remember her ever sounding so upset before, not even when the village hall burned down.

  ‘If he was out overnight, it would be a different story. They’d start a search in the morning.’

  ‘In the morning?’ said Christopher incredulously.

  ‘They said he shouldn’t have gone out in the first place: there were lots of severe weather warnings in place.’

  ‘Severe weather warnings? Since when did Dave pay any attention to those? He thinks he’s indestructible, that’s his problem!’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line, and Christopher heard someone else speaking faintly in the background, then Amaryllis spoke again.

  ‘Jemima says don’t be cross with Dave. He was only trying to help everybody.’

  ‘I’d better come up to Jemima’s,’ said Christopher. ‘Then we can try and work something out. Does Dave have a mobile with him?’

  ‘He’s left it on the kitchen table. Ring any bells?’

  Christ
opher finished the call rather abruptly - he didn’t like to be reminded of his failure to get to grips with mobile technology - and decided reluctantly that he would have to abandon the pint of Old Pictish Brew that he had barely started.

  ‘Trouble?’ said the landlord casually.

  ‘Looks as if Dave may have got himself stranded,’ said Christopher, trying to match the other man’s untroubled demeanour.

  ‘That’s bad,’ said the landlord. ‘I wouldn’t fancy being out there in this.’

  ‘No, neither would I,’ said Christopher. ‘But it might come to that.’

  ‘Well, let me know if you need transport,’ said the landlord unexpectedly. ‘I’ve got my Range Rover round the back there with chains on the tyres and snow-shoes in the back - but I’m not going anywhere in it for a day or two.’

  ‘Thanks - we might take you up on that.’

  Christopher found his eyes were a bit wet as he stepped out into the cold again - of course, it was only the sudden change in temperature that did that. Not that he was at all touched by the landlord’s offer.

  Chapter 5 Where’s Rudolph when you need him?

  Jemima was too quiet

  In many situations she would talk too much, rambling away about her latest craft project, or reminiscing about the time her mother saw off a couple of hooligans armed only with a kitchen whisk, but now she sat at the kitchen table with her hands folded neatly in front of her and her eyes looking into the middle distance but only seeing what was inside her head.

  Amaryllis had persuaded her to put on an extra cardigan and to drink two cups of tea and nibble at a custard cream biscuit, but she knew there was only one way that things would get any better, and that was for Dave to walk through the door, announcing that he had popped in to see an old friend on the way back from Rosie’s and lost track of the time.

  ‘Can you think of anywhere he might have gone?’ she asked one more time, knowing the answer would be the same.