7 A Tasteful Crime Page 2

  They swept in like a blast of cold air with their hard, assessing eyes and icy expressions, although it was the middle of September and the ambient temperature was very mild by local standards. Christopher told himself not to make instant assumptions about them. He had trouble controlling his expression, however, when the last of the party appeared.

  ‘Are you all right, Mr Wilson?’ said Mrs MacLaren, hovering at his elbow. He noticed Zak also casting a worried glance in his direction. Christopher became aware that the groan he had intended to keep bottled up inside him had actually escaped into the foyer. He coughed hard, hoping the visitors would assume he was ill rather than having just received a terrible shock.

  He took a deep breath and advanced towards them, hand outstretched.

  ‘Mr Hargreaves?’ said the rather small man with the big camel coat round his shoulders.

  ‘Welcome to Pitkirtly,’ said Christopher, still holding his hand out. When it became clear that nobody was going to shake it, he let it gradually fall to his side during his welcome speech. ‘I’m sorry that Mr Hargreaves is unable to welcome you in person today, but I’m here on his behalf. Christopher Wilson. Director of the Cultural Centre. We’ve arranged for you to have lunch in the Folk Museum and then to view a display of local crafts.’

  ‘No time for any of that,’ said the small man with a dismissive wave. A woman with an apparently permanent scornful smile on her lips moved to his side. ‘We’re not royalty, after all,’ he continued. ‘This is a working trip.’

  Christopher refrained from commenting that the Queen probably thought of what she did as work too. He hoped he and the rest of the Cultural Centre staff would enjoy eating the lunch later.

  ‘What would you like to do first, in that case?’ he enquired.

  ‘We need to scope out the locations as quickly as we can,’ said the man. ‘Make sure they’re all suitable... Maria, have you got the list?’ He actually snapped his fingers at the scornful woman and she obediently handed him a tablet computer which he stared at for a few moments. ‘We’ll need a base, of course. Ken, Charlotte, can you check round the building and see if it will do?’

  Two of the man’s acolytes detached themselves from the main group. Christopher was gradually starting to make sense of things again after the shock of seeing the person he had hoped never to see again. Maria was the one who seemed to be some sort of assistant to the small man; Ken and Charlotte were young and focussed. Ken carried a large camera and Charlotte a heavy bag. They headed off down the corridor towards the library.

  ‘Would you like to go with them, Mrs MacLaren?’ he murmured. She bobbed a sort of curtsey – for goodness’ sake, did she really see them as royalty? – and scurried off after the two young people. Zak was standing near the door watching the television people suspiciously, almost as if he were a night-club bouncer waiting for trouble. Not that Christopher had ever been to a night-club – unless you counted the time Neil Macrae had tried to transform the Queen of Scots into a sleazy dive one Hallowe’en as a joke. It hadn’t been received well by the Pitkirtly regulars, but he had managed to lure every teenager between the Kincardine and Forth Bridges into what they thought was a den of vice, iniquity and fake ids.

  Apart from the small man with the big coat and his assistant, there were two people from the original party now left in the foyer. Christopher concentrated hard on trying not to catch the eye of the one he already knew, but that task was doomed to failure.

  ‘Deirdre!’ snapped the small man, waving her forward. ‘You’ll have to liaise with Mr Wilson here about ringing round these people and telling them we’re on our way. Telephone?’ he said to Christopher.

  Hadn’t these intruders heard of mobile phones? Or maybe they couldn’t afford the bills.

  A man not much larger than the small man also came forward.

  ‘And you’ll have heard of Eric McLaughlin,’ said the first small man.

  ‘No,’ said Christopher, and then realised his reply sounded too blunt. He added, to the second small man, ‘I don’t watch much television.’

  ‘But he’s your local celebrity. He’s played Buttons more often than you’ve had hot dinners.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Oscar,’ said Deirdre crossly. ‘Can’t you tell by looking at him Christopher doesn’t go to the local panto? He’s more of a Mozart kind of guy. Or maybe he’s progressed on to Bartok by now for all I know.’ She looked Christopher up and down and added, ‘Or maybe country music.’

  Deirdre hadn’t aged all that well, Christopher thought with a touch of smugness. She was thin and muscular, giving her skin, of which there was far too much on display, an oiled leather texture that he didn’t find at all attractive. Not that he would ever have expected to find his ex-wife attractive, even if he had envisaged seeing her again at all.

  He wondered if Pitkirtly was big enough for both her and Amaryllis.

  ‘Christopher?’ said Eric McLaughlin. ‘Do you two know each other, Deirdre?’

  ‘First husband,’ said Deirdre concisely. ‘Where’s the phone then?’

  ‘Don’t you have one with you?’ said Christopher.

  ‘Flat battery,’ she said. She had never been one to waste words.

  ‘You can use mine if you like,’ called Maria, head close to Oscar’s as they fiddled with the tablet computer. ‘It’s charged up and ready to go.’

  ‘Just like she is,’ muttered Deirdre under her breath. In a louder voice she said to Maria and Oscar, ‘Give me the list, then.’

  They handed over the tablet and the mobile phone, and Christopher showed her into his office. To his surprise, Eric McLaughlin shuffled in after them. He seemed a bit old to be playing Buttons in panto, but maybe with plenty of makeup...

  Deirdre shoved the tablet at him. ‘You can read the phone numbers out while I dial... What are you doing still here, Christopher?’

  ‘It’s my office,’ he said calmly, intending to project an air of authority.

  She shook her head. He noticed her hair, sleek and close to her head, hardly moved at all.

  ‘It’s ours now. Go and do some archiving, or whatever.’

  ‘I don’t do that any more.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ she said without much interest, and turned her back on him as she pushed the buttons on the phone.

  Zak gave Christopher a desperate look as he re-emerged into the foyer. Maria and Oscar still had their heads together, but this time it was because they were exchanging a passionate kiss, an activity that wasn’t exactly banned within the hallowed walls of the Cultural Centre but which certainly wasn’t encouraged either.

  Christopher coughed again.

  ‘You should go to the doctor’s with that,’ said Oscar, detaching himself.

  ‘So,’ said Christopher, ‘how does this work exactly?’

  ‘Like a military operation, Chris,’ said Oscar. ‘We’ll need more space though. Maria and I can’t share an office with Deirdre.’

  At this point Ken and Charlotte arrived back from their reconnaissance trip down the corridor. Ken shook his head sadly as he reported, ‘Won’t do, Oscar. Not enough natural light. Too many bookshelves.’ He glanced at Christopher. ‘Can we get this janitor fellow to move some of them out to the car park for a day or two?’

  Out to the car park? Over his dead body! Christopher said mildly, ‘Have you had a look in the Folk Museum?’

  ‘The place with the dead stuffed animals in it? And the ratty old quilt or whatever it is?’

  Christopher found himself glancing round to make absolutely sure Maisie Sue wasn’t anywhere about before saying, ‘Yes, that’s the place.’

  ‘No use either,’ said Charlotte. ‘The flash’ll reflect off all those glass cases. If we could get rid of them...’

  ‘No!’ said Christopher.

  Oscar shook his head. ‘Isn’t looking good, Chris. We were promised facilities.’

  ‘Maybe if you’d given us a bit more notice...’

  ‘Some towns are falling over themselves to
get featured on ‘Open Kitchen’. Some of them have even built whole new spaces to accommodate the team.’

  ‘Why did one of them drop out at the last minute, then, if they’re all so keen?’ snapped Christopher. He didn’t often snap at people, but he felt entitled to do so on this occasion. Seeing Deirdre again had set his teeth on edge.

  ‘Why didn’t somebody warn us what a godforsaken place this was before we came trekking all this way on a wild-goose chase?’ yelled Oscar. He had a huge voice for such a small man.

  At this point Zak Johnstone, who had been standing still by the front door and who didn’t appear to have been paying attention, intervened.

  ‘You’ve only trekked from Glasgow, you pretentious git!’ he exclaimed, striding forward and leaning down towards Oscar. ‘Nobody’s going to co-operate if you start throwing your weight about the minute you get here. If you speak to Mr Wilson nicely, he’ll think of something. He always does.’

  Christopher wasn’t sure if he was ready for the weight of responsibility Zak had so casually cast round his shoulders. He realised he had been hoping the whole television crew would decide Pitkirtly wasn’t good enough for them and just take themselves off again. He knew Jemima for one would be disappointed not to feature in ‘Open Kitchen’ but she would get over it. In time.

  ‘It’s all right, Zak,’ he said, trying for a tone of calm authority again. ‘We’ll just have to see what we can do.’

  Deirdre came out of the office. ‘Only two of them answered. One had forgotten it was this weekend and she’s arranged to go to North Berwick with her grandchildren, and the other one seemed to be in the middle of some sort of anxiety attack. Lot of noise in the background. I did wonder if her house was getting burgled but when I offered to call the police she just laughed and said something about leeks being thrown.’

  ‘Leeks?’ said Christopher uneasily.

  ‘Leeks!’ shouted Zak. ‘My Mum’s cake had leeks in it.’

  ‘They’re all round at Jemima’s,’ said Christopher. ‘That must have been her on the phone.’

  ‘Cake? But they aren’t meant to bake until tomorrow!’ said Maria sharply.

  ‘They’ve got to practise, love,’ said Oscar, patting her hand. She gave him a look which, if it hadn’t been the twenty-first century when women were assertive and didn’t need men to make them complete and so on, Christopher might have thought of as a simper.

  Deirdre sighed and rolled her eyes unattractively.

  ‘My second husband and his third wife,’ she said to Christopher in an undertone. ‘Still on their honeymoon – that won’t last.’

  ‘Why on earth...?’ said Christopher. He had almost asked her why on earth she had ever married the man, but halfway through the sentence he realised he wasn’t interested in any possible reply. He changed tack. ‘Maybe we could do something with the foyer,’ he said to Oscar. ‘The desk can be moved out of the way.’

  ‘There’s Christopher’s office as well,’ said Deirdre. ‘It’s big enough to host a Primary Seven Prom.’

  Oscar began to look a bit less despondent. Second husband or not, he soon had everybody dancing to his tune.

  Chapter 3 Buttons meets his match

  There was something furtive about the way the man came out of the Cultural Centre. He glanced nervously back over his shoulder as he stepped through the door, and as soon as he was out in the car park he took a pair of sunglasses out of his top pocket and put them on, although because it was September and it was Pitkirtly, the day was overcast with the looming threat of rain.

  Amaryllis was naturally suspicious of furtive people, even after several years in a town where people might look furtive for any number of reasons, from having bought a magazine with a pull-out feature on model railways, to having just hit somebody on the head with an axe. Not that she had yet encountered an axe murderer in Pitkirtly. She knew it was only a matter of time, though.

  This particular man didn’t look as if he would have the strength even to pick up an axe. He was smallish and rather frail, with silver hair and small feet. Despite this, he did have a certain sort of presence about him. Was he with the television people Christopher had been meeting?

  She gave him a hard stare. He flinched and turned his head aside. Interesting. Amaryllis made up her mind to follow him for a while. She needed the practice anyway.

  He didn’t do anything very interesting. He headed across the car park towards the supermarket, and then swerved aside at the last minute, apparently alarmed by the sight of a group of elderly women with shopping bags who were outside chatting. She didn’t blame him for that. He went round the corner as if to go up the High Street, but when she followed him after a moment or two, he had disappeared. Leaving aside the possibility that he had gone into the fish shop, which she knew was a magnet for people of his age group, Amaryllis decided he must instead have ducked round behind the Cultural Centre where the back door was. There was nothing round there apart from dustbins, but perhaps he was searching for a way down to the harbour or something. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him in Pitkirtly before, so he probably didn’t know it was a dead end.

  She cornered him by the bins. He was smoking a cigar and taking swigs from a flask.

  ‘Are you following me or what, pal?’ he said in a strong Glasgow accent.

  ‘I just wondered what you were up to,’ she told him. ‘This way doesn’t lead anywhere.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said.

  ‘Have you been here before?’

  He took off the sunglasses. ‘Who do you think you are, asking all those questions?’

  ‘Just a concerned local resident,’ she said. ‘Who do you think you are?’

  His shoulders sagged. ‘I was right,’ he said. ‘Nobody remembers me. All those years of treading the boards – singing stupid songs – interacting with spotty kids. It’s all water under the bridge. A tale told by an idiot – signifying nothing.’

  ‘I thought it was unlucky to quote from Macbeth,’ said Amaryllis.

  He growled. ‘That’s all havers. I’m not even a proper actor.’

  ‘But you are an actor?’ she said. This was better than she had expected. She decided to hang around with him for a while and try to find out what he was doing here.

  ‘Of sorts,’ he said. ‘I’ve done panto everywhere from Crail to Kincardine. I’m fated to play Buttons until the day I drop dead from boredom in front of a live audience while performing the opening number. Always Buttons, never Prince Charming.’

  He executed a comedy bow.

  ‘What were you doing in the Cultural Centre?’

  ‘Oh, is that what you call it?’ He looked up at the back of the building and sniffed. ‘There won’t be much culture going on in there if that Oscar Ferguson has his way.’

  ‘Oscar Ferguson?’

  He stared at her. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you don’t watch television as well as not going to the theatre?’

  There were so many negatives in his question that she didn’t know whether to nod or shake her head. She compromised and said, ‘I’ve never had much time for that sort of thing.’

  ‘Ah, one of those,’ he said, nodding.

  Amaryllis had been quite prepared to like him up to that point. She gave him one more chance. ‘I’ve been overseas a lot. For work.’

  ‘Ah. That’s different then. Oscar Ferguson is the face of Open Kitchen. But that’s just his latest project. He’s also been the face of Sing for your Supper and Your Pet Can Dance Too and...’

  ‘I get the idea,’ said Amaryllis hastily.

  ‘Do you really? His was also the face my wife used to wake up to every morning.’

  ‘Um,’ said Amaryllis, who wasn’t all that interested in showbiz scandals.

  ‘They were married then. He was her second husband, of course. She was no spring chicken even then. It’s even worse now – I was the best she could find.’

  His self-induced laughter turned into a coughing fit as two other people came round th
e corner.

  ‘Amaryllis,’ said Christopher with what sounded like an unlikely cross between relief and anxiety.

  There was an unpleasantly lean, muscular woman by his side. She looked as if she had been left in the oven too long.

  ‘This is Deirdre,’ he continued. He turned to the woman. ‘What’s your latest married name?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve stuck with Ferguson,’ she said airily. ‘Couldn’t spell McLaughlin.’

  ‘McLaughlin? You mean...?’ Christopher’s voice tailed off as if he couldn’t quite accept the scenario he had just constructed in his head.

  ‘Yes, I’m married to this clown,’ said the woman named Deirdre, glaring at Buttons. ‘What are you doing skulking round the back, Eric? You’re needed in makeup.’

  ‘I didn’t know we’d brought any makeup with us,’ he said sulkily. ‘As long as I’ve got my lip balm, that’s all I’m bothered about.’

  ‘Charlotte’s on the case. Come on.’

  He heaved himself upright, stubbed out the cigar and followed her back round the building. Amaryllis stared accusingly at Christopher.

  ‘I didn’t know she was going to turn up,’ he said.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Deirdre – you know.’

  ‘I don’t think I do know.’

  ‘Haven’t I mentioned her before? We used to be married once – ages ago. I’d almost forgotten. She’s had two more husbands since then.’

  ‘Oscar,’ said Amaryllis. ‘And now Buttons.’

  ‘Buttons? Oh, I see.’

  ‘Well, what happens next?’

  ‘What do you mean, what happens next?’ said Christopher.

  ‘Where do we go from here?’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘I mean, are you needed in the Cultural Centre? And if so, can I come with you? If not, why don’t we go round to the Queen of Scots?’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘A bit early for that, isn’t it? Anyway, I’ve got to keep an eye on things. They’re moving tables around and so on. I don’t want the librarians to come in on Monday morning and find books in a heap on the floor. There’d be hell to pay.’