3 A Reformed Character Page 5

  The final two words came out like sobs, but he cut himself off abruptly and glowered at Jock.

  'I don't know what gave her that idea,' muttered Jock. He looked at the boy again, sizing up the state he was in. There was no doubt that the right thing to do would be to turn him in to the police straight away, but he found, to his own surprise, he wasn't that heartless. No doubt there would be mundane, terrible things to be done once he was in custody; the boy was already on the brink of mental breakdown, and in no fit state to be hustled from one bit of the police system to another, made to sit in interview rooms with peeling paintwork in some institutional colour, waiting for some hard-bitten policeman to come and rough him up. Or perhaps Jock had seen one too many hard-bitten police dramas on television.

  Darren could do with a square meal and a good night's sleep in a real bed before he had to go through all that.

  'I'll put the chip-pan on,' said Jock.

  They talked a little more over this impromptu late supper of bacon, egg and chips - Jock thought he deserved to join in, after what he had been through, what with Darren jumping out at him and everything. And then there were the six nights in the caravan too, having to put up with sharing that tiny compartment - too small to be called a room - with Christopher, and having to put up with the funny little mumbling noises he made in his sleep. And then being the centre of a police siege which really had nothing to do with him.

  He wondered, as they chatted, if the murder had anything to do with Darren after all. The boy didn't seem to him to have enough get-up-and-go to murder somebody. He was the kind of boy things happened to, and this was just the latest incident in a long line of situations where he had been the victim of circumstance. He didn't even seem to remember the night it had happened, which was very odd in itself. Surely something dramatic like that would impinge on his consciousness, no matter how far out of it he was.

  'What about your mum? Won't she be worried about you?'

  'She's given up on me,' said Darren with a gulp that veered dangerously close to another sob. 'She threw me out. I don't care, though.'

  'No, I don't suppose you do.' Jock resolved to pay a visit to Mrs Laidlaw, Darren's mother, just as soon as he had delivered Darren into the hands of the police.

  He put Darren in his son Steven's room for the night. It was still full of Lego and Star Wars memorabilia that might amuse the boy. Halfway up the stairs, Darren paused and looked at a framed photograph. 'Is this your wife?'

  'It's Marilyn Monroe,' said Jock. His wife had run off to Ardrossan with a trawlerman so long ago he couldn't remember when it had happened. He liked to imagine what it might have been like if he had married Marilyn Monroe instead. He felt he could be reasonably confident she wouldn't have run off with a trawlerman.

  'Cool,' said Darren. Jock warmed to him very slightly. It was the first time the boy had shown any sign of being anything other than a mindless young thug.

  He hoped Darren would still be around in the morning, but he didn't lose any sleep over it. He had done all he could for the moment. He went to sleep with a clear conscience and without worrying about being stabbed in the night. His screwdriver was locked up in a toolbox in a locked cupboard anyway.

  When it came to the point, Darren didn't put up much resistance to the idea of turning himself in. Jock thought it would probably be a relief after being on the run.

  'Just remember, if you're not guilty, you'll get out in the end,' said Jock as they set off from the house. He hadn't rung the police. He wanted to turn up at the police station and report to some round avuncular desk sergeant, not to have to endure another siege.

  Darren looked even gloomier than before. 'My mum'll kill me whatever happens,' he said.

  Jock looked the boy up and down as they turned the corner into the High Street. He wasn't quite as scruffy as he had been the night before, after borrowing Jock's shower gel to clean himself up, and then watching with a kind of distant interest while Jock scrubbed at his trainers. He had also borrowed a sweatshirt that had been left behind by Steven on the flimsy grounds that the pattern was minging. It wasn't that great, but at least it was clean, and it didn't have a hood.

  'Tell the truth and they can't catch you out,' Jock advised as he pushed at the police station door. It didn't open. He pushed harder. He looked for a door-bell but there wasn't one. He knocked as hard as he could, hurting his knuckles. He glanced at his watch. Nearly noon. For God's sake, the police station couldn't be closed! It was against the law. What if there was a crime wave while they were all stuffing themselves with cheese and onion sandwiches or pasties from the nearest baker's?

  A young woman, wearing one of these tabard things that passed for overalls and pinnies these days, opened the door.

  'It's shut,' she said.

  She held a dustpan and brush. Jock was just about to feel cross all over again at the shameless exploitation of cleaning staff by not providing proper equipment when he noticed an industrial scale vacuum cleaner sitting in the hall-way behind her.

  'It can't be shut,' he said.

  'Well, it's shut,' she said.

  'When will it be open?' said Jock. He was starting to wish he hadn't bothered.

  'It's only open on weekday mornings,' she said.

  'So they don't work in the afternoons or at weekends? What if something happens?'

  Jock sensed rather than heard Darren shuffle his feet, perhaps in embarrassment at Jock's persistence. Being a former teacher he was fortunately immune to the tactics of young people. 'What if there's a crime wave?'

  She shrugged her shoulders, apparently losing interest.

  'What if I've brought in a wanted man for questioning?' said Jock.

  She looked from him to Darren and back.

  'I'll get somebody,' she said at last. 'But you'd better not be making this up.'

  'The cheek of it!' Jock commented to Darren as she closed the door again and hurried off through the hall-way. 'Do I look like the kind of person who makes things up?'

  He only felt one pang of guilt and that was when Darren turned to look at him as he was being hustled away between two uniformed policemen. His panic-stricken eyes were the stuff of nightmares. Jock resolved to harass the police unmercifully until they agreed he was innocent - or at least, not guilty of this particular crime - and let him go.

  Now for Mrs Laidlaw.

  He realised he didn't know where she lived. And the police would probably contact her soon anyway. Maybe he could give up and go home and read the teaching job adverts in the paper and scoff at people who were actually trying to get a job in the profession. Or he could get the bus into Dunfermline and walk in the glen: the problem with that option was that he knew he would use the time to mull things over in his head and start to feel guilty that he, like most of the people Darren had ever known, had abandoned the boy. He wouldn't enjoy the simple pleasures he was used to until he paid for them by taking some altruistic action. He kicked the wall beside him and muttered, 'Damn!'

  Amaryllis would probably know where to find Darren's mother, he realised. Even if the woman didn't attend the famous knitting group herself, someone who went to it was bound to know her. And Mrs Laidlaw would have been the subject of some gossip lately. Jock started to feel sorry for her and then immediately felt cross with himself. What was the matter with him? He must be going soft in the head or something. He had survived all his years of teaching by steeling himself against this kind of sentimental view of the world.

  He went round to Amaryllis's flat, at Merchantman Wynd. The burnt-out shell of the former Pitkirtly Village Hall mocked him for his concern about Darren. But he quite liked the way nature had started to colonise the site. It looked almost picturesque.

  Sometimes when he pressed the buzzer he had worried that he might interrupt some torrid scene between Christopher and Amaryllis, but if the six nights in the caravan had taught him anything, it was that whatever was going on between them was too deep and too complicated for someone like him to be able to
interrupt it.

  Amaryllis didn't know Mrs Laidlaw's address, but she made a couple of phone calls to knitting group acquaintances, and one of them came up with the goods. To his annoyance, she then insisted on coming with him to speak to Mrs Laidlaw. 'It might help to have another woman there.'

  'And where are we going to find another woman around here?' said Jock. Her eyes flashed briefly, either in amusement or anger: he couldn't tell which.

  After being flattened a bit by the damp weather they had on holiday, her dark red hair was now standing on end again as it often did when she was on the trail of something. He did notice she was walking a bit awkwardly, though. But of course she wouldn't admit to having an accident even if he asked her, so he didn't bother asking.

  'I'm surprised you managed to get Darren to do that,' she said.

  'Give himself up? Yes, I think he was just tired of running.'

  'Young people today! No stamina!' she scoffed.

  Amaryllis must have been on the run for days at a time during her professional career, but Jock didn't think two days was bad for a first attempt on Darren's part.

  'Have you seen Christopher?' he asked.

  'Not since we got back,' she said. 'I expect he's busy.'

  Again, Jock refrained from asking, although it did cross his mind that Amaryllis might have been avoiding Christopher in case he found out she had been hurt in some sort of fracas she had got herself into.

  They arrived at the address Amaryllis had obtained for Mrs Laidlaw. It was one of the former Council houses on the periphery of the town, but it had an enviable display of different types of narcissi interspersed with crocuses in the front garden, and Jock's spirits lifted when he saw them. It seemed that the police hadn't yet got round to visiting her. Or perhaps she had already left for the police station, or indeed gone out somewhere else. Now that Jock had retired, he tended to forget that people usually worked during working hours. But eventually Darren's mum did come to the door. It took a while, and it was only because Amaryllis and Jock started to argue about their next step that they were still there when she did.

  'Yes?' she said abruptly.

  Jock introduced himself and Amaryllis.

  'You used to be a teacher up at the High School,' said Mrs Laidlaw accusingly. She had an expression of worry that looked as if it might be permanent, so that although she probably wasn't much over forty and still had quite pretty light brown wavy hair and a neat figure, her face had a worn look about it like someone much older.

  'We're here about Darren,' said Amaryllis. 'Can we come in?'

  She didn't answer but stepped back, holding the door open for them.

  The house had flowers in it too: not the out of season supermarket offerings that were flown in from Spain at huge cost to the future of the planet, but little vases of snowdrops, and the kind of glass hyacinth jars where you could see the roots growing down as the stem grew up, and an amaryllis on the windowsill, four huge scarlet blooms dwarfing the stems. Jock wondered what she would have on display in summer. Pelargoniums perhaps, and a hanging basket just at the front door with striped petunias in it.

  'Do you know where Darren is?' she asked them as they stood in the front room, not having been invited to sit down.

  'Yes, I'm afraid we do,' said Jock. Normally he would have let Amaryllis do the talking, but he still felt the weight of guilt and wanted to offload some of it.

  'He's at the police station,' he added when it was clear that neither of the women would say anything.

  Mrs Laidlaw sighed. Jock was pleased to see that she didn't look as if she was about to go into hysterics or start shouting at him. He respected her more for the fact that her face just looked one degree more defeated than before.

  They all stood there for a few moments, then she said, 'I'd better get my coat and go round there... He won't want to see me, but I'll just wait at the police station until somebody tells me something.'

  'You're been here before, haven't you?' said Amaryllis softly.

  'Yes, of course I've been here before! That last time was the worst - when he burnt down the village hall. I couldn't sleep for weeks - I thought that woman was going to break in and kill me in the night.' She stared at them both. Jock was baffled. Who was the woman in question?

  'You know,' said Mrs Laidlaw, 'the one who was planning to do it up. Her father had built it or something. She was a trained killer - at least that's what the man at the fish shop told me.'

  Amaryllis laughed. 'The man at the fish shop was right. But she doesn't kill innocent bystanders. Unless they're really annoying.'

  Mrs Laidlaw stared at her. 'It's you, isn't it?'

  'Yes - but don't worry, I forgive and forget easily.'

  'I did wonder,' said Mrs Laidlaw. 'How hard is it to get into?'

  'Get into?'

  'To be a spy? Do you have to have many Highers? Or can you work your way up?'

  'I don't think - ' Amaryllis began.

  'He'd be better doing something practical,' Jock Interrupted. He couldn't stand people talking at cross-purposes. It was usually a waste of time. 'You've been trying to get him a job, Mrs Laidlaw, haven't you?'

  'Tricia. My name's Tricia. Yes, I thought maybe he could work with the Donaldsons for a while. He seemed to get on well with Alan, and - oh dear, I can't believe Alan's dead! It's so awful!'

  Tricia Laidlaw gave in at last and sat down on the nearest chair with a bump, covering her face with her hands for a moment while she wept silently.

  'But he didn't want to work with the Donaldsons?' Amaryllis prompted.

  'No.' She wiped her eyes. 'It was asking for the job - he didn't want to do that. Said it was begging and he might as well get a dog and sit at the corner of the High Street covered with a scummy blanket.' She seemed to be laughing and crying at the same time. 'I just said to him, well go over there now and ask them, otherwise you might find yourself doing just that! It was the wrong thing to say, of course.'

  'It's always the wrong thing with young people,' said Jock darkly.

  'Do you think Mr Donaldson would've given him a job?' said Amaryllis. 'Couldn't he have got help from the job centre if he'd wanted somebody?'

  'I thought he might give Darren a chance,' said Tricia Laidlaw. 'Alan and he had been friends for such a long time... Darren used to go round to the Donaldsons' house and help with odd jobs when he was younger. They knew him...' She thought over what she had just said, and gave a bitter laugh. 'I don't suppose they'll be so keen to have him round there now.'

  'Do you think it's even possible that - ' Amaryllis began and then came to a halt. Jock, realising she had been about to ask a silly question such as, did Mrs Laidlaw think Darren could have committed the murder, had stood on her foot. She had done well not to yelp or scream. Maybe she was saving that for when they were on their own. He hoped she would be gentle in her retaliation.

  Tricia Laidlaw stood up. 'I'd better go round to the police station now.'

  'Good luck with that,' said Jock.

  'Let me know if you need any help,' said Amaryllis. She wrote her phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to the other woman, who folded it carefully into her purse as if it was valuable. It might be more valuable than she knew, Jock thought, watching. If Amaryllis took on a project, she wouldn't rest until she had completed it to her satisfaction. 'Is there a Mr Laidlaw? I mean - Darren's dad?'

  There was a long pause, and Jock wondered if Amaryllis had finally crossed the line between friendly curiosity and utter nosiness.

  'No,' said Tricia Laidlaw. 'He's - out of the picture.'

  They all went out together.

  'Has Victoria been to see you?' said Jock, almost as an afterthought.

  'Victoria?'

  'Victoria Petrelli,' said Jock. Surely he hadn't said the wrong thing with that. Any mother would be pleased if her son went out with someone as pretty and - well, pretty - as Victoria.

  'I don't know - why should she come and see me?' said Mrs Laidlaw, looking genuinely pu
zzled.

  Jock thought about it a bit. 'Well, just to talk about Darren, or something,'

  He wasn't entirely sure what a girl-friend and a mother would talk about under the circumstances, but surely there was something.

  'Talk about Darren?'

  'Mrs Laidlaw,' said Amaryllis gently 'Did you know Darren was seeing Victoria?'

  'Darren seeing Victoria Petrelli? No, surely not! What gave you that idea?'

  'We met them together - they came to our caravan asking for help - didn't he tell you?' said Amaryllis.

  Mrs Laidlaw actually swayed on her feet, and clutched at the gatepost for support. Jock moved a little closer to her, thinking he might catch her if she fell.

  'He can't be - surely they're just friends?' she said faintly.

  'Maybe that's what it was,' said Jock. He didn't want to distress the woman even more. He hoped Amaryllis wouldn't pester her with more questions.

  'I've got to go now, anyway,' said Tricia Laidlaw and hurried off up the road.

  Jock walked in the opposite direction, willing Amaryllis to follow. She did, but she soon overtook him and rushed along as if it was nearly closing time at the Queen of Scots.

  'Where are we going?' said Jock to Amaryllis. He was already a bit out of breath trying to keep up with her. She was obviously heading somewhere in a hurry.

  'The Petrellis,' she said. 'I hope you feel like an ice-cream sundae.'

  'I'm a knickerbocker glory man myself.'

  'I thought you might be.'

  Chapter 7 Ice-cream surprise

  Amaryllis walked faster than usual to prove to herself she hadn't suffered any after-effects from Giancarlo's assault. If Jock couldn't keep up, it was too bad. She would leave him behind if necessary - no room for passengers. She was still annoyed with herself for having to take two painkiller tablets first thing that morning. Her elbow had bothered her all night, with odd random twinges interspersed with shooting pains if she accidentally lay on that side; and she got a pain in her back when she walked. She couldn't remember feeling so bad since the time in Kazakhstan... But she drew a mental veil over all the events of that mission.