Frozen in Crime Read online

  Chapter 6 Nightmare drive

  Christopher hadn’t imagined anything worse than being driven back from North Queensferry by Dave in the pick-up truck, but he soon realised that being in a previously untried Range Rover driven through the snow by Amaryllis was ten times more frightening. She had only recently got her licence back, and she barely adjusted her speed to the road conditions, which were dire on the way up to the main road from Pitkirtly, just passable on the short section of the main road before the cattery turn-off, and almost impossible after that.

  As she skidded round the corner into the side road that led up the hill, ending up facing a stone wall, he said, as mildly as he could manage, ‘Careful!’

  ‘I’m being careful,’ she said. ‘It’s safer to drive at a normal speed in those conditions. It’s slowing down that causes accidents.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. Not being a driver himself, he didn’t want to cast doubt on her expertise, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to sit still in the front seat and refrain from kicking and screaming with terror.

  ‘What if Dave’s truck’s in a snowdrift up here somewhere? We don’t want to risk running into it.’

  ‘But it’s steep - I’ll have to take a run at it.’

  She turned the Range Rover round, away from the wall, and accelerated hard. The wheels sounded as if they were spinning. Christopher resigned himself to walking the rest of the way. There were a few streetlights at the road junction, although they flickered like candle flames in a draught. It was only a matter of time before they stopped functioning altogether. And up the hill where they were heading, it was dark, the only dim illumination coming from the heaps of snow at the sides of the road. He shivered at the idea of getting out and walking any distance. The light of Amaryllis’s torch, though powerful, wouldn’t help much and there was no knowing how long the batteries would last. But if Dave were stuck in a drift, or if the pick-up truck had broken down or anything, he might be sitting waiting for help - or he might have got out of the truck and be wandering, lost, somewhere in this unnaturally white still landscape. He could wander on to the site of the old mine workings and fall down a hole, or fall and break a bone and lie there becoming more hypothermic by the moment. They just had to find him.

  ‘He’s probably got back to Pitkirtly another way by now,’ said Amaryllis, knowing, as often happened, what was in his mind.

  ‘Jemima hasn’t rung.’

  ‘You’ve got my phone switched on, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course I have.’

  ‘There’s no of course about it. You and mobile technology just don’t get on with each other.’

  She reversed grimly, halfway across the main road and took another run at the hill. This time it worked. Up to a point. They got stuck twenty metres up the lane and she had to repeat the whole process.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘This is a nice country lane when there isn’t any snow. Why can’t it just all go away and let things get back to normal?’

  ‘You’ve got to deal with things as they are, not how you’d like them to be,’ said Christopher.

  ‘But why?’ she said, her face set into lines he hadn’t seen before as she pressed her foot harder on the accelerator.

  ‘Maybe if you didn’t try quite so hard -,’ he suggested tentatively.

  She didn’t speak, but he noticed she did ease off the pedal a little, and they inched upwards, gaining ground as painfully as if the snow were an enemy and they were fighting a war. The wheels alternated between spinning and gripping. Christopher felt as if his stomach might be doing the same.

  They passed a road end, but there was a snowdrift in the way and they didn’t notice it until it was too late to turn in.

  ‘Onwards and upwards,’ said Amaryllis through gritted teeth. ‘Can you have a look at the map? There’s a torch in my bag.’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘Side roads. Farm tracks. Anywhere an idiot like Dave might have turned off this road.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have done that, would he?’

  ‘He might have done, by accident. Or if the truck was about to break down. He might have thought he’d be better off stopping and calling somebody.’

  ‘Only he couldn’t call anybody,’ Christopher reminded her. ‘Not with his mobile on the kitchen table.’

  ‘Let that be a lesson to you,’ muttered Amaryllis. ‘Not that you need another one.’

  Christopher wrestled with the map, unfolding it clumsily with his gloved hands. He didn’t dare take off his gloves: it wasn’t even warm inside the Range Rover, and he was afraid of frostbite. He found Amaryllis’s torch and clicked it on.

  ‘Don’t use it for too long,’ said Amaryllis. ‘We’ll need it when we get out and walk.’

  So that was really on the cards, was it? Well, at least he knew now. She couldn’t have been entirely confident of making the whole journey in the Range Rover after all.

  Just as he had found the road on the map, one of the mobile phones rang on the dashboard.

  ‘That’ll be Jemima to tell us Dave’s home,’ said Amaryllis, grinning.

  It wasn’t Jemima. It was Chief Inspector Smith.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he said to Christopher. ‘Nobody should be out in these weather conditions. Why didn’t you call us right away?’

  ‘I think you’ll find one of your officers said you wouldn’t do anything until the morning,’ said Christopher calmly. ‘Someone had to do something.’

  ‘You’re a pair of bloody idiots!’

  ‘That’s no way to speak to a member of the public,’ Amaryllis called across from the driving seat.

  ‘Now I’m going to have to send people out after you - when we’ve got a serious crime investigation going on. And you’re one of the witnesses too. Didn’t anybody tell you not to leave town?’

  ‘Not that I can remember,’ said Christopher innocently.

  ‘Tell me where you are, and I’ll see what I can do.’

  Christopher looked at the map again. ‘Somewhere just off the - sorry, I can’t read the name of the road in this light. I think I’m going to need glasses soon. Just for reading, though. I’m fine with distance.’

  He could almost hear Charlie Smith’s temperature rising at the other end of the line. ‘Let me speak to her,’ said the police officer.

  ‘She’s driving. We’ve just turned off the main road. I think it’s the A985. It’s the turning just after you join the main road from Pitkirtly. We’re heading up a hill, past some woods. I think Old Pitkirtlyhill House might be somewhere nearby, but we’re not sure what that is.’

  ‘Hmm, interesting,’ said Charlie Smith, unexpectedly calming down a bit. ‘Maybe I’ll come out there myself after you. Don’t go any further - pull over to the side of the road or something. Wait. Play cards. Have a sandwich.’

  He rang off.

  Christopher relayed his instructions to Amaryllis, who shook her head. ‘No way. If we pull over we’ll definitely get stuck.’

  She revved the engine again, hard. The Range Rover stalled.

  She managed to get it going again but they had lost momentum, and rolled back some way.

  ‘Try, try, try again,’ she muttered, and the car suddenly jumped forward, shot up another section of the hill and crashed straight into something at the side of the road. There was a horrible grinding, screeching noise, and then they lurched over to one side. Christopher was pushed against the passenger door, and then showered with broken glass as the windscreen caved in on top of them.