Death in a Cold Spring (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 9) Read online

  The Sergeant’s summary of the situation turned out to be an understatement, and Christopher was glad he had managed to get Maggie to help him get the Folk Museum back in order. It still wasn’t quite the way it had been, what with the removal of the display case and of Maisie Sue’s quilt, and some plaster dust where the camera had been installed and then removed, but once they had finished there were no other signs that anything untoward had happened there.

  Christopher still hadn’t worked out a way of breaking the news to Maisie Sue. At least he wouldn’t actually have to show her the blood-soaked quilt. Presumably the police would do that if they thought it was necessary.

  ‘Maybe Mrs MacPherson won’t notice anything,’ said Maggie optimistically, gazing at the empty space on the wall where the quilt had once hung.

  ‘I don’t think that’s...’

  ‘Here’s an idea, Mr Wilson – why don’t we make a new quilt and hang it up there before she comes in here again?’

  Christopher had just opened his mouth to try and explain why that was impossible when he heard footsteps out in the corridor. Damn! He had forgotten to lock the front door behind them. Anybody could come in. With his luck it was bound to be –

  ‘Hi there! Anyone home?’

  ‘Just a minute!’ called Christopher. He glanced from side to side as he imagined a hunted animal would, not that he could recall ever seeing one do it in real life. ‘It’s her,’ he hissed to Maggie. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re just washing the floor, Mrs MacPherson,’ called Maggie with great presence of mind. ‘Don’t come in – it’s too slippy!’

  ‘I’ll come out,’ said Christopher. He opened the door just far enough to allow him to slide round it and out to the corridor, contorting himself rather painfully in the process. He stood up straight and faced Maisie Sue. ‘I need to speak to you.’

  ‘If it’s about the fat quarters we left under the...’

  ‘Fat quarters?’

  ‘They’re cute little bundles of cotton off-cuts that can be incorporated in patchwork,’ said Maisie Sue helpfully.

  ‘Oh – cotton off-cuts,’ said Christopher, not very much the wiser. ‘Nobody’s mentioned them as far as I know. Maybe somebody picked them up and put them away.’

  ‘If that’s so, it would have been real helpful and neighbourly of them,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘Zak helps me to get all cleared up on Thursdays. Maybe he saw them and picked them up for me. He knows where everything belongs.’

  ‘I’m sure he does,’ said Christopher. He steeled himself all over again. ‘I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a problem.’

  ‘Ah! I knew it!’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘When I saw that you’d closed up yesterday, I said to Jemima, there must be something wrong. Oh, Christopher,’ she breathed, touching his arm, ‘there hasn’t been another – you know – has there?’

  ‘Another what? Oh – another murder. No, nothing like that. But it’s quite serious all the same. I’m afraid there’s been an incident.’

  He didn’t know whether to be relieved or irritated when a deeper voice called down the corridor, ‘Hello there! Anybody at home?’

  ‘Yoohoo! We’re here!’ called Maisie Sue cheerily.

  ‘Just outside the Folk Museum,’ Christopher added, less cheerily.

  Two men walked down the corridor. It took Christopher a while to recognise the taller, older and more imposing of the two, who was the president of the Bowling Club and Amaryllis’s rival candidate for West Fife Council. The other, shorter, less impressive figure was only too familiar. The puzzle was what had made Young Dave come here at all. He must have known Christopher wouldn’t exactly welcome him with open arms after the trouble he had caused for PLIF, among other things, a few years before. Though of course that was all toast under the bridge now.

  Still, they were both members of the public and theoretically free to wander into this public building whenever it was open.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re not open today,’ he told them, ‘strictly speaking.’

  ‘Oh?’ said El Presidente. What was the man’s real name again? ‘The front door’s open.’

  ‘A mistake,’ said Christopher.

  El Presidente frowned.

  ‘A careless mistake,’ he said portentously.

  ‘An irresponsible, careless mistake,’ said Young Dave.

  Christopher opened his mouth and closed it again.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Maisie Sue, pushing out her chest like a hen whose favourite rooster was being threatened. Or did it work the other way round? She took a step towards the two men. ‘I think you’ll find Mr Wilson is in charge here? He is one of the most responsible people I personally have ever met. In my life. On either side of the Atlantic.’

  ‘Is that so?’ murmured El Presidente.

  Christopher thought the man might have been trying to sound sinister, but this idea made him want to laugh, so it obviously hadn’t worked.

  Young Dave cleared his throat. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, Mr Prestonfield is a candidate for the Pitkirtly seat on West Fife Council. We’re here to register a complaint.’

  Mr Prestonfield, whose name, as far as Christopher was concerned, had an unfortunate resonance with the word ‘Presidente’, took a step forward, almost bringing him chest to chest with Maisie Sue, but demonstrating that he was very much the organ-grinder while Young Dave was the monkey. Was that an appropriate metaphor? Thinking it over, Christopher decided it was. Young Dave had always behaved a little like an ape – not the silverback but one of the teenage ones that scrambled around the forest floor and fought for the chance to be the next alpha male although you knew they would never reach these heights in the tribe. Amazing how much natural history he had picked up from watching a documentary on television twenty years before.

  ‘As this is a public building, we want equal billing for all candidates,’ El Presidente announced, projecting his voice so that it bounced off the corridor walls. It was a slight anti-climax compared to what he might have asked for: protection money had been Christopher’s best guess and would have gone a long way to explaining the presence of Young Dave.

  ‘What do you mean by equal billing?’ Christopher enquired.

  ‘The posters in your front windows,’ said El Presidente. ‘They’re only for one candidate. The others should have the chance to put their posters there too.’

  Christopher groaned inwardly. In a weak moment he had agreed, as usual without really thinking it through, to allow Amaryllis to put up a couple of election posters. It seemed like a reasonable request. At least, it was more reasonable than having to put up with her sulking and grumbling about him not permitting it. But at this rate he wouldn’t be able to see out of the window for election posters. He wasn’t sure, either, if it was the image he wanted the Cultural Centre to project. People might start to think his office was the headquarters of a political party, and throwing eggs and other missiles at the window.

  ‘I suppose if it’s a small one,’ he said at last.

  ‘David,’ said El Presidente brusquely. He might as well have just snapped his fingers.

  Dave produced a poster from a portfolio he was carrying. Christopher had thought the purpose of it was just to make Dave look more important – heaven knew he needed something to enhance his presence – but it seemed to contain all sorts of election materials. Christopher just caught a glimpse of a banner headline saying ‘ONCE A KILLER, ALWAYS A KILLER – WOULD YOU TRUST HER WITH YOUR CHILDREN?’ but Dave snapped the flap of the portfolio over it almost at once.

  The poster was at least A3 size and featured a smiling El Presidente sitting at a curved desk and looking – well, presidential. ‘PROTECTING PITKIRTLY FOR THREE GENERATIONS’ said the caption, with a sentence in smaller print saying something about the ‘First Family.’

  ‘It’s a bit on the big side,’ said Christopher. ‘But I might be able to find a corner for it.’

  ‘Not a corner,’ said Dave. ‘T
he centre of the window. He’s the front-runner, after all.’

  Christopher wanted to argue about self-fulfilling prophesies, but he suspected they were both immune to logic and reason, so instead he let them show him where and how they wanted the poster put up.

  He was even more fed up about it when he realised that all the other candidates would now want their posters in the window, and he really wouldn’t be able to see out.

  ‘Who was that?’ said Maisie Sue, after the two men had left and she and Christopher were staring at the backs of the posters.

  ‘You know El Presidente – he was at the election thing the other night.’

  ‘No – the other one. For a minute there I thought I recognised him...’

  ‘Oh, yes, you might have done. It was Young Dave. He used to be in PLIF at one time.’

  ‘...channelling Al Capone,’ muttered Maisie Sue as she turned away to leave the office. He wondered if he had heard her words accurately.

  ‘Did you say Al Capone?’

  She gazed at him, her eyes round and very blue – did she do something to make the colour more noticeable? Was there anything you could do about that? He made a mental note to ask Amaryllis. She knew all about disguises.

  ‘Al Capone – you know, the gangster. He used to run protection rackets. That’s when...’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Christopher. ‘I know what you mean. It did feel a bit like that, didn’t it? Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to put the poster up. Maybe they’ll come back and ask for something much worse the next time.’

  Maisie Sue made a derisive sound. ‘It couldn’t be a whole lot worse than that poster.’

  He remembered he had meant to speak to her about the quilt. This didn’t seem like the right time after all.

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ said Maisie Sue suddenly, saving him from having to steel himself again. ‘Jan and I are having a tatting bee and we need to get ready for it.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ he said, unable even to imagine what she and Jan were planning to do. Another thing to ask Amaryllis. His mental notebook would be full up before long at this rate.

  Maisie Sue left, and he went along to the front door to make sure it was locked behind her.

  He was turning the key when there was an impatient rapping from outside. He thought he recognised the impatience, if not the actual knock. Resistance was useless. He might as well let her in now rather than have her swing in through a window or set the alarm off by breaking in through the fire exit.

  ‘Good,’ said Amaryllis, exhaling the sweet scent of Old Pictish Brew into his face. ‘I’ll just go and get rid of that poster before we do anything else.’

  He caught her by the arm as she headed for his office. ‘No, don’t do that. El Presidente and his heavies will be back to put it up again.’

  ‘Heavies?’

  ‘Well – young Dave.’

  ‘Ha! The day I can’t take out young Dave with both arms tied behind my back is the day I hang up my boots for good.’

  Christopher glanced at her feet. Sure enough, black boots were just visible below the black leather trousers.

  ‘Better leave it there, though,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be accused of bias.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  Christopher was saved from replying at that moment in a most unexpected way.

  Something jangled in the pocket of his jacket.

  ‘It’s your phone,’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘I know,’ he said, glaring at her.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’ she pressed him.

  ‘I don’t know who would be ringing me at this time of day. It’s probably somebody trying to get me agree to having extra loft insulation.’

  ‘You should still answer it,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Even if only to tell them to get lost.’

  ‘Not answering the phone at all works after a while,’ said Jock McLean, coming down the corridor with the wee white dog. ‘I’ve done that with my home phone. After a year or two the calls stop altogether. I expect they think I’m dead.’

  ‘I suppose that’s one way to handle it,’ said Christopher uncertainly. ‘And by the way, you can’t bring the dog in here.’

  The jangling noise stopped.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Christopher. ‘If they want me they’ll track me down somehow.’

  He wondered if he could find the button that turned the sound off. At one time it had been permanently set to ‘silent’ mode but he suspected Amaryllis of having got at it and undone this setting when he wasn’t paying attention. He could always let the battery run down, but he didn’t think he could stand the scorn and nagging that would ensue. He didn’t think she entirely understood his antipathy towards mobile phones. It was the tyranny of being constantly available to other people that he couldn’t accept. It didn’t matter whether it was the people who kept trying to get him to sign up for loft insulation who phoned him, or a member of his family or a close friend. The principle was the same in any of these cases. Of course he knew from experience that it made things a bit easier if you had a mobile phone on hand to ring for help in the kind of real emergency that tended to happen in Pitkirtly, such as saving somebody from being pushed into a bonfire, or from a hole that had unexpected opened up, but there didn’t seem to be an option just to make outgoing calls without receiving incoming ones.

  The office phone started up next.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Christopher. He glared at Jock. ‘Take the dog outside.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Jock. ‘I’ll take myself away too, then.’ He smiled at Amaryllis as if to prove he wasn’t just being grumpy, and added, obviously for her benefit, ‘I’ll just smoke my pipe in the car park until you’re ready, then.’

  The office phone stopped, and Christopher’s mobile phone started up again.

  Amaryllis delved into his pocket and brought it out.

  ‘Home for Orphan Chimpanzees – how may I help you?.. Of course it’s me, you idiot. Yes, he’s here too. Just a minute.’

  She passed on the phone to Christopher.

  ‘Hi there,’ said Keith Burnet, sounding about as cheerful as Christopher felt. ‘I just wanted to warn you that we may have found your artists.’

  ‘Where are they?’ said Christopher. ‘Have you arrested them?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Keith. ‘You’d better have a seat.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Christopher had heard that tone of voice before, usually under bad circumstances. There wasn’t a chair anywhere nearby so he leaned against the wall instead. ‘What’s happened?’

  Amaryllis was muttering something but he couldn’t make out what it was.

  ‘Their van’s in the water – two people still in it. I’m there now with their father. ’

  ‘Where? Not Pitkirtly?’

  ‘No – east of Torryburn. On that bit of coast road nobody ever uses.’

  ‘Was there a high tide?’

  ‘Not that we know of. We’re checking with the coastguard...There’s always the chance of an accident, I suppose,’ said Keith sombrely. ‘We’ll need to get the divers out.’

  ‘I suppose that’ll take a while,’ said Christopher. ‘Aren’t they based at Kyle of Lochalsh or somewhere?’

  ‘Troon,’ said Keith. ‘They’ll be over in a couple of hours.’

  There was a pause while Christopher searched for something to say.

  ‘Should you be telling me this, Keith?’

  ‘Maybe not. I just wanted to reinforce my warning that you mustn’t discuss the case with anybody else. There will probably be rumours and maybe some press interest if we’re really unlucky, but we don’t want all sorts of gossip and misinformation getting out... Have you told Maisie Sue about the quilt yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Christopher, feeling guilty.

  ‘Good,’ said Keith. ‘We don’t want that getting out either. Or anything about the camera we found in the room. I suppose you’ll want to speak to Amaryllis about this development, but please be di
screet. Don’t go down to the Queen of Scots together and talk about it at the bar.’

  ‘We wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Christopher, trying not to sound as offended as he felt.

  Amaryllis suddenly began to make signals, only he couldn’t work out what she was trying to communicate. She seemed to be miming cutting her own throat. He turned to look behind him and saw Maggie Munro standing there, mop in hand, brow furrowed in obvious puzzlement. He ended the call quickly. What had she overheard, if anything?

  ‘What wouldn’t you dream of?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I was just talking on the phone,’ he said, waving the mobile phone around to demonstrate what he meant. ‘Nothing very interesting, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I thought maybe the police had found out something,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Christopher hastily. ‘No. Nothing. Not at all... Ow!’

  Amaryllis had kicked him as she passed, on her way to take the mop out of Maggie’s hand.

  ‘Let’s get this put safely in the cupboard,’ she said in a soothing tone. ‘Would you like to show me where it goes? Then we can all get off home.’

  Within a few minutes they had all joined Jock McLean in the car park.

  Maggie Munro sniffed the air appreciatively. ‘I do like the smell of pipe smoke,’ she said.

  Jock backed away, stuffing the pipe in his pocket and clutching the dog’s lead much too tightly.

  ‘He’s spoken for,’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘Now, now, I wouldn’t say that exactly,’ said Jock. ‘It’s early days yet.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Maggie indignantly. ‘I’m a married woman myself, you know.’

  Christopher chose to ignore this potentially embarrassing situation by walking on past them and up the hill. He had bandied enough words with enough people today already. It was time to spend some quiet time with the Fotheringham Archive. That would calm his mind if nothing else did.

  Chapter 7 The wrong body

  Although Keith rationalised his urge to call Christopher as a warning to him to keep quiet in the face of spreading rumours, he knew he had done it mainly because, contrary to the usual procedure, he tended to see Christopher and Amaryllis as informal partners when it came to the detection side of police work. And after all, he told himself, it wasn’t all that different from using these community support officers that were being recruited nowadays. He was sure the two of them would have applied for that kind of job if it had been offered in Pitkirtly at the right time – and if Christopher didn’t already have a good job and Amaryllis wasn’t a retired spy who was standing for election to the Council.