5 Frozen in Crime (2 page)

‘No, Dave’s running me up there.’

‘What, on these roads? In the pick-up truck?’

‘No, he’s hired a snowmobile and I’m cadging a
lift on the back,’ said Jock. ‘Yes, of course he’s taking the pick-up truck. He’s
delivering Rosie’s Christmas presents as well.’

‘Today?’ said Christopher, looking doubtfully out
at the snowflakes that were bigger and closer together than ever, alternately
whirling around in impromptu ceilidh dances and driving down at an angle finely
calculated to hit you in the face as you walked along.

‘First thing tomorrow,’ said Jock. ‘I’ve got
plenty time for a pint.’

‘I’ve got to finish locking up here,’ said
Christopher. ‘You two go on ahead and I’ll meet you in the usual place.’

Andrew was just ushering the rest of the mothers
and toddlers out. He and Christopher made sure everyone else had gone. The
cleaners wouldn’t be in tonight because of the holidays, so Christopher sent
Andrew home and spent a few moments on his hands and knees sweeping up debris
from the weaving project before locking everything up, setting the alarms and
leaving. They had been due to close at five today anyway, and he couldn’t
imagine very many people having such an urgent wish to use the Cultural Centre
that they were prepared to trek through this blizzard to reach it and run the
risk of being stranded somewhere on the way, so he felt justified in closing at
ten to four.

The landlord of the Queen of Scots had added
mulled wine to his repertoire since the snow came, and it was rumoured that
favoured customers could get him to make hot chocolate, but he hadn’t yet
installed a new-fangled coffee machine. Christopher didn’t see him as a
continental-style barista somehow. And wasn’t barista the female version
anyway? In which case, what would a man who made coffee be called? A barrister,
perhaps, although that job title was already taken.

These random musings had taken him, plodding, to
the door of the pub. He stamped his feet just outside to rid them of the
caked-on snow. If it carried on like this Dave might not be able to get the
pick-up truck to Rosie’s, which was some way out of Pitkirtly and, Christopher
thought, a good bit higher and more remote. But Dave would have a good try - he
didn’t like to give up easily, particularly when driving.

He heard laughter as he opened the door. Male
laughter.

‘What are you having, Christopher?’’ asked Jock
McLean, pausing as he carried a pint glass and a bottle of wine away from the
bar.

But Christopher wasn’t listening. There was a man
sitting in his usual chair at the table in the corner. And Amaryllis, in her
own usual chair, was staring at the stranger, wide-eyed and fascinated. He had
never seen that expression on her face before. His heart plummeted.

Amaryllis hadn’t known what to expect from Jimbo’s
friend Mal. Yes, she knew he had trekked to the North Pole a couple of years
before with a group of army colleagues in aid of something-or-other, and that
he had been injured in Afghanistan rescuing hostages some time after that, but
she was rather hazy about why he had turned up in Pitkirtly so close to
Christmas when most people headed home to be with their nearest and dearest -
well, nearest, anyway.

She was pleasantly surprised when he at last
arrived at the Queen of Scots. He was tall, good-looking in a kind of military
way, with short cropped hair, a slightly weather-beaten face and army-style
boots which looked just right with jeans, and he reminded her a bit of an
ex-boy-friend who had been in the US Marines. Instead of talking about himself
and his exploits all the time, which would have been forgiveable under the
circumstances, he showed a flattering interest in her and her life. Only a few
moments into their conversation, while Jock McLean was getting the drinks in,
he said unexpectedly,

‘So tell me, what made you choose Pitkirtly, out
of all the places you could have ended up?’

‘I like it here,’ she said, unwilling to go into
her reasons, which were in any case now lost in the mists of time as far as she
was concerned.

He smiled, his dark eyes sparkling. ‘But it’s so
small!’ he said. ‘And quiet. I have a sense that you were meant for more
interesting things. Epic events.’

She sighed. ‘It would be nice to do something that
made a difference, I suppose.’

Amaryllis was conscious from time to time that the
activities she had engaged in during her career had sometimes been
theoretically all that stood between Britain and Armageddon; however she had
always been just a small cog in a very diverse and dispersed set of machinery,
and the epic nature of her work had been hidden under a blanket of bureaucracy.
But maybe there was still time… Maybe this stranger would show her the way.

Almost as the thought crossed her mind, she
glanced up and saw Christopher standing in the doorway gazing at her. She
couldn’t quite fathom the expression on his face. It wasn’t quite censorious,
or panic-stricken, but it could have been somewhere in between.

‘… sure you’ve made a difference before!’ Mal was
saying politely. ‘And there’s still time for you to go on an epic quest - if
you want to, that is.’

She brightened a little. An epic quest - now he
was talking!

‘Here’s your drinks,’ said Jock McLean. ‘Christopher’s
here!’

‘Yes, I noticed,’ said Amaryllis. She glanced
quickly from Mal’s dark lean face to Christopher’s pale roundish one with the
permanently bewildered expression, and smiled. The men were at opposite ends of
the spectrum, both in terms of their physical attractiveness and, as far as she
knew, in their aspirations.

Mal poured out wine for both of them. Jock sat
down and leaned back in his chair, surveying the newcomer through shrewd eyes.
Amaryllis never knew what he was thinking at the best of times. He seemed even
more cryptic today. She hoped he wouldn’t come out with something weird that
would scare Mal away. She had a feeling it would be good to sit at Mal’s feet
for a while: to listen and learn.

Christopher came over and slid into the spare
chair, setting down a glass of what looked like Old Pictish Brew on the table
soundlessly, as if he were trying to be unobtrusive. He didn’t usually have to
make an effort, perhaps because being unobtrusive came naturally to him, she
thought. She introduced him and Mal to each other. Christopher seemed a bit
standoffish, but again that was more or less how he usually appeared. He
probably wouldn’t even comment at this point about the epic quest idea. She
knew he liked to mull things over, sometimes for weeks or even months, before
saying anything. Mal, on the other hand, must be accustomed to making decisions
instantly in the heat of battle, otherwise he wouldn’t have survived this long.

‘I’ve always fancied space exploration myself,’
Mal said, continuing their previous conversation after the small interruption.

Christopher blinked.

‘Oh, me too!’ said Amaryllis, although in fact she
had never really thought about it.

‘Think of it - you’d be a pioneer, helping to work
out man’s final escape route from earth.’

‘Escape route?’ said Christopher.

‘Yes - we’ll have to get out of here one day -
before the sun goes nuclear,’ said Mal carelessly, just as if he hadn’t been
predicting the end of the world.

‘Hmm,’ said Christopher. ‘I don’t usually look
that far ahead.’

‘Large horizons,’ said Mal. ‘That’s what you need.’

Amaryllis wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by
that, but it did sound like a veiled criticism of people who spent all their
lives in the cosy, closed community of Pitkirtly, where the main excitement of the
past week had been the official town Christmas tree scandal. Of course, that
would now be superseded in the headlines of the local newspaper by the
supermarket robbery, if that was really what it had been.

‘Of course, you could always start in a small way,’
said Mal. ‘A wee bit closer to home.’

‘Exploration closer to home?’ said Christopher.

‘It doesn’t have to be exploration,’ said Mal. ‘It
could be something else - helping someone. Putting right a wrong. That kind of
thing.’

Amaryllis was rather disappointed by these
suggestions. They didn’t sound very epic.

‘Amaryllis does that kind of thing all the time,’
commented Jock McLean suddenly. ‘Sorting out murders. Solving puzzles.’

‘Yes, that’s all good,’ said Mal.

‘So what are you planning to do next?’ said
Amaryllis. ‘You won’t be settling in Pitkirtly, will you?’

‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ said
Christopher before Mal had time to reply. It wasn’t like him to be so rude.
Amaryllis saw him watching the other man, and sighed inwardly. It was a classic
male thing. Dog in the manger, even. He just didn’t like having this intruder
on his patch.

‘Oh, family stuff,’ said Mal, taking a sip of
wine. He smiled blandly at Christopher and then replied to Amaryllis. ‘Well, as
you know I’ve retired from the army. I think I’ve gone just about as far as I
can with that. I’m planning to start a charity to help war orphans. Not giving
them handouts, you know. Helping them to get on with their lives. Realise their
potential.’

Surely even Christopher couldn’t be suspicious of
this, Amaryllis thought. But she noticed he was still staring at Mal with a
frown between his brows. Was it critical or just puzzled? He often seemed
bemused by life and people and everything, so perhaps it was just his usual
expression after all.

‘It would mean a lot of travelling, of course,’
Mal continued, looking into her eyes. ‘Sometimes under difficult conditions.
And there’ll be harrowing sights involved. But I like to think it will make a
difference.’

He gave a small, self-deprecating smile. She
smiled back at him. There was something almost mesmerising about his eyes.

Jock McLean coughed horribly, almost as if he was
about to be sick. The moment passed.

The door opened, letting cold air and snowflakes
into the bar. Glancing round, Amaryllis saw that Chief Inspector Smith had come
in with them.

She registered that he had a uniformed officer
with him,

‘Well,’ said Mal, leaving his glass half-full on
the table, ‘I’d better go. I see it’s still snowing out there. I’ve got some
way to go, and I don’t want to be stranded.’

Amaryllis opened her mouth to offer him her spare
room, but Christopher got in first.

‘That makes sense. The roads are bad enough
already. You don’t know where you might get stuck.’

Mal got to his feet and grabbed a set of keys from
the table. ‘Good to meet you guys.’

‘Yes,’ said Amaryllis, conscious that Christopher
and Jock were unlikely to make effusive farewell speeches. ‘Good luck with your
orphans - um - thing. Project, I mean.’

She got up too and walked with him across to the
door, where he turned and said, ‘I’ll give you a call. Maybe we can meet again
the next time I’m in town. Without your personal Rottweilers, though.’

‘More like poodles,’ she said, smiling.

‘Don’t be cruel now. I’m sure they have your best
interests in mind.’

He patted her on the shoulder quickly and left,
nodding politely to Chief Inspector Smith and the other officer as he passed
them.

‘Can I help you, Chief Inspector Smith?’ said
Amaryllis. She thought she had better not call him ‘Charlie’ in front of his
junior officer, although it was very tempting to use the opportunity to wind
him up. Especially when she was invigorated by speaking to Mal. She suddenly
felt as if she had been living the life of a hobbit here in Pitkirtly while the
whole Lord of the Rings saga was taking place somewhere else.

‘I’m here to speak to your friend Mr Wilson.’ As
usual he made it sounds as if Christopher and she were master criminals and
their friendship was somehow sinister, as if they were gang members in a
Pitkirtly criminal underworld.

The two policemen made their way across the room
to the table where Christopher and Jock were sitting, and Amaryllis followed,
curious to know what questions they planned to ask and to find out all she
could about their investigation.

‘I understand from Sergeant Whitefield you were in
your office at the Cultural Centre when you witnessed a crime being committed?’
Charlie Smith began.

‘Me too!’ said Jock McLean, getting in on the act.

‘One at a time, please,’ said Mr Smith.

‘I witnessed something happening,’ admitted
Christopher with his usual caution. ‘It seemed to involve shooting, panic and
people running away. Two men ran towards the office window - I assume they were
the robbers, if it was a robbery. I heard a banging on the window, and then I
thought of closing the outside doors to stop them getting in. But I expect they
were long gone by then anyway.’

‘We have another witness who says she thinks they
shot at the window and then went round to the door to try and get in,’ said Mr
Smith. ‘When you slammed the doors in their faces they dodged away round the
building. But she was over at the other side of the car park. Just getting into
her Fiat Panda when she heard the shots and saw people running about. Very
sensibly, she just got in the car and sat there watching.’

‘You’ll be able to tell if they did hit the
window, won’t you?’ said Christopher. He sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll need your
report for the insurance.’

‘Can you tell me anything about the two men you
saw, please?’

‘I didn’t see very much. I think they were wearing
balaclavas, but one of them glared at me. He had big dark staring eyes, I
remember.’

‘Big dark staring eyes? Are you sure about that?’

Amaryllis thought Charlie Smith was trying not to
laugh. It was such a stereotypical description of an armed robber.

‘Yes - I remember worrying he would know me again.
He looked angry. I thought he might come after me.’

‘He won’t, not if we catch up with him,’ said Mr
Smith grimly. ‘There were two seriously injured and a handful of others with
various minor injuries outside the supermarket.’

Amaryllis gulped as she realised that his official
phrase might represent one or even two people she knew. Christopher put her
vague thought into words.

‘Can you tell us any more than that?’

‘We haven’t got an official id on either of them
yet,’ said Chief Inspector Smith. ‘But I can tell you two young women and a
middle-aged man were involved in the incident… There were people coming out of
the supermarket with their food shopping for Christmas when the robbers came
past. But most of the minor injuries were caused by people falling on the ice
outside when they started panicking.’

He sounded gruff and cross. Not surprisingly,
Amaryllis thought. He didn’t really need this hassle so close to Christmas, and
in such severe weather conditions too.

She ruthlessly cut off this train of thought,
seeing it as sign of softness and sentimentality. It would start with her
feeling sorry for Charlie Smith, which was harmless enough in itself, but where
would it end? Before long she would be searching the internet for cute kitten
videos and then tweeting about them. Since Amaryllis currently used Twitter to
keep up with what was happening in some quite serious spheres of interest, this
idea made her shudder.

‘Why do you think they decided to hit the
supermarket in the first place, when it was always going to be full of people?’
she said, partly to conceal her reaction.

‘Oh, it wasn’t the supermarket they went for,’
said Charlie Smith. ‘It was that little jeweller’s shop round the corner.’

‘The one with the grandfather clock in the corner
that’s always two hours slow?’ said Jock McLean, sounding incredulous.

‘Yes, that’s the one,’ said Mr Smith.

‘I thought it was all fake stuff in there,’ said
Jock. ‘It’s all so shiny - it can’t possibly be real.’

‘It’s real all right,’ said Mr Smith grimly. ‘Worth
a bit to people who know what they’re after - and this lot did.’

‘Selective?’ said Amaryllis.

Mr Smith nodded. ‘Very.’

He obviously wasn’t going to say any more at this
point, although Amaryllis knew she would be able to get it all out of him later
if she really wanted to. The question was, did she really want to know more
about this sordid small-town robbery when there was a world of adventure out
there?

‘If you remember anything else about the two men,
Mr Wilson, please let us know,’ said Mr Smith. He didn’t sound very hopeful. Of
course he had encountered Christopher many times before and must have known how
annoyingly vague he could be on occasion.