5 Frozen in Crime (20 page)

Where was Amaryllis? Had Mal gone back
underground?

‘Fireworks,’ he managed to say to the first lot of
policemen. ‘They’re going to blow the place up.’

There wasn’t time to stop them. Charlie had to
turn everyone back: they were all right in the firing line.

‘Get back!’ he said, feebly at first and then with
more emphasis. ‘Get back!’ He shouted it to the other men too, gesturing
wildly. And where was Amaryllis?

‘We can’t go back,’ said Inspector Farmer, putting
a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. ‘Are the explosives down in the tunnel?’

Charlie nodded. He heard his voice saying, ‘I’ll
show you,’ although the last thing he wanted to do was to go back down into the
darkness.

A small party quickly assembled including, he
thought, some naval explosives specialists who had come off the boats. He led
the way through the archway to the door, now hanging open, and down the tunnel.
Several people had powerful torches. They didn’t bother with stealth or
whispering.

As they approached the junction in the tunnel,
there was a roaring sound from the branch that led out under the river, almost
like –

‘Water!’ somebody yelled.

The first wave knocked one of the policemen off
his feet, and would have swept him away if another man hadn’t grabbed him and
hauled him back to safety. They all moved up to what seemed like firmer ground
as the water rushed past them into the other part of the tunnel, where the two
men and the explosives presumably still were.

Charlie thought again of Amaryllis. Was this her
doing? What had happened to her?

A drenched figure staggered round the corner from
the other branch of the tunnel, splashing through the water, coughing and
spluttering. Two of the officers grabbed at him, just as another wave came down
and threatened to sweep him away. The water lapped at their feet. It seemed
like a good time to move upwards again.

‘Mal,’ gasped the man. ‘The water – help me. Mal’s
still in there.’

You must be joking, thought Charlie. He thought
back to what Amaryllis had said about not needing to know what she planned. He
thought he knew now what she had meant. But had she really sacrificed herself
to save the town? If she had been in that tunnel when the water swept in, she
might not have been able to get out in time. He thought about the prospect of
Christopher killing him. It may have been a joke, but it was beginning to seem
slightly more serious than that.

He turned and began to push his way through the
group of people and make his way to the surface. If she had got out, she must
be on or close to Pitkirtly Island, wherever the tunnel ended. In this weather
she would need to be rescued before she got hypothermia at the very least.

He heard someone behind him call his name, but he
pressed on. He had to find her. This time he didn’t even pause to breathe at
the entrance. He turned in the direction of the island and kept walking.

A little cluster of the men from the boats had
formed round something, out on the mud-flats at the point where the yellow-grey
of the winter sky met the green-brown water of the river which had started to
ripple over the greenish-grey mud as the tide turned, and just in the spot
where the remains of a low circular stone wall had always been visible at low
tide. He plunged down on to the pebble beach that surrounded the island,
quickened his pace as the pebbles turned to mud, broke into a run at the end,
slithering on the wet surface. She wasn’t moving… she was moving. She stood up,
helped by one of the men, just before he got there.

‘Amaryllis!’

Her dark red hair had turned even darker and was
plastered down flat against her head. She was wet and muddy from head to toe.
She must be freezing; someone had a space blanket they were about to wrap her
in. But her teeth gleamed white in a huge grin even as they chattered
violently.

‘I did it!’ she said as he arrived.

‘I know,’ said Charlie. He didn’t intend to fling
his arms around her and hug her, but he found he had done it anyway. If
Christopher ever found out he would have another reason to kill him. One of the
soldiers pushed him out of the way so that they could wrap her up warmly.

He looked down at the dark slimy hole in the
ground from which she had emerged like a very unglamorous Venus. He didn’t ask
for details of what she had done. They would keep for another day.

Someone said the word ‘hospital’ and Amaryllis
laughed. ‘What I need is to get myself to Jemima’s as soon as I can. She’s
bound to have some weird Scottish dish on the go that cures all known ills.’

Not for the first time, Christopher was glad he
hadn’t known what Amaryllis was doing until afterwards. Charlie phoned Jemima
to let them know they were on their way, and it was already dark when they
arrived. Charlie Smith seemed grim and exhausted when they were dropped off by a
police driver, but he didn’t look quite as fearsome as Amaryllis did, with her
mud-encrusted hair, dirty face, and boots that had to be put outside the back
door in case they messed up the new fake laminate tiles Dave had just finished
fitting in the kitchen.

Fortunately there was some pease brose left for
Amaryllis after she had cleaned herself up and put on an old brown
dressing-gown of Jemima’s, which was the most unflattering garment Christopher
had ever seen her in.

They all spent the night there, with Charlie and
the dog occupying the settee in the front room, Amaryllis sleeping on a spare
mattress  on Dave and Jemima’s bedroom floor, and Christopher and Lord Murray
on the extremely uncomfortable twin beds in the spare room. It would probably
be the only time Christopher slept so close to a peer of the realm and listened
to him snoring, although after Lord Murray’s confessions in the ambulance he
wasn’t exactly over-awed by the experience. It seemed that noble families were
just as likely as anyone else’s to contain thieves and murderers. More so if
anything, he reflected drowsily, casting his mind back to school history
lessons just before he dropped off to sleep.

It was difficult to get any information out of
Amaryllis and Charlie about what had happened at Pitkirtly Island.

‘Tell you at the Hogmanay party,’ Amaryllis said
to Christopher as they drank tea and ate toast together at the kitchen table in
time-honoured fashion.

‘But you know what it’s like at the Hogmanay
party, don’t you?’ he said. ‘It’s impossible to talk about anything sensible.
It’s far too noisy – and rowdy. You haven’t forgotten Dave dancing on the table
last year, have you? The landlord made him pay for the damage too. Those bar
tables aren’t cheap. Not to mention the bottles of whisky he crashed into.’

‘I haven’t forgotten Jemima sitting there knitting
right through it all, either,’ said Amaryllis. ‘We’ll find a quiet corner and I’ll
tell you everything that happened.’

Christopher wasn’t convinced. And he wasn’t happy
that Charlie Smith knew more than he did, either. It was one thing for
Amaryllis to go off to Turkmenistan or Virginia wreaking havoc and escaping the
jaws of death by a whisker, but the idea that it had happened in Pitkirtly
brought it all too close to home.

‘It’s all right,’ she said quietly. ‘I survived,
didn’t I?’

He sighed, but resigned himself to waiting. In
fact he was so good about not pestering her for information that she began to
get impatient before he did, and for the next day or two she kept dropping
hints about what had happened, until by Hogmanay he was rather exasperated and
even felt tempted to get his own back by not even going to the party. If the
thaw continued the way it was going, he might even get himself invited up to
the cattery to see if Rosie’s friends were any use at arm-wrestling. Only of
course he would have to see in the New Year with Jock McLean if he did that.
Hmm. There was always a down-side.

But when it came to the point he just had to go
along to the Queen of Scots. Apart from anything else, Amaryllis called round
to fetch him, and he didn’t want to fall out with her permanently. Just letting
her know he was a bit miffed with her was enough, and he knew he had done that
already.

She took his arm on the way to the pub.

‘It wasn’t nearly as good having Charlie with me
as it would have been if you were there,’ she said, apparently in an attempt to
mollify him.

‘I suppose he didn’t do stupid things and make you
laugh at him,’ said Christopher grumpily.

‘No, it wasn’t that – he can be just as stupid as
you in his own way,’ she said. ‘It was because he tried to stop me doing what I
knew had to be done. He nearly got the town blown up because he thought he needed
to protect me.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. You wouldn’t make that mistake, would
you?’

‘I know it’s no use trying to stop you when you
get an idea in your head,’ said Christopher. ‘If that’s what you mean. I’ve
never met anybody so stubborn.’

She started to laugh, but she wouldn’t tell him
why.

Dave and Jemima were already ensconsed in a small
private room at the Queen of Scots, and a familiar figure stood at the bar
ordering drinks.

‘I thought you were at the cattery!’ said
Christopher accusingly to Jock McLean. Amaryllis went off to speak to Jemima.

‘I got the sack,’ said Jock. ‘Don’t ask. You
having Old Pictish Brew tonight?’

‘I think I’ll need it. We’re meant to be going to
hear the whole story.’

‘You mean she hasn’t told you it already? About
having to fight her way up the ladder to the surface while the mud and water
were pouring down all round her?’

‘What? How do you know all that?’

Jock shrugged his shoulders. ‘Heard it in the
paper-shop.’

‘In the paper-shop?’

‘I thought she would have told you by now.’

‘Well, she hasn’t. Why am I always the last to
know everything?’

As usual when Christopher raised his voice, there
was a freakish lull in everyone else’s conversation, so that his words rang out
across the suddenly still air like an important announcement. In some ways he
supposed they were. An announcement that he was fed up with being kept in the
dark, especially by Amaryllis. Not to mention his other friends.

‘I suppose you both know the whole story by now
too?’ he said to Dave and Jemima, having picked up his pint of Old Pictish Brew
and marched across to the table. He stood over them, glowering.

‘Have a seat, Christopher, don’t just stand over
us like that,’ said Jemima placidly. ‘You don’t want me getting a crick in my
neck do you? At my age that can be quite nasty.’

At least Jemima hadn’t brought her knitting this
time. He sat down between her and Amaryllis, who been silent and meek throughout
his miniature tirade although she must have known it was aimed at her.

When they were all sitting there, she said,

‘I haven’t told anybody what happened. I wanted to
wait and see if it was finished.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ snapped
Christopher.

She looked at him. Her eyes were
uncharacteristically sombre.

‘Charlie Smith should be here soon. He’ll tell us.’

‘How did the man in the paper-shop know?’ he said.

Jemima smiled in an irritating way that suggested
she could see through everybody’s foibles and inconsistencies. ‘He likely made
it all up himself,’ she said, leaning back in her chair.

Christopher was even more cross now that he was unexpectedly
in the wrong.

‘What I don’t understand is where the golden
peacock fitted into it all,’ said Jemima. ‘I’ve made my own little one, just to
remind me of everything.’

She brought out a little beaded peacock from her
capacious handbag, and set it on the table. They all stared at it. Christopher
wasn’t sure what to say. It was rather a hideous thing constructed mainly of
gold wire, with purple and orange beads sticking up out of its head, and a neck
twisted at such an unnatural angle that it seemed to have been strangled.

‘I don’t think I could eat a whole one,’ said Jock
McLean at last.

Jemima glared at him.

‘Is it a brooch?’ said Amaryllis.

‘You could put it on a key-ring if you wanted,’
said Jemima. ‘There’s a little loop here – look. Oh dear, the neck’s gone a bit
wrong.’

She picked it up and was just manipulating it back
into place when Charlie Smith, the dog and Maisie Sue arrived at the same time.
There was a minor skirmish as the landlord queried the presence of the dog and
Charlie assured him it was a highly trained working police-dog which was
allowed into any premises.

‘We aren’t really together,’ Maisie Sue assured
them as she sat down. ‘We just bumped into each other on the way down the High
Street. I wouldn’t want anyone to think anything of it.’

Christopher couldn’t imagine Charlie Smith and
Maisie Sue getting together even if they were the last two creatures left on
earth. Or at least, he didn’t want to imagine it. Of course the more he tried
not to imagine it, the more it imprinted itself on his brain, so that it was
there even when he tried to think about the new archive material that had been
donated to the Cultural Centre just before Christmas and which he planned, as a
treat, to take his time cataloguing once he went back to work.

Charlie brought some drinks over to the table. The
dog sat down on his feet and sighed.

‘Let’s hear it all, then,’ said Dave. ‘We don’t
want to hold up the party.’

‘It’s only half-past eight,’ said Jemima. ‘There’s
plenty of time.’

‘But we need to get in the mood,’ said Dave.

‘Not in the kind of mood you got into last year,’
said the landlord, who chose that moment to come over and collect the empty
glasses. ‘You could have got barred for doing that, you know.’

He closed the door behind him as he left.

‘Shouldn’t Lord Murray be here?’ said Jock McLean.
‘Or has he gone back to his stately home in disgrace?’

Charlie pulled his chair a bit closer to the table
and leaned forward. ‘Don’t tell anybody I told you this, but he’s been
arrested.’

‘What for? Impersonating a human being?’ said
Jock, laughing. ‘Or has the revolution started and nobody’s told me?’

‘It’s a bit more sordid than that,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s
an accessory in the jewel robbery case.’

‘Ah,’ said Christopher. ‘It’s about what he told
me in the ambulance, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, kind of. But he told us it all over again
when we were talking to him about his brother. Didn’t seem to see anything
wrong with it.’

‘Hmph! Typical!’ said Jock McLean.

‘Why don’t you start at the beginning, Mr Smith?’
said Jemima gently.

‘The trouble is, I’m not entirely sure where that
is,’ said Charlie.

‘The drowned girls?’ Amaryllis prompted him.

‘Yes, I suppose that’s as good a place as any… The
drowned girls. It was recorded as an accident at the time, you know. But in the
light of what’s happened since, we’re no longer sure about that.’

‘Just get on with it, man!’ muttered Dave. Jemima
nudged him to shut him up.

‘Well, basically Malcolm Murray was always a
problem and an embarrassment to the family,’ Charlie began. ‘His older brother
of course always knew he would be the one to inherit the estate and the
responsibilities, so he maybe had more sense of his place in the scheme of
things. It was when Malcolm was in his late teens that the drowning incident
took place. He and a friend and two girls were out on Pitkirtly Island playing
around in the tunnels. He somehow got hold of explosives and set them off. Part
of the tunnel collapsed, water came in, and the two boys got out and the girls
didn’t. The whole thing could have been much worse for Malcolm than it was. But
their father, old Lord Murray, knew the Chief Constable, so it was played down
and turned into an accident, although the other boy later spread the word
around that it had all been Malcolm’s fault.’

‘And they put him in the army,’ said Christopher. ‘To
protect the family name.’

‘Yes, he was shipped off to basic training first
and ended up in Iraq and then Afghanistan,’ said Charlie. ‘He was thought to
have been some kind of hero in Afghanistan, but apparently that was just a
rumour started by one of his friends.’

‘Lord Murray said he’d gone to rescue people who
didn’t want to be rescued, or something,’ said Christopher, trying to remember
exactly what the wheezing aristocrat had been talking about in the ambulance.

‘Indeed – he killed some local warlords in the
process, and they came after his unit,’ said Charlie. ‘He and his friend James
Molyneux got the boot from the army after that. Malcolm Murray returned to
Pitkirtly. He was always full of new schemes. He said he was planning to go and
start something up in Africa. But it was all just talk.’

‘Who’s this James Molyneux?’ said Jock McLean.

‘He got me out of trouble once, in Uzbekistan,’
said Amaryllis. ‘I always called him Jimbo after that.’

Christopher looked round at her. She still had the
sad expression in her eyes, but she did glance up and smile at him a bit
ruefully. She had been taken in by Malcolm Murray, but perhaps it was the role
of her friend Jimbo that hurt the most.

‘But what about the golden peacock?’ said Jemima.
She waved her own version of it in front of Charlie’s nose. He seemed
completely bewildered. ‘Where does that come in?’

‘According to Lord Murray, his brother claimed to
have sold the golden peacock years ago, before he even went into the army, and
replaced it with a fake without anybody else in the family knowing. When Lord
Murray himself needed money, he got the jeweller in Pitkirtly to find a buyer
for what he fondly imagined was the real thing. Then Malcolm returned and
confessed it was a fake, so Lord Murray persuaded him to go and steal it back. We
don’t know if Lord Murray’s telling the truth about that part of it – it looks
as if he may have known earlier it was a fake. Of course Malcolm and his
accomplice couldn’t resist stealing other things too. They needed the money for
their African scheme – which, by the way, was to do with setting themselves up
as mercenaries and smuggling in weapons, and not with any charity work.’

‘What about the homeless man?’ said Christopher.
He glanced down at the dog, which appeared to be listening intently.

‘He was ex-army too,’ said Charlie. ‘He knew both
the others from Afghanistan, and he was a witness to the robbery. When we took
him into the cells for the night they were afraid he’d shop them. They decided
to get rid of him, thinking nobody would care enough to do anything about it.’