5 Frozen in Crime (7 page)

Amaryllis wasn’t sure why she had let the fictitious
explanation of Mal’s presence in the house come so easily to her tongue as she
spoke to the policemen. She supposed she had a kind of fellow-feeling with Mal
and felt vaguely protective towards him. Not many people allowed themselves to
harbour the kind of grand ideas he seemed to have, and she didn’t want that
afternoon’s inspiration to turn into humdrum suspicion, even if Christopher
seemed to be thinking of it exactly in that way.

Fortunately Christopher didn’t contradict her,
although he did have an anxious expression on his face when she glanced
sideways at him.

‘Gamekeeper, eh?’ said Charlie Smith, and the
junior officer with him wrested a notebook out of his coat pocket and wrote in
it, although it must have been a struggle even to keep the pencil in his hand
when he was wearing such thick, inflexible gloves.

‘What do you want to see Lord Murray for, anyway?’
said Amaryllis. ‘Has he been fiddling his expenses in the House of Lords or
something?’

She thought it was almost certainly drink-driving.
These old-style aristocrats thought they could get away with anything.

Charlie shook his head again, dislodging all the
remaining snow off his woolly hat. ‘Ongoing enquiry,’ he said. ‘And we did
wonder if Mr Douglas had somehow got inside the house but if you’ve had a look,
it seems he hasn’t.’

They set off back through the trees towards the
road. Amaryllis asked herself where Dave could have got to. Was it possible he
had made it as far as the main road, flagged down a driver and gone to a garage
in the hope they could move his truck that evening? But surely in that case he
would have found some way of contacting Jemima by now. What if he had concussed
himself when the truck came to a standstill? Maybe he had managed to get out
and then stumbled off somewhere in a random direction and ended up in a remote
snowdrift where nobody would think of looking for him. The bad feeling she had
had about this from the start got worse, in the same way that if you carried
something for a while it seemed to get heavier and heavier.

She glanced round at Christopher, walking
alongside her. He gave her a half-smile, but he still looked anxious. But then,
as she had observed on many occasions, his default expression was one of
worried bewilderment. It was difficult to read anything about the degree of
anxiety he felt at this exact moment.

They were approaching  the place where all three
vehicles now sat, covered in varying amounts of snow, when they heard the noise
of a powerful engine coming towards them. Amaryllis glanced up to see a tractor
rumbling round the corner, its bright lights illuminating the scene, its
massive wheels making everything else look tiny.

It came to a standstill in the middle of the road.
A figure jumped down from the cab, and went round to the passenger side where
it seemed to be helping someone down. Then the two figures walked up to the
other vehicles and stood there for a moment, staring.

Amaryllis started to run, her feet in their
reindeer herding boots - she had acquired them on a mission in the north of
Russia - sinking into the snow in unexpected places. She hoped she wouldn’t
fall head-first into a drift and have to be heaved out by her feet; but the
potential embarrassment of that didn’t matter now anyway.

‘Dave!’ she called. ‘Dave!’

She skidded to a halt on an icy patch behind the
ruined Range Rover, and waited just for a few seconds to get her breath back,
since something odd seemed to have happened to her voice. Then she walked
forward and confronted the two men.

‘Dave! Where have you been?’ She couldn’t remember
the last time she had hugged anyone, but she just walked up to him and flung
her arms round his solid mass, or at least, round as far as they would reach.
He laughed down at her.

‘What’s got into you, lass? What are you out here
for, anyway? You’ll catch your death of cold.’

‘I’ll catch my death? What about you?’ She stepped
away from him. ‘Do you know how worried we’ve all been? Christopher and I came
all the way out here to dig you out of a snow-drift! And Charlie Smith and -’

She had to stop speaking then, because something
had got into her throat and choked it up. Probably the cold, she thought.

Christopher caught up with her and shook Dave by
the hand in a masculine demonstration of pleasure and relief.

‘What happened here?’ said Dave. ‘Whose is that
Range Rover?’

‘We borrowed it from the landlord of the Queen of
Scots,’ said Amaryllis, glad to have something neutral and unemotional to say.

‘I hope when you say borrowed that means he knows
you took it,’ said Charlie Smith, coming up behind her. He nodded to Dave. ‘Glad
to see you’re all right, Mr Douglas. You’ve had a lot of people worrying about
you.’

‘I don’t know why,’ said Dave. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Where did you get the tractor?’ said the young
constable, staring at it with what looked very much like envy.

‘He came up to the farm and I brought it out,’
said the other man who had been stoically observing the touching reunion scene
that played out in front of him. ‘We thought we might be able to tow the truck
out, but I’m not sure, with those other things in the way.’

‘We can move the police land rover,’ said Charlie.
‘But I don’t know about this one.’ He patted the driver’s door of the Range
Rover. A wing-mirror fell off at his feet.

‘The landlord’s not going to be too pleased,’ said
Dave. ‘Maybe you’ll get barred from the Queen of Scots. For life.’

He was laughing again.

‘Why haven’t you called anybody?’ said Amaryllis.
It was impossible to be cross with him, and yet impossible not to be, when you
thought about what he had put them all through, especially Jemima.

‘I didn’t want to worry them,’ he muttered. ‘And I
left my mobile phone at home.’

‘Our phone lines are down anyway,’ said the
tractor owner. ‘I don’t have a mobile.’

Amaryllis took out her mobile, found Jemima’s name
in her contacts list and handed it over to Dave. ‘Call her now,’ she said.

Dave walked away a little to make the call, but
even from a distance they heard him grovelling. Amaryllis hoped he had bought
Jemima something nice for Christmas. Although she suspected it would be enough
for Jemima if they just got him home safely.

‘Where’s your farm?’ she asked the tractor driver.

‘Up that way, over to the right,’ he said,
gesturing. ‘Your friend only had to come up the road a wee bit and then he saw
our lights. Just as well really. He was kind of lost.’

‘Just leave him to us now,’ said Charlie Smith. ‘We’ll
take everybody home and then we can maybe organise tow-trucks in the morning.
Constable Burnett, can you sort out the warning triangles while I get everybody
in?’

Dave came back to the group and silently handed
Amaryllis her phone.

‘How was she?’ said Christopher.

‘All right,’ said Dave. ‘She said to hurry home.’

Amaryllis guessed that Jemima wouldn’t really
believe Dave was OK until he walked in the front door. And then once she had
reassured herself, she would give him a lot of grief for leaving his phone on
the kitchen table. What was it with men, mobile phones and kitchen tables? She
remembered Christopher doing the same not long ago, although of course on that
occasion she had been the one who was in trouble.

Charlie reorganised the back seat of the police
Land Rover to make room for them. There were a lot of space blankets, some rope
and a big first-aid kit.

‘We’ve got soup and sandwiches,’ said Christopher.
‘Anyone want some?’

Charlie Smith banned them from eating and drinking
in the Land Rover - ‘We don’t want anybody thinking we took it out for a picnic’
- but Dave accepted a cup of soup just before they got in.

‘Ah, the taste of home,’ he said, an almost
ecstatic expression spreading over his face as he slurped it down much too
quickly.

‘Did you get Jock settled in all right at Rosie’s?’
said Amaryllis.

‘Aye, he got his feet under the table in no time,’
said Dave. ‘Cocoa and toast…and that’s just the start of it.’

He made cocoa and toast sound like the first step
towards an orgy, while in Amaryllis’s experience, although comforting, they
were almost guaranteed to kill off any sensuous feelings. She thought Dave was
being a bit over-protective. Particularly since his niece Rosie was at least
fifty if she was a day.

Charlie Smith, having refused Dave’s demand to put
the blue light on, let the young constable drive back to Pitkirtly while he
stared morosely into the middle distance. Amaryllis wondered if he would get
into trouble for coming up here in a blizzard to rescue someone who didn’t need
to be rescued and to interview someone who wasn’t there. But perhaps he was
just mulling over the case. She thought about possible reasons for them to want
to speak to Lord Murray. There must be a connection with the robbery that had
happened earlier that day. Perhaps some of the jewellery had belonged to him
and was in the shop for repair or cleaning, or even for sale. She remembered
thinking about what a lot of money the house and grounds must suck in just for
routine maintenance. The owners probably had to sell off minor assets on a
regular basis.

At last they skidded to a halt outside Jemima’s
house, where she and Dave now lived.

The front door opened almost before the Land Rover
had come to a complete standstill. There were two figures on the doorstep. One
of them stepped back a couple of paces, presumably so that she didn’t get in
the way as Dave lumbered up the short path and took the three steps in one
pace, then scooped up Jemima in a bear hug.

‘Are you two getting out here, or do you want to
be taken right to your own front doors?’ enquired Charlie Smith.

Amaryllis, averting her gaze from Dave and Jemima’s
reunion, clambered down and helped Christopher down. They stood uncertainly on
the pavement.

‘Come away in!’ called Jemima, temporarily freeing
herself from Dave. ‘Maisie Sue’s just made another batch of pancakes, and I’ve
got a whole tin of tablet.’

‘I can feel my fillings falling out already,’
Christopher muttered.

‘Are you coming in for pancakes?’ said Amaryllis
through Charlie’s open window.

‘Got to get back,’ he said.

‘Thanks for the lift.’

‘Any time.’

‘I don’t think you mean that, Chief Inspector. But
I’ll try not to take you up on it anyway.’

‘Just don’t get into any trouble over Christmas!’
he shouted after her as she and Christopher made their way up to Jemima’s door.

‘It’s a pity we didn’t have crackers,’ said
Sergeant McDonald, contemplating the Christmas dinner set out on the table in
the police station kitchen.

If he mentions crackers one more time he’ll drive
me crackers, Charlie thought to himself as he carried on grimly setting out red
and green paper napkins.

At last the four of them sat down at the table.
Charlie had to concede that Sergeant McDonald might have been right about the
crackers. It would have been worth it just for the paper hats. There was
something about wearing a paper hat that made the most ponderous policeman
lighten up a bit.

‘We could have virtual crackers,’ said Keith
Burnett suddenly.

The other three stared at him as if he had just
landed from an alien spaceship and didn’t know the rules whereby human beings
on earth lived their lives.

‘Well, I mean we could take it in turns to tell
pathetic jokes - the kind that you might find in a cracker. In fact,’ he added,
apparently emboldened by the flabbergasted silence, ‘we could each write one on
a piece of paper and then swap them round.’

‘That’s one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever
heard,’ said Karen Whitefield after careful consideration.

Keith Burnett blushed.

‘No, wait a minute,’ said Sergeant McDonald. ‘The
boy’s got something… We could make our own paper hats too.’

‘The meal will get cold,’ Charlie snapped, and
then softened slightly as he saw Keith start to shrink into himself like a
tortoise tucking its head into its shell. ‘We can do the hats and jokes later,
ready for when we’re having our Christmas cake. Nothing’s going to happen
today, in fact we might as well not be here at all, except to get a chance to
catch up on the paperwork for the robbery. We can’t start interviewing
witnesses - not on Christmas Day. And the roads in and out of town are all
closed now so nobody can go anywhere and get themselves stuck or go through any
windscreens.’

‘They’ll have forgotten all about the robbery by
Boxing Day,’ Sergeant McDonald grumbled, but he sat down at the table and
started to help himself to the sprouts. In spite of being frozen and then
microwaved, they didn’t look any worse than sprouts always did, reflected
Charlie.

‘So what was all that about going to speak to Lord
Murray?’ said Karen as they finished off their microwaved turkey dinner. The
roast potatoes were the weak point, thought Charlie regretfully. They didn’t
come out well. They needed a proper oven and proper animal fat - none of this
healthy vegetarian oil or whatever it was.

‘There was something of his on the list from the
jeweller,’ he said. ‘Anyone for pudding? Ice-cream? Or will we start the cake
now instead of keeping it until later?’

Karen looked at him rather censoriously. Did she
think he should be focussing on the investigation instead of the catering? She
was quite right. But he had felt bad about asking all of them to work on
Christmas Day, and he had tried to make up for it as best he could.

‘What was it?’ she asked. ‘On the list?’

‘A gold peacock. With precious stones. Said to be
by Fabergé. We could have biscuits and cheese if you like.’

‘I’ll have the pudding,’ said Sergeant McDonald.

‘Me too!’ said Keith.

‘So,’ said Karen, raising her voice a notch to
show she was in a determined mood, ‘what was it doing at the jeweller’s shop,
then?’

‘He’d sold it to them during the summer,’ said
Charlie, getting the pudding under control. He had been sceptical about cooking
it in the microwave in the first place but it looked all right. He hoped they
wouldn’t all go down with food-poisoning.

‘So why bother questioning him, then? It didn’t have
anything to do with him any more.’

‘Just a hunch, I suppose. It looked to be by far
the most valuable item on the list, if it was really made by Fabergé that is,
and I thought Lord Murray might know more about it than anyone else. Its
history. Its provenance. Anything.’

‘Aren’t we clutching at straws, sir?’ said Karen,
taking a slice of cheese and a couple of oatcakes. That wasn’t the right way to
finish off a Christmas dinner. But maybe she was watching her figure.

‘You’re right, we are,’ said Charlie. He laid down
his spoon for a moment and turned to face her so that she would know he was
taking this conversation seriously. ‘What we really need to do is to interview
all the witnesses and get forensics back to give the shop another going-over.
But neither of these things is going to happen today.’

‘Is there any news from the hospital?’ said Keith
Burnett suddenly.

‘Yes, both patients are resting comfortably,’ said
Sergeant McDonald. ‘I rang and checked this morning… It’ll be a miserable time
for them and their families, though. Why did the robbers have to use guns? We
haven’t had anything like that in Pitkirtly since - well, I can’t remember
when.’

‘We’ve had guns being used,’ Karen pointed out.

‘Yes, but not armed robbery,’ said the sergeant,
finishing off his pudding and taking a lump of cheese and several cream
crackers. ‘The other times guns have been used it’s been in domestic incidents.’

Charlie supposed you could call the Petrelli
affair a domestic incident, but in his opinion that was stretching things a
bit. He didn’t feel like arguing about it, though. It wasn’t exactly the right
topic to discuss over Christmas dinner.

‘That doesn’t make it any better,’ said Karen. She
seemed to be in a combative mood today. Maybe she was one of those people who
don’t like Christmas. Or maybe it was the opposite: she had been planning a big
family occasion and now wasn’t even able to be there. Charlie tried to remember
if he knew anything about her circumstances. She wasn’t married, anyway, but
that didn’t mean she didn’t have family. Her parents could well be still alive,
unlike his own, and expect her to go round and be festive with them.

A faint feeling of melancholy washed over him.
They should have had a drink with their meal. That would have made them all
feel better. But he hadn’t had the nerve to flout the regulations to that
extent, quite apart from the risks if one of them had to go out urgently on a
case.

‘Aren’t there usually lots of domestic quarrels
and scenes over Christmas?’ said Keith. He had a knack of asking questions that
were difficult to answer.

‘Most people can stand the first half of the day,’
said Sergeant McDonald placidly. ‘It’s when they wake up from their
after-dinner nap that it gets tricky. They’ve had all their presents, and there’s
nothing more left to look forward to.’

‘We’d better not let ourselves nod off, then,’
said Charlie.

Once they had cleared away the dinner plates, he
set Keith to work making paper hats and tearing up bits of scrap paper to write
cracker jokes on. He planned to have another look at the jewel robbery case,
bringing all the notes and lists and immediate witness statements together on
his desk to see if he could discern some sort of a pattern that would lead him
into the robbers’ minds.

He hoped he could concentrate on it. He had a
horrible feeling that he had created a monster when he authorised Keith Burnett
to pursue the cracker theme. It would be his own fault if the young constable
suddenly appeared at his elbow asking why elephants paint the soles of their
feet yellow.