6 The Queen of Scots Mystery (12 page)

Chapter 21 Home again

To say Jock was pleased to be home
would have been a huge understatement. He went from front room to kitchen, opened the door to the garden and breathed in the air, which made the air inside the hospital seem as if it had been composed of alien elements, made himself a cup of tea without any problem and watched some of what he thought of as junk television. The reason for called it that was that it literally seemed to revolve around junk of various kinds. First there was a programme about someone who made a living going round looking in people’s attics and selling what they found for a ridiculous amount to someone with more money than sense. Jock knew that all he had in his attic was old paperwork from his teaching career, a lot of dust, and possibly some insulating materials, although as far as he was concerned the paperwork did the job quite adequately. The next programme was something about the next-door neighbours spying on you and complaining about your clutter. 1984 or what, thought Jock with scant regard for literary accuracy.

He was mildly surprised to find Neil
still in residence, but he didn’t mind too much. Neil was quiet around the house, didn’t talk too much and seemed to be brooding about something or other. Of course Jock had hoped the Queen of Scots would be open again by now too. He really missed his Old Pictish Brew. Drinking it from a bottle in your living-room wasn’t the same at all, though he was glad someone had left a few bottles on the kitchen worktop anyway. He had one with a thick sandwich at lunchtime, when he got bored enough with the junk programmes to make his head feel as if it might explode, all of an hour after he got back.

Charlie and the dog called round to see him during the afternoon. He suspected Charlie was trying to keep his mind off his own troubles and wasn’t really that worried about him
. But it was better than the latest junk television, which seemed to have something to do with people spying on their own families and then conspiring to change their lifestyles. If only people would mind their own business, the world would be a better place.

‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to report the assault?’ said Charlie after a bit of preliminary discussion around the topic. ‘Neil seems fairly confident about identifying them. It was his ex-wife, after all.’

‘But he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the place,’ said Jock. ‘Well, strictly speaking I suppose I wasn’t either.’

‘There’s no strictly speaking about it,’ said Charlie, as fiercely as was possible for a man with a dog standing on his stomach. ‘You definitely shouldn’t have gone in there at all.
It was against the law, and it was bloody stupid too.’

‘It was an emergency!’ said Jock. ‘I needed some Old Pictish Brew. For medicinal reasons.’

‘That reminds me,’ said Charlie. ‘I went into the off-licence while I was in Dunfermline yesterday. I’ve got something for you in my coat pocket. If I can get him off me for a second…’

He pushed gently at the dog. It didn’t budge. He hoisted himself up and lifted it down gently. It jumped back up again. He gave up. ‘The coat’s in the hall,’ he said. ‘You can go and have a look if you want.’

Jock went and retrieved the four bottles of Old Pictish Brew Charlie had managed to cram into his pockets. He was rather touched. After all, Charlie must have a lot on his mind at the moment.

‘How’s your case going?’ he asked as he returned to the front room.

‘Case? Oh, you mean the case against me.’ Charlie made a face. ‘Don’t tell anybody else, but it’s not going all that well… They told me off for interfering in the Queen of Scots thing, on top of everything else. I think that’ll land me in even more trouble. But never mind.’

Jock admired stoicism – even although it seemed to be a vanishing quality.
Or maybe because of that.

‘You could always go and do something else for a while,’ he suggested vaguely.

‘It wouldn’t be just for a while,’ said Charlie gloomily. ‘I’d never get back on the force if I did that. It would be the end. I’d have burned my boats.’

‘Sometimes you have to do that,’ said Neil from the doorway. ‘You get to the stage where you can’t keep slogging on in the same wrong direction and you have to make a break for it.’

He walked into the room, hands in pockets and head downcast. Jock didn’t like to see the landlord of his favourite pub in that state, but he couldn’t think what would cheer the man up. Seeing somebody else arrested for murder? Being allowed back to the pub and to his own flat? Getting his own back on somebody?

‘Are you really thinking of going to Spain, then?’ said Charlie.

Neil nodded.

Jock looked from one of the men to the other and back. Spain? What was all that about? He had only been away in hospital for a day or two, and now he had come back to find his whole world turned upside down. What would they do if Neil went to Spain? Where would they go to gather and drink and listen to Amaryllis or Christopher explaining the solution to the latest local mystery?

‘You can’t do that!’ he exclaimed. ‘What about the Queen of Scots?’

Neil shrugged his shoulders. ‘There’s nowhere else to go with it. I’ve done all I can.’

‘But why do you need to go anywhere with it?’ said Jock, desperately trying to understand. ‘What’s wrong with it as it is?’

‘I’ve lost the will to do it,’ said Neil.

Charlie was nodding, perhaps in sympathy. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It gets to you, doesn’t it?’

Jock was baffled by the two of them. ‘What’s wrong with staying where you are and trying to make things better?’ he demanded. ‘If you two don’t pull yourselves together, I’m going to end up talking about how this is what’s wrong with young people today. They give up and walk away if they’re faced with any kind of difficulty. They don’t want to be bothered staying and fighting.’

‘All very well if we were young,’ said Neil. ‘But I’m getting on for fifty. If I’m going to make a change I need to do it now.’

‘Fifty?’ cried Jock. ‘That’s no age at all. And you,’ he said to Charlie accusingly, ‘you can’t be any older than that.’

‘Forty-seven next birthday,’ said Charlie. ‘And I’m feeling every year of it now, I can tell you.’

‘Ha!’ said Jock. ‘
Wait till you’re as old as me. Then you’ll be sorry.’

He wasn’t sure what he wanted them to be sorry about. He himself had lived in Pitkirtly for his whole working life, teaching in the nearest secondary school for his sins, getting married and then divorced during that time, retiring from work and spending much of his time propping up the bar in the Queen of Scots. What did he have to show for it?

The door-bell rang.

Just as well, Jock reflected, otherwise we’d all be involved in a messy suicide pact and somebody would have to clean up after us. He got up and went to the door. Tricia Laidlaw stood on the doorstep, holding a dish in front of her like some sort of a trophy.

‘I heard you’d got out of hospital. I thought I’d bring you some lasagne in case you can’t manage to cook,’ she said.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Jock. ‘Do you want to come in for a minute? Neil and Charlie are here,’ he added quickly in case she got any ideas.

‘Oh! Maybe I’d better not.’

‘No, it’s all right, you can help me cheer them up.’

‘Well, maybe for a second or two.’

The second or two stretched well into the evening as they all talked about turning-points in their lives, then heated up and shared the lasagne and then,
somewhat grudgingly on Jock’s part, had a bottle each of Old Pictish Brew. Tricia had never tried it before, but she coped well with its distinctive peaty undertones. Not that Jock would normally have dreamed of using such pretentious language to describe it.

‘You know what?’ said Neil towards the end of the evening. ‘I’m definitely going to go to Spain. It’s the lasagne. Practically their national dish, isn’t it?’

‘I thought that was Italy,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re thinking of paella.’

‘Whatever,’ said Neil. ‘Lasagne, paella, what’s the difference?’

‘Do you really want to know?’ said Jock.

Neil shook his head.

Charlie stared at him. ‘You know what?’ he said slowly. ‘Would you consider selling me the Queen of Scots? I think I might want to take it over.’

Chapter 22 Amaryllis Rides Again

Amaryllis was passing the Queen of Scots when she noticed something unusual. She got up and rang the bell.

‘Too late,’ said the driver. ‘You should have rung before we got round that last corner. Next stop Limekilns.’

‘Don’t make me do anything silly,’ she warned him. ‘Just
let me off here. I’m asking nicely.’

‘I thought you were going to Dunfermline,’ he said. ‘That’s where your ticket says you’re going.’

‘I refuse to be defined by my bus ticket,’ she said haughtily.

Evidently afraid of being drawn into a long and
undoubtedly insane conversation, he screeched to a sudden halt, sending her flying and causing someone’s hat to transfer itself on to the head of another passenger three rows in front.

Amaryllis alighted with dignity, taking her time. The doors closed with a snap, almost on the backs of her heels. She shouted something very rude as the bus pulled away, then turned her attention to the Queen of Scots. She had seen a uniformed police officer opening the front door and holding it for Neil Macrae, Jock McLean and Charlie Smith to go in. Either
a bizarre reconstruction of the crime was going on, or something else of interest. Amaryllis knew she had to be there in any event.

She did wonder if Jock and Neil had finally owned up to having been in there the night Jock was attacked. It would be only fair if Bill and Andrea Lawson were held to account, after all – especially Bill, who had caused her to sprint through the back gardens of Aberdour once too often.

She crossed the road and, finding the door unlocked behind the men, went into the foyer of the pub. The lights were on in the bar, so she pushed the swing door open and stepped inside.

Neil and Charlie were poking about in a drawer while Keith Burnet watched and Jock McLean sat on a bar stool as if he were waiting to be served with a pint of Old Pictish Brew.

‘… and the rest of the books are upstairs in the flat,’ Neil was saying. ‘There’s some stuff on the computer as well. Jackie helps with that. I’m no use with it. Too old to pick up all that electronic stuff.’

Keith Burnet glanced round a
t that moment and noticed her.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said in rather an unwelcoming tone.

Jock looked in her direction and laughed. ‘Amaryllis is always around when she thinks something’s going on,’ he said. ‘She’s got her radar switched on all the time, looking for blips.’

‘I like to keep tabs on what my friends are up to,’ she said. ‘So I can keep them out of trouble.’

Charlie Smith, overhearing, made an inelegant snorting noise. ‘Lead them into it, more like.’

The dog came out from behind the bar to welcome Amaryllis.

‘At least somebody’s pleased to see me,’ she said.

‘The flat goes with the pub, is that right?’ said Charlie to Neil.

‘It certainly does,’ said Neil. ‘Two bedrooms, lounge and kitchen. And bathroom with built-in shower.’

‘What’s going on here?’ said Amaryllis slowly. It sounded almost as if – but surely she had the wrong end of the stick – as if Charlie were considering buying the Queen of Scots. She sat down suddenly on the nearest table. It wobbled but stayed upright.

‘Having a look round,’ said Charlie.

Amaryllis glared at Keith Burnet. ‘How did they talk you into this? I thought Neil wasn’t supposed to come near the place? They haven’t got you into trouble too, have they?’

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Jock McLean. ‘Since when have you been so bothered about what people are supposed to do and not do? Who made you the Chief Constable all of a sudden?’

‘It’s all quite above-board,’ said Keith Burnet, blushing. ‘Neil asked us if he could do this. Inspector
Armstrong told me to come down with them and make sure they didn’t touch anything except the books.’

‘Books?’ said Amaryllis. She was annoyed with herself and with them for making her sound so squeaky and feminine. Christopher was the one who traditionally asked the stupid questions.

Charlie sighed. ‘Neil’s thinking of going to Spain, and I’m considering buying the pub.
So we've come down to have a look at the books. The accounts,' he added in case she didn't understand technical accounting terms. 'Simple really. Now are you satisfied?’

‘Mmm, interesting,’ said Amaryllis. She quite liked the idea of the cosy sameness of Pitkirtly life being shaken up a bit. She wasn’t sure how some of her friends might feel, though.

‘Good idea, isn’t it?’ said Jock. ‘I wasn’t sure at first, but with Charlie getting thrown out of the police he’ll need to go somewhere.’

Amaryllis stared at Charlie as if he had sprouted parsley on top of his head – which at least would have helped to hide his bald patch. ‘Have you been thrown out of the police?’

‘Of course not,’ said Keith Burnet impatiently. ‘He’s allowing for every eventuality. Neil can’t sell up or go to Spain anyway, not until he’s cleared of this Liam Johnstone business.’

‘But if you’re not thrown out of the police,’ said Neil, peering at something in the folder of paperwork, ‘then I can’t sell up and go to Spain, and the whole deal falls apart.’

‘You could sell to somebody else,’ said Jock. He caught Amaryllis’s eye. ‘How about you? Did you get a good pay-off from those spymasters of yours?’

‘That would be telling,’ said Amaryllis. She certainly had no wish to go into the licensed trade. She could imagine how draining it would be having to spend hours on end listening to people in various stages of intoxication holding forth about how miserable – or happy – they were, and what they thought about politics, and what the weather had been like today and was going to be like tomorrow. And that was quite apart from the financial responsibilities of running a business, having to order things and chase up suppliers, and make sure nobody got into your cellar and knocked over a canister of carbon dioxide. Even the thought of it all was enough to send her into a bleak depression.

‘Christopher, then?’ persisted Jock. ‘Why would he want to run a boring old museum when he could spend all his time at the Queen of Scots?’

Fortunately nobody replied to him.

Neil, who was looking a bit abstracted anyway, said, ‘I’d better go up to the flat and see if I can find the rest of it. I can’t get this to add up the way it should.’

‘We’d better stick together,’ said Keith Burnet. ‘Otherwise I can’t keep an eye on you all.’

Amaryllis didn’t like the idea of being kept an eye on, but she was curious to see the flat upstairs, so she followed the others as they trooped back through the entrance hall and Neil unlocked the door to his own living space.

She was envious almost at once of the view of the river he had from his front room. For an insane moment or two she wanted to buy the pub herself just for that view. Her own flat had a little balcony she sometimes used for sitting in the fresh air, but all it overlooked was a
lane that led to the bit of waste land on which the village hall had once stood. Being able to see the sky in all its moods, the wide river and everything beyond it, would have been perfect. It wouldn’t be worth the hassle of running the pub though. She even considered for a few seconds whether Neil would sell her the flat separately, but she could see that for the landlord to live on the premises was advisable, if not essential.

‘That’s funny,’ Neil was saying. ‘Where’s my computer gone?’

‘Your computer?’ said Keith. ‘Where do you keep it?’

Neil indicated the top of a cluttered old-fashioned desk with pigeon-holes at the back.

‘On here.’

‘You don’t lock it up when it’s not in use, then?’ said Keith, making it sound as if this was what all sensible computer owners did in a crime hotspot like Pitkirtly.

Neil shook his head.

‘Could you have left it somewhere else?’ asked Charlie. ‘By your bed? In the kitchen?’

Neil gave him a look. ‘It’s a desktop computer. The monitor alone weighs a ton. It’s plugged into an internet connection right here. Why would I want to move it around?’

‘Have a look anyway,’ Charlie suggested. The two of them conducted a leisurely search of the flat. Jock joined Amaryllis at the window, watching the
distant chimneys at Grangemouth and the tide creeping in over the mud-flats.

‘Anything else missing?’ said Keith as they returned to the living-room.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Neil.

‘Televisions, DVD players, mobile phones?’ said Keith.

‘I’ve got my phone with me. I don’t have a TV.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Keith. ‘I mean – how do you manage without one? For the news and stuff, I mean.’

Neil smiled. ‘I get all the news I need in the bar. I don’t have time to watch television.’

Keith got out his notebook with a sigh. ‘How much do you think the computer was worth? Have you got the serial number?’

‘Do I look as if I’m the kind of person who keeps track of serial numbers?’ said Neil.

‘I don’t know what that kind of person would look like, sir,’ said Keith solemnly, making a note.

Jock turned from the window at last. ‘Do you think it was the two that attacked me? That took the computer?’

‘What, Bill and – I mean, what are you talking about?’ said Neil.

‘Attacked you?’ said Keith, pencil suspended in mid-air. ‘What’s all this about then?’ He gave Charlie Smith a hard stare. ‘You didn’t say anything about that, sir.’

‘It can’t have been them,’ said Amaryllis, taking no notice of Keith. ‘They don’t have a computer in their house. Of course, they might have got rid of it already…
Or hidden it in a cupboard. I didn’t have time to open the wardrobes or anything… Keith, if you can’t close your ears, can you go downstairs for a minute?’

Keith’s stare swivel
led from Charlie Smith to Amaryllis and back. He put away his notebook and pencil. ‘There’s things going on here,’ he muttered. ‘We’ll find out the whole story, don’t you worry.’

Surprisingly, he did as Amaryllis suggested. She thought it might have been because of Charlie’s presence. Evidently Keith was still clinging to the hope that his superior officer would be reinstated, although in the light of what Amaryllis knew Charlie had been doing during his suspension, this seemed increasingly unlikely.

‘Why should anybody steal my computer?’ said Neil. ‘It was quite an old one – I was thinking about replacing it soon. Jackie told me I should get something that didn’t run on steam.’

‘They must have taken it for whatever was on it,’ said Amaryllis. ‘That’s why Andrea and Bill Lawson would be the most likely suspects – if they still had it in their house, that is. But then, they may have passed it on to somebody else already.’

‘If they got in here, maybe somebody else could too,’ said Jock.

‘But they only got in because you left the door open,’ said Neil accusingly.

‘I only did that for a quick getaway,’ said Jock. ‘Anyway, you should have stopped them. You were the one keeping a lookout.’

‘Does anyone else have a key?’ said Charlie.

Amaryllis gave him a scornful look. ‘You wouldn’t need a key. There’s all sort of ways in.’

‘Maybe for somebody like you,’ said Charlie. ‘But any normal person would need a key.’

‘Normal?’ said Amaryllis huffily.

‘Andrea might still have a key,’ said Neil. ‘I think Jackie
does too – but she wouldn’t take away the computer. If there was anything she wanted to do with it, she could do it here. She’s the one who knows how everything works. I used to let her use the internet when she had time. She used to look up holidays. She always fancied going to Thailand.’

‘What about the rest of your books?’ said Amaryllis, losing interest in Neil’s barmaid, of whom she had never taken any notice. She supposed the girl had been about in the background a lot of the time, but she had never drawn attention to herself by being particularly obnoxious or excessively polite.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Neil. ‘I’ve got to have all the paperwork too, for the VAT people.’

He went to the sideboard and rummaged around inside.

‘That’s funny,’ he said after a moment. ‘There’s all these loose papers, but I always put them away in folders to keep things straight. The folders aren’t there.’

‘Could you have put them somewhere else and then forgotten?’ said Amaryllis. She had an increasingly bad feeling about this for Neil’s sake, but it was combined inexorably with a boost to her spirits as she sensed that a real challenge was about to appear in her path.

‘No,’ said Neil indignantly. ‘They’re always in here. I never take them out of this room. It would be pointless.’

Keith came back upstairs. ‘We’ve got to go now,’ he said. ‘Inspector
Armstrong has told me to go and assist with a road traffic incident in the High Street.’

‘It isn’t Dave, is it?’ enquired Amaryllis.

‘Not this time, Ms Peebles. He does keep us all quite busy, though, but not so much since he got married… You’ll all have to leave the building. I’ve got to secure it now. We can’t have anybody else getting in.’

‘There’s nothing for us to see here anyway,’ said Neil gloomily. ‘Until you can get my computer back. And the folders.’