6 The Queen of Scots Mystery (15 page)

‘Is that her name? Jan?’

Jackie seemed amused by this.

‘Haven’t you met her before?’ said Amaryllis.

‘I’ve seen her around,’ said Jackie. ‘She used to hang out in the Queen of Scots sometimes trying to get him to notice her.’

‘Who? Who did you think she wanted to notice her? Was it Liam Johnstone?’

‘No, of course not!’ Jackie was even more amused now.

‘Who, then?’ Amaryllis hoped fervently it wasn’t Christopher the woman had her eye on. Apart from anything else, she could never tell him
about it if that was the case, or at least not unless she actually wanted him to die of embarrassment.

‘It was Neil. That’s what was so stupid about it.’

‘Neil Macrae?’

Jackie nodded. ‘He didn’t notice. He had other fish to fry. In a manner of speaking.’

She winked grotesquely. Amaryllis turned on her heel and went back in the direction she had come from. Of course Jock McLean and Neil were long gone.

It was probably nothing. But it was another piece of information. Another two pieces, to be more accurate.

Chapter
25 Post-fair fatigue

As he dragged himself in through the front door of his house two hours after the end of the craft fair, Christopher wondered if it was possible to eat himself into a coma on digestive biscuits, or whether he should have stopped by the wine shop on the way home and stocked up on something a bit stronger.

‘All right?’ said Charlie cheerfully, looking up from his newspaper.

The dog rushed towards Christopher out of nowhere, wagging its tail. Christopher summoned up the energy to pat its head. For the first time in his life he wished there were more dogs in the world and fewer human beings.

Charlie took another look. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘You’d better sit down. Do you want some toast?’

‘Toast,’ groaned Christopher. That reminded him of something. ‘Have you seen Amaryllis?’

‘Not today,’ said Charlie, getting up and heading for the kitchen. He still looked irritatingly cheerful. What had got into him?

‘Have you heard something?’ asked Christopher.

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s Sunday – there’s no post.’

Christopher heard the other man whistling a happy tune as he went through to the kitchen and started to fill the kettle.
The dog, evidently in a quandary about whether to follow Charlie or to stay here with Christopher, ran to and fro between the two rooms in a demented kind of way. Christopher eased himself into a chair and groaned. He didn’t even want toast. He couldn’t think of anything he did want.

He slumped down further in the chair. If he'd been on his own in the house he might even have slumped on to the floor, but he was afraid of the dog's reaction. Either it would panic a
nd try to climb into the bookcase, something it had already attempted on more than one occasion, with dire results for the collection of vintage encyclopedias on the middle shelf, or it would crawl all over him with its tongue hanging out. He wasn't keen on doing anything to provoke either of these possible reactions.

Charlie came back with some toast. He had even found an ancient pot of strawberry jam.

'I scraped the mould off the top,' he said, still in his irrationally cheerful mode. 'It should be fine.'

Christopher had an aversion to mould as well as to cheerfulness. He ignored the jam, and nibbled at the buttered toast instead.

'Was it a disaster?' said Charlie.

'What?'

'The craft fair... I'm sorry I couldn't come along and give you a hand, but I had to walk the dog.'

Christopher was beginning to suspect Charlie
had acquired the dog deliberately so that he could use dog-walking as a Get out of Jail Free card for those times when somebody might ask him to do something.

'He seems to need more and more exercise. I suppose it's because he's been eating properly for a while and he's got more muscle tone. Of course, the more exercise he gets the more muscle he'll develop... Sorry. What was it like?'

'Have you ever thought about what the Tower of Babel must have been like?' said Christopher between nibbles.

'Not really.'

'Well, how about the shops just before Christmas? Have you ever been into one?'

'Not really,' said Charlie again. 'I'm always on duty. We don't get - I mean, I didn't get - any time off around then. It was the worst time of year for shoplifting, not to mention domestic troubles.'

‘I’ve never seen so many crazed people in the Cultural Centre,’ said Christopher. He re-considered for a moment. ‘Well, not since Jemima had that Homecoming thing, anyway. And at least nobody got murdered today. As far as I know.’

‘Maybe they just haven’t found the bodies yet,’ Charlie said, laughing.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ said Christopher.

‘I’m fine,’ said Charlie. ‘I feel much better than I have for a long time.’

For goodness’ sake, any minute now he would be dancing round the front room singing a selection of songs from the shows. Or dashing off to fly a kite. Christopher frowned at the remains of his toast.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Charlie. ‘Can I get you more toast? Something else? Will I give Amaryllis a call and get her to come round?’

‘Look,’ said Christopher, forcing himself to speak of things that he had always thought it best not to speak about. ‘Amaryllis and I don’t live in each other’s pockets, you know.’

‘You told me that before.’

‘She can’t decide to waltz round here and cheer me up,’ Christopher continued. ‘It doesn’t work like that. It’s more – well, random. She’s just as likely to drive me mad, or to make me do something I know I’m going to regret, than to make me happy.’

‘You don’t have to be happy to be, well, happy,’ said Charlie. He wasn’t making any sense – or was it all in Christopher’s own mind, he wondered. Charlie could be a figment of his imagination, like that man in the film he hadn’t really understood until afterwards, and only then because Jemima had taken the trouble to explain it to him in words of one syllable.
Apparently it was meant to be a true story about a world-famous mathematician, too. Some people led weird lives. He was quite glad he was completely normal.

‘She did run off out of the craft fair, though,’ he said. He had seen her pushing through the crowds and dashing out into the car park. For two pins he would have followed her, but his conscience had made him stay until the bitter end. He wasn’t very pleased with his conscience at the moment.

‘I wonder why she did that,’ mused Charlie. ‘She doesn’t usually do anything without a reason, does she?’

‘I think she got into a bit of an argument.’

‘Who with?’

‘Well, it seemed to be Jan from the wool-shop and Penelope Johnstone. And Neil’s barmaid was about somewhere too. Jackie.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Charlie. ‘Penelope will be feeling a bit vulnerable right now: easy to upset her. I don’t know about Jan from the wool-shop – have I met her?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Christopher. ‘You might not remember her if you had. She keeps herself in the background a lot. She wears knitted stuff quite a lot
, though. And she sometimes goes around with Penelope.’

‘Hmm. Knitted stuff. Is she quite old then?’

‘Not as old as Jemima,’ said Christopher. ‘But it’s hard to tell… She tried to teach Amaryllis to knit,’ he added darkly. The idea of Amaryllis knitting freaked him out, a bit like matter and anti-matter. It was as if the two concepts – knitting and Amaryllis - couldn’t exist in the same universe without causing it to destroy itself in self-defence.

He closed his eyes. At this point in the day he didn’t really care whether the universe destroyed itself or not. He
was too tired to think about anything else.

‘I’ll switch the light off
in here,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m going in the kitchen to peel potatoes. Then you can have forty winks.’

Forty? More like a thousand and forty, thought Christopher.

It seemed like only moments later that there was a ring at the doorbell. He opened his eyes. In the shaft of light from the hall he saw Charlie tiptoeing into the front room.

‘Do you want me to let them in? Or will we pretend we’re out?’ he whispered.

‘Who is it? Do you know?’ Christopher whispered back, trying not to laugh.

‘I think it’s Maisie Sue McPherson and some cronies,’ said Charlie, hunching down low as if taking cover.

A moment later the letter-box rattled. ‘Coo-ee!’ called a familiar voice. ‘Christopher, are you OK?’

‘Don’t answer,’ hissed Charlie.

‘But,’ said Christopher, beginning to hoist himself out of the chair.

‘Just don’t!’ said Charlie, sticking a hand out and pushing him down again. Christopher collapsed against the worn sage green cushions. At least, he supposed they were sage green. He seemed to remember they had once matched the curtains. But then, what did he know? He wasn’t a
knitter, or a quilter, or embroiderer, or whatever the hell else had been represented at the craft fair. Their minds, attuned to colour because of the hours they had spent on their crafts, were capable of holding infinitely more shades of everything than his.

They didn’t know how to catalogue fossils, though, he reflected smugly. He smiled to himself as he hunched down in the chair.

After a while and some muttered discussions outside, the besiegers gave up and, as far as the two men knew, went away. Charlie crawled out into the hall to confirm it.

Meanwhile a slender figure dressed all in black materialised in the front room. Christopher gave a start, and then wished he hadn’t when he worked out who it was. He groaned to mask his fright.

‘How did you get in this time? Is there a wormhole in the cupboard under the stairs or something even worse?’

‘It’s unimaginably worse,’ said Amaryllis. ‘And I’ll be sharing the secret with Mais
ie Sue unless you agree to come up to Jock McLean’s with me and get him a takeaway. He needs feeding up after his experiences.’

‘Mine’s a chicken biryani,’ said Charlie Smith, getting off his hands and knees with a sigh of relief. ‘And a plain naan.’

Chapter 2
6 More Visitors

Jock McLean was fed up with all the solicitous glances and unexpected Indian takeaways, but most of all he was fed up with the lack of somewhere to go. It wasn’t that he didn’t have friends, of course, but he couldn’t help feeling like a spare part at Jemima and Dave’s, no matter how keen Jemima was to initiate him into the mysteries of Scottish cuisine. Jock’s interest in cuisine was limited to regarding food as fuel. He couldn’t quite understand all the fuss about horse meat being found in steak pie, or whatever it was. As far as he was concerned all animals were fair game if they were stupid enough to fall for the idea of being domesticated, which so often had a grisly downside. Not for dogs and cats, evidently, or at least not in this culture.

It was a lesson to men never to become completely domesticated either. He had seen the hungry way some women looked at him.

He was almost tempted to go down to the Queen of Scots – just for the happy memories. Mind you, they weren’t all happy. That time somebody had knocked him on the head wasn’t exactly his finest hour. He frowned as he thought about that night. What had the Lawsons been doing there? He
vaguely remembered one of them saying they were looking for something, but they hadn’t said what it was, and he had a feeling their quest had been fruitless. What could it be that was so important that it caused them to panic and lash out? Had the police found it after all?

He was frowning as Neil Macrae came into the kitchen. Jock had the
local newspaper spread out on the table and perhaps Neil thought there was something annoying in it. There often was, but Jock had barely glanced at it this time.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Neil, glancing down at the paper. ‘Something political?’

‘Hmph! Politicians – they’re all the same. Sell their grannies for the sake of a bit of ephemeral power. They’ve got worse over the years, mind. More cynical. Less interested in how normal people live.’

‘You know what?’ said Neil, going over to the sink to re-fill the kettle. ‘The more I see of people – the more I stand behind that bar and listen to all their ranting and rambling – the more I wonder if there’s any such thing as a normal person.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Jock, staring at the paper again and actually reading it this time. ‘That’s all nonsense!’

‘Well, it was only homespun philosophy,’ said Neil, ‘but I didn’t think it was that bad.’

‘Not you! This! Look at what they’ve printed here.’

Jock pointed a shaking finger at the middle of the front page. He didn’t think he had ever been so offended. Well, not lately.

‘Elderly man attacked in disused death pub,’ Neil read out slowly. ‘Disused? That’s a bit strong.’

‘Elderly!’ said Jock. ‘I’ve a good mind to go down to the newspaper offices and show them who’s elderly.’ He read on down the article that accompanied the headline. They had made up most of it, of course. The part about him being a retired teacher was more or less accurate.
The rest was pure fiction, including an alleged quote from him about how wonderful the hospital staff had been. ‘I suppose they got this from the NHS. You can’t trust anybody these days.’

‘I see they’re asking anybody with information about the attack to come forward,’ said Neil, reading down to the end. ‘
That bit must have come from the police. Ha! Hell will have to freeze over before Andrea and Bill confess to anything.’

Later that day events came close to proving Neil wrong about this.

Jock didn’t feel like going out – apart from anything else, he imagined his neighbours pointing him out to their friends as an elderly loser who didn’t have the sense not to be knocked on the head in a disused death pub – so he watched more junk television for a while, had a bite to eat, watched more television and awoke with a start as the door-bell rang. He wasn’t sure how long it had been ringing for, but he thought Neil was still at home so surely he would have gone to see who it was once the ringing became insistent.

He got to his feet, noticing for the first time how his joints creaked, and went into the front hall. There were two figures silhouetted against the glass panel in the door. Please don’t let it be Mormons, he begged silently. He did have his methods for dealing with people who came round to try
and sell him religion or double-glazing – the same method in each case, in fact – but he was resentful of having got up from his chair just for them.

It wasn’t Mormons.

He opened the door and somebody pushed a big bunch of flowers in his face. He sneezed.

‘We’re sorry if we hurt you,’ said a woman he didn’t
immediately recognise, peering round the chrysanthemums. Her voice was vaguely familiar.

A man pushed the woman and the flowers aside. ‘We’ve brought these round as an apology. We didn’t know you’d had to go to hospital until we read it in the papers.’

He recognised the voice this time. He took a step backwards.

‘Flowers? You’ve brought me flowers?’

‘This was your stupid idea,’ said the man to the woman. ‘I told you he wouldn’t be impressed with flowers.’

‘They’re chrysanthemums,’ said the woman, who now seemed to be about to burst into tears.

Jock didn’t like bullies. Especially the kind who knocked men in late middle age on the head and left them on the floor of the pub of death.

‘Do you want to come in?’ he said to the woman
, whom he had now identified as Andrea Lawson. ‘I’ll get them into water. I like that colour.’

He put out his hand to take the flowers.

Amaryllis materialised at his shoulder and grabbed them almost out of his hand. She brandished them like a weapon.

‘Do you really think flowers are going to stop him pressing charges?’
she shouted at them.

Andrea paled and her mouth quivered. ‘He isn’t really going to do that, is he?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Bill Lawson. ‘If he’d been going to report us, he’d have done it long before now. This was a mad idea. I’m going.’

He turned his back and started to walk away. Am
aryllis took a step forward and, lifting the bouquet in the air, brought it down on his head. As he turned back to remonstrate, she did it again. And again.

It was curiously invigorating to see Amaryllis fired up and bent on revenge. Jock started to laugh out loud for what seemed like the first time in days.
There was no excuse for such cruelty to chrysanthemums, of course. All the same, he enjoyed seeing Bill Lawson, bewildered and flustered, alternately trying to defend himself from the assault and brushing petals and battered leaves off his head and shoulders.

Andrea’s hand was over her mouth, but he wasn’t sure if she was trying to conceal a smile or whether she was about to start sobbing.

A dark figure swooped up to Jock’s garden gate on a bicycle, jumped off and came rushing up the path. He attempted to take hold of Amaryllis and drag her away from her victim. Instead he landed on his back in the little hedge that bordered the small rose bed.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Inspector Armstrong,’ she said at once, letting the bent stems of the chrysanthemums fall on the ground. ‘I don’t know my own strength.’

Jock knew this was a barefaced lie, and he thought the inspector would see through it right away. But instead the police officer came to his feet in a lithe movement that spoke of many hours of healthy exercise and possibly many falls from that bike of his and subsequent recoveries, and said, ‘No problem, Ms Peebles. Was this man bothering you?’

‘Umph,’ spluttered Bill Lawson. ‘The boot was on the other foot, I can tell you.’

Inspector Armstrong surveyed the scene. ‘Would you like to press charges, Mr Lawson?’

His tone told the other man not to bother.
Jock tried to blend into the background, fearing the inspector would bring up topics none of them wanted to discuss.

There was a pause. Bill Lawson glanced from Amaryllis to the police officer and back. ‘Not on this occasion,’ he said.

‘It might be best if you left now, in that case,’ said Inspector Armstrong, looming over him. He and Amaryllis seemed to be escorting him off the premises. It was weird to see them working together, Jock decided. Had she no loyalty to Charlie Smith?

Meanwhile Jock noticed Andrea, still on the doorstep, had taken her hand away from her mouth. ‘Is Neil in?’ she said to him softly.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jock. ‘I’ve been asleep.’

There was a sound from behind him. ‘I’m here,’ said Neil. ‘What do you want?’

‘Can I come in for a minute?’ said Andrea.

‘Not a good idea,’ said Neil. Jock was about to remonstrate with him when Andrea said,

‘I wondered if you’d found anything?’

‘Found anything?’

‘In the Queen of Scots. In the cellar. Something that belongs to Bill.’

Neil recoiled perceptibly. ‘The cellar? I haven’t been in there since…’

‘That’s what we were doing there, that night,’ said Andrea. Her eyes were big and frightened.

At that moment Bill Lawson yelled, ‘Come on, Andrea, what’s taking you so long?’ and she jumped.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, running her words together in her haste to finish her story. ‘Bill dropped something. When he was delivering the beer. He’s worried the police will find it and connect him to Liam.’

‘They’ve probably found it already,’ said Neil grimly. ‘What was it?’

‘His watch,’ said Andrea, turning to go as Bill called again. ‘I gave it to him on our wedding day. It’s engraved with our initials. I don’t think they can have found it. They haven’t said anything. Neil, couldn’t you go and have a look?’

Neil shook his head. ‘I can’t go in
to the pub. You’ll have to hope they haven’t got it.’

He turned and went into the house. Jock watched Andrea Lawson make her way down the path on legs that looked unsteady; she wobbled almost into the hedge and, hurrying up when her husband called again, sounding more and more impatient, she collided with the gate and cried out in pain. Jock didn’t like to see a woman getting so upset. He didn’t think she had been wise in her choice of husbands or other associates. Lurching from Neil to Bill to Liam showed a complete lack of common sense and self-preservation. But there was no telling some people.

He shivered. He was still in his shirt-sleeves and the day had closed in and was now unseasonably chilly. He went upstairs to find a jumper.

Neil was standing in his room – the one that used to belong to Jock’s son before his wife had taken him away – looking down at something in his hands. Jock craned his neck to see what it was. He hoped Neil wasn’t going to break one of his son’s dinosaur models. But it was a silver coloured watch with a stretchy metallic strap. As Neil stretched it in his hands, Jock saw that the links were
already broken in one section, as if it had snapped. It could easily have fallen off someone’s wrist as they lugged beer kegs around. As he watched, Neil turned and saw him. The two men stared at each other, Jock for one uncertain what to say. He felt as if he ought to apologise for staring, and yet it was his own house and Neil hadn’t tried to hide what he was doing. Neil should really have told Andrea he had the watch, even going after her to give it back. She had certainly been agitated about it. But evidently Neil didn’t think he owed Andrea anything, not even that. The divorce must have been more difficult than Jock had imagined.

Wasn’t that always the way, though? Jock
walked on along the landing to get the jumper, mulling over the incident and trying to make sense of it. There was no point in saying anything to Neil. No point in stirring up something that neither of them could possibly want to talk about.