Death in a Cold Spring (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 9) (18 page)

‘What are you talking about?’ said Christopher.

‘You’ll see,’ she told him.

Chapter  20 What was lost is found

At first Christopher was irritated about being the last to know something, yet again, but as they approached the restaurant Jock muttered to him, ‘Do you know what we’re doing here?’

It was slightly cheering not to be the only one who was completely baffled, and yet Jock didn’t seem to display his bafflement on his face to quite the extent Christopher always felt he himself did. Maybe he practised in the mirror or something. On the other hand, the idea of Jock practising anything in the mirror made him feel a bit queasy.

There wasn’t exactly a lunchtime rush at the restaurant, just as there wasn’t at the Queen of Scots. The rest of the population of Pitkirtly must have gone to Dunfermline to do their weekly shopping. The manager of the local supermarket often complained about that. Still, he managed to stay open just with people purchasing odds and ends they had forgotten about, and perishables such as bread and bananas. Having worked in the supermarket for a while, Christopher knew all about that.

‘I’ll go round the back in case they make a run for it,’ murmured Amaryllis, and slid round the corner like a dark shadow. She was back in her natural environment, and obviously enjoying it. Christopher almost hoped she didn’t win the Council election. She would be furious, of course, but it would be worth it in the long run. He knew she hadn’t yet realised how soul-destroying the task of running West Fife would be.

‘Come on, then,’ said Keith to the other two.

‘I’d better wait out here with the dog,’ said Jock, evidently getting cold feet. ‘I don’t think Mrs Petrelli would let him inside anyway.’

‘You could tie him up to those railings,’ said Keith, indicating the fence that bordered the next-door garden.

‘He wouldn’t like that,’ said Jock.

‘Mr Wilson?’ said Keith.

‘OK,’ said Christopher.

They marched into the restaurant. There was an ice-cream counter at one side and tables and chairs at the other.

‘Mr Wilson!’ said Mrs Petrelli, emerging from behind a large potted palm. ‘I haven’t seen you for a long time. Would you like ice-cream? Do you have a favourite flavour?’

‘I like strawberry,’ said Christopher.

Keith gave him a small, sharp kick as if to remind him they weren’t really here for the ice-cream.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Petrelli. How are you getting on without Giancarlo?’

‘Sergeant Burnet – do you like ice-cream too? Or would you prefer something more substantial?’

She certainly didn’t seem like a woman with something to hide. On the other hand, maybe she didn’t know she was hiding anything. Christopher himself wasn’t sure what it was. Being friendly with Stewie wasn’t exactly a crime. It was just weird.

‘Is it all right if I ask you something, Mrs Petrelli?’ said Keith.

‘Yes, of course. I have nothing to hide.’

Was that a flicker of anxiety in her eyes? Or just a trick of the light? Christopher wished he were better at reading people’s expressions. He was beginning to feel redundant here.

‘Do you miss Giancarlo a lot? Isn’t it lonely being here without him?’

It was an odd line of questioning.

‘I miss him, yes, of course I do. He’s a long way from home. I worry about him all the time. But,’ she shrugged her shoulders, ‘what can I do? He’s a big boy now. He must make his own way in the world.’

‘Have you ever thought of taking in a lodger?’ said Keith. ‘Renting out your spare room?’

‘Well, of course, I have Stewie,’ said Mrs Petrelli.

‘Stewie?’ said Keith.

‘He’s a good friend of Giancarlo. He doesn’t pay me much rent, but he sometimes helps with the ice-cream sales. Not in this cold spring, of course, but he can help a lot when summer comes.’

‘Ice-cream sales,’ Keith repeated, nodding.

‘And there’s his friend now too. They’re no trouble and I enjoy having the young people about. It reminds me of...’

Her brown eyes were sad. Christopher wondered if Giancarlo would ever come back from America. Maybe he would get rich and send for her to join him. Amaryllis would be disappointed, but it would probably be best for the boy.

‘His friend?’ said Keith.

‘They have separate rooms, of course,’ said Mrs Petrelli. ‘I don’t think they’re romantic friends. He told me she needed somewhere to stay in a hurry, and that she didn’t want to go out much. He sometimes brings her downstairs, when all the customers have left for the night.’

‘Are they both upstairs now?’ enquired Keith.

‘Do you want to speak to them? I don’t know if she’ll come down at this time of day. But you can speak to them in my sitting-room if you want.’

This was so tortuous that in a way Christopher wished Keith was like some of the American cops you sometimes saw on television, who just stormed people’s houses first and asked questions later. But then he had always preferred a more subtle approach. It probably worked better in Pitkirtly than it would in Chicago.

Mrs Petrelli glanced round the restaurant area as if to make sure no more diners had sneaked in while her attention was diverted, gave a quick instruction to the waitress, and led Keith and Christopher through a door and up the stairs.

There was a flurry of movement above them, running feet and a couple of shouts. Then Amaryllis appeared at the top of the stairs.

‘It’s all right – I’ve locked them in,’ she announced.

‘What are you doing there? I thought you were just going to wait round the back,’ said Keith.

‘Just making things a bit simpler,’ she said.

‘Oh yes, by getting yourself arrested for wrongful imprisonment,’ he muttered.

She flounced off. They followed, and found their quarry in a small kitchen. The two young people weren’t making a noise or a fuss about being locked in, but were sitting at the tiny table, both staring miserably ahead. The newcomers crowded into the doorway.

Stewie looked the same as usual. The girl looked even worse than she had appeared the last time Christopher had encountered her. Her hair was greasy, and trailed down one side of her face, almost covering her left eye.

‘Sammy?’ he said gently.

Stewie nodded. The girl didn’t move or speak.

‘Is this...?’ said Keith, stepping forward into the space. He took a long breath. He seemed to be preparing himself for something.

‘It’s all right,’ she said to him suddenly. ‘I know about Craig. You don’t need to tell me.’

She blinked once or twice, but if there were tears in her eyes she was determined not to let them fall.

‘How did you know?’ said Keith.

‘Stewie told me.’

‘What are you doing here?’ said Keith.

She was silent again.

‘Hiding,’ said Stewie. ‘She’s hiding from people who want to kill her.’

‘Sammy,’ said Amaryllis, ‘this is Sergeant Keith Burnet from the police. He’s going to help you.’

Her tone was so authoritative that Christopher didn’t see how anybody could fail to have confidence in it. Certainly Sammy stared at Amaryllis for a moment and then nodded in response.

‘I want you to answer all his questions,’ Amaryllis went on, ‘so that we can protect you from these people, whoever they are, and ensure they’re brought to justice.’

Sammy looked as if she might speak for a moment, but there was silence.

‘OK, Sammy,’ said Keith. ‘Because I’m on my own here – I mean, without any other police officers around – I can’t really question you properly. We can either get somebody else to come here or we can go round to the police station where we can look after you better.’

‘Mrs Petrelli and me have looked after Sammy all right,’ said Stewie, his face going bright pink.

‘She’s eaten nothing but my own pasta,’ said Mrs Petrelli, backing him up in the best way she knew. ‘And our ice-cream. Pistachio is her favourite.’

Christopher had inadvertently tried pistachio ice-cream once. Even now the colour made him feel ill. He grimaced, but he felt he had to intervene in the conversation to prevent any misunderstandings. ‘I don’t think Keith was talking about food,’ he said. ‘He meant that it will be harder for anybody to get at Sammy if she’s in the police station. Anybody who wants to harm her, that is.’

‘No, not at all!’ exclaimed Mrs Petrelli indignantly. ‘It’s perfectly safe. We have steel doors and special locks here. My husband insisted... That was during the bad times,’ she added in a more subdued tone.

Mr Petrelli had been a gangster whose activities had caused mayhem. Of course he would have turned his home into a fortress.

‘I can’t go out there,’ whispered Sammy. ‘They’ll find me.’

‘We can get a car for you,’ said Keith.

She shook her head. She seemed to be willing to trust the people in this building, up to a point at least, but not to venture outside this small world she and Stewie had created.

‘What about your parents?’ said Keith. ‘Can we bring them over? Would that help?’

She blinked back tears again, but nodded agreement.

‘OK, then,’ he said. ‘That gives us somewhere to start. I’ll get on to it. The rest of you, stay exactly where you are and don’t do anything.’

After Keith had left the kitchen, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he did so, Christopher glanced apprehensively at Amaryllis. He had an idea that being told to stay exactly where she was would make her want to do exactly the opposite.

It was all right at first. She seemed to have decided it would be satisfying enough to question the girl before Keith got back.

‘Sammy – you don’t have to say anything to us, of course, but I think I may have found your tablet. At the harbour. Did you go and hide in the kiosk after that?’

Sammy nodded. A single tear trickled down her face.

‘They took Craig,’ she whispered. ‘I ran away. I thought they’d got the tablet, but they must be still looking for it.’

‘Do you have any idea why they took Craig?’

‘It was the camera footage,’ she said in a trembling undertone. ‘They didn’t like it.’

‘What was it they didn’t like?’

Another tear trickled down her face. Christopher wanted to intervene and stop this, but his curiosity got the better of him and he couldn’t bring himself to call a halt.

‘We were practising,’ said Sammy. ‘With the camera and the tablet. We accidentally filmed them.’

‘When was this?’ said Amaryllis.

‘A while ago. Before we thought of using the Folk Museum.’

‘So the artwork involved film, did it?’

The girl nodded, looking more miserable by the minute. ‘We wanted to create a scene, and record people’s reactions to it. It was a conceptual artwork. With elements of time-based media.’

The art jargon sounded wrong coming from her, but it flowed off her tongue easily enough. It took Christopher a while to work out what she was actually saying.

‘So you were planning to set something up in the Folk Museum and then leave the camera running and record people when they saw it?’ said Amaryllis. She sounded more amused than shocked.

‘Maisie Sue’s quilt?’ said Christopher, suddenly getting the point. ‘You did that to Maisie Sue’s quilt just so that people would be horrified by it?’

Sammy nodded, glancing from Amaryllis to Christopher and back like a trapped animal.

‘Where did you get all that blood? Was it from the butcher’s?’

‘No! I’m a vegetarian! It was from my Mum.’

‘From your Mum?’ Christopher didn’t like the sequence of images that passed through his mind like a jerky old black and white movie. Except there was quite a lot of red in it too. Blood red.

‘My Mum works in a lab,’ said Sammy patiently. ‘In that research park – in between Dunfermline and Rosyth. She analyses blood samples and separates out the plasma in a special machine. We got some of her blood out of the freezer.’

‘I don’t think I want to know any more,’ said Christopher.

Stewie moved his chair closer to hers, and put his hand on her arm. ‘She’s upset. Don’t ask her any more questions just now.’

‘Do you know who any of these people were? The ones who took away your brother?’

Amaryllis seemed determined not to give up.

The girl shook her head and burst into tears. Stewie moved closer still and put his arm round her shoulders. He glared at Amaryllis. She left the kitchen and began to pace up and down the landing, which must be a bad sign. ‘I hope the police won’t do anything silly,’ she commented.

‘Keith won’t let them,’ said Christopher, in the kitchen doorway.

‘It isn’t up to Keith,’ said Amaryllis. ‘If they come roaring round here with their sirens going, or even if they bring Sammy’s parents in with a massive police escort, that’s going to advertise to the whole world that she’s here.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Christopher. ‘It could be about something completely different.’

‘Well, no-one’s going to think it’s just a cat up a tree, that’s for sure,’ said Amaryllis, still pacing.

‘I want my Mum and Dad,’ wailed Sammy from the kitchen.