Death in a Cold Spring (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 9) (2 page)

That had been over five years ago. As far as he knew Caroline hadn’t gone on a drunken rampage for some time now, if you didn’t count their expedition to the Fife Coastal Path and the resulting fiasco at Burntisland, and Christopher knew that everybody knew him as head of the Cultural Centre and not as that mild-mannered, ineffectual man with the problematic family, but he was still reluctant to engage in light conversation with the President and see his past self reflected in the knowing pale blue eyes.

Maisie Sue jumped into the breach. You could always rely on her for light conversation.

‘I don’t know how they did it,’ she said, turning back for another look at the photograph.

‘Photo manipulation software,’ said the President with authority. ‘You can do anything with it. The press use it all the time. Never believe any pictures you see in the papers.’

He was the kind of man who could speak with authority on anything, whether he knew the subject or not. Christopher wondered if the depth of somebody’s voice automatically made their words more credible, even if they expressed outright fiction. That would be useful for a politician. He glanced across the room at Amaryllis. She had quite a deep voice for a woman, but maybe he should warn her to try and make it half an octave lower for the occasion. On the other hand, he still wasn’t entirely convinced she wanted to be elected to the Council.

‘Good to see some new faces,’ mused the President, his gaze wandering over the assembled throng, which currently consisted of Jemima, Dave and a man with a dog. He frowned when he saw this last member of the audience. ‘How did that animal get in? Excuse me one moment, I need to speak to the stewards.’

As the President strode purposefully away, the man with the dog half-turned to speak to Jemima, and Christopher saw that he was Jock McLean, and the dog was the wee white one that they had previously encountered at Christmas. Its owner was in hospital, having suffered some kind of a seizure.

Charlie Smith and his dog came rushing in at that point, barging past the woman who stood by the door, presumably in order to keep dogs and other animals at bay, and taking a seat in the back row. At this rate there would be about as many dogs as people in the audience. Christopher smiled, and glanced back at the photograph.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Maisie Sue, suddenly clutching at his arm. ‘There’s trouble brewing.’

The President had paused next to Charlie Smith, pointing to the dog and the door in an unmistakeable gesture of eviction. Charlie shrugged, stood up and said, loudly enough for everybody in the room to hear, ‘I just thought you could do with a few more voters in the audience, that’s all. But I’ve got better things to do with my time anyway.’

He walked out, the dog scurrying apologetically behind him. Just as they went through the door, Charlie bent and scratched the dog’s ears and said something to him. Probably telling him he had nothing to apologise for, thought Christopher. Unlike some dogs, who seemed to think they owned the place, Charlie’s dog had a constant air of disentitlement.

The President walked down to the front of the audience and headed for Jock McLean.

‘Come on,’ said Christopher to Maisie Sue. ‘Jock isn’t going to put up with this. We’d better make sure there isn’t any bloodshed.’

He had no idea how he would prevent bloodshed if it came to the point, but it seemed like the right thing to say. But before they could even get to the scene of the confrontation, Jock had scooped the wee white dog on to his lap. He glared at the President.

‘... not taking up any room,’ Christopher heard him say as they approached. ‘You should have a no dogs sign on the door if you didn’t want people to bring their dogs with them.’

‘It isn’t a case of having to have a sign on the door,’ said the President, sounding even more exasperated than he had before. ‘People should know not to bring their dogs to an election meeting. What if everybody brought their dogs? There could be a fight. It would distract people from the serious business of the occasion.’

‘Oh, yes?’ said Jock. He held on tightly to the dog. ‘I didn’t come along hoping to hear anything serious. I was hoping for a fight. Not between the dogs, either. They’re not all that interested in politics. Usually.’

‘Just keep hold of him on your knee and it’ll be fine!’ snapped the President. ‘But this doesn’t mean everybody and his dog can come marching in here any time. This is a special concession on one occasion.’

Christopher was close enough to hear him mutter to a younger man with a handful of leaflets, ‘You’d think a retired teacher would have more sense – but they’re always the worst.’

‘Oh, my,’ said Maisie Sue again. ‘That’s one unhappy bunny.’

Maisie Sue’s voice tended to carry for quite a long way, and the President turned and glared at her. The younger man scuttled off towards the back of the room and the other man advanced towards the semi-circle of chairs where Amaryllis had engaged in conversation with a woman in a Fair Isle jumper. Christopher narrowed his eyes. There was something disturbingly familiar about the scuttling man.

‘I see they’ve let Young Dave out,’ said Jock McLean as Christopher sat down next to him.

‘What?’

‘Don’t look now,’ Jock hissed, perhaps sensing that Christopher was about to do just that. ‘He’ll know it was me that told you.’

‘Well, somebody was bound to tell me sooner or later,’ said Christopher.

Further along the row, Jemima sniffed in disparagement. ‘I don’t know how he’s got the nerve to show his face around here after what he did.’

‘It’s a wonder anybody’s mad enough to let him be part of their campaign,’ said the older Dave from his place next to Jemima. ‘But I suppose El Presidente thinks he can get away with anything.’

‘Aye,’ said Jemima, nodding. ‘He thinks it’s in the bag. Just because his family’s known in these parts. I could tell you things about his family,’ she added cryptically. ‘Things he doesn’t want coming out.’

She had lowered her voice to such an extent that they all had to crowd in to hear anything. As a result the wee white dog had a panic attack and began to yap, drowning out some opening remarks the President had evidently decided to make while they were still talking. He cast another glare in their direction, focussing particularly on Jock McLean.

‘I’d better be ready for a quick getaway,’ whispered Jock. ‘He’ll likely have me and the dog taken out and shot any minute now.’

‘I don’t think he can spare anybody from the audience,’ said Christopher. Apart from their little group and a handful of people who were hovering at the back in the capacity either of Bowling Club officials who were worried that the audience would become so inflamed that they would trash the place, or of election helpers such as Young Dave, clutching leaflets and trying to look enthusiastic, only two people had bothered to turn up to the meeting. If the candidate with the chicken-pox had been able to be there, there would have been the same number of candidates as voters present. It was a sad reflection on the engagement levels of the electorate.

Each of the candidates gave a short speech explaining their unique selling point – this was how Amaryllis had put it when she was describing the event to Christopher and Charlie beforehand – and then the members of the audience were encouraged to ask questions. As usual that was the cue for a deathly hush.

Christopher was trying to think of a question to break the silence when the sinister-looking woman in the row behind suddenly said, ‘So what about the planning application for a supermarket at St Margaret’s Mill, then? What are you going to do about it?’

Surprisingly, at least to Christopher, this sparked a lively debate between the President, who seemed to think the voters were entitled to a supermarket on every street corner, and the woman in the Fair Isle jumper, who evidently wanted everybody in Pitkirtly to grow their own food and possibly even keep a goat in their own garden if space permitted. Then another candidate who didn’t seem to have been paying attention accused the President of owning part of the land under discussion and wanting to profit from the misery of others – although it wasn’t entirely clear whose misery was in question here. Amaryllis then pointed out that the site wasn’t suitable for any kind of development anyway because of potential flooding problems, and that they might as well try and build on Pitkirtly Island. She got a small round of applause at this point. Christopher wondered if he should be panicking yet at the thought that she might be elected after all.

After an hour or so of this, and then two men who had arrived late haranguing the panel about the frequency of bin collections, it was clear that there wouldn’t be any more questions as some members of the audience had begun to shuffle and cough, and others were sitting in a sullen silence.

Amaryllis almost skipped off her chair and up to them. ‘That went better than I expected,’ she said. ‘Last one down to the Queen of Scots pays for the drinks?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Jemima. ‘We’re going straight home, aren’t we, Dave?’

‘So it seems,’ said Dave.

‘There’s a scrapbooking programme on the television,’ said Jemima. ‘I knew they’d get round to it eventually.’

She led a grumpy-looking Dave off. He wasn’t quite dragging his feet but it was a close thing.

Jock put the wee white dog on the floor. ‘Scrapbooking!’ he said scornfully. ‘I never thought it would come to this. Dave’s right under the thumb now.’

Christopher suddenly remembered the two young artists he had left with Maggie Munro. He frowned uneasily. ‘Maybe I’d better go by the Cultural Centre,’ he mumbled. ‘I think I forgot something.’

‘We can all go round that way,’ said Amaryllis brightly.

Christopher’s unease grew as they walked down the road. He shouldn’t have left them with Maggie Munro. It had been utterly irresponsible of him. Still, he reflected, what was the worst that could happen?

Chapter 2 When Art and Craft Collide

Amaryllis still felt like skipping and jumping by the time they got to the Cultural Centre.  Jock and Maisie Sue and the wee white dog went on ahead to the Queen of Scots, where they could fill Charlie Smith in on what he had missed.

‘So what have you forgotten?’ said Amaryllis as Christopher unlocked the front door. ‘Anything interesting?’

‘Just wait out here,’ he said.

She followed him into the foyer with a theatrical shiver.

‘It’s a bit chilly to hang about out there. Especially in a skirt.’

She was slightly put out that he hadn’t noticed she was wearing a skirt, but then Christopher didn’t take much notice of that kind of thing. She didn’t think he had even seen her legs before – not that they were anything to write home about, in her opinion, being well-muscled and lacking in feminine curves.

She followed him down the corridor towards the Folk Museum until he turned on her.

‘Do you have to come along here? It isn’t chilly in the foyer, is it?’

‘But what if there’s something scary waiting round the corner?’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t turn your nose up at the services of a highly trained special agent, you know.’

‘I don’t think you’ll be able to help with anything here,’ Christopher muttered. He seemed to be holding his breath as he opened the door of the Folk Museum.

It was the smell that hit them first.

‘Don’t go in,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Let me go first.’

Christopher took a step inside, reaching round the door frame to find the light switch.

Amaryllis found she had risen up on to the balls of her feet – not an easy move in the high heels she was wearing - in readiness to act. Perhaps she would have been better to take off the shoes to use as a weapon. The room was full of the smell of blood.

If there had indeed been some sort of violent incident, someone had tidied up afterwards. There was no sign of blood on the floor, walls, even the ceiling... No dismembered bodies lying carelessly around. No sacrificial goats inside mystical symbols chalked on the floor.

Amaryllis sighed, almost disappointed.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Christopher, still peering round the room as if he couldn’t believe nothing had happened.

‘Nothing,’ said Amaryllis. She decided to take off her heels after all, just in case there was an armed intruder hiding behind the display cases or under the –

‘Eeek!’ she squeaked, stepping back from the table where she knew Maisie Sue taught people quilting on Tuesday afternoons. There was something underneath it.

Amaryllis was annoyed with herself for reacting in such a silly, girlish way to the sight of blood. She stared at the shoe in her hand accusingly. Surely you couldn’t change your personality just by wearing the wrong shoes?

Christopher came up alongside her and glanced under the table. ‘It’s all right,’ he said in the patient tone he might have used to soothe a child or small dog. ‘It’s just one of Maisie Sue’s – oh my God!’

Within seconds patience had been replaced by horror as he surveyed the blood-soaked, crumpled quilt.

Amaryllis, partly to prove something to herself, grabbed a black bin-bag somebody had left lying around, tore a hole in the top and pulled it over her head, smoothing it into places to cover up her light coloured clothing. Typical that this should happen when she was wearing light colours for once. She should have stuck to her trademark black. As an afterthought she dived into her bag and pulled out a couple of plastic shopping-bags she had taken to carrying with her everywhere since the supermarket bag charge had come in, and quickly improvised a pair of rather ugly gloves with them. She reached in under the table and tugged at the quilt. It slid out easily from under the table, leaving a smear of blood in its wake. The thing was still wet.

‘We should leave it where it is,’ said Christopher, just too late. ‘Evidence.’

‘But what if there’s – something – inside it?’

Amaryllis had worked out that the bundle wasn’t big enough to contain a body, but she hadn’t ruled out the possibility of parts – maybe even a head. They should really unwrap it to find out, but even she was hesitant. Perhaps this was one case where it would be better to wait for the police.

‘This wasn’t what you came back for, was it?’ she enquired.

‘Of course not!... It must have been them.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Them?’

‘The artists. There were two young artists here, setting up an installation. It’s part of some project of the minister’s. Mr Cockburn’s. The Face of Pitkirtly.’

Amaryllis wanted to say something like ‘Why didn’t I know about this?’ but she was afraid she knew the answer. It was because she had allowed herself to be distracted by the Council election campaign, and she had taken her eye off the ball. It was very annoying. She prided herself on knowing about this kind of thing before anyone else did. What with that and her recoil from the sight of blood, she began to worry she had been away from the security services for too long. Perhaps it was time to give into their requests for her to return and do one last mission.

She didn’t say any of this to Christopher. She knew what he would advise.

Instead she commented mildly, ‘That sounds interesting.’

He gave her an odd look and continued, ‘I should never have left Maggie Munro to supervise them. This is all my fault.’

‘Maggie Munro’s quite a sensible woman, isn’t she?’ said Amaryllis.

Again that odd look. What was Christopher not saying?

‘But I shouldn’t have left her with the responsibility,’ he said earnestly. ‘She’s only paid to do a bit of cleaning.’

‘She isn’t going to like this,’ said Amaryllis, gesturing to the pile of blood-soaked material now lying in between them.

‘Neither is Maisie Sue,’ Christopher muttered.

‘Do you think there’s something inside it?’

‘Well,’ said Christopher with his usual stoicism, ‘the blood must have come from somewhere.’

Amaryllis crouched down on the floor beside the ruins of the quilt and gingerly unfolded it at one side. The edge flopped right back with a wet thud, leaving more red splatters on the floor. She did it again. The whole bundle started to come apart. She stood up and took a step back, not wanting to see what might be in the middle.

‘It’s all right,’ said Christopher. ‘You can open your eyes now. There’s nothing there.’

‘Just the quilt?’

‘Yes. That’s bad enough though.’

‘Maybe we could put it in the wash before she sees it,’ said Amaryllis, but she reconsidered almost at once, and shook her head. ‘No, the bloodstains would never come out properly. We’ll have to burn it.’

‘Burn it?’ Christopher was aghast. ‘Do you know how long it takes to make one of those things?’

‘It’s ruined either way,’ said Amaryllis.

Christopher slumped on to the nearest chair and put his head in his hands.

‘We could take it down to the river and throw it in,’ said Amaryllis.

‘It’ll only wash up somewhere on the mud flats and she’ll find it and then there’ll be hell to pay.’

‘No – we could say it was stolen and then she’ll just think the thieves dumped it there.’

‘I suppose you’re trained to think up these stupid ideas,’ said Christopher with a groan. ‘But what if somebody sees us doing all this? And where did all this blood come from?’

‘It’s real blood, all right,’ said Amaryllis, sniffing the air again. ‘But probably not human.’

‘I hope we’re not going to find they’ve been sacrificing goats or something in the library.’

‘It’ll just be some artistic ploy,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Come on, we’d better tidy up.’

She bent to gather up the quilt in her hands.

Christopher tried to take the quilt. ‘You’re getting it all over yourself.’

‘Don’t touch it! I’ve got this plastic bag over most of my clothes, and there’s no point in both of us wearing the evidence. Go and get another bin-bag if you want to make yourself useful. And some rubber gloves if possible.’

She was sorry for snapping at him, but sometimes it was better to snap than to shoot. Not that she had a gun with her this evening.

‘All right,’ said Christopher. ‘Back in a minute. I think Maggie’s got some in her cubby-hole.’

While he was gone, she put down the bundle for a few moments and surveyed the scene. It might still be a crime scene, for all she knew. It wasn’t even debatable whether they should be tidying up. She knew most people would have called the police at a much earlier stage. But, apart from the fact that Amaryllis considered herself quite inaccurately as a kind of auxiliary police officer, she knew that all the calls at this time of night were routed through the call centre in Ecclefechan, and that the only chance of seeing an actual policeman before dawn would be if Keith Burnet, who lived in Pitkirtly, happened to be passing the building and decided intuitively that something was wrong inside.

The rest of the Folk Museum appeared to be in order. Not that she had ventured in here all that often. Her forays into the Cultural Centre tended to stop at Christopher’s office, unless someone had been murdered in the library, which had unfortunately more than once been the case in recent years. If you counted the fire exit corridor as part of the library.

Wait a minute, though. Her eyes narrowed as she looked through into the next section, separated from the first room by an archway without a door in it.

She was hurrying between the display cases when Christopher came back with more black plastic bags and two pairs of rubber gloves in a fetching floral pattern.

‘Where are you going? What’s through there?’

‘I just thought I saw – don’t come in here.’ Amaryllis came to an abrupt halt. ‘Isn’t this section meant for farming and native wildlife? And seashells and stuff.’

‘That’s the idea. There’s a school of thought that says it’s inappropriate for a Folk Museum,’ began Christopher, following her through and also coming to a standstill. ‘Well, this certainly doesn’t fit in!’

There was a lot of blood in the showcase. Even Amaryllis didn’t want to look too closely but she thought there was part of an animal in there somewhere.

‘I’m going to call the police,’ said Christopher.

It didn’t take until dawn for Keith Burnet to appear. There was only just time for Christopher and Amaryllis to have an argument about whether they should wash the blood off their hands, and to end up by cleaning themselves up a bit anyway. Keith wandered in less than half an hour later. On the other hand, he was in plain clothes, which was unusual, and Amaryllis’s eagle eye detected a small smudge of mascara on the front of his shirt. He should have worn black too, she mused. It hides a multitude of sins.

‘What’s happened?’ he said.

Christopher explained about the artists and Maggie Munro and they showed him the quilt and the contents of the display case. He looked vaguely worried, or perhaps that was just his default expression.

‘I hope you two haven’t got yourselves involved in another of those murder cases of yours,’ he said.

‘They’re not our murder cases,’ Christopher told him.

Amaryllis didn’t say anything. In effect she had always considered them as her own cases, and she knew Keith wouldn’t believe her if she denied it.

‘Have you searched the premises?’ said Keith. ‘Is there anybody else here?’

‘We had a quick look round while we were waiting,’ said Christopher. ‘No sign of anybody.’

‘Have you checked that Maggie Munro’s all right? And the artists?’

‘Um,’ said Christopher.

‘Have you got a phone number for Maggie?’ said Keith. He frowned. ‘She hasn’t been working here for long, has she?’

‘A few months,’ Christopher told him. ‘She’s very reliable.’

‘I suppose you got references when you employed her.’

‘I think so,’ said Christopher vaguely. ‘She moved here from somewhere – was it Auchterderran? Or maybe Lumphinnans. I can’t remember... I think I’ve got her phone number in the office, anyway. I’ll go and see if I can find it, and get hold of her.’

‘It isn’t on your mobile?’ said Keith.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Amaryllis interrupted. ‘He doesn’t bring his mobile out with him.’

Christopher glared at her. ‘I’ve got it in my coat pocket,’ he claimed, fishing around and coming up with his wallet, a squashed chocolate Santa Claus and a plastic moustache he might have got out of a Christmas cracker. ‘Well, I usually have it with me. It’s maybe on my desk.’

He made a dignified exit. Keith shook his head.

‘Still living in the last century.’

‘The twentieth, you mean?’ said Amaryllis. ‘I’m not sure he’s got there yet.’

‘It’ll be working in a museum that does it,’ said Keith.

‘Or living in Pitkirtly,’ said Amaryllis.

Christopher returned a few minutes later, brandishing his mobile phone. ‘It was on my desk.’

‘Better ring Maggie now,’ said Keith. ‘Make sure she’s all right. Don’t ask her to come back here now. We can see her in the morning.’