Frozen in Crime

by Cecilia Peartree

  Chapter 23 Breakthrough

  Amaryllis’s spare room was stark, but comfortable. Christopher had slept well when he eventually got to bed, which was long after his usual time. The process had involved making cocoa and lots of toast for Amaryllis, who didn’t seem to want to sleep, and then eating most of the toast himself. In the morning one of his first thoughts was to hope she hadn’t now run out of bread, because he was looking forward to making toast for breakfast in her space-age kitchen.

  He spent a few moments lying in bed and reproaching himself for feeling so up-beat after the experience of the previous night. Maybe he’d been spending too much time with Amaryllis lately and had become blasé about violence and death; on the other hand she herself had seemed to be unusually upset by what they had seen. Was it because she had imagined she might be in danger? He didn’t think so. That kind of thing usually brought out the best in her.

  ‘How many slices?’ called Amaryllis through the half-open door.

  ‘Two would be fine, if you can spare them,’ said Christopher. He wasn’t sure if she had minded him staying overnight. He usually managed to leave and go home to spend the night in his own bed, even in times of serious crisis, but on this occasion, with a mad gunman possibly wandering around outside and with both of them so exhausted that they would probably have slept through the Texas chain-saw massacre, it had seemed like the only possible option.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked as he eventually wandered through to the kitchen, trying to flatten his hair down with his hands so that he didn’t look as if he’d had a major fright.

  ‘Fine,’ said Amaryllis, sounding surprised. She presented him with a cup of coffee from her complicated machine and took a jar of marmalade out of the cupboard. She sat down at the table opposite him. She certainly didn’t look any different from usual, her startlingly blue eyes watching him with amusement as they always did, her dark red hair apparently bristling with its own energy. Even the way she sat there was energetic; she twitched and tapped her feet, ready to spring into action at any moment.

  He groaned inwardly, and then realized he had actually groaned out loud too.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Amaryllis. ‘Didn’t you sleep?’

  ‘There could have been a maniac with a gun wandering around nearby and he might be after you – why shouldn’t I sleep?’ he said. ‘Actually, I did sleep all right. I’m just wondering what you’ve got planned for today.’

  ‘Are you sure I’ve got something planned? Don’t I sometimes surprise you with my spontaneity?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say surprise is the right word,’ he said.

  ‘What is the right word, then?’

  He considered this, sipping his coffee. ‘Terrify?’

  ‘Ha ha. Well, I’m planning to go round to the police station to offer a witness statement of my own free will, if you must know. You’d better come too - we’re both in this together.’

  ‘OK, that sounds reasonable,’ said Christopher. ‘And I suppose you’re going to risk arrest by snooping around inside the police station to try and find out more?’

  ‘It isn’t a big risk,’ said Amaryllis confidently. ‘They’ve got bigger fish to fry than me. And Charlie knows I’m on their side.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Christopher. ‘So we’re snooping for clues. Keeping our eyes peeled and all that.’

  ‘We aren’t the Famous Five,’ said Amaryllis primly. ‘Apart from the fact that there are only two of us and we don’t have a dog. We’re going to see if we can pick up any chatter while we’re being good citizens and sharing our valuable information with the police.’

  Christopher thought about this. ‘We could be the Famous Five if Jock came back and we roped in Jemima and Dave,’ he pointed out after spreading marmalade on his toast.

  ‘But we still wouldn’t have a dog,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Unless we -’

  ‘Unless we what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  Christopher knew she was at her least trustworthy when she said the word ‘nothing’ in this context. His heart sank. She was going to offer to adopt the homeless man’s homeless dog, and then regret doing so the first time she had to take it for a long walk in the rain, or when it savaged some harmless child or poodle. There would be tears before bedtime.

  As it turned out, things didn’t unfold in that way at all.

  Charlie Smith, looking somewhat more grey and lined than usual, opened the door to them personally at the police station. He had a piece of toast in his hand and the dog at his heels. He explained as he ushered them through to an interview room that he had sent Sergeant McDonald home to get a good night’s sleep, and that the sergeant hadn’t surfaced yet. Constable Burnett would take their statements. He didn’t mention the dog.

  Even young Constable Burnett looked greyish.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’ Christopher enquired politely.

  ‘I’m grand,’ he said, obviously exaggerating wildly. ‘Now, it’s irregular for both of you to give me your statements together, so who wants to go first? Who actually discovered the body?’

  ‘I was first on the scene,’ said Amaryllis. ‘But only by minutes. We were together the whole time.’

  Constable Burnett sighed. ‘OK, then, we’ll just do this all in a oner. I’ll sort it out later. Don’t tell the chief.’

  They ran through what had happened. It didn’t take long, and Christopher felt guilty that they hadn’t noticed a dark figure running away from the scene, or found some amazing clue that had melted away before the police got there. The young policeman went through it all twice and there was still nothing, even when he started to ask what ground they had covered before deciding to go down to Amaryllis’s apartment.

  It wasn’t long before Amaryllis got bored with being interviewed and decided to turn the tables.

  ‘So does Mr Smith have any theories?’

  ‘Theories?’

  ‘About why somebody should shoot a homeless man in the back of the head? Was it the same person who helped him to escape?’

  ‘Um,’ said Constable Burnett. Obviously he hadn’t been in the police force long enough to know that he would have to be downright rude to Amaryllis to stop her. Anything less, and she would persist until he gave in. It was no use warning him, Christopher thought, he would just have to work it out for himself.

  Amaryllis rephrased her questions. ‘Does he have any suspects? Any good lines of enquiry?’

  ‘Come on, Ms Peebles,’ said Chief Inspector Smith, coming into the interview room with the dog hot on his heels. ‘You know I can’t tell you any of that. And neither can any of my officers.’

  ‘I’m just a concerned member of the public,’ said Amaryllis. ‘I only want to help - but I need to know a few more facts if you want me to do that.’

  ‘Not only do I not want you to help,’ said Mr Smith, ‘but if the roads were open, I would strongly advise you to go and stay in another town for a few days, until we clear this up. For your own safety, of course.’

  The words ‘and to get you out from under my feet’ hung in the air, unspoken.

  The dog barked suddenly. It was on the alert, listening. A moment later, Sergeant McDonald popped his head round the door of the room.

  ‘They’ve ploughed the road right into town, from the top. The guy from the Council’s just been in to tell us. He’s off to do the other side now. We should be able to get cars in and out this morning.’

  ‘Thanks, Sergeant,’ said Mr Smith, and looked at Amaryllis.

  ‘I haven’t got a car,’ she said, ‘and I bet it’ll be a while before the bus comes round this way.’

  ‘Hmph,’ said Mr Smith. ‘I suppose I’d better go and have a word with the people out there. Don’t go anywhere.’

  Christopher knew this was all she needed to make her go and break out through the window the homeless man had escaped from. But, although she wriggled a bit as if her body was urging her to get out, she stayed where she was. Evidently she still imagined she could ge
t more information out of Constable Burnett.

  After Mr Smith and the dog had left, and Sergeant McDonald had lumbered away in their wake, she started again.

  ‘So will you have to hand the case over to someone else now, Constable Burnett?’

  ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘For a while, anyway. We all need to go home and get some sleep. We should be able to get a couple of officers in from Rosyth to cover for us for a few days. Now that we’ve worked over Christmas and everything.’

  ‘Have you had to sleep in the police station?’

  ‘Me and the chief inspector have. In the cells.’

  Constable Burnett’s expression showed that he didn’t think much of this arrangement.

  ‘Next-door to the homeless man?’

  ‘Not exactly next-door.’

  ‘I hope he didn’t snore. Or talk in his sleep,’ said Amaryllis, perhaps hoping the opposite of what she said.

  The constable laughed, with an undertone of unease as if he didn’t know where this was going.

  ‘Was he a kind of guest in here?’ said Amaryllis. ‘You didn’t lock him in, did you? Did you search him when he first came in?’

  The constable shook his head. ‘No reason to search him. It was a pity we didn’t, considering -’

  He stopped in mid-sentence. Amaryllis pounced.

  ‘Considering what? Did they find something at the crime scene? A gun?’

  Constable Burnett laughed. ‘Of course not. It was a silly bit of costume jewellery. Karen found it in the car.’

  ‘What kind of jewellery?’ asked Amaryllis. She used the voice that was supposed to fool people into thinking she didn’t care much about getting an answer, but Christopher could see the hair at the back of her neck quivering with excitement.

  ‘What kind of jewellery? Oh - um -,’ said the constable. He blushed suddenly. ‘I think it was a gold - octopus. Or maybe a shark?’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Amaryllis, and got to her feet. ‘We’d better be going now. Come along, Christopher.’

  ‘But Mr Smith said we weren’t to go anywhere,’ Christopher protested.

  ‘Since when did we ever bother about what Charlie Smith said? Let’s get going. No time to lose.’

  ‘Are you planning to leave town?’ said Constable Burnett. ‘Make sure you sign your statements before you do - I’ll have them ready by this afternoon. Or maybe tomorrow. Just pop back in.’

  His words followed them down the corridor - none of the doors were locked - and out through to the reception area, where Mr Smith and Sergeant McDonald were in conversation with a man in a hi-vis jacket with ‘West Fife Council’ written on the back. The dog was circling round restlessly behind the little group.

  ‘Hey, you two, we haven’t finished with you yet!’ said Mr Smith as they passed. But Christopher thought it was a half-hearted attempt to stop them. Charlie Smith had burnt himself out.