7 A Tasteful Crime

by Cecilia Peartree

  Zak was following Catriona as the others headed for the office, when she started screaming.

  ‘Mr Wilson!’ Zak called back down the corridor. ‘I think you’d better come and have a look.’

  Christopher thought he would really rather not, but as usual his sense of responsibility triumphed over his reluctance to get involved. He walked forward. To his annoyance, Deirdre and Oscar followed him. He turned and remonstrated mildly. ‘I really don’t think...’

  ‘We’ve just as much right,’ said Oscar over his shoulder.

  Catriona and Zak stood in the library doorway.

  The tall shelf unit which had contained the big dictionaries and encyclopaedias had fallen down right across the aisle between ‘Languages’ and ‘Biography’. And underneath it lay a woman, face down.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Oscar, dashing forward.

  ‘Maria!’ moaned Deirdre, just behind Christopher, and there was a thud as she hit the floor.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Christopher. He ignored Deirdre for the moment and said to Zak, ‘Get Catriona out of here. The staff tea-room. Stay there. Phone the police. And an ambulance. No. A doctor.’

  He didn’t know if paramedics or a doctor would be of any use, but he knew it was something you just had to do under these circumstances.

  Oscar was leaning down towards Maria. He caught Christopher’s eye. ‘Can we get this off her?’

  ‘I’m not sure that it’s...’

  ‘We’ve got to! As long as there’s any chance...’

  Considering how still the woman was and the fact that there was a pool of blood by her head, Christopher thought there was no longer a chance, but he couldn’t deny Oscar this tiny shred of hope. He moved forward and together they heaved the shelf unit upright. It wasn’t so heavy now that the dictionaries and encyclopaedias had spilled out all over the floor. He wondered how it had fallen. The last time he had seen it, the whole thing had been secured to the wall.

  Oscar crouched down and turned Maria on her side while Christopher went round to the back of the shelves and examined the fixings. They were broken – no, not broken, sliced through, because all the breaks were completely even, leaving sharp edges that were dangerous in themselves.

  ‘She’s cold,’ said Oscar, standing up again. He was frowning, but not distraught. ‘It’s too late... I don’t know what happened here. Her face is all twisted and swollen – and there’s a head injury,’ he added in a doom-laden voice. He looked accusingly at Christopher. ‘How the hell did this happen?’

  ‘I don’t think you should have moved her,’ said Christopher, trying to remember all the things you shouldn’t do at a crime scene. He and Oscar between them had probably done at least half of them by now.

  He looked at Maria and wished he hadn’t. Now that he could see her face, he couldn’t avoid observing the swollen lips, the distorted expression and all the grey deadness of it.

  ‘What’s happened to Deirdre?’ said Oscar suddenly.

  ‘Oh, she fainted in the corridor,’ said Christopher. ‘I suppose I’d better see if she’s all right.’

  He made his legs carry him back to where his former wife was starting to stir. Well, at least she was still alive. He wondered why Oscar apparently hadn’t noticed Maria’s absence at an earlier stage. But maybe their lives had been less closely entwined than he had imagined. Not that he had imagined very much about them and their lifestyle. There had been too many other things to think about.

  Deirdre groaned, tried to sit up and slumped back to the floor.

  ‘Would you like some water?’ he asked.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said.

  Zak came back down the corridor. ‘The police are on their way. Is she all right?’ He indicated Deirdre.

  ‘I think so,’ said Christopher, just as Deirdre opened her eyes again and said, ‘No,’ very firmly.

  ‘Do you want some water?’ Zak asked her.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.

  Zak returned to the staff tea-room while Christopher helped her to sit up and lean on the wall. He didn’t enjoy touching her lean, muscular shoulders. She seemed to have metamorphed into a Russian weightlifter since he had last met her. Well, maybe not a weightlifter. A gymnast, possibly.

  He sat down too and leaned on the wall next to her.

  ‘Is Maria – dead?’ said Deirdre.

  He nodded.

  ‘She wasn’t at breakfast,’ added Deirdre after a moment.

  Christopher wasn’t really surprised by this revelation. ‘When did you last see her?’ he enquired, hoping he sounded casual and not like some sort of KGB interrogator.

  Deirdre frowned. ‘Well, she wasn’t in the hotel bar last night. Oscar said she was in her room. But I suppose maybe he hadn’t actually seen her in there, just guessed she was there... Oh, my God! Do you think Oscar....?’

  Christopher glanced back over his shoulder to the library, where Oscar had drawn up a chair and was sitting near Maria’s body. He certainly didn’t look like a man overwhelmed with grief, but it was a far cry from that to having actually killed the woman.

  ‘Well, they always suspect the husband or wife, don’t they?’ he said lightly, and then wished he could cram the words back into his mouth. Deirdre’s face crumpled, and she put her hands up to cover it.

  ‘I didn’t kill Eric,’ she wailed. ‘I loved Eric! He was a lovely, fun person. Always cheering me up with his wacky gestures.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Christopher, feeling sceptical. He thought her distress could be genuine, though. ‘Did they have separate rooms, then? At the hotel?’

  ‘I shouldn’t really say anything,’ said Deirdre. ‘But yes, they always did. Maria said she couldn’t stand Oscar’s snoring... I don’t blame her. He used to make the light-fittings rattle.’

  Christopher remembered she had been married to Oscar at one time. He hadn’t cared enough when she first mentioned it to ask when or for how long they had lived in wedded bliss. He still didn’t care, for that matter. But it did cross his mind that if Deirdre and Oscar should want to get back together, the way was now clear for them.

  It was unthinkable, though, that either or both of them would commit murder in order to achieve this. All they had to do was to divorce their respective spouses – something Deirdre already had plenty of experience of – and they could be together if not in no time, then fairly soon after that. And in this day and age they could live together before the two divorces even came through, no questions asked. He was alarmed to detect a censorious echo in his thoughts at this point, although logically there was no reason for it. They were all adults. The fact that he couldn’t imagine anybody wanting to marry either of them was neither here nor there either.

  Zak came back with a glass of water.

  ‘There’s an ambulance on its way too,’ he said. ‘If you’re still not feeling right, we could ask the paramedics...’

  ‘I don’t need an ambulance,’ said Deirdre. ‘I’m fine.’

  She sipped daintily at the water. Christopher stood up.

  ‘I suppose we shouldn’t leave the building,’ he said, ‘but I’m going into the office. Zak, will you please stay here in the mean-time?’

  He knew he didn’t have to add ‘to keep an eye on Oscar and Deirdre’ because Zak was conscientious and would do exactly that without being asked.

  If only he knew more people like Zak.

  Chapter 18 Jock to the rescue

  Jock didn’t want to be left on his own with Penelope Johnstone – that was all he needed, for her to start getting ideas about him as well as about Christopher – so he offered to walk round to the police station with Darren to see if they could find out what was happening to Tricia.

  ‘They probably won’t keep her very long,’ he said, trying to sound paternal and reassuring.

  Darren sniffed. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, Mr McLean. Once they’ve got you in their clutches, they don’t let you go. It’s that thing about birds and bushes.’

&
nbsp; ‘I know what you mean,’ said Jock. ‘But they can’t keep her without any evidence. It’ll be all circumstantial. Just because she was there.’

  ‘But the apple...’

  ‘We don’t know if it was the apple. They won’t even have got the results back yet. They’re just trying it on.’

  The police station was closed. According to a new sign by the front door, it was now only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 2 pm and 3.30 pm or by appointment.

  ‘You’d have to be mad to make an appointment to see the police,’ said Darren. He kicked the door. An alarm started up inside, and they both turned and made a run for it.

  They stopped to catch their breath halfway down the High Street.

  ‘We’ll be on CCTV,’ said Jock. ‘That’ll be the next thing – we’ll be arrested for damaging their property.’

  ‘I didn’t damage it,’ said Darren indignantly. ‘I hurt my foot though – do you think I should sue them?’

  Jock didn’t dignify that idea with an answer. As they stood there irresolute, a police car headed past them, sirens blaring. Darren jumped into a hedge; Jock wasn’t quite quick enough to do the same. By the time he inspected the hedge to see how prickly it was, the police car had disappeared in the direction of the Cultural Centre. But it didn’t necessarily have to be heading for the building itself, Jock reasoned. There were lots of shops and houses in that direction too. It would just be too much of a coincidence if....

  Jock’s mobile phone went off as Darren was extricating himself from the hedge. ‘That’s twice today,’ he complained, taking it out of his pocket. ‘It usually only does it once in a blue moon.’

  ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened now,’ said Christopher’s voice, sounding even more harassed than usual.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose I will... Another murder?’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I didn’t – you just sounded weird.’

  ‘Weird? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Who is it this time?’ said Jock wearily. Christopher certainly was jumpy these days. Maybe it was something to do with his ex-wife being in town. Jock lived in fear of his own ex-wife returning to Pitkirtly. He had changed the locks all these years ago on the day she left, and more recently, after getting to know Amaryllis, he had considered asking her to set up some sort of hi-tech early warning system.

  ‘It’s Maria from the TV crew. Oscar’s wife. She’s in the library. There’s blood... but something funny about her face as well. It’s all twisted.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jock. ‘We saw a police car heading in your direction – I’d look out for them any minute if I were you.’

  ‘Yes.... Here they are now.’

  Somewhere in the background Jock heard sirens. He wasn’t sure whether he was hearing the sound through his phone, in which case it must have been bounced from one satellite to another hundreds of miles up in space before being sent to a destination only yards from its source, or through his ears in the old-fashioned way.

  Christopher didn’t say any more, and after a while Jock switched his phone off and put it back in his pocket. He considered whether to turn the sound off so that he wouldn’t be bothered with even more calls, but you never knew when there might be another murder or some sort of crisis. It must be one of those days.

  ‘What is it?’ said Darren. ‘Has there really been another murder?’

  ‘Yes. Maria. In the Cultural Centre. With the spanner.’ Jock didn’t know why he had added the last bit. It just seemed right.

  ‘A spanner? In the Cultural Centre?’

  ‘No, not with a spanner,’ Jock muttered. ‘I was just messing about.’

  Darren gave him a look. ‘Well, at least they can’t pin this one on my Mum,’ he said. ‘She’s got a cast-iron alibi. You can’t get a better alibi than being in custody, can you?’

  ‘We don’t know when it happened,’ said Jock. He didn’t like pointing this out, but he didn’t want the boy getting his hopes up either.

  ‘Was that woman poisoned too?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough. Christopher’s there. The police have just arrived.’

  ‘So there’s nothing we can do again,’ said Darren, kicking the kerb. Jock hoped he was responsible for buying his own shoes these days.

  ‘The police here are going to be a bit over-stretched,’ Jock commented as they walked on down the road. ‘They’ll probably call in reinforcements.’

  Darren glowered. ‘That means people who don’t know their way about. They’ll pull in anybody they don’t like the look of. Me, for instance.’

  ‘Let’s go to the Queen of Scots,’ said Jock.

  Darren looked at his watch. ‘Will it be open?’

  ‘We can get Charlie to let us in.’

  But they had only just got down to the Queen of Scots when Jock’s phone went off again. Three times in one day! This was beyond a joke. He decided he would leave it at home in future – that usually worked well for Christopher.

  ‘Do you know where Penelope is? I can’t get her on the phone,’ said Christopher in an oddly quiet voice – almost a whisper.

  ‘What do you want her for?’

  ‘I need her help. I think I’m about to get arrested.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ said Jock. ‘Penelope won’t be able to help with that. She’ll just make things worse. Have you tried Amaryllis?’

  ‘I need an alibi,’ said Christopher in an even lower voice. ‘For yesterday evening.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Zak do?’

  ‘He was out with his girl-friend. She’s one of the Folk Museum volunteers – Hattie.’

  ‘What sort of a name is that?’ said Jock.

  Once again Christopher stopped speaking without saying goodbye. He really wasn’t himself. Normally he had excellent manners, by modern standards. But maybe the police had knocked the phone out of his hand before dragging him off, handcuffed and pleading.

  ‘What was that?’ said Darren.

  Jock groaned. ‘We’ve got to go and find Penelope and take her round to the police station to give him an alibi... It’s going to be awful crowded in there at this rate.’

  Chapter 19 Outrageous of Pitkirtly

  It took Amaryllis a while to think of something outrageous to do. Another sign of impending old age! She wished she had realised sooner that this was happening to her. It might not have got to this point if she had done something about it.

  It might have been better to get started during the hours of darkness, but doing something outrageous in daylight was of course more of a challenge, so in a way she welcomed all the difficulties. However it was very likely she would be seen and caught, or at least tracked down later. That was when she thought of donning a disguise, and it was at that point she realised there were probably at least fifty ready-made disguises lying around in the Cultural Centre at this very moment, just waiting to be appropriated by some unscrupulous person.

  She wouldn’t necessarily have chosen to appear in public dressed as a banana, or a courgette, or a cauliflower, but that was the beauty of it, in a way. Nobody would know it was her, or at least not unless they got quite close, which she didn’t intend them to.

  The one flaw in the plan – or at least the only flaw she was willing to admit – was that it involved getting into the Cultural Centre without anyone seeing her. In normal circumstances this would have been almost impossible. Amaryllis had asked Christopher on several occasions why he had set up such stringent security, and he always said the Council had made him do it, but really she thought it was mainly an overreaction to what had happened to Jemima’s cousin in the fire exit corridor.

  Now she was hoping security had been relaxed somewhat for the benefit of the television crews. Perhaps alarms had been switched off, or people had forgotten to switch them on, or the TV people had been allowed to go in and out through the fire exit as a special concession... Or, she thought, hope rising as she headed down to the building by a circuito
us route, the librarians needed to go in and out that way during their efforts to tidy up, and they would leave it open for a while during this process. If she hadn’t been trying to be unobtrusive in her approach, she might have hopped, skipped and jumped her way towards the place.

  The circuitous route took her round the back of the shops on the High Street. It must be trade waste collection day, for she narrowly escaped being mown down by a reversing truck, the kind that clanked and groaned and creaked as it swallowed the rubbish. A man in a hi-vis vest yelled at her.

  Having achieved her goal without being flattened, Amaryllis could see that there was something going on round at the front of the Cultural Centre, and she saw blue flashing lights reflected in the windows of the nearby supermarket. If the police were searching the place at this very moment then it would be more difficult to get in, but nothing was impossible. She found her heart beating faster, almost as if it had been shocked back into its natural rhythm after all the months of torpor when she had kept to the letter of the law.

  Moving cautiously, though not over-cautiously, which would have been conspicuous in itself, she approached the area by the fire exit, where the bins were kept.

  She moved right up to the door and tried to open it with a gentle pressure on the handle. It was locked.

  It was as she glanced round to see if anyone was watching that she noticed a piece of yellow fleecy fabric trailing out of the top of one of the giant wheelie-bins. Surely they hadn’t just thrown away the costumes? That seemed amazingly profligate, even for a television company. But even if it was just one, that would be enough...

  Amaryllis opened the bin and peered in. A banana outfit sat on top of the other rubbish, folded neatly. It was the stalk at the top, attached to a sort of hood, that had been left hanging out. Someone had been in a hurry.

  She lifted it out and held it up against herself to see if it might fit. She knew the costumes had really been meant for children to wear, but she wasn’t all that big and she might be able to squeeze into it.

  There was blood on it. Anyone who wasn’t quite so used to seeing blood might have dropped the costume on the ground and gone into hysterics. Amaryllis didn’t do either of these things. She looked again at the rust-coloured stain. She sniffed at it to be sure it wasn’t paint, although she had been in close proximity to dried blood often enough to be reasonably sure of identifying it. Perhaps one of the children from the procession had had a nosebleed. Or they had been injured in the fighting between the fruit and vegetable contingent and the church people. It would be quite reasonable to throw the outfit in the bin once that happened.