‘It’s the phone call,’ said David, looking so shaken that she thought maybe she should get him to sit down too. ‘It sounds – well, threatening.’
‘Don’t be so daft,’ she said.
‘Go and have a listen, then, if you don’t believe me. I’ve saved it.’
She replayed both the saved messages, first the one from Ms Farquharson telling her not to go to the Cultural Centre and then another one, which almost sounded as if it might be from Ms Farquharson as well, only with a very sore throat, saying, ‘It’s going to be the worse for you if you keep interfering in things, you silly old bat. You’ve been warned.’
That’s funny, thought Jemima. Ms Farquharson didn’t sound like herself the first time and then she sounded a bit like herself the second time, when it couldn’t possibly have been her. What’s going on here?
‘That’s funny,’ she said, going back to David in the kitchen. He had brewed up the tea and opened the new packet of biscuits, the Polish ones that looked like hedgehogs. She sat down at the table opposite him.
‘It isn’t funny,’ he said. ‘It’s serious. We need to get on to the police right away.’
‘Maybe we should try Christopher or Amaryllis first. They’d know what to do.’
‘The police,’ said David firmly.
‘I can’t face going out again just now. I’ll go and see them in the morning.’
‘They’d come out and see you if they thought it was urgent,‘ he said.
Later on David went home to see if there were any odd messages on his machine, which he hadn't checked for several days. It was lonely that night without him but Jemima told herself firmly that it was never a good idea to get too dependent on someone else. Self-reliance was the name of the game as far as she was concerned.
The next morning something happened that pushed the whole phone message problem right out of their heads.
The morning started normally enough. Jemima always had a cup of tea first thing while she read the local paper, if it had been delivered in time. Sometimes the delivery boy slept in, and once or twice he hadn’t got up at all and Mr Khayyam from the paper shop had to deliver the papers himself. On this occasion the paper arrived on time, and she read about the events of the day before with interest. Of course they had made a lot of mistakes, which was annoying, but it was nice to see the Cultural Centre and the family history day getting a mention, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. The journalist didn’t seem to have heard anything about Ms Farquharson’s accident, but concentrated on Lorelei’s death, with the identity of the victim adding a lot more drama to the story.
Jemima decided she would have to get her porridge and toast ready before carrying on with the paper, since there was so much to read that she needed more than tea.
The door bell rang. It was a bit early for the post, David didn’t usually ring but let himself in with his own key, and she had already received the paper. Jemima couldn’t think who it could be. Maybe Christopher or Amaryllis... but she wasn’t particularly expecting either of them, not that it wouldn’t be very nice to see them if they did turn up all of a sudden.
She put on a cardigan in case it was cold out on the doorstep, and went to the front door and opened it.
Jim Halloran fell into the hall, landing face down on the beige carpet she often wished she had never bought in the first place.
Chapter 18
Homeless in Pitkirtly
He didn’t move after that. Walking cautiously round him she saw that the back of his head was just a mess of hair, blood and something that looked ominously like bone sticking up at an unnatural angle. She didn’t want to touch him, not because she didn’t know what to do, but because she thought he might be dead and that the police might become involved and that they wouldn’t want anything touched.
She got the phone and made a couple of calls.
David got there just ahead of the paramedics, who were just ahead of the police. He was the one who persuaded her to go and sit down now that it was no longer necessary to stand vigil over Jim Halloran’s body – for Jim was indeed dead. Jemima, although trying to remain calm because she didn’t like drama, and she would certainly have hated to be the centre of a drama herself, found her legs were very wobbly when she tried to walk into the kitchen, and David had to support her by the elbow. It was nice of him, but she wished it hadn’t been needed.
Incongruously, as she listened to the paramedics and then, she assumed, the police, trampling around, she thought about the hall carpet and realised she would now have a good excuse for replacing it. David made her a cup of tea but she couldn’t drink it because it had too much sugar in it.
‘It’s for the shock,’ he explained. ‘To keep your blood sugar up. I saw that on tv a while ago.’
‘I’ll take a biscuit for my blood sugar, thanks,’ she said. Jemima had always found she could eat when very shocked or upset. She remembered getting through a whole packet of custard creams the day her mother died.
He brought the tin over.
Everything seemed to be taking a while, but as they were drinking a third cup of tea each, and there was only a thin layer of biscuits left in the tin, the kitchen door opened abruptly and a uniformed policeman appeared.
‘This house is a crime scene,’ he announced. ‘Do you have somewhere else you can go? We need you to get out now.’
‘Um,’ said Jemima.
‘What’s the hurry, pal? The lady’s seen a dead body falling in through her own front door this morning,’ growled David, rising to his feet and living up to his nickname by looming over the policeman. ‘She could be suffering from shock for all you know.’
‘I’m all right, David,’ Jemima interrupted. ‘Maybe I could go and stay with Amaryllis. I think she’s got a spare room.’
‘Stay right where you are, Jemima.’
‘No need to get aggressive, sir. We’ve got a job to do here.’
‘Aggressive? You think I’m being aggressive?’
Fortunately David’s rant was cut off by the entrance of a second police officer. This time it was Detective Chief Inspector Smith. He sent the first policeman out to the hall, apologised nicely for any inconvenience and added, ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea who the man in your front hall is - was?’
‘Of course I have,’ said Jemima. ‘That’s my cousin, the one I was telling you about, Jim Halloran.’
‘Is it, indeed?’ said Mr Smith, eyebrows raised. ‘That’s a very odd coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘It does seem a bit odd,’ said Jemima. ‘But then those things happen.’
‘Yes. It’s just that there seem to be rather a lot of them happening in and around Pitkirtly,’ said the chief inspector. He glanced at David, who was still glowering behind the table. ‘Any thoughts?’
‘No – why should I have thoughts?’ said David. ‘It’s up to the police to solve crimes, not up to me.’
‘Of course, that’s one way of looking at it.’
‘The only way.’
‘But then it’s up to the law-abiding citizens to co-operate to the full in clearing up crimes.’
Jemima didn’t like the way this was going.
‘David and I will help all we can,’ she said. ‘But we don’t have any ideas at the moment.’
‘Can I just ask you a few questions now we’re all here?’ said Mr Smith. ‘It’ll save me bothering you again for the moment.’
They graciously assented, and Mr Smith called in a woman police officer to take notes.
‘When was the last time you saw this Jim Halloran?’
‘I’ve only seen him once – the time I told you about. In the church hall, when he told me we were cousins.’
‘How long did your conversation last?’
‘No more than fifteen minutes altogether,’ said Jemima. ‘Including him showing me some stuff on the computer. Newspaper reports. I was so mixed up by then, I forgot to ask him how he got hold of them. I could have added it to my favourites and had a look l
ater.’
‘You use a computer?’ said Mr Smith, an annoying hint of incredulity entering his voice.
‘It’s the only way to do family research these days,’ she said.
‘’Be that as it may,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Did you notice if he spoke to anyone else in the room?’
‘It was very busy in there,’ said Jemima. ‘And – this maybe isn’t relevant – the whole thing was a bit of an anti-climax. I’d never met a cousin before, and I thought maybe there would be more to it than there was... But then maybe he had plenty of cousins on the other side of his family.’
‘But you didn’t see what he did after you had spoken to him?’
‘He was using the computer. His wife was with him. Maybe she saw something.’
‘And this morning?’ said Mr Smith. ‘Did you hear anything outside in the street before you opened the door?’
‘Just the door bell ringing. I was busy in the kitchen.’
‘We may have to speak to you again about this,’ said Mr Smith. ‘I believe you’ve already been asked to leave the house for a while?’
‘Told to leave, more like,’ said David.
‘Is there an address we can contact you at? Any family in Pitkirtly?’
‘I might go and stay with a friend. Ms Peebles- she’s got a flat in Merchantman Wynd.’
‘Just give us a call when you get settled in somewhere,’ the woman police officer suggested.
‘Did you notice Mr Halloran yesterday?’ said the chief inspector to David.
‘Yes – I was talking to Jemima here when he and his wife joined us. I didn’t take to the wife at all. She was a sour-faced cow.’
‘David!’
‘Well, she was,’ continued David. ‘She ruffled Mr Halloran's hair – playful like – but he lurched back – like this – ‘ he demonstrated lurching back, ‘as if it really hurt. I wouldn’t like to get the wrong side of her.’
‘This is idle speculation on your part, of course,’ said Mr Smith. ‘You don’t have any evidence that they didn’t get on with each other.’
‘It’s the police that collect evidence, not me,’ said David.
‘Let’s not start that again,’ said Jemima sternly, and added, to the chief inspector, ‘We want to do everything we can to help, you know. We’ll answer all your questions as well as we can. ‘
‘If you ask us nicely,’ said David.
‘I don’t want to let somebody get away with murdering two of my cousins,’ she said with a reproving glance at David. ‘You don’t know who might be next.’
‘Do you reckon it’s got anything to do with them being cousins?’ said David to the chief inspector, who shrugged his shoulders.
‘Too early to say, I’m afraid. But I can’t see somebody coming along with a plan to wipe out a whole family, can you? It would have to be a pretty big grudge.’
‘That can happen in families,’ said David wryly.
‘Possibly,’ said Mr Smith. ‘Anyway, thanks for your help, and I may see you again later...Would you like to go and pack a bag now? It should only be for a day or so. We need to get the scene of crime people over here as soon as possible.’
‘Is he – it – still in the hall?’ said Jemima. She wasn’t all that squeamish, of course, but she could do without seeing the sprawled body again. Even as it was, she was sure she would often re-live the moment when Jim Halloran fell in through the front door.
‘Yes, we haven’t been able to move him yet. Do you need to go upstairs? Constable Heron could go and get a few things for you.’
‘Yes, please, that would be nice,’ said Jemima. ‘There’s a weekend bag in the bottom of the wardrobe. If you just get some things to last me a couple of days it should be fine. And my hot-water-bottle,’ she added. There was no knowing whether Amaryllis might be a fresh-air fiend who liked to keep her flat at a low temperature. ‘And another cardigan,’ she added as an afterthought.
The woman constable nodded and disappeared on her mission.
‘Are you sure you want to go to Amaryllis’s?’ said David. ‘There’d be room at my old place – I could sleep on the settee.’
‘I don’t want people talking,’ said Jemima primly.
They were ushered out of the back door, Jemima clutching the small holdall which she hoped contained everything necessary. It was difficult to leave the house, besieged as it had been by violent death, but she made a silent promise to it that she would replace the hall carpet once she was back.
It was downhill to Merchantman Wynd, where Amaryllis lived. They walked in silence for most of the way. There seemed nothing left to say, somehow. But after a while David reached out for Jemima’s hand and they marched like young children on a school outing. Approaching Amaryllis’s house, they heard what sounded like young voices. Nobody who lived there had children, as far as they knew – the flats were all glass and angles.
‘Maybe one of the neighbours has visitors round,’ said Jemima doubtfully.
They rang the buzzer at the front entrance downstairs.
‘Just come up,’ said Amaryllis through the intercom.
They looked at each other. There had been the distinct sound of a child laughing in the background.
‘Maybe she’s looking after them for somebody,’ said Jemima as they climbed the stairs, stopping for a short break on the second landing. It was hard to imagine anyone leaving their children with Amaryllis even for ten minutes, since unexpected emergencies tended to arise around her and they sometimes involved guns, or people being threatened by gangsters, or people in disguise bluffing their way into bizarre situations. ‘Maybe somebody who doesn’t know her very well,’ added Jemima.
‘Hmm,’ was all David said.
Amaryllis was on the landing outside her flat waiting for them. There were more child noises.
‘Hello, you two – you’re up and about early today.’
‘We had to leave the house,’ said Jemima. ‘It’s a crime scene.’
She tried to say it in a matter-of-fact way – she knew Amaryllis was used to crime scenes, in her job – but somehow it came out with a definite wobble at the end of the sentence.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Amaryllis, glancing from one to the other of them. ‘You’d better come in and have a cup of tea.’
There were three teenagers in Amaryllis’s sleek living-room with the double doors to the balcony. The teenagers were sitting on the big white rug playing a board game with Christopher. They stared up apprehensively at Jemima and Dave.
‘It’s all right, they’re friends,’ said Amaryllis to the children, with an emphasis on the last word. ‘Come over here and sit down, Dave, Jemima.’
She led them over to the breakfast bar that ran along one side of the kitchen area. If you sat up on one of the big stools you got a great view through a gap in the houses in the next street and right down to the river. Jemima wasn’t sure she could get up on a tall stool today, so they sat on smaller chairs at a little table instead.
Amaryllis put the kettle on and made tea quietly and competently, then joined them at the table.
‘So what’s been going on? Why is your house a crime scene, Jemima?’
‘My cousin – Jim Halloran – was murdered on the doorstep.’
‘What?’
‘My first cousin – the one I met yesterday in the church hall – he was murdered. He fell in through the door when I went to open it.’
Jemima’s voice broke up altogether at the end of the sentence. Somehow stating the facts so baldly made the whole thing much worse, as if it hadn’t been so bad when the thought of it was all blurry and indistinct and could be glossed over in her mind or even made into a kind of film. She tried hard to stop it but a tear made its way from the corner of her eye down her face.
David put his hand on her arm.
‘It was an awful shock,’ she heard him explain to Amaryllis. ‘He just fell into the hall and lay there. Jemima called the ambulance and the police, of course. But it was too late. She
’s had to leave the house for the time being, while it’s still a crime scene.’
Amaryllis frowned.
‘That’s a pity. Normally you could have stayed here with me, but I’ve got these three staying at the moment – I’ll introduce you... Dave, do still have your old place?’
‘But - what would people think?’ said Jemima. She could see from Amaryllis’s expression that it was silly to care about what people thought; but Amaryllis hadn’t lived her whole life in Pitkirtly at the mercy of local gossip and speculation. People could be terribly cruel sometimes, and she didn’t want to expose David to any of that.
Just then, a voice in the background said, ‘Woohoo! I’ve won!’
They looked at each other.
‘Christopher!’ said Amaryllis.
‘Great idea,’ said David.
‘I wouldn’t want to put anyone to any trouble,’ said Jemima.
Amaryllis called Christopher over, he immediately offered Jemima a room when he heard what had happened, and it was all settled without Jemima even having to ask a favour, which was something she didn’t like doing.
‘We can go up there now if you like,’ he said.
‘No rush,’ said Jemima. She put a hand on Amaryllis's arm and spoke in a low voice. 'Amaryllis, you know about these things. Do you think I should tell the police about Clarissa?'
'What about Clarissa?' said Amaryllis.
'She pushed him over. Jim Halloran. In the church hall... It looked like an accident, but what if it wasn't?'
'But what could Clarissa have against him?' said Amaryllis, puzzled.
'She's been behaving very oddly just lately,' said Jemima. 'I feel sorry for the wee girl - she's had a bit of a crush on Andrew - you know, the curator of the Folk Museum - and she's been making awful scenes whenever he speaks to anybody else. I wonder if she's maybe lost her mind and done something silly.'
'It doesn't sound very likely,' said Amaryllis. 'But I could try and have a word with her if you like.'
'Just mind your back,' said Jemima, nodding solemnly. 'You don't want to be next on her list.'
2 Reunited in Death Page 11
