‘Maybe she is alive, old and gnarled but sitting there in her chair like a spider in a web, and scuttling out every so often to claim another victim,’ said Christopher.
Jemima couldn’t imagine where this flight of fancy on Christopher’s part had come from. He wasn’t usually given to expressing himself in that silly way. Anyway, it wasn’t very nice to compare Auntie Jessie to a spider in a web, no matter how many murderers she might have spawned.
She closed her eyes as a signal to him that she didn’t want to talk any more. She wasn’t going to go off to sleep as some people of her age might have done at that time of the afternoon, and she was still well aware of the buffeting of the wind against the bus and the sporadic rattling of rain on the windows as they careered through the darkening lanes. She would be glad when it was all over and she could get back to her own house and her own familiar routine. She and David had things to do every day of the week: sometimes simple little things like going down to the corner shop for the latest edition of a puzzle book, and sometimes more complicated projects like finding out about old buildings in Pitkirtly and photographing them for the scrapbook. It was good to think of her grannie walking down the same streets as she did, and buying knitting wool at the same shop where Jemima now got her scrapbooking materials. It gave things a feeling of rightness, like the sun rising in the morning and setting at night.
She woke up with a start. Christopher was shaking her gently by the arm.
‘Nearly there, Jemima.’
They were just turning down the steep slope that led from the main road down towards Pitkirtly. She was a little bit cross with him for not waking her sooner. Now she would probably feel a bit cross and not quite right for a couple of hours, and she didn’t want to be like that when she saw David, in case he thought it was his fault.
That was why she allowed Christopher to go into the fish shop to try and get some lemon sole – which was her favourite although she still felt cheated every time she paid so much for such tiny fish, which had only ended up so small because of over-fishing. Usually she would have gone in to the shop herself and paid for the fish as a way of thanking him for his hospitality. And that was why she tried to walk off her cross mood by going on up the road a little way, and bumped into someone she knew.
‘Evening, Mrs Stevenson,’ he said politely. She was rather surprised that he was so polite, when he was often grumpy.
‘Hello, Graham. How are you today? Have they let you back into the Cultural Centre yet?’
‘Aye, but we haven’t re-opened to the public yet. It was just me and Andrew today. They let us tidy up a bit.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Jemima. The Cultural Centre was an important part of her's and David’s routine, and she was looking forward to getting back to it. Her spirits lifted. ‘Sorry if the Family History Day people made a mess.’
‘There were a lot of them,’ said Graham.
‘Yes – more than we expected. I wish Ms Farquharson had been there to see it, though.’
‘Hmm,’ he said.
‘Well, maybe see you next week.’
‘Right... Wait!’ he said suddenly as she was turning away to see if she could see Christopher coming out of the fish shop.
‘What?’
‘I was talking to Andrew just now,’ said Graham.
‘Yes?’ said Jemima, puzzled.
‘He’s just down here.’ Graham waved his hand towards a narrow opening between two of the older style houses the fisher folk had lived in at one time. Jemima knew it led to a lane but it was uneven under foot and dimly lit at the best of times, so she didn’t usually go that way. ‘He’s found something he wants you to see. He was in a bit of a hurry but he said to bring you along.’
‘But – what has he found?’ said Jemima.
Graham shrugged his shoulders. ‘He said something about local history – about your family.’
Graham didn’t usually ramble on like this, she thought uneasily. Something must be wrong. Had the Council decided to close down the Cultural Centre now that its name was associated with murder and mayhem? It seemed to her that Graham didn’t have very much else in his life. Oh, there was his fishing, of course. But that was only a hobby.
‘Um,’ she said. ‘Family? The Murrays?’
‘I don’t know,’ he muttered crossly. ‘He just said to be quick – before the tide covers it up.’
‘Would it not be better to go round by the main road?’ said Jemima.
‘No time,’ said Graham.
It was still blowing a gale and raining in that cold, relentless way, and Jemima thought the tide might come in more quickly than Andrew imagined; but she didn’t want to disappoint the boy when he must have gone to so much trouble with this extra research, so she said, still hesitating a little,
‘It won’t take too long, will it? Only Christopher will wonder – ‘
‘It’ll only take a minute,’ said Graham, taking her by the arm. She supposed he was only trying to help, but his grip was a bit tighter than she would have wanted, and he was hurrying her along into the semi-darkness of the lane. There wasn’t a street lamp to be seen for some way. The people who live here should complain to the Council, she decided. They could get something done about the cobbles as well. She stumbled once, and he tugged at her arm until she was standing up again, setting off almost before she got her balance.
‘Couldn’t we do this tomorrow, Graham?’
‘It might not be there tomorrow!’ he snapped, speeding up. Of course, he hadn’t acquired the prefix ‘Grumpy’ for nothing, she told herself.
Round a corner, down a narrower alley, emerging briefly into a better lit square and then across the road that separated the jumble of fisherman’s houses from the harbour.
‘This way,’ he said, urging her on to the harbour wall, which was even more bleak and windswept than usual. She could see waves breaking across the wall further out, the white spray randomly lightening the darkness.
‘Where’s Andrew?’
Jemima stopped in her tracks. She had already been away too long: Christopher must have come out of the fish shop by now, and would be looking for her, perhaps thinking she was an impatient old biddy who had set off for home, perhaps starting to worry a little that she had suddenly lost her marbles and wandered off into the storm.
'Along the harbour wall.' He pulled at her arm again, but she wasn't budging. What would he do if she made a scene? She glanced around and realised how ridiculous her idea was: nobody else was stupid enough to come anywhere near the harbour on a night like this. If Andrew were anywhere nearby, he must be cold, wet and miserable by now, and wishing he hadn't started all this... If Andrew... If.
She stared at Grumpy Graham.
'You're right, Mrs Stevenson,' he said with an unpleasant sneer. 'Andrew isn't here. There's nobody here.'
He laughed.
She shouted for help then, her words carried away by the wind and battered into silence on the sides of the old grey stone cottages. Still laughing, he tightened his grip on her and pulled harder. She let herself go limp, hoping to be a dead weight and too heavy for him, but all that happened was that she fell first against him and then on to the wet ground, and he started to drag her along the harbour wall. Was he going to throw her in the water? Had he done that to Ms Farquharson? What had it been like, plunging down and down, not knowing if she would ever come up again? Had Ms Farquharson struggled or had she resigned herself to her fate?
Jemima started to struggle, trying to shake off his grasp. There was no point in making it too easy for him. And the longer it took for him to complete whatever he had decided to do, the more likely it was that someone would see them. Amaryllis, now - she often wandered about town in the middle of the night. Or David - Jemima made an effort to turn her thoughts away from David. She knew from experience and from reading the problem page in the 'Pitkirtly Chronicle' that it was no use expecting a man to come to your rescue every time. It was putting too much pressure on him - and after
all, David had no idea anything had happened to her at all. If only he would come.... Thinking like this would make her weak. She steeled herself to focus on what was actually happening at this moment.
Graham was slowing down. She could see his chest heaving. But she had suffered too - grazes all along her legs and back and arms, and of course her good winter coat was ruined and her woolly hat had fallen off and blown away into the distance. Not that they were very important in the scheme of things, and maybe she could get a new coat when the winter fuel allowance came through - if they hadn't abolished it by then.
He stopped. She tried to scramble to her feet but before she got her arms and legs working properly, he unwound a length of rope from round his middle, bent down and tied her ankles together and then, with the same piece of rope, her wrists. Jemima had read in a thriller once that if you tensed up your muscles before being tied up you could free yourself later, but by the time she thought of it she was already lying there by the bench at the end of the harbour wall, all tied in knots.
Graham had gone.
She tried to wriggle round to see if he was walking back along the wall towards the town, but she couldn't quite see.... Of course, he could just leave her here and let the wind and weather take care of her. She thought it was cold enough for her to die of hypothermia before morning. Or maybe the waves would get bigger and bigger and eventually sweep her out to the middle of the River Forth. Jemima had considered the possibility of dying of hypothermia before, and had imagined she would just get drowsier, drift off to sleep and never wake up, but this was different. She had never felt so alert and alive. If this was how Amaryllis felt when she was on one of her secret missions, then it was no wonder the girl kept going back to it after she was meant to have retired. There was something exhilarating about being on the edge of death....
And then a dash of spray from a wave blew into her face and the feeling left her, the bubbles going flat, and she was just a silly old woman in an uncomfortable position, feeling cold and miserable and abandoned. It was at this point she realised she had her mobile phone with her. It wasn’t something she often thought of using, but this was probably the kind of emergency David had had in mind when he bought her it. She wriggled round to try and tip it out of her coat pocket. After a few moments of manoeuvring it bounced out on to the wet stones beside her. She scrabbled around for it, and switched it on. It switched itself off again immediately. She tried again. The same thing happened. What was wrong with it? Didn’t it know this was an emergency?
After trying a third time, she remembered David nagging at her to charge it up. But when she had left her house the previous day the phone charger was the last thing she would have thought of bringing.
She was a silly old woman. It would serve her right if nobody came.
With these thoughts, she heard a buzzing noise and her hopes sprang to life. It was David on his old motorbike, come to rescue her. She looked along the wall but there was nothing. She had started to hallucinate. That must be the first step towards hypothermia, after all.
Then Graham's head appeared just above the wall. She gave a start, causing the rope to cut into her wrists. Of course. There were steps down to the river. The buzzing sound must have been from the motor of a boat.
'Row, row, row your boat,' he sang softly, half to himself, as he got to the top and came towards her. The unpleasant smile was back on his face. She wondered why she hadn't worked out before how evil - and deranged - he was. But then you didn't expect someone who worked in a Cultural Centre to be either of these things.
'Boat trips,' he called, as if advertising a leisure experience. 'Out to the middle of the Forth! Lovely night for a cruise!'
He was carrying something. She hoped it wasn't a sack. It wouldn't be very nice to be found drowned in a sack like a litter of unwanted kittens.
It was a smelly old tarpaulin, and he wrapped her up in it - with an effort, since she wouldn't keep still. She hoped he would have bruises in the morning from some of the kicks she had landed on him. But in the end he just picked her up and carried her, slung over his shoulder, down the steps, and flung her down into a boat, which rocked so wildly that she thought it would tip her out right away, saving him the trouble of taking her out to the middle of the Forth.
Jemima couldn't see what she was doing, but she kept wriggling about and every so often she managed to lift her feet - with a huge effort - and kick out.
Suddenly her flailing feet connected with something.
'Aaaagh!'
A bellow that resonated even above the sound of the elements, then a splash, and more splashing close by, and then nothing but the wind and the waves. For ever.
Chapter 29
Found and lost
Christopher was frantic. He was totally responsible for losing Jemima; Big Dave was undoubtedly going to kill him, and Amaryllis would probably never speak to him again, which was worse.
It was getting dark early because of the storm. Amaryllis and Dave should be back by now, but maybe they had spent longer than expected speaking to the mud-coloured man. He stood on the pavement outside the fish shop, clutching a packet of very small lemon sole and looking up and down the road in case she suddenly popped out of some other shop. He knew from talking to Dave that she sometimes spent ages in the craft shop and could lose all track of time while trying to decide between different types of little flower stickers.
He wandered up to the craft shop but it had a ‘closed’ sign, on decorative card with floral embellishments, in the window. He walked down the street and back up again, anxious to do something, unable to decide what to do. He got out his mobile phone, wondered whether to ring Amaryllis, decided not to, put it away, got it out again and rang her anyway, hoping she wouldn’t answer.
'What's wrong?' said Amaryllis against a background of strange sounds that seemed to come from under the sea.
'What's wrong there?' said Christopher.
'Dave's been fighting with a tree. We're going round by Stirling.'
It seemed like a non sequitur somehow.
'Stirling?'
Christopher was both alarmed and cheered by this piece of information. It gave him time to find Mrs Stevenson before they got back, but on the other hand it also meant he wouldn't get any help in looking for her. He had a brainwave.
'I need to - um - look for something.'
'Yes, what sort of something?' she said, her voice swimming away into the distance and back in mid-sentence. He vaguely supposed the weather conditions might be affecting reception.
'Can I get your Tibetans to give me a hand?' he asked, pretending he hadn't heard the question.
'... not my Tibetans... only playing... Jock McLean,' she said.
'That's great. I'll go and get them now.'
Maybe Jock McLean could be of some use for a change and help with the search too. Christopher re-considered this idea as soon as he had formulated it, and discarded it with a mental shrug. He had never known Jock be helpful before, and he probably wasn't about to start at his age.
'But what...?' said Amaryllis.
Christopher ruthlessly switched off his mobile and headed for Amaryllis's flat in search of reinforcements.
He found that Jock McLean was in the process of getting the teenagers addicted to sticky sweets and fizzy sugary drinks, which presumably would come as a bit of a shock to the system when they had lived their lives up to that point on yak’s milk and healthy berries and nuts.
‘You know what Amaryllis would say, don't you?' Christopher said.
'It’s exactly what the Americans did to the indigenous peoples,’ he and Jock chorused together and laughed.
'Any jelly beans left?’ said Christopher. 'I've lost Jemima. I need help.'
'Lost Jemima?' said Jock. He shook his head. 'Your life isn't worth an old-fashioned groat. Dave's going to kill you.'
'I know. Do you want to help?'
Jock McLean graciously agreed to act as interpreter if the teenagers would do all t
he work. They were evidently reluctant to abandon their game of Spy Chase, which they unaccountably couldn’t get enough of, but after a rapid exchange that sounded to Christopher like machine-gun fire, Jock said, 'That's fine. Where will we start?'
‘Well, she was with me when we got off the bus and then I popped into that nice fishmongers that she likes, to try and get some lemon sole, although it’s very tiny these days – I blame over-fishing, in which case we really shouldn't be encouraging it by keeping on eating sole – and then I came out and she’d disappeared. I thought she might have gone into the craft shop but it was closed.'
Jock McLean shook his head again. ‘You’ve spent too much time with her today, going on and on about lemon sole like that... You should report her missing. We could call the police now if you like.'
'They won't do anything about it yet, though.'
‘It's worth a try. We can be looking in the meantime.’
'But where?' said Christopher helplessly.
Jock McLean gave him a stern glare. 'Have you been up to your own house yet? She's likely just gone up there. You head off there now and we'll check out that alleyway behind the furniture shop then go on down to the Cultural Centre. We'll rendezvous there at - ' he glanced at his watch, '- eighteen hundred hours.'
Crumbs! Jock McLean did have hidden depths after all. Christopher heard him ordering the teenagers about, presumably, in their own language as he left the flat.
He decided he would check the house first before reporting Mrs Stevenson missing. He didn't want to appear even more ridiculous in the eyes of the police than he was afraid he already did. Although he thought he wanted to get there as fast as he could, his steps slowed of their own accord as he approached his front door. He didn't want to open it and find Mrs Stevenson not there - on the other hand, if he did find her there his joy would be indescribable. Maybe this was an example of Schrödinger's Cat in action - Christopher had never been very good at philosophy, preferring to deal with things that existed in real life such as old books and documents, so he wasn't sure.
He opened the door. There were no lights on, so he guessed the house was empty, and when he went into the kitchen there was no evidence of tea having been made in the last few hours, but he searched upstairs and down just in case. He didn't spell out to himself what the contingency was that he was catering for, but anything that prevented Mrs Stevenson from having a cup of tea as soon as she came in must be fairly drastic.
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