6 The Queen of Scots Mystery

by Cecilia Peartree

  ‘I saw Jan on the way up the road. She’s completely over-excited about it. I hope you know what you’ve started.’

  ‘What I’ve started? Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Haven’t you offered them the Cultural Centre as a venue?’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ said Christopher, trying not to sound like a sulky schoolgirl. ‘It was West Fife Council who agreed it.’

  But Amaryllis had already lost interest in the craft fair and moved on from there.

  ‘So,’ she said to Charlie, ‘do you really want to be reinstated? Because I can take on your case, if you like. But you might want to consider other options.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to leave the force under a cloud,’ he said. ‘Not after all these years.’

  ‘Why not? That’s a more interesting way to leave than if you waited for your gold watch or whatever it is, and had to make a speech and go to some boring drinks party. You should think about what else you can do. Have you got any hidden talents?’

  ‘No. It’s all on the surface with me,’ he said. ‘I’d better take the dog out now.’

  ‘He’s left us alone on purpose,’ said Amaryllis after Charlie and the dog had gone. ‘In case we want to hug each other.’

  ‘Let’s not do that,’ said Christopher, slightly alarmed by the idea. ‘So have you solved the Liam Johnstone case yet?’

  ‘I don’t even know the essential details. You’ll have to fill me in. Then,’ she said, ‘I’ll have to go and have a look round.’

  ‘You can’t do that – it’ll still be a crime scene.’

  ‘Look, do you want the Queen of Scots to re-open or not? Think about it. Jock McLean will be impossible within days.’

  ‘He already is.’

  ‘No Pictish Brew. No nibbles. No winding up Neil.’

  ‘Was I the only one who didn’t know his name before this happened?’

  She nodded, her mouth full of iced bun.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t get bored if you can’t go off on some insane mission from time to time?’ he asked. ‘Your horizons will have shrunk beyond recognition.’

  ‘Horizons! Ha! Come here!’

  She marched up the stairs and into Christopher’s bedroom. He followed her, trying not to think about any of the possible things she might be planning to do in there.

  She marched across the room and pointed at the view from the window, right across the Forth towards the oil refinery at Grangemouth. The sun was setting and its last rays gilded the ripples on the water like the edges of the pages in an old-fashioned Bible.

  ‘There’s the horizon,’ she told him. ‘That’s the only one I need.’

  Chapter 11 Crime Scene Investigation

  Amaryllis had intended to wait until the following night to check out the crime scene, but she couldn’t sleep, as often happened when she returned home after a mission. Not that this had been a real mission. She would have liked to get her own back somehow on the people who had tricked her, but perhaps it would be better to calm down and move on, as Christopher would no doubt have advised her if she had even asked his opinion.

  She did consider putting on her bullet-proof vest before going out, but she discarded the idea quite quickly. Not only was it pink, a colour she rarely wore, but she liked to save it for occasions when there was actually some danger of getting shot. She didn’t think that was the case this time. She had already formed the view that the person or persons responsible for Liam Johnstone’s death had intended to kill him and nobody else. In her opinion he had been asking it for some time. She still hadn’t forgiven him for firing his gun at her and his son Zak as they stood defenceless in the yard behind the Happiness Club.

  Of course, his death could have been a horrible accident, but she tended to discount this possibility. Someone like Liam almost always got away with doing stupid things that would have killed anyone else, so that even if he had driven his car at high speed over a precipice it would turn out he had been flung clear at the last minute and landed in a patch of heather or on someone’s discarded mattress.

  She was ambivalent about catching the person responsible for his death. She almost thought they deserved to get away with it. On the other hand, she still hungered to know the truth even if in the end she might decide not to share it with the police.

  It was almost eleven when she got away from Christopher’s – Dave and Jemima had popped round and Jock had appeared later with some bottled Old Pictish Brew he had found in his kitchen cupboard and brought round to celebrate Amaryllis’s return.

  By midnight she had been in her flat for long enough to abandon her travel bag in the middle of the kitchen floor and to change from her black daytime outfit to the equally black clothes she wore for her night-time excursions. The weather was still cold enough for her to need the black leather jacket. She had been through several of these in the past few years, but she always liked to replace the lost and damaged ones with new jackets in exactly the same style.

  She sidled down the cobbled back street that was one of the routes down to the Queen of Scots. Although the lights would usually have been out there anyway by this time on a Monday night, the place had a deserted look and feel to it. Someone had been round the whole building with police tape, almost as if they were tying it up ready to send through the post.

  She crossed the road quickly and ducked under the tape at the side of the pub, getting into the shadows as fast as she could. Not a moment too soon, either. Voices approached from the direction of the harbour.

  ‘Evening, Keith. You drawn the short straw then?’

  ‘Yes, I’m on until four o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘You won't be standing around here all that time though?’

  ‘No way, not when it’s this cold. I’m just going to cycle down from the station every so often and have a look round.’

  ‘See you later, then, mate.’ One set of footsteps receded.

  ‘Cheers, pal,’ said Keith Burnet, getting closer to Amaryllis’s lurking place. Suddenly he was very much closer: close enough to reach out and grab her by the arm. ‘Come on out here where I can see you,’ he said, urging her towards the road. ‘It’s you!’ he said, as they came round the corner.

  ‘It certainly is me,’ said Amaryllis, jerking her arm away from his grip and smoothing out the sleeve of her jacket. Of course leather always got wrinkles in it – that was something that appealed to her about it – but she didn’t like them to be left by a policeman’s hands. You never knew where they’d been.

  ‘I thought I recognised you,’ he said. ‘What were you doing, inside the crime scene cordon?’

  ‘Is that what it’s called nowadays?’

  ‘It’s no use prevaricating,’ said Keith. ‘I know you’re up to no good.’

  ‘Oh, somebody’s been learning big new words,’ said Amaryllis. ‘I happened to be passing and I thought I saw somebody in the shadows over there. Because I’m a public-spirited person, I knew it was my civic duty to go and see what they were up to. You see, some people would have passed by on the other side. I don’t know why you’re always so suspicious of me.’

  ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘Lucky for you Mr Smith isn’t on the case.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr Smith. I might be picketing the police station on his behalf soon. If only he would make up his mind if he really wants to get back to work with you or not. He might do, if he thinks this case is interesting enough.’

  ‘Well, it’s interesting all right,’ said Keith Burnet, forgetting to be discreet, as she had hoped he would forget. ‘There’s Neil Macrae trying to protect Mrs Johnstone, and Jackie the barmaid giving her an alibi before we even knew she needed one. But I’m saying too much.

  ‘That’s all right, I won’t remember it anyway by tomorrow,’ said Amaryllis, manufacturing a yawn and wishing she had brought a notebook and pencil with her. The voice recorder on her mobile would have to do instead. She surreptitiously switched it on in her pocket. ‘It must be hard work for you – questioning peop
le all day and then being stuck on night shift too.

  ‘It’s been exhausting,’ sighed Keith, leaning against the wall of the pub. ‘It isn’t just those three. There’s the ex-wife in Aberdour. And her husband. We’re pulling them in tomorrow for questioning. They all might have reasons for doing away with him. Or it could all have been a horrible accident. It’s anybody’s guess, Ms Peebles… You won’t tell anybody I told you this, will you?’

  ‘If I tell them I’ll have to kill them,’ promised Amaryllis. She decided that was a good exit line. He was still leaning on the wall trying to puzzle it out as she dived across the road and back into the cobbled lane she had come from.

  She was cautiously pleased with her night’s work.

  Chapter 12 In limbo

  The police unexpectedly decided to release Neil on bail at lunch-time on Tuesday. Constable Burnet, who had dark circles under his eyes and confessed to having been up most of the night, indiscreetly told him it was only because they were bringing in some more people to interview and they were running out of space and would have to hand the whole case over to Dunfermline if they were seen not to be coping. The lawyer said it was because they couldn’t make up their minds what to charge Neil with.

  He wasn’t allowed to re-open the pub, of course, and he couldn’t even go back to his flat. Instead he was supposed to go and stay with Jock McLean.

  He wasn’t even particularly friendly with Jock McLean; it was just that he had no family closer than Newcastle, he couldn’t think of anybody else who might be willing to put him up for a few nights, and he grudged paying a hotel bill, particularly when the only hotel in or near Pitkirtly was one of these plastic American chains where you would pay over the odds for a pint of dishwater in the bar.

  ‘I don’t know what made you think of me,’ grumbled Jock, as they made their way round to his house from the police station. ‘We hardly even know each other.’

  ‘I’ll go somewhere else if you want,’ said Neil. ‘But I had to give an address to the police or they wouldn’t have let me out.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ said Jock, obviously using the word ‘fine’ in the feminine sense of ‘completely unacceptable and whenever I get the chance I'm going to make your life extremely unpleasant.’ Neil knew that usage well from his time with Andrea. ‘Christopher’s got his hands full with Charlie Smith and the dog, and Amaryllis is only just back. I suppose you could have gone to Jemima and Dave, but she’d drive you mad with her tablet and her clootie dumplings and her pease brose.’

  ‘Hmm, nice,’ said Neil politely. ‘Charlie Smith and the dog?’ he enquired.

  ‘He’s been thrown out of the police. Well, suspended. Christopher’s looking after him. I expect Amaryllis will take on that case too. She likes to have plenty on her plate.’

  ‘Talking of plates, can we stop and get some fish and chips on the way round to yours?’ said Neil. ‘I’ve been living on sandwiches and you wouldn’t believe the bread they give you in there. It’s like sawdust. If I dared to serve it in a ploughman’s lunch, I’d be done for trade descriptions.’

  They were walking down towards the fish and chip shop when they heard someone shouting behind them. Jock stopped and half-turned back to have a look. He frowned.

  ‘What does she want?’ he muttered.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Neil, anxious to get on. He could almost taste the fish and chips. There was nothing like a good helping of fish batter to make you feel better. Hmm. It was definitely time to leave the country, to protect his arteries if nothing else.

  ‘Will we pretend we didn’t hear her?’ said Jock in an undertone, but in the end he was too polite to do this. He paused to allow the woman to catch up to them.

  ‘Jock! I just wanted to say to Neil, I’m so glad they’ve let him out,’ said the woman breathlessly as she got closer. Neil peered at her. He didn’t think he’d met her before, but her face and hair were so nondescript that he could easily have forgotten.

  ‘Hello Jan,’ said Jock coolly. ‘I didn’t know you knew Neil.’

  Jan blushed, not at all becomingly. ‘I don’t really, but it seemed so awful, somebody being thrown in prison for something they didn’t do.’

  Neil smiled at her – not too broadly, or she might make something of it. A small smile to show he appreciated her concern. ‘Thanks for your support, Jan,’ he said.

  Her face went even redder, and it now clashed with the extraordinary clump of flowers on the border of her cardigan. Were they actually knitted? He didn’t want to lean any closer to find out, in case she misinterpreted it. Maybe Jock would know the answer.

  ‘Neil!’ called someone from across the road. A girl with dark gypsyish looks plunged into the traffic, almost crashing into a motorcyclist who had parked outside the greengrocers’ and was sitting on his bike while chatting to a friend.

  ‘Hello, Jackie,’ said Neil, relieved if anything by the girl’s arrival. Maybe this annoying woman would leave them alone now.

  Jackie Whitmore glared at Jan from the wool-shop. In fact it was more than a glare: almost a snarl. Jan’s face somehow went redder still, and she removed herself from the little group, muttering something that could have been an apology or a curse that had been handed down in her family by generations of witches.

  Where were all these thoughts of gypsies and witches coming from?

  ‘What did she want?’ Jackie said rudely, speaking loudly enough for the other woman to hear her as she walked off up the road.

  ‘I thought we were going for fish and chips, not holding a salon out in the street here,’ grumbled Jock, at Neil’s other side.

  ‘Why don’t you go for the fish suppers, Mr McLean?’ said Jackie. ‘Me and Neil have things to discuss.’

  Jock shrugged his shoulders and ambled off towards the chip shop. Neil waited patiently. He didn’t think Jackie had anything to say to him that she hadn’t already said many times before, but there was no point in getting the wrong side of her. By the time Jock returned with his bundle of fried goodies, they had completed their discussion.

  Round at Jock’s house, munching the fish and chips, and drinking Ir’n Bru, Neil wondered what he was supposed to do with himself now. How much longer would the Queen of Scots be a crime scene, and did he even want to go back there after what had happened? He had owned the place for nearly ten years, having bought it with the money he had made as a professional darts player, and maybe he had just had enough. The weather in Pitkirtly was nothing to write home about, he wasn’t married any longer and a friend of his had offered him a share of a pub in Spain.

  ‘When’s the Queen of Scots opening again?’ said Jock, putting the kettle on.

  Neil shrugged. The way his thoughts had been going, he didn’t really care. ‘Could be days – weeks – months.’

  ‘Months? I might as well go away on holiday then.’ Jock made it sound as if going away on holiday was absolutely the last thing any sane person would want to do. It was so long since Neil had taken a holiday he couldn’t remember if that was true or not.

  ‘You could go on a round the world trip,’ suggested Neil.

  Jock made a face. ‘There are plenty of places in the world I’ve never wanted to go. I’m quite happy where I am, thanks. But we need the Queen of Scots. It’s more or less a social service! Specially now that there’s no other pub in town.’

  ‘You could always go through to Torryburn,’ said Neil. ‘Or Limekilns. A couple of good pubs there.’

  ‘So what has to happen before you re-open?’ said Jock. ‘Is there anything we can do, like complaining to the Council?’

  Neil shrugged again and threw his fish and chip paper in the bin. ‘Depends on how the investigation goes, I guess. They might not want me to go near the place anyway, if they’re still suspicious.’

  Jock eyed him. ‘You’re not likely to poison me with carbon dioxide in the middle of the night, are you?’

  ‘I don’t think so. That was kind of a site-specific crime – if it was a crime. I don
’t know if they still think it might have been an accident. Liam Johnstone could have got himself into the cellar and then knocked over a canister of CO2 and then found himself locked in.’

  ‘But when could he get into the cellar without you seeing him?’

  ‘Hmm. He couldn’t really get in from the bar without one of the bar staff noticing something,’ said Neil. It was the first time he had really focused on this aspect of the case, having previously been fully occupied in panicking about whether the police would ever let him out or not. He frowned. He was missing something. ‘But then, they’re probably looking at the beer delivery… That’s a point. But why should he try and get in that way?’

  ‘And why didn’t anybody see him in there?’ said Jock.

  ‘Oh, that’s easy. He could have been in among the barrels, crouching down. I always have a quick look in there when they’ve finished the delivery, but I don’t think I even went down the cellar steps that time. I assumed it was all OK.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Jock, resolving to pass on this information to Amaryllis when he next saw her. He knew she would be intrigued by this case even if she didn’t want to be – and she would be just as keen as he was to get the Queen of Scots back in business. That was the important thing, after all.

  Chapter 13 Half hour, half hour to Aberdour

  ‘What we need to do first,’ said Amaryllis as they set out from Christopher’s house, ‘is to find out more about Aberdour Breweries.’

  ‘Couldn’t we have found out online?’ groaned Charlie. The dog gave a soft whimper, possibly of agreement. ‘They must have a website.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ve done all that,’ said Amaryllis impatiently. She hadn’t been able to sleep again the night before. Of course her body clock was bound to be at sixes and sevens, what with the spell in the cargo shed and whatever those bastards had done to manipulate the weather and the time of day. Anyway, it had given her an excuse to spend hours online finding out about breweries, and carbon dioxide and all sorts of other topics that were sure to come in useful one day. ‘But what I want to do today is to have a look at the place in real life.’