6 The Queen of Scots Mystery

by Cecilia Peartree

  She looked up at Charlie. That was what the grim face was for. Of course, he had known this would happen before too long, but he must have pushed it to the back of his mind and hoped it would be forgotten about or something.

  ‘Do you have to take the dog with you too?’ she asked. ‘As evidence?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s better not to. I expect they can picture the dog. Anyway, they might take him away if he’s with me. I don’t want to risk that.’

  He was probably keeping his face set in grim lines so that he didn’t become emotional, thought Amaryllis. She approved of his self-restraint.

  ‘I could look after the dog tomorrow, if you like,’ she offered, trying to sound casual. ‘I can kidnap him and hide him if necessary.’

  ‘That would be good,’ said Charlie. ‘Keep him on the lead in case he runs off. Thanks for the other offer too. I’ll certainly bear that in mind if the need arises. ’

  ‘Good,’ said Jemima. ‘That’s that settled then.’

  ‘Anything else happening?’ said Amaryllis, feeling slightly less useless than before.

  ‘Zak’s being kept at the police station overnight,’ said Penelope.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Christopher. ‘But we more or less knew that would happen as soon as they knew he was on the scene, and had a fight with Liam. It’ll all get sorted out.’

  They all seemed quite calm about it. But then Penelope looked as if she had got to the stage where everything was so bad that anything more just washed over her. The eye of the storm perhaps.

  ‘Well, it’s past my bedtime,’ said Jemima and stood up. She and Dave left. Amaryllis glanced at her watch and found it was eight-thirty. She couldn’t imagine being old enough to want to go to bed at eight-thirty, but with luck she supposed she might live that long.

  But only if she stayed away from Aberdour.

  Chapter 20 A Day Off

  Christopher wondered if he was being over-protective in taking a day off work to go to Dunfermline with Charlie. It wasn’t as if he thought the other man would make a run for it on the way and flee the country; it was more that he didn’t want Charlie to be alone afterwards and sit in the bus station café feeling miserable. And then there was the fact that if he hadn’t made this offer Dave would quite likely have suggested he drive Charlie over, and that would have left him a nervous wreck in advance of his interview. Of course Christopher couldn’t go into the interview with him, and in any case Charlie would have a union rep at his side. Maybe they would want to talk in private later and Christopher would be redundant.

  But as they left the bus station in Dunfermline, Charlie turned to him and said, a bit awkwardly,

  ‘Thanks for coming with me today. And for all the support. It’s been great. Thanks for putting up with the dog all this time as well.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ muttered Christopher, getting embarrassed. ‘The dog’s been no trouble.’

  ‘When you first met me – I was at the end of my tether,’ said Charlie.

  Christopher wished he would shut up now. As far as he was concerned, there was no more to be said on the subject, and he would prefer not to be reminded about how sick Charlie had been when they had met outside the Queen of Scots and how miserable he and the dog had looked.

  Fortunately they had a rendezvous planned with Charlie’s union rep in a café, and even more fortunately they saw a familiar face as they were going into the place.

  ‘Morning, Neil!’ said Christopher, greeting the landlord with more enthusiasm than usual because he had now had enough of being on his own with Charlie. ‘What are you doing in town?’

  Neil shrugged. ‘Just browsing.’

  Christopher had an idea he was hiding something, but he knew he would never get anything out of Neil. He decided he should have looked after the dog for the day and Amaryllis should have come to keep Charlie company. She was much better at these friendly interrogations.

  He thought Neil hadn’t been pleased to see them and would wander off somewhere, but instead he followed them into the café. They were a bit early for the union rep but Christopher bought them all coffee and a scone, which didn’t compare well with Jemima’s baking, famous in Pitkirtly and environs.

  ‘I’m not browsing anywhere,’ Neil confessed, his tongue loosened either by the faint hint of cinnamon in the scone or by the watery coffee. ‘I’m looking at emigrating.’

  ‘Emigrating?’ Christopher almost choked on a crumb. ‘But what about the Queen of Scots?’

  Neil shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nothing to keep me here.’

  ‘Where would you go?’ asked Charlie, almost as if he was thinking of doing the same. Christopher choked again, more violently than before, and he heard Charlie asking the waitress for a glass of water for him.

  ‘Somewhere warmer than here,’ said Neil. ‘A pal of mine has a bar in Benidorm. That’s the kind of place.’

  ‘So you came into Dunfermline to find out about it?’ said Charlie, sounding more and more interested. ‘How does that work? Is there an office or something here?’

  ‘No, not an office. I came over to talk to another friend who knows about that kind of thing. Are you interested?’

  For one moment Christopher couldn’t stop himself from envisaging the two men skipping hand in hand together into a Spanish sunset. Then reality returned.

  ‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘I was wondering how you would do something like that. I’ve got my job here, though. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere outside Scotland.’

  ‘Neither would I,’ said Christopher. ‘But if we got another winter like the one just past, I might change my mind.’

  He was saying that, of course, to make Neil feel better and not so disloyal.

  ‘It isn’t the weather,’ said Neil. ‘Not only the weather,’ he amended quickly. ‘It’s just that now I’ve had a bit of a break from the Queen of Scots, even for a few days, I don’t know if I want to go back to it.’

  ‘Is it because of what happened in the cellar?’ enquired Christopher.

  Neil frowned. ‘Well, I suppose people might have died in the pub before. Over the centuries, I mean. It’s quite old. But I can’t help feeling it was my fault. Or that I should have done something to stop it happening. Not for Liam. For Penelope. She didn’t deserve it. Neither did Zak. I don’t see how I can get over feeling like that.’

  The union rep arrived then, and he and Charlie went into a huddle in the corner, evidently working out what to say at the interview. Christopher didn’t want to seem as if he was interrogating Neil so he changed the subject and they talked about the scones, the décor in the café and the scandalous reduction in bus frequencies for a while, and when Charlie and the union rep went off to the police station Christopher and Neil left the café too.

  ‘I’m going to go and speak to somebody at the library while I’m waiting for Charlie,’ said Christopher. ‘Are you going straight back to Pitkirtly?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll go up to the bus station now.’

  They walked up the road together a little way, not speaking at all. Christopher sensed that Neil had said more than he meant to, and now regretted it. He searched his mind for something to say that didn’t have to do with the weather. He was still searching when he almost bumped into someone coming out of a shop. She wasn’t looking where she was going either. All her attention seemed to be focussed on the bag she carried.

  ‘Jackie!’ said Neil, sounding vaguely surprised. ‘What are you up to?’

  The girl – she could have been any age because she looked sixteen going on forty, Christopher thought – blushed, glancing down at the bag, which could have been a laptop case.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘Getting yourself a computer, were you?’ persisted Neil, looking towards the shop. It was a small electronics shop, evidently not part of a larger chain. There were adverts for printer cartridges and various cables in the window. It was exactly the kind of shop Christopher always steered well clear of, in cas
e he had to speak to a member of staff and reveal his deep-seated hatred of and ineptitude around anything electronic.

  ‘It’s only a reconditioned one,’ she muttered.

  ‘What are you going to do with that, then?’ said Neil. ‘Games? Angry Birds? Sonic the Hedgehog?’

  ‘It’s my accounting course,’ said Jackie. ‘I need it for that.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Neil, still speaking in that over-hearty way, as if he were the girl’s grandfather playing Santa Claus.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ said Jackie, staring over their shoulders, presumably at someone standing behind them.

  Christopher turned and came almost face to face with Jan from the wool-shop, who was standing in the middle of the pavement staring back at them. Her face reddened as he watched. She opened her mouth as if she were about to speak, then closed it again, plunged across the road without looking again as she had done in Pitkirtly, and vanished into a shopping arcade.

  When he turned back towards Neil and Jackie, he intercepted an odd look that seemed to be just passing between them. Once again he really wished Amaryllis had come with them. She would have known what to make of it. He didn’t have a clue. Were they – um – involved with each other? Christopher was embarrassed even thinking the thought in the privacy of his own mind. It was ridiculous anyway. Jackie, even if she were a bit older than she looked, must be nearly young enough to be Neil’s daughter.

  ‘Bye then,’ said Jackie a moment later, scurrying off down the road. Christopher saw her cast one uneasy glance over her shoulder at them before she darted into another shop. He didn’t really understand younger woman at all. But it was safer that way, he told himself.

  ‘I don’t know where they get the money these days,’ said Neil, half to himself as they walked on. ‘She’s got a brand new bike too – I saw it at the paper shop.’

  ‘Doesn’t she work at the Queen of Scots?’ said Christopher. ‘Maybe you’re paying her too much.’

  ‘Not at the moment I’m not,’ said Neil.

  ‘Maybe she’s got a rich uncle,’ said Christopher. They had come to the turning he needed to take to get to the library. ‘Well, see you later then. Are you all right at Jock’s? He should be allowed out tomorrow, if only he can remember who the prime minister is and make himself a cup of tea.’

  ‘Prime minister, eh?’ said Neil. ‘That’s a tricky one.’

  Before Christopher could decide whether the pub landlord was joking or not, Neil had gone off up the hill towards the bus station without a backward glance.

  An hour later, on the way home in the bus with Charlie, who had come out of his interview sombre and inclined to kick everything in sight, a tendency Christopher hoped would wear off before he got back to the dog, they talked about the weather again.

  ‘Do you think Neil Macrae really will go to Spain?’ said Charlie.

  Christopher seized on this sign that Charlie wasn’t too down-hearted.

  ‘He seems to like the idea,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what his barmaid would do if the place closed down though. She seems to have an expensive lifestyle.’

  He told Charlie about the computer and the bike.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Charlie. ‘I know her father – he runs the paper shop in the High Street. Lots of dodgy characters about there. She’s maybe getting some of the stuff from them.’

  ‘Dodgy characters?’

  ‘Only just the right side of the law,’ said Charlie. ‘Wouldn’t go near any goods they’ve handled. Didn’t you ever wonder how that shop stayed in business, with people able to get their papers anywhere they like? Or read them online for free if they can?’

  Christopher dismissed this as police paranoia. They saw crime everywhere. He knew Jemima and Dave bought a paper at that shop nearly every day. Surely they wouldn’t patronise a dodgy business? But how would they know any different? Was there any point in even thinking about this for any longer than it took to cheer Charlie up?

  ‘I hope Amaryllis hasn’t done anything stupid while we’ve been out,’ he said.

  ‘As long as she hasn’t got my dog into any trouble,’ said Charlie with feeling.

  Chapter 21 Home again

  To say Jock was pleased to be home would have been a huge understatement. He went from front room to kitchen, opened the door to the garden and breathed in the air, which made the air inside the hospital seem as if it had been composed of alien elements, made himself a cup of tea without any problem and watched some of what he thought of as junk television. The reason for called it that was that it literally seemed to revolve around junk of various kinds. First there was a programme about someone who made a living going round looking in people’s attics and selling what they found for a ridiculous amount to someone with more money than sense. Jock knew that all he had in his attic was old paperwork from his teaching career, a lot of dust, and possibly some insulating materials, although as far as he was concerned the paperwork did the job quite adequately. The next programme was something about the next-door neighbours spying on you and complaining about your clutter. 1984 or what, thought Jock with scant regard for literary accuracy.

  He was mildly surprised to find Neil still in residence, but he didn’t mind too much. Neil was quiet around the house, didn’t talk too much and seemed to be brooding about something or other. Of course Jock had hoped the Queen of Scots would be open again by now too. He really missed his Old Pictish Brew. Drinking it from a bottle in your living-room wasn’t the same at all, though he was glad someone had left a few bottles on the kitchen worktop anyway. He had one with a thick sandwich at lunchtime, when he got bored enough with the junk programmes to make his head feel as if it might explode, all of an hour after he got back.

  Charlie and the dog called round to see him during the afternoon. He suspected Charlie was trying to keep his mind off his own troubles and wasn’t really that worried about him. But it was better than the latest junk television, which seemed to have something to do with people spying on their own families and then conspiring to change their lifestyles. If only people would mind their own business, the world would be a better place.

  ‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to report the assault?’ said Charlie after a bit of preliminary discussion around the topic. ‘Neil seems fairly confident about identifying them. It was his ex-wife, after all.’

  ‘But he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the place,’ said Jock. ‘Well, strictly speaking I suppose I wasn’t either.’

  ‘There’s no strictly speaking about it,’ said Charlie, as fiercely as was possible for a man with a dog standing on his stomach. ‘You definitely shouldn’t have gone in there at all. It was against the law, and it was bloody stupid too.’

  ‘It was an emergency!’ said Jock. ‘I needed some Old Pictish Brew. For medicinal reasons.’

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Charlie. ‘I went into the off-licence while I was in Dunfermline yesterday. I’ve got something for you in my coat pocket. If I can get him off me for a second…’

  He pushed gently at the dog. It didn’t budge. He hoisted himself up and lifted it down gently. It jumped back up again. He gave up. ‘The coat’s in the hall,’ he said. ‘You can go and have a look if you want.’

  Jock went and retrieved the four bottles of Old Pictish Brew Charlie had managed to cram into his pockets. He was rather touched. After all, Charlie must have a lot on his mind at the moment.

  ‘How’s your case going?’ he asked as he returned to the front room.

  ‘Case? Oh, you mean the case against me.’ Charlie made a face. ‘Don’t tell anybody else, but it’s not going all that well… They told me off for interfering in the Queen of Scots thing, on top of everything else. I think that’ll land me in even more trouble. But never mind.’

  Jock admired stoicism – even although it seemed to be a vanishing quality. Or maybe because of that.

  ‘You could always go and do something else for a while,’ he suggested vaguely.

  ‘It wouldn’
t be just for a while,’ said Charlie gloomily. ‘I’d never get back on the force if I did that. It would be the end. I’d have burned my boats.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to do that,’ said Neil from the doorway. ‘You get to the stage where you can’t keep slogging on in the same wrong direction and you have to make a break for it.’

  He walked into the room, hands in pockets and head downcast. Jock didn’t like to see the landlord of his favourite pub in that state, but he couldn’t think what would cheer the man up. Seeing somebody else arrested for murder? Being allowed back to the pub and to his own flat? Getting his own back on somebody?

  ‘Are you really thinking of going to Spain, then?’ said Charlie.

  Neil nodded.

  Jock looked from one of the men to the other and back. Spain? What was all that about? He had only been away in hospital for a day or two, and now he had come back to find his whole world turned upside down. What would they do if Neil went to Spain? Where would they go to gather and drink and listen to Amaryllis or Christopher explaining the solution to the latest local mystery?

  ‘You can’t do that!’ he exclaimed. ‘What about the Queen of Scots?’

  Neil shrugged his shoulders. ‘There’s nowhere else to go with it. I’ve done all I can.’

  ‘But why do you need to go anywhere with it?’ said Jock, desperately trying to understand. ‘What’s wrong with it as it is?’

  ‘I’ve lost the will to do it,’ said Neil.

  Charlie was nodding, perhaps in sympathy. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It gets to you, doesn’t it?’

  Jock was baffled by the two of them. ‘What’s wrong with staying where you are and trying to make things better?’ he demanded. ‘If you two don’t pull yourselves together, I’m going to end up talking about how this is what’s wrong with young people today. They give up and walk away if they’re faced with any kind of difficulty. They don’t want to be bothered staying and fighting.’

  ‘All very well if we were young,’ said Neil. ‘But I’m getting on for fifty. If I’m going to make a change I need to do it now.’