‘You could stand there for a couple of hours holding that,’ he suggested.
She sighed with an attempt at a long-suffering expression. She took hold of the banner, lifted it over Christopher’s head and climbed the ladder with it. It was the work of a moment to hook one end over the ornamental clock that adorned the front of the Cultural Centre.
She came down holding the other end of the banner, moved the ladder, climbed it again and hooked it over the place where the guttering was coming away from the wall.
‘Great,’ said Christopher. ‘Now the whole place will come down with it the next time. The maintenance man from the Council told me not to do that.’
She snapped the legs of the ladder together. ‘Where do you want this?’ she asked him.
‘It belongs in the library corridor. But somebody might need it for the fair. I have no idea what they’re doing. They might be hanging stuffed penguins from the ceiling for all I know.’
‘Aren’t you in charge, though?’
‘Only in theory,’ he said gloomily. ‘Maisie Sue and Jan from the wool-shop have taken over the place. It’s a coup d’état.’
‘A velvet revolution,’ said Amaryllis in an attempt to cheer him up. ‘Or is it a chintz one?’
They progressed into the building, Christopher’s steps slowing as they went. There were ten or so tables crammed into the foyer, and Amaryllis could see more down the corridor leading to the Folk Museum. The door to Christopher’s office was jammed open and people were inside taking things out of boxes and squabbling over who was entitled to which table. The noise was deafening. Amaryllis considered it much worse than the Fun Day they had both taken part in a couple of years before. She frowned at the memory. That had been the day the old village hall caught fire. But surely it would be too much of a coincidence for something else disastrous to happen on the same day as a local event. Then she remembered the Pitkirtly Homecoming Day, and sighed.
Jan from the wool-shop, wearing a far-away expression, was arranging knitted toys on her table.
‘Did you make all those yourself?’ said Amaryllis casually, picking up a doll dressed as some sort of Tudor queen. Jan almost snatched it out of her hands.
‘Be careful with that! It’s got pearls stitched down the front of the dress. It took me ages to get it right.’
Amaryllis hurriedly put the doll back in its place. She had never known Jan be quite so grumpy. In fact she wondered if she had ever really known the woman at all. She had only ever encountered her in the alternate universe that was the wool-shop, where everything was defined in terms of its weight, shade and maker’s name, and where Jan ruled serenely as empress of all she surveyed, occasionally descending from her throne behind the counter to assist the lower orders with their tension problems and the like.
Tension! That was what the woman’s body language spoke of so loudly, and for which Amaryllis couldn’t even begin to guess at the reason. She decided to keep an eye on Jan as the craft fair progressed. It could prove interesting.
She wandered up the corridor, glancing at tables packed with small watercolours of Pitkirtly and its environs, scarves that were evidently hand-dyed or batiked in various glaring colour combinations, and varnished stones strung on threads of leather or fine steel. She hadn’t realised there were so many crafts available to choose from. Maybe she should take up dyeing for a living, she joked to herself. She was still smiling when she bumped into Maisie Sue and one of her acolytes.
‘Amaryllis! Do you have a stall today?’ said Maisie Sue, almost managing not to sound incredulous. ‘I guess not,’ she added immediately.
‘I can’t imagine anyone being interested in my knitting, that’s for sure,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Although I suppose some of my efforts could be mistaken for modern art.’
Maisie Sue smiled politely. ‘We aren’t exactly open to the public yet,’ she said. ‘But of course, with you and Christopher being such good friends….’
‘Oh, I’m providing security cover,’ said Amaryllis. It was true in a way. She was definitely going to use the opportunity to do some informal investigating. It might not lead anywhere, but that was an occupational hazard. Contrary to popular belief, intelligence work couldn’t be done quickly or easily.
Maisie Sue, whose former husband had been a CIA agent, piped down at once, as Amaryllis had guessed she would. She re-folded a small quilt that didn’t seem to need re-folding, and then bustled off towards Christopher’s office.
Even before she had finished checking out all the stalls, Amaryllis was starting to get bored with the whole thing. But she was still determined to try and find out what was the matter with Jan. She wondered if Tricia Laidlaw or even Penelope Johnstone might come along once the craft fair opened. It would be interesting to observe any interactions amongst them. Even Maisie Sue, who seemed a bit on edge herself, might find time to chat to Jan as the day progressed.
She encountered Christopher again in the foyer. He was trying to adjudicate between two stall-holders who seemed to be in a dispute over the amount of space allocated to each. As she listened, it became clear that one of them had pushed a box of batik scarves a few inches into the other one’s territory. In the end Christopher got a piece of chalk from his office and drew a line on the floor to mark the boundary.
‘Do you always have chalk in your office?’ she enquired.
‘It’s for the notices,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a blackboard to tell people what’s happening in the Folk Museum.’
‘That’s a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it? Why don’t you have a smart-board?’
He gave her a look. ‘Museums are old-fashioned. Get over it.’
‘Do you need a drink?’ she asked..
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve been needing one since eight o’clock this morning.’
‘Have you been here all that time?’
‘Maisie Sue insisted,’ he said.
‘Do you want me to throw everyone out of your office so you can get some peace and quiet?’
He gave a small depressed sigh. ‘The time for peace and quiet is long past, I’m afraid.’
In the end she persuaded him to retreat to the staff tea-room, where they sat in a grim silence eating from the librarian’s special tin of posh biscuits and listening to the rise and fall of hostilities in the corridor outside. After a while Christopher recovered enough to venture out again, and Amaryllis decided she might as well take her position for an afternoon’s surveillance.
She was resigned to the fact that nothing interesting would happen for ages and that she wouldn’t recognise it when it did, but not long after the public were admitted, she was rewarded by observing an encounter that made her think.
Penelope Johnstone and Jackie Whitmore came face to face in front of Jan’s wool and knitted toy animals stall. The two customers stared at each other blankly for a moment. Jan, re-arranging wools in a kind of rainbow, didn’t look at either of them at first.
Penelope said something to Jackie in a voice too low for Amaryllis to hear above the general noise of people asking for reassurance that baby clothes were made of pure organic cotton, commenting to their friends that a two-year-old could paint better than that, and asking if someone had to be fully qualified to use a pottery kiln.
Jackie responded by picking up a knitted version of the Loch Ness monster from Jan’s stall and throwing it at Penelope. Jan, unable to ignore them any longer, screeched her disapproval.
Jackie threw a knitted seahorse at Jan. ‘If you wanted him you should have tried harder!’ she shouted as Amaryllis arrived at the stall. ‘I don’t know what makes you think he’d notice you anyway.’ She picked up a knitted whale. Amaryllis reached out and grabbed it from her before she could do any damage with it.
‘Stop it! Just stop it!’ screamed Jan.
By this time the general noise levels had abated as people started to realise what was going on. Maisie Sue abandoned her own stall and hurried over.
‘I can’t stand this any more!�
�� Jan continued, obviously on the verge of tears. ‘I’m going now.’
‘Oh, no, please don’t do that,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘You can get through this if you think positive thoughts.’
Jan said something very rude about positive thoughts and pushed past them all. They saw her forcing a path through the crowds towards the front door. Maisie Sue shrugged her shoulders.
‘I guess something upset her,’ she said. ‘Amaryllis, you don’t have your own table. It would be real neighbourly of you to look after Jan’s knitted goods until she comes back.’
‘Yes, I suppose it would be,’ said Amaryllis, who had been planning to follow Jan outside and interrogate her. ‘But I think Penelope could do a better job than me. You know my knitting skills aren’t up to much. And what I know about wool could be written on the back of a stamp.’
Jackie Whitmore muttered something and walked off, shoving Penelope aside.
‘Well!’ said Penelope. ‘That was all a bit unnecessary, wasn’t it?’
‘You could say that,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Thanks, Penelope.’
She started to make a dash for the exit, remembered the fracas had started with Jackie throwing something at Penelope, and turned back.
‘What did Jackie Whitmore say to you?’
Penelope blushed. Amaryllis had imagined anyone who had been married to Liam Johnstone would be incapable of being embarrassed, but it seemed not. She waited.
‘It was something about Neil. An unwarranted allegation.’
‘An allegation?’ Amaryllis considered this. It was inexplicable, as were the words Jackie had then shouted at Jan.
She might as well head for the exit while she thought about it. Apart from anything else, she told herself, any security provider worth their salt would make sure whatever Jan and Jackie had against each other wouldn’t manifest itself in a brawl in the car park. She couldn’t exactly imagine Jan descending to that level, but Jackie Whitmore had seemed to be spoiling for a fight.
The first people she noticed in the car park were Jock McLean and Neil Macrae, walking slowly and deep in conversation.
‘Have you seen Jan from the wool-shop?’ said Amaryllis. Jan was the one she was more worried about: somehow the woman seemed vulnerable, which was a shock when Amaryllis at least had thought of her as capable and unflustered. But then, being unflustered about knitting didn’t mean you were naturally a calm person. She might have presented a false front to the world to conceal a churning cauldron of emotion.
‘Jan?’ said Neil, looking puzzled.
‘She went that way,’ said Jock, indicating the front of the supermarket. ‘She’s maybe heading for the wool-shop. You know Jan, don’t you?’ he said to Neil. ‘Wears those jumpers with the knitted flowers on them.’
‘I didn’t know you were interested in that sort of thing,’ Amaryllis commented to Jock.
‘The flowers can give you a nasty dunt if you brush against them,’ said Jock with feeling. ‘You’d be surprised.’
Amaryllis didn’t ask how he knew that, but she didn’t think either of the men would be of any help in this situation. She left them standing there and headed off towards the High Street.
Jackie Whitmore was leaning against the supermarket wall, smoking. As Amaryllis approached she leant forward to try and re-light her cigarette, so she didn’t have time to run away. Amaryllis got right up to her before she raised her head.
‘You keep away from me!’ hissed the girl. ‘I know you think you own the place and you can do what you like, but I’m calling the police if you touch me.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Amaryllis coldly. ‘I want you to tell me who you were talking about when you spoke to Jan in the craft fair about a man who would never notice her.’
‘Is that her name? Jan?’
Jackie seemed amused by this.
‘Haven’t you met her before?’ said Amaryllis.
‘I’ve seen her around,’ said Jackie. ‘She used to hang out in the Queen of Scots sometimes trying to get him to notice her.’
‘Who? Who did you think she wanted to notice her? Was it Liam Johnstone?’
‘No, of course not!’ Jackie was even more amused now.
‘Who, then?’ Amaryllis hoped fervently it wasn’t Christopher the woman had her eye on. Apart from anything else, she could never tell him about it if that was the case, or at least not unless she actually wanted him to die of embarrassment.
‘It was Neil. That’s what was so stupid about it.’
‘Neil Macrae?’
Jackie nodded. ‘He didn’t notice. He had other fish to fry. In a manner of speaking.’
She winked grotesquely. Amaryllis turned on her heel and went back in the direction she had come from. Of course Jock McLean and Neil were long gone.
It was probably nothing. But it was another piece of information. Another two pieces, to be more accurate.
Chapter 25 Post-fair fatigue
As he dragged himself in through the front door of his house two hours after the end of the craft fair, Christopher wondered if it was possible to eat himself into a coma on digestive biscuits, or whether he should have stopped by the wine shop on the way home and stocked up on something a bit stronger.
‘All right?’ said Charlie cheerfully, looking up from his newspaper.
The dog rushed towards Christopher out of nowhere, wagging its tail. Christopher summoned up the energy to pat its head. For the first time in his life he wished there were more dogs in the world and fewer human beings.
Charlie took another look. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘You’d better sit down. Do you want some toast?’
‘Toast,’ groaned Christopher. That reminded him of something. ‘Have you seen Amaryllis?’
‘Not today,’ said Charlie, getting up and heading for the kitchen. He still looked irritatingly cheerful. What had got into him?
‘Have you heard something?’ asked Christopher.
‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s Sunday – there’s no post.’
Christopher heard the other man whistling a happy tune as he went through to the kitchen and started to fill the kettle. The dog, evidently in a quandary about whether to follow Charlie or to stay here with Christopher, ran to and fro between the two rooms in a demented kind of way. Christopher eased himself into a chair and groaned. He didn’t even want toast. He couldn’t think of anything he did want.
He slumped down further in the chair. If he'd been on his own in the house he might even have slumped on to the floor, but he was afraid of the dog's reaction. Either it would panic and try to climb into the bookcase, something it had already attempted on more than one occasion, with dire results for the collection of vintage encyclopedias on the middle shelf, or it would crawl all over him with its tongue hanging out. He wasn't keen on doing anything to provoke either of these possible reactions.
Charlie came back with some toast. He had even found an ancient pot of strawberry jam.
'I scraped the mould off the top,' he said, still in his irrationally cheerful mode. 'It should be fine.'
Christopher had an aversion to mould as well as to cheerfulness. He ignored the jam, and nibbled at the buttered toast instead.
'Was it a disaster?' said Charlie.
'What?'
'The craft fair... I'm sorry I couldn't come along and give you a hand, but I had to walk the dog.'
Christopher was beginning to suspect Charlie had acquired the dog deliberately so that he could use dog-walking as a Get out of Jail Free card for those times when somebody might ask him to do something.
'He seems to need more and more exercise. I suppose it's because he's been eating properly for a while and he's got more muscle tone. Of course, the more exercise he gets the more muscle he'll develop... Sorry. What was it like?'
'Have you ever thought about what the Tower of Babel must have been like?' said Christopher between nibbles.
'Not really.'
'Well, how about the shops just before Christmas? Have you eve
r been into one?'
'Not really,' said Charlie again. 'I'm always on duty. We don't get - I mean, I didn't get - any time off around then. It was the worst time of year for shoplifting, not to mention domestic troubles.'
‘I’ve never seen so many crazed people in the Cultural Centre,’ said Christopher. He re-considered for a moment. ‘Well, not since Jemima had that Homecoming thing, anyway. And at least nobody got murdered today. As far as I know.’
‘Maybe they just haven’t found the bodies yet,’ Charlie said, laughing.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ said Christopher.
‘I’m fine,’ said Charlie. ‘I feel much better than I have for a long time.’
For goodness’ sake, any minute now he would be dancing round the front room singing a selection of songs from the shows. Or dashing off to fly a kite. Christopher frowned at the remains of his toast.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Charlie. ‘Can I get you more toast? Something else? Will I give Amaryllis a call and get her to come round?’
‘Look,’ said Christopher, forcing himself to speak of things that he had always thought it best not to speak about. ‘Amaryllis and I don’t live in each other’s pockets, you know.’
‘You told me that before.’
‘She can’t decide to waltz round here and cheer me up,’ Christopher continued. ‘It doesn’t work like that. It’s more – well, random. She’s just as likely to drive me mad, or to make me do something I know I’m going to regret, than to make me happy.’
‘You don’t have to be happy to be, well, happy,’ said Charlie. He wasn’t making any sense – or was it all in Christopher’s own mind, he wondered. Charlie could be a figment of his imagination, like that man in the film he hadn’t really understood until afterwards, and only then because Jemima had taken the trouble to explain it to him in words of one syllable. Apparently it was meant to be a true story about a world-famous mathematician, too. Some people led weird lives. He was quite glad he was completely normal.
‘She did run off out of the craft fair, though,’ he said. He had seen her pushing through the crowds and dashing out into the car park. For two pins he would have followed her, but his conscience had made him stay until the bitter end. He wasn’t very pleased with his conscience at the moment.
6 The Queen of Scots Mystery Page 15
