6 The Queen of Scots Mystery

by Cecilia Peartree

  ‘I wonder why she did that,’ mused Charlie. ‘She doesn’t usually do anything without a reason, does she?’

  ‘I think she got into a bit of an argument.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Well, it seemed to be Jan from the wool-shop and Penelope Johnstone. And Neil’s barmaid was about somewhere too. Jackie.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Charlie. ‘Penelope will be feeling a bit vulnerable right now: easy to upset her. I don’t know about Jan from the wool-shop – have I met her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Christopher. ‘You might not remember her if you had. She keeps herself in the background a lot. She wears knitted stuff quite a lot, though. And she sometimes goes around with Penelope.’

  ‘Hmm. Knitted stuff. Is she quite old then?’

  ‘Not as old as Jemima,’ said Christopher. ‘But it’s hard to tell… She tried to teach Amaryllis to knit,’ he added darkly. The idea of Amaryllis knitting freaked him out, a bit like matter and anti-matter. It was as if the two concepts – knitting and Amaryllis - couldn’t exist in the same universe without causing it to destroy itself in self-defence.

  He closed his eyes. At this point in the day he didn’t really care whether the universe destroyed itself or not. He was too tired to think about anything else.

  ‘I’ll switch the light off in here,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m going in the kitchen to peel potatoes. Then you can have forty winks.’

  Forty? More like a thousand and forty, thought Christopher.

  It seemed like only moments later that there was a ring at the doorbell. He opened his eyes. In the shaft of light from the hall he saw Charlie tiptoeing into the front room.

  ‘Do you want me to let them in? Or will we pretend we’re out?’ he whispered.

  ‘Who is it? Do you know?’ Christopher whispered back, trying not to laugh.

  ‘I think it’s Maisie Sue McPherson and some cronies,’ said Charlie, hunching down low as if taking cover.

  A moment later the letter-box rattled. ‘Coo-ee!’ called a familiar voice. ‘Christopher, are you OK?’

  ‘Don’t answer,’ hissed Charlie.

  ‘But,’ said Christopher, beginning to hoist himself out of the chair.

  ‘Just don’t!’ said Charlie, sticking a hand out and pushing him down again. Christopher collapsed against the worn sage green cushions. At least, he supposed they were sage green. He seemed to remember they had once matched the curtains. But then, what did he know? He wasn’t a knitter, or a quilter, or embroiderer, or whatever the hell else had been represented at the craft fair. Their minds, attuned to colour because of the hours they had spent on their crafts, were capable of holding infinitely more shades of everything than his.

  They didn’t know how to catalogue fossils, though, he reflected smugly. He smiled to himself as he hunched down in the chair.

  After a while and some muttered discussions outside, the besiegers gave up and, as far as the two men knew, went away. Charlie crawled out into the hall to confirm it.

  Meanwhile a slender figure dressed all in black materialised in the front room. Christopher gave a start, and then wished he hadn’t when he worked out who it was. He groaned to mask his fright.

  ‘How did you get in this time? Is there a wormhole in the cupboard under the stairs or something even worse?’

  ‘It’s unimaginably worse,’ said Amaryllis. ‘And I’ll be sharing the secret with Maisie Sue unless you agree to come up to Jock McLean’s with me and get him a takeaway. He needs feeding up after his experiences.’

  ‘Mine’s a chicken biryani,’ said Charlie Smith, getting off his hands and knees with a sigh of relief. ‘And a plain naan.’

  Chapter 26 More Visitors

  Jock McLean was fed up with all the solicitous glances and unexpected Indian takeaways, but most of all he was fed up with the lack of somewhere to go. It wasn’t that he didn’t have friends, of course, but he couldn’t help feeling like a spare part at Jemima and Dave’s, no matter how keen Jemima was to initiate him into the mysteries of Scottish cuisine. Jock’s interest in cuisine was limited to regarding food as fuel. He couldn’t quite understand all the fuss about horse meat being found in steak pie, or whatever it was. As far as he was concerned all animals were fair game if they were stupid enough to fall for the idea of being domesticated, which so often had a grisly downside. Not for dogs and cats, evidently, or at least not in this culture.

  It was a lesson to men never to become completely domesticated either. He had seen the hungry way some women looked at him.

  He was almost tempted to go down to the Queen of Scots – just for the happy memories. Mind you, they weren’t all happy. That time somebody had knocked him on the head wasn’t exactly his finest hour. He frowned as he thought about that night. What had the Lawsons been doing there? He vaguely remembered one of them saying they were looking for something, but they hadn’t said what it was, and he had a feeling their quest had been fruitless. What could it be that was so important that it caused them to panic and lash out? Had the police found it after all?

  He was frowning as Neil Macrae came into the kitchen. Jock had the local newspaper spread out on the table and perhaps Neil thought there was something annoying in it. There often was, but Jock had barely glanced at it this time.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Neil, glancing down at the paper. ‘Something political?’

  ‘Hmph! Politicians – they’re all the same. Sell their grannies for the sake of a bit of ephemeral power. They’ve got worse over the years, mind. More cynical. Less interested in how normal people live.’

  ‘You know what?’ said Neil, going over to the sink to re-fill the kettle. ‘The more I see of people – the more I stand behind that bar and listen to all their ranting and rambling – the more I wonder if there’s any such thing as a normal person.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Jock, staring at the paper again and actually reading it this time. ‘That’s all nonsense!’

  ‘Well, it was only homespun philosophy,’ said Neil, ‘but I didn’t think it was that bad.’

  ‘Not you! This! Look at what they’ve printed here.’

  Jock pointed a shaking finger at the middle of the front page. He didn’t think he had ever been so offended. Well, not lately.

  ‘Elderly man attacked in disused death pub,’ Neil read out slowly. ‘Disused? That’s a bit strong.’

  ‘Elderly!’ said Jock. ‘I’ve a good mind to go down to the newspaper offices and show them who’s elderly.’ He read on down the article that accompanied the headline. They had made up most of it, of course. The part about him being a retired teacher was more or less accurate. The rest was pure fiction, including an alleged quote from him about how wonderful the hospital staff had been. ‘I suppose they got this from the NHS. You can’t trust anybody these days.’

  ‘I see they’re asking anybody with information about the attack to come forward,’ said Neil, reading down to the end. ‘That bit must have come from the police. Ha! Hell will have to freeze over before Andrea and Bill confess to anything.’

  Later that day events came close to proving Neil wrong about this.

  Jock didn’t feel like going out – apart from anything else, he imagined his neighbours pointing him out to their friends as an elderly loser who didn’t have the sense not to be knocked on the head in a disused death pub – so he watched more junk television for a while, had a bite to eat, watched more television and awoke with a start as the door-bell rang. He wasn’t sure how long it had been ringing for, but he thought Neil was still at home so surely he would have gone to see who it was once the ringing became insistent.

  He got to his feet, noticing for the first time how his joints creaked, and went into the front hall. There were two figures silhouetted against the glass panel in the door. Please don’t let it be Mormons, he begged silently. He did have his methods for dealing with people who came round to try and sell him religion or double-glazing – the same method in each case, in
fact – but he was resentful of having got up from his chair just for them.

  It wasn’t Mormons.

  He opened the door and somebody pushed a big bunch of flowers in his face. He sneezed.

  ‘We’re sorry if we hurt you,’ said a woman he didn’t immediately recognise, peering round the chrysanthemums. Her voice was vaguely familiar.

  A man pushed the woman and the flowers aside. ‘We’ve brought these round as an apology. We didn’t know you’d had to go to hospital until we read it in the papers.’

  He recognised the voice this time. He took a step backwards.

  ‘Flowers? You’ve brought me flowers?’

  ‘This was your stupid idea,’ said the man to the woman. ‘I told you he wouldn’t be impressed with flowers.’

  ‘They’re chrysanthemums,’ said the woman, who now seemed to be about to burst into tears.

  Jock didn’t like bullies. Especially the kind who knocked men in late middle age on the head and left them on the floor of the pub of death.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’ he said to the woman, whom he had now identified as Andrea Lawson. ‘I’ll get them into water. I like that colour.’

  He put out his hand to take the flowers.

  Amaryllis materialised at his shoulder and grabbed them almost out of his hand. She brandished them like a weapon.

  ‘Do you really think flowers are going to stop him pressing charges?’ she shouted at them.

  Andrea paled and her mouth quivered. ‘He isn’t really going to do that, is he?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Bill Lawson. ‘If he’d been going to report us, he’d have done it long before now. This was a mad idea. I’m going.’

  He turned his back and started to walk away. Amaryllis took a step forward and, lifting the bouquet in the air, brought it down on his head. As he turned back to remonstrate, she did it again. And again.

  It was curiously invigorating to see Amaryllis fired up and bent on revenge. Jock started to laugh out loud for what seemed like the first time in days. There was no excuse for such cruelty to chrysanthemums, of course. All the same, he enjoyed seeing Bill Lawson, bewildered and flustered, alternately trying to defend himself from the assault and brushing petals and battered leaves off his head and shoulders.

  Andrea’s hand was over her mouth, but he wasn’t sure if she was trying to conceal a smile or whether she was about to start sobbing.

  A dark figure swooped up to Jock’s garden gate on a bicycle, jumped off and came rushing up the path. He attempted to take hold of Amaryllis and drag her away from her victim. Instead he landed on his back in the little hedge that bordered the small rose bed.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Inspector Armstrong,’ she said at once, letting the bent stems of the chrysanthemums fall on the ground. ‘I don’t know my own strength.’

  Jock knew this was a barefaced lie, and he thought the inspector would see through it right away. But instead the police officer came to his feet in a lithe movement that spoke of many hours of healthy exercise and possibly many falls from that bike of his and subsequent recoveries, and said, ‘No problem, Ms Peebles. Was this man bothering you?’

  ‘Umph,’ spluttered Bill Lawson. ‘The boot was on the other foot, I can tell you.’

  Inspector Armstrong surveyed the scene. ‘Would you like to press charges, Mr Lawson?’

  His tone told the other man not to bother. Jock tried to blend into the background, fearing the inspector would bring up topics none of them wanted to discuss.

  There was a pause. Bill Lawson glanced from Amaryllis to the police officer and back. ‘Not on this occasion,’ he said.

  ‘It might be best if you left now, in that case,’ said Inspector Armstrong, looming over him. He and Amaryllis seemed to be escorting him off the premises. It was weird to see them working together, Jock decided. Had she no loyalty to Charlie Smith?

  Meanwhile Jock noticed Andrea, still on the doorstep, had taken her hand away from her mouth. ‘Is Neil in?’ she said to him softly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jock. ‘I’ve been asleep.’

  There was a sound from behind him. ‘I’m here,’ said Neil. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Can I come in for a minute?’ said Andrea.

  ‘Not a good idea,’ said Neil. Jock was about to remonstrate with him when Andrea said,

  ‘I wondered if you’d found anything?’

  ‘Found anything?’

  ‘In the Queen of Scots. In the cellar. Something that belongs to Bill.’

  Neil recoiled perceptibly. ‘The cellar? I haven’t been in there since…’

  ‘That’s what we were doing there, that night,’ said Andrea. Her eyes were big and frightened.

  At that moment Bill Lawson yelled, ‘Come on, Andrea, what’s taking you so long?’ and she jumped.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, running her words together in her haste to finish her story. ‘Bill dropped something. When he was delivering the beer. He’s worried the police will find it and connect him to Liam.’

  ‘They’ve probably found it already,’ said Neil grimly. ‘What was it?’

  ‘His watch,’ said Andrea, turning to go as Bill called again. ‘I gave it to him on our wedding day. It’s engraved with our initials. I don’t think they can have found it. They haven’t said anything. Neil, couldn’t you go and have a look?’

  Neil shook his head. ‘I can’t go into the pub. You’ll have to hope they haven’t got it.’

  He turned and went into the house. Jock watched Andrea Lawson make her way down the path on legs that looked unsteady; she wobbled almost into the hedge and, hurrying up when her husband called again, sounding more and more impatient, she collided with the gate and cried out in pain. Jock didn’t like to see a woman getting so upset. He didn’t think she had been wise in her choice of husbands or other associates. Lurching from Neil to Bill to Liam showed a complete lack of common sense and self-preservation. But there was no telling some people.

  He shivered. He was still in his shirt-sleeves and the day had closed in and was now unseasonably chilly. He went upstairs to find a jumper.

  Neil was standing in his room – the one that used to belong to Jock’s son before his wife had taken him away – looking down at something in his hands. Jock craned his neck to see what it was. He hoped Neil wasn’t going to break one of his son’s dinosaur models. But it was a silver coloured watch with a stretchy metallic strap. As Neil stretched it in his hands, Jock saw that the links were already broken in one section, as if it had snapped. It could easily have fallen off someone’s wrist as they lugged beer kegs around. As he watched, Neil turned and saw him. The two men stared at each other, Jock for one uncertain what to say. He felt as if he ought to apologise for staring, and yet it was his own house and Neil hadn’t tried to hide what he was doing. Neil should really have told Andrea he had the watch, even going after her to give it back. She had certainly been agitated about it. But evidently Neil didn’t think he owed Andrea anything, not even that. The divorce must have been more difficult than Jock had imagined.

  Wasn’t that always the way, though? Jock walked on along the landing to get the jumper, mulling over the incident and trying to make sense of it. There was no point in saying anything to Neil. No point in stirring up something that neither of them could possibly want to talk about.

  Chapter 27 Visitors re-visiting

  When Christopher opened his front door later that evening, he didn't know who or what to expect. He had opened the door in a fit of absent-mindedness because he happened to be in the front hall when the bell went, on his hands and knees trying to sweep up dog hair from the carpet. It wasn't something he would usually bother to do, particularly after a day at work when the librarians had done nothing but complain about the mess left behind after the craft fair, and only the strategic application of a bag of doughnuts from the local bakers' had prevented them from possibly illegal, though morally justified strike action.

  It was Jock McLean. Christophe
r let him in, but carried on sweeping to demonstrate that he regarded Jock as one of the family. Jock, however, interpreted it as a sign that Christopher was turning into a fussy old woman.

  'If you left it alone,' he said once Christopher had explained what he was doing, 'it would blend into the carpet and give you an extra layer of insulation. That's what I would do.'

  'Just go and make some tea,' said Christopher wearily.

  'I've got something to tell you, though.'

  'Later. I need to get this done before Charlie comes back with the dog. In case he takes offence.'

  Jock laughed. 'Takes offence? Do you mean Charlie or the dog?'

  'Tea,' said Christopher.

  The door-bell rang again while Jock banged about in the kitchen. Christopher was tempted to pretend he wasn't in this time. After all, if it was someone he actually wanted to see, like Amaryllis, she would find another way into the house anyway. He couldn't think of anybody he did want to see, for that matter.

  His knees creaked as he got up from the floor again. Galloping old age. That was all he needed.

  Two men in raincoats stood on the doorstep. They seemed vaguely familiar. He hoped it wasn't because they were the two Jehovah's Witnesses who had once caught him at an awkward time and whom he had chased down the front path waving a kitchen knife. If Mr Browning next-door had seen that he would have had a field day concocting an appropriate report for the police, but as far as Christopher could recall he had been away on holiday in the Lake District at the time.

  'Can I help you?'

  'May we come in for a moment, Mr Wilson?'

  He peered at them. The raincoats made them look like second-rate spies but….

  He remembered. For a fraction of a second he wished he had a kitchen knife within reach. Perhaps it was the flash of murder in his eyes that made them both step back a pace.