3 A Reformed Character

by Cecilia Peartree

  ‘Cosy what?’ said Christopher. He had never thought of Amaryllis as at all cosy, or indeed as a member of some women's group – they had laughed often enough at Maisie Sue McPherson and her quilting friends.

  'It's a knitting and crocheting group,' said Amaryllis.

  ‘It sounds like some sort of weird dating agency,' growled Jock.

  Amaryllis laughed.

  'It's all women, and we just knit and crochet and chat.'

  'I know what you mean,' said Jock. ‘It’s one of those excuses for women get together to gripe about men. It’s all they ever talk about – apparently.’

  ‘Is Mrs Stevenson in the group?’ said Christopher. He couldn’t imagine any other reason for Amaryllis to attend.

  ‘No,’ said Amaryllis. ‘She said she couldn’t stand the nastiness of it. Thought it would be disloyal to Big Dave for her to take part. Said she had enough to do with her scrapbooks.’

  ‘Then why - ?’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ said Amaryllis firmly. She smiled at the young people in a way that was possibly intended to be benevolent, but was in fact, Christopher thought, slightly scary. It was the kind of smile an interrogator might use just before delivering the coup de grace, after which he (or she) would indulge in a burst of insanely evil laughter. Or the smile on the face of the crocodile as it prepared to jump out of the slimy river and bite your head off.

  Where were all these weird ideas coming from? Had Amaryllis spiked his drink earlier when he was distracted by seeing 'alqaida' on the Scrabble board?

  ‘They own the ice-cream shop down near the harbour,’ said Jock. ‘Petrelli and Son. Is Giancarlo the son?’

  ‘No – my father was the son,’ said Victoria. ‘My grandfather came over from Naples and set up the business in the first place.’

  ‘Is any of this relevant?’ said Christopher, although he would have quite liked to pretend nothing untoward had happened and spend the rest of the evening listening to tales of old Naples and watching Victoria fiddle with her hair.

  ‘It’s background,’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘Deep background,’ said Jock, nodding in agreement.

  ‘But let’s try and fill in the foreground now,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Why were you sleeping in the house, Darren?’

  ‘He had a fight with his mum,’ said Victoria.

  ‘Darren?’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you got anything to add to that? When did you have the fight with your mum? What was it about?’

  Darren looked down at his feet in their rather impressive trainers. ‘Nothing,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What sort of nothing?’ said Amaryllis.

  ‘She wanted me to go and ask Alan’s dad for a job.’

  ‘Alan Donaldson’s dad? You mean a job on a building site?’ Amaryllis sounded slightly incredulous, as well she might, thought Christopher. It didn’t seem like the ideal job for someone with a history of arson.

  ‘She thought I should learn a trade.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ said Jock McLean with spirit. ‘There’s far too much time spent in schools these days on ethics and self-confidence and computers, and not enough on practical stuff. If kids even bother to turn up to school at all, that is.’

  As often happened, Jock’s argument had gone round in a circle and ended up biting him in the foot.

  'So she wanted you to ask Alan's dad for a job, and you didn't want to, but you went to the house where he was working anyway?' said Amaryllis. When she put it like that, it sounded extremely suspicious. Christopher wasn't surprised that the police hadn't looked any further than Darren.

  Darren shuffled his feet without looking up. 'Sort of. Yeah.'

  'Did you speak to Alan's dad?'

  'No way.'

  'Did you speak to Alan?'

  'No - not really... Well, yeah.'

  'What do you mean?' Amaryllis looked at her watch. Christopher didn't think she was used to villains giving her the runaround. Probably they just caved in right away before she shot them. He wondered how close she might come to wanting to shoot Darren. He suddenly remembered she usually went to the on-site fitness suite at about this time of day. She would be getting restless by now, muscles aching to have a good stretch - at least, so he imagined, as someone who wouldn't even dream of setting foot in the fitness suite, or anywhere with the word 'fitness' in its name. The only reason he could imagine how she felt at all was that he knew what it was like to need a mental stretch after being cooped up with certain people for any length of time. 'Certain people' included but were not limited to members of the public he encountered in his job at the Cultural Centre, Council officials of any shape or form, and the woman who used to work at the glitzy furniture shop in Pitkirtly High Street until it closed down amid rumours of people smuggling.

  'Alan and me went out together. For a drink. Down the old railway yard.'

  Victoria scowled, doing that as elegantly as she did everything else. 'I told you not to go there any more.'

  Darren sighed. 'I need a drink now.' He glanced up at last. 'Got any beer?'

  'No,' said Amaryllis. 'But if you answer a couple more questions we can heat up the microwaveable Chinese banquet for you.'

  The microwaveable Chinese banquet had been a bone of contention all along. It sat in the small freezer like Edgar Allan Poe's telltale heart, containing in its noodles and bean sprouts the story of an argument over sleeping arrangements that had ended with her purchasing the ready meal as a joke peace offering. Well, it had really ended with Christopher having to share a very small bedroom with Jock McLean.

  Darren started to kick the table-leg. 'Don't like Chinese,' he complained.

  Victoria punched him on the arm. 'That's rude,' she said. 'We're guests here - we should eat what they give us.'

  'What happened at the old railway yard?' persisted Amaryllis.

  He shrugged his shoulders. 'That's just where we go - used to go.'

  'To hang out with other friends?'

  'Yes.'

  'So what happened?'

  Darren began to look puzzled. 'We had a drink or two. There were four of us - maybe five....Dunno.'

  'Dunno? What's that supposed to mean?'

  'Don't know,' he said. 'Can't remember.'

  'Can't remember? How long ago was this?'

  'Day before yesterday,' said Victoria.

  'Brain like a sieve,' Jock McLean interrupted. 'That's what you get for skiving off school, young man. Wasting the best years of your life.'

  ‘Just go through exactly what you can remember,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Maybe it’ll all come back to you… Why don’t you two start the meal?’

  She gestured to Christopher and Jock.

  ‘I’ll nip out for a smoke first,’ said Jock. He smiled in that evil way of his. ‘Unless you want me to light up in here?’

  ‘Got a spare ciggy?’ said Darren hopefully.

  ‘I’m a pipe-smoker. You wouldn’t like it. Only grown men appreciate the joys of a pipe of good tobacco,’ said Jock, and went out, causing a gale to blow rain through the lounge. Christopher let his glance loiter on Victoria as she wiped a spot of moisture from her face with one delicate hand; then he forced himself to turn away.

  He wasn’t really watching the others or listening to them, but he had a sense of huddles being formed and voices being lowered as he went about the mundane task of preparing the microwaveable Chinese banquet. Amaryllis could be simply running through Darren’s account of the gathering at the old railway yard, but she might try and use the opportunity to further a more sinister, hitherto unsuspected purpose of her own which just happened to overlap with what Darren and Victoria wanted. He was used to that, and had learned to ignore it, blotting out all probable consequences from his mind. He just hoped she wouldn't end up getting young Victoria involved in her machinations. The Petrelli family might get the wrong end of the stick about what had happened here and they might even blame him for any fallout..

  Jock burs
t in again. For a moment Christopher tensed, fearing some drama such as a police siege, but then he realised it was impossible to come through the door in this weather without seeming to burst in.

  ‘Is it ready?’ said Jock. He came into the kitchen area and started poking around among the boxes. ‘Why have you done the rice first? What’s this stringy thing? Why aren’t there any prawn crackers?’

  If I can get through the next ten minutes without losing my grip, thought Christopher, I won’t be so tempted to kill Jock. He relaxed slightly and breathed in deeply, which was not necessarily a good idea in such a confined space.

  In the end Darren and Victoria demolished most of the banquet. It was about as unappetising as it had always sounded, but Victoria confessed that they hadn’t had anything to eat all day – they had been afraid to stop moving for long enough to eat. How could Darren put Victoria through that? Christopher asked himself. As he was clearing up, he heard Amaryllis trying to get the others to agree to an evening stroll. The idea was strongly resisted by Darren, who seemed to feel safe in the caravan, but Amaryllis eventually prevailed, as she usually did. Jock said he would sit and read the paper, since he had already had fresh air during his recent smoking break.

  The gale blowing outside was certainly enough to get rid of any cobwebs, but it had stopped raining, and Christopher noticed a pale half moon, its light glinting on the wild sea in a bright riot of pattern. He could hear the waves crashing to the shore somewhere below them. No gulls – who were presumably sound asleep – and no children shrieking. Apart from the fact that they were harbouring a fugitive and would almost certainly be in more serious trouble than ever before when the law caught up with them, it was practically idyllic.

  Then above the sound of the waves came another noise – a screeching, wailing in the distance that got louder and louder – and the pale moon was almost eclipsed by the flashing of blue lights.

  ‘Police! Run!’ said Amaryllis, and Darren and Victoria took off, darting in and out between the rows of caravans, tripping once over a fiddly ornamental fence, bumping into a clothes-line, heading closer to the edge of the cliff all the time.

  Christopher couldn’t help himself. He had already started after them by the time they disappeared over the edge. For once he didn’t care what Amaryllis thought, or did, or discerned from his actions. He had to see what was happening, he had to try and help even if it meant putting his life on the line.

  Chapter 3 Smile - you're on camera!

  Of course if Darren and Victoria had had any sense they would have gone over the edge in a place where the land sloped down towards the centre of the bay in a gentle unthreatening expanse of green, punctuated only by clumps of gorse bushes. But when Christopher arrived at the place where Darren and Victoria had vanished, he groaned aloud. It was a sheer drop.

  They had chosen to clamber down the rocky headland on this horrible night when if the wind didn't blow you off the cliff face, you would slip on the wet rocks and crash to a messy death like King Alexander III. He could see two pale shapes down there on the left, moving along at a fair speed. Of course they were younger and perhaps more desperate than he was. But maybe if he demonstrated his bravery by following them on their perilous journey, they would repay him by agreeing to give themselves up to the police. He suspected Amaryllis of suggesting this way of escape to them. She had appeared to consider herself outside the law on several occasions in the past; she was certainly capable of aiding and abetting fugitives, or obstructing the police, or whatever it was called nowadays.

  At that moment he thought he heard someone speaking through a megaphone. He risked a glance behind him.

  Flashing blue lights surrounded a caravan in the middle distance; as he watched, horrified, he saw its door open and a figure appear with its hands up. Jock McLean? The siege hadn't lasted very long. He hoped Jock would stand his ground and deny everything. It hadn't been his fault, after all - he was just an innocent bystander.

  Behind him he heard someone shouting; then a yelp from below galvanised him into action. Had Victoria slipped? Should he rush to her rescue?

  Christopher slithered over the edge, feeling the wet grass under him and then wet slippery rock. He had no idea whether there was a foothold or not. He slithered a bit further and to his relief, his foot knocked against something. It might be a ledge or just a knobbly bit of rock. He lowered himself until he was standing on it. It must be a ledge, though by the pale moonlight he couldn't tell how long or how wide it was. He began inching along, back to the rocks, walking sideways and peering into the night for a sign of the others.

  The ledge ran out and he still hadn't seen them again. He was worried about the yelp, but he hadn't spotted any ominous bundles of anything down on the beach under the cliffs, so he hoped whatever was wrong it was just a minor thing, a temporarily twisted ankle, a scraped wrist. He had already suffered from both these minor injuries. He imagined he could feel blood trickling down his hand from the wrist scratch. What if he bled to death out here, or got hypothermia? Blood loss would almost certainly make hypothermia more likely. He stood still, afraid to move. He had come to his senses, too late to stop himself from doing this at all and just in time to make himself look stupid in everyone's eyes. Well, all right, in Amaryllis's eyes. The only comfort was that she had already seen him looking stupid on a number of occasions, and they were still friends - just about. And this was all her fault anyway.

  Sliding down to sit on the rock shelf - the moon had brightened now and he had established his refuge was big enough to sit on - Christopher thought he saw another ledge a little below and to the left of where he was. Or maybe it was just a dark place in the cliff. But he could try and use it to get closer to the others. It would be silly to get this far and fall short. He rewound his thoughts and erased the word 'fall'.

  He reached out with his left foot and thought he felt something solid. Now all he had to do was put his weight on that foot, swing his other -

  The ledge he imagined he had seen turned out to be nothing more solid than a clump of grass. His left foot slipped on it, his whole body swung round and suddenly he was facing the rocks of the cliff face, one foot on the first ledge and the other swinging in mid-air, unable to move. He clung to an uneven patch in the rock with one hand, while finding a clump of grass just to the right and grabbing on to it with the other hand.

  'Christopher,' said a voice above him.

  He cricked back his neck to try and see something, but the rock overhung just enough to prevent him from doing so.

  'It's me,' said the voice.

  'Amaryllis?' he croaked. His voice sounded so thin and cracked that he could hardly hear it himself, so he wasn't sure if she had been able to make out that one desperate word.

  'Yes. Hold on. I'll get you out of there, but just one thing...'

  'What?'

  'I apologise in advance. There's no excuse for what I'm going to do next. It's too good an opportunity to miss, but you'll probably kill me.'

  'I'm not the one who goes around armed to the - aagh!' said Christopher, getting a mouthful of earth and small stones as she dislodged some loose bits and pieces at the top. What was the woman talking about? Was she planning to get him arrested? To leave him there all night? To send Jock down to join him?

  He clung on, more apprehensive by the minute.

  A commotion above made him tense up and cling on even more tightly. He panicked about entrusting his life to Amaryllis - not that she had ever let him down before, but they had been arguing a lot over Scrabble words. Was she any more reliable than a clump of grass?

  'Christopher! Don't do it!' he thought he heard her shout, but in a voice that was almost unrecognisable: high, light, girlish.

  'Keep hanging on, sir,' said a deeper, calmer voice up above him. 'No need to do anything silly now.'

  'Can't - much longer.' puffed Christopher.

  'We can sort things out!' called Amaryllis. 'Just don't do this!'

  Yes, fine for her to
say that, thought Christopher crossly, when she got me into this mess in the first place - as usual.

  He waited. A discussion seemed to be going on up there, but he couldn't make out any of the words. Why didn't they send someone down the way he had come? What was taking so long? He thought he saw the faint echoes of blue flashing lights in the dark sky - was he hallucinating, or would that really happen?

  After a while - it seemed like at least an hour but he didn't think it could possibly be that long - it was as if someone switched the lights on. The whole cliff face was lit up. When he turned his head to one side and the direction of his gaze downwards, he could see right down to the sea. It looked closer and more menacing than before. He hastily turned his gaze upwards.

  'Don't panic, sir!' shouted someone from above. 'We just need to see what we're doing. Health and safety rules.'

  What about my health and safety? fumed Christopher to himself. That seems to come last in everybody's calculations.

  At last there was movement from the top of the cliff. Because his head was now turned to the wrong side and he didn't dare move a muscle in case he dislodged himself and fell, Christopher couldn't see what was happening, but a few minutes later someone said, almost into his ear, 'Hold tight while I get this rope round you - you're not going to jump, are you? You'd take me with you if you did, and I've got a young family so you wouldn't want to do that, would you?'

  While the low voice rambled on, Christopher realised the rope had been tied round him, and soon he felt himself lifting into mid-air. For another moment he clung to his hand-holds, and then he released them, hoping he hadn't hallucinated the comparative security of the rope.

  He was hauled up and over the edge in an undignified manner, and fell in a heap at the top. Amaryllis ran over and flung her arms around him.

  'Thank goodness!' she said.

  He couldn't quite unravel himself as quickly as he would have liked, in order to stand up, but then he realised someone else was speaking anyway.

  '... from the cliff top at Kinghorn, where a swift, efficient rescue operation has just taken place... ‘