3 A Reformed Character

by Cecilia Peartree

  They seemed to be the first customers of the day in the Petrelli's restaurant, a small but prosperous-looking place not far from the harbour. Half of it was a takeaway that served ice-cream during the day and fish and chips in the evenings, and the other half was a sit-down restaurant, open for coffee in the mornings and later for lunch and dinner. For such a labour-intensive business they would need a large extended family, but Amaryllis thought that the younger generation comprised only Giancarlo and Victoria, or at least that was what she had gathered from idle eavesdropping at Cosy Clicks, so perhaps they were having to hire in extra help. She hoped Giancarlo wasn't around. It wasn't in her nature to run away from a problem, but she really could do without seeing him again for the moment.

  She and Jock sat and stared at a picture of Vesuvius, wispy pale grey smoke curling out of the top.

  A large dark man in a white apron came and took their order. He seemed subdued by Italian standards: perhaps he had lived in Pitkirtly long enough to go native. Amaryllis wondered if he was Giulia's husband, of whom she had heard surprisingly little. He didn't look much like the two children. But grizzly stubble, greying hair and a few layers of excess weight would have camouflaged any likeness.

  They were waiting for their order when Jock suddenly said, 'Look out! Bandits at twelve o'clock.'

  She looked at her watch without thinking. He nudged her. 'No. Outside looking in. I think we've been rumbled.'

  'Rumbled?' she said as she glanced up, wondering where he got his slang from. Old movies, probably, like everyone else did.

  Christopher was staring into the restaurant. As he caught her eye, he gave a little wave, and moved towards the door.

  Oh well, at least she wouldn't have to try and make conversation with Jock McLean. Instead she could enjoy the bickering that almost always took place when Christopher and Jock were in the same place at the same time.

  Actually, she was more pleased to see him than she had expected. But it meant she would have to try even harder to conceal her injuries, since she knew he would make a pointless fuss. Pointless because he didn't have it in him to exact revenge or do anything useful about it. A fuss because he knew he didn't have it in him, and resented the fact. Amaryllis often felt that she knew Christopher better than he knew himself.

  Just as Christopher sat down, Victoria's grandmother brought Amaryllis and Jock's orders.

  'Mmm, cinammon scones!' said Christopher, peering at the plates. 'I'll have one of those too.'

  Victoria's granny looked at him blankly.

  ‘Molto grazie,' said Amaryllis, and spoke to Old Mrs Petrelli in fluent Italian to explain about Christopher and make his order - she was assuming he would have black coffee as he often did at this time of day. Mrs Petrelli seemed surprised but pleased, and commented on the fact that Amaryllis hadn't spoken to her in her native language at Cosy Clicks. Amaryllis explained that she hadn't wanted to be rude to the others who wouldn't understand. In truth she had been keeping her knowledge of Italian secret in case it came in useful for eavesdropping, but she decided to relinquish that advantage in the interests of establishing a rapport with Old Mrs Petrelli. But she had only just started to question the old woman about her grandson and his movements when Mrs Petrelli excused herself, saying she must fetch the order. Amaryllis's eyes, following her as she went towards the kitchen, detected a shape in the shadows. It was Victoria.

  Mrs Petrelli glanced towards the girl as she went, and Amaryllis had a sense that she was concerned about her granddaughter. Of course, that was natural under the circumstances. Nobody would want their granddaughter involved with a murder suspect.

  Victoria came forward, a bit hesitantly. It was Christopher, of course, who insisted she sit down with them. 'Are you all right?' he asked. 'Can we get you a coffee or anything?'

  'I'm fine,' said Victoria. 'I've just had my breakfast.. I didn't know you spoke Italian,' she said to Amaryllis with an undertone of accusation in her voice.

  'No reason for you to know,' said Amaryllis, buttering her scone with a deliberate nonchalance that she hoped would put the girl off balance. ‘It’s going to make Cosy Clicks a whole lot more interesting if I can chat to your grandma. I thought it might be rude to the others if I used it, but now I can see it wouldn't be fair on her if I didn't. There’s a lot for your grandma and me to talk about.’

  'I have to go,' said Victoria uneasily, glancing towards the kitchen. 'I need to go and help with something.'

  'Did you know Darren has given himself up?'

  'No. I was hoping he wouldn't, but I thought he might do.'

  'It's not your fault,' said Christopher, leaning towards the girl and speaking earnestly. He was old enough to be her father. Amaryllis found it really very irritating to have to watch this kind of thing.

  'Will he get out on bail?' said Victoria in a small voice.

  'Oh, I don't think so,' said Amaryllis. 'Not on a murder charge.'

  She noticed a strange flash of panic cross the girl's face, to be replaced by steely determination - an expression Amaryllis knew she herself often adopted only too readily, as if it fitted her face. It was a slightly more incongruous match for Victoria's more rounded features. Christopher leaned further forward - for goodness' sake, any further and he would fall at Victoria's feet! Didn't he know how ridiculous he appeared?

  Amaryllis wanted to storm out, but she had only just taken a couple of bites out of her cinammon scone, and had no intention of abandoning it. She turned to Jock, who was munching silently.

  'What do you think, Jock?' she asked him.

  'No chance of bail,' said Jock cheerily. 'Don't you worry, Victoria. He'll be safe enough in custody. They'll look after him until we find out who really did it.'

  'So will he just stay in the police station here?' said Victoria. Suddenly she wasn't needed in the kitchen any more. 'Or will they move him somewhere else?'

  'It depends,' said Amaryllis. 'They'll be still questioning him at the moment. Then they'll have to take him to the sheriff court and then he's almost certainly going to be remanded in custody - somewhere like Auchterderran prison.'

  'I didn't know there was a prison at Auchterderran,' said Jock indignantly, as if the authorities should automatically have consulted him on the building of such institutions.

  'It's only just opened,' said Amaryllis. 'I think it used to be some sort of educational resource centre.'

  'Will I be able to go and see him?' said Victoria.

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ said Amaryllis. When she saw how Victoria’s face fell, she relented slightly. ‘I expect you can write to him though.’

  ‘Write to him? Pah! What’s the use of that?’

  Victoria flounced off, looking more Italian by the moment in her dramatic indignation.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ said Christopher accusingly.

  ‘Me? I don’t have any jurisdiction over prison regulations!’ said Amaryllis. They glared at each other.

  Jock was staring after Victoria.

  ‘There must be something better she can do.’

  ‘What do you mean, better?’ said Christopher.

  Jock waved his hand around the café in a dismissive way. ‘Better than this. She doesn’t need to be stuck here in a crummy little café in Pitkirtly helping in the kitchen, waiting on people. Why doesn’t she get away?’

  ‘It isn’t that bad,’ said Christopher, seizing on the most trivial of Jock’s points in the way Amaryllis had often observed him doing. ‘It's very clean. And maybe that’s all she wants to do with her life. Maybe she’ll inherit the family business one day.’

  ‘There’s Giancarlo though,’ said Jock. ‘If anybody’s going to inherit anything, it’ll be him, surely. She could go to university, do something worthwhile… She could get out of here and leave them all behind.’

  ‘What about Darren?’ said Amaryllis, playing devil’s advocate. She completely agreed with Jock. Victoria was silly to stick around here when there was a whole worl
d out there. There must be something better for her.

  ‘She could leave Darren behind too,’ argued Jock. ‘He’s just some petty criminal who’ll never make anything of himself. Either he’ll go right downhill and end up in and out of gaol for the rest of his life, or at best he’ll go on the dole and get the chance to pick up litter once a week in exchange for his benefit money. She could have a life. She’s certainly got the brains for it, from what I remember.’

  Jock sounded more angry about Darren than about anything she had heard him talk about for some time. Ever, in fact. Amaryllis wondered what his interest in the boy was. Maybe he saw him as a kind of substitute son – one who actually needed Jock’s help instead of going off with his mother and hardly seeing his father.

  Old Mrs Petrelli came out of the kitchen with Christopher’s scone and coffee. At the last minute, just before she reached the table, Victoria darted out and grabbed the little tray out of her grandmother’s hands. ‘Here, Nonnina, let me take it.’

  Mrs Petrelli surrendered the tray, but Amaryllis thought her expression was still troubled as she gazed at her granddaughter. That would be something to follow up at the next Cosy Clicks meeting.

  Christopher, of course, was thrilled to accept his coffee and scone at the hands of Victoria, but if he had thought she would pause and chat to them any more that day, he was destined to be disappointed, since the girl rushed back to the kitchen as soon as she had unloaded the tray.

  It wasn’t until they were outside the café, walking along together in some random direction that seemed to be taking them on to the harbour wall, for want of anywhere better to go, that he said, a bit wistfully, ‘You’re right, of course. Both of you, I mean. She’s too good to be waiting on people like us.’

  Amaryllis and Jock exchanged glances.

  ‘Right,’ said Amaryllis briskly. ‘Who wants to come and see the Donaldsons with me?’

  Chapter 8 Death-watch beetle

  The Donaldsons, whose address Christopher decided Amaryllis must have obtained by semi-legal means or alchemy, were out.

  'There'll be things for them to do,' said Christopher. He didn't specify the things, not even to himself. There were always grim things to do when somebody died. He started to worry about who would do them for him when he died, told himself it didn't matter anyway if he wasn't there to be bothered about it, and fell into a state of mild and mellow sadness which was quite unsuitable for the spring.

  'How did you know we were at the Petrellis?' said Amaryllis. It was an apparently idle conversational gambit, but Christopher knew from experience that she rarely asked anything idly.

  'I wasn't looking for you,' he said. 'I just happened to be passing. I've got to back to work on Monday, so I thought I'd go for a walk while I still could..'

  'So you just happened to be passing,' said Amaryllis. 'You thought you'd pass that way just in case Victoria happened to be about.'

  'What is it with you and Victoria?' said Christopher.

  'No, what is it with you and Victoria?' said Amaryllis, greenish eyes flashing, hair looking spikier than ever. They faced each other in the middle of the road.

  'With me and Victoria?'

  'And don't start that!'

  'Don't start what?'

  'Don't start repeating everything I say! It's really annoying!'

  'You started it!' he said, exasperated almost beyond bearing. Then he thought of something she had done before, and paused. 'You're trying to pick a fight, aren't you?'

  She looked more fiery than ever just for a moment, then laughed. 'Nothing gets past you, does it Christopher? I was planning to sneak off and try and have another look at the old railway yard.'

  'Another look?' said Jock, who had kept clear like the wimp he was while it looked as if there would be fireworks, and now joined them again.

  'Have you had a look already?' said Christopher. 'Without us?'

  He tried not to sound too much like a child whose mother had left him at home when she went to Disneyland, but he had a horrible feeling there was a primary-school whine in his voice. But Amaryllis seemed almost relieved that this had come out. Maybe she had developed a guilty conscience at last. Some part of him hoped not: in a way he would have liked Amaryllis to stay just the way she was when he had first met her. It could get very confusing if people changed.

  'Yes, I admit it, I went round there yesterday. And to the house. I couldn't get into the house though - it's too soon. There's still police tape round it.'

  'It's not like you to be put off by a bit of tape,' said Christopher with feeling, remembering past exploits.

  'Come on then,' said Amaryllis. 'It's not far from here.'

  Christopher wasn't the most observant person in the world, but he couldn't help noticing, as she strode off along the river front walkway in front of them, that she wasn't walking with quite her usual air of agility. It was almost as if her joints were starting to stiffen up with age. But she wasn't that old, not that he had ever guessed, even in the privacy of his own mind, how old she was. You could presumably retire from spying at any age.

  Jock nudged him. 'You've noticed something, haven't you?'

  'There's something not quite right - ' said Christopher just as Amaryllis turned back towards them and said, 'What's the matter with you two, gossiping like a pair of old women?'

  They caught up with her, one on each side. Christopher's arm accidentally brushed hers as he fell into step, and she flinched.

  'What's wrong?' he said quietly.

  'I bumped my elbow earlier. In the kitchen.'

  'Hmm.'

  They walked a bit further in silence.

  'The yard's just across the railway line and down towards the shore a bit,' she said, opening the little gate that led them across the tracks. Christopher immediately imagined being mowed down by some massive steam engine, or worse still by one of the quiet modern trains that would be almost on you before you heard them, but Amaryllis and Jock seemed to think it was all right so he crossed meekly, and volunteered to close the gate behind them at the other side.

  The old railway yard was even less impressive than its name suggested: the shell of a workman's hut, and some old concrete coal bunkers. A lot of cigarette ends. And somebody had carelessly dropped a baseball bat by one of the bunkers. Christopher frowned as he glanced at it. He had the vague idea they were sometimes used as weapons as well as for playing rounders or the fancy American equivalent thereof. It had been a bit irresponsible to leave it lying around here where children could get hold of it. Or maybe children did play rounders in here. It wasn't as dangerous as some of the places he had played when he was young: the nearest quarry, the coal tip by the eastern shore, the ruins of a small castle with its own well. But he didn't think today's risk-averse parents would approve of the proximity of the railway line.

  'This is it then,' said Amaryllis. She didn't even glance at the baseball bat. 'This is the glamorous hang-out of Darren and Giancarlo and the rest.'

  'Giancarlo wasn't there that night, was he?' said Christopher, not entirely sure of his facts. 'I thought it was just Darren and Alan Donaldson and Zak somebody and Stewie somebody else.'

  'Zak Johnstone,' said Amaryllis. 'You're right, there was no mention of Giancarlo. But maybe he was there anyway.'

  'Or maybe he wasn't,' said Christopher. He didn't want to start another argument.

  'Victoria didn't say anything about him either,' said Jock. 'She didn't seem all that pleased when I asked her about him. Was he part of the gang or not? I think he's a bit younger than Darren.'

  'Doesn't mean they can't be friends,' said Amaryllis.

  'Odd that Darren and Victoria didn't mention him though,' said Christopher. 'We wouldn't even have known he existed if Jock hadn't said something. Back at the caravan, I mean.'

  'Oh, that's right, blame me,' said Jock.

  'Nobody's blaming anybody,' said Christopher.

  They turned and walked back towards the yard entrance. When they were nearly there, two
young men came round the corner from the direction of the railway line quite fast and almost met them face to face - except that they both then executed rapid U-turns and ran back the way they had come.

  'Zak Johnstone!' said Amaryllis, not giving chase the way Christopher might have expected.

  'Wasn't that the talking ham?' said Christopher uncertainly.

  'Yes - the other one might have been. I'm sure the one on the left was Zak. He's got the same big nose and curly hair as his mother.'

  'Aren't we going to chase them?' said Jock. 'I like a good chase scene.'

  'No,' said Amaryllis casually - or was she trying too hard to be casual? Christopher couldn't work it out.

  'There's a train coming,' said Jock.

  'We'll catch them anyway, in that case,' said Amaryllis. 'They won't have time to get across.'

  But when they got up to the railway tracks, the boys had already darted across the track in front of the train, which ambled along with an apparently endless string of coal trucks. They just had to stand and wait as the trucks trundled past.

  'We'll catch up with them some other time,' said Amaryllis. 'Let's go and have another look at the murder house. Maybe they'll have taken the tape off by now.'

  Christopher was puzzled and not entirely happy about the new law-abiding Amaryllis. Not long ago she would have ignored something as flimsy as police tape, ignoring or circumventing it at will. He had got used to her taking risks so that he didn't have to. Or maybe, he mused, that wasn't the right way round. After all, he had been the one who had risked his life and made an idiot of himself on the cliffs at Kinghorn.

  They came to the small new housing development. It was a mid-market kind of place, a bit like the area where he lived except that his house had been built in late Victorian times when it had been thought that Pitkirtly might become a commuter town. That hadn't actually happened until the 1990s, when housing everywhere else had become too expensive for most people.

  A few of the houses were finished but most were in different stages of construction. They stood at a safe distance from the murder house, pointed out by Amaryllis but in any case clearly marked out by the police tape, and stared at it. The exterior seemed to be more or less complete, so it would have been a dry and relatively cosy place for Darren to spend the night, but some essential features such as the front steps were missing.