3 A Reformed Character

by Cecilia Peartree

  She knew this was of no consolation. Maisie Sue's mouth quivered, but she was made of stern stuff. She turned to Jan.

  'I want to knit something fancy to take my mind of it?' she said. 'Have you got anything new and different?'

  'Ooh, yes,' said Jan, excited. She reached under the counter and brought out a box. 'This has just arrived. Organic river-washed hand-dyed llama wool.'

  She opened the box. Deep blues, warm yellows, startling reds..... it was as if you might want to knit your own peacock, Amaryllis thought.

  She knew starting to covet specialist yarns was a sign she had been away from her true vocation for too long. She resigned herself to speaking to Jan another time. There was no hurry, after all.

  Chapter 19 A Proper Job

  The next day Amaryllis was pacing her flat again, having extended the circuit to go round by the kitchen and pick up a banana on the way, when the door-bell rang.

  Her spirits lifted. It was Christopher, and his course had finished early!

  It was Tricia Laidlaw, Darren's mum. Looking at her face on the screen attached to the entry system, Amaryllis thought the woman was gloomy but not distraught. Instead of buzzing her in, Amaryllis went downstairs and opened the main door herself. She was so bored and frustrated she would probably have invited the Boston Strangler into her flat if she thought he might provide half an hour's entertainment.

  'How did you get my address?' she asked as they went up the stairs together.

  'I went into the Cultural Centre and asked Mr Wilson,' said Mrs Laidlaw. 'Sorry - I thought he might know where you lived.'

  'Yes,' said Amaryllis. So Christopher was back in town. She squashed down a small twinge of hurt that he hadn't contacted her yet, and continued, 'Yes, that was the best thing to do.'

  They sat in the sparsely furnished living-room and Mrs Laidlaw looked at the sliding doors. 'This is nice,' she said. 'Very light and airy. Have you got plant-pots on the balcony?'

  'Not yet,' said Amaryllis, feeling guilty that she had never even wanted the responsibility of looking after pot plants. Was there something wrong with her? Some essential feminine traits seemed to be missing from her make-up. She had never felt the lack of femininity before, but now she suddenly wondered if she should try and acquire some. Maybe the knitting club was a start.

  'Darren's back in custody,' said Mrs Laidlaw.

  'Oh? I didn't know that.'

  She was cross with herself for not knowing. Then she was cross with herself for being cross. What was the matter with her at the moment? She seemed to be on a roller-coaster of emotion - surely it wasn't an early menopause, playing havoc with her hormones?

  'Yes,' said Mrs Laidlaw. In contrast to Amaryllis, she didn't seem to be reacting at all emotionally to this turn of events. 'In a way it's a relief. I was worried some harm would come to him when he was on the run. Anything could have happened. At least I know where he is now.'

  'I see,' said Amaryllis. 'Have you spoken to him?'

  'Yes, they let me see him for a few minutes. He told me about the help your friend Mr McLean gave him, but I couldn't find Mr McLean to thank him myself. I just wondered if you knew where he was?'

  'Jock McLean? No, I haven't seen him for a while - since he and Darren disappeared from the Donaldsons' shed. Has he told you what happened to them after that?'

  Mrs Laidlaw laughed. 'Apparently they went up to some cattery at the back of beyond. It sounded as if Darren loved it there...He always liked animals, right enough. But he said there was some bother up there - nothing to do with him though, he was quite definite about that - and the police were called, and he gave himself up.'

  'And Jock was there with him?' said Amaryllis, slightly incredulous. She had never suspected Jock of liking animals. He wasn't all that fond of people, for that matter, although she had occasionally wondered if his contempt for them was a bit exaggerated.

  'Yes - Darren really took to Mr McLean. He isn't good with men - he never knew his father.'

  'So where's Jock now? I haven't seen him at all.'

  'He was still up there when Darren came back with the police. The woman there - I think her name's Rosie - hid Mr McLean when the police came. She seemed to think he might be in trouble for helping Darren.'

  'Yes,' said Amaryllis, and then she remembered something. 'But Jock can give Darren an alibi! For Old Mrs Petrelli's murder. Darren went round to Jock's house and was there all through the time in question.'

  'Miss Peebles, can I ask you a favour?'

  'Yes,' said Amaryllis slowly and cautiously. She had no idea where this was heading.

  'I don't know how much you would charge an hour, but would you take it on?'

  'Take what on?'

  'Darren's case. Would you take it on? As a private detective, I mean.'

  'But I'm not - ' Amaryllis began, and cut herself short almost at once. 'I mean, of course there wouldn't be any charge. I don't mind looking into this just as a favour.'

  'But - expenses?' said Mrs Laidlaw. 'They always say three hundred dollars a day plus expenses. In the books.'

  'It's all right, Mrs Laidlaw,' said Amaryllis firmly. 'I don't need expenses. I can get by all right.'

  'But it would put it on a more professional level,' said Mrs Laidlaw. 'If you took the case on properly. Then you couldn't just walk away when you lost interest in it. Not that I'm saying you would, mind you. It just seems a bit more - well, official.'

  'Yes, but.....Hmm. I see what you mean, I think. But won't his lawyer hire a detective if he needs one?'

  'He doesn't have a lawyer.'

  Amaryllis thought about giving Mrs Laidlaw a stern lecture about the need for a lawyer in this kind of serious case, but she didn't want to worry the woman by making her think of the bills she might end up with. Anyway, she thought it might be fun to set herself up as a private detective for a while. She was more or less qualified, after all, and although officially retired from her job with the security services she still worked as a consultant on certain projects, which, she told herself, covered any licensing issues. It would also annoy the hell out of her police acquaintances such as Mr Smith, which was as good a reason as any for doing it. She wouldn't take any money from the Laidlaws of course - in fact she had just thought of a way of avoiding doing that.

  'It would have to be on a no-win, no-fee basis,' she said.

  'That seems fair enough,' said Mrs Laidlaw. 'Can I pay you when it's all finished?'

  'Yes, of course. I'll write out an agreement and we can both sign it.' She sensed that Tricia Laidlaw wouldn't be happy without a piece of paper, preferably with a logo on the top. Peebles Private Investigations. Amaryllis's Amazing Adventures. Something like that. 'Now tell me everything Darren has said to you about this whole thing. Start from the beginning, when he woke up in the house and found Alan Donaldson was dead.'

  'He didn't exactly find - ' began Mrs Laidlaw, and gradually, in response to a lot of prompting from Amaryllis, she revealed all the interaction that had taken place between the Laidlaws. It was a meagre recital of mundane exchanges, but Amaryllis hoped it would provide essential clues. Darren had evidently talked a lot, relatively speaking, about his time at the cattery and about the attack, which she hadn't known about before. Although on the surface it seemed unconnected with the rest of the story, there was no knowing what link might be found.

  'So he really doesn't know who broke him out that second time?' she said at the end. Tricia had been very vague about Darren's escape from the sheriff court.

  'He just said it was some man he didn't know, in a big black car. They dropped him off up at the back of Pitkirtly and that was when he thought of going round to Mr McLean's house again.'

  'And there was nobody he knew there at all? When the escape happened?'

  'He did say he thought he saw the Petrellis. Victoria and Giancarlo. He waved to them but they didn't seem to see him. Which was a bit odd, I suppose,' added Mrs Laidlaw, 'because he wondered if they had come along to give him a boost, you kno
w, a bit of moral support.'

  'And he didn't leave Jock McLean's house from the time he got there until the window was smashed?'

  'He didn't say anything about smashing a window.'

  'No, it wasn't him, it was somebody else, outside the house,' said Amaryllis hastily. Tricia seemed only too ready to believe the worst about her son, although she would probably have sprung to his defence if somebody else had suggested he had done anything wrong. 'We were all there - Christopher and I and Jock and Darren. Then we escaped through the back door and made our way through the gardens - and it was after that Christopher and I lost touch with Jock and Darren.'

  'There was something else,' said Tricia. Amaryllis's spirits lifted slightly. Maybe this was the clue she needed to crack the case.

  'Yes?' she said eagerly.

  'It probably wasn't anything, but Darren said he's thought about the attack on the cattery. He thinks maybe he knew one of the people in the car.'

  'Who did he think it was?' said Amaryllis.

  'He isn't sure, though. It might not mean anything. I didn't want to say anything, in case it wasn't right, and I didn't want to get the boy into trouble.'

  'Who?' said Amaryllis, trying to curb her impatience. She could hardly wait to follow up this rambling discussion with action. She no longer cared what kind of action it was, as long as she could get moving. She couldn't stop her fingers drumming on the arm of the chair, although with a huge effort of will-power she did just manage to prevent her feet from showing solidarity by tapping on the floor.

  'Well, he thinks it might have been Zak. You know the boy I mean? Zak Johnstone?'

  Zak Johnstone. Ah.' Amaryllis thought of Zak and Stewie getting into a car on the High Street in the middle of the night. She jumped to her feet and started pacing. 'What night was it? The attack on the cattery, I mean.''

  'The night before last.'

  'Yes, that fits... Thank you very much, Mrs Laidlaw.'

  'Tricia.'

  'Thanks, Tricia. This could be quite important.'

  Tricia smiled weakly. 'So you think this has something to do with - everything?'

  'It doesn't make sense at the moment, but it will, soon,' said Amaryllis. She wished the other woman would leave now, and allow her some time to think. It wasn't much, but she was building up a small collection of oddities - things that didn't quite fit, that stood out as being outside the normal rhythms of life in Pitkirtly.

  'I'd better go, and let you get time to think,' said Tricia, standing up.

  'If you think of anything else, just give me a call,' said Amaryllis. 'You should visit Darren as often as they let you. He needs your support - and you could find out something more, if you speak to him again about some of these things.'

  'I'll do that.'

  The woman hesitated, hovering where she was instead of moving towards the door. Amaryllis sensed she was on the brink of saying something important: something that had meaning for her, anyway, even if it was nothing to do with the case.

  'Darren's father?' said Amaryllis.

  'How did you know?'

  'Was it Roberto Petrelli?' Amaryllis took a great leap in the dark.

  Tricia sat down again. 'Yes, it was.'

  'Only tell me as much as you want,' said Amaryllis quickly. She had never been good at listening to emotional outpourings, and she thought - she hoped - Tricia Laidlaw understood that.

  Tricia shrugged her shoulders. 'It was a holiday thing. Giulia was expecting the twins. Roberto was bored. We were in our early twenties. That was it. A fling. I've been married and divorced since then. I never asked him for a penny, or told anyone who he was. Darren doesn't know.'

  'You'd better tell him,' said Amaryllis.

  'Yes... This thing with Victoria... I never expected that to happen. It was wrong not to tell him, I can see that now.'

  She stood up again. 'That's all there is to it. A sordid little fling. The start of Darren's life. No wonder he's turned out like this.'

  'He can be something better,' said Amaryllis quietly.

  'But can people ever really change?' said Tricia.

  After showing Tricia Laidlaw out, Amaryllis paced up and down a bit more. Zak Johnstone and the raid on the cattery - Mr Donaldson's final words to her and Christopher - the man who visited the Petrellis in the night - they were all part of the puzzle. Where was Christopher when she needed him? He was the one person she knew who could play Watson to her Holmes - Hastings to her Poirot - and did Miss Marple have somebody to bounce ideas off?

  She went out for a walk. There was always the risk, of course, of running into Maisie Sue or one of the many other people she didn’t want to run into, but she needed the air. When she got to the High Street, she paused to look in the window of the Pitkirtly Yarn Store. Maybe if she bought a different kind of wool…

  Something made her turn away from the window at that point.

  Stewie was walking down the other side of the street. He carried a large bag of shopping in each hand, and looked as miserable as any young man might be expected to look in the circumstances. Beside him walked a sweet-looking elderly lady with a pink scarf and fluffy white hair. She smiled beatifically, casting sweetness all around her like some sort of metaphorical sugar shaker. Amaryllis distrusted her on sight.

  Stewie glanced round suddenly and caught Amaryllis's eye. He looked wildly from side to side like a cornered animal, and then took off, diving down a side street, still clutching the carrier bags. He didn't seem to realise they would probably slow him down.

  Amaryllis gave chase.

  As she sprinted away, she heard the old lady burst shockingly into speech, each word more horrible than the previous one. Christopher wouldn't like that, thought Amaryllis fleetingly as she ran after Stewie.

  The side street was one of the cobbled ones that led, between former fishermen's cottages, to the harbour.

  She thought it would be a pushover, but Stewie's desperation had him halfway along the harbour wall by the time she came out of the last cobbled lane.

  Fortunately his mental prowess didn't match his speed. Unless he threw himself in the water, she had him trapped. Slowing her pace, she crossed the road and strolled along the wall. Stewie stood at the end, at bay. He was next to the steps that led only to the waters of the River Forth. Amaryllis hadn't actually tested the temperature of the grey unwelcoming waves herself, but she guessed they were unpleasantly cold at this time of year. Even on dry land he seemed to be shivering in the thin jacket, and she saw a hole in the toe of his cheap plimsolls.

  'I think your gran wants her shopping back,' she said pleasantly.

  Stewie glanced down at his hands and seemed surprised to find he was still carrying the supermarket bags. 'It wasn't me,' he said.

  'I don't really care if it was you or Santa Claus,' she told him. 'I just want to find out if you know anything you shouldn't... About cats, for instance.'

  He shook his head. 'Cats - no. I don't like cats.'

  'Really? So you didn't break into a cattery the other night just to admire a particularly beautiful Persian, then?'

  Too late she realised Stewie had probably endured sarcasm all his life and was immune to it by now.

  'Persian what?' he said.

  It had started to rain, only lightly but it was wet enough to flatten his wispy fair hair against his head and to make him look about ten years old. A small vulnerable boy looked out of the grey-blue eyes. Amaryllis experienced an unfamiliar sensation somewhere inside her. She couldn't work out what it was at first, but after a moment she identified it: pity.

  'Come on,' she said, holding out her hand as if she thought he might take it, 'let's get the shopping back to your gran.'

  He came along meekly enough. Scared of retribution from his gran, she thought, remembering the tirade of abuse.

  Five minutes later, with Stewie and the shopping dispatched towards home, his granny graciously accepted an invitation from Amaryllis to have a cup of tea in the nearest café, a small and dingy pl
ace.

  Amaryllis had issued the invitation not because she wanted to spend time with the woman, but so that she could glean all remaining grains of information about Stewie. She knew that getting anything out of the boy himself would be as tortuous and unrewarding as trying to steal his soul.

  'Do they let you smoke in here?' hissed the old lady as they sat down.

  'I think it's against the law now,' said Amaryllis.

  Stewie's gran snorted inelegantly. As far as Amaryllis could tell she did everything else inelegantly too.

  They ordered two teas, and Stewie's gran sneaked in an order for scones just as the scruffy waitress was leaving their table. Now that the old lady had removed her coat, Amaryllis could see she had the build of someone who was partial to a good scone, or three. The kind of person who might even go into a museum if the café there did the best scones in the neighbourhood. Fortunately the Cultural Centre didn't have a café, so it was safe from a visit.

  After they had each eaten one scone with blackcurrant jam, and Stewie's gran was eyeing a second, Amaryllis judged that it was time to start asking questions. The woman had to pay for her treat, after all.

  'So, Mrs - Hamilton, is it?'

  'No.' The old lady shook her head. 'I'm not on his side of the family - bunch of thieving toerags. I'm Cathy Patterson... You're a retired spy, aren't you?'

  She closed her mouth tightly at the end of this last sentence as if to let Amaryllis know she wasn't to be interrogated.

  'Your Stewie's a quiet boy, isn't he?' Amaryllis chose to start with Stewie's only redeeming feature.

  'Stewie's a good boy,' said Mrs Patterson. She had apparently forgotten all the names she had called him when he ran off with the shopping. She leaned forward, and scooped up another scone in passing. 'His Dad, though - that's another story.'

  'Is it?' said Amaryllis hopefully.

  'In prison,' Mrs Patterson mouthed, and sat back looking smug. She crammed half a scone into her mouth and munched on it, apparently oblivious to the steady trickle of crumbs that escaped from the corners of her mouth and dribbled down on to her chest.