3 A Reformed Character (16 page)

'Oh, dear, I feel so sorry for Giulia,' said Jan. 'I wish there was something I could do. Selling sock wool to her just doesn't seem like enough.'

'You can only do what you can do,' said Maisie Sue. She gave a long sigh. 'We all have to look after ourselves in the end.' She glanced from Jan to Amaryllis and back, and gave a long sigh. 'Pearson's gone again,' she admitted.

'I thought he was back,' said Amaryllis. This marital problem of Maisie Sue's was getting to be rather tiresome, but she wanted to wait in the shop until Jan was alone, to interrogate her about Giulia.

Jan didn't seem at all surprised by the revelation. Amaryllis wondered if she had been acting as unofficial confessor to everyone at Cosy Clicks - in which case interrogating her should certainly prove worthwhile.

'He only came back to tell me he was going for good,' said Maisie Sue. 'He's planning to set up home in Gdansk with his Polish floozie. He’s already asked the Company to transfer him to their Polish branch. I don't know what I'm going to do... I guess your police will be coming along any day to deport me.'

'I don't think it usually happens that quickly,' said Amaryllis.

'What do you think about political asylum?' said Maisie Sue.

'Well, is your life potentially in danger if you go back to the States?' asked Amaryllis.

Maisie Sue considered this for a moment. 'My life wouldn't be worth living, that's for sure,' she said at last. 'Pearson's mother -'

'I doubt if that would count,' said Amaryllis. 'But try not to worry - it hasn't happened yet.'

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 know, 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.