3 A Reformed Character (19 page)

'Very interesting,' she continued. 'Roberto Petrelli was fine the last time we saw him - remember, he and the family were at the police station shouting at us. And Giulia never mentioned at Cosy Clicks he had a chronic illness or anything.'

'At Cosy Clicks? Surely she'd never talk about that kind of thing at a knitting group!'

'That's exactly the sort of thing she'd have talked about at Cosy Clicks,' said Amaryllis. She sighed. 'Unfortunately.'

'But - how can you stand it?' said Jock. 'Knowing what you know - having seen the terrible things you've seen. How can you stand all the utter trivia?’

'I don't want to be thinking about my past all the time, Jock,' she said reprovingly. 'In fact, believe it or not, I've already forgotten most of it.'

'So what do you think is wrong with Mr Petrelli?'

'There are a few possibilities. But the fact that nobody's said anything about him being ill, and the private ambulance he was taken away in, point in the same direction.'

'What? Sudden illness? Something embarrassing?' he said.

'Gunshot wounds,' she replied. 'There's nothing quite as embarrassing as a gunshot wound - in my experience.'

‘But how – why didn’t they call the police if he was shot?’

‘Why indeed?’ said Amaryllis calmly. ‘There are several reasons I can think of – they knew who shot him and didn’t want to get them into trouble. Or he was doing something dodgy himself and it was an accident. Or – ‘

‘Is this part of the protection racket we were talking about earlier?’ said Jock, who felt increasingly as if he were out of his depth.

‘It’s looking more like part of the same thing,’ said Amaryllis. ‘And I think I know when the shooting incident happened.’

Jock thought about it for a minute or two. ‘In the woods! When they were after us! There was a yell and a shot and then they disappeared. Didn’t you say something about blood? Or did I imagine it?’

‘Yes, I did find a trace of blood. Well, actually it was more than just a trace. It was a bucketful. I just said that because I didn’t want anyone freaking out.’

‘So one or more of them – whoever them is,’ said Jock ungrammatically, ’were shooting at us in the woods and then Mr Petrelli somehow got shot by mistake.’

‘Yes. Either he was on his own and shot himself in the foot or whatever, or he was with somebody else who either got cross with him and took a shot at him, or accidentally shot him, maybe mistaking him for one of us.’

‘That’s a lot of eithers and ors,’ said Jock.

She frowned. ‘Too many. We still don’t know very much. But I’m guessing there was at least one other person with him, to help him home after it happened… But if they were shooting to kill why didn’t they just finish him off?’

‘Maybe there were two others there, and only one of them wanted him dead,’ suggested Jock.

‘Two others. Hmm. Zak Johnstone and Stewie? Zak Johnstone and Giancarlo?’

‘Giancarlo and Stewie?’ said Jock, entering into the spirit of things. He shook his head. ‘They’re just kids.’

‘Kids or not,’ said Amaryllis grimly. ‘I’ll be looking for all three of them tomorrow, and I won’t rest till I find them. They’ve got some questions to answer. They can run, but they can’t hide.’

Chapter 22  No hiding place

Amaryllis wasn’t sure if she wanted to take Jock out with her again. By her standards he had been a bit over-cautious last night, and his joints had obviously given him trouble. On the other hand, she didn’t seem to be able to get rid of him. After they had finished the night’s work, he showed no sign of going home, and it seemed only charitable to offer him a bed for what was left of the hours of darkness. In the morning he made himself some breakfast and settled down in the living-room to read ‘The Constant Gardener’ which she didn’t think he would like anyway. She would have to persuade him to go home eventually, but she didn’t have time to think about that at the moment.

‘Will we go round for Christopher?’ he said eagerly as they set off from the flat.

‘Go round for him? What are we, school kids? Do you want to ask if he can come out to play?’

‘Just a thought,’ he mumbled.

She paused to reflect, then said, reluctantly, ‘He’d be cross with us if we didn’t take him, wouldn’t he?’

‘I’m not sure if cross is the right word,’ said Jock. ‘Maybe he’d be a wee bit hurt.’

‘Hmph! I don’t acknowledge hurt feelings as a reason for doing anything,’ she said.

‘Not everybody lives according to your rules,’ he countered. ‘Anyway, you might need somebody to run for help. He’d be better at doing that than me.’

‘I’d better rule out Big Dave and Jemima, in that case,’ she said. She had no intention of involving them in any way whatsoever. This could be quite dangerous – very dangerous, by most people’s standards – and she couldn’t have their lives on her conscience, no matter how accommodating her conscience could be on occasion.

Christopher was eating toast as he opened his front door. Part of her had wanted to break in and appear inside his house to give him a fright, but another part of her brain, where her spy training lived, told her sternly to save these tricks for emergencies.

‘Want any toast?’ he said. ‘Morning, Jock. All right?’

‘We’re off to catch some villains,’ said Jock. ‘Do you want to come along?’

‘This is sounding a bit like a Wizard of Oz kind of thing,’ said Christopher suspiciously. ‘Is there a yellow brick road? Can we link arms and sing as we go along?’

‘No, and there isn’t a rainbow either,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Although I suppose you and Jock would be naturals for the Scarecrow and the Lion.’ She lowered her voice in case Mr Browning from next-door had secreted a microphone in the party wall to assist with his long-term project of monitoring what went on in Christopher’s house. ‘We’re going to find Zak Johnstone and Stewie, and maybe Giancarlo Petrelli, and make them sorry they were ever born.’

‘Am I the Scarecrow or the Lion?’ said Christopher uneasily. ‘Where were you thinking of looking for them?’

‘Work it out for yourself,’ said Amaryllis.

‘The railway yard?’ he asked.

‘Well, we know that’s a hang-out of theirs. We can start there, and if we don’t get anywhere we’ll review the situation and re-group. Penelope might have some idea where Zak is, although I don’t hold out much hope since she apparently had no idea he was part of a gang of enforcers who went around breaking into catteries.’

‘Children, eh?’ commented Jock. ‘Always a disappointment one way or another.'

Christopher obediently got his coat and came out on to the garden path, still munching the last crust of toast.

There was a part of Amaryllis - the part that had gone soft during her life in Pitkirtly - that thought it would be much nicer to spend Saturday morning in Christopher's kitchen persuading him to make toast and more toast until lunchtime, while the police rounded up villains on behalf of the whole community, but for the moment at least the other part was dominant - the part that was chronically competitive and wanted to wrap things up before involving the police.

They trudged down towards the old railway yard.

After they had crossed the tracks, Amaryllis decided it was time to unveil her plan, such as it was.

'You two can wait here in case they make a run for it. If there's any trouble subduing them or if it looks as if they might be armed, get out of here and phone the police right away. Have you got your mobiles with you?'

She knew from experience that Christopher's mobile often sat on the kitchen table for days on end, which sort of defeated its whole purpose in the scheme of things, and that Jock's was almost never switched on. Neither of them had really embraced new technology.

'I've got mine,' said Jock, producing it from his pocket, while Christopher's look of guilty surprise told its own story.

'Is it switched on?' she said patiently, feeling like a mother asking her son if he had done his homework.

Jock switched on the mobile. It even made a small chirruping sound to show its battery hadn't gone dead during the probable weeks of neglect.

'Right, wait here. I'm going round to the other side. It's no use just walking into the yard - there's only one real way out and we could be caught like rats in a trap if they're hiding in there somewhere.'

'But you - can't we come with you?' said Christopher.

'I'll be in far more danger if I take you than if I go on my own,' said Amaryllis bluntly. It was no time to consider anyone's feelings.

'You're probably right,' was all he said.

'How many of them are you expecting?' asked Jock.

'Well, Zak and Stewie are almost always together so if either of them is in there they'll both be. I'm not sure about the others. Or other.'

'Other?' said Christopher.

'Possibly Giancarlo Petrelli. Possibly not. Maybe others too.'

She saw Christopher giving her an apprehensive look. She hoped he wouldn't follow her or try to do anything heroic. Previous experience suggested that he wouldn't but you never knew with men. She thought she could rely on Jock to hold him back, anyway. He seemed to have had enough of being a man of action by the end of last night.

They waited with different degrees of reluctance, Jock holding on to the pedestrian gate that opened on to the railway crossing while Christopher leaned against the nearest wall. Amaryllis went over to the fence that surrounded the perimeter of the yard, slid into the space behind it and started to work her way round. It consisted of metal railings erected on top of a low brick wall that came to about waist height. She aimed to get to the mid-point, right opposite the gateway, or as close as possible to it, and then to look for the most convenient way through, round or over the fence. There had to be a weak spot; there always was. She was lucky in that trees had grown up almost all the way round the outside of the fence: a few rowans, some birches and a lot of indeterminate wild trees she didn't recognise. The trees themselves didn't give much cover at this time of year, when they were just tentatively coming into leaf, but a mix of brambles, ferns and bracken grew around them, and she alternately crouched and ran, drawing on her security services training. The trees she didn't recognise on the way would probably have filled a book about trees.

She couldn't hear a sound from inside the yard, but that didn't surprise her. Even if there was anybody there they would be speaking in low voices, plotting and planning.

If there was nobody there she would have to re-think.

There was a spot where the railings had come away from the top of the wall, and she could have got through if necessary. But there was very little cover on the other side, in the yard itself She aimed for one of the places where scrubby weeds, or rather what was left of them after winter, covered the ground.

She dodged round behind the next birch tree, ducked quickly down into a bramble patch and carried on.

The silence could have been unnerving but Amaryllis wasn't easily unnerved. She knew that concentrating on the next thing to be done, and doing it, were important and pausing to worry could be fatal. For instance, she could have worried about another baseball bat attack, but - dammit! She swept the image from her mind, trying to keep it clear and sharp. Her brain could be her most effective weapon.

Peering from behind a large gnarled rowan tree, she saw a rapid blur of movement at the window of the old workmen’s hut she had noticed on her first visit to the yard. How many of them were in there? She wished she had reconnoitred the inside, but other things had been more pressing at the time of both visits: first Giancarlo Petrelli with his baseball bat and then Old Mrs Petrelli with the knitting needle in her heart. She shuddered. The yard suddenly didn’t seem a very healthy place to be.

Pushing these stray thoughts to one side, she considered her options, and the distances between the rowan tree and the wall, and between the wall and the hut. If this was the side with the window in it, she would definitely have to approach from a different direction. Where was the doorway? And was there a fully functional door in it, or was it empty, open to the elements? She thought she remembered a doorway on the side facing the concrete bays where Giancarlo had lurked with his baseball bat. But she couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

The sound of a train intruded into her thoughts, but she dismissed it as irrelevant. Nobody would need to cross the railway tracks for a while yet. She, Jock and Christopher were well capable of detaining a couple of kids without any outside help.

She decided to retrace her steps to the place where she had seen the gap in the railings. She advanced right up to the gap and stood staring through it. The windowless wall of the workman’s hut faced her from this angle. There was no door at this side either. She didn’t want to think about whether the hut might be so dilapidated that watchers could see right through gaps in the walls. She would cross that bridge when she came to it.

She burnt the bridges she had already crossed, smiling faintly to herself at the neat way she had telescoped two metaphors into one, by climbing on to the wall and wriggling through the gap in the fence. Then she ran towards the hut as fast as she could, in wide zigzags which she hoped would confuse anyone who might have a gun trained on her. The soft shoes made very little sound on the rough surface. As she got closer to the hut, she imagined she could hear voices inside it.

She sidled along by the wall of the hut as far as the corner, listening hard and trying not to breathe. Now she could definitely hear voices, but they spoke low and fast, and she couldn’t make out more than a few words here and there. It was more important at this point to get the gang members into custody: after that their conversations would be heard and recorded until the cows came home. One of the voices was a bit higher than the rest, so maybe one gang member had taken fright and was panicking – all to the good. It would make him easier to break.

She slid round the corner and sidestepped up towards the doorway. There was a ramshackle door of sorts. A bit annoying, because the odd slats and bars could easily get in the way.

She reached the door and wrenched it open in one movement.

That was all she managed to do.

A searing pain in her left shoulder, a bang quite close by, a kick as if from a mule, and she keeled over backwards on to the rough ground. You idiot, she thought as her eyes closed against the pain.

‘You idiot,’ came a kind of echo of her thought as she lay there. She no longer knew or cared if the echo was from inside her head or from someone else. Amaryllis twitched a little and lay still.

Chapter 23  Backup

As soon as Amaryllis had gone, Jock pulled out his mobile phone again and dialled a number.

‘We need backup,’ he explained to Christopher briefly.

‘But she said – ‘

‘Never mind that, we need backup, and the sooner the better.’