3 A Reformed Character (2 page)

'Mrs Stevenson,' said Darren, coming back to life and starting to smile. 'She's a good laugh. For an old woman.'

'She told us where you were,' said Victoria. 'Then we came here. Before the police could catch up with us.'

'But what made you think of coming to us in the first place?' said Christopher, genuinely bewildered.

'Darren said you were good at solving mysteries,' said Victoria. 'Like the Famous Five. Or - ' she stretched a point, ' - Sherlock Holmes. Or Miss Marple.'

'Solving mysteries? But - '

'He's right,' nodded Amaryllis, coming to a standstill in front of them. 'That's what we do.'

At this propitious moment, the caravan door opened again and, just as Darren slid under the table, presumably in a futile attempt to hide, Jock McLean burst into the lounge.

'Here!' he exclaimed, as the door banged shut behind him. 'You'll never guess who I thought I saw -'

His voice, which had started breathless either with excitement or with the after-effects of going for a smoke, tailed off as Darren pushed himself back on to the seat and looked up at them. 'It is him,' Jock finished lamely.

He cheered up almost at once. 'You've caught him. Before he does whatever he's planning to do.'

'All he did was knock on the door,' said Amaryllis.

Jock caught sight of Victoria.

'Victoria!'

'Mr McLean,' said Victoria gloomily.

'What are you doing here? You're not - oh dear, oh dear.' Jock shook his head. 'You're not with young Darren, are you?'

'Yes,' she admitted.

'You got a problem with that?' growled Darren.

Christopher, sitting next to him, could sense the aggression that was building up in the boy.

'It's OK, Jock,' he said. 'Darren's already on the run from the law. He isn't going to do anything bad here - he just needs our help.'

'On the run? Have you 'phoned it in to the police yet?'

He delved into his jacket pocket. Before he got his hand out again, Amaryllis lunged at him.

'Don't you dare!' she said, grabbing the mobile phone he had brought out, and throwing it across the room. He stared at her, then shook his head again.

'There'll be trouble,' he said.

As if the violent action had brought the phone to life, it started to ring.

They all stared at it as if they had never seen a mobile phone before.

Chapter 2 Band of outlaws

One reason for their surprise, Christopher realised as he considered whether to go over and pick it up or not, was that Jock had chosen 'YMCA' as a ringtone. Unfortunately he started to picture Jock dancing to the song, and then couldn't get the image out of his head.

Meanwhile Amaryllis went and picked it up, wordlessly handed it to Jock and left him to it.

'Hello?' said Jock.

He listened for a moment, then sat down with a thud on the settee. 'He's here... Yes. I know... What did you tell him that for?.. .Nothing to do with me... I don't know!'

He switched off the phone. 'Never mind family emergencies,' he muttered. 'They'll just have to wait.' He looked round at them all. 'Jemima Stevenson. She was ringing to warn us that you two were on your way. Left it a bit late, didn't she?'

Christopher found the image of Jock dancing with the Village People had receded slightly, elbowed out by a vision of Jock as a garden gnome with a garishly painted mobile phone in one hand and his pipe in his mouth. Why was he having all these visions of Jock, anyway? He must be over-tired.

Amaryllis was frowning. 'They'll track us down. It's only a matter of time. We'll have to make the most of this breathing space. Tell us everything you know about Alan Donaldson,' she said to Darren.

Darren wrinkled his forehead, which evidently meant he was deep in thought. After a few moments, he said, 'He was at school with me. We used to hang out when we both had ASBOs. We went round to some house his dad was working on and had a few pints.'

'Did he have other friends? A girl-friend?'

Darren narrowed his eyes as well as wrinkling his forehead this time, as if the question was even more difficult.

Eventually he said, 'He was one of the guys. He once went out with Kylie McDougall. But she was a slag.'

'Kylie McDougall?' said Victoria. 'He never went out with her. It was Kimberley Davidson!'

'Never mind all that,' said Amaryllis hastily. 'Anything else? Was he involved in your recent activities?'

'Recent activities? What's that supposed to mean?'

'In the last year or so. Did he help you to burn down the village hall, for example?'

'I told you, I didn't - ... No, he wasn't interested in that. Said he was busy that night.'

'Busy with what?'

'How should I know?'

'Ha!' said Jock. 'Wait till the police get their hands on you. You'll know then, all right!'

'He can't remember things he didn't know in the first place!' cried Victoria. She put her hand over Darren's and glared at Jock. The glare made her brown eyes harden like rain-washed pebbles. Christopher blinked and reminded himself she was young enough to be his daughter. He had never thought of himself as a cradle-snatcher before.

'How's that brother of yours?' said Jock suddenly to Victoria. 'What was his name again? Carlo?'

'Giancarlo,' she said brusquely. 'He's fine.'

‘What do you know about the family?’ said Amaryllis to Jock.

He jumped. ‘We’re not at Guantanamo Bay now, you know. Keep your hair on… They were in my so-called guidance group. At school. Guidance! You couldn’t guide some of that lot with a Border collie and a cattle prod!’

‘What about Darren?’ said Amaryllis.

‘Never saw him in the school,’ said Jock. ‘The truancy woman practically lived on his doorstep.’

Darren and Victoria glared in unison.

‘It wasn’t his fault,’ said Victoria. She pushed a strand of curly black hair aside with a slender hand, and turned to smile at Darren. Even if Christopher hadn’t already had bad experience of the youth, he would have started to have evil thoughts on seeing that smile. What had Darren ever done to deserve it?

‘Wait a minute!’ said Amaryllis suddenly. ‘Giancarlo and Victoria – what’s your last name?’

‘Petrelli,’ said Victoria, not even looking round.

‘I know your mother – and your grandma,’ said Amaryllis. ‘From Cosy Clicks.’

‘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.