Death in a Cold Spring (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 9) (3 page)

Christopher retreated to the corridor just outside to make the call, although he might as well not have bothered since they were both listening.

‘Maggie!’ There was relief in his voice. ‘Are you all right?... No, I just wanted to make sure... No, it’s fine... Did the two artists leave when you did?... Hmm... Yes, see you tomorrow.’

He came back, looking bemused. Or perhaps that was just his normal expression.

‘They all left at the same time. She didn’t notice anything wrong.’

‘Is there any cctv in here?’ asked Keith, glancing around.

Christopher shook his head. ‘At one time the librarians wanted it installed, to stop people pinching books, but the police warned us it could be seen as an infringement of civil liberties.’

‘That’s right,’ said Keith. ‘But in that case, why is there a camera up there?’

He pointed up to the corner of the room nearest the door.

Amaryllis could have kicked herself for not noticing it sooner. Looking up as well as straight ahead was one of the basic lessons she had learned when she first trained as a spy. She remembered Christopher mentioning the fuss over civil liberties, which in her line of work she had always thought of as academic, with the liberty to stay alive having been top of her list of priorities, and she knew he didn’t have the desire or the technical knowledge to rig up his own illicit monitoring system. Someone else must have installed the camera.

‘How long do you think that might have been there without you noticing?’ said Keith.

‘I don’t know – a while,’ said Christopher. ‘It’s a bit out of the way, isn’t it? You wouldn’t really see it unless you were looking in the right direction.’

‘Mmhm,’ said Keith thoughtfully. He glanced from the camera to the crumpled quilt and back. ‘I suppose it could be pointing at the doorway, so that it catches anybody who comes in... Have you got a step-ladder?’

‘Do you really need to do this now?’ said Christopher. ‘What about all the blood? And Maisie Sue’s quilt?’

‘It could all be part of the same thing,’ said Keith. ‘Anyway, there might be something about it that tells us who did all this.’

‘Maybe Zak did it off his own bat, though,’ said Christopher. ‘He’s good with all that kind of thing.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Keith, showing what Amaryllis considered to be super-human reserves of patience, ‘but do you think he’d really install a camera without telling you? Or putting up a sign to warn people it’s there?’

‘Hmm,’ said Christopher. ‘I think there’s a ladder in the fire exit corridor.’

He went off. Amaryllis and Keith exchanged long-suffering glances.

‘This isn’t one of your games, is it?’ said Keith after a minute or two.

‘Of course not! I don’t play games. I’m standing for the Council, you know.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘We all had a good laugh about that when Sergeant Macdonald saw it in the paper.’

‘We had an election meeting tonight. You could have come along if you wanted. You and your lady-friend.’

‘How did you – do you really know everything? I haven’t even told my Mum yet.’

‘Don’t tell her anything,’ said Amaryllis firmly. ‘She’ll only get in the way.’

Keith was still absorbing this advice when Christopher returned, weighed down by the step-ladder.

‘I still don’t see why you’re so bothered about the camera.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Keith.

It only took him a few moments to go up, get the camera off the wall and come down.

‘It wasn’t wired in,’ he said, waving it to show them. ‘Must be one of the wireless kind.’

‘I suppose it’s paired to the Cultural Centre router and then to a mobile device,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Or maybe they’re streaming the footage to the cloud.’

‘Router? I don’t know if we’ve got one of these,’ said Christopher.

‘You will have, to make your wireless work,’ said Keith. ‘Where is it?’

‘Search me,’ said Christopher.

‘I’ll find it,’ said Amaryllis.

‘Who would want to take pictures in here?’ said Christopher. Amaryllis had a feeling he was still wrestling mentally with the word router. She smiled to herself as she went to look for the thing. It was probably under his desk in the office or somewhere nearby. He probably kicked it every day as he sat there cataloguing old letters or whatever else he did.

When she got back to the Folk Museum, having finally located the router on the bottom shelf of his bookcase under a pile of old railway magazines, Keith and Christopher were making their own video.

Or at least, they were using the camera to record Keith telling somebody the game was up.

‘... so if you’re still there, please make yourselves known at Pitkirtly Police Station, between the hours of ten and eleven any alternate Thursday. We think you may have information relating to our enquiries into an incident.’

‘Couldn’t they phone in or email?’ Amaryllis suggested. ‘They might not be able to work out which are the alternate Thursdays.’

‘Thanks,’ said Keith. ‘You can switch off now, Christopher... Did you find the router?’

‘It’s in the office,’ said Amaryllis.

‘Is it definitely live?’ said Keith.

‘The lights are flashing.’

‘Do you know if it’s got any security on it?’ Keith asked Christopher.

‘What?’ said Christopher, who seemed to have lost interest and was staring glumly at the ruined quilt. ‘Do you think we should throw this in the sea after all?’

‘You can’t do that – it’s evidence,’ said Keith. ‘Is there security on the wi-fi? Do you need a password to get into it? Can members of the public use it freely?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Christopher. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

Amaryllis decided to come to his rescue. ‘The Council put it in, didn’t they?’ she said. ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t have installed an insecure system.’

‘Unless they were trying to encourage disadvantaged groups to become digitally active,’ said Keith gloomily.

‘Where did you read that? A cornflake packet?’ said Amaryllis.

‘It was a leaflet we got through the door... Anyway, you two will have to go. I need to get the professionals in here.’

‘In the middle of the night?’ said Christopher.

‘Probably not,’ said Keith. ‘But this seems to be the scene of a crime, and we shouldn’t all be trampling over it.’

‘It’s never bothered you before,’ Amaryllis muttered.

‘I don’t think that’s strictly true. You might want to warn your staff about this,’ he added, to Christopher. ‘I’m not sure if we might want to close the whole place for a bit.’

‘Fine,’ said Christopher, surprising both of them. ‘They’ve all been asking for days off now that the weather’s a bit better...Those artists needn’t bother coming back either. But I’m still not so sure it’s a crime though.

‘We’ll be the judge of that,’ said Keith, obviously trying to sound official for once. He often looked to Amaryllis like a ten-year-old playing cops and robbers, but perhaps, she mused with a twinge of fear, that was yet another sign of galloping old age on her part.

‘We’ve got somewhere else to go in any case,’ said Amaryllis. She turned to Christopher. ‘Race you round to the Queen of Scots. Last one there’s a fish finger. And not the kind with real fish in it, either.’

‘Oh, no, you’re not catching me out like that again,’ said Christopher. ‘You’ll just use that secret shortcut.’

They were bickering amicably as they left. Amaryllis felt she had done her civic duty by getting him out from under Keith’s feet.

‘Don’t leave town,’ were Keith’s final words of advice to them. ‘We may need to call you in for questioning.’

‘I’ve heard that one before,’ called Amaryllis, letting the front door slam behind them.

Chapter 3 Lies and Secrets

Jock McLean was smoking his pipe outside the Queen of Scots.

‘Better get a move on,’ he said. ‘It’ll be throwing-out time in ten minutes.’ He stuffed his pipe in his pocket and followed them into the pub. ‘What have you two been doing all this time?’

‘You may well ask,’ said Christopher with feeling.

‘Where’s the dog?’ said Amaryllis.

‘Maisie Sue’s minding him inside,’ said Jock. ‘She said the night air would be too cold for him. Hmph! He’s tough enough for his size.’

The wee white dog seemed to be trying to prove it by yapping and snapping as they approached. Christopher kept his distance. Amaryllis leaned down and crooned some sort of dog-lover’s nonsense to the little terrier.

‘Just practising for the rest of the campaign,’ she told them as she straightened up. ‘You can’t go wrong by pretending to like the hairy, smelly things.’

‘He isn’t all that smelly,’ said Jock. ‘Tricia and Darren gave him a bath before they went off.’

‘He’s not smelly at all,’ said Maisie Sue, gazing down fondly at the dog. Christopher wondered if she really liked dogs or if she was making some sort of subtle play for Jock McLean’s attention in Tricia’s absence. Then he wondered why he was even wondering that.

At least the dog had provided a brief respite from worrying about whether one of them would inadvertently mention Maisie Sue’s quilt, or indeed anything about what had been happening at the Cultural Centre. He hoped Amaryllis would stamp on him or something if he began to talk about it. Better not have too many pints of Old Pictish Brew tonight.

‘Last orders, then!’ called Charlie.

At least having too many pints was one less thing to worry about.

‘Quick,’ said Amaryllis. ‘What does everyone want?’

‘I’ll get these,’ said Christopher, feeling obscurely guilty every time he glanced at Maisie Sue.

He went to the bar.

‘What have you two been up to?’ said Charlie Smith.

There was a muffled ‘woof’ somewhere in the background. Charlie’s dog must be concealed nearby.

‘Why does everybody think we’ve been up to something?’ said Christopher, and gave his order a bit more brusquely than usual.

Charlie Smith gave him a look. ‘Your face is an open book.’

‘All you have to do is read it, then, and you’ll find out what I’ve been doing,’ said Christopher, hoping he didn’t sound too grumpy.

But Charlie laughed. ‘It’ll be another of your murders, I suppose.’

‘Strictly speaking, some of them were yours,’ Christopher pointed out. ‘Your cases, anyway.’

He sometimes thought Charlie had forgotten he had once been in the police force.

‘That meeting was a waste of time,’ said Jock as they all started on their final drinks of the evening. ‘Who cares whether they build at St Margaret’s Mill or not? Either they’ll do it or they won’t. There’s nothing any of us can do either way.’

‘That’s exactly why you should vote for me,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Revive local democracy. Get an independent councillor who can make up her own mind – taking into account local people’s wishes, of course. My main aim is to make people think about the issues and if necessary do something about them without waiting for the Council to lumber into action with all its creaky bureaucracy.’

‘Well said, Amaryllis!’ exclaimed Maisie Sue, clapping her hands in enthusiasm. ‘You surely have my vote, anyway.’

‘You don’t have a vote, do you?’ said Jock suspiciously.

‘I’m a British citizen now,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘I certainly do intend to exercise my democratic rights.’

‘We don’t have Democrats and Republicans here, you know,’ said Jock. ‘It’s another lot of jokers.’

‘Present company excepted,’ said Amaryllis.

Christopher felt uneasy all over again about Amaryllis entering local politics. Her speech just now seemed to be saying she wanted people to take the law into their own hands, which in his experience was a dangerous idea with lots of potential for things to go pear-shaped.

He remembered Charlie telling him his face was an open book, and attempted to wrestle his expression into a vague smile.

‘Are you all right, Christopher?’ said Maisie Sue.

‘I’m fine,’ he said. He forced himself to meet her eyes.

‘I thought we might add something about elections to our Pitkirtly Quilt,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘The way they’ve developed over the centuries... the whole story of politics in Pitkirtly.’

Fortunately nobody seemed to notice Christopher’s gasp of horror.

‘I think you’ll find that’s a very short story,’ said Jock McLean.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Amaryllis. ‘You could include the 1848 Pitkirtly revolution, and the struggle for votes for the working man, and...’

‘It wasn’t a revolution!’ Christopher interrupted. ‘It was just a few men with grievances who barricaded themselves in the church for about five minutes and then went home for their tea.’

‘Sometimes a few men with a grievance is all it takes to start a revolution,’ said Amaryllis. She gave him a conspiratorial wink that he hoped Jock and Maisie Sue couldn’t see.

‘Well, I suppose the Boston Tea Party is an example of that kind of thing,’ said Maisie Sue thoughtfully.

‘Hmph!’ said Jock. ‘The Pitkirtly Tea Party. It sounds like something the Bowling Club wives might hold to raise funds for a new kitchen extension.’

‘Bowling Club wives?’ said Amaryllis. ‘Are they anything like the Stepford Wives?’

As usual, the conversation had taken a random turn. Who knew where it would end up? Christopher decided he would be satisfied if it detoured the long way round and never got back to the Cultural Centre, the Pitkirtly Quilt or anything to do with either of these.

‘... and of course, you should have a separate panel for the Pitkirtly suffragette movement,’ said Amaryllis.

Christopher frowned. He couldn’t recall hearing about that particular group before. Had Amaryllis just made them up?

‘I don’t quite recall...’ Maisie Sue obviously hadn’t heard of it either.

‘Christopher has the letters,’ said Amaryllis. ‘They threatened to do all sorts of things... a mass throwing of hats in the river, a procession round Pitkirtly Island, blocking the railway line with their husbands’ golf clubs... painting the harbour wall in suffragette colours...’

‘Were those just empty threats?’ enquired Christopher. ‘Did they actually do any of these things?’

‘There’s no record one way or the other,’ said Amaryllis. She lowered her voice. ‘But they do say that on moonless nights when the tide comes in across the mud-flats, it brings with it dozens of hats in all shapes and sizes...’

Her three friends groaned, more or less in unison, and the wee white dog gave a low growl.

‘Drink up, now!’ called Charlie Smith at this point. ‘Haven’t you got homes to go to?’

Christopher decided he might as well go down to the Cultural Centre as usual the following morning. Apart from anything else, it was easier to speak to the rest of the staff as they arrived for work than to try and catch them all on the phone to let them know the place would be closed, if indeed it was. There was always the risk of having to confront Maisie Sue, of course, but he would be mature and face up to the responsibility of breaking the news to her.

There was an obvious police presence already when he arrived. They had a car just outside the front door and somebody was in the process of fixing coloured tape across the entrance. He had been hoping for something less visible, but maybe they had to use their crime scene tape budget before the end of the financial year or lose it.

‘Oh, no!’ said Zak, coming up behind him. He was hand in hand with Harriet from the library, and Christopher couldn’t help wondering – although he tried not to – whether they had spent the night together. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Um,’ said Christopher, feeling suddenly unprepared to do any of the things he had set out to do this morning, whether it was communicating to the staff that they might be getting an unexpected holiday, speaking to the police again with a view to helping them track down the perpetrators of the crime, which it might not be but certainly seemed to be, or breaking the news to Maisie Sue that her craft work had fallen victim to an art-related disaster.

‘Morning, all!’ said Keith Burnet, moving the tape his colleague had just put in place and coming out to greet them. ‘We’re just waiting for the guys to come along, then we can get started.’

‘Guys?’ said Christopher.

‘Oh, the scene of crime team. They’ve got to come over from Edinburgh, and this time they’ve got to go and pick up the computer forensics man as well, and there’s a traffic jam on the motorway so it’ll take them a while longer. Gives us a chance to get set up.’

‘Computer forensics?’ said Christopher faintly. It was the only part of what Keith had said that he didn’t understand. He knew about the traffic jam on the motorway, of course. Every emergency that ever happened in Pitkirtly was affected by traffic jams on the motorway.

‘We might as well have them all here at once,’ said Keith. He nodded to Zak and Harriet. ‘I’m afraid you won’t get in until we’ve finished.’

‘Is it – a murder?’ said Harriet.

Keith laughed. ‘No, nothing like that. But I’m afraid I can’t divulge what’s happened. Just that there seems to have been a crime. We can’t even say that for sure until we’ve investigated.’

‘You’d better just take the day off,’ Christopher told Zak and Harriet. ‘If I thought it would be longer than a day or so, I could try and get you temporarily transferred to another library or museum, but I can’t imagine it’s going to take all that long.’

‘So it isn’t anything serious?’ said Zak.

‘Now, now, you know I can’t tell you that,’ said Keith, adding with stern emphasis, ‘and neither can Mr Wilson, of course.’

‘Of course not,’ said Christopher. He knew Keith was taking it fairly seriously, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have asked for not only the scene of crime team but computer forensics. ‘I’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as I can.’

Zak and Harriet exchanged anxious glances and went off towards the High Street. Once they were out of earshot, Christopher said, ‘Have you found the artists yet?’

‘No sign of them in the immediate vicinity,’ said Keith. ‘But once the others get here they can take over at the scene and I’ll have a look a wee bit further afield with Constable Martin.’

‘I could go and speak to Mr Cockburn, the minister, if you like,’ said Christopher. ‘The whole thing seems to be his project. He must know something about the artists. Maybe he’s got contact details for them.’

‘No, don’t do that!’ said Keith. ‘Leave it to us. Please. And try not to let her interfere either – for once.’

He didn’t need to ask who Keith was referring to. ‘It might be difficult to stop her, but I’ll do my best. She’s standing for election to the Council, so maybe that’ll keep her busy.’

‘Hmm,’ said Keith, looking as if he wanted to add something like ‘if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’

Keith went back into the building. Christopher hung around outside, giving the same unsatisfactory story to everyone who arrived for work, except for Maggie Munro, the last to come along. She was technically much too early, because she didn’t usually start on her evening cleaning round until most people had left for the night, but he could understand why she was there.

‘I’m so sorry, Mr Wilson,’ she said, looking as if she might burst into tears. ‘I can’t believe I did it.’

‘What do you mean? It wasn’t your fault.’

‘The keys,’ she said with a half-stifled moan. ‘The spare set for the whole building. I’ve lost them.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘When do you think that happened?’

‘Some time last night. I had them on me to lock up when the three of us left – the two young ones and me. But they weren’t in my bag this morning. I thought I’d keep them in the inside pocket – here.’ She opened her handbag to show him. ‘I can’t remember putting them anywhere else.’

‘Not in your coat pocket?’

‘No.’

‘Not even if you were distracted by something?’

‘No – I just always put important things in here. In the exact same place... Oh, Mr Wilson, and I was enjoying this job so much, too. Now I’ll have to leave.’

He stared at her. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Well, you’ll have to fire me, won’t you? It was such a responsibility, having a whole set of keys on me. I was that worried about it, but you wanted to get away to your meeting and I just had to take them. I’m not fit to do the job any more.’

She burst into tears.

Christopher put his hand on her shoulder, but tentatively. He didn’t want to be accused of sexual harassment, after all. He gave her a gentle pat and said, ‘That’s all right, Maggie. It’s not your fault... I think we’d better tell Keith – Sergeant Burnet – though. It might have something to do with this – thing... I think somebody must have stolen your keys.’

She stopped crying for a moment, although when she stared up at him he could see she still had tears in her eyes. ‘Has something happened here, in the Cultural Centre? Is that why you phoned me last night?’ She looked from the police car to the tape at the front door, and shook her head. ‘Of course it has. I should have seen that in the first place. Was it something terrible? Did somebody die?’