7 A Tasteful Crime (2 page)

‘Now what?’ said Amaryllis.

‘Somebody has to count the marks and announce the result,’ said Jemima, looking at Jock.

He picked up the cards in silence, counting as he went.

‘It’s a draw,’ he said.

‘What do you mean, a draw?’ said Penelope scornfully.

‘Four marks each,’ he said.

Amaryllis began to laugh. ‘Of course it is,’ she said. ‘I gave one, two or three marks. What did you do, Jock?’

‘First, second and third, of course,’ he said.

‘There you are then - we’ve cancelled each other out!’ said Amaryllis in triumph.

They all slumped into chairs and stared at the so-called cakes. Jock felt like throwing them at somebody.

‘Well, that was interesting,’ said Tricia.

‘It was a complete waste of time!’ said Jemima.

‘But it was only a practice run really,’ said Tricia.

‘Can somebody tell me what’s going on here?’ said Jock. ‘What are you practising for? What did I miss out on when I went up north with
my son and his family?’

Once again he felt as if he was standing in for Christopher, this time in being the last one to know something, which was traditionally Christopher’s role. Having had to endure a wet week in a caravan at the back of beyond, otherwise known as Crianlarich, he felt the least he deserved was to have been kept up to date with local events and news.

‘Oh dear,’ said Tricia. ‘I thought Christopher had told you.’

‘We don’t share all our secrets,’ he said, glaring round the table indiscrim
inately. ‘Isn’t that obvious?’

‘Open Kitchen,’ said Jemima, as if it was supposed to mean something.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s on television. On Sundays,
’ said Jemima.

There was a pause. He wondered if they were expecting him to express apologetic enlightenment. But
Sunday morning was one of the times when he usually went round to the Queen of Scots. Surely they knew that! He also tended to pop in on Thursdays for a short while, and of course Fridays and Saturdays were traditional pub nights, then on Mondays...

And then
on almost any day of the week he might go in to meet somebody there at lunchtime, when it was quiet, although since Charlie Smith took over and started offering to make people coffee, albeit only instant, there had been an unaccountable increase in the daytime custom.

‘Of course, you probably never watch television,’ said Jemima, looking at him as if he were completely lost to civilised society. ‘You’re always round at the Queen of Scots propping up the bar.’

With an effort he let that pass – he had his own chair at the pub and had never propped up a bar in his life – and tried to get the little group to focus on what he wanted to know.

‘But what does this open kitchen
of yours have to do with us?’ he asked.

‘I’d better get us all a cup of tea and a custard cream,’ said Jemima, getting up from the table. ‘This could take a while.’

Chapter 2 Second husband, third wife

Working out what to wear wasn’t usually high on Christopher’
s list of priorities. There were basic clothes for work, a suit for special occasions, old clothes for cleaning out the gutters, and that was it.

He blamed Amaryllis for the fact that he felt ridiculous as he waited for the media to arrive.

Waiting for the media to arrive was ridiculous in itself, but having to do it dressed in a black shirt with some sort of embroidery down the front, jeans and cowboy boots was a kind of madness. Why had he let her talk him into it? They would probably all be wearing plain grey suits, well-cut in the way that he might recognise as expensive despite having done all his recent clothes shopping in supermarkets and chain stores.

He paced up and down in the foyer of the Cultural Centre, wishing he had time to go home and change. Or to collapse with some hideous but preferably short-lived virus that would render him incapable of speech, movement or thought for just as long as it took these people to do whatever they were going to do and leave town.

‘Aren’t they here yet?’ said Mrs MacLaren, one of the volunteers from the folk museum, appearing behind him and making him jump. ‘My, you look – different – Mr Wilson.’

That’s it, thought Christopher. I’m going home now. He wondered whether to fall to the floor and writhe as if in some sort of fit, or to clutch his chest and stagger a bit. He had just decided on staggering as easier to manage than falling to the floor when Zak Johnstone opened the front door.

‘The cars have just come round the corner,’ he said. ‘They’re parking in the mother and child spaces.’

Christopher briefly considered marching out and telling them not to do that unless they had a bona fide mother and child in their number, but there was a limit to how ridiculous he wanted to make himself that day.

‘Cool outfit, Mr Wilson,’ commented Zak, staring at the cowboy boots.

The boy couldn’t possibly really think so, but it was nice of him to say that. Christopher stood up a bit straighter and prepared to repel the invaders.
He told Zak to wait by the door and open it for them. It wasn’t really Zak’s job to hold doors open – he was training to be an archivist – but he didn’t seem to mind in this case.

They swept in like a blast of cold air with their hard, assessing eyes and icy expressions, although it was the middle of
September and the ambient temperature was very mild by local standards.  Christopher told himself not to make instant assumptions about them. He had trouble controlling his expression, however, when the last of the party appeared.

‘Are you all right, Mr Wilson?’ said Mrs MacLaren, hovering at his elbow. He noticed Zak also casting a worried glance in his direction. Christopher became aware that the groan he had intended to keep bottled up inside him had actually escaped into the foyer. He coughed hard, hoping the visitors would assume he was ill rather than having just received a terrible shock.

He took a deep breath and advanced towards them, hand outstretched.

‘Mr Hargreaves?’ said the rather small man with the big
camel coat round his shoulders.

‘Welcome to Pitkirtly,’ said Christopher, still holding his hand out. When it became clear that nobody was going to shake it, he let it gradually fall to his side during his welcome speech. ‘I’m sorry
that Mr Hargreaves is unable to welcome you in person today, but I’m here on his behalf. Christopher Wilson. Director of the Cultural Centre. We’ve arranged for you to have lunch in the Folk Museum and then to view a display of local crafts.’

‘No time for any of that,’ said the small man with a dismissive wave.
A woman with an apparently permanent scornful smile on her lips moved to his side. ‘We’re not royalty, after all,’ he continued. ‘This is a working trip.’

Christopher refrained from commenting that the Queen probably thought of what she did as work too. He hoped
he and the rest of the Cultural Centre staff would enjoy eating the lunch later.

‘What would you like to do first,
in that case?’ he enquired.

‘We need to scope out the locations
as quickly as we can,’ said the man. ‘Make sure they’re all suitable... Maria, have you got the list?’ He actually snapped his fingers at the scornful woman and she obediently handed him a tablet computer which he stared at for a few moments. ‘We’ll need a base, of course. Ken, Charlotte, can you check round the building and see if it will do?’

Two of
the man’s acolytes detached themselves from the main group. Christopher was gradually starting to make sense of things again after the shock of seeing the person he had hoped never to see again. Maria was the one who seemed to be some sort of assistant to the small man; Ken and Charlotte were young and focussed. Ken carried a large camera and Charlotte a heavy bag. They headed off down the corridor towards the library.

‘Would you like to go with them, Mrs MacLaren?’ he murmured. She bobbed a sort of curtsey – for goodness’
sake, did she really see them as royalty? – and scurried off after the two young people. Zak was standing near the door watching the television people suspiciously, almost as if he were a night-club bouncer waiting for trouble. Not that Christopher had ever been to a night-club – unless you counted the time Neil Macrae had tried to transform the Queen of Scots into a sleazy dive one Hallowe’en as a joke. It hadn’t been received well by the Pitkirtly regulars, but he had managed to lure every teenager between the Kincardine and Forth Bridges into what they thought was a den of vice, iniquity and fake ids.

Apart from the small man with the big coat and his assistant, there were two
people from the original party now left in the foyer. Christopher concentrated hard on trying not to catch the eye of the one he already knew, but that task was doomed to failure.

‘Deirdre!’ snapped the small man, waving her forward. ‘You’ll have to liaise with Mr Wilson here about ringing round these people and telling them we’re on our way. Telephone?’ he said to Christopher.

Hadn’t these intruders heard of mobile phones? Or maybe they couldn’t afford the bills.

A man not much larger than the small man also came forward.

‘And you’ll have heard of Eric McLaughlin,’ said the first small man.

‘No,’ said Christopher, and then realised his reply sounded too blunt. He added, to the second small man, ‘I don’t watch much television.’

‘But he’s your local celebrity. He’s played Buttons more often than you’ve had hot dinners.’

‘For God’s sake,
Oscar,’ said Deirdre crossly. ‘Can’t you tell by looking at him Christopher doesn’t go to the local panto? He’s more of a Mozart kind of guy.  Or maybe he’s progressed on to Bartok by now for all I know.’ She looked Christopher up and down and added, ‘Or maybe country music.’

Deirdre hadn’t aged all that well, Christopher thought with a touch of smugness. She was thin and muscular, giving her
skin, of which there was far too much on display, an oiled leather texture that he didn’t find at all attractive. Not that he would ever have expected to find his ex-wife attractive, even if he had envisaged seeing her again at all.

He wondered if Pitkirtly was big enough for
both her and Amaryllis.

‘Christopher?’ said
Eric McLaughlin. ‘Do you two know each other, Deirdre?’

‘First husband,’ said Deirdre concisely. ‘Where’s the phone then?’

‘Don’t you have one with you?’ said Christopher.

‘Flat battery,’ she said. She had never been one to waste words.

‘You can use mine if you like,’ called Maria, head close to Oscar’s as they fiddled with the tablet computer. ‘It’s charged up and ready to go.’

‘Just like
she is,’ muttered Deirdre under her breath. In a louder voice she said to Maria and Oscar, ‘Give me the list, then.’

They handed over the tablet
and the mobile phone, and Christopher showed her into his office. To his surprise, Eric McLaughlin shuffled in after them. He seemed a bit old to be playing Buttons in panto, but maybe with plenty of makeup...

Deirdre shoved the tablet at him. ‘You can read the phone numbers out while I dial... What are you doing still here, Christopher?’

‘It’s my office,’ he said calmly, intending to project an air of authority.

She shoo
k her head. He noticed her hair, sleek and close to her head, hardly moved at all.

‘It’s ours now. Go and do some archiving, or whatever.’

‘I don’t do that any more.’

‘Oh, really?’ she said without much interest, and turned her back on him as she
pushed the buttons on the phone.

Zak gave Christopher a desperate look as he re-emerged into the foyer. Maria and Oscar still had their heads together, but this time it was because they were exchanging a passionate kiss, an activity that wasn’t exactly banned within the hallowed walls of the Cultural Centre but which certainly wasn’t encouraged either.

Christopher coughed again.

‘You should go to the doctor’s with that,’ said Oscar
, detaching himself.

‘So,’ said Christopher, ‘how does this work exactly?’

‘Like a military operation, Chris,’ said Oscar. ‘We’ll need more space though. Maria and I can’t share an office with Deirdre.’

At this point Ken and Charlotte arrived back from their reconnaissance trip down the corridor. Ken shook his head sadly as he reported, ‘
Won’t do, Oscar. Not enough natural light. Too many bookshelves.’ He glanced at Christopher. ‘Can we get this janitor fellow to move some of them out to the car park for a day or two?’

Out to the car park?
Over his dead body! Christopher said mildly, ‘Have you had a look in the Folk Museum?’

‘The place with the dead stuffed animals in it?
And the ratty old quilt or whatever it is?’

Christopher found himself glancing round to make absolutely sure Maisie Sue wasn’
t anywhere about before saying, ‘Yes, that’s the place.’