7 A Tasteful Crime (27 page)

Authors: Cecilia Peartree

BOOK: 7 A Tasteful Crime

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‘It’s a good point,’ said Amaryllis, dragging her gaze away from Deirdre’s for long enough to smile at him
reassuringly.

‘
It wasn’t hers,’ said Jock. ‘They analysed the blood on the carpet – and on the banana suit. It definitely wasn’t Maria’s.’

‘Whose was it then?’ said Deirdre, puzzled.

‘It was artificial – Charlie didn’t say any more than that,’ said Jock.

‘Ah!’ said Deirdre. ‘It’d be stage blood, I expect. Ken used to carry some about with him. He was a bit of a joker.
He once pretended to have injured himself on my jewellery and threatened to sue me.’

‘
Killing Maria by mistake wasn’t very funny, was it?’ said Jemima. ‘So what about you, Giancarlo?’ she added, looking over at the boy, who had been sitting very still but who seemed to have listened intently. ‘Why did they choose you as their next victim?’

He shrugged. ‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.’

‘And they thought you had overheard something, and that’s why they attacked you,’ said Amaryllis.

‘I had seen Charlotte and Mr McLaughlin together, and heard something she said,’ Giancarlo admitted. ‘But I
wasn’t anywhere near understanding what it meant.’

‘They must have been getting desperate by then,’ said Amaryllis. She glanced at the worried faces of her friends with a smile. ‘I like it when that happens – once they get desperate, they panic and start making mistakes.’

‘And then you got too close to them, so they decided they’d have to get rid of you,’ said Christopher to her. ‘What I don’t understand is...’

‘Well, I don’t understand any of it,’ announced Dave.

‘I don’t want to understand it,’ said Deirdre. She got to her feet unsteadily, raised her glass and said, ‘I want to make a toast – to Eric. The best third husband anybody could wish for.’

After they had joined her in this toast with all the enthusiasm of a couple of cats
being offered the chance to go out in the rain, she added, ‘And goodbye and good luck to the people of Pitkirtly – the best one-horse town in the west of Fife.’

She chose to make this her exit line, and wouldn’t even accept Christopher’s generous offer to walk her across the road to the bus stop.

They all waved as she left the bar. Christopher sensed a suppressed cheer building up in certain quarters. He and Amaryllis offered to buy a round of drinks. Standing at the bar watching Charlie Smith go about his work, Amaryllis said softly, ‘What don’t you understand?’

‘Oh, nothing... Well, how was it that you let Ken and Charlotte
catch you?’

‘I’m not losing my skills, if that’s what you mean,’ she said.

‘Of course not,’ he said politely.

She laughed. ‘That wasn’t completely convincing
, Christopher. I’m definitely out of practice. I’m thinking of asking if they’ll let me do a mission every so often to keep my hand in.’

‘Please don’t,’ said Christopher. He stared at her. ‘Haven’t you ever thought that those skills
of yours are more or less redundant in Pitkirtly?’

‘If anyone had asked me that before I moved here, I would have thought so,’ she said. ‘Now I’m not so sure.’

THE END

About Cecilia
Peartree’s other novels

The following are the other novels in the Pitkirtly series, in order:

Crime in the Community

Reunited in Death

A Reformed Character

Death at the Happiness Club

Frozen in Crime

The Queen of Scots Mystery

The following are not in the Pitkirtly series: