7 A Tasteful Crime (13 page)

She sounded very much as if she was trying to convince herself.

Christopher for one was not at all convinced.

Chapter 15 The Day
a
fter Yesterday

Jock had nightmares about being trapped under a very small table which suddenly turned soft and fluffy like a cloud – and which, as he woke up, turned out to be his duvet. He had always mistrusted the things, but there was no doubt they were warmer and more comfortable than the traditional threadbare blankets that had been handed down in his family for several generations. He had given the last of the blankets to Charlie Smith for the dog, only a few weeks before.

It was too early to go to the Queen of Scots, so he set off for a healthy walk in the autumnal breeze
, which had turned into a gale by the time he reached the harbour. There was a new coffee shop in the old shelter nearby. He saw the young man who ran it just outside, standing up the sign that had fallen over. As he approached, he found to his surprise that the man was Giancarlo Petrelli, a former pupil and member of a family of restaurateurs and convicted criminals.

‘I wouldn’t have thought you had to sell coffee for a living,’ said Jock once he was near enough not to have his words whisked away by the wind.

Giancarlo shrugged. ‘It’s my mother’s idea. Part of the family business.’

Jock didn’t ask him about others in the family. There was no point in dragging all that up again.

‘I’ve only agreed to do it until after the Christmas Fair’s finished,’ added Giancarlo. ‘I’m going to America in the New Year.’

‘What Christmas Fair?’ enquired
Jock. He was aware that his tone was somewhat sharper than it should have been during a casual conversation, but he found the prospect of a fair extremely alarming.

Giancarlo waved his arms to include the harbour, the Queen of Scots and the road leading to his family restaurant. ‘It’s going to take over this whole area. There’ll be some rides, and there was talk of flooding the road to make a skating rink... I think somebody’s trying to attract market traders from France and Germany.’

‘Madness,’ said Jock. He decided he might just hang around here for a little while. He got out his pipe and filled it, taking his time over the task. The sun had come out and the wind was a bit warmer than it had been even moments before. He could even have a coffee if Giancarlo had it ready.

Charlie Smith and the dog emerged from the pub
and came along the river front while Jock was still trying to decide between cappuccino and latte.

‘I hear you were in the thick of it yesterday,’ said Charlie
to Jock.

Jock frowned. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘Amaryllis. She was in last night drowning her sorrows.’

‘That isn’t like her,’ said Jock thoughtfully, paying Giancarlo for the cappuccino and wandering over to the bench to have a seat. He didn’t approve of people drinking coffee as they walked along.

‘I thought I was going to have to throw her out in the end,’ Charlie admitted. The dog sat down with a heavy sigh next to Jock. ‘She was a bit miffed at Christopher.’

‘Ah,’ said Jock.
‘Deirdre.’

‘Yes, I think so.’

They were silent for a few moments.

Amaryllis came running along. She was dressed all in black, in what Jock McLean coul
dn’t help thinking of as her secret agent outfit. There might have been a knife or a gun, or both, in the black leather waistcoat that she wore above a plain black jumper and black leggings. She even had on a black woolly hat and matching gloves.

She stopped by the bench.

‘Do you want a coffee?’ said Jock. ‘Giancarlo’s quite an expert with that monstrous machine.’

‘I can’t stop,’ she said, but without moving on. ‘I’ll seize up.’

‘I’ll tell you the whole story of what happened at Tricia Laidlaw’s,’ said Jock.

She gave him a look. ‘You’re an agent of Satan,’ she said, and went to ask Giancarlo for a double espresso.

‘This is the most business I’ve had for weeks,’ Jock heard him say to her before his voice dropped to a murmur and she giggled as if he had said something outrageous but amusing.

‘So what were you doing under the table?’ she asked Jock,
bringing the espresso back to the bench. ‘It was a bit early in the day to be as drunk as that.’

‘There was no drink involved,’ growled Jock. He explained again about Darren’s cunning plan and how badly it had gone wrong. The words sounded even more ridiculous than they had when he had said them to the police – twice.
But Amaryllis listened intently.

‘Did you see it all from under there?’ she enquired.

‘Not really,’ Jock admitted. ‘But we could hear everything.’

‘We were watching on television in the Queen of Scots.
Charlie and Jan and me. Was it all over as quickly as it looked?’

‘More or less,’ said Jock. ‘
There was a sort of practice run, when he came in and went out again. After that he just opened the door and said this stupid line about Buttons and Cinderella, and then he came in and Tricia offered him a bit of apple and he took it and fell on the floor. He struggled a bit. You could hear his feet kicking on the vinyl tiles.’

‘A poisoned apple,’ she said. ‘Poetic justice, I suppose.
Do you think he’d ever been in Snow White?’

‘
Maybe,’ said Jock doubtfully. ‘But nobody knows if it was the apple or something else he’d already eaten – or natural causes, I suppose.’

‘The police
are bound to find out one way or the other,’ said Amaryllis, looking at Charlie Smith, who hadn’t offered an opinion.

‘No,’ he said.

‘I haven’t asked you for anything yet,’ she said.

‘No, I can’t get any information out of Keith Burnet. It wouldn’t be fair.’

‘I suppose it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Maybe if we got him drunk...’ she added hopefully.

‘No.
Not in my pub, anyway.’

‘We’ll find out sooner or later,’ said Jock.

‘But I want to find out before I read it in the papers,’ said Amaryllis. ‘If it was the apple, that puts Tricia in the frame.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Jock.

‘The police might not think so. After all, they don’t know Tricia the way we do.’

Jock knew she was trying to wind him up, but he still found himself reacting to it. To conceal his increasing indignation, he drained
the coffee, stood up and put the paper cup in Giancarlo’s bin. He stood looking over to the other side of the street for a moment.

‘We might have to investigate
on our own,’ Amaryllis shouted over to him. ‘Just to spring her from jail.’

He turned back towards her.

‘I don’t want to hear any of this,’ said Charlie Smith.

As he disappeared along the road with the dog, Amaryllis looked after him sadly. ‘Charlie’s still a policeman at heart,’ she said.

‘He’s law-abiding,’ said Jock. ‘There’s a difference.’

'Don't say you're getting
involved in another murder,' said Giancarlo reproachfully from behind him.

'I'm not,' said Jock. 'I can't help it if some pantomime character drops dead in front of me.'

'Mrs Laidlaw must be pretty upset,' said Giancarlo. Jock remembered the boy had once been friendly with Darren. He wasn't sure if the friendship had lasted through all the trials that life had subjected it to.

'She is,' he said. 'She still doesn't know if it was the bit of apple she gave him that did it.'

'I guess it could have been,' said Giancarlo. 'They showed the whole thing on the news last night... Funny, though. A couple of these TV people were down here on Saturday night.'

'Oh, yes?' said Amaryllis eagerly. Jock willed the boy to shut up. Encouragement was the last thing she needed
. Give her half a chance and she'd be dragging them all into an unofficial investigation, which in his experience meant somebody would have to run through back gardens, scale lethal-looking fences and generally endanger their lives in the next little while. 'Did you recognise them?' she added.

Giancarlo came out from behind the counter and strolled over to face her.
'From the TV programme?'

'Yes.'

'I don't think so. But it was dark. One of them might have been....'

'Which one?' said
Amaryllis.

'Well, I'm not sure, but one of them was doing a kind of comedy walk - a bit like Charlie Chaplin. And I wondered if he was a clown, and then I remembered.'

'Remembered what?'

Jock heard the increasing impatience in her voice. He shuddered as he pictured the kind of scene she might make if she didn't get anything useful out of him. But Giancarlo Petrelli must have met impatient women before. He slowed down the flow of words to a trickle and kept her waiting for his next utterance. He almost had a wicked gleam in his eyes, and yet Amaryllis hadn't yet risen up and smitten him. What was it about Italian men?

'We didn't go to the theatre very often when Vic and I were kids,' he said in a languid, reminiscent tone. 'But I remember once my Dad took us to the pantomime at Rosyth. It was Cinderella.'

Jock saw that Amaryllis's eyes were half-closed, as if she were listening to some favourite piece of music. Or maybe it was the expression a cat had as it dreamt of feasting on mice, voles and baby blackbirds.

'The man who played Buttons,' added Giancarlo. 'It could have been him.'

'Interesting,' murmured Amaryllis. 'Was it a woman
who was with him?'

'Yes,' said Giancarlo. 'But I couldn't see her face or anything much about her. She was wearing some sort of cape.'

'How did you know it was a woman, then?' said Amaryllis.

'I know a woman when I see one,' said Giancarlo with an annoying little smile. 'Anyway, I heard her voice. She was telling the man off.
Buttons.'

'What were they saying?' Amaryllis enquired.

Jock recognised the thrill of the chase in her voice, and realised it was too late to stop her. Charlie Smith would be disappointed, and no doubt Christopher would be cross, but once she got the scent of blood, so to speak, she wouldn't give up until she had gone in for the kill, as ferocious as a whole pack of hounds.

Giancarlo shrugged his shoulders. 'I didn't hear it all. But I think she was threatening him.'

'Blackmailing him?' said Amaryllis.

'That would be the wrong way round, surely,' said Jock.
He tried not to flinch as Amaryllis turned hard blue eyes on him. 'Well, he was the one who ended up dead,' he added.

'Not necessarily,' she said. 'He might have eaten the apple that was meant for her.'

'How could it have been meant for her?' said Jock. ‘She might not even have been there, for all we know.’

'Or perhaps it wasn't the apple at all,' said Amaryllis impatiently. 'It was something else he ate on the way round that he had meant to feed to her to stop her blackmailing him.'

'It didn't sound like blackmail,' said Giancarlo.

'I'm just tossing ideas around here,' said Amaryllis.
'I don't really expect to solve the case instantly. Doing it before the police do will be good enough for me.'

'Oh, it's a case now, is it?' said Jock. He couldn't resist it. 'Do you have a client lined up?'

'I don't know yet,' said Amaryllis. She glared at him. 'Your friend Tricia looks like a prime candidate at the moment.'

'They haven't arrested her though,' said Jock. Just as he finished the sentence, his mobile phone, a recent acquisition, buzzed in his jacket pocket.
Please don't let this be dramatically ironic, he said to himself as he took it out and tried to find the right button to press. 'Hello! Hello?'

'Is anybody there?' intoned Amaryllis in a quavery voice. He moved away from her, towards the harbour.

'It's Mum,' said Darren's voice. It was quavery too. 'They've taken her away.'

Chapter 16 A Client for Amaryllis

Amaryllis wanted to go round to the police station right away, burst in and announce they had arrested the wrong person and it was a travesty of justice. She was deterred from doing this only by the fact that she didn't have anything at all to back it up apart from the instinctive knowledge that Tricia would never knowingly harm another living thing.

Instead, she
wrested Jock’s phone from his hand, arranged to meet Darren at Christopher's house, and set off in that direction herself. Jock McLean, grumbling about the speed she walked at, about the fact that she was getting him more involved than he wanted to be, and about his prediction that Christopher would have gone out to work by now, followed her. Despite all that, she knew he was deeply worried about Tricia Laidlaw. In fact the more he grumbled, the more concerned she knew he was.

It seemed that Maisie Sue was also
helping with police enquiries, although as far as Amaryllis could work out, her part in events had fallen into the category of collateral damage.