7 A Tasteful Crime (5 page)

‘Where are the costumes? Do people make
their own?’

He didn’t really want to know. In fact he strongly suspected that the less he knew about it, the happier he would be.
But something made him ask the question anyway.

‘On their way,’ said Ken. He glanced at his watch.
‘Should be here any minute. Don’t stress, Mr Wilson. Charlotte’s out at the front. She’ll get the vans parked all right.’

‘Vans?’

‘Why don’t you find a cubby-hole somewhere to sit down out of the way?’ Ken suggested. Christopher could see Zak’s face contorting into a series of more and more horrified expressions, but Ken didn’t seem to have noticed anything.

If only Amaryllis were here
in the library instead of playing peacemaker – or, he suspected, ruthless political agitator – in his office. Maybe he should arrange for her to spend half an hour with Mr Hargreaves at some point in the future...

Christopher pulled himself together. It was no use being too precious about the books. It wasn’t that all of them were great works of literature or anything. He knew for a fact there were at least some by Dan Brown and Jeffrey Archer.

‘I’ll give you a hand here,’ he said, sweeping books off a shelf on to the trolley.

‘We weren’t going to move these ones,’ said Zak.

Just as Christopher was reminded, not for the first time, the utter pointlessness of his existence, Charlotte came in, staggering under the weight of an armful of over-sized cauliflower heads. ‘Could somebody give me a hand with unloading the vans?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘There’s two hundred fruit and vegetable outfits there and they weigh a ton. Then there’s all the cameras and sound recording stuff.’

For once Christopher exercised his authority. ‘You two can unload the vans,’ he ordered Zak and Ken. ‘Charlotte and I will arrange things in here.’

Ken gave him an evil look but Zak winked as they went out.

‘You might try asking Deirdre to help,’ Christopher called after them. ‘She looks as if she’s got some muscles on her.’

For a little while he felt almost carefree as they shuffled books around. Maybe this change from the day-to-day routine would be good for him. It might liberate some creativity inside him.

After a while Jock McLean
suddenly staggered in, bowed under the weight of five banana costumes. Once he had added them to the growing pile, he stood gasping for breath and clutching his chest.

‘For goodness’ sake, sit down!’ said Christopher in alarm. ‘What are you doing with those banana costumes anyway? Where are Zak and Ken?
And what about Deirdre?’

‘I sent them off for a break,’ said Jock, perching on a table just by the new automated
book checking-out machine that everybody hated so much. ‘Why are you dressed up like that?’

Christopher ignored Jock’s question.
‘Sent them off?’

‘They hadn’t had anything to eat all day,’ said Jock in a reasonable tone. ‘
Zak and the other one have gone to the supermarket to get themselves a sandwich. I don’t know where Deirdre’s gone. She said something about Eric and came inside.’

‘I hope it’s one
of those super-light healthy sandwiches,’ said Christopher.

‘I did suggest they should go and see if the chip shop was open, but they said they didn’t think they could stagger that far.... Kids, eh?
Expecting everything on a plate. I suppose they’ll be wanting their fish and chips delivered to the door next, and then where will we be?’

‘I think the
chip shop already does that,’ muttered Christopher.

Jock kicked the banana outfits with his foot. ‘One banana, two
banana, three banana, four... Or is it potatoes?’

‘Isn’t it time you went round to the Queen of Scots
for the evening session?’ said Christopher. To his surprise, a shifty look crossed Jock’s face.

‘I’ve been there already,’ he said.

‘And?’

‘And I’ve decided that’ll be my last drink until Monday.
In the spirit of healthy eating.’

Christopher found he had to sit down too,
because his legs threatened to give way from shock.

Charlotte glared at the two men
as she heaved another row of books on to the trolley. ‘I thought we were supposed to be doing this together.’

‘Yes, you’re right, Charlotte,’ said Christopher. ‘Sorry. Do you want to give us a hand with this, Jock? Zak and Ken can start bringing the stuff in again when they come back. There’s no rush.’

Jock’s contribution towards the task was to sit where he was and to issue occasional instructions and advice. ‘I’m a consultant,’ he announced when challenged on what his role was.

Once they had rearranged a few
more shelves, Christopher became much less enthusiastic about the whole thing, and once the room was almost filled to the ceiling with over-sized cauliflower, banana, orange, apple, cucumber, tomato and broccoli floret costumes, he decided he never wanted to see a fruit or a vegetable again. Which wasn’t entirely in the spirit of Healthy Eating Weekend, as the Council had attempted to brand the event.

He made an excuse and went along to the office to see what sort of carnage had
occurred in there in his absence. In a spirit of conciliation towards Charlotte and Ken, he took Jock McLean with him.

Chapter
6 Blessed are the peacemakers

Amaryllis’s main purpose in going into the office was to prove to Christopher that she could act as peacemaker on occasion as well as the rabble-rouser she knew he considered her to be.

Once she had identified Oscar – he was the one facing Eric with a ferocious scowl on his face - s
he hadn’t been able to resist standing on his toe, of course, because she had worked out even from the foyer that he was bullying Eric; and Eric was such a natural victim that she automatically sided with him against the evil oppressor.

‘So what’s all this about being in character?’ she demanded, glaring indiscriminately at everybody in the room.
‘And where’s the makeup being done? My client – I mean Eric – was specifically asked to come in here because it was time to get made up.’

‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Deirdre hastily. ‘I meant it was time for him to make up with Oscar. That’s what they’re doing now.’

‘It didn’t sound like it to me,’ said Amaryllis.

‘They’re fine,’ snapped Deirdre.

Amaryllis held her hands up in a gesture of peace and reconciliation. She didn’t usually use that kind of gesture – apart from that occasion in Belgrade – but she sensed that now was the time for it. It did go against the grain to placate Deirdre, for whom she had formed an immediate dislike, but needs must.

Was she going soft in middle age? Had she gone native in Pitkirtly? Even these doubts could be symptomatic of some change in her personality. But perhaps being aware of the doubts would – stop it, you idiot!
she told herself firmly. You’ve been spending too much time with Christopher, that’s all. Find some real people to hang around with and you’ll be back to normal in no time.

‘Where can I put those cauliflower outfits?’ puffed Charlotte, sticking her head round the office door.

‘I thought they were clearing the library for that,’ said Maria from just behind Amaryllis. It almost made her jump; she hadn’t even known the woman was there. Oh God – she had lost her cat-like ability to sense danger as well as everything else. Amaryllis almost felt like flinging herself down on the floor and throwing a toddler tantrum. The only reason she didn’t do that was that she didn’t want to give into irrationality. There were more than enough irrational people in the world already.

Oscar had gone so red in the face that the chances were that he
too might throw himself on the floor any minute now.

‘Why don’t you go as a tomato, dear?’ said Deirdre
to him rudely. ‘It would save on makeup and costume.’

‘It isn’t a fancy-dress party, darling,’ said Oscar, putting the faintest of stresses on the final syllable. ‘It’s a serious attempt to get the healthy eating message across to the people of Pitkirtly, and through them, to the viewing millions.’

There was a pause at the end of this little speech, and then all the television people looked at each other and burst out laughing.

‘Now you’ve got that out of the way, will we find our way to the nearest pub?’ said Deirdre.

‘Or the fish and chip shop,’ said Eric, still chortling. ‘I could murder a deep-fried tea-cake.’

‘The kind
of tea-cake with chocolate on top?’ said Oscar doubtfully.

‘Is there any other kind?’ said Eric.

Oscar made a face. ‘No time to go to the pub now, darlings. We’ve got to finish the setup for tomorrow. Where did Charlotte get to?’

‘Can I help?’ said Amaryllis hopefully.

Oscar reverted to glaring again. ‘That’s extremely unlikely. We work together like a well-oiled machine.’

At this, Deirdre and Eric collapsed into giggles again, and Maria heaved a long-suffering sigh and rolled her eyes.

‘If we’re using this room as a recording studio tomorrow, we’ll need to get the cameras and lights set up,’ she reminded them sharply. ‘There won’t be time in the morning. We’ve got a tightly packed schedule. We need to slot in some rehearsal time before the end of today.’

She waved a piece of paper at them. Amaryllis couldn’t see exactly what it said, but the print did indeed appear to be crowded on to the page. Either Maria had used too small a font and not enough spacing, or Amaryllis’s eyesight was deteriorating fast. She preferred to believe in the
tiny font theory.

What was she doing
standing here worrying about print sizes anyway? For two pins she’d have gone straight round to the Queen of Scots and spent the rest of the evening in pointless gossip and local rumour-mongering.

The only explanation she could think of was that she didn’t want to desert Christopher, or, weirdly, Eric.

As Maria directed the operations that would, all being well, transform Christopher’s rather low-tech office space into a temporary television studio, Amaryllis whiled away half an hour or so trying to decide which of the group she would follow later that night if she hadn’t given up following people in one of her intermittent attempts to leave the past behind her and live like a normal person. Deirdre would probably set off for a ten-mile run or two hour gym session, neither of which was Amaryllis’s idea of fun. She had no doubt Eric would go off and get drunk somewhere the minute they released him from here. Oscar and Maria... she couldn’t decide between the two of them. They obviously both had secrets – nobody could be quite as stupid as Oscar appeared on the surface and survive in the cruel media world, while Maria exerted a power far beyond her role.

But it wasn’t Amaryllis’s way to remain on the sidelines looking in, and before long she was taking part in the discussions about whether the office got the sun in the morning or not, and how likely it was that Christopher would turn out to be a television natural. She briefly tried to visualise him being given his own series – ‘Behind the Scenes at the Cultural Centre’.
Perhaps not a whole series, on reflection.

By the time Christopher, trailing Jock McLean behind him like a teddy-bear or more likely a toy troll, arrived back on the scene, his desk was squeezed into a corner and almost hidden from view by the lighting equipment, the sound equipment and the cameras. The window was blacked out temporarily because they couldn’t take a chance on the sun coming in at the wrong time. To Amaryllis’s surprise Deirdre and Oscar sat together behind the desk, exchanging practice banter like breakfast television presenters. Someone had switched on the lights, and
Eric, Charlotte and Maria were carrying out camera and sound tests. It was evidently rather a small operation in which each member of the crew had to multi-task to get everything done.

‘Is my desk all right?’ said Christopher, frowning. ‘Where’s the filing cabinet?’

‘In the foyer, I think,’ said Amaryllis.

‘There’s confidential information in it!’ said Christopher. ‘What if somebody comes in the front door and
…’

‘Can everyone be quiet over there, please?’ called Maria. ‘We need to
re-check the sound. Oscar’s a bit squeaky.’

‘I don’t blame him,’ muttered Amaryllis.
‘So would I be.’

‘You wouldn’t be on television in the first place,’ said Deirdre, evidently overhearing.

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Amaryllis. There were few things she hated more than people telling her she wouldn’t be able to do something. ‘I’ve got plenty of personality.’

‘Too much,’ said Deirdre dismissively. ‘The viewers like women to be women.’

‘Deirdre! Concentrate!’ snapped Maria. ‘OK – recording…’

‘I can just see the first few bananas coming round the corner now,’ said Deirdre in a tight voice as if she were straining to see something just out of her line of vision. ‘Yes! And they’re followed by five courgettes all in a row and the pipe band just behind them playing
“Flowers of the Forest”. Pity nobody told them it should have been “Fruits of the Forest”.’