The Christmas Puzzle (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 8) (20 page)

The wailing and moaning diminished slightly before changing to sobs. Gradually they morphed into a recognisable word. ‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth!’

An unearthly shape appeared, dressed all in white.

‘Elizabeth!’ sobbed the voices again.

As it vanished, presumably round the corner of the hut, there was a click and the whole area was flooded with light.

‘No!’ yelled Elizabeth. ‘I don’t have time for those silly games. I’ve got to go and see what’s happening with my father...’

She glanced behind her, saw Amaryllis and stopped talking instantly, freezing in position at the same time as if they were playing at musical statues. She must have read something in Amaryllis’s expression, for she turned on her heel and floundered towards the closest of the huts.

From somewhere behind them all there was a yapping noise. The old man came into view, or at least his dog did, making a pale shape in the blackness. Amaryllis saw the blur of faces behind him. Jock and Tricia. The man paused for a moment when he saw Elizabeth, and then came forward cautiously. Ignoring everyone else, he stood still and held out one hand.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said. He didn’t speak loudly or sternly, but Elizabeth French, who had now lowered herself to the ground almost in the pose of a supplicant, came to an inelegant stop, hands on the ground and legs stretched out behind her, almost as if she were doing press-ups. She turned her head, peering over her shoulder to look at him.

‘They said you were in trouble,’ she said, her voice almost breaking in a sob. ‘I came out here to look for you, and you’re on their side. I was only looking after Mother, you know. The girl was going to desecrate her grave.’

‘Elizabeth,’ he said again. ‘Come here.’

Amaryllis and Christopher waited and watched.

Elizabeth French slowly began to move again. She pulled her legs towards her body, and pushed herself up to a kneeling position, and then she curled herself into a ball and started to cry.

She did it quite quietly at first, with the tears being the only outward sign of distress, but then she got noisier and noisier. Tricia Laidlaw, looking embarrassed, was the first to rush forward and offer comfort, patting her on the shoulder, but Elizabeth raised an arm and batted the helping hand away so hard that the other woman lost her footing and tumbled to the ground as well.

Mr Greig handed the dog’s lead to Amaryllis without a word as he started to walk towards Elizabeth. By the time the three police officers came up at a run from the direction of the railway line to try and restore order, a circle of people had formed around the two of them.

Maisie Sue pulled the poncho over her head and flung it on the ground.

‘My, it was clammy in there,’ she said.

Chapter 28 Confused, of Pitkirtly

Not for the first time in living memory, Christopher’s front room was crowded with people. Christmas and New Year had come and gone with the usual amount of pointless fuss, and it was round about Twelfth Night. Jock was just pleased not to have to go back to work for the new school term the following day as he used to during his working life.

Jock had been there beforehand to help with refreshments and to start drinking some of them. Interestingly, or so he thought, Amaryllis was already there when he arrived. She hadn’t blushed or guiltily sprung away from Christopher as he walked in, but there was something in the glance they exchanged... Or maybe he, Jock, had become hypersensitive to that kind of thing now that he was hovering on the brink of going for a proper date with Tricia. He had even bought new socks on the expectation of being able to bring himself to ask her out soon.

Christopher insisted they shouldn’t talk about what had happened until everybody was there. Charlie Smith and the dog were the last. Charlie seemed to be on edge about leaving the Queen of Scots in the hands of the attractive new barmaid – and of Giancarlo, who had turned up as he was leaving.

‘He should have been here, really,’ said Amaryllis crossly.

‘Too late, Amaryllis,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s got his eye on that barmaid of mine now. You’ve had your chance with him.’

‘It was only a bit of fun,’ she muttered. ‘Giancarlo knew that all along.’

‘I think I understand everything except the bit about wee Jackie Whitmore,’ announced Jemima loudly, more or less calling the meeting to order.

‘Will I start from the beginning?’ said Amaryllis. ‘Or can we assume everyone knows about that part?’

‘Don’t assume I know anything,’ said Tricia. ‘I’m Confused, of Pitkirtly.’

‘Where did it all start?’ said Charlie. ‘I think I’ve missed a bit.’

His dog heaved a great sigh and lay down at his feet with a resigned air.

The wee white dog, who was temporarily lodging with Tricia, glared at the other dog. He seemed to have adopted Christopher’s front room as an extension of his own territory. But then, Jock reflected, he was probably feeling a bit lost at the moment, unsure of where he fitted into the scheme of things. It must be an unsettling time for him altogether. Although he was probably better off away from Mr Greig anyway.

‘It started with Mrs Greig disappearing,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Twenty years ago, when Elizabeth French was in her late teens, her mother walked out of her house and was never seen again. The police looked into it at the time, but they didn’t solve the case, and through a series of recording errors, all the information about it was lost.’

‘Before my time,’ said Charlie Smith defensively.

‘Of course it was,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Then Jackie Whitmore came along all these years later and stumbled across the burial site.’

‘It’s a wonder nobody had found it before that,’ said Jemima, shaking her head. ‘That was a heathen thing to do though, mind. Burying somebody out in the middle of nowhere. It was asking for trouble.’

‘Unfortunately for Jackie,’ Amaryllis continued, ‘she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mr Whitmore says she was fascinated by the Island and the army huts. Perhaps when she was younger the cool kids used to hang out there or something. Elizabeth French took her father’s dog out for its late night walk that night – wearing the Niagara Falls poncho, and causing Tamara to think she was a Druid - and saw Jackie just as she had discovered the remains, and they had an argument which turned into a fight.’

‘How do you know all this?’ said Charlie Smith. ‘Did she confess to you? Or has Keith Burnet been indiscreet again?’

‘Amaryllis worked most of it out, and the woman started ranting when we caught her,’ said Jock, frowning. He hadn’t enjoyed the scene as Elizabeth French fell apart in front of them all, with her father attempting to soothe her. ‘Who’d have thought that woman had such a temper on her? She was always telling me to calm down, too.’

‘She told us most of the rest,’ said Amaryllis. ‘She and Jackie struggled. Jackie fell into the hole. We think Elizabeth either hit her with something heavy or threw it at her – there was definitely a head injury. I was quite close to her at one point. But I didn’t see any sign of a weapon, though it could have got buried in the landslide, of course.’

Jock glanced at Christopher and saw that he had gone grey in the face as if remembering his frantic dash to the scene and the almost miraculous rescue of Amaryllis from being buried alive.

‘Let’s forget that part,’ said Christopher.

‘The police will find the weapon eventually,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Now that they’ve got suspects in custody they’ll want to make sure of a conviction.’

‘Or more than one conviction?’ said Charlie. ‘What about old Mr Greig? Was he the one who killed his wife in the first place?’

Amaryllis shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He’s a bit grumpy, but Elizabeth’s the one who seems to be really unstable. Apparently she had a history of fights with her mother, but he said to the police he thought it was all normal for a teenage girl. But he must have known she had done it. Or at least suspected.’

‘And yet he did nothing about it,’ said Tricia.

‘Unbelievable,’ said Dave, shaking his head.

Jock couldn’t remember when he had seen so much head-shaking in one room. It seemed to be everybody’s gesture of choice this evening.

‘It isn’t really,’ said Amaryllis. ‘It isn’t unbelievable, I mean. He’d already lost his wife – he probably couldn’t cope with losing his daughter too. They probably just didn’t talk about it.’

A murmur of disapproval moved like a wave round the room. Jock didn’t join in with it. He could understand not talking about something. Not that anything this bad had ever happened in his family, no matter what his ex-wife chose to believe, but they had never talked about anything important. In a way he liked that. Talking for the sake of it was highly overrated, in his opinion, although he had to admit to himself that he had enjoyed some of his chats with Tricia over tea and scones in the little café in the High Street. But they weren’t trying to impress each other or to make a point or anything. They were just pleasantly and calmly discussing local events and people.

‘So you’re saying Elizabeth killed her own mother and then killed wee Jackie Whitmore because she found out about it?’ said Jemima, who liked things to be spelled out.

‘Yes, that’s the idea,’ said Amaryllis cheerfully.

‘Would anybody like more toast, by the way?’ said Christopher.

‘I wouldn’t say no,’ said Charlie Smith.

After Christopher had brought the toast in, Jock spotted Charlie feeding half his slice to the dog.

‘I’ll make him some of his own, if you like,’ offered Christopher, who must have seen this too.

‘Don’t you guys go eating too much toast,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘I’ve got a special cake here. It’s one of your Twelfth Night cakes. With a bean inside.’

The others all looked at each other in puzzlement.

‘Isn’t it a traditional part of your Twelfth Night festivities?’ said Maisie Sue. ‘Or have I got it wrong again?’

Nobody replied until Tricia said, ‘I expect it’s very tasty, Maisie Sue. I’d like a piece if you’re going to cut it anyway.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Dave interrupted. ‘Amaryllis hasn’t finished her story yet. What was all that about the letter? The one Jemima lost in the car park.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Amaryllis. ‘That was part of the McCallum archive. Luckily I had read it before giving it to Jemima, and something to do with Mrs Greig had stuck in my mind. I just had to put the timescale together with the name and with the way the police were trying to look at old newspapers...’

‘Was it Elizabeth French who sabotaged the microfilm?’ said Christopher suddenly. ‘I remember her being in the library one day, but she said she was looking for a book about West Highland Terriers for her father...’

‘Little white terriers,’ said Amaryllis. ‘That should have given us a clue about who she was. If you had passed on that piece of information, we might have put it together with the rest.’

‘I can’t imagine that was the vital piece, though,’ said Christopher indignantly. ‘There was hardly any information at all at that stage.’

‘We couldn’t even see what the whole picture was meant to be,’ Amaryllis agreed. ‘And it really turned out to be one of these double-sided puzzles that are even more confusing. On one side there was the responsible Council worker who loved Christmas and organised the whole market and ice-rink and the tram for the benefit of the community.’

‘On the other side, the evil killer who wouldn’t hesitate to murder the next person who got in her way,’ said Tricia, blushing immediately in that appealing way she had. ‘Sorry – I read a lot of mystery novels.’

‘It’s a pity you couldn’t fit those FOOP people into the picture somewhere,’ growled Dave. ‘And that Jason Penrose.’

‘If it hadn’t been for them poking about in the area, we might never have found either of the bodies,’ said Amaryllis. ‘So their activities worked in our favour, even if they didn’t mean them to. And then it was Jason who gave me the idea about getting Zak and Harriet to do the ancient voices through the loudspeakers. But he must have been practically on the scene when Elizabeth killed Jackie, and did nothing about it.’

‘Are you going to cut the cake now?’ said Charlie Smith to Maisie Sue.

‘I’d be happy to do that, Charlie. Then we’ll find out who’s Bean King.’

‘Been what?’ said Dave.

Maisie Sue glanced round at the assembled throng. ‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you? This is supposed to be one of your traditional customs. The one who finds the bean becomes the Bean King, and then he oversees the chaos.’

‘Chaos?’ said Christopher, sounding distinctly uneasy at the prospect.

‘No, no, Maisie Sue,’ said Jemima. ‘You’re mixing everything up. For a start, we’ve never done anything much around here for Twelfth Night – people are usually still recovering from Hogmanay by then.’

Maisie Sue began to look a bit offended. ‘Well, if you don’t want a piece of my cake...’

‘Of course we do,’ said Tricia. ‘It looks lovely. Let’s go into the kitchen and find a knife.’

What a woman! Diplomatic, domesticated… not bad-looking. Jock was pleased with himself for making an excellent choice. At least it proved his judgement hadn’t been impaired by old age or infirmity. If anything, it had improved over the years, he considered. Like fine wine, or whisky, or good tobacco.

Of course he still had get round to actually asking her out, if only to justify the expense of the new socks.

THE END

If you enjoyed The Christmas Puzzle, you might like the others in the Pitkirtly Mystery series:

Crime in the Community

Reunited in Death

A Reformed Character

Death at the Happiness Club

Frozen in Crime

The Queen of Scots Mystery

A Tasteful Crime