3 A Reformed Character (10 page)

'You don't think?' he snapped. 'Will I tell you what I think?'

They were silent.

'I think you're lucky I don't arrest both of you right now for wasting police time, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and any other charge I can dream up. If I didn't think you would be an evil influence on other inmates I would very much like to see you spend some time in prison. I want you both to be at the police station at eight o'clock tomorrow morning with a believable story and a cast-iron alibi. And then I want you to go away after solemnly promising not to interfere in my case - or any other case - ever again. Ever. Do I make myself clear?'

'Well, that's us told,' said Amaryllis happily as they made their way across the railway tracks again.

'Were you trying not to laugh while he was talking then?'

'How did you know?'

'Me too... Let's get some chips on the way up the road.'

'Can we get Irn Bru as well?' said Amaryllis. She was relieved that the relationship between herself and Christopher seemed to be back on its old footing. There was nothing like a threat from an external enemy to bring people together. 'You can come round to my flat if you like.'

'That would be good - my house smells of tablet,' said Christopher. 'And if I see Big Dave cuddling Jemima again I'll probably throw up.'

'You know what?' said Amaryllis. 'I think we're a good influence on each other.'

Chapter 11  Recriminations from all angles

Jock McLean had planned to have a leisurely day, ambling to the newsagents - or dashing, if the weather was wet and windy as it had been every other spring day for almost as long as he could remember - then reading the paper while providing his own running commentary about the news, especially as it related to education. He would quite possibly eat lots of toast. At some point he might take himself to the Queen of Scots to see if his friends were about. If not, then he would have a couple of solitary pints and wander home to watch something trivial on television.

First thing in the morning he was just contemplating this packed programme while looking out of the window to try and determine the outside temperature without actually going outside, when the door-bell rang. What happened next drove a coach and horses through all his plans.

'Mr McLean?' said one police officer, looking stern.

He had a wee girl in police uniform with him too. She looked fragile, but Jock had learned from experience that the fragile ones were the toughest. It was as if they had steel wires running through them where the muscles should be. But surely this one wasn't old enough to be a policewoman?

'We'd like you to accompany us to the police station, please. We have some questions to ask you regarding a serious matter.'

'Karen Whitefield!' exclaimed Jock.

The wee girl in uniform blushed.

'That's Sergeant Whitefield of West Fife Constabulary, sir,' said the policeman, looking even sterner.

'I thought you were going on to university to study sociology or one of these other new-fangled things,' said Jock to Karen, whom he had recognised as a former pupil of his. 'What made you throw it all away for this?'

'Don't you worry, Mr McLean,' said Karen, beaming at him. 'I got my sociology degree first and then joined the police. It's longer than you think since I left school. And police work's a good career nowadays.'

'Hmph,' said Jock sceptically. 'I'll have to get my coat on. It feels a bit chilly out here.'

'As long as you don't try and make a getaway out the back,' said the policeman, whose sternness was now starting to sound like a bit of an act.

'I suppose you've got snipers positioned round there,' said Jock, putting on his winter coat and taking his time over finding a scarf and gloves. It wasn't like him to worry about those details, but for some reason he felt like buying a bit of time to think.

The two of them smiled politely and escorted him out to their car. He was alarmed to see they hadn't sent an unmarked car for him. He hoped they wouldn't put on the siren as they went along. His neighbours, if they were watching - which they almost certainly were, if they were as nosy as he had always imagined - would already be speculating about what he was in trouble for.

'Can I phone my son?' he asked as they drove down the road.

'We can't stop you,' said Karen Whitefield casually. He relaxed a little. However serious the matter was, they probably weren't going to arrest him for it just yet. He would save the phone call until he really needed it.

They arrived at the police station, and the first people he saw when he went inside were Amaryllis and Christopher.

'So they've caught up with you as well,' he said to them jovially. 'Not before time.'

'If we're going down, we're taking you with us,' responded Amaryllis. He was glad to see her looking more like herself. She had been showing signs of settling into middle age the last time he saw her, and that idea depressed him enormously.

Mr Smith came out of an office. He didn't seem very pleased to see them all.

'I thought I said they were to be kept apart,' he grumbled to Karen Whitefield. 'We don't want them comparing notes.'

'Sorry, sir, it won't happen again,' she said. She winked at Jock behind Mr Smith's back. She always had been a sparky wee girl, he reflected happily, remembering an argument they had had once about the Iraq war. He had agreed with her really, but he had played devil's advocate on that occasion.

'I'll take Mr McLean first,' said Mr Smith. 'We'll keep those two jokers waiting for a while.'

'Excuse me,' said Amaryllis, 'I don't think Mr Wilson and I are happy about being referred to as jokers and being kept waiting. I'm sure there's a law protecting jokers from discrimination anyway. Isn't it covered by the recent Equalities legislation? If not, it should be.'

Mr Smith winced. 'Sergeant Whitefield, please show Ms Peebles and Mr Wilson into the waiting room. See if you can find them a cup of coffee or something. And a couple of copies of Private Eye.'

Christopher and Amaryllis were led away, to cries from Amaryllis of 'Not Private Eye! Anything but that!' Evidently she was in a skittish mood today. Jock had seen this before and it didn't usually bode well for anybody associated with her.

Mr Smith rolled his eyes and took Jock through to an interview room. At least it was clean, Jock noticed, but he didn't think much of the view. You couldn't tell what the weather was doing outside. He kept his coat on in case it got lost somewhere in the police station. You couldn't be too careful in police stations. Someone came into the room behind him. He decided not to bother looking to see who it was. That would be a sign that he lacked confidence. He didn't want Mr Smith thinking he was unsure of himself in any way.

'Now then,' said Mr Smith, leaning on the table. 'I want you to think very carefully before you answer my question.'

'I always think carefully!' said Jock indignantly.

'Yes,' said Mr Smith in a way that, Jock thought, really meant the opposite. 'Do you know where Darren Laidlaw is at this moment?'

'Isn't he in gaol?'

'Think about it a bit more and try again,' said Mr Smith. 'You do know he's on the run again?'

'What? But didn't you lock him up the other day? I brought him in myself. '

'You didn't know he was on the run?'

Mr Smith gazed intently at Jock, almost as if he was attempting to see into Jock's brain and divine his thoughts.

Jock shook his head. 'I haven't spoken to anybody who might have told me.'

'Your friend Amaryllis Peebles was well aware of it when I spoke to her yesterday.'

'I don't have a telepathic connection with Amaryllis, I'm happy to say,' said Jock. He shuddered at the idea. Having a telepathic connection with anyone would be nearly as bad as being on Facebook or Twitter and being bombarded with other people's trivia all day every day. He couldn't understand the way some people felt compelled to share every thought with other people. As far as he was concerned, it was safer not to share anything. Then you knew where you were. It made this situation, for instance, much easier for him. He was accustomed to choosing what to say a long time before he spoke.

'You do know that harbouring a criminal is against the law?'

'Always has been, as far as I know,' said Jock. 'So is locking people up without just cause.'

Mr Smith gazed at Jock again. 'He came to you the last time.'

'I don't know why,' said Jock. 'I'm not his keeper... Anyway, I turned him over to you that time.'

'Yes,' said Mr Smith. Again he sounded as if he didn't believe Jock, although he knew perfectly well it was true. 'So you're saying you haven't seen him since then?'

'You know what I'm saying,' said Jock. 'It seems perfectly clear to me.'

'Can we search your house?'

'Can you get a warrant?'

'Hmm,' said Mr Smith. 'I'd better go and have a word with those friends of yours. Wait here.'

Nothing happened for an hour or so. Jock didn't mind sitting there deep in thought for that length of time. At his age he had plenty of things stored in his brain to bring out, dust down and give an airing to in these spare moments. The other person in the room, who had turned out to be a young police officer with a notebook, was a bit more restless, shuffling his feet, walking across the room and back, singing under his breath. But Jock hadn't been a school teacher for nothing. He just tuned out any background noise made by the young man.

Karen Whitefield came into the room. Her expression was more serious than before.

'I have to tell you, Mr McLean, that Darren's escape is now part of a murder investigation.'

'The boy who was stabbed?'

'There's something else now. It happened yesterday. Your friends know about it, so Mr Smith says I can tell you... It was Old Mrs Petrelli. She was stabbed with a knitting needle at about four-thirty pm yesterday afternoon.'

'Oh dear,' said Jock after a pause. His heart jumped once and then it settled into its usual rhythm as she spoke. 'Have you got any idea who - ?'

'It's not rocket science.' Karen, who had been standing in front of Jock with folded arms, pulled out a chair and sat down at the table facing him. 'Darren Laidlaw gets out - Mrs Petrelli disappears - she's found dead. This is very serious, Mr McLean. There are lives at stake.'

'Including Darren's,' said Jock. 'Have you got any actual evidence to connect Darren with this? Or with the other case? Or is it all circumstantial?'

'I can't discuss that,' she said, closing her mouth tightly.

'Can I go now?'

'Mr Smith told me to let you go if you still insist you don't know anything. But don't leave town.'

He looked at her expression and saw that she wasn't joking. The police, if they had the manpower, would keep him under some sort of surveillance. If he didn't watch his step, he would be brought in here again and interrogated with more formality, perhaps even charged with something or other. Jock resolved to be very careful. It wasn't a difficult resolution to make: he had lived his life being careful and not getting into trouble. Maybe the second of these rules had now been undermined by events, but he could still live by the first one.

In the corridor outside, there was a disturbance going on. It seemed that the remaining members of the Petrelli family had come face to face with Amaryllis and Christopher near the door to the interview room where Jock had been questioned. Mr Smith and another police officer stood in between the factions as another officer ushered the Petrellis towards the reception area, hurling insults as they went. Amaryllis and Christopher refrained from talking back.

Jock joined his friends. 'Noisy lot, aren't they?' he commented as a very agitated Giancarlo Petrelli, his face distorted with rage, shook his fist and shouted, 'Murderers!' Victoria Petrelli, her eyes so swollen with the aftermath of tears that she looked, unbelievably, almost ugly, stood to one side of the others, subdued and silent. An older man - perhaps the one they had seen in the restaurant - put his hand on Giancarlo's arm, apparently to restrain him from leaping forward. A middle-aged woman with classical features, a lot like Victoria's, talked incessantly in Italian. It wasn't clear who she was addressing or whether she was telling Giancarlo to calm down or inciting him to further disturbance.

Karen Whitefield had shepherded Jock out of the interview room. Now she said quietly, 'We'd better get you out the back way. Come on.'

They walked further along the corridor and out through a fire door, down some stairs and they were suddenly in the car park.

'Remember, don't leave town!' she called after them, closing the door.

'We may have to leave town just to avoid being lynched by the Petrellis,' said Christopher. 'What on earth's the matter with them?'

'They're very upset,' said Amaryllis.

'Hmph!' said Christopher. 'That's no excuse for behaving like football hooligans.'

'Well, I'd better be getting up to the paper shop I suppose,' said Jock. 'They'll be wondering where I am.'