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

‘No,’ said Christopher, vaguely wondering why Amaryllis and Tamara had both jumped as if they had been stung by something, more or less in unison, and had then glared at each other fiercely. ‘I’d have thought he’d be in by now.’

‘He was due in at ten to review the plans for phase two,’ said Bruce. ‘It isn’t like him to be late.’

‘I expect he’s just been detained somewhere,’ said Amaryllis.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Tamara.

‘He could have got tied up with something,’ suggested Amaryllis. ‘It can happen to anyone.’

‘Not Jason,’ said Tamara.

Christopher glanced uneasily from one to the other. Even he, with his limited understanding of the subtleties of women, had the sense of a sub-text underlying their clipped sentences. There was something going on, in other words.

‘Do you think something’s happened to him?’ he asked.

‘Oh, no,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Jason would never let anything happen to him.’

Bruce was less patient than Christopher. ‘If you know where he is, just say,’ he said, staring at Amaryllis. ‘This isn’t the time to play games.’

‘He was about earlier,’ said Tamara.

‘Where?’ said Bruce.

‘Around town,’ said Amaryllis.

It was an unlikely alliance, but Christopher now had an even stronger feeling that the two women were ganging up together to hide something. Had Jason persuaded them to keep his whereabouts secret for some bizarre reason? Or was it something else? Did it have anything to do with the boat trip and the police chasing them? He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He didn’t particularly want to take Bruce’s side against Amaryllis. Even if Bruce was a member of the public and so on, he didn’t have any loyalty to Bruce, and didn’t even like him very much, now he came to think of it. What he wanted at that moment was for Bruce and Tamara to leave his office, to give him a chance of getting some sense out of Amaryllis.

Bruce sighed heavily, and turned to leave the office. ‘I can see I’m not going to get any sense out of you,’ he said to Amaryllis. ‘If he does turn up, can you let me know?’ he added to Christopher. ‘I’ll be in the research room.’

‘So will I,’ said Tamara, following him. She cast one conspiratorial glance back at Amaryllis, who ignored her.

‘I know I’m always asking this, and you never really tell me,’ said Christopher mildly, sitting back down at his desk once the door closed behind them, ‘but what’s going on?’

Chapter 12 Liberating Jason

Amaryllis was conscious that her explanation to Christopher had been somewhat sketchy. Minimalist, even. In fact she had left the office quite closely on the heels of Bruce and Tamara, having said over her shoulder, ‘I think they’ve got Jason.’

She comforted herself for her brevity by thinking about how little Christopher really wanted to know. In this case ignorance wasn’t just bliss but safety too - hers as well as his. What he didn’t know, he couldn’t confess to the police on his own or her behalf. She needed to keep a clean slate with the police if she were to have any chance of achieving her political ambitions. But she wasn’t going to let that stop her from putting right any grave injustice that might have been committed by the forces of law and order.

There wasn’t much time. She had to meet Jock again at the usual place so that they could drop into their respective roles in the Christmas extravaganza and forget about all the actual stuff that had been going on in the real world. Amaryllis found this quite restful in one way. In another, she couldn’t wait to get through their shift, as she thought of it, and be free to carry on with the investigation, such as it was.

She pressed the bell outside the police station without much hope of anyone being inside. It was a constant worry of hers that the police authorities would decide to close down Pitkirtly police station altogether. They had certainly reduced their opening hours drastically in the time she had been living in the town. Nowadays if you were going to be burgled or murdered, it was much better if it happened between eleven a.m. and two p.m. on a weekday, otherwise there was the risk that someone from the police would have to travel over from Dunfermline or even Edinburgh to do anything about it.

‘Yes?’ said a crackly voice on the entry system.

‘Amaryllis Peebles.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m not going to have a conversation with an entry system. Especially one that crackles. You’ll have to let me in before you find out what I want.’

‘I think you’ll find,’ the voice started to say, and then the crackling got worse for a bit and then another voice broke in.

‘I’ll put the kettle on but we’ve only got bourbons today if you’re after a free biscuit.’

There was a buzz, and she pushed at the door to get in. Sergeant Macdonald was waiting in the foyer. He greeted her with a welcoming grin.

‘Haven’t seen you for a while,’ he said, leading her through towards the tea-room.

‘Aren’t we going to go to an interview room?’

‘Is this a formal call?’

‘Not exactly. It’s a sort of informal enquiry.’

‘You were about yesterday when they found young Jackie Whitmore, weren’t you?’ said the sergeant jovially. He suddenly seemed to realise what he was saying, and put on a serious face for a moment before the grin broke through again.

‘I was right on the spot,’ she said.

‘So they tell me.’

The tea-room was occupied by two uniformed officers who had their feet up. One was reading the paper and the other was watching sport on a tablet.

‘Anybody for a top-up?’ said Sergeant Macdonald.

‘Better not,’ said one of them. He glanced at Amaryllis. ‘All right?’

‘Just tell me one thing,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Are you two really the hard men from Dundee?’

The two strange officers looked at each other and burst out laughing.

‘Is that what he’s been telling you?’ said Sergeant Macdonald, filling the kettle at the tap.

‘What who’s been telling me?’ said Amaryllis.

‘Charlie. He was wondering how long it would take you to get the idea. He’s been waiting a while to catch you out.’

The door opened and Jason Penrose wandered in.

‘Is it cool with you if I look at a couple of squares in the far corner?’ he said to the sergeant, before turning and catching sight of Amaryllis. She saw that the black jeans were dusty and his shoes didn’t look too clean.

Sergeant Macdonald frowned. ‘Can you put them back exactly right?’

‘I think so. If I’m wrong, we can have it looking just as it was before in no time.’ Jason grinned at Amaryllis. ‘Would you like to see what I’ve been up to?’

His blue eyes were bright and he exuded energy. Whatever he was up to, he was really enjoying it.

‘Wait till the lass has had her coffee,’ said the sergeant. ‘Do you want one too?’

Amaryllis resisted the urge to say ‘What’s going on here?’ in case she sounded too much like Christopher. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Jason was doing.

‘You said there were bourbons,’ she said instead, taking a seat at the table opposite the  two policemen who apparently weren’t from Dundee. ‘Where are you from, then?’ she asked them.

‘Oh, we’re on loan from Alloa,’ one of them said. ‘It’s the quiet season there.’

‘All the villains have gone to Edinburgh,’ said the other.

‘And Pitkirtly,’ said the first.

‘I thought you’d been arrested,’ she said to Jason. ‘I came to get you out.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘That was just a misunderstanding.’

‘Where’s Inspector Armstrong?’ Amaryllis asked.

‘Inspector who?’ said one of the policemen from Alloa, and chuckled.

‘He’s away on a cruise,’ said the sergeant, bringing over the coffee. ‘Do you want one bourbon or two?’

After coffee Jason took Amaryllis and Sergeant Macdonald to see what he’d been doing. He led the way along a corridor and out through a back door to a small area of ground that might have been described as a garden if it hadn’t been so unkempt. There was some evidence of Jason’s activity in the form of a network of string and sticks at the far end near the security fence.

‘I never knew this was here,’ commented Amaryllis.

‘Ah well, we have to have some secrets, even from you,’ said the sergeant.

‘I know about it now, though.’ She glanced around, eyeing the fence for signs of weakness.

Jason led the way through a nettle patch to the rough grass where he appeared to have been working, and paused, apparently for cries of admiration and wonder. He had started digging in one square, but as far as Amaryllis could tell, it was just a small hole, considerably less big and interesting than the one they had found Jackie Whitmore in.

She stared at Jason. ‘What are we supposed to be looking for?’

‘I think this police station may be built on the site of something else.’

‘Yes, probably a demolished house or something,’ said Amaryllis. ‘This building hasn’t been here all that long.’

‘No, something older than that. Perhaps even Roman.’

She sighed. She might have known this was all to do with his Roman obsession. The more everyone else mocked it, the more determined he became… The seed of an idea floated into her mind and planted itself there.

‘There’s something that could be the remains of a mosaic over here, in the corner,’ he continued, eyes gleaming. ‘I just want to uncover a little more, so that I can collect a quick soil sample.’

‘If this is Roman, hadn’t we better get a proper archaeologist in?’ said Sergeant Macdonald.

Jason gave him a reproachful look. ‘I’ve been trained to do this, you know. I’m quite capable of taking a soil sample without wrecking the whole thing.’

‘Isn’t the Council archaeologist already coming to have a look at the hole at Pitkirtly Island?’ said Amaryllis. ‘Maybe we could get him to have a quick glance at this while he’s at it… Just for a second opinion. Of course, if it’s a really important discovery we’ll probably have to cordon off the police station. You wouldn’t want any criminal elements interfering with a Roman pavement, would you?’

Both men regarded her suspiciously.

‘What gave you the idea there was something Roman in here, anyway?’ she continued. ‘Did you just get a feeling about it – the ghosts of ancient Romans trying to fight their way to your consciousness? Or was there some sort of evidence?’

‘One of the old maps in the library,’ he said shortly.

‘Why didn’t you bring some of the FOOP crowd along? I’m sure they’d be interested.’

‘Look, what is this? An interrogation? Are you going to shine a bright light in my eyes in a minute, and demand to know what I’ve done with the secret blueprints?’ he said irritably. ‘I don’t think the police would want a whole crowd of us poking about out here, that’s the only reason I haven’t shared this with any of the others yet.’

For a few seconds Amaryllis considered the possibilities of interrogation, perhaps with a little mild torture thrown in. Then she thought about the likely consequences in terms of her chances of getting elected to the Council.

‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘But I expect they’ll want to know all about it.’

‘When I’m ready to release my findings, I will – all right?’ he snapped. ‘Now can I please get on here?’

‘He’s a bit tetchy this morning,’ Amaryllis commented to Sergeant Macdonald on the way back to the tea-room. ‘Do you think he got out on the wrong side of the bed?’

Too late she remembered he was staying with Tricia Laidlaw, and the question could have been interpreted as a bit suggestive. But Sergeant Macdonald didn’t take it that way, fortunately. He rolled his eyes.

‘Don’t ask me. I only work here. At least I try to. We’ve got plenty of paperwork to catch up on with Inspector Armstrong away. And then there are the two deaths.’

‘Two deaths?’

‘Young Jackie Whitmore and the other one. We’re waiting for forensics on both of them.’

‘The other one? Was that definitely a human bone, then?’

‘You know I can’t tell you that,’ he said reproachfully. ‘Any more than I can tell you the likely age of the thing. Although I will say the police lab people laughed when I asked them if it was prehistoric. Not unless you think there were dinosaurs roaming around in the last century as well, they said.’

‘There are still some about today,’ said Amaryllis.

She took Sergeant Macdonald’s hint and left soon after that. She had found out more than she had expected about what Jason Penrose was doing.  It seemed extremely unlikely that he had really unearthed anything of archaeological interest behind the police station, so the question of what he was playing at remained in her mind. She was still distracted enough by this not to notice Mr Whitmore standing outside his shop as she approached. Comforting victims’ families was definitely not in her job description. But somehow she didn’t have it in her to pretend she hadn’t seen him or even to cross the road to avoid him, which she would prefer to have done. Damn! She had definitely been spending too much time with Christopher. Or perhaps it was that Community Engagement woman.

‘Morning, Mr Whitmore.’ She hesitated, for once unsure of what to say next. ‘Are you all right?’

He certainly didn’t look all right. Although he had always been a big beefy man, and that hadn’t changed, his cheekbones seemed to have pushed their way through the mass of flesh to become prominent suddenly, his mouth was drawn into a tight line and his eyes were red.

‘I’ve been better,’ he said. ‘Ms Peebles, do you know what’s happening?’

‘What’s happening – about Jackie?’ she said.

He nodded silently.

‘The police are waiting for some results,’ she said. ‘They wouldn’t tell me any more than that. Have you spoken to them?’

‘They came here,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t say much to me either. I suppose they’re thinking I had something to do with it.’

He seemed resigned to being under suspicion. Perhaps he had been on the wrong side of the law before he had the paper shop, and of course Jackie herself had been a convicted criminal. He was probably used to it by now. Amaryllis was surprised to feel a quick surge of anger about that before she pulled her thoughts together.

‘They’ll get at the truth, Mr Whitmore.  It won’t bring her back though, will it?’

‘You’re right about that. Thanks.’

He retreated into the shop. She was relieved he hadn’t invited her in. But then, he probably saw her as being on the same side as the police. If only he knew about some of the things she had done in the past. Just as well he didn’t, though, was her final thought on the subject.