7 A Tasteful Crime (19 page)

‘So, could this have been an accident? Was he allergic to anything?’

‘It isn’t called allergy now,’ said Jemima primly. ‘I read in the paper you have to call it food intolerance.’

‘Was Eric intolerant of anything?’ said Christopher.

Deirdre started to laugh this time. ‘Intolerant? I’ll say he was intolerant! Gypsies, gays, anybody whose skin was darker than his, children, cats, dogs, anybody older than him, anybody who came from the Highlands... He wasn’t tolerant of anybody.’

Why on earth had Deirdre ever married the man in the first place?

Christopher pressed on again. ‘I didn’t mean that. Did he have reactions to any kind of food? Shellfish...’

‘Shellfish! He certainly was,’ said Deirdre. She roared with laughter, startling the dog, who got up and pointedly moved to lie under another table at the other side of the room. She caught Christopher’s eye and calmed down a little. ‘Sorry – I think I was with him too long. I picked up his sense of humour.’

‘I wouldn’t
say that,’ said Jemima frostily.

Deirdre calmed down a little more. ‘No. He could eat anything. He never
even had a stomach upset. He wasn’t allergic to anything at all. He was stung by bees several times but he didn’t swell up and die... Sorry, that came out all wrong. I don’t think it could have been anything like that.’

‘Did
you ever see him choke on his food?’ said Christopher patiently.

‘What are you talking about?’ enquired Jock, returning from the bar and placing a larger drink than before in front of Deirdre.

‘He’s playing at detectives,’ said Dave. ‘He’s not as good at it as Amaryllis, though.’

Christopher debated whether to go into a huff. The only thing stopping him was that he didn’t know if anybody would notice or not.

‘Thanks,’ said Deirdre to Jock before turning her attention back to Christopher. ‘No, he never choked on his food that I know of.’

‘Did he have medical problems?’ said Christopher.

‘He took blood pressure pills,’ Deirdre admitted. She seemed reluctant to say it, as if she was taking great delight in ruling out all possibilities about her husband’s death.

‘Could he have forgotten to take them yesterday?’ said Christopher.

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Jemima interrupted. ‘I take them too, and it doesn’t matter if you miss a day. It’s a long term thing.’

‘Maybe they’re different from your tablets, though,’ said Dave. ‘Maybe he’d explode if he missed one. His blood would start pumping out through the top of his head, and....’

‘Dave!’ said Jemima, Jock and Christopher simultaneously, though not at the same volume or pitch. The dog yelped again, and Charlie gave them another hard look.

‘We didn’t touch him!’ called Jock.

Deirdre didn’t seem too upset by this line of questioning. ‘I don’t think that could have been it,’ she said calmly. ‘He seemed quite normal at breakfast-time.’

‘Well, that leaves
deliberate poisoning,’ Christopher pointed out. ‘So do you know if he had any enemies or not?’

‘Not really,’ said Deirdre. ‘I suppose somebody in his line of work always has a few people who resent their success, and stalkers who follow them around, and people who get miffed because he isn’t as funny off-stage as he is in pantomime...’

‘Do they really?’ said Christopher. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

‘That’s because you’ve never lived in the cut-throat world of show-biz, darling,’ said Deirdre. He wasn’t sure if he liked her calling him that. In fact he was quite sure he didn’t. But he couldn’t protest in case the others thought he was making too much of it.

‘Do you think any of these stalkers followed him to Pitkirtly, then?’ said Jock, apparently hanging on her every word.

‘There’s no knowing,’ said Deirdre, pebble-brown eyes gleaming.
‘Just because I haven’t seen any of them around here doesn’t mean they don’t exist.’

There was silence as the people gathered round the table tried to work out whether this made sense or not.

Chapter 24 Amaryllis –
retrieving the banana

The refuse collectors were angry when Amaryllis at last overtook their vehicle and stood in front of it in the road, waving her arms at them.

‘Serve you right if I ran you over!’ shouted the driver after using a selection of words she had rarely heard in Pitkirtly before.

‘We’re only doing our job,’ muttered one of the other men.

When Keith eventually caught up, he had to step in between an increasingly irate Amaryllis and a man whose Council-imposed politeness standards were being tested to the limit.

‘Come on, guys,’ he said. ‘Break it up.... Craig, I’ll have to impound the vehicle. We have reason to believe some evidence in a criminal case has been accidentally taken on board. I’m going to have to get a full search carried out.’

During the ensuing chorus of complaints, Amaryllis tried to climb on the back of the truck, was pushed off by one of the men and sternly told off by Keith, who said she was lucky not to have fallen in and been crushed, and if she did it again he would personally push her in with the rubbish.

All in all, she enjoyed the interlude. She liked the feeling of being a rebel who dared to stand up to the might of the Council refuse collection service, and at the same time she found it amusing that she and Keith seemed to be working collaboratively for once. However there was a sense of anticlimax once the other men had dispersed. A constable even more junior than Keith came along to guard the truck while Keith returned to the Cultural Centre, which he realised he had left completely unattended.

‘There just aren’t enough of you to go round,’ Amaryllis said to him before he went away. ‘Maybe you should swear in some concerned citizens as special constables, or whatever they’re called these days.’

He gave her a look. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘No, not me!’ she exclaimed, trying to sound convincing. ‘I was thinking more of Christopher – or Jock McLean.’

‘He’s the worst of the lot,’ said Keith bitterly. ‘Born awkward. Don’t quote me on that.’

He walked off down the hill.

‘Just wait till I tell Jock!’ said Amaryllis to Zak, who was standing irresolute, having missed most of the interesting part. ‘He’ll probably get that tattooed on his forehead.’

‘What are we going to do now?’ said Zak as they walked away, going in the same direction as Keith but a bit more slowly. He sounded like a disgruntled five-year-old. Not that Amaryllis had very much experience of five-year-olds, apart from having been one herself some time before.

‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ she said to him.

He shrugged. ‘
Constable Burnet won’t let me in. Or anybody else.  The library’s a crime scene. It could be days before we get back in and start work.’

‘You could go home then.’

‘That’s a bit tame.’

‘Yoohoo!
Amaryllis!’

Only one person in the world was in the habit of addressing Amaryllis like that.

Maisie Sue crossed the road to reach them. Ken and Charlotte from the television crew were tagging along behind her like a kind of medieval entourage, only in modern dress and with cameras slung over their shoulders and round their necks.

‘They’ve let you out of the police station, then,’ commented Amaryllis. Ken and Charlotte glared at her.

‘I guess we’re free citizens again now,’ said Maisie Sue. ‘I couldn’t tell them a whole lot. Mr McLaughlin was on the floor having a seizure minutes after he arrived at Tricia’s.’

‘Did they question you as well?’ Amaryllis glanced at Charlotte and Ken. Of course, they had both been in Tricia’s kitchen when Eric died. She had almost for
gotten about them. Perhaps the ability to blend into the background like a chameleon was just another skill a TV technician needed. Maybe it was even in the job description. She resolved to try and find out more about the two of them. ‘We’re just going down to the coffee place at the harbour. Do you want to come with us?’

Amaryllis saw
Zak blink in surprise. Her reasoning was that she would be able to talk to the two of them in the open air without being overheard, whereas if they went to a café or to the Queen of Scots anyone could be listening. Outside Giancarlo’s coffee kiosk, she would be able to see other people coming from a reasonable distance away, and she could turn the conversation back to something innocuous before they were within earshot.

‘All right,’ said Charlotte. ‘We’re meant to be tidying up in the Cultural Centre but we can’t go in there just now.
’

‘Might get some footage of the harbour,’ said Ken. ‘Is it old and picturesque?’

‘It’s old anyway,’ said Amaryllis.

‘It could be quite atmospheric in those weather conditions,’ said Ken,
gazing up at the sky.

‘Why can’t you get into the Cultural Centre?’ enquired Maisie Sue. ‘I didn’t know it was going to be closed today.’

‘It wasn’t going to be,’ said Zak, to whom she had addressed the question. ‘But it’s because of the murder.’

Maisie Sue gave a little squeak.
‘The murder? Have they found a vital clue in there? Have they got the poison?’

‘Not poison,’ said Zak in surprise. ‘I thought she was crushed by the shelves.’

‘There was a knock on the head too,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Quite a bit of blood. But it may have been poison as well, for all we know.’ She looked at Maisie Sue, whose mouth had fallen open. ‘Oh, God, you haven’t heard!’

‘It’s Maria,’ said Charlotte in a neutral tone. ‘She was found there this morning.’

‘Oh, my!’ said Maisie Sue. ‘I need to sit down.’

‘There’s a bench near the coffee place,’ said Amaryllis.

They walked in a ragged formation down towards the harbour. Amaryllis led them on a short-cut she knew down some cobbled streets and past the old fishermen’s cottages. Ken looked around with interest.

‘This is like a ready-made movie location.’

‘You could turn some of the things that have happened here into ready-made movies,’ Maisie Sue told him with feeling.

Amaryllis shuddered.

Giancarlo was just closing up when they got to his kiosk, but he was happy to open it again and serve them coffee. ‘You’re the first customers I’ve had today,’ he said. ‘I’ve only stayed this long because I don’t want to admit to my mum I’ve failed at this too.’

‘What do you mean, too?’ said Amaryllis scornfully. ‘How many things have you tried so far?’

‘Well, there was a traineeship in Edinburgh,’ he said as he clunked around with the big coffee machine. ‘I couldn’t stand to wear a suit every day though... Then my uncle invited me back to Lake Como to help with his accounts. I don’t know what happened there – I couldn’t put up with the heat. I’ve lived too long in Fife, I suppose. Never mind all the centuries of ancestors from the Mediterranean.’

He was smiling as he said it. Amaryllis had the feeling that he didn’t really care if he hadn’t
yet found his niche in life. She was tempted to offer to hire him as a gigolo, but she decided she’d better not, for any number of reasons. He might be offended – though she rather doubted that – and Christopher and Jemima would put on their disapproving looks. Sometimes she wondered which of them was the old woman.

Charlotte and Ken wandered out along the harbour wall.
Amaryllis saw Ken lift his camera, so presumably he had found something worth photographing. Perhaps a shaft of late afternoon light reflected in the mud flats, or the flames from the petro-chemical works at the far side of the river. The two of them didn’t seem to be together, particularly, just walking in the same direction at the same time. Charlotte swayed as if she hoped someone was watching her.

‘What do you think, Maisie Sue?’ said Amaryllis, not trusting her own judgement in this respect.
‘A couple or not?’

Maisie Sue shook her head. Now that she had given up having her hair permed, this meant her blonde curls flew round her head like the petals of a sunflower. This look was better, Amaryllis reflected. It had been disconcerting when her hair didn’t move at all.
Almost as if it was painted on like the hair of a doll from the 1980s.

‘No way,’ Maisie Sue replied. ‘Ken’s a lot nicer than Charlotte, that’s for sure. She’s just a parcel of trouble.
Look at her sashaying along there.’

‘Really?’ said Amaryllis.
‘Trouble?’

She noticed Zak was staring after Charlotte as if he had never seen a woman before. The way Penelope kept him locked up, he probably hadn’t, or at least not a woman under fifty. She nudged him in the ribs. ‘
Maisie Sue doesn’t think Charlotte’s any good for you.’

Zak jumped, and a blush spread from his neck up to his face. ‘She’s getting ahead of herself in that case.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Giancarlo, staring after Charlotte appraisingly. ‘She seems all right to me.’

Amaryllis thought Giancarlo could look after himself, so she didn’t warn him off.
But she noticed him narrowing his eyes as Charlotte turned round. An odd expression crossed his face.