7 A Tasteful Crime (6 page)

‘Or
“Bananas in Pyjamas”,’ put in Oscar in a jokey voice that didn’t ring at all true. He raised his eyebrows at Maria. ‘Wouldn’t you like to meet one of those, Maria?’

‘Euch!’ said Amaryllis.
How did Oscar manage to make something from a children’s song sound so sleazy?

‘We’re getting feedback from Oscar’s mike,’ said Charlotte, running round to the sound deck to twiddle some buttons.

They should have got an octopus for this job, reflected Amaryllis vaguely. Charlotte seemed to be doing all the work while Deirdre and Oscar play-acted behind the desk and Maria directed operations with a supercilious air. Eric had no obvious function at all. It was cruel of them even to keep him there. On second thoughts, she definitely wouldn’t want to follow Maria around. The woman would probably just go back to her hotel room and plug herself in to recharge her batteries, and to make sure she would be just as immaculate and authoritative the following day. Hanging around outside Pitkirtly’s one hotel would be no way to spend a summer evening. She’d be much better in the Queen of Scots with her friends.

Jock shuffled his feet. ‘I should have guessed this would be boring. I think my mind’s switched itself into stand-by. Give me a disaster movie any day.’

She gave him a hard stare. ‘Isn’t it time you were round at the pub annoying Charlie Smith?’

‘Um – I’m giving it a rest.’

‘What?’ Amaryllis’s surprised squeal completely drowned out Oscar’s next two lines.

‘Shush!’ said Maria. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room if you can’t keep quiet. This is important!’

‘So is this,’ said Amaryllis, putting a hand under Jock’s elbow and hurrying him out to the foyer. She was conscious of Christopher following them. Perhaps he thought he would have to step in and prevent bloodshed. She didn’t mean Jock any harm, however; it was just that his declaration had turned the world upside-down, and she knew she had to find out what was behind it.

As they entered the foyer, Dave sneaked in from outside. He was a large man who didn’t usually move around surreptitiously, but this time he was definitely sneaking.

‘Why didn’t you stay around?’ he demanded, addressing Jock. ‘I’d have thought you’d back me up.’

Jock shrugged. ‘It was
all your own fault.’

‘You egged me on, though. I wouldn’t have done it on my own.’

‘I did not egg you on! I was hoping the keys wouldn’t be in it in the first place. It was the driver’s fault for leaving them in there.’

Dave, who had almost been looking dangerous for a minute there, calmed down instantly. He chuckled. ‘That’s what Charlie said.
More or less.’

‘Which was it?’ said Amaryllis. ‘
More, or less?’

‘Quite a bit more,’ admitted Dave.  ‘He said the driver should
have known that leaving the big apple behind the Queen of Scots was a stupid thing to do and asking for trouble. He said in Pitkirtly you never know when some idiot’s going to come along, and if anything unbelievably insane can happen, it will.’

‘The big apple?’ said Christopher, sounding a bit faint.

‘Then he swore a bit,’ added Dave.

‘Those retired policemen know how to swear all right,’ said Jock, nodding sagely.

‘So is the apple something to do with the procession tomorrow and the TV show?’ said Amaryllis.

‘It was meant to be,’ said Dave. ‘But the driver’s gone off in a huff now it’s got a bit of a scratch on it.
Says he’d be embarrassed to be seen driving it.’

‘You mean he wasn’t embarrassed before?’ said Jock.

‘Maybe I should offer my services,’ said Amaryllis.

They all regarded her warily.

‘Maybe not,’ said Dave. ‘It wouldn’t do for you go off on one of your missions in the middle of it.’

‘I’m not doing missions any more,’ said Amaryllis.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Jock. ‘Just like I’m not drinking any more.’

‘What?’ said Dave very
loudly.

‘Keep the noise down!’ yelled Maria from the office. ‘I won’t tell you again. I can get you removed from the building, you know.’

‘She’d do it, too,’ said Christopher.

‘Let’s go up to the fish and chip shop just now,’ said Jock. ‘We can always come back down later to see what’s what.’

Amaryllis began to formulate a plan.

Chapter 7 The Big Day

Jock didn’t sleep well. He was convinced it was because he hadn’t had his usual quota of Old Pictish Brew. Maybe it was going to be harder than he had expected to keep this up until Monday. Maybe it would be better to face up to Charlie Smith and get it over with. According to Dave, Charlie hadn’t been all that annoyed. And after all, it wasn’t Jock’s fault however you looked at it. Dave had just behaved irresponsibly. But then, that wasn’t any surprise to anybody who had ever seen him driving.

Looking out of the kitchen window as he filled the kettle, he saw a big black cloud in the distance.  It was too soon to tell if it was heading this way or not.

Jock decided he might as well go out and see if there was any evidence of a healthy eating campaign around the town. He knew from speaking to Jemima and Tricia that the filming of Open Kitchen took all day. They had to wait their turn to be filmed in their kitchen bringing out the ingredients and starting to bake whatever they planned to bake, and then they had to have it ready just in time for the television crew to come round again and film the finished delicacy. And at the end of it all they had to go round to the Cultural Centre for the judging. The local West Fife community television station had agreed to broadcast live coverage of the whole thing to viewers within its area, but apparently the production company had already sold the series to some obscure broadcasting station that specialised in cookery programmes. Jock couldn’t imagine even bothering to look for that particular channel on his television.

The black cloud had disappeared by the time he went outside, and it was a pleasant enough morning for the time of year.
He was about to go round to Christopher’s to see if he could persuade him to come out for a wander, when he remembered Penelope was borrowing Christopher’s kitchen for the day. She might view a visit from Jock as some sort of seal of approval. He shuddered. She would be lucky if she didn’t poison somebody before the day was out. It was the leeks that had left the worst after-taste – or maybe that too was because he hadn’t had enough Old Pictish Brew. He shook his head as he went down the path and opened his garden gate. It was no use fighting against nature.

He wondered,
as he ambled down the road, if it would be considered unsporting to hang around near Tricia’s house to give her moral support and see how the whole thing worked. Or maybe he would get arrested for stalking or something.

Jemima had Dave
on hand as her assistant, and he suspected Amaryllis and Christopher would find excuses to drop in there, even if only to eat any leftovers.

He found his steps leading him in the direction of Tricia’s house, a neat little bungalow on one of the low roads at the far side of the town that always
looked as if they must be below sea-level, though as far as he knew they weren’t particularly subject to flooding.

After a while he realised there was somebody walking in front of him. It was still fairly early on Sunday morning, so there weren’t many other people about. Something about the woman looked rather familiar.

Maybe because she’d heard his footsteps, she swung round suddenly and glared at him. Then her face softened into a half-smile.

‘Mr McLean! I thought there might be a man following me – I’m glad it’s only you.’

Unsure of whether to take offence, he nodded in muted greeting. It was Jan from the wool-shop. He had been slightly wary of her since the events of a few months ago. Up until then he had thought of her as part of the background of the town. It had been extremely disconcerting to find out that she had a personality and emotions, just as most other people did.

‘Sorry,’ she said, blushing. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it came out. Are you going round to Tricia’s?’

‘Not really,’ Jock lied. ‘I’m heading for the harbour.’

‘Going the long way round?’

He didn’t answer. Unfortunately she thought of something else to say.

‘Do you know what time everything
starts?’

‘No idea. I’ll just go with the flow... That’s the best way.’

‘I suppose it is... Maybe see you later then.’

Jock was forced to turn his steps vaguely in the direction of the harbour, but as soon as he could he diverted round towards Jemima and Dave’s. He felt as if he needed the security of being with his friends.

When he came up one of the old cobbled back streets with the converted fishermen’s cottages and turned on to the High Street, he was almost knocked over by a running carrot. Dodging to avoid him, the carrot had a nasty-looking collision with a potato. Jock felt sorry for the boy in the potato suit. He had probably done nothing to deserve the fate of representing such an unattractive-looking root vegetable. On the other hand, at least his costume was a bit more manageable than those of the courgettes and bananas, who kept falling over the leg sections. The costumes had so much fabric in them that they must surely have been made for somewhat larger children.

There was a sort of procession
going on. It was rather chaotic, and he noticed a woman further up the street attempting to boom orders through a megaphone. He couldn’t see any sign of the big apple. Had they found another driver? Was Charlie Smith going to sue them for damages? Jock hoped he could summon up the will-power to keep well out of the way until these questions were no longer current.

Just as he was standing there mulling it over – something he didn’t often do, preferring to keep on the move so that Fate wouldn’t find him a stationery target – the apple trundled round the corner at the foot of the street, from the direction of the car park near the Cultural Centre. It looked slightly lopsided and as it came closer he saw that it had a big dent in the side nearest him.

The apple drew up and somebody waved from the driver’s cab. It was Amaryllis. Jock resisted the impulse to cover his eyes and moan. Had they really given her a driving licence again? It wouldn’t be safe to go out on the streets of Pitkirtly, what with her and Dave on the loose.

She wound down the window. ‘Going my way?’

‘No! Just leave me alone!’

He didn’t actually make the sign of the cross but he imagined it. She laughed, a bit wildly in Jock’s opinion, and drove off again, narrowly missing two cauliflowers and a much smaller apple.

‘Keep up at the back!’ called the woman with the megaphone.

Jock walked on up the road and caught up with
the woman. He recognised her at last as Deirdre, Christopher's ex-wife. He hadn't known Christopher at the time they were still married, so he hadn't been party to any of the circumstances of the break-up, but he assumed it had gone the same way as most other marriages, with the woman wanting more than the man was prepared to give. She sent him a scornful glance.

‘Bit of a shambles, isn’t it?’ he said cheerily.

‘This is just a rehearsal,’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘What is it they say? Life isn’t a rehearsal.’

He walked off down the side street that led to Jemima’s house, laughing to himself at his own rapier-like wit.

He had never seen so many people crowded into Jemima’s kitchen. There were
a few friends who wanted either to wish her well or just to see what was going on. Maria, Ken, Charlotte and Eric, from the television crew he had met the day before, were presumably there to set things up and make sure the kitchen was ready. The others, a couple of complete strangers, turned out to be from that little-known publication ‘The Pitkirtly Press and Advertiser.’

Jemima herself was an island of calm in the middle of the storm. She was peacefully unpacking a box of ingredients.

‘Everybody gets the same,’ she explained to Jock when she noticed him watching. ‘Then we have to make it into something different.’

‘A cake?’ he said, eyeing the small bag of potatoes she had just placed on the kitchen table.

‘Mmhm. Potato cake, more like. You don’t have to use all the ingredients, but I think you get extra marks the more you use.’

‘Extra marks?’ said Jock, uneasily reminded of his former career.

Jemima frowned. ‘It’s a bit like school, isn’t it? I don’t really know why I went in for this. It was silly of me. I only did it because they couldn’t find anybody else at such short notice.’

‘You’re famous for your cooking, though, dear,’ said Dave, overhearing. ‘They couldn’t run the show without including you.’

‘No show without Punch, eh?’ said Jemima absently, fishing out a can of condensed milk from the box.

‘Potatoes, condensed milk, what next?’ said Jock.

‘Treacle,’ she said, holding up the tin. ‘I think I can do something with this…’

‘We’d rather you didn’t confer over
the recipe,’ said Charlotte quietly. ‘It’s meant to be all your own work, Jemima.’