5 Frozen in Crime (16 page)

Amaryllis didn’t intend to go into the grounds on
her own, but she found herself moving so fast that even before she had paused
to consider a strategy she had already cut another hole in the fence further
away from the gate than before, hoping there might be a gap in the security
coverage. In some ways it was just as well she had done this on her own: she
knew she worked best without other people holding her back.

She had definitely had to leave Dave and Jemima in
the Land Rover. It was safer for them, and they could act as backup or even
just call or go for backup if necessary. The decision to leave Christopher
behind hadn’t been quite so clear-cut, and she couldn’t help feeling slightly
guilty about him. He would either freak out or go into a hurt silence when he
found out. Either way, at some later time she would wish she hadn’t rushed on
ahead. The trouble was that she had constructed a scenario in her mind in which
at least one person she knew was involved in the armed robbery, and possibly in
the murder of the homeless man too, and she wanted the chance to get it sorted
out herself before anyone else came along to interfere. If she had to do
something slightly dodgy, the kind of thing where she stood on the line between
legality and crime, perhaps even edging one toe over the line, she didn’t want
Christopher around to act as her conscience. She knew that, although he seemed
vague and woolly at times - well, all the time, to be honest - he had a very
much more inflexible attitude than she did to what was legal and what wasn’t.

Justifying her actions to herself took up most of
the time that she spent dodging through the vegetation at the other side of the
fence, moving fast, trying to think like a wild animal that skimmed across the
surface of the snow. It was still soft and untrodden in here where no traffic
pounded it down into a solid lump of ice. The scrubby little bushes which the
deer had undoubtedly been ravaging came to an end at the side of the drive that
she knew led up to the house. She had to walk up the drive from here or dart
across the open space that would usually be carpeted with rough grass but at
the moment was covered in a thick blanket of snow. She was reluctant even to
leave footsteps on it to show the path she had taken, although she was
reasonably sure the cameras would have picked her up somewhere by now anyway.
She shivered suddenly. She had borrowed a parka from Dave, wearing it over
several layers of jumpers and the PI vest to fill out its cavernous space, but
it was quite an old one without all the scientifically researched layers of
fabric and down that her own one had, and it wasn’t entirely fit for purpose.

She had almost decided that the homeless man had
been one of the armed robbers. She remembered that he had limped and that the
golden peacock had been found in the Land Rover after his body had been
transported in it. His motive must have been simple desperation. Amaryllis
wondered if perhaps he had got to know his accomplice in the army. She knew
there were cases of men who came out of the army and couldn’t cope with
civilian life and ended up homeless. He might even have arrived in Pitkirtly
because he knew his old comrade was there, and then either not managed to meet
up with his friend or been turned away by him. No, that wouldn’t work if they
had then linked up to plan and carry out the robbery. Maybe it was after the
robbery that he started sleeping rough. But that didn’t work either, because
people had seen him around town before that - hadn’t they? And also, once the
robbery was done, in theory the conspirators would be rich and wouldn’t have to
sleep on the streets.

She frowned as she circled the house, keeping
within the scrubland area, looking for the best way in.

It didn’t entirely add up. And yet, if it didn’t,
then how did the homeless man get hold of the golden peacock?

Conscious that she still had more questions than
answers in her mind, she knew she had to concentrate on finding a way into the
house and if possible collecting more evidence and then getting out without
being caught. This wasn’t what the jeweller had in mind when he asked her to
have a word with Lord Murray. But then, the jeweller probably didn’t imagine
that Lord Murray himself was the victim of theft either. She felt he could have
been a bit more careful about who he was buying from, though. Had he been
over-awed by the mention of a title? Or simply dazzled by the sight of the
peacock?

At one point, the night before, Amaryllis had been
doubtful about whether Lord Murray even existed. But she had done a bit of
research online which had reassured her. He didn’t very often go outside the
boundaries of his estate and was sometimes described in the papers as ‘the
reclusive Lord Murray’ which seemed appropriate enough. His gamekeeper, on the
other hand, wasn’t mentioned at all online. Perhaps he was the one who didn’t
exist.

At last! She had found that the house was built
into the slope of a hill, as almost any house would have to be around here, and
that there were more storeys at the front than the back, which was the reason
for the impressive steps up to the front door. At the back, where the lowest
storey almost disappeared into the ground, one of the windows wasn’t closed
properly. She headed for it, crossing the open ground to the house in a weaving
gallop which she hoped would minimise the risk of being picked up on camera, although
she knew that if anyone was watching the screens in the security room
constantly they were certain to spot her.

She was halfway through the window, having prised
it fully open with the wire-cutters, when she heard a voice behind her.

‘Nice of you to drop in again, Miss Peebles.’

Firm hands wrapped themselves round her legs,
which were flapping around in mid-air in an undignified way as she wriggled
through the window, and pulled her backwards, setting her down carefully in the
snow.

She turned to face Mal.

‘You’ve got some nerve, breaking in during
daylight hours,’ he said. His face was transformed by a sneer into being dark
and sinister. ‘You’d better come this way.’

Oh dear, thought Amaryllis, I’ve put myself and
others in danger again. Just what Charlie Smith keeps telling me not to do. She
braced herself to overpower Mal. It wouldn’t be easy, but it should be
possible. He didn’t have a gun trained on her, after all. Just as well since
she was only armed with wire-cutters.

Of course, she still didn’t know if he was only
being stern with a trespasser who had caused damage to the fence, in his fairly
legitimate gamekeeper’s son role, or if he had a more sinister reason for
marching her in through the back door, which was at the foot of some rather
dangerous, slippery stone steps, and then along a dark corridor where closed
doors stood at intervals like blank-faced sentinels. But she already had her
suspicions of him, so she was prepared for the worst, or so she thought.

He kicked a door open, and shoved her into a room.
She heard the door close and lock behind her. It was pitch dark, and she couldn’t
find a light switch, although she felt along each wall in turn. It wasn’t a
large room and she decided it might be a cellar. This suspicion was confirmed
when she stumbled into some racking which didn’t so much rattle as clank, as if
laden with bottles. A wine cellar, then. Oh well, at least I can drink myself
into oblivion, she thought, and immediately discarded the idea. She had to keep
a clear head and remain focussed, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to fight her
way out when he came back.

If he came back, said the small, frightened part
of her brain that she usually managed to keep well under control. And what
about the spiders?

‘Spiders?’ she said out loud into the darkness.

There was a groan from somewhere in the room. She
jumped almost out of her skin. Visions of hideous monsters, of vampires kept in
coffins from which they only emerged at night, and -

‘Stop it, you idiot,’ she told herself, and
realised she had spoken aloud again. ‘Who’s that?’

Another groan. ‘I don’t know.’

‘No, I don’t know. You’re the one who’s supposed
to know,’ she said accusingly.

‘Oh. Let me think. Alastair Murray. At your
service.’

She paused for a moment, trying to work it out. ‘Are
you Lord Murray of Pitkirtlyhill?’

‘I am. At least I think so. My head’s hurting. I’m
a bit fuzzy round the edges. Sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

As they spoke she had been working her way over to
the source of his voice. She bumped into more racking, then kicked something
softer. He groaned again.

‘That was me,’ he said, still sounding not quite
all there.

‘I’m Amaryllis Peebles,’ she said clearly, hoping
he might recognise her name and draw the appropriate conclusions.

But he just said, ‘Delighted to meet you, my dear.’

She tried to recall everything she knew about him.
The main thing, of course, was that he had once been the owner of the golden
peacock, so she decided to start with that and to hope that all other relevant
facts could be extracted from him as she went along, preferably before Mal came
back. She would keep an ear open for that too.

‘Did you once own a golden peacock said to have
been made by Fabergé?’ she said.

‘What is this, an interrogation?’ he mumbled.
There was a shift in the air and a sort of scraping sound as, she imagined, he
tried to drag himself upright. ‘Not in the police, are you?’

‘No! Certainly not.’

‘Hard to tell these days… Yes, we had the golden
peacock. My grandfather insisted it came from the Romanov collection but there
was a lot of confusion about that.’

‘And you sold it in a jeweller’s shop in Pitkirtly
not long before Christmas?’ she enquired, realising how unlikely that would
seem to him with his cultured English accent and old-fashioned mannerisms.

He laughed. ‘No, I certainly did not sell the
golden peacock in Pitkirtly. If I had wished to dispose of it, I would have
used our family jewellers’ in Knightsbridge. I don’t believe I’ve ever set foot
in a jeweller’s shop in Pitkirtly - I didn’t even know there was one. I only go
there once in a blue moon, of course. Church services sometimes, school
prize-giving occasionally. Not for shopping.’

He probably got all his food delivered in hampers
from Fortnum and Mason’s, she thought, and immediately scolded herself for
being such an inverted snob.

‘I’ve been doing all my food shopping online
lately,’ he added calmly, shattering the stereotype. ‘One of those
supermarkets. They bring it in their own brand plastic bags - bad for the
planet, useful for putting out the rubbish.’

‘So if someone sold the golden peacock in
Pitkirtly, it wasn’t with your consent or approval?’

‘No, certainly not! Apart from anything else,’ he
said, ‘it would have been a fraudulent transaction. The peacock was fake.’

‘Fake?’

‘There may have been a golden peacock from Fabergé
in our family at one time, but the one we have now - or had, if you’re right
about it being sold - certainly wasn’t genuine.’

‘Do you have any idea when the fake was
substituted? If your family ever had the real one in the first place, that is.’

‘Oh, we had records that suggest it was real when
it came to us,’ he said. ‘But the last time I looked at it closely a year or so
ago, I realised it wasn’t. The stones were wrong. I asked a friend who has expert
knowledge and he confirmed it.’

She couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but his
voice had a kind of sad, resigned tone about it, and she wondered if he had
known all along that someone in his own family had made the substitution, sold
the real one and kept all the proceeds.

‘Was it -?’ she started to ask.

The door swung open suddenly, and Amaryllis
half-turned and saw a figure outlined against the dim light from the corridor.

‘Well, this is a cosy little scene,’ said Mal. ‘I
see you’ve introduced yourself to my big brother.’

‘Your brother?’

‘Yes. Who did you think I was - the butler?’ He
laughed without any warmth in his voice.

‘So you’ve met Malcolm before?’ said Lord Murray.
He had very little expression in his voice.

‘Yes,’ she said, trying to equal his lack of
expressiveness with her own, although she was afraid her surprise had already
worked its way through into her speech. It would have been better if she could
have pretended to know a bit more than she actually did. It would have given
her a bit more of an edge. Now all she had to rely on was her martial arts
skills combined with some other kinds of fighting that often produced results
more quickly but in a less orthodox way. She would also have preferred that
Jimbo hadn’t known Mal and hadn’t told him about her past. She had lost the
element of surprise that was sometimes on her side. But of course Mal didn’t
know the extent to which she had kept her skills up to date since leaving the
intelligence service.

Amaryllis balanced on the balls of her feet,
geared up for fight or flight. Which was it to be?

Charlie Smith wasn’t far along the road when he
wished he hadn’t bothered to come out. He glanced at the dog, which sat up on
the front passenger seat of his boring Vauxhall saloon as if it had been doing
so for years. Even the dog seemed to be on edge, staring at the ridges in the
road as if they were hurdles the car had to jump. Some stretches were a lot
like that. It wasn’t doing his suspension any good, not to mention his nerves.
He found himself tensing up whenever another car came in sight - not that it
happened very often, since only an idiot would be driving around Fife on a day
like this - and then relaxing, letting his concentration drift and allowing the
car, its steering flaky at the best of times, to head straight for the next
snow-hole.

How much further to the turning? Was there any
chance Lord Murray would be at home and not just his butler or gamekeeper or
whoever? Maybe he himself had headed south for the winter, to Cannes,
Montpellier or Barcelona as Charlie admitted he would have done if he could
afford it and if he hadn’t had to be on duty thanks to Inspector Forrester’s
indulgence in selfish pleasure.

He smiled. He knew perfectly well he would have
been the first one to turn up at the station begging to be allowed to help once
the armed robbery had taken place, and as for the murder… He hoped Inspector
Farmer was taking that seriously. The victim may have been homeless but that
didn’t mean he was worthless.

He overshot the turning and had to go right round
the roundabout just ahead and come back to it. This was the best thing to do
anyway, since it meant he could take a better run at the slope of the side
road.

There was a Land Rover parked by the woods, just
past the Old Pitkirtlyhill House driveway. It was up on the verge but he didn’t
think it was in trouble. He did, however, recognise the three passengers,
something which gave him no pleasure, just a sinking feeling. Especially when
he established that Amaryllis wasn’t one of them.

‘Where is she?’ he growled as Christopher wound
down the window.

‘Um,’ said Christopher.

‘Go on, tell me! I need to know before I go
barging in there. Goodness knows why she had to go and meddle in my case.’

‘I didn’t think it was your case any more,’ said
Christopher tentatively. ‘And she’s not meddling - she’s following up on
something for a client.’

‘A client?’

‘The jeweller. He thought she should come and
speak to Lord Murray.’

‘But I’ve come to speak to Lord Murray!’

Charlie Smith kicked the Land Rover tyre. It felt
quite a lot more solid than his foot, even in his protective boots.

‘It’s no use getting in a state,’ said Jemima
reprovingly from the front passenger window.

‘I’m not getting in a state!’ yelled Charlie. The
sound seemed to echo round the snow-laden trees, and it caused a minor
avalanche from the leaning branch of a tall spindly rowan.

‘I’ll come into the house with you if you want,’
offered Christopher.

That didn’t help.

‘How long has she been in there?’ said Charlie.

Christopher looked at his watch. ‘Hmm, an hour and
a half. We were just wondering whether to go in after her. It could take her a
while just to walk up and down the drive with all the snow lying about.’

‘Borderline,’ said Charlie.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Hard to tell whether to be worried or not. On
balance, I think we should be worried. Do you want to scout round the back?
Just in case there’s something going on?’

He thought Christopher probably regretted even
offering to go in with him now. He was angry with himself for not bringing
someone with him. Apart from the dog, of course. He glanced back at the dog,
still sitting in the front seat of the Vauxhall in a stately way.

‘Would you mind if the dog came in here with you?’
he said to Dave and Jemima. ‘This is what I’d like you to do…’

A few minutes later, once he had explained
himself, he and Christopher watched as Dave, Jemima and the dog disappeared up
the hill in the Land Rover at a speed that would have been ridiculous on a
narrow road except that nobody would have managed to get up it otherwise in
those conditions.

‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Christopher. ‘I
didn’t like having them along in the first place, but if things have gone
pear-shaped, it’s even worse.’

‘I agree,’ said Charlie. ‘We don’t want to have to
worry about them. They’ll be safer up at the cattery. Let’s get going.’

He sent Christopher to walk the length of the
fence and see if there was a gap further round. It would take him an hour or
so, and by then Charlie hoped it would all be over. Whatever it was. He had
radioed in for backup, but he knew it would be while coming. They didn’t have
many officers to spare, and after all he only had a vague feeling things were
coming to a crisis point. He had very little actual evidence that this was the
case.

Following Christopher for twenty metres or so
round the perimeter, he discovered a gap in the fence where it had been cut
with wire-cutters, and he hopped through. There was sort of scrubland at the
other side. He walked forward through the small trees and bushes. The ground
was covered in snow but every so often clumps of tall wild grass stuck up
through it. In places it had drifted against tree-trunks. He hoped he wouldn’t
fall into a drift. He didn’t want to appear at Lord Murray’s door looking
ridiculous - not that it would make any difference, of course. Except that he
would prefer to deal with the situation with calm confidence.

By this time the sky had darkened and it had
started to snow again, at first half-heartedly and then heavily. There was an
open stretch just before the house loomed up ahead. It was in the Georgian
style, not an old-fashioned Scottish tower house, and a flight of stone steps
curved up towards what must be the front door. As an officer of the law, he
felt he should march up to the door and demand to have his questions answered.
As a suspicious man, he was reluctant to do that but he told himself not to be
so silly. Maybe if he had followed through his earlier intention and questioned
the owner then, things would have been straightened out before now. And then
the homeless man might not have died, and the dog would still be with him.
Approaching the house, every instinct advising him in the strongest possible
terms to turn and run for it, he considered whether that would be a good thing
or not.

The door opened when he was halfway up the steps,
and a man came out on to the paved area at the top, behind a carved balustrade.
This must be the gamekeeper’s son: it couldn’t be Lord Murray. Not when he was
wearing leathers and looking so dangerous.

Charlie was annoyed to have lost the element of surprise,
although he couldn’t have said why.

‘Lord Murray?’ he asked politely, taking it easy
up the remaining steps, because he didn’t want to fall flat on his face. He had
the sense that he was already at enough of a disadvantage compared to this man.

‘I’m afraid Lord Murray isn’t at home,’ said the
man, unsmiling. He reminded Charlie of a soldier on guard. Perhaps he had even been
a soldier.

‘Do you know when he might be back?’ said Charlie,
but without feeling much hope.

‘I’m not sure,’ said the man. He seemed to want to
keep Charlie waiting on the door-step.

‘I need to speak to him on urgent police business,’
said Charlie.

‘Oh, really?’ There was a bored, sneering tone in
the man’s voice that he really didn’t like very much. ‘Maybe I could give him a
message?’

‘It’s confidential,’ said Charlie, standing his
ground. ‘I can only discuss it with Lord Murray himself. Is he away from home
at the moment?’

Perhaps the man had indeed gone south for the
winter, in search of warmth or even just to get away from this family retainer,
if that was what he was. He had another thought and added, ‘Are you in charge
here while he’s away?’

‘Not exactly,’ said the man in leathers with a
faint, unpleasant smile.

Suddenly his gaze strayed away from Charlie’s
face, out over the grounds. Charlie half-turned to see what he was looking at.
Someone was approaching fast, on skis. Who was this? Lord Murray himself?
Another of the staff?

‘Good way to cover the ground,’ he commented,
wishing he could ski and yet knowing he had always shunned the sport because he
didn’t see the point in courting danger just for fun.

‘Hey, Mal!’ called the man on the skis. ‘Who’s
your friend then?’

The man on the door-step looked enquiringly at
Charlie, who remembered he hadn’t produced any identification or introduced
himself properly. He had allowed this other man to set the agenda. He pulled out
his identity card and showed it. ‘Chief Inspector Smith. West Fife police.’

There was a whoosh, presumably as the other man
skied up to the foot of the steps, and then some snaps and clicks which could
have been him unfastening and removing the skis.

‘Why don’t you go round the back with these,
Jimmy?’ said Mal sharply. But a moment later there were footsteps coming up the
steps which Charlie tried to ignore. He was watching Mal for any sign of alarm
or guilt.

If he hadn’t been doing this, he might have been
in a better position to defend himself, but as it was, when the heavy weight
came down on the back of his head, he just felt the unbearable pain and
crumpled instantaneously to the step. And knew nothing more.