Closer to Death in a Garden (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 10) (3 page)

Chapter 3 Nothing to see here...

‘I’m going in.’

‘In where?’ said Christopher, trying not to sound as bewildered as he felt.

‘Into the alpaca farm. I wanted to let someone know, in case I don’t come out the other side. Or the same side. I don’t know which side yet.’

Amaryllis wasn’t making any sense, but that could be because he had had a few too many pints of Old Pictish Brew. Keith Burnet had told Charlie Smith about Dave being rushed to hospital, and they were all drowning their sorrows.

He had vaguely wondered where Amaryllis was, as it wasn’t like her to miss a group drowning of sorrows, but Jock McLean had an idea she had gone to help Stewie and the wee girl re-paint Mrs Petrelli’s flat, and she would probably pop in later.

‘Alpaca farm? What’s that?’

‘Well, I’m not sure it’s an actual farm yet. There might only be one of them. I’m going in to make sure it’s all right.’

The line crackled a little at the end of the sentence. She still wasn’t making any sense.

He wondered if she wanted him to go and help with the alpacas. He wouldn’t have known what to do with them anyway, even without the Old Pictish Brew.

She seemed to have rung off. Christopher returned to the bar to consult Charlie.

‘Do you know anything about alpacas?’

‘Are they the animals that are sometimes mistaken for llamas?’ said Charlie.

‘Maybe.’ That was more than Christopher himself knew about them.

‘Some woman up at the back of the town keeps them,’ said Jock McLean out of the blue.

‘How do you know that?’ said Christopher accusingly.

‘I just do... I keep my eyes open, you know.’

‘I think Amaryllis is going to do something silly,’ said Christopher.

‘That wouldn’t be unheard-of,’ commented Charlie. He leaned his elbows on the bar. ‘How silly?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Christopher. ‘She was going on about an alpaca farm and making sure it was all right.’

‘Sounds like she might be planning one of her break-ins,’ said Charlie, straightening up and collecting a couple of glasses to dry. They heard the dog giving a kind of half-growl from its position behind the bar, as if in disapproval.

Jock sighed. ‘I kind of miss the wee white dog, you know. It was company. Another living, breathing presence in the room.’

‘You could always move in with Tricia if you miss it that badly,’ said Charlie, winking at Christopher.

‘You don’t move in with somebody when you get to my age,’ said Jock. ‘Not without them asking you to, anyway. Tricia isn’t that sort of woman.’

‘Do you think Amaryllis needs back-up?’ said Charlie.

Christopher considered that possibility. It would be rare for Amaryllis to admit she needed help. On the other hand, it was rather unusual – if not unprecedented – for her to warn him when she was going to do something like this. He had often had to pick up the pieces afterwards, though. Maybe her phone call had been a kind of subconscious request for help. He wished he was better at understanding these subtleties.

‘It’ll take me a while to get up there,’ he said. ‘If it’s at the back of the town, that is.’

‘It’s up past that hotel,’ said Jock. ‘You know the one. If they haven’t knocked it down yet.’

‘That’s a funny place for an alpaca farm,’ said Christopher.

‘Anywhere’s a funny place for that,’ said Jock. ‘It’s a pity Jemima didn’t leave us Dave’s car keys – we could have driven up to have a look.’

‘Can you drive, then?’ Christopher asked him.

‘No. I thought you could.’

‘No.’

They stared at each other blankly.

Charlie burst out laughing. ‘You’re a fine pair. Never mind the twenty-first century, you haven’t got on board with the twentieth yet... I’ll take you up there and we’ll see what she’s up to.’

‘But you can’t leave the bar,’ said Christopher.

‘I’ll get Jan to fill in,’ said Charlie. He beckoned to Jan, the wool-shop owner, who was sitting at a table on her own, staring into space. There was something about the way he summoned her that made Christopher think... but again, he was no use at understanding these things. Was there something in the air in Pitkirtly at the moment? Jock and Tricia, Charlie and Jan... Keith and his girl-friend... What was her name?

But then, Keith and Ashley – that was it – were still young and optimistic enough to go in for that sort of thing. Jock McLean, on the other hand, should have been old enough to know better. Christopher knew he would never understand relationships if he lived to be three hundred.

Charlie had a very big car, even bigger than Dave’s. Christopher felt as if he and Jock were rattling around in the space as they trundled up the High Street and then further up still, past the hotel. Christopher was still puzzling over Jock’s comment about it being knocked down. He had just opened his mouth to ask what it had meant when they all caught sight of Dave’s car, parked on the verge.

‘What’s that doing there?’ said Jock, finding his voice first.

Charlie slowed and stopped just in front of the other car. They got out of the Range Rover and approached it with something resembling caution, almost as if they imagined it might be booby-trapped.

‘Is this the alpaca place?’ said Charlie in an unnaturally low voice.

‘Aye, that’s it all right,’ said Jock, gesturing across the road where they could now see a partially concealed entrance.

‘There’s something funny going on,’ said Charlie.

He walked all round Dave’s car, peering inside it. There was nobody in there.

‘It looks all right,’ said Christopher.

He glanced on up the road and saw a big sign with flowers on it. ‘Flowers and Showers Garden Centre,’ he read aloud. ‘Wasn’t Dave at the garden centre when he was taken ill?’

‘Well, that’s a coincidence,’ said Jock. He frowned as he stared at the sign. ‘That’s a stupid name.’

‘It matches the picture,’ said Charlie, walking on a little way and getting a closer look at the sign. He turned to face them. ‘Maybe Dave parked here for the garden centre.’

‘It’ll have its own car park, though,’ Jock objected.

Christopher couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘What’s the point in standing here discussing garden centre car parks when Amaryllis could be in danger?’ he asked, his voice echoing on the quiet road. It was too quiet. It reminded him of what he didn’t like about leaving the town, even though they were still technically in Pitkirtly as far as he knew. Instead of the safe environment of buildings where people carried on their normal lives at a sensible distance from nature and the elements, you found yourself surrounded by tall trees that were probably going to outlive you by some years, and undergrowth that might house all kinds of random wildlife.

After a warm sunny day, the sea mist was starting to come in too. Already it swirled round the tops of the trees up here. Soon it would move down to the lower-lying parts of the town. He shivered.

Charlie was giving him a quizzical look. ‘What makes you think Amaryllis is in danger?’

‘She doesn’t usually tell me before she does something risky,’ said Christopher. ‘It’s only afterwards, when she can’t avoid it any longer.’

‘Hmm,’ said Charlie.

‘It won’t be her that’s in danger,’ said Jock. ‘It’ll be somebody else – an unsuspecting bystander.’

‘OK,’ said Charlie. ‘Let’s do this methodically. I’ll take the alpaca farm, Jock can take the garden centre and Christopher takes the woods. Have you got your mobiles on you?’

Christopher held his phone up. Jock mumbled something. It sounded like ‘Teacher’s pet’.

Charlie sighed, and reached into his pocket. He threw something to Jock. ‘My spare mobile.’

‘You’ve got a spare mobile and you keep it charged up?’ squeaked Jock.

‘No, I just thought you might like to carry it around anyway,’ growled Charlie, and crossed the road to investigate the concealed entrance.

Jock played with the phone buttons for a minute. ‘Do you want me to take the woods?’ he enquired.

‘No, of course not!’ said Christopher. ‘I can manage the woods. Easily. I’ll soon see there’s nothing in there.’

‘Nothing except big bad wolves and old women who live in gingerbread houses!’ called Jock after him as he turned on his heel and headed swiftly for the tall trees that were about to be swallowed up in the sea mist. Just as characters in fairy tales tended to be swallowed up by big bad wolves, he told himself, and then wished he hadn’t. Instead of being able to laugh at this ridiculous fantasy as he walked between two evil-looking trees, Christopher began to see faces in the gnarled trunks and to hear things rustle in the undergrowth like snakes coming for his legs. It was all very unpleasant. And not like him at all. Either he was under a spell or it wasn’t a good idea to do this sort of thing after a few pints of Old Pictish Brew.

There was a banging sound somewhere in the world outside the wood. He gave a start, almost a jump. He told himself it was a door banging sharply closed in the wind, even although there was no wind.  He had nothing to be scared of. It was all in his mind.

There was a louder rustling in a shrub just ahead, close to one of the trees with a twisted, sneering face embedded in its trunk. Christopher took a step back.

A head emerged from the bush.

He very nearly screamed, before realising that the head wasn’t that of a cinematic monster, or a werewolf, or a wild man of the woods as his subconscious had tried to tell him, but that it was attached to an animal of rather mild appearance, with a comical expression and a long neck covered with non-threateningly fluffy hair.

So this was what an alpaca looked like.

But how did you catch one?

Christopher glanced around to see if there was anything he could use as a lead. A piece of rope, or, failing that, a long creeper of the kind that was almost impossible to tear with your bare hands if it had wound itself round your forsythia, for instance, but that would probably not hold your weight if you tried to use it to abseil down the Forth Bridge and escape from the foreign spies who were after you.

Now he knew for sure he had been spending too much time with Amaryllis.

The alpaca sauntered towards him. Did they bite? How could he have avoided learning nothing whatsoever about them during years of formal education and the experience he had gained as an archivist and as director of the Cultural Centre?

He stepped back again. Was it better to stand up to them or to run away as fast as you could?

‘Don’t move,’ said a woman’s voice behind him.

He almost screamed out loud for the third time in five minutes.

‘I think I can catch him while you’re distracting him,’ she said. ‘Try and look as if you’re watching him.’

Of course Christopher was watching the alpaca – in the same way an arachnophobe might watch a spider in the room, to make sure they knew where it was at all times.

The animal came closer. And closer.

Then there was a kind of scuffle, and the woman behind him said, ‘You can move now.’

He half-turned and saw that the alpaca had a makeshift lasso round its neck, and a woman was clinging on to the other end of the rope.

‘Thanks,’ she added. ‘I’ve been trying to catch him all day... Jane Blyth-Sheridan.’

She held out her other hand rather regally. He wondered if she expected him to kiss it. Judging by her appearance, she might well be of a social class where that sort of thing went on. Pearls, a silky-looking cardigan, and even Christopher, with his well-known indifference to women’s appearance, couldn’t fail to notice she was wearing full make-up including lipstick.

He shook her hand quickly and then took a step away from her.

‘And you are?’ she said, not imperiously but almost as if she were interested.

‘Christopher Wilson,’ he muttered. ‘Cultural Centre.’

‘Oh, yes, of course!’ she cried. ‘I came down to a lecture there last autumn. The archive collections and how to use them. Fascinating.’

The alpaca began to move away again, and she added, ‘Must get Algernon back in the stables for the night. They’re quite delicate, you know. Sometimes I wonder if I should take them south in the winter. Only of course the travel would upset them.’

The alpaca, having had a taste of freedom, didn’t seem to want to get back in his stable, but after a while, to the sound of encouraging noises from Jane Blyth-Sheridan and some extra help on the rope from Christopher, they managed to emerge from the wood and cross the road.

Jock was standing on the verge by Charlie’s car with a dazed expression on his face. There was no sign of Charlie.

‘It’s an alpaca,’ said Christopher.

‘Of course it is,’ said Jock. ‘But something’s happened – in there.’

He gestured towards the garden centre sign.

‘Where’s Charlie?’ said Christopher.

‘Come along – we’ve got to get Algernon inside before he makes another run for it,’ said Jane Blyth-Sheridan.

‘We’ll be back in a minute,’ said Christopher to Jock as he was towed away by the woman and the alpaca. ‘Just stay where you are.’