Amaryllis thought at first that it was jolly, girlish screaming of the kind people might do if they had suddenly found they were descended from Jesus Christ or related to Princess Diana. She could imagine some of the women here indulging in that if they got really excited by their ancestry.
Then she considered the possibility that it was panicky screaming of the kind an arachnophobe might emit if a spider suddenly fell on their head while they were driving along the M90 motorway,
As she moved towards the sound, she realised, as she heard the sobbing that had followed the screaming, that something awful had happened in the library.
Although highly trained and experienced in emergency situations, Amaryllis had noticed before that it was a bit different when the situation involved your friends. For a start, you weren’t operating at maximum efficiency because you had to consider, not just the logistics of the situation, the rational thing to do, and what your enemies might do, but also the effect anything you did would have on people close to you. She didn’t enjoy that kind of thing. But she took a deep breath and went in through the library door.
The first thing she noticed was that Christopher wasn’t there. This could be a good or bad thing.
The second thing was the small group of people at one side of the room, near the self-help books. Amaryllis had never even considered looking at a self-help book, and the only reason she knew they were there was that she had noticed on her abruptly curtailed visit to the building the day before that a man in a dog-collar was standing by these particular shelves, looking as furtive as only someone in a dog-collar could, while consulting a book entitled ‘Sex: What Women Want and other stories.’
There was a sobbing woman in the middle of the group: she was surrounded by other women in various stages of tartan, and one elderly man who stood there irresolute, holding a beige handbag.
Amaryllis got out her Security Services id card again: using it in civilian life twice in two days must be some sort of record.
She held it up in front of her as a talisman.
‘Amaryllis Peebles, security services. What’s going on here?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the nearest woman, softly spoken and perhaps Canadian. ‘This lady came through the door there – ‘she pointed to a door marked ‘Fire Exit’ – ‘and just started screaming. That’s her husband there. She hasn’t been able to tell us what’s wrong.’
Amaryllis looked at the door. It was standing ajar, and there was darkness beyond. Whatever had given the woman such a fright could be still there, but she wasn’t afraid of anything real, and she didn’t believe in ghosts, so all she had to do was take a look. Still she hesitated. By opening the door she might open up a box of secrets that was better left locked.
She gave herself a shake, physically and mentally. She definitely didn’t believe in ghosts, or in anything that wasn’t real. Even her instincts could be explained scientifically. The rational explanation for her hesitation in this case was that it didn’t make sense to go from light into darkness – for a few moments, she would be silhouetted against the light and therefore more vulnerable than she liked to be.
For goodness’ sake, Amaryllis, she told herself. You’ve handled worse situations than this. Don’t forget the time in Baghdad, with the human bomb. She stepped forward, taking a small torch out of her pocket as she pulled at the door. It creaked rustily but swung towards her. She stepped into the narrow corridor, flicking on the torch to give some visibility.
The outline of a door at the end of the corridor. Some boxes. A step-ladder. If this was supposed to be a public fire exit, it definitely contravened the regulations. She turned the beam downwards to illuminate her footsteps, so that she was a bit less likely to fall over something. Something lay untidily across the corridor like a heap of old clothes. What would a heap of old clothes be doing lying in the fire exit corridor in a library? Amaryllis had a bad feeling about this.
She stooped down to have a closer look. And stood up suddenly as someone came up behind her, fast.
‘Move aside, please, madam. We need to get in here and have a look.’
Amaryllis was cross with herself for hesitating. If she had been quicker off the mark, she could have started her own investigation before the police got here. Not for the first time she wondered if she was getting too old for all this.
She turned away and went back into the library. The little group was still there, but now augmented by several uniformed police officers. Two women constables were comforting the sobbing woman – now only whimpering softly to herself – and there were a lot of official notebooks in evidence. As she watched the group, she noticed Clarissa sliding out from the foreign language section and join it, lurking behind the man with the beige handbag. There was something stealthy about her movements, as if she didn't want anyone to know where she had been.
Amaryllis tried to go out to the foyer, where she just glimpsed Jemima Stevenson looking anxiously in her direction, but her way was barred.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Smith, Fife Constabulary,’ said a tall dark man she remembered vaguely. ‘Don’t go anywhere for a little while – we may need to get your prints and a DNA sample.’
‘I think you’ll find they’re already on file,’ said Amaryllis. She showed him her id card. He nodded as if the image were already imprinted on his mind and he didn’t really need to look properly.
‘I think we need to have a word about your unauthorised visit to the incident room, so stick around anyway.’
Damn, thought Amaryllis. She found the library steps and perched on them, prepared for a long wait.
Out in the foyer, Christopher, who had followed Big Dave and the police back over to the Cultural Centre just before the building was secured by the police, was feeling stressed, although he didn’t really believe in stress as a concept. Mrs Stevenson wouldn’t stop going on about the family history day being ruined, and it somehow being all her fault. A pity, thought Christopher, that she had found her voice after all those years only to use it to irritate people. Big Dave didn’t seem to be irritated: he listened to her every word as if it were Shakespeare.
The police had closed the door to the library, but Mrs Stevenson and Andrew were trying valiantly to keep the family history day going. Christopher thought they were fighting a losing battle, since the police would undoubtedly close the whole building down any minute now. It was embarrassing, with all these foreign tourists around – some of them had travelled long distances to be here, apparently, although he found that hard to believe.
He was proved right when Detective Chief Inspector Smith fought his way through the crowd to the reception desk, around which Christopher, Mrs Stevenson and Big Dave were clustered.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ demanded Mr Smith.
Christopher looked round for someone to be in charge, and decided to appoint himself on a temporary basis.
‘I think that’s me at the moment. Graham’s on his break, and the others are somewhere about. But I can’t take any decisions – I’m only a part time attendant.’
‘The place wouldn’t run properly without Christopher,’ said Mrs Stevenson, exaggerating wildly.
‘Well, maybe you can get these people to stop milling about. We need to close down the building, but we’ll have to take names and addresses before anybody leaves.’
‘Names and addresses?’ said Christopher, glancing round at the medley of people.
‘Close down the building?’ said Mrs Stevenson in dismay.
Mr Smith lowered his voice. ‘There’s been an - incident. We’ve found a body.’
Mrs Stevenson gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
‘Where? Who is it?’ said Big Dave.
‘I really can’t say at this stage,’ said Mr Smith. ’But we do need everyone to remain calm, gather together in an orderly fashion and wait their turn to speak to the police.’
Christopher thought the chances of that were about the same as of a massive golden eagle swooping in through the Cultural Centre entrance, picking him up in its talons and flying off with him. In a way he wished that would happen.
‘There are people who’ve come from New Zealand to be here today!’ said Mrs Stevenson. ‘I met one lady who had travelled by train for two days to get to the airport, then it was a two day flight with changes and stop-overs – is that the right word, David? – and then she had to get up here from London, and she has to go back to Edinburgh tonight because there isn’t a hotel in Pitkirtly.’
‘There’s hotels in Fife though,’ said Big Dave, loyal to his native county. ’She could have stayed a bit closer than Edinburgh.’
‘I don’t suppose she knew that, though,’ said Christopher, although why he felt he had to rush to the unknown New Zealander’s defence he didn’t know. ‘She probably just booked the Travel Lodge nearest to the airport or something.’
‘It’s a shame though,’ said Big Dave thoughtfully. ‘Coming all this way and then only getting a couple of hours of research and networking in.’
‘I’ll leave you to start restoring order,’ said Mr Smith, turning on his heel. He looked back over his shoulder to say, ’Of course it goes without saying that none of you should leave the building either.’
‘There’s nothing to be done,’ said Mrs Stevenson, and heaved a heart-rending sigh. ‘It’s our own fault for thinking we could go on without Ms Farquharson. It was doomed.’
‘We’re all doomed,’ said Christopher, losing interest again, and wondering how he was supposed to restore order among all these long lost relatives, most very vocal.
‘Wait a minute!’ said Big Dave, suddenly and loudly. ‘We’re all doomed? That's what we need to think about! Christopher, thanks to you we can save this family history day.’
Christopher shook his head sadly. He hadn’t realised Alzheimers could come on quite so suddenly. Before his eyes, Big Dave had gone right downhill and was now as mad as Mrs Stevenson, if not more so.
‘Jemima, what’s the name of that church round the corner again?’
Mrs Stevenson thought long and hard. ‘St Something.... St Magnus?’
‘No, it’s not that,’ said Big Dave. ‘St Mary’s? No, I have in mind it’s a man’s name. ‘
‘Something Scottish?’ said Mrs Stevenson. ‘Christopher, do you know it?’
Christopher didn’t take any notice of churches on principle. ‘St Ninian’s?’ he offered.
‘I think you’ve got it!’ said Big Dave. ‘Where’s that waste of space Andrew when you need him?’
‘He’s not a waste of space,’ protested Mrs Stevenson. ‘He’s made the Folk Museum into a - a must-see visitor attraction in the local area.’
‘Is that from the Council website?’ said Dave suspiciously.
‘The Fife Journal and Advertiser report.’
Dave was already on his way into the Folk Museum to try and find Andrew.
‘What’s he up to?’ said Mrs Stevenson.
Christopher shrugged his shoulders. He wondered where Amaryllis had got to. There was no knowing. Even by her own standards she was behaving unpredictably
Dave came back with Andrew.
‘I think we can do it,’ said Andrew. ‘The only question is, do they have an internet connection? Most people seem to want that more than anything else.’
‘Do who have an internet connection?’ said Christopher.
‘St Ninian’s of course,’ said Big Dave, looking at him as if he was the dunce of the class. ‘Andrew knows the minister. We might be able to use the church hall. It’s only round the corner. Don't tell me you've never seen Dad's Army - they used to use the church hall for their Home Guard stuff. That's what gave me the idea. There was the young gormless one and the posh one and the old Scottish one who used to say we're doomed.’
‘I’ll give her a call,’ said Andrew. He moved away from them to use his mobile.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Christopher. ‘We can’t just decide to use the church hall at this point! Everything’s set up here. It would take all day to move things over. Everybody would get confused.’
‘We can do it,’ said Dave. ‘Andrew’s going to bring the library van round and load everything up. It’ll be fine.’
‘The police won’t let you do it.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Dave. ‘It’ll get all those tourists out of their hair. How much do you think it complicates things having this many people at the crime scene?’
Andrew returned, smiling.
‘She’s fine with it,’ he reported. ‘Says it’s about time people saw the church as part of the community and not something outside it. Says not enough people use the church hall. Says she would welcome visitors from overseas. It’s all arranged.’
Amazingly, it all came together, albeit, as Christopher observed, in a ‘let’s do the show right here’ kind of way. The police agreed, on condition that nobody left the group, that it moved as one, was escorted round the corner by police officers and that there would be opportunities to collect names and addresses while the family historians networked. Andrew agreed, so enthusiastically that Christopher wondered if he had his own reasons for wanting to spend time with his minister friend; he engineered the process so that Big Dave and Mrs Stevenson, although nominally supervising things, didn’t have to lift a finger. Grumpy Graham, re-appearing from the staff room after a break of record length, during which Christopher suspected him of falling asleep, agreed as long as he didn’t have to do anything. The minister agreed and Andrew said she had volunteered to wait for the library van and help to unload the computers, reference books and odd pieces of memorabilia which Christopher, Graham and Andrew moved from their temporary home in the meeting room. Christopher let Andrew and Graham take the van round to the church hall once it was full; he knew someone would be needed at the Cultural Centre to make sure the family historians actually set off before twilight and reached their destination safely.
By now he was rather embarrassed at having been a dissenting voice in the first place and felt he had to work extra hard to make up for his earlier scepticism. Working hard also helped to keep his mind off Amaryllis, who would normally have turned up by now, especially if she had sensed a crisis. Mrs Stevenson tried to reassure him.
‘Don’t worry about her, son, she’s in the library. With the police. And the screaming woman. And that man with the handbag.’
After a surprisingly short time they were ready to leave, and a crocodile of family historians, police escort at hand, walked out of the Cultural Centre and round the corner in an orderly fashion, only breaking ranks once they arrived in the church hall and could wander around enthusing about how quaint it was and asking where the toilets were.
The minister, who couldn't possibly be young enough or attractive enough to interest Andrew in the way Christopher had imagined, entered into the spirit of things with great enthusiasm, raiding the Women’s Guild coffee cupboard for supplies – ‘I’ll replace them later, they’ll never know the difference.’
‘Isn’t this fun?’ she said to Christopher and Mrs Stevenson. Christopher felt he couldn’t say ‘no’ but he really wasn’t enjoying himself very much, partly because he was afraid something would go wrong and it would all turn out to be his fault, and partly because of the nagging worry at the back of his mind about where Amaryllis was, and whether she had got into trouble somehow.
‘I hope you’ve got enough bandwidth,’ said Mrs Stevenson doubtfully.
‘I expect so,’ said the minister. ‘I don’t really take much notice of that kind of thing – my son handles all that. I’m sure the Lord will provide.’
Christopher saw Jock McLean struggling through the crowd towards them.
‘Where have you been?’ said Mrs Stevenson accusingly. ‘I thought you’d just gone into the library to change your books. I thought you’d had enough of family history.’
‘Well,’ said Jock. His hand went automatically to his pocket for his pipe. ‘Any chance of me being allowed a quick smoke in here? Or would it offend God or substitute deity of choice?’
‘No, you can’t smoke,’ said the minister, but not too snappily. ‘Not because God would be offended,’ she added hastily, ‘just health and safety, you know.’
‘That’s all right then,’ said Jock. ‘It wouldn’t do to cross the health and safety gods either.’
Christopher panicked in case the minister lost patience and threw them all out. He took Jock’s arm and steered him across the hall to where the urn bubbled away and the tea queue started to circle the interior.
‘Were you still in the library when it all kicked off?’
‘Kicked off? It isn’t like you to use football language. What’s wrong? Where’s your young lady?’
‘Amaryllis isn’t – don’t change the subject. Did you hear the screaming?’
‘It would have been hard to miss,’ said Jock. ‘I was just round the back of the shelves in Science and Nature when it started up. I managed to sneak out in the middle of the whole stramash, then I waited outside the building until all this lot started moving, and that’s all there is to it! What do you have to do to get a cup of coffee around here? Or will we adjourn to that Elgin place for a drink?’
‘Elgin place?’
‘Maybe it wasn’t called that. Place by the harbour. We only went there the once, to get away from those awful quilting women.’
‘No, we can’t go there. It’s closed down.’
‘Any sign of the quilting women?’
‘I haven’t seen them for a while,’ said Christopher.
Just as the words left his mouth – and a simultaneous ripple of premonition ran across his mind – a voice spoke at his left shoulder.
‘If it isn’t Christopher Wilson! I didn’t know you were interested in genealogy. Now, there’s a surprise!’
It was Maisie Sue McPherson, Pitkirtly’s most vocal resident American.