Frozen in Crime

Chapter 16 Bullet Holes and Tunnels

He led the way to the map section.

'Old ones this side, current ones just past the pillar,' he said. 'Which is it going to be?'

'Probably old ones,' said Amaryllis, thinking of the maps she had seen spread out on the kitchen table at Old Pitkirtlyhill House. She pulled her phone out of her bag and looked for the pictures she had taken.

'You can't photograph them,' said Christopher. 'Copyright.'

'Too late,' she said, showing him the images. She explained where she had taken them. She didn't explain why: she wasn't at all clear about that herself.

'I'm looking for more like this,' she said. 'I want to know what it's all about.'

He peered at the screen again. 'Hmm. Hard to tell on this scale. But we could start by assuming they're local. We've got some replicas of old maps of Pitkirtly and surroundings. And we could always look up the Pont and Holl maps online. Here. Take these and open them up on the table while I go and check round the rest of the building.'

After a while he came back with nothing to report. 'No sign of any bullet marks on this side, anyway. But we can still look around outside if you want.'

Amaryllis was so engrossed in a replica of a seventeenth century map that she didn't take in the sense of his words until later. She could see Pitkirtly Island but there was very little sign of habitation in the area currently occupied by Pitkirtly itself. It must have been a tiny hamlet with only a few dozen inhabitants.

On the next one, which dated from the time of the Jacobites, she noticed a huge difference.

'Coal mining,' said Christopher, looking over her shoulder. 'The mines started to open and more people moved in.'

'I thought that wasn't until much later.'

'There were coal seams that ran out under the Forth that were developed early on. They didn't have to dig too far down – but there was always the risk of drowning, of course. The Murray estates would have owned some of the mines around here. All the landowners did. They owned the miners too.'

'What do you mean, owned?'

'The miners were tied to working for one coal owner. They didn't get their freedom until late in the eighteenth century. But there were advantages in it too. They'd have got somewhere to live. Some of the coal owners built model villages. And it was better paid than farm labouring.'

'That doesn't really explain what's on Mal's maps,' said Amaryllis, frowning. She retrieved one of the images again and magnified it. 'Oh, look! I didn't notice this before but it mentions Old Pitkirtlyhill. Seems to be written in pencil – it's quite faint. Then there's a kind of road – or is it a river? It leads from there for a bit, maybe southwards.' She flung her phone down. 'This is a pointless exercise. I don't even know why I'm doing it.'

'No, wait!' said Christopher. He picked up the phone and scrutinised the map she had been looking at. 'There isn't a river on the Pitkirtlyhill estate at all – and the road leads off from the other direction. It's shown with a dotted line over at the other side of the grounds. Maybe that's a tunnel.'

'A tunnel? But why would they have – do you think it's an old mine tunnel?'

'Could be... I wonder why Mal should be looking at it though?'

'Maybe he's interested in that kind of stuff. You know, like you. Can't resist poking about in the past.' Afraid her tone had been unduly dismissive, she added, 'And he probably knows a bit about it, like you.'

Christopher grabbed another map from the shelves, opening it out with care and setting it on the table on top of the others.

'Here we are – somebody mapped out all the old mine tunnels years ago, before the last working pit closed. I knew we had this somewhere... I thought so! Look where the tunnel leads to after it gets out of the Old Pitkirtlyhill estate.'

He traced the line of the tunnel with his finger. It led almost directly to the coast near Pitkirtly Island and from there –

'It's gone off the edge of the map!' said Amaryllis.

'It's gone out under the Forth,' said Christopher. 'That's interesting.'

'Maybe Mal's planning to re-open the mines,' said Amaryllis. She had to admit even to herself that she would find it easier to think of ten sinister explanations for his interest in old mine tunnels than one innocent one.

'Hmm,' said Christopher, obviously unconvinced.

There was a muffled crash from elsewhere in the building. Amaryllis jumped.

'I'd better go and see what that was,' he said calmly, picking up his keys from the bookshelves and making his way to the library door.

Amaryllis wasn't sure why she felt so twitchy, but she hastily folded up the maps, jammed them back on to the shelves and followed him. It wasn't like her to be wary of staying in a room on her own, even if it did have dark corners where an intruder could be hiding, and even if someone had once been murdered in the fire exit corridor. She hoped she wasn't going soft in her retirement. Time she got back into the way of acting impulsively and taking risks. Never mind all this history and cartography. She would be consulting books on cat care next, at this rate, and then where would she be?

Even after Christopher reported that a pile of post had fallen from the reception desk and that it had probably been destabilised by the breeze they had created themselves by opening the front door, she still couldn't help looking over her shoulder as they left the building, wondering if there was anyone lurking behind one of the snowed-in cars in the car park.