Frozen in Crime

Chapter 26 The Lord Murray situation

Visiting Old Pitkirtlyhill House again was quite high on the list of things Christopher didn't want to do. He hadn't enjoyed trekking through the snow, and he had been uneasy in Mal's presence when they had last visited the house. Of course, if Mal was the gamekeeper's son he might not be around the next time they visited. Maybe gamekeepers had to go out tending deer or whatever they did before hunting them down and killing them, and Mal might have to help his ageing father with this task. Or maybe Mal would have left for Africa to do his world-changing charity work as soon as the roads re-opened.

And as for this golden peacock - he was still disappointed that it wasn't an octopus, which would have been a bit quirkier and more unusual. In his opinion peacocks were over-rated, with their squawking and their boring brown female partners, whereas sea creatures came in all sorts of shades of ugliness, and it would have been interesting to see how a craftsman could turn that into something decorative.

Amaryllis, of course, was so eager to get there that she had wanted to start straight away after speaking to the jeweller.

'But we don't want to be out there in the dark again,' Christopher argued. 'We'd be putting ourselves and others at risk again - just what Charlie Smith doesn't want us doing.'

For a moment he wondered if he had said the wrong thing and she would want to do the opposite, but after a moment's pause she smiled and said, 'Just as well one of is the sensible one, isn't it? I don't even know how we're going to get there yet. I don't suppose whatshisname at the Queen of Scots will get the Range Rover back for a while.'

Christopher shuddered. 'Do you really think he would let us use it again?'

'Of course a team of huskies would still be best,' said Amaryllis wistfully. 'It's such a waste of all this snow not to have a sleigh.'

He noticed she was whistling 'Sleigh Ride' when he left her at the door of her apartment later.

Now it was the next morning and even Christopher couldn't think of an excuse to put off the visit to Old Pitkirtlyhill House any longer. Except that he didn't have to think of an excuse. The snow was back, bigger, whiter and more lethal than ever. He had reluctantly tuned his radio to the local station but only so that he heard the local weather forecast and traffic news. The fact that there wasn't any traffic news told its own story: there were power lines down, road blockages everywhere, and a party travelling by husky sleigh was lost somewhere at the other side of Dunfermline. He memorized the story so that he could pass it on to Amaryllis at some relevant time.

Standing in the kitchen and looking out the window at the picturesque snow scene, eating toast and vaguely wondering if they would ever see anything normal like grass or tarmac again, or whether the whole world had turned white for ever as if they were living in a disaster movie, Christopher heard a noise outside his house.

The door-bell rang. For a moment he considered not opening the door. He had the very strong sense that he would regret doing so.

It kept on ringing.

'All right, all right, I'm on my way,' he muttered, stuffing the last bit of toast in his mouth.

Dave stood on the door-step. He was muffled up to the eyebrows in layers of scarves and he wore a red woolly hat that had slipped down over one ear. There was a Land Rover at the gate, and Jemima and Amaryllis waved to him from it. He wouldn't have been at all surprised to see Maisie Sue appear round the corner with a smile and a cheery seasonal greeting.

'Where did you get that?' said Christopher.

'A friend,' said Dave cryptically. 'He doesn't drive it much any more, so he thought I might as well have it until the truck's fixed.'