Murder or What You Will by Cecilia Peartree

Author:Cecilia Peartree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder, mystery, dogs, scotland, quirky

‘It’s time we went on a field trip,’ said Christopher.

‘A what?’ said Kyle.

They were just having a quiet cup of coffee at the start of the working day. Things had been very quiet lately. Even the library regulars seemed to have gone into hibernation, and even Jemima had temporarily called a halt to her family history research, apparently following an argument with some distant relative over whether one of their ancestors had committed incest in the early nineteenth century.

‘There are some things it’s better not to know,’ she had muttered darkly to Christopher after divulging this piece of information to him. He tended to agree, but then as far as he was concerned it was better not even to start exploring dim and distant branches of the family tree in the first place. The more recent ones were more than enough for him to cope with.

‘I think we should get out to Pitkirtly Island to see if we think there’s any mileage in excavating that site,’ said Christopher.

‘The site of the old lighthouse keeper’s cottage, you mean?’

‘If we see anything that looks promising, we could get the Council archaeologist involved, get a proper dig going on. El Presidente – I mean, your uncle – is always nagging away about raising our profile. If there was something interesting there, that would help.’

Kyle was staring at him as if he had run mad and thrown the McCallum papers into the shredder.

‘You sure you don’t just want an excuse to have another look at the crime scene?’ he said at last.

‘I’m not at all interested in crime scenes,’ said Christopher. ‘And I’m sure the police would keep us well away from the Silver Strand place... It’s just that after seeing the ruins, I’ve been wondering if we should have a closer look. The old map was another thing... This would be a way of bringing the archives to life, if we could link it up with something from the past.’

‘So Amaryllis hasn’t been at you to go out there?’ said Kyle suspiciously.

‘I haven’t even seen Amaryllis since – oh, at least since yesterday... Was it yesterday the police came round here to speak to her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you got sensible shoes on?’ said Christopher. ‘And a warm jacket?’

Kyle laughed. ‘Are you turning into my mother?’

‘I certainly hope not. I just don’t want to get into trouble with your uncle if you catch your death of cold out there.’

It was further than Christopher recalled to the far side of Pitkirtly Island, and the wind that day was icy cold. But at least it wasn’t raining, he told himself. Kyle wouldn’t arrive home wet through. Anyway, he did have a warm parka on. It even had fur round the hood. That seemed to be the fashion now.

When they approached the ruins, they saw no sign of a police presence there, although beyond it there was crime scene tape all along the beach and round the Silver Strand building. Christopher wondered if they had had to evacuate all the remaining residents, though surely that would have been too much of an upheaval for them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.