The Pitkirtly Triangle by Cecilia Peartree

Author:Cecilia Peartree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder, mystery, scotland, small towns, quirky, baking, humorous

Chapter 16 An Amazing Recovery

Amaryllis didn’t wake up and emerge from her bedroom until Christopher was in the process of being taken away by the police. It was such an unlikely scene that she thought she might be hallucinating at first. Normally she would have protested his innocence and made such a fuss that they would have arrested her too, but she didn’t recover her senses fully until they had led him away down the stairs, presumably to a waiting police car.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Jan. ‘I was hoping you’d sleep through it all.’

‘What on earth has been going on here?’ said Amaryllis. She was furious with herself for even having to ask the question. She liked to think she was on top of everything that happened in Pitkirtly, and now she didn’t even know about the mayhem on her own doorstep.

‘Somebody tried to break in,’ said Jan in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘and Christopher – um – stopped him.’

‘Christopher did?’

Amaryllis stumbled towards a chair and dropped into it.

‘But he fell through the railings and hurt himself,’ Jan told her. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Who fell through the railings?’

‘Well, Christopher pushed him through the railings, actually... I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘No tea, thanks.’ Amaryllis glanced at the double doors and saw that the railings that used to run along the front of the balcony had gone. Christopher had been right when he said they were too flimsy and would have failed a health and safety inspection. Perhaps this whole thing was her fault for not doing something about that... But nobody should have tried to get in that way. And why had Christopher opened the doors? The balcony was so narrow that it was always a tight squeeze to get out there. She herself had come in that way occasionally, but then she knew about the railings and had been careful not to lean on them.

‘Coffee, then?’ said Jan.

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

‘You needed your sleep. I’ll put the coffee machine on. There’s lots of biscuits. All different kinds. Everybody’s brought some.’

Amaryllis restrained herself from gnashing her teeth. In her weakened state the last thing she needed was an emergency dental appointment.

‘Just tell me what happened!’ she said, trying to moderate her tone so that she didn’t frighten Jan. Evidently it didn’t work, for the other woman scurried into the kitchen like a panicked sheep running from a train.

She waited. Eventually Jan came out of the kitchen with a tray of coffee and biscuits. Amaryllis hadn’t even known she owned a tray.

‘Well, it started just as you were dropping off,’ said Jan as she put down the tray. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you at the time but there was a sort of bang and a yelling noise, so I came through to see what had happened. And there was Christopher just sort of standing there, in front of the glass doors. I could tell he didn’t know which way was up, but after a minute he turned round and dashed off through the front door.

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