Chapter 6 Signals from another world

At the suggestion of Amaryllis, and because Christopher wanted to avoid another onslaught from the Quilting and Embroidery League, the PLIF steering group took the revolutionary step of arranging to meet in a different pub, the Elgin Arms down by the harbour. It was older and more picturesque than the Queen of Scots, but Christopher didn't like it as much. The doors opened directly on to a main road, for one thing, whereas the Queen of Scots was tucked away in a jumble of old crooked houses, which gave the illusion that nobody could find it if they didn't know it was there. In fact he knew the Queen of Scots had been mentioned in several tourist guides to this area of Fife, and in the high season would probably be over-run with pretentious legal personnel from Edinburgh, which was another good reason for checking out the alternatives.

'It's too twee,' said Jock McLean, furiously sucking on an empty pipe. He glared at the curtains, which Christopher didn't think most people would consider twee, since they had rather a masculine dark stripe on a kind of tweedy fabric, but which presumably offended Jock merely by being there.

'The beer's no use,' said Big Dave.

'It's full of incomers and tourists,' said Young Dave, who had been an incomer himself only a couple of years before. In his own legend he was now more local than the locals.

'Has anybody else seen the police?' said Amaryllis, pale green eyes sparkling. Christopher thought the change of scenery suited her. 'About Steve Paxman. Does everybody know?'

Mrs Stevenson struggled into the bar.

'It's too near the water here,' she said. 'Doesn't do my arthritis any good, you know. My knee's killing me after walking down that slope.'

This was quite a long speech by Mrs Stevenson, but like Amaryllis, she seemed to be exhilarated, in her own quiet way, by sitting in a different bar, though still with the same woolly hat and the same Dubonnet to drink, obviously.

'Here,' she said, taking off her coat and putting it carefully on the back of her chair. 'I've had the police round.'

'About Steve Paxman?' said Amaryllis.

'What else would bring them to my door?' said Mrs Stevenson. Her pique at even being asked the question vied with her need to share what had happened, and the impulse to gossip triumphed. 'They're saying he disappeared right after that daft meeting we had the other night up at the Castle.'

'Castle?' said Amaryllis. 'Oh, you mean the Holiday Inn!'

'It's always been the Castle to me,' said Mrs Stevenson. 'You used to get proper gentlemen staying up there, not those girls who wear glitter and nothing else.'

Jock McLean and Big Dave suddenly started to pay attention.

'Maybe we should do a reconstruction up there with some of those girls,' suggested Jock with an evil smile. 'See if we can jog anybody's memory. Or anything else.'

'I think we just need to co-operate with the police, that's all,' said Christopher.

'They asked me what time you got to the Queen of Scots,' said Mrs Stevenson, looking at him accusingly.

'I was the last to leave the room at the Holiday Inn,' Christopher admitted. 'Steve Paxman got me to close the windows. He was in a bit of a hurry.'

'So you might have been the last person to see him alive!' said Mrs Stevenson.

'I don't think there's any reason to think he isn't still alive,' said Christopher, framing his sentence carefully. 'He could have lost his memory - or fled the country - or have been called to a relative's bedside without having time to let anybody know. The policemen didn't say what they thought had happened.'

'But they're concerned for his safety, though,' said Big Dave. 'It said so in the papers.'

Amaryllis broke her silence to add, 'He would have got in touch by now if he could.'

'There you are!' said Mrs Stevenson.

'But what could have happened to him in Pitkirtly?' said Christopher, not really wanting an answer. 'It's not as if it's the murder capital of the world or anything.'

'That's Detroit, isn't it?' said Big Dave.

'Cape Town, mate,' said Young Dave.

'I expect he'll turn up again wondering what all the fuss is about,' said Mrs Stevenson comfortably, taking a sip of the Dubonnet Big Dave had already got in for her.

Amaryllis, by contrast, still seemed to be on edge, fidgeting with one of the zips on her leather jacket and intermittently glancing round at the rest of the bar population.

'So is this a normal meeting of PLIF, or what?' said Young Dave.

'There's no such thing!' crowed Jock McLean, cheering up slightly. 'This is as normal as it gets.'

'So what's on the agenda then?' Young Dave challenged Christopher.

'Item 1, apologies. I take it Steve Paxman won't be able to make it,' said Christopher, becoming infected by the general mood of frivolity. 'Item 2, the guerilla campaign. Item 3, the village hall.'

There was a groan round the table.

'I was asked if the village hall could be put on the agenda,' Christopher explained.

'Who by?' demanded Young Dave.

'Who do you think?' returned Big Dave.

'Yes, I asked for it to be added,' said Amaryllis. 'We should at least talk about it - if nothing else, it'll give you the chance to air your reasons for being so against it.'

Christopher knew, and Amaryllis had probably worked it out by now too, that they wouldn't be persuaded to air their real reason, which was that they didn't want anything to change. There would be all sorts of feeble justifications - the state of disrepair of the building being one of the more serious ones.

'I'll air a reason right now,' said Young Dave. 'If it does belong to the town, then the townspeople would be better served by knocking it down and selling the land for building. You could get a nice new block of apartments, right near the river, double-glazing, balconies - it'd be a gold-mine.'

'You're not in court now,' said Jock McLean. He knocked his pipe out on the edge of the rather nice tile-topped table. The barman looked over suspiciously in their direction. Jock stuffed his pipe into his jacket pocket.

'You can't just rob me of my chance to speak by making sarcastic comments,' said Young Dave.

'Oh, can't I?' said Jock McLean. 'Have you got any more to say?'

'Um - no.'

'Well, let somebody else have a go, then, lad.'

Christopher opened his mouth to speak just as Jock said smoothly, 'What do you think, Mrs Stevenson?'

'If the Cooncil want to pay to have it re-built just so young hoodlums can wreck it again, that's their own look-out,' said Mrs Stevenson, face nearly as pink as her drink.

'We haven't really got to that agenda item yet,' said Christopher, getting his word in quickly before Jock and the Daves started again.

'There's no need to talk about the gorilla campaign any more,' said Big Dave. 'Been there, done that. It's redundant now himself's gone.'

'Well, what else is on the agenda?' demanded Jock.

'Item 4,' said Christopher reluctantly and very quietly. 'The PLIF Midsummer party.'

The reason he was reluctant was because of what had happened at the PLIF Christmas party, or, more accurately, because he couldn't remember what had happened there, although rumour, started by Big Dave, had it that Christopher had taken all his clothes off and insisted on going for a midnight swim in the River Forth, during which activity he had had to be rescued from almost certain death by a couple of off-duty policemen wielding a life-belt and one of these long poles that lifeguards in swimming-pools sometimes have. He was sure he would have remembered that. The shock of the ice-cold water would have sobered him up, for a start.

'And?' said Jock.

'Item 5. AOCB. Item 6. Date and venue of next meeting. That's it.'

'Taking that last point first,' said Amaryllis, 'does Steve Paxman have to come to the next meeting? Assuming he's still - with us, so to speak.'

'Oi!' said Big Dave. 'It's only the chairman that's allowed to take the last point first.'

'And sometimes not even the chairman,' added Christopher. It was obviously time to assert his authority. How he hated those occasions. 'OK,' he said while he still had the floor. 'Dave's right, there isn't really much more to be said about item 2 at this stage. We already have an action point in hand for it, and progress is being made.' He refused to ask Amaryllis if she was indeed making progress with her action point of doing something to annoy Steve Paxman. The man had already taken up more than enough time at the meeting, without even being there. Christopher knew if he didn't stay focused he would lose control of the meeting again. 'Item 3. The village hall. Steve Paxman seems - seemed - to want us to go for it. Does anyone have any views?'

He knew everyone had views, the question was whether they were prepared to come out with them or not.

'What I want to know is,' said Young Dave,' why we need both items 2 and 3 on the agenda. Surely they're mutually exclusive.'

''I don't understand what you mean,' said Amaryllis.

'Well, mutually exclusive means - ' began Young Dave self-importantly.

'No, I mean I don't see why they are mutually exclusive in the first place,' Amaryllis interrupted him.

Christopher knew that if there was one thing guaranteed to end in tears, it was Young Dave trying to explain in words of one syllable something that everyone else in the room understood better than him. Mrs Stevenson had walked out of a PLIF meeting in protest a few months before when he had insisted on deconstructing the word 'deconstructing' in exhaustive detail. Big Dave had had to be forcibly restrained soon after that when Young Dave told those remaining what a hypotenuse was, using a makeshift diagram drawn in spilt beer on the table-top.

'Well,' said Young Dave, reasonably happy now that he had more or less been begged to explain something, 'if we're against the Council, and the Council are in favour of the village hall being restored, why do we have to have a guerilla campaign? No, that's wrong - if we're in favour of the village hall and so are the Council - no, what I mean is, why are we against the Council if they're offering to spend money on the town?'

'We're not necessarily against them,' said Amaryllis, 'but we don't trust them to do it right without monitoring what they do and preparing to fight against it if we have to.'

'So we're not about to fight them just yet?' said Young Dave, cheering up a bit. Christopher suspected that at least some of his legal work originated with the Council's various departments, or tentacles as cynical people might call them, and he didn't want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg without having a few ducks and maybe some chickens hidden away in a hen-house up the road.

'We just want them to be aware that somebody's keeping an eye on them,' Amaryllis confirmed. 'What about the village hall project, then? Anybody in favour?'

'Will they have tea-dances?' said Mrs Stevenson.

'Not unless somebody wants to organise them,' said Amaryllis.

'Good,' said Mrs Stevenson. 'They're the work of the devil.'

Everyone waited in vain for her to elaborate on this bald statement, but she just took another sip of Dubonnet and looked enigmatic.

'You all know what I think,' said Young Dave.

'How about you, Jock?' enquired Amaryllis. 'Do you think the town needs a focus - somewhere for people to go?'

'A focus?' said Jock, leaning back so far in his chair that it looked as if he might fall over - Christopher remembered this as a skill many teachers had. 'We've already got the church and the war memorial,' Jock continued.

It was impossible to tell whether this was one of his jokes. It wasn't funny, but it might have been a very subtle attempt at humour. Jock wasn't himself a church-goer, allegedly believing time spent in church to be time stolen from his allotment, but he did have a great respect for tradition.

'What about non-believers?' said Amaryllis.

'They're all welcome in church. They're all God's children,' said Jock piously, and then suddenly roared with laughter. 'I got you all going, didn't I?'

They all laughed dutifully.

'Aye',' he continued, 'anything that draws people away from the grip of the church can't be a bad thing. This village hall's got my vote.'

'I'm not so sure,' said Big Dave, frowning in concentration. 'Is it not just a waste of money like Young Dave was saying?'

'What would they spend the money on otherwise, though?' Jock pointed out. 'They'd just pour it down the drain. It wouldn't come to Pitkirtly, that's for sure. It would go into Low Eglinton and Higher Hillfield to help people who should be helping themselves. Picking up the pieces after a whole lot of drug addicts and alkies with kids they have no idea how to look after...'

Christopher hoped Amaryllis didn't object to all this political incorrectness. He wasn't sure, although as far as he could tell from her expression, she found it very laudable. Her hands twitched as though they wanted to applaud at the end of Jock's speech.

Then the door to the bar opened, bringing a flurry of showery rain, a fairly brisk wind and a fair-haired man in grey. Christopher thought Amaryllis was disturbed by this new arrival: she didn't jump, in fact the opposite if anything - she sat even more still than before, the faint smile wiped instantly from her face and her shoulders tensed. She didn't look in the man's direction, but she didn't deliberately look the other way either. The man in grey went to the bar and ordered a drink, then stood there with it, surveying the scene. His gaze didn't linger on Amaryllis, but he must have registered her presence along with the others.

'Look,' whispered Mrs Stevenson, nudging Christopher, 'that young man over there. Do you think he's a spy?'

'A what?'

'A spy. A secret agent. A spook. He's got a look of James Bond about him. Not Sean Connery. The other one.'

Once again Mrs Stevenson had blurred the lines between fantasy and reality until nobody knew where to start arguing with her. In any case, there was no denying that the man had a sinister look about him. He just didn't fit in. His suit was too good, or at least it didn't look as if it had been bought off the peg in the PDSA shop, and his hair was too modern for Pitkirtly.

'So,' said Amaryllis in a lower voice than before, 'how about you, Christopher? Do you have an opinion?'

'Well, if there were a middle way - ' began Christopher.

'What, a middle way between restoring the hall and knocking it down?' said Jock scathingly. 'Wouldn't that be just leaving it as it is?'

'I thought that was what everybody wanted,' said Christopher in self-defence.

'But is that what you really want?' breathed Mrs Stevenson, leaning towards him in a way that made him think of the Wyrd Sisters. He wondered if any of her ancestors had been suspected of witchcraft.

'It doesn't matter what I want,' said Christopher. 'It's whatever's good for the community.'

He had unintentionally spoken more loudly than before. Amaryllis glanced at him with a worried look and said, 'Sssh, we don't want everybody to hear what we're talking about.'

It didn't seem to have bothered her before, even when Big Dave was booming away, so perhaps the man in grey was responsible. Christopher lowered his voice. 'If in our judgement the community would benefit from having the village hall restored, then we should support the project whole-heartedly - whether the Council does anything about it or not.'

He thought about it for another moment as they watched, and added, 'I think we're divided enough on this to take a vote.'

'Do we have a quorum?' said Young Dave, obviously afraid of being defeated.

'Chair plus two makes a quorum,' said Christopher, consulting the PLIF constitution which he had been foresighted enough to bring with him. 'All in favour?'

As expected, Young Dave was the only one who voted against the restoration of the village hall, and equally predictably, he went into a sulk.

Amaryllis went to the Ladies soon after that - and didn't come back.

The man in grey also left the bar shortly after that.

For his part, Christopher had an uneasy feeling that this wasn't coincidental and that the fair man in grey was following Amaryllis. He muttered something to the others, grabbed his parka and made his way out to the street as quickly as possible. Once on the pavement he glanced from side to side - and saw that the fair man was doing the same thing, about twenty metres along the street beside a very shiny black car. Christopher stepped back into the pub doorway, but he had an uneasy feeling that he had been spotted. And where had Amaryllis got to? Even if she had gone out the window of the Ladies' - assuming it had a window and one that was big enough for someone to wriggle through, and that it didn't lead to a completely enclosed yard she couldn't escape from - as far as he knew all the exits from the pub faced out on to this road, the one that ran alongside the water. The pub was built into the side of a cliff, and there was a persistent rumour that if you ventured behind the bar you would find an old smugglers' tunnel that led into the hillside and emerged -

Christopher had a sudden idea. It wasn't exactly a flash of inspiration but more of a slow burn, with an uneven light that only illuminated parts of the puzzle. He put on his parka, which he hadn't had time to do before, turned up the collar against the cold wind, and set off along the street, in the opposite direction from where he was really heading. He tried to walk in as normal a way as possible, but had to fight against the tingling between his shoulder-blades and the sense of being followed. He didn't look round. But he paused at the information board which displayed a grim story from the past, when there had been a watch tower in Pitkirtly, and a siege from the sea, and various people had met horrible grisly deaths. He had never read it properly before, since his interest was in genuine historical records and not in a 'heritage' worker's interpretation of them in the light of what people today were likely to be interested in. He didn't read it properly now, just peered at it in a pretence of interest, as if he were a tourist or visitor to the town.

He looked up.

The fair man in grey was sauntering towards him.

He tried not to panic. After all, how likely was it that any harm could come to him here, in his home town, as small, insignificant and sleepy as any other in West Fife? He was only a hundred metres or so from the cosiness of the pub where his friends were still drinking. On the other hand, he was also ten metres from the deep icy darkness of the water in the harbour, and there might not be any off-duty policemen around this time to fish him out with a pole.

Two more things happened in quick succession. A police-car came slowly down the hill and drew up in front of the Elgin Arms, and the fair man turned tail and hurried back to the sleek black car, which then started moving, gathering speed as it passed Christopher. For a moment he pictured what it might have been like if the car had been accelerating straight at him as if the driver were trying to knock him over the harbour wall, and then he blotted that out of his mind.