3 A Reformed Character by Cecilia Peartree

here or whether they would have to wait until the body had been taken away and laid out neatly in hygienic white surroundings. Probably the police would want to protect their crime scene so they wouldn’t allow anyone else in here.
    After a while Mr Smith arrived in another unmarked car. They saw him look at Old Mrs Petrelli, speak to the officers and then glance over towards the car they sat in. Amaryllis wondered if she was imagining his stance becoming more unyielding and his face setting in hard lines as he heard they were there. She hoped he would let them go home before too long. They were only getting in the way here, and her elbow was starting to hurt a lot, a sure sign she was tired.
    ‘You’re just getting in the way here,’ said Mr Smith when he spoke to them at last, having done a complete circuit of the railway yard and having held a lengthy conversation with the officer who was presumably the next most senior one present – it was almost as if he was deliberately keeping Amaryllis and Christopher waiting. Now he sat in the front seat of the car, sideways on so that he could see both of them. ‘So I’ll just ask you a couple of questions for now and – providing you can be trusted to stay around town and not do a runner – you can come down to the station tomorrow to make formal statements.’ He turned to Amaryllis. ‘Were you the first on the scene?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What made you come here?’
    ‘I was looking for Old Mrs Petrelli.’
    ‘Why here?’
    ‘Just a feeling,’ she said after a pause. It was embarrassing to admit to a senior police officer that she had let something as insubstantial as ‘a feeling’ dictate a course of action, but after all policemen, or at least fictional ones, were famous for obeying hunches, and she considered this to be at least as valid as a hunch. He raised his eyebrows. She amplified her statement slightly. ‘I thought it was the kind of place where something bad might have happened.’
    ‘Hmm… And you, Mr Wilson? You were the next one here? What made you come along?’
    ‘Amaryllis phoned me. When she was on her way. She needed backup.’
    ‘And she thought you could provide it?’ Mr Smith looked sceptical. Christopher met his gaze with the blandness that was his specialty.
    ‘I was someone she could trust.’
    ‘Ah, yes, trust… So neither of you had any inside knowledge of what had happened. No communication from Darren Laidlaw, for instance.’
    So that was it! Amaryllis had almost forgotten about Darren. Her instinct – again that insubstantial thing – had told her this was nothing to do with him, so she had ruled him out of the equation.
    ‘I don’t think this has anything to do with him,’ she muttered, sounding even in her own ears like a sulky schoolgirl.
    'You don't think?' he snapped. 'Will I tell you what I think?'
    They were silent.
    'I think you're lucky I don't arrest both of you right now for wasting police time, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and any other charge I can dream up. If I didn't think you would be an evil influence on other inmates I would very much like to see you spend some time in prison. I want you both to be at the police station at eight o'clock tomorrow morning with a believable story and a cast-iron alibi. And then I want you to go away after solemnly promising not to interfere in my case - or any other case - ever again. Ever. Do I make myself clear?'
    'Well, that's us told,' said Amaryllis happily as they made their way across the railway tracks again.
    'Were you trying not to laugh while he was talking then?'
    'How did you know?'
    'Me too... Let's get some chips on the way up the road.'
    'Can we get Irn Bru as well?' said Amaryllis. She was relieved that the relationship between herself and Christopher seemed to be back on its old footing. There was nothing like a threat from an external enemy to bring people together. 'You can come round to my flat if you like.'
    'That would be good - my