Read Online 3 A Reformed Character by Cecilia Peartree - Free Book Online Page B

nonchalance that she hoped would put the girl off balance. ‘It’s going to make Cosy Clicks a whole lot more interesting if I can chat to your grandma. I thought it might be rude to the others if I used it, but now I can see it wouldn't be fair on her if I didn't. There’s a lot for your grandma and me to talk about.’
    'I have to go,' said Victoria uneasily, glancing towards the kitchen. 'I need to go and help with something.'
    'Did you know Darren has given himself up?'
    'No. I was hoping he wouldn't, but I thought he might do.'
    'It's not your fault,' said Christopher, leaning towards the girl and speaking earnestly. He was old enough to be her father. Amaryllis found it really very irritating to have to watch this kind of thing.
    'Will he get out on bail?' said Victoria in a small voice.
    'Oh, I don't think so,' said Amaryllis. 'Not on a murder charge.'
    She noticed a strange flash of panic cross the girl's face, to be replaced by steely determination - an expression Amaryllis knew she herself often adopted only too readily, as if it fitted her face. It was a slightly more incongruous match for Victoria's more rounded features. Christopher leaned further forward - for goodness' sake, any further and he would fall at Victoria's feet! Didn't he know how ridiculous he appeared?
    Amaryllis wanted to storm out, but she had only just taken a couple of bites out of her cinammon scone, and had no intention of abandoning it. She turned to Jock, who was munching silently.
    'What do you think, Jock?' she asked him.
    'No chance of bail,' said Jock cheerily. 'Don't you worry, Victoria. He'll be safe enough in custody. They'll look after him until we find out who really did it.'
    'So will he just stay in the police station here?' said Victoria. Suddenly she wasn't needed in the kitchen any more. 'Or will they move him somewhere else?'
    'It depends,' said Amaryllis. 'They'll be still questioning him at the moment. Then they'll have to take him to the sheriff court and then he's almost certainly going to be remanded in custody - somewhere like Auchterderran prison.'
    'I didn't know there was a prison at Auchterderran,' said Jock indignantly, as if the authorities should automatically have consulted him on the building of such institutions.
    'It's only just opened,' said Amaryllis. 'I think it used to be some sort of educational resource centre.'
    'Will I be able to go and see him?' said Victoria.
    ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ said Amaryllis. When she saw how Victoria’s face fell, she relented slightly. ‘I expect you can write to him though.’
    ‘Write to him? Pah! What’s the use of that?’
    Victoria flounced off, looking more Italian by the moment in her dramatic indignation.
    ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ said Christopher accusingly.
    ‘Me? I don’t have any jurisdiction over prison regulations!’ said Amaryllis. They glared at each other.
    Jock was staring after Victoria.
    ‘There must be something better she can do.’
    ‘What do you mean, better?’ said Christopher.
    Jock waved his hand around the café in a dismissive way. ‘Better than this. She doesn’t need to be stuck here in a crummy little café in Pitkirtly helping in the kitchen, waiting on people. Why doesn’t she get away?’
    ‘It isn’t that bad,’ said Christopher, seizing on the most trivial of Jock’s points in the way Amaryllis had often observed him doing. ‘It's very clean. And maybe that’s all she wants to do with her life. Maybe she’ll inherit the family business one day.’
    ‘There’s Giancarlo though,’ said Jock. ‘If anybody’s going to inherit anything, it’ll be him, surely. She could go to university, do something worthwhile… She could get out of here and leave them all behind.’
    ‘What about Darren?’ said Amaryllis, playing devil’s advocate. She completely agreed with Jock. Victoria was silly to stick around here when there was a whole world out there. There must be something better