3 A Reformed Character Read Online Free Page B

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    ‘You’re live on 24 hour news,’ Amaryllis murmured into his ear. She gave him a quick hug which he chose to interpret as a warning, and let him go.
    ‘Well, this really is an extraordinary sequence of events,’ said the voice he had heard before. ‘The West Fife police have rounded off their evening by rescuing a would-be suicide from the top of the cliffs at Kinghorn. I’m just about to see if I can have a few words with him.’
    Christopher stood up at last, swaying a little in the wind. Rain spattered his face, and voices seemed to come and go as words were whisked away and lost for ever in the air.
    There was a circle of men in police uniforms around him, and Jock McLean stood in the middle distance, apparently speaking on a mobile phone. He gave Christopher a thumbs-up sign. A young girl who looked about sixteen advanced through the ring of policemen with a big furry microphone in her hand. A young man of about eighteen followed with a large camera. The lights were in Christopher’s eyes.
    ‘What am I going to do?’ he muttered to Amaryllis, who seemed intent on staying by his side throughout. He hoped this was to protect him, but he knew it could equally be so that she could sell his story to the media.
    ‘Say as little as possible,’ she advised.
    This proved to be quite easy. They only wanted a few words from him, after all, and he knew they would probably distort even those. It must have been a slow day on the 24 hour news channels.
    ‘How did they get here so quickly?’ he asked Amaryllis an hour or so later, when the reporter and photographer and police had left at last, and they were back in the caravan eating toast. Christopher wasn't sure that the police were entirely convinced the three of them hadn't harboured a fugitive and perverted the course of justice - that was the phrase he had been trying to think of earlier - but apparently they were satisfied for the moment.
    Amaryllis smiled. ‘The news team didn’t come here for you. They’re ambulance-chasers.’
    ‘Ambulance? Has somebody been hurt?’
    ‘No, in this case they were following the police around, covering the murder case. They arrived about two minutes after the police cars.’
    ‘Jemima and Dave saw you on the telly,’ said Jock, nodding with satisfaction. ‘I got her to put on News 24 and she was just in time. Said you looked like a ferret in the lights… Or maybe it was a rabbit.’
    ‘How did the police get here so quickly anyway?’ said Christopher, ignoring Jock and hoping that if he pushed the idea of being on television out of his head, not only would he forget the whole incident but so would everyone he knew. He didn’t want to be walking down Pitkirtly High Street one day and have everyone pointing at him and laughing about what an idiot he had been.
    ‘They put out an APB,’ said Amaryllis, ‘and the local policeman noticed Darren and Victoria getting off the train at Kinghorn. They don’t get many strangers here at this time of year. He called it in, and they checked with the caravan park and found somebody walking their dog had seen them knocking at our door and told the manager because they thought Darren was up to no good… Dog-walkers! Why do they do it?’
    ‘What?’ said Jock. ‘Have dogs, or be vigilant about what’s going on around them, as public-spirited people are meant to do?’
    Amaryllis gave him a sour look. ‘They’re always getting in the way and seeing things they’re not meant to see… and the dogs aren’t much better.’
    ‘Did you tell Darren and Victoria to go over the cliffs?’ said Christopher. He had been mulling over this ever since he had been rescued.
    She shrugged. ‘It was only an idle suggestion. It was up to them whether they actually did it or not.’
    ‘They should have given themselves up,’ said Christopher. ‘But I don’t suppose you’ve got any sympathy with that point of view.’
    ‘It’s a point of view,’ said Amaryllis. ‘I can