Free 3 A Reformed Character by Cecilia Peartree Page B

said Christopher.
    They turned and walked back towards the yard entrance. When they were nearly there, two young men came round the corner from the direction of the railway line quite fast and almost met them face to face - except that they both then executed rapid U-turns and ran back the way they had come.
    'Zak Johnstone!' said Amaryllis, not giving chase the way Christopher might have expected.
    'Wasn't that the talking ham?' said Christopher uncertainly.
    'Yes - the other one might have been. I'm sure the one on the left was Zak. He's got the same big nose and curly hair as his mother.'
    'Aren't we going to chase them?' said Jock. 'I like a good chase scene.'
    'No,' said Amaryllis casually - or was she trying too hard to be casual? Christopher couldn't work it out.
    'There's a train coming,' said Jock.
    'We'll catch them anyway, in that case,' said Amaryllis. 'They won't have time to get across.'
    But when they got up to the railway tracks, the boys had already darted across the track in front of the train, which ambled along with an apparently endless string of coal trucks. They just had to stand and wait as the trucks trundled past.
    'We'll catch up with them some other time,' said Amaryllis. 'Let's go and have another look at the murder house. Maybe they'll have taken the tape off by now.'
    Christopher was puzzled and not entirely happy about the new law-abiding Amaryllis. Not long ago she would have ignored something as flimsy as police tape, ignoring or circumventing it at will. He had got used to her taking risks so that he didn't have to. Or maybe, he mused, that wasn't the right way round. After all, he had been the one who had risked his life and made an idiot of himself on the cliffs at Kinghorn.
    They came to the small new housing development. It was a mid-market kind of place, a bit like the area where he lived except that his house had been built in late Victorian times when it had been thought that Pitkirtly might become a commuter town. That hadn't actually happened until the 1990s, when housing everywhere else had become too expensive for most people.
    A few of the houses were finished but most were in different stages of construction. They stood at a safe distance from the murder house, pointed out by Amaryllis but in any case clearly marked out by the police tape, and stared at it. The exterior seemed to be more or less complete, so it would have been a dry and relatively cosy place for Darren to spend the night, but some essential features such as the front steps were missing.
    'Do you think they're still doing forensics in there?' whispered Christopher. It seemed somehow wrong as well as risky to speak loudly.
    'Probably,' said Amaryllis.
    'Are you following us, or what?’
    The voice came suddenly and loudly from behind them. They turned in unison. The boy called Zak and his friend, who may or may not have played the part of the talking ham, stood about a metre away, watching them. There was an air of menace about them.
    ‘Not,’ said Amaryllis. ‘What made you think we were? Guilty conscience?’
    Christopher cheered inwardly at this sign that the old Amaryllis had not disappeared for ever.
    Zak made a disparaging sound. ‘Guilty? I don’t think so.’
    The boy formerly known as the talking ham blushed.
    ‘Who’s your friend, Zak?’ said Amaryllis. ‘Is this the famous Stewie, by any chance?’
    ‘I’m outta here,’ said the ham, and started to turn away. Zak grabbed him by the arm.
    ‘No need for us to leave. We’ve not done anything.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ said Amaryllis.
    Zak shrugged his shoulders. Stewie – if it was indeed him – shook off Zak’s hand and stared at the ground.
    ‘What about the night Alan Donaldson was murdered? Did you do anything wrong then?’
    ‘Shut up about Alan. He was a friend of ours,’ muttered Zak.
    A man came out of one of the half-finished houses across the road. He stared at them, waved his arms and shouted something incomprehensible. When