High Island Blues

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘And no one else is missing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well maybe I’ll come over to the Oaklands Hotel myself. And I’ll ask my deputy to make enquiries in the neighbourhood. Let’s see if we can get her back to you before her disappearance hits the news.’

  But in the end no discreet enquiries of Joe Benson’s could prevent Esme Lovegrove’s disappearance from hitting the news. George found her at midnight after an evening of waiting and increased tension. Joe Benson had sent him to bed. Throughout the evening any remaining hostility towards George had disappeared and he spoke like a kindly uncle, promising to wake him if Esme turned up. George walked across the lawn to the staff house where he was staying. The moon was covered by cloud. Esme’s small body was lying across the doorway into the house. It was as if a faithful retriever had brought a gift for its master. But Esme’s skull had been battered and she was dead.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Molly had followed George’s advice and taken a trip to Devon. It went against the grain, but she knew he was right She accepted that the motive for Mick Brownscombe’s murder lay somewhere in the past. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Mick had been killed a couple of days after meeting up with his friends. She thought it had all started twenty years ago when they had travelled to the States together, before that even, when they were at university.

  The character of Mick Brownscombe intrigued her. As a social worker she had often prepared social enquiry reports for the court on young offenders, explaining the influences in their family and surroundings which had made them turn to crime. She saw this as a similar exercise. What was there in Mick’s background to make him a victim? Parents who had rejected him? A criminal father? Some other factor which had not yet come to light?

  Molly was beginning her enquiries in a pub. Outside it was raining and the windows streamed with condensation. She was drinking cider, cloudy and rough and potent as hell. It was women’s darts night and at the other end of the bar, gathered round the dart board there was a riotous assembly of women of all shapes and ages, cheering on their team. Here, near the fire, there was Molly and an old woman. It seemed that the men of the village had steered clear of the place for the night.

  Molly had taken a room in the pub. There was plenty of space. The season hadn’t properly started and the pub was on the edge of the village, a couple of miles inland, not quite on the tourist route. She had told the landlord that she was a writer. Not published yet but hopeful. He had accepted that without question. It was always possible to believe in failure.

  The woman beside her was called Edie Gill. She drank whisky with ginger ale. To keep Molly company she said, though it was always Molly who went to the bar to buy the drinks. Edie knew she was doing her companion a favour.

  Molly had tracked her down to a stone terraced house where she lived with her daughter. There she was unappreciated, an unpaid skivvy. When Molly had called she was in the scullery scrubbing her granddaughter’s school shirts by hand because that was the only way you could really get them clean.

  Molly asked how long she had lived there.

  ‘Five years. Since my husband died.’

  ‘Didn’t you want to stay on in your own home?’ Molly liked her daughter but could never live with her.

  ‘No. I never could stand being on my own. Better to be useful and have a bit of company.’ She was no fool. She understood the trade off.

  Molly had told her the same story as the landlord. She was a writer, doing some research on the area for a book. Edie had lived and worked there all her life. Would she mind talking to Molly about the old times, answering a few questions?

  Edie had rinsed out the last shirt and put it in the spinner with the others before answering. ‘ Not now. Come back later when I’ve cleared up the tea things. About seven.’

  When Molly had arrived there had been a row of suspicious faces peering at her through the living-room window. She had realized it would be impossible to have a private conversation there. They stood together in the narrow hall.

  ‘Would you mind if we talk in the Golden Fleece?’ Molly asked. ‘That’s where I’m staying.’

  She thought Edie might not like to be seen in a public house, but the old woman was already putting on her hat and coat.

  ‘I’d like that,’ she said. They stepped out into the street. ‘I haven’t had a night in the Fleece since Jack died.’ She pulled a face. ‘My daughter married a Methodist.’ They laughed together.

  And Edie Gill had sailed into the pub, waving to them all like royalty. The first drink for both of them had been on the house.

  ‘Of course there have always been visitors,’ Edie Gill said.

  Molly had explained that she was writing a history of tourism.

  ‘There were wealthy people who took houses for the summer and families staying in boarding houses, though that was mostly in Ilfracombe and there wasn’t so much of that trade when they closed down the railway.’ She paused, drained the glass of whisky. ‘It was Wilf Brownscombe who brought the crowds to the village.’

  ‘Wilf Brownscombe?’ Molly asked, as if she’d never heard the name before.

  ‘I went to school with his mother. She was a poor little thing. Pretty enough, but not much about her. And my daughter went to school with Wilf. They knocked about together for a while. There was nothing I could do about it. She was always a stubborn madam and if I’d put my foot down she’d have seen him all the more. She saw sense by herself. Better the Methodist than that’

  ‘Why? What was wrong with Mr Brownscombe?’

  She didn’t answer and Molly thought she had not heard. The darts match members were becoming rowdy.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ Edie demanded at last.

  ‘Out of interest. It’s general background for my book.’

  Edie shook her head.

  ‘You’ve been asking questions,’ she said. ‘You wanted to speak to someone who worked for the Brownscombes about twenty years ago. Do you think my friends would have given you my name without telling me? Do you think a stranger can come in nosing about without causing a stir? You’re not writing a book. So who are you? Too old for the police, that’s for certain.’

  She paused briefly to take a breath but did not give Molly time to answer.

  ‘Has he robbed you? Swindled you out of your savings? You wouldn’t be the first one but he won’t have done anything you can prove is illegal. He’s too cunning for that. Or Viv is at least. And if it happened twenty years ago you’ve left it a bit late.’

  ‘His son was murdered,’ Molly said. ‘In America.’

  ‘I’d not heard.’

  ‘Isn’t that unusual? I’d have thought news like that would be common knowledge. Even if it didn’t get into the papers.’

  Edie shook her head. ‘They’re very close those two.’

  ‘A friend of ours is suspected of the murder. We don’t believe he’s guilty. Nobody in America seems to have known Michael very well. I thought there might be some clue here to why someone should want to kill him. We even wondered if Michael might be mixed up with some fraud of his father’s.’

  ‘We?’ Edie demanded. ‘ Who’s we?’

  ‘My husband and I. My husband’s in America.’

  ‘Michael won’t be mixed up with any fraud of his father’s, even if he was the type, which he wasn’t. They haven’t spoken for twenty years so far as I know. Michael hasn’t been home at any rate and they haven’t been out there to visit.’

  ‘You were working for the Brownscombes when Michael went off?’

  She nodded. ‘Housekeeper at the White Gables Hotel. Wilf still owns it. He managed to keep it somehow when he went bust. It’s full of old folks now like everywhere else they run.’

  ‘And Michael was working there too, that summer before he went off to America?’

  Edie moved her empty glass across the table and waited for Molly to go to the bar for another drink.

 
; ‘Michael worked everywhere,’ she said, then. ‘You have to understand what it was like for the boy. Wilf Brownscombe’s a bully. He always has been. He couldn’t bully his wife so he bullied his son. And he bullied his workers so the business was always short-staffed. At one time the only employees left were the people he had a hold on: foreigners without the right papers and lads from the north on the run from the police. He never bullied me, mind. Jack sorted him out once when he was a boy and he never forgot it. Things changed a bit when jobs weren’t so easy to find and some of the locals went back to work for him because they were desperate, but there were never enough staff to do the job properly.’

  ‘So Michael filled in?’

  Edie nodded but refused to be hurried. ‘Michael was never much to look at. Short and round shouldered with a bit of a squint, which the doctors put right in the end but which the other kids never forgot, the cruel little monsters. He had to wear those round glasses with a sticking plaster over one lens. So his dad picked on him at home and the children picked on him at school. It’s no wonder he grew up so nervy.’

  She paused to take a drink but Molly knew better than to interrupt.

  ‘He was bright though. He passed the 11-plus and got offered a place in Barnstaple. It was still the Grammar School in those days. Wilf threatened not to let him go. He said there was no point when he’d end up going into the business anyway but he was only tormenting. It was his idea of fun.

  ‘I think things were easier for the boy then. He made new friends. I believe there was a teacher who took to him. Mick had always liked birdwatching and this teacher took him out, stuck up for him when he decided he wanted to go to college. Mind you, his dad still made him work. After school and at weekends trying to fit in his school work somehow. Even when he passed his exams and went away he was still back every holiday, filling in wherever he was needed, waiting on table, cleaning caravans, serving behind the bar. Some days he looked fit to drop but I never heard him complain.’

  ‘Something must have happened then,’ Molly said, ‘ to have made him break off relations completely.’

  Edie Gill looked at her. ‘Perhaps he just grew up. Perhaps he just decided he’d had enough. No one could blame him.’

  ‘What was the name of the teacher who befriended him?’

  ‘Oh, my dear, if I ever knew that I forgot it years ago.’

  ‘What about a girlfriend?’ Molly asked. ‘ I heard there was a girlfriend. Someone local, younger than him.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘From his friends at college. There was a schoolgirl he wrote to.’

  ‘There was no one in the village,’ Edie said. ‘Not so far as I knew. Though I daresay he’d keep it quiet. Viv wouldn’t like that at all. No one would be good enough for her Michael.’

  ‘Do you remember the details of his leaving? Molly asked. ‘ It was the spring. This time of year. Exactly twenty years ago. Mick Brownscombe had been in America for a couple of months. He flew home to the UK with his friends. Almost immediately afterwards he went back to Texas to get married. With only his clothes and a few bits and pieces. Why the hurry? Did he come home in those couple of weeks?’

  Edie shook her head. ‘I didn’t even know that he flew back with his friends. The way I heard it he met a girl out there and he stayed. I’m sure that’s what we were told.’

  ‘His parents didn’t go out for the wedding?’

  Edie shook her head again.

  ‘Did they give any reason?’

  ‘It was the start of the season, wasn’t it? They were too busy.’

  At the other end of the bar the match was finishing. There was a climax of applause as the last dart was thrown. Women gathered at the bar, hugging each other.

  Edie Gill leaned forward across the table.

  ‘You can’t do any good for your friend here, my dear,’ she said. ‘I think you should go home. Save your time and your money.’

  The playful tone of the beginning of the evening was gone and this was more like a threat.

  ‘What happened, Edie?’

  ‘Nothing at all happened, my dear.’ They both knew it was a lie.

  ‘I shan’t give up,’ Molly said.

  ‘That’s up to you, of course, but you’ll find that most people’s memories aren’t as good as mine.’ She paused. ‘There’s another thing you should consider.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If I’ve heard that you’re staying in the village asking questions, Mr Brownscombe will have heard too. And he’s not a pleasant man when he’s angry.’ She shook her head to decline another drink and waited to be taken home. Molly did not move.

  ‘And Mrs Brownscombe,’ she asked. ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘A hard case,’ Edie said. ‘Not a woman to cross.’ It was another warning.

  ‘Didn’t she want to see her boy married? Won’t she want to be there at his funeral? He was her only son?’

  ‘And the love of her life, my dear. The apple of her eye.’

  ‘Why didn’t she stand up on his behalf to her husband?’

  ‘She wanted what was best for Michael. She knew it would do no good to make a fuss.’

  And you should know it too, Edie was saying.

  Molly walked Edie home through the rain. She had drunk too much to drive. She held an umbrella over the old lady’s head and stumbled with her up the path to the cottage door. The family must have been listening out because the door opened immediately and Edie was whisked away before Molly could thank her or say goodbye.

  When she returned to the pub it was only nine o’clock. With the end of the darts match, men had begun to drift in and the place seemed less friendly. Perhaps because of what Edie had said she imagined the customers knew who she was and were talking about her. ‘Daft old cow,’ she imagined them saying. ‘ Why doesn’t she mind her own business and piss off back to where she belongs?’

  She walked up to the bar and ordered another glass of cider. The landlord raised his eyebrows but he poured it. She returned to her seat by the fire, determined to make the drink last. If she had any more she’d be ill in the morning but her room was cold and shabby and she did not feel ready for bed.

  ‘Hey lady!’ She hadn’t seen him come in. He was a young man. Not local. A northern accent and a Newcastle United shirt, two earrings and a shaved head. Although it was a cool night and despite the rain he wore no jacket. He spoke conversationally, even softly, but the whole bar was listening.

  ‘Yes?’ Immediately she wished she had not drunk so much. Her glasses had steamed up and she took them off to wipe them. Then her vision was clearer but not her head.

  ‘Mr Brownscombe would like a word.’

  ‘Oh, good. I’d like a word with him.’ It was her social worker’s voice, bossy and educated. ‘ Perhaps you could ask him to phone me here and let me know when it would be convenient.’

  The young Geordie was thrown off balance.

  ‘No! He’d like a word now. He’s sent me to fetch you.’

  As she stood up to follow him she knew it was foolhardy. If she refused in front of all these people there would be nothing he could do. Partly it was bravado which got her to her feet – she refused to let these whispering men know she was nervous. Partly it was the knowledge that in the morning, when she was sober, she might not have the courage to face Wilf Brownscombe alone.

  Chapter Twenty

  There was a white house on a headland. When she got out of the car she could hear the waves on the rocks below. It was still raining and she had forgotten her umbrella. The young Geordie stayed in the car, a large, flashy machine which smelled of stale cigarette smoke. A pointed sign swinging like a pub sign in the wind said: White Gables Rest Home. The downstairs curtains had not been drawn and through two long windows she saw women in blue overalls hauling old people from chairs, set in a row. Presumably it was bedtime.

  There was a glass door at the side of the house. It was unlocked and led into an overheated lobby. Molly stood for a
moment shaking the rain from her hair. In the distance, through an open door, she could see a resident the care assistants had not reached. He sat in a high-backed chair, his face paralysed in a grimace. A towel had been tucked around his neck and he was dribbling.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Molly jumped. The woman had appeared behind her. She was not in uniform. A boss, Molly thought. One of the management. She looked at Molly, sizing her up. I’m probably as old as a lot of her residents, Molly thought. Perhaps she sees me as a potential client. She’s put me down as a trouble-maker. I’d be offered one of the poky rooms at the back.

  ‘I understand that Mr Brownscombe wants to see me,’ she said.

  The woman said nothing. She turned and expected Molly to follow. She wore a navy blue skirt and jacket and chunky jewellery which was probably gold. Her hair was pale apricot, permed and set like caramelized sugar. She looked to Molly like one of the fierce middle-aged women who run cosmetic counters in high-class department stores and gave Molly the same feeling of inadequacy. There was a thick carpet on the floor and her shoes made no sound.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Molly called after her. ‘Are you Mrs Brownscombe?’

  The woman stopped and turned. She wore glasses on a fine gold chain round her neck. She looked at her watch impatiently, nodded briefly as if she could not afford the time to speak and continued up the corridor. Molly scuttled after her.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your son,’ Molly said.

  The woman stopped again.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

  ‘Mrs Palmer-Jones,’ Molly said. She was unusually grateful for the stupid name. Mrs Brownscombe seemed impressed. ‘My husband’s an ornithologist. He knew your son. He asked me to find you. To offer our condolences. He’s already in Texas for the funeral.’ It seemed important to tell Viv Brownscombe that she wasn’t working alone. Even to Molly the story sounded unbelievable – condolences were sent by the post not delivered in person by scruffy old ladies.