High Island Blues

by Ann Cleeves

  Laurie made her way back to the table. She smiled at a young waiter, who watched her until she sat down.

  ‘Tell me about your children,’ George said. ‘ How old are they?’

  ‘Paul’s sixteen. Laura’s fourteen.’

  ‘Laura’s named after you?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  ‘And Paul?’

  ‘Mick chose that. He was very keen. I think perhaps it was a family name.’

  ‘He had a close friend called Paul Butterworth,’ George said.

  ‘Did he?’ It seemed to mean nothing to her. ‘Perhaps that was it then. Funny though. I don’t think he ever mentioned him.’

  ‘Did he talk about any of his friends?’

  ‘Only Rob and Ollie, and not them much.’

  ‘He had a girlfriend, you know, when he was at school. He wrote to her while he was at university.’

  ‘Did he?’ She seemed surprised, impressed. ‘He never said.’

  ‘Her name was Nell. Helen.’

  She shook her head. She wasn’t much interested in what Mick had done before he met her. A child skated past them. He was alone, frowning with concentration, his hands clasped behind his back.

  ‘I used to bring my kids here,’ Laurie said. ‘They won’t come now. They think they’re too old.’

  ‘You told me Michael’s parents wouldn’t come to your wedding.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She looked away from the skating boy. It was not a question she had been expecting.

  ‘They were never invited,’ George said. ‘My wife’s spoken to them. They didn’t find out about it until afterwards.’

  ‘Mick told me he’d asked them.’

  ‘But you’re not surprised he didn’t?’

  She shrugged. ‘ Look, I never found out what was going on in that family. I gave Mick the chance to talk about it but he didn’t want to. That was all right by me. I wouldn’t have wanted him prying into the things that went on under our roof when I was a kid.’ She shivered slightly. ‘ I asked them to the funeral.’

  ‘I know. They won’t come.’

  She shrugged again. She didn’t care.

  ‘Can I ask about something that happened when you first went to High Island with Mick and the others?’

  She nodded.

  ‘The night before you left Oaklands there was a storm. The electricity was off. You were talking in the boys’ room, playing a truth game. When they asked which of the three you liked best, why did you choose Mick?’

  She didn’t ask how he knew about that evening or pretend not to remember, but she took a long time to answer. He had to prompt her:

  ‘You did say that you could have had whichever one you chose.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So why Mick?’

  She turned away from the ice rink and looked at him, suddenly serious.

  ‘You want the truth? Like in the game?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I thought he was damaged goods,’ she said. ‘I recognized the feeling. But that was only part of it. I knew I could make whatever I wanted out of him. After years of being bossed around I saw he was someone who’d do just what I told him.’

  ‘And did you get what you expected?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Pretty much.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Julia arrived at the car just on time, hurrying. She was breathless and her arms were full of packages. But there was none of the elation of the serious shopper who’s just had a fix. His remark about Bristol had worried her. George was pleased about that.

  On the freeway he tuned the car radio into a classical music station so he would not have to talk to her. Occasionally he thought she was about to start a conversation, to ask him perhaps what Molly was doing in Bristol, but she did not find the courage and when they arrived at the hotel she scurried off, hardly making time to thank him for the lift. He presumed she had gone to find Oliver.

  Mary Ann was waiting for him in the lobby. She knew he had been to see Laurie. She took him into the small lounge where the same old man slept soundly in his chair.

  ‘She won’t sue,’ George said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I don’t think she ever intended to. Perhaps you misjudged her. She loves this place, too, and wanted to be a part of it.’

  She shot him a glance, embarrassed.

  ‘I’m not sure I can share it,’ she said. It had been a difficult admission for her to make. He thought she would be no good at playing the truth game.

  ‘Your wife phoned,’ Mary Ann said, glad to change the subject. ‘She asked you to call her back. She’s in the same place in Devon. Use the phone in my flat. Joe Benson seems to have taken up permanent residence in the office.’

  So he sat in comfort on the white sofa, and in the background there was the noise from the kitchen next door, banging pans and the occasional scream of a temperamental chef.

  He had to wait while the pub landlord fetched Molly from her room. She sounded tired.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It was just as you thought.’

  ‘Was it!’ There was a quiet satisfaction that he had worked the thing out but he was not sure how far it helped clear Rob from suspicion.

  ‘It wasn’t easy to get in,’ she said.

  ‘How did you manage it?’ He was prepared to let her share some of the glory.

  ‘I had to get her address first and that wasn’t easy without drawing too much attention to myself. Her phone’s ex-directory. I think other people have been trying to trace her. Her old friends at the BBC were very cagey.’

  ‘Debts?’ he asked.

  ‘It looks like it but they’ve all been cleared now.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I thought of Nigel.’ Nigel was an old birding friend of George’s who was a sound recordist in the BBC’s natural history unit. ‘He’d been to a party in her flat. He knew it was in Redlands but he couldn’t remember the address. We drove up and down for about an hour before he recognized it. We found a chatty neighbour who confirmed it. Unluckily there was no obvious way in. No key under the door-mat. Nothing like that. No alarm system though and only a Yale lock on the kitchen door. When I met Sally for lunch she told me she didn’t bother much about security.’

  The tiredness had gone and her voice was excited. So, George thought, Molly had been breaking and entering, too.

  ‘I had to persuade Nigel to be look-out for me but he wasn’t very keen. I don’t blame him and he did let me sleep at his place. The area where Sally lives is rather arty. I thought there’d be lots of late-night people and it would be best to try to get in early in the morning.

  ‘I parked in a street nearby and walked. It was still dark. No one was about. There’s a back alley between the houses. It’s just wide enough for one car to get through. The houses are terraced. There are no gardens at the back, just paved yards and then a high wall. Most have a wooden door in the wall which backs into the alley. Sally’s did, but the door was bolted. Twenty years ago I’d probably have been able to climb the wall but I didn’t think I’d manage it now. Luckily the bolt was rotten. It took one shove and it opened. It seemed to make an enormous racket but no one took any notice. Her flat’s on the ground floor. According to the neighbour the people upstairs were on holiday. Then there was just the kitchen door to get past.’

  ‘And how did you manage that?’ he asked, playing along, thinking that one day he’d tell her his story of breaking into the Brownscombe Associates’ office.

  ‘Not with a credit card,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t believe that’s as easy as people make out.’ In her career as a social worker she had specialized for a period in work with juvenile offenders. She had picked up a lot. ‘What you need is the nylon binding tape used by industry to secure large parcels.’

  ‘And you just happened to have some with you?’

  ‘It wasn’t that easy actually. I had to raid a skip at a big do-it-yourself store close to Nigel’s flat.’
>
  She chuckled and he wondered what was wrong with them both. It was so undignified this grasping after sensation. That was for the young. Perhaps they should give up the agency and settle for a contented and uneventful retirement like Connie and Russell May. But he couldn’t imagine himself playing bowls.

  ‘Was the technique as effective as you’d been led to believe?’

  ‘Eventually, though it took a lot longer than I’d expected to get the door open. I suppose my fingers are stiffer than the lads.’

  ‘But you did get into the flat.’ He interrupted her to move the conversation along. He hoped Mary Ann wouldn’t add this telephone call to his bill. Rob Earl’s employer would have a fit.

  ‘Of course.’ She paused, savouring the moment. ‘It was a real sense of achievement when I felt the lock move. I suppose that’s ridiculous. The door opened into a small kitchen. The door had a glass pane so I didn’t risk the light. I had a torch. Then there was a living-room. The curtains were drawn so I was able to put on a desk lamp, and have a proper look round. I think Sally Adamson must have been brought up with expensive tastes.’

  Oh, quite, George thought, remembering the bags full of designer shopping. Julia would have seen to that. And Oliver would have indulged them.

  ‘It wasn’t a room I’d feel comfortable in. It wasn’t at all the sort of place you’d expect a young person to have. Not a scrap of student woodchip wallpaper, no breeze-block bookshelves. Sally has a leather sofa and state-of-the-art music system. Furniture for making an impression.’

  George thought he had been very patient. He had let Molly ramble on for long enough.

  ‘I’m not interested in her interior design.’

  ‘Except that she’d spent more on the place than she could afford. The kitchen was full of electrical gadgets. And all bought on credit. I found the agreements in a ghastly reproduction mahogany desk.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, thinking: at last. ‘And what else did you find?’

  ‘In the same desk a typed list of names. I think it must have been used for the mailshot. I recognized some of the people we know received information and a begging letter from the Wildlife Partnership. Others were familiar through your work with Green Scenes. Sally would have had access to the names of interested people through the BBC. They must have had a contacts file.’

  ‘There was no proof though? The list wasn’t headed Wildlife Partnership?’

  ‘It wasn’t headed anything. I made a note of some of the names. We could check that they’d been targeted.’

  ‘That’s still not proof. She could always claim a coincidence, say that she’d kept the list after using it for work.’

  ‘Well she could,’ Molly said, ‘if it wasn’t for the invoice.’

  ‘What invoice?’

  ‘I found a bill from a local printer’s. It was for three hundred colour brochures. There’s no record that the bill has ever been paid.’

  ‘You’ll have to check with the printer. See if he kept a copy.’

  ‘There’s no need for that.’ Her voice was infuriatingly smug. ‘In the same file there’s a draft which he sent originally for Miss Adamson’s approval. It was definitely the brochure which Cecily received.’

  That’s it then, he thought. That’s enough.

  ‘Why did she add her own name to the list of supporters?’ he asked. ‘We’d never have traced her without that.’

  ‘Pride I suppose. She liked to think she was a celebrity. Or a perverse sense of humour. You’ll have to admit that it must have taken nerve. The dressing up. The Texan accent. Making herself older, more impressive. Hiring Jason and renting the office. There was something flamboyant and stylish about the whole plan. I don’t think she only did it for the money. She could have gone to mummy and daddy if that was all it was about. They’d have paid her debtors, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Oliver certainly. Like a shot.’

  ‘I think it might have started as an elaborate hoax,’ Molly said hopefully. ‘To prove to herself that she could carry it off. After the television series ended and there was no prospect of other work she needed to believe she was still good at her job. She met Laurie Brownscombe at the party her father took her to. Perhaps she just started off practising the accent. As an actress might. And wondering if she could convince people that she was Texan. She’d try a phone call to test the voice. And then she’d think about the appearance. You notice there was no attempt to impersonate Laurie. In the bedroom I found a blonde wig and the clothes Jason described the woman who’d employed him as wearing. She’d created a fictional character and she needed a vehicle for her. Laurie had talked to her about the Wildlife Partnership. The fraud grew from there.’

  ‘Hmm!’ George was sceptical. ‘ I think it more likely that the conversation with Laurie gave her the idea for an easy way of making money and the fancy dress came later. So that if the fraud was discovered it could never be traced back to her.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ There was a pause. ‘I liked her. When I met her for lunch that day I really liked her. But it was a mean and horrible thing to do. I wonder how many people responded to the letter. Then there was Jason. She’d convinced him that he had a proper job and one day he’d fly off to Houston. Now he’s back on the dole. Why do you think she sacked him and closed down the operation in such a hurry? Because we’d started poking around?’

  ‘I think it was all over before that. Don’t forget Cecily phoned the office number demanding to speak to the person in charge. Jason would have told her that a woman was making a fuss. Sally’s bright enough to quit while she’s still ahead.’

  ‘What will you do about it? I can hardly go to the police. They’d want to know how I got into the flat.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’ll do anything yet. Did you find evidence that Oliver and Julia knew what she was up to?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘They certainly know now.’ George remembered the argument he’d overheard in Boy Scout Wood on his first afternoon in High Island, the woman standing in the Cathedral screaming out her jealousy. He’d thought Oliver had a lover. Instead it seemed Julia had spent her marriage competing with her daughter for his affection. ‘Julia blames Oliver for getting Sally involved in it, but I can’t believe he took any profit. Perhaps Sally asked his advice, hypothetically, about how you’d go about setting up a new wildlife charity, and he was too besotted to see what she was up to. Perhaps she got frightened when Cecily started making a fuss and she ran to daddy for help. I’d say that was more likely.’

  ‘Like a spoilt kid.’

  ‘Which is what she is. And now the parents have papered over their differences to cover up for her.’

  In the kitchen next to Mary Ann’s flat the noise was increasing to a crescendo. Soon the first dinners would be served. There was a crash of broken crockery and a stream of oaths. It seemed that the tension and excitability which had affected the guests had afflicted the hotel staff too.

  ‘Can this have anything to do with Michael’s murder?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Would the Adamsons go as far as murder to protect their only daughter, if Michael had found out about the British fraud and Sally was behind it? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘It provides a motive of a sort. And parents do desperate and irrational things when their children are involved.’ She stopped suddenly, realizing how like a social worker she sounded.

  George did not answer. He was pleased that the case was less muddled but he still thought it had all started much longer ago, before the chance meeting of Laurie and Sally at a party in London, perhaps even before the stormy night in High Island when four young people played the truth game by candle light.

  ‘I was wondering if I might join you,’ Molly said. ‘After three days in the West Country I could do with some sunshine.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, quite seriously. ‘I’d like you to find Michael’s friend, Paul Butterworth. His name’s cropped up in a different context. And there’s a girl who se
ems to have disappeared altogether.’

  So, Molly thought. Here I am, taking instructions again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The search of the grounds continued at first light on the following day. Areas of woodland and garden were taped off and residents were confined to the house, so it was impossible to pretend that everything was normal. Some escaped in the mini bus with Rob to the Anahuac refuge. Others seemed afraid of missing something and sat on the veranda watching the searching policemen through binoculars. They were quarrelsome and overwrought. There was bickering, odd outbursts of temper followed by shaken apologies.

  ‘Why don’t they go home?’ George asked Rob at breakfast. Rob had been surprised by the question. His depression had lifted and he seemed to be thriving on the frenzy.

  ‘No one will want to leave before the bird race!’ he said.

  And when George canvassed opinion, it seemed that Rob was right. Even the frail and the timid were curious to see how the race would turn out. The shared danger had made them passionate supporters of the Oaklands team. They wanted to be there to cheer them on.

  Only George thought the bird race should be cancelled and he found it hard to explain why he felt so strongly about it. Partly there was distaste. He suspected that visitors would be attracted into the area not to support the competing teams but to see where the murders had been committed. He imagined them waiting, almost hoping for more violence. Partly there was a practical problem. The bird race was scheduled for the following day. How could the sheriff’s men complete a proper search of the grounds if they were bring trampled by birdwatchers, keen to catch a glimpse of Swainson’s warbler? How could the crowd be controlled?

  He took his concerns to Benson, who swept him off in his constable’s car to the Gulfway Motel for coffee. There were a few truck drivers having a late breakfast, some birders stocking up before the next attack on Boy Scout Wood, but after Benson had had a quiet word with Miss Lily and slipped a couple of bills across the counter, their plates were taken and they were hurried away. She locked the door behind them. As before, Benson and George had the place to themselves.