Palmer-Jones 05 - Sea Fever

by Ann Cleeves

  “Don’t you think Rosco set fire to the boat yard?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mike said. “He admitted that as soon as he was arrested. But I think he’d been paid to do it. By his boss. Only his boss didn’t tell him about the security guard who paid routine visits to the premises throughout the night.”

  “Why should anyone want to set fire to his own boat yard?”

  “For the insurance money,” Mike said. Later, when she was to discuss this with Claire, Molly thought it significant that Mike had come so close to the truth. He did not have the details about Barnes, but they agreed that Rolfe’s version of events was confirmed and strengthened by the probation officer’s own enquiries at the time of the crime.

  “Why didn’t Rosco tell the police that he’d been paid to start the fire?”

  “Perhaps he’s not that sort of man. Perhaps he was threatened. Or perhaps the plan all along was that he should be caught and convicted—the insurance company would have to pay up then—but he was well paid for the time spent inside.”

  The Jessie Ellen, Molly thought. The payment for keeping his mouth shut was the Jessie Ellen.

  “Did you suspect that Rosco had anything to do with drugs?” Molly asked.

  Mike shook his head. “I can’t imagine there’d be anything like that,” he said. “According to everyone who knew him, he was quiet, respectable, hardworking. I found him hard to talk to. He only showed any animation when he was discussing boats. He wanted to go back to Cornwall. That was his plan all along.”

  “When you supervised him on parole, did you meet any of his friends?” Molly asked.

  “No,” the man said. “ We didn’t get close at all. He saw the parole commitment as a formality. He reported to the office when I asked him, but he gave nothing of himself away.”

  “He never mentioned Greg Franks to you?”

  “No,” Mike said. “I don’t remember that name.” He stood up awkwardly. Molly supposed he had other clients to see. “ Work,” he said. “If you see Louis Rosco, send him my best wishes. I regret sometimes that I never persuaded him to tell me what happened at the boat yard. I was inexperienced; I feel that I’ve let him down.” He shook her hand, and she could imagine his having made the same gesture of sad formality when he sent Rosco home to Cornwall.

  Molly began to make her way out of the building to the street. She walked down the long corridor towards reception and noticed that the senior probation officer’s door was open. She hesitated at the door, thinking that she should thank Joanna, say goodbye. But the woman was writing a report with intense concentration and seemed not to notice that Molly was there.

  It was almost lunchtime, and when she went outside, the shopping centre was busier. The chip shop was open, and a straggle of people stretched onto the pavement. Near the launderette there was a group of mothers with bin bags of washing perched on prams and pushchairs. They reminded each other optimistically that the kids would be back at school in a couple of days, and then they could have some time to themselves again.

  “But at least it’s been fine,” they said, looking at the sky, where the wispy trails of cloud were becoming more substantial. “At least they haven’t been in under our feet for six weeks.” They were cheerful. Now that the holidays were almost over, they could laugh at the ordeal.

  They took no notice of Molly standing, bemused, in the centre of the arcade. She was a scruffy little lady who might have come from the old people’s sheltered housing on the edge of the estate. When she took out an A to Z and studied the road map, the women thought she could be a social worker or someone from Educational Welfare checking that the regular truants were prepared for school.

  Molly looked up the Pyms’ address in the index and then found the map. They lived in an area of the city which she would have to pass on her way back to the hospital.

  There was time to walk back, she thought, and she could make a detour past the Pyms’ house, just out of curiosity. She needed the exercise and the time to consider all she had learned in the probation office. She set off down the windy main street towards the town centre, pausing occasionally to study the map. As her surroundings became more respectable, she recalled the events on the Jessie Ellen, given greater significance by the information she had learned about Greg and Louis. In a smart suburban shopping street, which might once have been a village high street, she stopped suddenly.

  “Of course,” she said to herself. “Of course.”

  The well-dressed women with their designer carrier bags watched her with sympathy and fear. Community care was all very well, they thought, but it let such odd characters onto the streets!

  Unaware of their mistrust, Molly trudged on.

  The Pyms lived in a solid Edwardian terrace not far from the high street. Molly walked slowly past the house, and while she did not actually limp, managed to convey that her pace was the result of arthritis, not undue curiosity. Now that she was here, the detour seemed a waste of time. She would discover nothing from the neat front lawn or the grey stone walls of the house. She was looking at the map again to find the quickest way back to the hospital when a woman came out of the house next to the Pyms’ and called to her.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “ You’re not the woman who’s come to look at the house, are you? The estate agent said they might be sending someone. The For Sale sign isn’t up yet, but I can show you round if you like.”

  “Please,” Molly said. “That would be very kind.”

  “I don’t want to leave really,” the young woman chattered as she opened the door into the front room. “We’ve only just got it straight. My husband’s a do-it-yourself freak. He’s not really happy unless he’s doing up a house. But look at this new kitchen. I’d really miss the ceramic tiles. Would you like some coffee? I’ll make some when I’ve shown you upstairs.”

  Molly said she would and waited patiently until the tour of the house was completed. She marvelled at the fitted wardrobes, the rebuilt bathroom, the extra bedroom in the loft. Only when they were sitting in the gleaming streamlined kitchen did she ask about the woman’s neighbours.

  “What are they like?” she said, sipping instant coffee. “Neighbours can make so much difference to settling into a new home. Especially in a terrace.”

  “I know what you mean,” the woman said. “ We had teenagers at twenty-eight until recently, playing the saxophone all night. But you’re all right. They’ve gone to college now, and they don’t even seem to come home for the holidays.”

  “What about the people in thirty-two?” Molly asked. The Pyms lived at thirty-two. “ Do you get any trouble from them?”

  “She’s all right,” the woman said, the urge to gossip stronger than the desire to sell the house. “She’s very quiet. Always polite but keeps herself to herself. Sometimes I wonder if she’s got some illness. Something progressive that develops early. She always looks so pale, and a couple of times I’ve been to the doctor’s and seen her in the waiting room.”

  The woman seemed afraid that as soon as she moved, Jane Pym would make public her life-threatening illness, and she would be denied the drama of it and the satisfaction of telling people that she had known all along.

  “What about the husband?” Molly asked. “ What’s he like?”

  “He’s a teacher,” the woman said; then again discretion was overwhelmed by her pleasure in a good story. “ But he’s got a dreadful temper.”

  “Oh?” Molly said, the ideal audience, wanting more.

  “Terrible,” the woman said, and Molly thought that the Bristol accent was perfect for gossip, soft, confiding, friendly. “Last year we creosoted our fence. Roger Pym stormed round here late one night and accused us of killing all the plants in his garden. You could see it wasn’t true, but there was a dreadful scene. I thought I’d have to get the police, but he went quietly enough in the end. His wife made him see sense. We haven’t had much to do with him since then, but”—she paused to heighten the dramatic effect—“one of the neighbours says
he killed their cat, strangled it with his bare hands, just because it was taking the birds coming onto their bird table. I knew when we first moved in that he was weird.” She lowered her voice and said in a shocked whisper, “ He’s a grown man, and he goes birdwatching!”

  Soon after, Molly left. She thanked the woman for showing her around. She had other properties to see, she said. She was very impressed with the new kitchen but thought she might find it a little intimidating. She had enjoyed the conversation. It had really been very interesting.

  In the hospital Molly and Claire found George still in bed but desperate to leave. He was a fractious and unhelpful patient, and the staff would have been pleased to be rid of him, too.

  “This is ridiculous!” He was raging to the staff nurse who was trying to take his pulse. “You’ve seen the X rays. You know there’s nothing broken. So why do I have to wait for the doctor?”

  “You’ve had a concussion and serious bruising,” she said. “Besides, I’m not supposed to have given you the results of the X rays.”

  “This is madness!” he cried. “I should be in Cornwall. There are things I should do.”

  He did not tell her that he had heard a gale warning through the radio earphones which hung round his neck like a stethoscope. Hurricane Erin had already hit parts of the Republic of Ireland and was expected over the south-west peninsula after dark.

  Claire Bingham took them back to Cornwall. George was in no fit state to drive, and he felt that his nerves were already too frayed to suffer Molly’s speed and erratic braking. They left their car outside Gwen Pullen’s house, deciding it would be easy to get a train back to Bristol, and that they could collect it then.

  In the car he listened to the women talking about the fire at the Sinclair yard, the lurking and sinister presence of Barnes, and the domestic habits of Roger and Jane Pym. At first he found it hard to make sense of the mass of detail. The connection between Greg Franks, Louis Rosco, and Barnes seemed so complex. Besides, he found it difficult to concentrate. While the women discussed the case, he daydreamed of black-browed albatross. It was only later, when they were crossing the Tamar Bridge that the implication of the women’s discoveries struck him.

  “You do realise,” he said, “that all the work you’ve done in Bristol gives strength to the idea that Rosco killed Greg Franks. Franks had found out about Barnes’ dubious business practise in the development of Rashwood Hall. We know that because he was blackmailing Duncan James about it. If Barnes had become aware that Franks had access to damaging inside knowledge, was even using it to make a profit, he would want him out of the way. He’d used Rosco to do his dirty work once before. Why not again? It’s obvious. That must be how it happened.”

  “No,” Molly said. “You haven’t been listening. There’s another explanation.”

  Then she told them what must have happened. They listened, and the thing was so obvious and so simple that they wondered how they had never worked it out for themselves.

  “Wargan will never accept it,” Claire Bingham said. “Not without proof. He doesn’t believe in coincidence.”

  But George thought he could get Wargan his proof, though he said nothing to the policewoman. Despite her new flexibility she might not approve. As they drove through the grey towns of north Cornwall, the sky was cloudy and overcast. When they came to Porthkennan it started to rain.

  Vicky Jones stood in the gloom of Temple Meads Station. She had little idea where she would go. It scarcely mattered. George Palmer-Jones’ visit and the news of his accident had frightened her. There was nothing in Bristol to keep her now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The storm which first hit Cornwall on the day and night of September third was as strong as the hurricane which devastated the south of England in October 1987, but less was heard of it on radio and television. This might have been because it only touched the west coast of the peninsula and no big centres of population were affected. What interest could most of the country have in a few remote cottages swept away by freak high tides, caravan sites flattened, boats smashed into pieces? Besides, by the time reporters realised the extent of the damage the storm was causing, it was too late to get a film crew there in daylight, and by the next morning the rail link had been broken, and most roads were blocked by fallen trees.

  The gale began slowly on the night of September second, the evening of Molly and George’s return from Bristol to Myrtle Cottage. The wind was strong enough by then to make a noise in the trees around the house and to excite the birdwatchers staying there, but it was not unusual. There were strong westerlies every September at neap tide. By the next morning the wind was as strong as anyone could remember, and even at the head of the valley it tasted of salt, with spray blown up from the beach. The storm reached its peak at midafternoon of the third at high tide, and then the noise of water and wind was terrifying, and though the seawatching was so magnificent that the birders continued to stagger out to Porthkennan Point, it was a major expedition to walk the few hundred yards to reach there.

  When Molly and George were dropped at Myrtle Cottage by Claire Bingham, the others were sitting much as they had been the night before. Walking through the door, the Palmer-Joneses saw exactly the same scene as Berry had seen when he arrived to collect Jane Pym. Molly thought it was possible to believe that no one had moved all day. They had eaten a meal, and there was the same clutter as before—scraps of French bread, the sad remnants of a salad, empty wine bottles.

  The only difference was that Louis Rosco was there, too. That surprised George—he had expected him to be still in custody—but it would make things easier. The relationship between Rosco and Rose seemed to have changed. Rose had taken public possession of him, and the new show of friendship had caused a tension in the room. Gerald Matthews obviously hated it and was making himself unpleasant, criticizing everything, trying to provoke argument. At first glance nothing else seemed to have changed. Rob Earl and Roger and Jane Pym sat in their accustomed places, drinking heavily. Duncan James shrank into his seat, quiet, self-effacing, almost forgotten.

  The conversation was no longer of the murder and when they might be allowed home. The real birdwatchers were no longer eager to go. They spoke in a series of bird names—Cory’s shearwater, great shearwater, bonxie—which was a sort of incantation or prayer for the following day. The wind, Molly thought, provoked the same obsession as the boat trip had done. It was the same madness to do with birds and the sea, and she saw, as soon as they arrived, that George was infected by it, too.

  When they walked into the kitchen, there was very little response to their arrival. Molly had expected questions about what they had discovered in Bristol, about George’s accident. She thought they would want to know when the enquiry would be finally over, but they seemed to have decided by mutual unspoken consent that Greg Franks should be forgotten. Their lack of concern made her angry. What right had they to decide that Greg’s life was of such little value? Roger Pym’s only interest was in whether George had managed to discuss the red-footed petrel with Gwen Pullen.

  “Did you get to the museum? Did Gwen tell you about the old record of a colony of similar birds on the Aleutian Islands? We should have taken a tape recording of the bird’s call, you know. That could be decisive. Did you discuss a name? We really should have a name.…”

  And he paused, hoping that they would suggest that the bird should be called after him. He had come to believe that the discovery was his, and he would be remembered forever as the person who had identified Pym’s red-footed petrel.

  So George was brought immediately into the conversation, and Molly marvelled that he could appear so calm and absorbed while she felt such a terrible responsibility.

  Later in the evening the doorbell began to ring, and all night there was the sound, hardly discernible against the wind, of cars driving down the valley. The people at the door were birdwatchers who had seen the forecast and wanted to be at Porthkennan Head at dawn. Did Rose have any space? the
y wanted to know. Could she put them up for the night? They stood on the doorstep in the rain like helpless little boys.

  At another time she might have tried to help them, given them floor space to unroll their sleeping bags, invited them in for something to eat. But that night she was in no mood to be hospitable. She even resented the old residents. She wanted Louis Rosco to herself. She felt that at any time he might be taken back to Heanor for questioning, and she was edgy and frightened. She would not leave his side, and often she reached out her hand for reassurance. At last, when half a dozen loads of birdwatchers had stopped to ask for shelter, she took a piece of paper and wrote NO VACANCIES on it and pinned it to the front door. Then they were only disturbed by the headlights shining in at the kitchen window as the birdwatchers drove on down towards the beach, where they slept in their cars.

  The constant movement in the lane outside, the thought of strangers in the valley, unsettled Molly, and she felt that the others were restless, too. Jane stood up from the table and wandered to the window to watch the cars. Duncan James played with the napkin on his plate, pleating and turning it in his short, fat fingers. Yet George seemed not to notice. He sat in a huddle with Roger, Rob, and Gerald, mumbling the same list of skuas and shearwaters, excited, it seemed, by no other thought than the seawatching.

  That evening in the police station at Heanor Claire Bingham, Berry, and Wargan had a meeting in the superintendent’s office. The place was unexpectedly busy. There had been flood alerts, and the station was administrating the evacuation of low-lying villages close to the river. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the drama and change from routine. A pile of sandbags had been delivered into the front office, and members of the public came in a stream to collect them. There was a suppressed excitement and a forced community spirit which gave them a taste of what it must have been like in the war. Wargan pointedly ignored the activity. He shut his door on the noise, implying that they at least had real police work to get on with. Yet despite his irritation at the disruption all around him, Claire found him surprisingly enthusiastic. He even congratulated her on her work.