Palmer-Jones 03 - Murder in Paradise

by Ann Cleeves

  There was a tap at the door. Will stood outside. Dance glared at him.

  “Yes?” he said aggressively.

  “The lorry’s broken down. Alec has gone to fetch his car and he’ll collect the mail in that.”

  “Will he then? Well he can load the sacks himself. I’m back to my bed.”

  Kenneth Dance shut the door on the boy and went upstairs. He noticed that Elspeth’s bedroom door was open, but thought nothing of it. He went into the bedroom, where his wife was still asleep, but he did not undress.

  Robert heard the lorry starting, from the two-roomed house where he had lived alone since his mother had died twenty years before. He had never lived anywhere else, had never been on the mainland. Then he heard the lorry stall and listened to the choking splutter as Alec tried to start it again. He was already half dressed, and he pulled on warm outdoor clothes and his heavy black boots. He had to bend his back uncomfortably to lace the boot on his bad leg, but it never occurred to him to wonder what might happen to him when he could no longer bend like that. He wanted to know what had happened to the lorry, and what the Stennet family might do about it. He called to his dog and went outside. He could hear the men talking in the road and the footsteps as they walked away. He was disappointed. Nothing exciting had happened after all. There was nothing to see.

  He wondered if he should go to the harbour to watch the Ruth Isabella out, but decided that he would not go. It would be different if a fishing boat had put in there for shelter. Then there was talk of having the Hill Dipping Gather and the Lamb Share out soon, and he wanted to get some idea of how many of the lambs would come to him. It was just starting to get light.

  Palmer-Jones was surprised to hear movement in the school house early that morning. He had not believed that Sylvia would leave the island. He had thought that her outburst was a dramatic expression of her frustration at being on Kinness, and that talking about it would be enough. Now the soft movement, the hurried whispers between husband and wife, suggested escape, and it seemed important that he should talk to Sylvia before she went.

  She must have been on her way out when he heard her, because by the time he had dressed she had left the house. He went outside and a raw dampness made him put up the hood of his jacket. It was still quite dark and the immediate stretch of the road was hidden by a fold in the hill so he could not see her, but he knew that she must have followed the road towards the harbour. He was afraid that the boat would leave before he had the opportunity to speak to her and he started to walk more quickly. The cold air made him feel stiff and breathless, and he thought: when I was young I could have run this. The road turned, so that he should have had a view across the island towards the harbour, but a damp mist seemed to crawl down from the hill and he could see only a block of shadow to separate the hill from the sky. He stopped to listen, but there was no sound of footsteps. I must have missed her, he thought, but he walked on.

  When he came to the derelict croft, he thought he heard whispered voices, but decided that it must be the wind in the stone. Taft, the croft was called, and it had been lived in by Dances before the depopulation of the islands began. He did not know that the boat would be late and was afraid that it would go before he could see Sylvia. Then he heard running footsteps behind him on the road. As he turned to see who it was the mist cleared from the hill above and he saw Robert staring down at him. The person running along the road was Sylvia. She seemed untidy, excited.

  “Where have you been?” he asked. “ You may miss the boat.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “ The lorry hasn’t passed yet.”

  “I left the school house after you. Where have you been?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t walk as quickly as you. I must have lost my way in the mist.”

  There was no possibility that this could have been true.

  “I heard people talking,” he said. “ Did you meet anyone?”

  “No. Of course not. Who would I meet on a day like this?”

  Alec’s car came along behind them then. He must have seen them in his headlights. The car stopped and he shouted:

  “Do you want a lift down?”

  Before she could answer George called back: “ No thanks. We’re nearly there now.”

  Alec was about to start off again when she said: “Don’t leave without me. I want to come to Baltasay.”

  He nodded and drove away.

  George turned to her, took her arm.

  “You know Mary’s secret, don’t you?” he said quietly. “You must tell me, you know.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really can’t believe Mary’s death was anything but an accident, and in that case there’s nothing to tell.”

  As they walked down the hill and approached the harbour the mist cleared and the sky grew lighter. George could make out the horizon of the headland beyond the harbour and the Ruth Isabella in the water. Alec was pulling a sack of mail from the back of his car. Jim, Sandy, and Will were already aboard. A mother and father were calling goodbye to teenage daughters.

  “Why are you leaving Kinness?” he asked abruptly. “What are you frightened of?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Why should I be frightened?”

  “Don’t go,” he said. He felt that if only he had time to speak to her he would make her understand and persuade her to talk to him. She was surprised by the request, by the breach of social convention. She smiled.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Jonathan’s a good cook.”

  Sandy Stennet shouted to her from the Ruth Isabella.

  “If you can get aboard, Mrs. Drysdale, we’re ready to go.”

  George watched helplessly as Alec helped her on to the Ruth Isabella. Alec climbed on afterwards and the boat began to move away. The sea was smooth and the boat moved slowly, so there almost no wake.

  The parents on the quay drifted off, and Sarah and George were left alone. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past eight.

  “The boat was late this morning,” George said.

  “Yes. The lorry broke down. We all had to walk except Alec. He was furious. There was no one in the post office to help him load up. Apparently there was a lot of knitwear of Annie’s to go out, besides the mail. It took him longer than he expected.”

  “Did the rest of you walk down together?”

  “No. Jim and I were together. We got to the harbour first. Will arrived next—he had been over to the post office to tell Kenneth Dance that Alec would be late. Sandy didn’t get here until just before Alec. I don’t know why he took so long. Perhaps he was hoping for a lift.”

  “Did anyone leave the quay after you’d got there?”

  “What’s all this about?”

  I hear voices in the mist, he thought. How can I tell her that? She’ll think I’m a fool.

  “Oh,” he said vaguely, “ it may be important.”

  But she humoured him.

  “Jim went up the road once to see if Alec was coming. Alec did take much longer than we expected and Jim was afraid that the car might have broken down, too. I’m not sure about Will. He may have wandered off. He seemed very restless and he didn’t help much with the boat. Does that help?”

  “I don’t know. Thank you. Did you see anyone on the road as you walked down?”

  She shook her head. They began to walk back to the crofts. When they reached the school house, he asked her in for coffee. He was reluctant to let her go. Then he would be alone with the problem, with notes on Mary’s death in his tiny writing in his notebook.

  Jonathan was already in the classroom and they were alone in the kitchen, but they did not mention Mary. He thought that perhaps she had reconsidered her offer of help. She did not know what to make of him. He frightened her a little with his politeness, his precise speech, his upright posture. She watched the children run into the playground, then said that she would go. He saw her off sadly. He did not know what to do. He felt powerless to take charge of events. If only there was something
conclusive, he thought. If only there was something to prove that Mary had been pushed. If only I had the scarf …

  In the windswept playground Ben Dance crouched in a corner and drew on the asphalt with a stone. Grandma had given him breakfast today. He wondered where his mother was. Perhaps she had disappeared like Dad and Mary. He had wanted Dad and Mary to disappear, but he would not want to lose his mother. He felt that he might cry, and frowned to stop himself. He had been a very good boy lately, so there was no reason for her to go. He had felt, secretly, that he must have some magic. He had wanted Dad to disappear for as long as he could remember, and then suddenly he had. When they moved to Kinness, Mary had been so bossy and had spoiled all his games, and he had hoped that she would go, too, in the same way. And she had. That must be some sort of magic. But it would be terrible if it happened to his mother. The bell went and he ran inside, and was distracted from his anxieties by Peter and Jane and First Step Maths.

  On her way home Sarah called into the post office. She needed groceries, flour, cheese, stamps. Kenneth Dance was alone in there. He sat on a high stool behind the counter.

  “Yes?” he said. He was staring at her.

  The room was heated by a Calor Gas heater and the smell of the gas and the sudden warmth made her feel slightly faint. She ordered some stamps, but he did not move. He sat behind the counter like a Dickensian clerk at his desk and stared at her over his glasses. She was embarrassed and increasingly uncomfortable in the stuffy room. At last he took his eyes from her face and pushed the stamps over the counter towards her.

  She was about to ask for the other goods she needed when the door opened and Elspeth came in. Her long hair was tangled and there was a hole in her tights. She was wearing a moth-eaten fur coat and a shapeless knitted hat. Her father ignored Sarah.

  “Where have you been?” he said to Elspeth. “ We were worried sick.”

  “I went out for a walk.”

  “We thought that perhaps you’d gone out on the Ruth.“

  “I did think about it. But I would have told you first. I wouldn’t leave Ben—you know that.”

  “He wanted to know where you were.”

  “Did he go off to school all right?”

  Kenneth Dance nodded grudgingly. “He ran off early. You should have been here to see him off.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I should have been.”

  “Don’t do it again. Your mother’s been ill with worry.”

  Sarah watched with interest. It seemed to her that Kenneth Dance was over-reacting. Elspeth Dance turned away towards the kitchen door, then returned to face Sarah.

  “How’s Jim?” she asked.

  “He’s well,” Sarah said.

  “I never meant to hurt him. I hope he understands.”

  They stood for a moment looking at each other.

  “Did you pin a note to my wedding dress?” Sarah said suddenly.

  “No.” Elspeth’s surprise seemed genuine, but Sarah was not convinced. “ He should have been mine,” the note had read, and “He should have been hers” was the inscription on the gravestone of the original Elspeth Dance. The similarity came to her suddenly and seemed too much of a coincidence.

  Elspeth disappeared into the kitchen, then Kenneth Dance served Sarah as if the conversation had never taken place.

  In the school Jonathan Drysdale was irritated, as he always was, by the younger children’s inability to concentrate. He would never have chosen to specialize in primary teaching elsewhere. Sylvia had been glad to help him with the little ones, and when they had first moved to Kinness they had worked together in the classroom. They had been happy then, he thought. The walls of the school room had been covered by the collages and pictures she had inspired in the infants, and he had taken the older ones for more formal, academic subjects. Then Maggie Stennet had begun the campaign of complaint because her youngest son was slow to learn to read. When the Drysdales had first moved to Kinness they had seen Maggie as an ally. She, after all, had been a teacher. Then twelve months before, her attitude towards them had changed. Sylvia was not qualified to teach, she said. She might have been to art college but she had no degree in education. Stuart could read fluently by the time he was six, so why was Neil still bringing home picture books? Jonathan wanted to reply: “Because he’s dim, he takes after your husband,” but he had promised more structure for the reception group, promised to spend more time on the basics with them. He had tried, too. He had sat at the double table where they sat, perched on a ridiculous small chair, surrounded by flash cards and Ladybird books, but he could get no response from them, and while he was there the bigger children got bored with the work he had set them, and began to chat and fidget. He had longed at times to be in a large city school with classes streamed according to age and ability. There had been no improvement in the infants’ reading skills, and at times of boredom Sylvia had drifted back into the classroom to help. Neil, miraculously, had begun to read, but Maggie continued to complain. Now she said that the Drysdales did not participate fully in island affairs, did not encourage the children to understand their own history. He had recieved a warning letter from the Education department on Baltasay. Maggie had started complaining there.

  Jonathan walked to the infants’ table and started them copying letters in a print workbook. He set a series of arithmetic problems on the blackboard for the older group, then sat at his desk. He began to think of Sylvia again, but knew that would lead nowhere, so he returned to his favourite subject. He imagined his black guillemot paper, illustrated with immaculate diagrams, the argument followed through with perfect logic, and the credit he would receive when it was published in a respected academic journal.

  Sarah returned to Unsta determined to put Elspeth from her mind. Jealousy was ridiculous. Elspeth was obviously a spoilt, neurotic woman and there was no competition between them. She would not mention her conversation with Elspeth to Jim. If he did not want to discuss his former girlfriend, she would respect his privacy. Elspeth was someone to feel sorry for, and pity made her safe.

  In this strong, confident mood she began to make plans for the house. She did not want to bully Jim into building yet—that could wait for the spring—but she could make Unsta more civilized. They would need carpet, new units for the kitchen, fresh paint, curtains. She walked through the house from the kitchen to the bedroom, imagining how it would be, irritated because she could not start at once. She could start in the garden, she thought. It had been cultivated until recently but it was full of weeds. She wanted to dig it over before the frost came. She went to Buness and borrowed a spade and fork. She worked all afternoon, and imagined Jim’s pleasure when he saw how much she had achieved.

  At half past three Maggie called over the wall at her.

  “I’m going to collect the children from school, then I’m going on to meet the boat. Will you come?”

  Sarah went inside to wash her hands and change her shoes. Maggie was still looking over the wall when she returned.

  “You’ve cleared a good lot there,” Maggie said grudgingly, and it seemed to Sarah that she was disappointed.

  They were a little early at the school and waited at the gate.

  “I suppose that Neil will have been messing with paint and glue with Mrs. Drysdale again,” Maggie said. “ It’s not right. She’s not qualified, you see. He should be properly taught. That’s what Drysdale’s been paid for. If they want an infants’ teacher, they should advertise.”

  Sarah remembered that Maggie had been a teacher. Perhaps she was hoping for a job in the school.

  “She won’t be there today,” Sarah said. “She went on the Ruth Isabella.“

  “Did she then? I wonder how long she’ll be away for. They should both leave. For good. Neither of them fits in here.”

  It occurred to Sarah then that there was a more personal animosity between Maggie and Sylvia. She remembered suddenly how Alec had waltzed with Sylvia at the party, holding her very close, and realized that she recognized
a note of jealousy in Maggie’s voice.

  The school bell rang and the children ran out.

  As the Ruth Isabella approached the harbour Sarah watched Jim with pride. He seemed so surefooted, so competent. He saw her and smiled. She wished that some outsider was there so that she could have pointed to Jim and said: “ That’s my man. He belongs here and so do I.” She looked around for George Palmer-Jones. He would have done, but he was not there. She assumed that he was embarrassed about his foolish allegation that Mary had been murdered. His silence that morning proved that he had changed his mind. She turned back to the boat and waited for Jim to come ashore.

  Ben Dance did not go home immediately after school. He wanted to hurt his mother because she had not been there in the morning to have breakfast with him or to see him off to school. He followed the other children down the road towards the harbour, but on the way he was distracted and played alone until long past teatime.

  On Ellie’s Head George searched the rocky outcrops and peered down the geos looking for a cheap green scarf. Then he climbed down the rabbit track to the beach below, moving the shingle with his Wellingtons and scouring the rock pools, until it was too dark to see.

  Chapter Seven

  Sandy Stennet and Kenneth Dance decided together that they would have the Hill Gather. They met, like elder statesmen on neutral territory, by the church early in the morning and looked at the sky, and lifted fingers to the wind. The fine weather would hold, they decided. They would share responsibility for holding the Hill Gather. All summer the hill sheep had been left to wander. Now they had to be collected for dipping, and each family would be allocated their share of the hill lambs. It was a formidable task to round up the sheep. The hill covered an area of nearly two square miles. The men and dogs would stand at the north end of Kinness, near the lighthouse and over the hill in a line, driving the sheep before them. Just north of Kell a stone wall had been built from the road to the west cliffs. The sheep would be driven down that and collected into one of Kell’s fields. There they would be dipped and sorted.