Palmer-Jones 03 - Murder in Paradise

by Ann Cleeves

  All the time he was talking he was staring out of the window. He turned to face his wife.

  “I was obsessed by the fact that she must have been pretending for the whole of that summer.”

  She stretched out and took his hand.

  “I’m glad you told me about her.”

  “I should have told you before. I didn’t know that she’d be here.”

  “I realized that. What happened to her husband?”

  “They’re divorced. There’s just her and the child.”

  He had never talked to her so intimately before. She felt very close to him. With the same ridiculous, romantic impulse which had made her dream of Kinness as paradise, she was certain that now everything would be happy between them.

  George waited in the school house until Jonathan had finished teaching. That day the island had seemed full of frenzied activity, as the men chased the geese in Alec’s battered car. He supposed that Robert must be with them. He did not want to approach them to find out, so he decided that he would talk to Jonathan. If Sylvia was hiding something, her husband must suspect it. When the school bell rang to send the children home, he made a pot of tea, and waited in the kitchen for the teacher to come in.

  Jonathan looked tired.

  “Maggie Stennet was waiting for me again,” he said. “She’s been trying to find out how long Sylvia will be away.”

  “How long will Sylvia be on Baltasay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has she phoned?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did she leave the island so suddenly?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have some idea.”

  Drysdale remained silent.

  “Was it my talk of secrets?”

  “It’s none of your business!” For a moment he lost control.

  George spoke quietly and calmly. “ I explained my concern about the disappearance of Mary’s scarf. It was found on Monday. I think Sylvia was talking to the person who dropped it before she got on to the boat. If you know anything you must tell me.”

  “Really. I don’t know anything.”

  “Did you walk some of the way with Sylvia on Monday morning?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She said not to bother. We’d arranged for Alec to pick up her luggage.”

  “What happened to make you both so unhappy?”

  “I told you. She’s bored here.”

  “Why does Maggie Stennet dislike Sylvia so much?”

  It was a stab in the dark, a wild guess, but at last he provoked a reaction.

  “Because Maggie’s a venomous bitch. It’s not Sylvia’s fault that Alec Stennet chases every woman under forty on the island.”

  “Was Sylvia having an affair with. Alec?”

  “No!” He was shouting. “She flirted with him. I’ve told you. She was bored. She flirted with every man on Kinness.”

  He stood up, said that he was going for a walk, and went out.

  In Kell, Melissa waited for James. She did not mind that he had been out all day. She knew that he enjoyed the companionship of the other men. She was not much company now. He was a good shot, too, and always came back with more birds than the others. But she knew that she was spending more and more time alone, and knew that it did her no good. I must make the effort, she thought, or I’ll go mad like poor Ellie Dance, and start howling at the moon like a dog.

  Ben had been late home from school again, very late, and Elspeth had begun to panic.

  “He shouldn’t go running about the island by himself. Look what happened to Mary Stennet. It’s dangerous, especially with the men firing like wild things at anything that moves.”

  “You should have gone to collect him,” Annie said.

  “I know, but he does hate it. He says that only the babies are collected by their mothers. And it’s only up the road.”

  “Just the same. I think you should collect him.”

  “I will. Every day. If only he’s safe.”

  Kenneth had gone out in the end to look for him, and had found him squatting in the tumbledown croft, writing on the dirt floor, apparently oblivious to time.

  “What are you doing?” Kenneth asked.

  “I was making a spell.”

  Maggie hated it when Alec was so pleased with himself. He came in at last, after the boys were in bed, stinking of drink and boasting of what a brilliant shot he was.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded. She was furious.

  “I’ve been having a few drinks,” he said, “to celebrate.”

  “Your father should know better than to get you in this state. There’ll be time to celebrate when you’ve cut the silage. What have you got to celebrate?”

  Alec sat down carefully.

  “He’s talking,” he said, “about retiring.”

  George Palmer-Jones went to bed early. Jonathan Drysdale had come back from his walk in a peculiar, feverish state and had talked all evening about whooper swans. He had been up to Silver Water, and the whooper swans were there. This year he was determined to ring them. They would do it soon, and George must help him. George found the frightened, relentless conversation sad and exhausting and went to bed to escape it. At first he did not sleep, and when the generator went off he was still awake, making plans for the next day.

  He must eventually have slept, because the howls of the dog pierced his dreams, and when he woke, he thought he must still be dreaming. It was a horrible chilling noise and it sounded very close to the house. He could not believe that Jonathan was sleeping through it. It continued, high-pitched and disturbing. He tried to go back to sleep, but it was impossible. He thought that perhaps the dog had been hit by a stray shot, and finally he got up and dressed and went outside. There was a very thin moon but he needed a torch to see. The noise came from the low, boggy area of the Loons. He splashed across the drainage ditches and swore as the water trickled into his Wellingtons. The whole thing was foolish. He should have stayed in bed.

  Then he saw the dog. It had not been shot. But Robert, lying beside it, had been dead for hours. He lay on his back and his face and the dog were covered in blood. There was no clean bullet wound. He had been killed, like the geese, with a shotgun. The dog, which had accompanied him everywhere, had broken free from his line and found him at last.

  It was a shock, of course, and quite terrible, but George felt relief, too. I was right, he thought. The child was murdered. This proves it.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, as soon as it was light, the police flew in. George borrowed Jonathan’s car and went to the airstrip to meet them. There were the same two officers who had come to Kinness before. They were confused and unhappy—they did not want the responsibility of coming to a decision about violent death—but George soon lost patience with them. They would not agree that Mary and Robert had been murdered. He took them to the body. It was still where he had found it the night before. He had woken Jonathan and together they had covered it with tarpaulin, but they had not moved it.

  The elder policeman, the inspector, was near to retirement. He had a mainland accent. Perhaps he had moved to Baltasay for the peace.

  “So they were shooting geese here yesterday?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “All day?”

  “On and off. I heard them in the morning and again in the afternoon at about three.”

  The inspector turned to his colleague.

  “I suppose it couldn’t have been an accident?”

  The younger man had been born on Baltasay.

  “It could have been,” he said, “ but someone would have seen it happen. Why not report it? Try to get help for the old man.”

  “It couldn’t have been an accident,” George said. “ Robert had information about Mary Stennet’s death.”

  This was too much for them. They were convinced that Mary Stennet had fallen accidentally. They had put in their reports to that effect.
/>   “When was the old man last seen?” the constable asked, quickly changing the subject.

  “I know that Sarah Stennet was talking to him yesterday morning. We went to his house yesterday afternoon, but he wasn’t there then.”

  “That would tie in with the accident theory, then. If he was away from home when the men were up here shooting.”

  “He was murdered,” George said, with such certainty and authority that they deferred to him, accepted his judgement.

  “It certainly seems that way,” the inspector said, “ but it’s not the sort of decision we can make on the spot. We’ll have to take a statement of course, then report back to headquarters.”

  “While you’re doing that,” George said, “you won’t object if I try to find out what happened.”

  He left them standing in the marsh, wondering how best to move the body. Furious with the defective logic, their inability to think clearly, his own ineffectiveness, he walked down the island and banged on the door at Unsta. He was determined now to finish the thing quickly. He had to prove to himself and to the police now that he could do it. He had wasted five days. Sarah came to the door. It was still early, but Jim was already out.

  “Robert’s been murdered,” he said.

  She felt betrayed. The evening before had promised endless happiness. The promise was already broken.

  “The police are trying to persuade themselves that it was another accident,” he said. “It’s just intellectual laziness. They’ll realize that soon. I want to ask some questions before they start taking statements. Will you come with me?”

  He was compelling. He made her feel that it was her duty to go with him. He seemed to have a new energy and power. When they walked she found it hard to keep up with him. Yet he had had no sleep.

  He was unsure why he was so reluctant to ask the questions alone. When he was working as a civil servant with the Home Office, there had been no opportunity to share responsibility. His independence had been the aspect of the work he had enjoyed most. Perhaps he had become too accustomed to sharing problems with Molly. He knew that an extra perspective would be invaluable.

  “I wouldn’t want to put you in an awkward position.”

  “No. I’d like to come with you. I think I should.”

  His power and authority attracted her.

  “I thought that we’d start at Kell and move south.”

  “I understood that visitors weren’t welcomed at Kell.”

  His sudden burst of anger surprised her: “ We won’t behave like the foolish policemen,” he said. “We’re doing the thing properly. If you prefer you can opt out now.”

  “No. I want to come.”

  He talked continuously as they walked, communicating his thoughts to her, and ordering his ideas, so that he would know just what questions to ask.

  “Robert found out Mary’s secret,” he said. “ He saw or heard something, or he worked it out for himself. He saw the person talking to Sylvia Drysdale, but that might mean nothing. We must remember it, but not give it undue importance. If we knew the secret, we would know the identity of the murderer. It’s the essence of the case. But several people here seem to have a secret. Maggie thinks that Alec and Sylvia were having an affair. Elspeth Dance is frightened of something. She was afraid that her son would talk to me. Kenneth and Annie are trying to protect her. Jonathan says that Sylvia flirted with anyone who would give her attention, so she might have been involved with more than one man.”

  “Might there not be another motive?” she interrupted nervously. “The secret might just have been a game.”

  “You’re right, of course,” he said. “There’s Sandy’s will, for example. We must keep an open mind about motives.”

  But he was convinced that the secret was essential.

  When they reached Kell, Sarah was hot and breathless. There were no geese left on the low land in front of the croft, and the lochan was as still and blue as the sea beyond. James was sawing wood just outside the house. He was in his shirt sleeves, and as he heard them approaching and looked up to watch them, he wiped his forehead with a clean, white handkerchief.

  “Hello,” he said cautiously. George was wearing binoculars as he always did, and James continued. “ Is there some rare bird on my land that I’ve not heard about? You know that you’re welcome to go where you please.”

  “No,” George said. “ We wanted to talk to you. Had you heard that Robert was dead?”

  “No,” James said. He seemed shocked but made no pretence at grief. “And he seemed so healthy. Was it a heart attack? I heard the plane. I suppose that will have been the doctor. Of course he had no family left.”

  Family, Sarah thought, why should family be so important? Kinness was so small, they should all consider each other as family.

  “The doctor didn’t come in the plane,” George said. “ It was the police. He was shot.”

  James put down the saw slowly.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. The police think it may have been an accident. Could we go inside? I’d like to ask some questions. It’s about Mary. I’d like Melissa to hear about it, too.”

  James looked embarrassed and anxious. He did not like to refuse George, but he had to think about Melissa. The habit of protecting her had become a way of life.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “ She seems to have been a lot better recently, but I don’t want to rush things. She doesn’t find it easy to talk to strangers.”

  Melissa was watching them through the kitchen window. They represented the world away from Kell. They were normal people and suddenly she wanted to be normal, too. The kettle was nearly boiling on the stove. She threw open the kitchen window, and before she had the chance to change her mind she shouted:

  “Bring your friends in, James. Don’t keep them standing out there in the cold. I’m making some tea.”

  She felt hot with triumph and excitement. She turned and laid out her best cups and saucers on the table, and poured milk from the churn in the scullery into a jug.

  Sarah had seen Melissa in the church, but there had been many strangers there that day, and she had not looked closely at her new aunt. Now Melissa impressed her. With her dark hair and eyes and white skin, she could have been Russian or Polish. There was still no trace of the island accent in her voice.

  James showed them into the kitchen. He sat them at the table, as far away as possible from Melissa. She seemed well, but she did not like to be crowded and he was worried that they might provoke one of her panic attacks. He was so concerned about her that he seemed not to have considered what George might want with them. George was beginning to wonder if perhaps he should have agreed to talk to James alone. He thought it unlikely that Melissa was the murderer—she had not even been at the dance. Now he felt restrained because of her fragility. How could he speak directly about death when she seemed to have lived so little?

  James spoke first.

  “Old Robert’s dead,” he said gently. “ He was shot.”

  “Who shot him?” Melissa asked immediately.

  James looked at George for more information.

  “The police don’t know,” George said. “You didn’t hear anything?”

  “No. We wouldn’t do. We go to bed very early.”

  “You were out shooting yesterday with the men?” George asked James.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see Robert then?”

  “No.”

  “What time did you finish?”

  “I don’t know the time exactly. When the light began to go.”

  There was a silence.

  “Why have you come?” Melissa asked. “You told James it was about Mary.”

  “It is about Mary,” George said. “ I don’t believe that her death was an accident.”

  He had spoken softly and he thought she had not heard him.

  “I think that the girl was murdered,” he said.

  “I heard you,” she said. “What
is going on here? An old man shot and a girl murdered. What do you want from us?”

  While George was talking to Melissa, Sarah was watching James. He was horrified, as if he could not believe that they could discuss a child’s death so calmly.

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “No one here would commit that sort of violence. This is Kinness.”

  “All the same,” George said. “I’m quite sure.”

  “No. I won’t have it.” He sat down at the table next to George. “I’m the nearest thing there is to a minister here. People come to talk to me. I know them. There is no one here who would kill a child.”

  Was the horror because Mary was a child, Sarah wondered, or did James care so much more about her than Robert because she was a Stennet and Robert was not?

  “It would help to convince me if you would answer some questions.”

  “I’ll answer any question you like, but it’ll make no difference.”

  Melissa was surprised that she felt so calm. It had been years since they had entertained strangers in the house, but she felt none of the usual panic. She listened with a detached and intense concentration to George’s questions and her husband’s answers.

  “Mary liked and trusted you. Did she talk to you about a secret at the dance on Friday night?”

  “No. I hardly saw her at all on Friday night.”

  “You were playing with the band for most of the evening. What did you do in the interval?”

  “It was rowdy in the hall. I didn’t want to take any drink, but I didn’t want to seem a kill joy. I went outside, just for some fresh air.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I didn’t go anywhere. I stood outside the hall.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “There were a lot of people who came outside like me. I saw some women taking their children home. I saw this young woman.”

  He nodded disapprovingly at Sarah. She remembered how drunk she had been and felt ashamed.

  George continued: “Did you see Sylvia Drysdale? Was she outside?”

  He hesitated and Sarah thought that he was going to ask a question, but James only shook his head.

  “What do you know about Sylvia Drysdale?”