Palmer-Jones 03 - Murder in Paradise

by Ann Cleeves

  The question was meant for James, but Melissa answered:

  “She’s sad. Sad and lonely.”

  “How did you know her?” Sarah asked gently. “ You don’t leave Kell very often.”

  “She came to see me a few times when she moved on to the island. She was interested in spinning and weaving, and especially the old vegetable dyes which the women used to colour the wool. James’ mother told me how the dyes were made. I was interested in it myself at one time. Agnes never bothered much with it. She never had the time, with the children to look after. So James’ mother passed all her recipes to me. I was pleased to talk to Sylvia. I looked forward to her visits. Then suddenly she stopped coming. She never told me why. I suppose she just lost interest.” She looked at her husband. “ I asked James to go to see her, to ask her to start visiting again, but he wouldn’t do it.”

  James looked uncomfortable.

  “She has something of a reputation,” he said. “ I felt awkward about going there to see her.”

  “You never used to mind what people were thinking.”

  There was a pause in the conversation. James and Melissa seemed engrossed in thoughts of their own. Sarah looked out to the hill and as she watched six swans flew over, honking, and disappeared below the horizon. George had seen them, too, but did not want to be distracted.

  “Sylvia Drysdale met someone on the way to the Ruth Isabella on Monday,” he said. “ It may be important. Taft isn’t far from here. You didn’t see who she was talking to?”

  “No,” James said. “Why didn’t you ask her?”

  “She says that she didn’t speak to anyone. I think she’s lying.”

  “She wouldn’t lie,” Melissa said. “Sylvia wouldn’t lie.”

  James turned on her. “ You don’t know,” he said angrily. “She’s a wicked woman.”

  “Whoever was talking to her,” George said, “dropped this.” He pulled the green scarf from his pocket. “ Do you know anything about it?”

  But James’ anger seemed to have unbalanced Melissa. She started to breathe very quickly as if she were short of air, and she was pale. She seemed not to be listening.

  “You’ve upset her,” James said. “You’ll have to go.”

  Melissa was fighting for control. She had begun to weep.

  George stood up. “ I’m sorry,” he said. “ You have helped us.”

  Sarah spoke directly to Melissa: “I’m interested in spinning and weaving,” she said. “ If you feel like talking to me, tell James to let me know, and I’ll come and visit.”

  James was desperate now to get them out of the house. He walked with them into the yard.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he said. “ I knew that you would make her ill.” His face was grey with anxiety. “ Please don’t come back.”

  In the kitchen Melissa stood up and walked to the window. She stood watching the three people in the yard and her breathing became more regular. She was furious with her weakness. It was more important than ever to stay strong. She could feel the tears stinging on her cheeks, and wiped them away with her apron. James came back into the kitchen and turned to face her. He looked anxious and apologetic. She held out her hands to him. He approached her cautiously, afraid of being rejected yet again. She held him tight, ferociously tight, then she kissed him.

  Sarah followed George down the road from Kell. He walked very quickly. They did not speak. George seemed preoccupied and Sarah was afraid of interrupting his thoughts. The interview had shaken her. She had been shocked by Melissa’s sudden spasm of panic. Alec’s car was parked on the road near Robert’s body and George supposed that the policemen had sought his help in moving it. He hurried past, worried that the police might detain him. When he and Sarah were out of sight he stopped, took out a field notebook, leant it against a drystone wall, and wrote in it.

  “I can’t rely on memory,” he said, “and I find it helps to put things in perspective.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t understand what you would need to write down. We didn’t learn anything new, did we?”

  He looked at her seriously. “It was most useful,” he said.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “Oh no. I don’t think so. Not yet.”

  “Why did you let them think that the police are convinced that Robert’s death was an accident?”

  “They might talk more freely.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll go to the post office now.”

  The post office was shut— it was shut all day on Thursday. They went to the private front door of the house and George knocked on it. Annie opened the door to them. She was small and neat. She had a quiet voice.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “ The shop is shut today. Is it urgent?”

  “We don’t want the shop,” Sarah said.

  She still did not understand. “ I could let you have some stamps, but it won’t do any good. The mail won’t leave Kinness until Saturday.”

  “I’d like to talk to you and Kenneth,” George said. “And to Elspeth if she’s here.”

  Annie opened the door to them.

  “We’re all in here,” she said, showing them into the kitchen. “ I have an order of knitwear to go south. I supply a big department store in Edinburgh.”

  It seemed to Sarah that she was very shy. The kitchen table was piled with gloves, mittens, and hats. Elspeth was checking the goods against the order form and Kenneth was packing them into boxes. She supposed that the child was at school.

  “I have a machine,” Annie said, as if to explain the productivity. It would be wrong to allow them to believe that she had knitted the garments. Knitting was a skill she took seriously. “I only handknit jerseys for private orders.”

  Kenneth was bending over a box on the kitchen floor, and Sarah could see that he had a shiny bald patch on his head. He looked up and stared at her.

  “If you’ve come to buy knitwear,” he said, “you’re unlucky. All this has to go south.”

  “We don’t want to buy anything,” George said. “Have you heard about Robert?”

  Kenneth got up from his knees and sat on one of the wooden chairs.

  “Yes. I saw Alec earlier. Do you know what happened? No one seems to know exactly.”

  “The police seem to think it was a terrible accident. Were you out shooting yesterday?”

  “Yes. I was out with the others. But I didn’t see Robert. I don’t know how anyone could have come to hit him.”

  Nor do I, George thought.

  “I wank to talk to you about Mary Stennet,” he said. “ I think that she was murdered.”

  “Is that what they’re saying now, that she was murdered?” Dance almost spat out the words in his scorn. He turned to Sarah. “And who do they blame for this ‘murder’?”

  “The Stennets accuse no one for her murder.”

  George had raised his voice, and interrupted Dance. There was silence. He continued, speaking more softly:

  “She was pushed from Ellie’s Head. I will discover who did that. I want you to help me.”

  They seemed stunned. Again there was no reply. Elspeth was playing with a lock of her curly hair. She was watching them intently like a child watching adults, waiting for them to reach a decision. It seeemed to Sarah that she was frightened.

  “How terrible,” Annie said. “ The poor deaf child.”

  “Did you see her leave the party on Friday night?” Once again George’s words demanded their attention. He looked at them each in turn. Annie shook her head. “ I remember seeing her dancing and thinking how she was enjoying herself, but I didn’t notice that she was missing until Agnes started to cry.”

  George turned to Elspeth.

  “Do you know why anyone would have wanted Mary dead?” he asked.

  “Why do you ask me that?” The answer was unexpected, peculiarly defensive, as if he had accused her of the crime. “ I wouldn’t harm a child. I have a child of my own.”

  “How long have you been back on Kinne
ss?” George asked with quiet interest. Elspeth was behaving so strangely that she became a focus of interest in her own right. Any information she had about Mary’s movements could wait.

  “About six months.”

  “Your son is at school here. Do you plan to stay?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not committed to anything.” She spoke quickly and her eyes moved from George to her father.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Kenneth Dance demanded. “That’s nothing to do with Mary Stennet.”

  “No. It has nothing to do with her.” He turned back to Elspeth. “Did you see Mary at the party? Did you see her leave?”

  “No,” she said. “ I didn’t. Ben was with her at the beginning of the evening. Then Agnes asked me to sing in the interval. I didn’t see Mary again.”

  “So you can’t help me?”

  “Not really. I can’t. I would help you if I could. I’m sorry.” The answer was too emphatic, but George turned to her father.

  “Did you notice the child at the party?”

  “I probably saw her, but I was playing with the band.”

  “What did you do during the interval?”

  “Nothing. I fancied a can of beer, but there was none. I had a cup of tea.”

  “You didn’t leave the hall, then?”

  “No. I’ve told you.”

  Again Elspeth’s eyes flickered towards her father.

  George watched them, convinced that they had something to hide, wishing that he could penetrate their mistrust. Sarah found the silence awkward. It was obvious that they were not wanted. She stood up, and reluctantly George followed. She went through the door first, but she still heard Kenneth Dance say to George in a low, conversational voice:

  “I shouldn’t go prying into other folks’ affairs if I were you. You might get hurt.”

  Outside in the bright cold light George made no reference to the threat.

  “My wife used to be a social worker,” he said. “I miss her expertise at times like these. Elspeth’s very unhappy, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “ Very.”

  She asked George to Unsta for lunch.

  “Jim will be there,” she said. “You can talk to him.”

  “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “It won’t be an intrusion. Besides, he was out yesterday evening. Alone. With a shotgun.”

  He said nothing. She would have preferred some reassurance, an insistence that Jim could not be under suspicion.

  Jim was washing his hands in the kitchen sink when they arrived. He was angry. The police had spoken to him. They had implied that the islanders were negligent in their use of firearms, that they were trigger happy, that someone had been shooting in bad light, and that Robert had been hit without anyone noticing.

  “It’s impossible,” Jim said. “Everyone here knows what they’re doing.”

  “I agree,” George said. “It’s impossible.”

  Sarah put on the kettle and began to fry bacon and eggs. The men sat at the kitchen table.

  “Did you see Robert when you were out yesterday?” George asked.

  “Yes. I was up on the top field and you can see Tain from there. He walked north up the road.”

  “You were shooting rabbits?”

  “No. Not then. That was later.”

  “What time did you see Robert?”

  Jim shrugged. “ Soon after lunch.”

  “Did you see anyone when you were out with your gun?”

  “No.” Jim leaned back in his chair. “I didn’t kill him,” he said. “I stayed on my own land. I didn’t go near to the Loons.”

  “Do you know what secret Mary had?” George asked suddenly. “She mentioned it at the harbour and again at the party. It wasn’t a child’s game, forgotten in five minutes. What could it have been?”

  “There’s no privacy here,” Jim said. “The most trivial thing a person wants to keep to himself becomes a secret.”

  Sarah was carrying plates of food to the table.

  “What about you?” she asked. “ Do you have a secret?”

  “No,” he said. “ Not me.”

  As they ate George asked Jim the questions which had become routine: when had he last seen Mary at the party, had he left the hall at any time, had he noticed anybody else leave the hall, had he seen anyone talking to Sylvia Drysdale on boat day? Jim answered courteously but he had nothing to add. He was no real help.

  As soon as the questions were over George was impatient to move on. If the policemen were moving down the island, there was a danger that they might get to Buness before he did. Jim watched impassively as Sarah rushed to clear the plates and followed George out.

  When they arrived at Buness, Maggie was baking. Alec was still out. She had wanted a proper kitchen, separate from the living room, and it had been built on the back of the house. It was long and thin like a corridor. She was keading bread dough and her plain freckled face was red. Sarah remembered that Alec had said that Maggie was up early on the boat morning to bake, and thought she must spend very little time out of the kitchen. When they knocked on the kitchen door, she called them in without stopping the stretching and pressing of the dough. George remarked politely that the bread would be good when it was cooked. She cut it into three, rolled it in flour.

  “I bake all my own bread. I wouldn’t buy from the shop the prices he charges. I’ll be finished just now, then I’ll make some tea.”

  She covered the loaves with a tea towel, rinsed her hands under the tap, then led George and Sarah into the living room. It was intimidating in its tidiness. Every surface was highly polished. There was a large sofa covered with nylon velvet and a glass-topped coffee table. They sat down and she went out to make tea. She had left open the living-room door and they heard Alec call into the kitchen.

  “Robert’s dead,” they heard him say, “ he always was a mischief-making old fool, and he’s still causing trouble. The police may come to see you. Don’t tell them anything.”

  She spoke more quietly. She did not think that her guests could hear them.

  “What would I tell them?” she said bitterly. “ You never talk to me. What happened to Robert?”

  But he had gone.

  She came into the living room carrying a tray, and there was still desperation in her voice.

  “Is it just a social visit?” she asked. The words were directed at Sarah, who looked at George to help her out, but he seemed not to notice.

  “We did want to talk to you,” she said at last, “about Mary. George thinks that she might have been murdered.”

  “Is this some sort of joke?” Maggie demanded. “Is this your southern sense of humour?”

  “No …” Sarah wanted to explain, but Maggie would not let her finish. Her face, already flushed, turned scarlet. Her fury was directed at George.

  “What do you mean by coming here and making trouble like this? Are you sick?”

  George spoke quietly.

  “It’s happened again,” he said. “Robert was murdered.”

  She did not know what to say. George took advantage of her confusion.

  “Why do you dislike Sylvia Drysdale?”

  “She’s never fitted in here.”

  “Alec likes her, though?”

  “Who told you that?” She was furious. He let the matter drop.

  “We’ve talked to Sandy and Agnes,” Sarah said. “They want George to find out what happened to Mary.”

  “They’re fools to themselves.”

  “All the same,” George said. “ You will talk to us.”

  “I’ll talk to you, but it’ll do no good.”

  In that she was right. She had spent most of the wedding party in the kitchen, she said. Mary was supposed to help her, but she had always been unreliable. Maggie had left the hall for a few minutes to get some air during the interval, but had seen nothing suspicious. There were lots of people coming and going. Then she had asked Agnes where Mary had been and all the fu
ss had started. As soon as they had drunk their tea, George and Sarah left.

  Outside in the road Alec had the lorry’s bonnet up and was fiddling with the engine. He heard them coming, stood up, smiled lewdly at Sarah.

  “Got your chaperon?” he said. “That’s a pity.”

  “Where are the police?” George asked.

  “Taking statements, they said. I lent them my car. It saves me having to hang around with them.”

  “I haven’t seen them yet,” Sarah said. “ Perhaps I’d better go home.”

  “Yes,” George said. He was quite happy for her to go. Alec watched her walk away down the road, whistled softly under his breath.

  “Did you talk to Sylvia Drysdale in Taft on Monday morning?” George asked.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Alec gave a last, lingering look at Sarah, then turned his attention back to the lorry.

  “I need to know,” George said. “Two people have died. I need to know what was going on between you and Sylvia Drysdale.”

  Alec stood up. He was balancing the spanner in his hand as if it were a weapon.

  “Let the police do their own dirty work, he said. “ Whatever happens on Kinness has nothing to do with you. You might bully other folk into answering your questions, but you’ll not bully me.”

  Deliberately he turned his back on George once more.

  As George walked back towards the school house the plane took off from the airstrip. He was glad to see the police go. Their presence had only added to the pressure. The men had irritated him. But he had expected them to consult him before they left, and he felt belittled because they had ignored him.

  That night Sarah found it hard to sleep. She sensed in the islanders a deep panic. Life on Kinness ran according to routine. It was ruled by certainty. People did what was expected of them, according to the season and the weather and what they heard in the kirk. There was no longer any certainty. Murder broke a rule so fundamental that they might almost believe that other laws could be broken—that they would not bother to take the boat out to Baltasay, that they would not work together on the harvest, that the kirk would be empty on Sunday. As she had rushed round with George she had felt the islanders’ fear. They regarded their neighbours and even their families with suspicion. They’re like children, she thought, who lose their innocence. She remembered the newspaper article she had first read about Kinness. Now paradise had been lost.