Palmer-Jones 01 - A Bird in the Hand

by Ann Cleeves

  By the time they reached the place carefully marked on their map, it was too late for there to be any hope of seeing black stork. They had driven Peter’s hire car through a small, grey village, crossed a low bridge over a grey, shallow river and parked. It was not quite dark, but there was little colour left in the landscape. Gentle wooded hills rose out of a wide river valley. Even at the bridge at the base of the valley there was a sense of being high above sea level, a smell of peat and a cold wind. Following the detailed instructions given to Rob they walked along the shingle track which was all that remained of the railway line that had once followed the course of the river. All around it was very quiet—there were no cars on the road from the village—and the sound of their feet on the shingle filled the dusk, allowing no opportunity for speech. They had been told that there was a place to sleep and they found it, an old signal box, stripped now of its brass fittings and levers, but still sound and dry, its steps solid. Like a hide, its big window looked out across the woods and flood meadows. They made tea on a primus, and fried bacon and talked about twitching.

  Despite himself Adam was content, carried along by the spirit of the trip. He had been surprised when the others had asked him to go with them and was too eager to get away from Rushy to consider the risk. He knew that he had offended Tina. She had come to Ella’s on her own at first, had tried to be friendly, but had asked too many questions. He had been surprised when she had returned with the others and the news of the black stork. She seemed to realize now that he had nothing to say. Perhaps, when it was all forgotten, they could be friendly again. He sat cross-legged on his sleeping bag and listened to the others, wishing occasionally that he had the confidence to join in.

  Tina had been injured by Adam’s attitude to her. Her pride had been hurt. She had come to Rushy because she hoped to see him. She had even dressed up for him. She was determined now not to show that she had cared for him, and directed her conversation towards Rob and Peter. She no longer cared whether Adam thought he had slipped down the well or whether he thought that he had been pushed. He was a silly young boy who had no interest in ringing. She was arguing with Rob and Peter about the relative merits of ringing and twitching.

  “At least ringing has some scientific value,” she said. “ There’s some purpose to it. We know far more about migration and population patterns because of the ringing scheme. Twitching is just a game.”

  “You’re quite right,” Rob Earl said. “ It’s all just a game.”

  “Why don’t you cheat?” she asked. “If you were out on your own you could claim to have seen anything and nobody would know.”

  “I would know,” Peter said. “Twitching is very competitive, especially if you’re going for a year list, but it’s still seeing the thing that counts, enjoying it for yourself, not describing it to somebody else.”

  “What’s so special about a year list?”

  “There’s something exciting about seeing how many birds you can see in Britain in one year. It’s a challenge.”

  Rob stretched. “I only believe in a world list. Nothing else is the same.”

  “But don’t people cheat?” Tina persisted. “What about stringers?”

  “Stringers aren’t usually cheats. They don’t purposely fabricate. They’re just bad birders. They’re too optimistic. If they see a bird which might be a rarity, they claim it anyway. It doesn’t do them any good. Once you get a reputation as a stringer no one believes anything you see.”

  Rob Earl was lying on his back on the floor, his rucksack under his head, a roll-up between his lips. Did he try to look like that, Adam wondered. Did he cultivate that Bob Dylan image with his beard, dark eyes and strange clothes? Rob lit a match by striking it against his thumbnail, and Adam decided that he did. Adam sat forward and prepared to speak, but Rob continued:

  “It’s all a matter of ethics,” he said. “Twitchers’ ethics. Tom was a great believer in twitchers’ ethics, wasn’t he? We were always taking the piss. He had a rule for every occasion and no one ever took any notice.”

  “I didn’t know Tom very well once he gave up ringing,” Tina said. “He was a good ringer. He always handled the birds so carefully. What sort of a twitcher was he?”

  “He had too many principles,” Rob said. “When he lived up to them he was boring and when he didn’t he was guilty.”

  “That’s very cruel,” she said. “ Didn’t you like him?”

  “Yes, I liked him. But I never felt relaxed with him. He was too kind, too generous. It was as if he had such a low opinion of himself that he had to buy your friendship. He was never rude or bad-tempered.”

  Peter was sitting by the window. There was no moon, but the stars were sharp and bright.

  “The last time I saw Tom,” he said, “ was at a party on St. Mary’s, the autumn before last. He’d rented a whole cottage for himself and he had a party. As you say, he liked to make big, generous gestures. But I don’t think that he was buying friendship, he genuinely wanted people to have a good time. Like lots of twitchers, he didn’t have any social life outside birding. It was one of those magic evenings when everyone you meet is interesting or beautiful and they make you feel the same, and you drink enough but not too much, and the music is good. I had to leave before everyone else to get back to St. Agnes, Barbara and the milking. I looked for Tom to say goodbye, but I couldn’t find him.”

  He stared, unseeing, through the window and remembered the girl who had made the party magic. She had been possessed by a wild gaiety that night, which had been quite unusual, although she had drunk nothing. She had danced with him. They had never danced together before. He had said goodbye to her, not knowing that it would be for the last time. He wondered if he had been right to leave St. Agnes, and if it had all been worth while.

  Rob was thinking about Tom French. He had told Tina that he had liked him. That, of course, was untrue. Tom had been pompous. He had told Rob once about a rare bird he had found on some private land. Rob put it out on the grapevine, and Tom had been furious. There had not been much damage—ahedge had been a little dented in places—but Tom had lectured him about ethics and responsibility, and the image of the birdwatcher in the community. It had made him sick. He wondered if Tina would have understood if he had told her the truth. She was a strange girl. He had thought that she had been close to Tom at one time, but she seemed quite detached now. Perhaps she was just very honest. Not a hypocrite like most other people, like him. He wondered how many people were really sorry that Tom was dead.

  Adam quietly said goodnight to the others and climbed into his sleeping bag. He wished he could be more like them, more relaxed, more extrovert. He hoped desperately that he was not spoiling the trip for them. He slept fitfully, troubled occasionally by a nightmare of water and claustrophobia.

  Tina did not lie near to Adam, but she slept lightly and when he cried out in his sleep she woke up. She began to devise a weird and complicated trap to catch a black stork and soon drifted back towards sleep. After all, she thought as she dozed, men were only a distraction. Since meeting Adam at Scardrift Flat she had not been able to concentrate on her ringing. Neither had she been able to give full attention to her university work and that was important. She wanted to be a professional ornithologist, not to play at it like these twitchers. She should have realized that it would not work with Adam, should be grateful that she had come to her senses so quickly. She should have learnt her lesson from Tom. She had been infatuated with him when she was sitting O-levels and she hadn’t got the grades she had hoped for. She hadn’t resented it. Not then. Not until Tom gave up ringing, gave up serious birdwatching and became a twitcher. Twitching was a distraction too. She should never have come on this trip. She was missing an important lecture, but she had wanted to see the bird. She hoped that they would see the stork early the next day, so that she could return to Southampton to her work and the ringing group. She slept again and dreamed happily of cannon-netting thousands of waders, many with foreign rings.<
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  Peter sat all night, by the window.

  Only Rob slept soundly.

  George caught the overnight train to Penzance. Watching the lights of Bridgewater station flash past, he tried to convince himself that the journey was necessary. The train was warm and comfortable and nearly empty. He wanted to sleep. Only guilt kept him awake, the sense that he was playing truant, and an overwhelming anxiety for Adam’s safety. He began to read his notes and lists, a ritual gesture in an attempt to relieve his guilt, but he could not concentrate, and fell asleep, still holding his briefcase on his knee.

  Alone, in her bed, Sally cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  In Scilly it was already high summer, too late for flowers, too late to avoid holidaymakers. The helicopter was crowded, there was no pleasure in the flight, none of the usual anticipation at the first sight of the islands. George was in a hurry. He wanted to complete his inquiries in a day, knowing his haste to be as illogical as his journey, and he found in the packed streets, the lingering, scantily dressed people, a target for his anger and frustration. As he reached the harbour a tripper boat was just about to leave for Tresco and he took it, although he had planned to visit St. Agnes first. He could not contemplate waiting. It was hot, even on the water, and the flat, open boat seemed alive with pink-fleshed teenage girls, as a bait box is with maggots.

  He had never liked Tresco. There was something obscene about its fertility; there were too many green shiny plants, too much green altogether. The abundance of its vegetation was reflected by the affluence of its residents. It was the rich person‘s island and perhaps it was this rather than the geography of Tresco which coloured his attitude to it. The cloying smell of exotic shrubs and the expensive scent of the women drinking gin in the lounge bar of the pub had become confused in his mind, and he did not know which he disliked the most.

  George had already telephoned the hotel, and one of the under-managers was expecting him. The man’s obsequious distaste did nothing to improve his temper.

  “As I explained, I want to speak to one of your staff who knew Sally Johnson. You employed her here two seasons ago.”

  “Yes, sir, and your reason for wanting to know?” He never asked a question directly, as if it were more delicate to seek information only by inflection, by a gentle wheedling. “ I don’t think you said you were a policeman?”

  “It’s a Home Office matter,” Palmer-Jones said, and thought: If he wants to know any more let him ask me directly. But the man seemed satisfied. Perhaps he didn’t want to show his ignorance about the sphere of influence of the Home Office.

  “There is one lady who may be able to help—our head waitress, Annie. Your young lady worked under her in the dining room. We have so many casual staff that I’m sure you won’t expect me to remember. But Annie will be able to help you. Please don’t keep her away from her duties for too long. We’re rather busy and it will soon be lunchtime. If you’d like to use my office, I’ll send her to you.”

  Annie cheered him immediately. She was an energetic, middle-aged woman with short grey hair who had the competent, efficient air of a nurse. Making sure that the manager had gone, she sat down and stretched her tired feet in front of her, grateful for the unexpected rest. She spoke with a north-country accent.

  “Sally was a quiet girl, hard-working. She’d come with good references from a big hotel in Scotland, but she had no airs and graces. The residents didn’t take to her, you know, as they did to some of the girls, because she didn’t push herself forward, she didn’t make any effort to be friendly to them. But she was a good worker. We missed her when she left.”

  “Did she have any boyfriends? Perhaps among the guests. Did she talk about anyone special?”

  “No. I’d never seen her with a boy. That’s why I was so surprised when she left like that. We didn’t have any idea. She always went away from the island on her days off, but she said that she was exploring. Walking, you know. She was that type of girl. Quiet, reserved. That’s why we were all so shocked.”

  “Shocked?”

  “Aye. When we realized she was expecting. She started to be late coming down in the mornings, and one of the other girls found her being sick. I think she was hoping, you know, that it wasn’t true, but she had to believe it in the end. It’s happening all the time here, though you’d think these days they’d have more sense. But I never would have expected it of Sal.”

  “And did she never mention anybody who could have been the father? Anybody at all?”

  “I remember, the day just before she left—she went quite suddenly without telling anybody. He—” she pointed to the desk where George sat—“ he was furious. Well the day before, she went to a party on St. Mary’s. She worked herself into a terrible state about it because she was supposed to be working that night, and none of the girls would swap with her. She was so upset that I let her go in the end. She’d have been no use at work. I suppose it was expecting that was making her so depressed. One of the girls asked her about the party. You know how malicious these girls can be. They were teasing her about some man they’d seen her with, and to stop them Sally told them about the party. It wasn’t an islander who was giving it, it was a birdwatcher. You know, they all come to the islands in the autumn.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  She shook her head regretfully. “I remember that she stayed out all night. I was worried about her because she’d been so depressed. She got the first boat back the next morning. Then she must have packed up all her stuff. She left that day. I never saw her again.”

  “And she never got in touch? You didn’t know what had happened to her?”

  Annie shook her head. “No, though the police were here looking for her later that week. They scared me at first. I wondered what had happened. I thought she might have had an accident. But they said they just wanted to take a statement from her. They’d raided that party she went to, and they’d found drugs there. They wanted her to be a witness. I never would have thought that she’d be mixed up in anything like that.”

  “Do you remember any details of the case? Who was being charged?”

  “No. The police didn’t mention anything like that.”

  George prepared to leave then, and Annie, regretfully, got up to go back to work.

  “Did you know Peter Littleton?” George asked suddenly.

  “The one that married that lass on St. Agnes? Aye, of course I know the name and I knew him by sight. He used to bring his wife here for dinner, sometimes, when they were first married, but I haven’t seen him for a couple of years. He’s left her now, you know.”

  “Did Sally Johnson know him?”

  “I don’t think she would have known him, but she would have known of him, that’s for certain. He was a character. Everyone on Scilly knew of him.”

  George held the door for her and followed her out. It was cool and quiet in the hotel. Outside the heat and the humidity overpowered him. Even on the sea, in the crowded, noisy boat, it seemed unnaturally airless. When he arrived at St. Mary’s he was told that there were no tripper boats that day to St. Agnes, so he chartered one himself, taking a momentary pleasure in asking for a receipt so that he could charge the expense to Clive Anderson. As soon as he had enjoyed the thought, it seemed in poor taste.

  Because there were no day-trippers, St. Agnes was quiet. It was mid-day and the pub near the quay was open but, despite tremendous temptation, he walked past. He had been to St. Agnes often enough for some of the locals to recognize him, but he did not feel ready yet to answer questions. St. Agnes was his favourite Scilly isle. As he walked up the track, between the dry-stone walls, the familiar and peaceful sights and smells relaxed him. He felt at home.

  He was walking past the Gugh, the sandy peninsula on the east of the island, when somebody caled his name. Before he turned he recognized the voice. Charlotte Cavanagh had been schoolmistress on St. Agnes for thirty years. She had come to the island as a young widow straight after the w
ar. When she retired she moved from the schoolhouse to a tiny cottage on the shore, but little else had changed. The islanders had admired her, and been afraid of her when she first arrived, brave and outspoken and a little wild. She still kept herself apart. She was Mrs. Cavanagh to most of them, and she rarely mixed socially with any of the island families. She was passionately interested in the islands, in their history, natural history and archaeology. She painted them and wrote about them, but she still did not belong.

  She was very tall, and was dressed as dramatically and eccentrically as usual, in bright orange corduroy trousers, a fisherman’s smock and sandals. Her grey hair was short and her face was long and bony, very forceful and expressive. She was carrying a sketch pad and pencils.

  “Darling boy,” she said. “ You knew I was bored and you’ve come to see me.” She still spoke with the extravagance that was fashionable in her pre-war adolescence. It was as if time had stopped with the death of her husband at the beginning of the war, when she was twenty.

  “Not exactly to see you,” he said, “ but I want to talk to you.”

  “You must come for lunch. Come now, before I die of curiosity. I want to know all about it. What’s brought you here? Not a rare bird because I should have heard, and we should be invaded by hundreds of dirty young men. How’s darling Molly? You didn’t come last autumn. I do miss you both.”

  Her cottage was shady and smelled, George thought, like a good whole-food shop. She made tea deftly and seriously like an oriental woman, then brought out a loaf, cheese and smoked fish. They sat together by an open window. The breeze moved the curtains and carried into the house the scents of the garden. George sat without eating, without thinking, just enjoying the peace.