High Island Blues (11 page)

‘You understand what I’m saying.’ The voice was still aggressive but he was prepared to listen.

George tried to sound conciliatory. ‘His employers, West Country Wildlife Tours, asked me to come. To give reassurance to their customers and to provide support for Rob during this difficult time. Of course I have no intention of intruding on your investigation.’

Benson recognized the lie but ignored it.

‘Well now, I wouldn’t say it was
my
investigation. The sheriff of Galveston County is in charge. He has a team of detectives. They’re good men and women. I think we can both leave things to them.’ He paused. ‘We don’t like amateurs. They get in the way.’

‘But you do have an interest in what goes on in High Island?’

‘Sure I have an interest. Perhaps I should explain how things work here. I believe constable means something different to you. I’m an elected representative of this community, responsible for law enforcement on the peninsula. I have a deputy working for me. A sergeant. Of course we work closely with the sheriff’s department in Galveston but we live here. We know these people. Sure we care what goes on.’

‘Yes,’ George said. ‘I see.’

Benson looked up at the ceiling. ‘You could say I’m a servant of the community,’ he said. ‘ This isn’t a wealthy town. Not any more. Maybe you wouldn’t visit for the scenery. But we do have tourists and they bring thousands of dollars to this region every year. “Avi-tourists” they call them. You know what I’m talking about Mr Palmer-Jones?’

‘Birders,’ George said. ‘You’re talking about birders.’

‘I’ve got a friend.’ Benson’s musings were still directed to the whirring fan above his head. ‘He owns his own gas station. He showed me some figures some research guy had put together. It proved that without all those visitors to High Island and the coast small businesses like his could go bust.’ He paused. ‘Those businesses are concerned, Mr Palmer-Jones. The tourists come from overseas. Maybe they over-react to bad publicity. That’s the way of the world. They hear there’s been a murder on a sanctuary in Texas they decide to go somewhere else. So if the tour companies want to send over a Brit PI to keep their customers happy I’ve got to go along with it. Do you understand me?’

‘I understand that I’m here under sufferance.’

Benson seemed not to hear him. ‘It also means that I’m under pressure to clear the case up quickly. We make an arrest, lock someone up, it’s not news any more. But we’re going to do it right whatever the boy thinks.’ He sat forward, looked straight at George. ‘I’m not under
that
much pressure.’

‘Mr Benson,’ George said. ‘I believe you.’

‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘Well that’s good. This might be a small town, sir, but I’d like you to know that we do things right here. You don’t have to worry about that. When your friend died everything was done according to the proper procedure. Miss Cleary called me at home. I contacted the sheriff’s office, then I came straight down. A sergeant from Galveston arrived soon after and we cleared the area. The Identification Unit came. You know they have specially trained officers to search the scene of the crime. The medical examiner took a while to get here because he’s based at the county morgue in Texas City, but the IDU are glad sometimes to get in there first. And he’s an experienced man.’

‘Has he done a preliminary report?’

‘He’d report directly to the sheriff.’

‘But you would know, wouldn’t you, what the initial findings were?’

‘Have you ever been a cop, Mr Palmer-Jones?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘You don’t operate like a cop.’

‘The medical examiner’s report?’ George prompted.

‘He was stabbed. The weapon was thick bladed, but sharp.’

‘What about the head wounds?’ George asked.

‘You know about them?’ Benson seemed surprised, impressed. ‘They didn’t kill him.’

‘But he was knocked over first, then the assailant stood over him and stabbed him?’

‘That’s the theory.’

‘And your IDU. I presume they found the instrument which caused the head wound? A heavy stake with an eye at one end through which the boundary rope had been threaded.’

It was a guess and he was showing off. He’d look a fool if he were wrong.

Benson scowled. ‘ Someone been talking to you?’

George shook his head. ‘I noticed that it was missing yesterday. What about the murder weapon? The thick bladed instrument? Did they find that?’

‘No, Mr Palmer-Jones, they didn’t find that.’ He called into the kitchen for more coffee. Outside in the road a car braked sharply. They heard high spirited men’s voices, jeers and cat-calls. Then the engine revved up and the car drove quickly away.

George drank the strong black coffee.

‘Rob Earl didn’t do it, you know,’ he said.

Benson said nothing. George thought he had gone too far but he persisted.

‘Why would he? What was the motive?’

‘As I understand it your friend was always jealous of Mr Brownscombe. He’d taken a fancy to his wife.’

‘That was twenty years ago! Rob’s had dozens of girlfriends since then.’

‘It wasn’t anyone from around here,’ Benson said stubbornly. ‘Like I said, I know these people. There are one or two who might kill a man in a fight in a bar. But not that sort of attack. Not a stranger from behind.’

They looked at each other in silence.

‘Have the detectives looked into the Brownscombes’ business dealings?’ George asked.

‘I don’t know. You think that might be important?’

‘There’s a non-profit organization called the Wildlife Partnership. It’s based in Houston and the Brownscombes have done some work for it. There’s a possibility that in the UK it’s been involved in a charity fraud. Perhaps it’s not relevant but they might want to look into it.’

‘Sure. I’ll pass the information on. Did you discuss this with Mr Earl?’

‘No.’

‘Thank you, Mr Palmer-Jones. I appreciate that decision.’

‘Rob isn’t a murderer,’ George said.

Benson took a deep breath. For a moment George thought the man would lose his temper. Instead he spoke quietly. ‘Well if you tell me that, I’m inclined to believe you. But it’s not me you have to convince.’

‘No,’ George said, ‘but I’m grateful anyway.’

‘Did you ever meet Mick Brownscombe?’

‘A couple of times a long time ago.’

‘I can’t seem to get a handle on him. I mean what was the guy like?’

‘He was quiet, self-effacing, nervous. A country boy who often seemed out of his depth.’

‘Not the sort to get murdered then?’

‘I’m not sure.’ George paused. This was Molly’s territory but he’d learned something from her over the years. ‘ The sort perhaps to be bullied and taken advantage of. A victim if you like.’

‘You go in for all this psychology?’

‘Like you, I think it’s important to know who we’re dealing with.’

‘Maybe.’ Benson yawned to show what he really thought of all that stuff. George took no notice and continued.

‘For example, it would be interesting to meet his parents. Are they coming over for the funeral?’

‘I don’t think they are.’

‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

‘Not really. I guess they’re old and they can’t face the trip. I’m telling you,’ Benson said. ‘You’re making it too complex. In my experience murder’s the most simple of crimes. Money. Women. Revenge. What else is there?’

Families, George thought. Fear. Failure. ‘I expect you’re right,’ he said.

‘So you’ll leave it to the sheriff’s department?’

‘I was wondering,’ George spoke slowly, ‘if I might visit Laurie Brownscombe.’

Benson looked at him, said nothing.

‘I thought she might speak to me. After all, I knew her husband. We shared an interest.’

‘Yeah. Birds.’ The word was deliberately unemphatic but Benson made his opinion clear. Birds were for shooting. ‘But you’re not gonna talk to her about birds.’

‘Probably not. At least not exclusively.’

‘You’re pushing your luck here Mr Palmer-Jones.’

George did not answer.

Benson shrugged.

‘She agrees to see you, I can’t stop you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Mr Palmer-Jones?’

‘Yes.’

‘You find anything interesting, you come to tell me.’

‘Of course.’

‘And you’re there as a friend of the family.’

‘I understand.’

‘Mr Palmer-Jones?’

‘Yes?’

‘You come to see me anyway.’

‘I’d enjoy that.’

Benson suddenly beamed. He sat forward and set forearms, as wide as shovels, on the table in front of him. ‘ Tell me,’ he said. ‘Do you ever drink beer?’

George smiled back.

‘At every opportunity.’

‘That’s settled then. When you get back from Houston you give me a call. You come round to my house and we’ll have a few beers. And you tell me everything that lady said to you.’

Laurie Brownscombe lived in a leafy satellite town to the west of Houston. George phoned her from Oaklands before setting off in the car he had hired from the airport on his arrival. She sounded dazed and confused but not too grief stricken to take hold of the situation.

‘Who did you say you were?’

‘A friend of Rob’s. I’m staying at the Oakland’s Hotel. He asked me to come out to represent his interests.’

‘You’re a lawyer then?’

‘No. Not a lawyer. Would you mind if I visited you? The authorities have no objection.’

She hesitated and he thought she would refuse.

‘Sure,’ she said at last, ‘ why not?’ And he thought that curiosity had got the better of her.

He had been expecting someone glamorous. Like the woman described by Jason and the florist. Too much make up and designer clothes. Laurie wore jeans and a T-shirt and her sandy hair was long like a girl’s. She’s in mourning, he thought. Did I really expect her to dress up for me. He remembered Julia screaming like a demon in the woods, then playing the part of affectionate wife in the restaurant, told himself that appearances were deceptive, but still he could not reconcile the two images of Laurie Brownscombe.

She let him into a spacious, air conditioned house. There were marble tiles on the floor. The living space was large, open plan, dotted with sofas and arm chairs. The effect was generally so bland and impersonal that it might have been an executive lounge in an airport. Only in the corner which had been turned into a study were there any individual touches: a Tucker print of a peregrine on the wall above the desk, a solid wood carving of a lapwing used as a book end on the shelf.

Laurie went up to the carving, stroked it.

‘Besides his clothes and his optical gear this is the only thing Mick brought with him from England when we married,’ she said.

‘Who did it? It’s very good.’

‘I don’t know. Some friend of his.’ She turned back to face him. ‘Palmer-Jones,’ she said. ‘That’s a very
English
name.’

He felt apologetic, as he did every time the double barrelled name was mentioned. It had been a pretension of his father’s. He had always hated it but hadn’t had the courage to change it while the old man was still alive. When he died it was too late. By then to have dropped either side of the hyphen would have been a foolish gesture. But it wasn’t something you could explain to strangers.

‘I suppose it is,’ he said.

‘You knew Mick?’

‘Not well. I think I met him when he was a student. At Cley. Dungeness. Birdwatching places.’

‘With Rob and Oliver?’

‘That’s right.’

‘The three of them were together when I first met them too. They were wild. I guess that’s why we got along so well.’

But you’re not wild now, George thought. The Laurie Rob described wouldn’t have lived in this anonymous house in this respectable suburb.

She seemed to guess his thoughts. ‘ We were young then. Things have changed.’

‘For the better?’ he asked.

‘Sure, for the better.’ She paused. ‘I know Rob thought of us as kindred spirits but I couldn’t be like him. Travelling. Living out of a suitcase. Moving from one rented apartment to another. It is like that, isn’t it?’

‘Pretty much.’ Though it would be more accurate, George suspected, to say that Rob moved from one girlfriend’s apartment to another.

‘I had enough of that as a kid,’ she said. ‘I like security.’

‘Mick gave you that?’

‘Yes he did. It was important to him too. He had a lousy childhood. His parents are still bastards. You know they’re not even coming over for the funeral? They wouldn’t come to see us wed and they won’t come to see him buried.’

They had settled at a table in the kitchen area. There was a coffee machine on the bench. She poured coffee into a mug and handed it to George. He took it and sat down.

‘Do you know why I’m here?’ he asked.

‘You said on the telephone to represent Rob’s interests. I don’t know why.’

‘The detective in charge of the case thinks he killed your husband.’

She set her mug carefully on the table.

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘They didn’t tell you?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t give them any reason to think that,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have done.’

‘Are you sure?’ George spoke sharply. ‘It’s not a motive they could have conjured up for themselves.’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

‘Apparently the detective thinks Rob has been infatuated with you for twenty years and when he met you again he couldn’t contain his passion.’

‘That ridiculous!’ But she hadn’t noticed the irony. She liked the idea. She hadn’t been so devoted to her husband that she wouldn’t have welcomed another man’s attention.

‘I know it’s ridiculous. That’s why I’m here.’

She stood looking down at him, considering.

‘Why don’t we go outside,’ she said. ‘ Sit by the pool. There’s some shade. The kids are upstairs. They couldn’t face school this week. I don’t want them listening in to this.’

The back garden was tidy, pleasant enough, uninspiring. George thought they probably had someone to look after it.

‘Tell me about your marriage,’ he said.

Why?’ She was startled but not offended. She’s as hard as nails he thought suddenly. I wonder what made her like that. She might have confided in Molly but she’ll never tell me.