High Island Blues (13 page)

‘Yes,’ he prompted.

‘Rob sat at our table, didn’t he, Russ? And he was as relaxed as anything. He wouldn’t have sat there, chatting away, if he was planning a murder, would he?’

‘You went together as a group to Boy Scout Wood?’

‘In the bus. Yes.’

‘And did you stay as a group once you were inside the sanctuary?’

This time Russell answered. ‘We did for a while. Rob was talking to us, telling us a bit of the history of the place. And some of the party were beginners. They needed Rob to tell them what they were seeing.’

‘Those Lovegroves, for instance,’ Connie said darkly. ‘Never giving the man a minute’s peace.’

‘The Lovegroves aren’t expert birdwatchers then?’ George asked.

‘They haven’t got a clue!’ George wondered how much of Connie’s venom resulted from the fact that it was the Lovegroves’ evidence which had landed Rob in trouble.

Russell spoke more reasonably. ‘Everyone’s got to start somewhere,’ he said. ‘But you’d think they’d try to get to grips with birds at home before attempting something as ambitious as Texas in the spring. It’s just a waste of money, isn’t it? They could be seeing anything.’

‘Did the Lovegroves tell you why they decided to come on the West Country Wildlife trip in the first place?’

‘No.’ Russell smiled apologetically. ‘To be truthful I try to avoid them. Once they get you in conversation they stick like limpets. But I get the feeling that it was all Esme’s idea. Joan’s just here to keep her company. That’s the impression Joan likes to give anyway. That she’s long suffering and hard done by.’

‘Yes,’ George said. ‘I see.’ He supposed he would have to speak to the Lovegroves. He wasn’t looking forward to it. There was a moment’s silence, then he asked: ‘Can you tell me exactly what time it was when the party broke up?’

The Mays looked at each other. Connie answered: ‘ Not exactly. About midday I suppose. After the rain started. I turned round and saw crowds of people but no one I recognized.’

‘And you didn’t see Rob Earl after that?’

‘No.’ Russell replied sadly. ‘I wish I could say that we had.’

‘What about Mr Brownscombe? Did you see him at all?’

‘Yes,’ they chorused together.

‘Could you tell me about that?’

‘It was soon after we’d lost Mr Earl,’ Russell said. ‘ We wandered back to the sanctuary entrance. There’s a gallery there, looking down over a pool. Mr Brownscombe and Mr Adamson were on the bench next to us. We recognized them from the hotel and started chatting, comparing notes the way you do. He could tell from my accent that I came from the West Country and we talked a bit about the birdwatching sites at home. He still remembered them after all this time. I had the feeling, you know, that he might be homesick. He’d never gone back. It seemed very strange talking about Braunton Burrows and Fremington Creek with tanagers and vireos and orioles flying all around. Very strange.’

‘So Mick Brownscombe grew up close to your home,’ George said. ‘Did you know him when he was a boy?’

‘Not him. I suppose I might have come across him but I don’t remember. Know his father of course. Everyone knows Wilf Brownscombe.’

‘Oh.’

‘Biggest crook in the county,’ Russell May said. ‘He’s never been caught but that’s what everyone says.’

‘Does everyone say exactly what sort of crime he’s involved in?’

‘Mostly fraud I believe,’ Russell said. ‘ He’s very plausible. Persuaded a lot of people to invest in him. But he declared himself bankrupt a while back and they all lost money. He took local traders and suppliers down with him. Then he set up a new business in his wife’s name. Not doing exactly the same thing as before – not enough profit in that for Wilf Brownscombe. Retirement homes he’s into now. He can use the same hotels but charge twice as much. I don’t know what else he’s up to. He’s got fingers in a lot of pies has Wilf Brownscombe. But if you met him you’d think he was a lovely fellow. He’s famous for making big donations to charity.’

‘Is he?’ George said, and wondered if that was one coincidence too many.

George found it hard to sleep. At one-thirty he decided to phone Molly. She should just be waking up.

‘I think you should take a trip to the seaside,’ he said. ‘You deserve a holiday. Go to Devon and find out all you can about Wilf Brownscombe, the father of the murdered man.’

Molly, who was never at her sweetest before breakfast, swore at him.

Early the next morning, George took Oliver to the coast. They walked along the beach to the Bolivar Flats.

It had been arranged the night before during dinner. Oliver had been on particularly good form. Perhaps he was a little high as if he had drunk too much but no one would have guessed that a good friend had died a few days before and another was suspected of murder. Then George had suggested the trip to Bolivar and he had fallen silent, looked helplessly at his wife.

‘Of course you should go,’ Julia had snapped. ‘Why not? I should be used to your deserting me by now.’

‘Why don’t you come too?’ George asked, but she had laughed at that.

‘No thank you!’ she had said. ‘After all, I
am
on holiday.’

The day had started sunny but now there were sulphurous clouds which gave a vivid yellow light. They drove south until they hit the coast, then west along the Bolivar peninsula, a spit of sandy land with the Gulf of Mexico on one side of it and Galveston Bay on the other. The road was separated from the beach by dunes and scrub, and was so low that they could not see the ocean on the horizon, only the huge ships gliding down the Gulf. It was an optical illusion which made the boats seem to be sailing across land and with the odd yellow light gave the impression that this was a strange country where the normal rules of nature did not apply.

The road passed through the towns of Crystal Beach and Gilchrist. The wooden houses were built on stilts to protect them from floods and high tides. There were motels and shabby sea-food restaurants and small boats upturned on the sandy soil. At Rettilon Road, George turned off the highway to the beach. There they parked the car and walked along the shore to the marshland of the Bolivar Flats Sanctuary.

‘It reminds me of East Anglia,’ Oliver said. ‘Something about the low horizon. Perhaps the light.’

‘Do you get to Norfolk now? For the birding?’

‘Hardly ever. I don’t seem to have the time now with business, family commitments.’

‘Of course,’ George said, thinking that even when he had been busiest and the children were young he had found the time to drive to Cley in the autumn when the wind went easterly. But then Molly had understood, or he had always supposed that she had, how important it was to him to escape.

‘I suppose you gave a statement to one of the sheriff’s detectives,’ George said.

‘Yes,’ Oliver said. ‘ That first afternoon.’

‘Did you tell him that Rob was infatuated with Laurie?’

‘Not exactly that.’ Oliver gave an awkward giggle. ‘He asked about the relationship…’

‘And you told him that Rob was jealous of Mick Brownscombe.’

‘Of course not. But I suppose it’s possible that he jumped to that conclusion.’

You’re a lawyer, George thought. You knew what you were doing. So why did you want to focus interest on Rob? But he let the answer go.

‘Tell me about Mick Brownscombe,’ he said. ‘When did you last meet him?’

‘You know that. Twenty years ago. That’s why we’re here.’

‘But he came to London occasionally on business. He never phoned you up? He must have been lonely, stuck in a hotel room. He never suggested that you met for a boys’ night out or a talk about the old times?’

‘No,’ Oliver said. ‘Never. But then I would have been surprised if he had. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t find it easy to get on with people. He was shy, nervous. When we were travelling together sometimes he went days without speaking.’

‘So he was rather unprepossessing,’ George said. ‘At least that’s the impression I have. So why did Laurie choose him?’

‘I don’t know,’ Oliver said. ‘ I’ve often wondered.’ He gave a high-pitched laugh. George thought he had cultivated the image of a middle-aged buffer, elegant but rather stupid.

‘What about Laurie?’ George asked briskly. ‘Did you ever meet her in the UK?’

Oliver paused, then seemed to decide to tell the truth.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A couple of times. The first time it was much as you said. She was stuck in a hotel room after a meeting, bored. Too jet lagged to sleep properly. She phoned me at the office. Offered to buy me dinner. I was flattered I suppose. Curious. Anyway I agreed to meet her. We went to a French place in Covent Garden. It was hot. We sat outside. Isn’t it strange, some things you remember really clearly? Nothing much happened. We talked. Mostly about our families. About work a bit. Then I dropped her back at her hotel and went home. I got a bollocking from Julia for working late again.’

‘When was this?’

‘About five years ago.’

‘She hadn’t tried to get in touch with Rob too?’

‘She didn’t say. Perhaps she had but he was away on his travels. I preferred to think that I was her first choice.’ He gave another silly laugh.

‘When did you meet her again?’

‘More recently. Perhaps a year ago. But that was by chance.’

‘You just bumped into her in the street?’ George made his voice sceptical.

‘Of course not. It was at a party. An oil company was launching a competition. It was offering a sponsorship deal to the charity which came up with the most imaginative scheme for reclaiming industrial wasteland. Laurie was in London for a meeting with the oil company and they invited her along.’

‘Why were you there?’

‘I specialize in environmental law, George. I’m often wheeled out at these dos. The groups think it makes up for my charging well below the market rate for my services. I didn’t speak much to Laurie that night. I kept getting waylaid by eager young men from the county trusts wanting free advice. I hoped we might have a chance for a quiet drink later, but she just seemed to disappear. She had a long chat with Sally though.’

He broke off abruptly.

‘Sally?’

‘My daughter. Julia doesn’t much enjoy these events so I’d taken Sally along. She was up from Bristol for the week and she’ll do anything for a glass of free champagne.’

‘Your daughter is the Sally Adamson who presented the children’s natural history programme?’

‘That’s right!’ Oliver was obviously delighted by the recognition. ‘She was a bit depressed that night because the series had come to an end and they’d decided not to do another one. I brought her along to cheer her up. I knew she’d be the centre of attention. And I told her: “ You’re a real actress, my girl. You should be looking to the RSC or the National, not having to compete for an audience with monkeys and gerbils.”’

‘What did she and Laurie talk about?’

‘I don’t know. Work I suppose. Me.’ He smiled but George did not respond. ‘What is this all about?’

‘Did Laurie talk to Sally about a charity called the Wildlife Partnership?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did they ever meet again? Did Sally invite her down to Bristol?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so. It was just a conversation at a party. Why?’

‘Molly went to see your daughter, last week. Her name had been used in the advertising material of an organization called the Wildlife Partnership. Leaflets had been mailed soliciting donations. Famous people connected with natural history had been named as supporters without their permission. Sally was one of them. We were asked to look into it.’

Oliver was looking out over the Gulf of Mexico, concentrating very hard on a laughing gull, but George knew that he was listening.

‘Sally told Molly that she
had
heard of the Wildlife Partnership. It had been mentioned by a woman at a party. The woman was American. This all seems to lead back, don’t you think, to Laurie?’

Oliver lowered the binoculars.

‘You think Laurie was behind some sort of scam?’

‘I don’t know. Somebody was.’

‘Why would she bother? She can’t need the money.’

‘Do you know that?’

Oliver shrugged. ‘I suppose not. She just gives the impression of a successful woman. But then she would. A confidence trickster would.’ He turned away from the sea to face George. ‘ Do you think this has anything to do with Mick’s murder?’

‘I don’t know. It’s a possibility. If Laurie is involved in fraud it tells us at least that we can’t take what she says about Mick for granted. She had things to hide.’

Oliver walked on. The sun came from behind a cloud and threw a brown shadow ahead of him. A flock of waders flew out of the saltmarsh. George stopped to identify them. Were they greater or lesser yellowlegs? Greater, he decided. He pulled out his notebook and wrote them down.

‘I don’t like Sally being mixed up in all this,’ Oliver said and George remembered what Cecily had said about him: ‘he dotes on that child.’ ‘Somehow it brings it all too close to home. She shouldn’t have involved Sally.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t warn Laurie that she might be under suspicion?’

‘No!’ Oliver was impatient. ‘Of course not.’ He waited until George had caught him up, then he went on. ‘She’s reckless enough to do it. Not kill Mick. I don’t mean that. But set up a false charity. Print the leaflets. Not even for the money. But just to see what happened, to see if she could get away with it. When we met that night in Covent Garden she said that she was bored: “There are times, Ollie, when I just want to go out and make something happen.” Perhaps she did. Do you think so, George? Is that how it happened?’

George did not reply.

‘This is horrible,’ Oliver said. ‘ Julia was right. We should never have come.’

‘Why
did
you come?’ George asked. ‘It was your idea, wasn’t it, to keep everyone to the pledge you all made? To meet up again.’

‘Sentiment,’ Oliver said. ‘To recreate that sense of friendship. Looking back nothing seems as important as that. I suppose it’s just a part of getting old.’ Then he gave another nervous laugh and took on the pose again of brainless fool. ‘None of us is as sharp as we were George. We all look back to the good old days.’