High Island Blues (27 page)

Trust me, Molly thought, to get one who can hold her tongue.

‘Then I’d like to speak to the head,’ she said.

‘She’s away!’ The woman’s tone was almost gleeful. ‘In Tuscany. We’re not expecting her back until the day before term starts. It won’t give us a lot of time, I’m afraid, to get things straight.’ Her disapproval at the head’s lack of consideration was compensated for by her delight at Molly’s inconvenience. ‘If you tell me what it’s about…’

‘No,’ Molly said. ‘I’d prefer to talk to Mr Butterworth.’

She found a scrap of paper in her anorak pocket. On it she wrote her name and the phone number of the pub where she was staying.

‘If Mr Butterworth does work here you’ll have access to his home number. Perhaps you could telephone him. Tell him that I was asking for him. It’s about Michael Brownscombe, an old boy of the school. I’ll write that name down too. If he’s prepared to meet me I’ll be at that number. I’m only in the area for another day. I think he would be very interested to see me and he would be disappointed if you didn’t give him the opportunity.’

She turned and walked away, ignoring the twittering questions of the woman in the suede boots. She drove back to the pub, though she would have enjoyed the chance to explore the town. The landlord was surprised to see her so soon.

‘Nose to the grindstone, is it?’ he asked.

He still seemed to believe the fiction that she was writing a book.

Butterworth phoned in the evening, just as she was giving up hope. He spoke softly but without accent. He was very nervous and she wondered how he faced a classroom of children.

‘Mrs Tiddy said you were trying to trace me.’ Before she had a chance to reply he added: ‘ I can’t tell you anything about Michael. I’ve not seen him for years. I don’t know where he is, even.’ There was a panic in his voice.

‘I know where he is.’

‘Well then. You don’t need my help to hound him.’

‘It’s not a question of hounding. I’ve news about Michael. I’d like to see you.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s not convenient.’

She spoke quickly before he could replace the receiver. ‘My husband’s George Palmer-Jones. If you’re a birdwatcher you’ll have heard of him.’

There was a pause.

‘Of course.’

‘May I visit you. This is really very awkward over the phone.’

He made up his mind very quickly, took a deep breath. She thought he was not used to committing himself to anything.

‘Tomorrow then,’ he said. ‘But not too early. I care for my mother. She needs my help in the mornings.’ Then briskly he gave her details of how to find him.

He lived in the Taw valley, seven or eight miles inland from Barnstaple. There was a lane with overgrown hedgerows, late catkins and primroses. Where five-bar gates blocked gaps in the hedge she had a view over water meadows to the river, to grey herons standing one-legged in the water and buzzards sailing over beech woods. The sun was shining.

It was a white stucco house with a grey slate roof, not very big or even very old, only impressive because of the garden. It stood side on to the lane. There was a white gate with enough of a lay-by beside it for her to park and still just allow room for a vehicle to pass. The garden was terraced, not tidy but already full of colour. There were no other houses. The sounds were of farmland; lambs and lapwings and the distant hum of a tractor.

She walked through the gate to the front door. There was no reply to her knock and she thought he had lost his nerve and run away. Then he came hurrying around the house to greet her. She thought she had been right and he must just have qualified when he knew Michael. He had the sort of ageless face which hardly changes between adolescence and senility, but the shock of fair hair hanging over his forehead made him seem young to her. He was wearing cord trousers and a thick, checked shirt. In his hand he carried a plaid rug.

‘Come down,’ he said, without introducing himself. ‘I was just settling mother out of the wind. She likes to be out and the rain’s kept her indoors for days. The sun’s pleasant but this breeze is still very cool.’ The voice was concerned.

Molly followed him down stone steps to a path through a shrubbery.

‘She’s blind,’ he said. ‘Almost entirely now. Diabetes. Nothing they can do. We have help during term time but in the holidays I like to spend as much time as I can with her.’

They came to a paved terrace cut into the slope of the hill, sheltered on three sides. In the centre there was a pond with irises and marigolds. To the side of the pond stood a large frog roughly carved from stone. It was two feet high and grinning.

Butterworth saw Molly looking at it. ‘Fun isn’t it?’ he said. ‘ It was given to me by a pupil. We like it, don’t we, Mother? The frog.’

‘Very much.’

He gave all his attention to his mother. She wasn’t much older than Molly. Certainly she was a great deal more elegant. Her white hair was immaculately cut and styled. She wore tailored trousers and a thick mohair jacket. Her face was made up. Molly caught herself wondering if Paul put on the make up for her and why the idea shocked her. Mrs Butterworth sat very upright on a wooden garden chair and allowed her son to tuck the rug around her.

‘I created this garden, Mrs Palmer-Jones,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to see it to enjoy it. Paul can’t give it the time it deserves but he keeps on top of it.’

‘I try,’ he said. He fussed around her like a hair stylist round a favourite customer.

So he’s told her about me, Molly thought. At least she knows my name.

‘You mustn’t bully Paul, Mrs Palmer-Jones. He’s always been a frail boy. He has trouble with his nerves. He takes after his father. She stared unseeing over the garden. ‘ My husband killed himself when Paul was three years old.’

She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone but it was a startling revelation to make to a stranger.

‘I hope I never bully anyone, Mrs Butterworth,’ Molly said quietly.

Paul’s mother smiled.

‘Nor do I,’ she said. ‘But I like people to know how things stand.’ She stretched out her hand and touched Paul’s arm. ‘ Take Mrs Palmer-Jones into the house,’ she said. ‘She won’t want me to hear what she has to say. Make her coffee. You can bring me some later.’

‘We won’t be long,’ he said. He was reluctant to leave her.

‘Go on. Be as long as you like.’

They sat in a conservatory to talk. The house itself was shabby and unloved. The coffee he made was strong and good and Molly thought he would be skilled at practical things. She wondered again how he coped with teaching. She asked him if he enjoyed it. It was as good a way as any to introduce the subject of Michael Brownscombe’s death.

‘I hate it,’ he said passionately. ‘I survive from one holiday to the next. The sixth form aren’t too bad. They’re interested and they want to work. And the young ones are all right. When they first arrive they’re keen because it’s all new to them. The rest is a nightmare. But I have to stick at it to keep this place up. Father left us the house but no money. Mother struggled to stay on when he died. She couldn’t bear to leave and nor could I.’

‘Tell me about Michael Brownscombe,’ she said. ‘ Was he one of the keen ones?’

‘Michael was one of the angels.’ He smiled. ‘From my point of view. Quiet. Well behaved. Some of the teachers thought that was unnatural. He was in the fifth form when I arrived at the school. Sixteen. I was twenty-two. I’d just finished my post-graduate teaching certificate. This was my first job.’

‘You introduced him to birdwatching?’

‘Not exactly. He was already interested.’ It seemed not to occur to him to ask why she wanted to know these things. She thought he probably had little ordinary social contact with other adults. ‘I wanted to make a good impression at the school. It was the only way I could see of staying in this house. So I formed a natural history society. To show that I was prepared to make an effort. That although I wasn’t much good at rugby I was willing to give up my Saturday mornings. It didn’t last long. A few boys and girls came along at the start. We went out locally and I remember I took them in a mini bus to Dawlish Warren. We entered a team in the County Bird Race. Then it just petered out. I suppose I didn’t inspire them.’

‘But you still took Michael out?’

‘Yes. He was a real enthusiast.’

‘Was there anyone else?’

‘What do you mean?’ He looked at her warily.

‘Did anyone else come birdwatching with you?’

‘No!’ The denial seemed too vehement. ‘Just Michael and me. And he couldn’t come every weekend. His parents were in the holiday business and he was expected to work, especially in the summer. He was young. He had his own life to lead. But I suppose we became good friends. I don’t think any of the other teachers knew. I didn’t ask him to keep it secret. There was nothing to hide. Not what you might think. I was rather ashamed that I couldn’t make friends of my own age. I suppose it seemed pathetic that I had to turn for company to one of the boys.’

‘You kept in touch when he went away to university?’

‘In the holidays, yes. And we wrote. I was pleased that he’d made friends. He told me about their birdwatching trips.’ He paused. ‘I suppose I was jealous. I had a hellish time at university. But mother started to be ill at around that time. I had plenty to keep me occupied.’

‘Did he tell you he was going to America?’

‘I heard that he was going.’ The answer seemed deliberately vague. ‘What is all this about?’ he asked. ‘Have you got a message for me from Michael? You said your husband knew him.’

‘Michael’s dead,’ she said. ‘He was murdered. At High Island, in Texas.’

‘So,’ he said calmly. ‘After all this time.’ He stood up and looked out of the smeared glass down the garden, then turned to face her. ‘I suppose I should understand it. My mother still hates my father. And he died more than forty years ago.’

The rules of the bird race were simple. Each team had four members. Three of the four had to see a bird for it to count. The object was to collect as many species as possible in twenty-four hours. All birds had to be seen on or from the Bolivar peninsula.

The I10 marked the boundary.

When the Oaklands team arrived at the Bolivar ferry it was still dark. The lights of Galveston were reflected in the bay. The team was using Oliver’s hire car. Oliver seemed altogether more cheerful, quite boyish, as if, in revealing his involvement with Sally’s fraud, the slate was wiped clean. He thinks he’s charmed me into believing him, George thought. As he would have done in the old days.

Rob was hanging out of the car window and smoking, the murders forgotten. Nothing was as important as winning the bird race. He muttered into the darkness: ‘You’d think the storm would have brought something in. This must be the best place to start.’ Nobody answered or took any notice of him. The muttering was a nervous habit like the chain-smoking. He could not stand the tension of waiting.

Russell sat in the back with George. Two old men together. Nothing had been said but they knew it needed someone with sharper, younger eyes to be in front to spot chance wanted species by the side of the road. Russell seemed to have lost something of the previous evening’s excitement. He’s worn out, George thought. Like me. He’s looked forward to this trip for so long, now he doesn’t have the energy to enjoy it.

George wondered what Molly was doing. He had phoned her before leaving the hotel. In England it would have been late morning. The landlord recognized the voice before George identified himself. ‘She’s still out,’ he said. ‘Went away first thing and I’ve not seen her since.’

George had felt let down.

It began to get light and they got out of the car. They identified birds on call before: they could see them properly. Hundreds of laughing gulls were roosting on the old pier sheds. Then the sun shone and they could start the race properly. George took notes and counted up the running total. Adult Franklin’s gull going north. Brown pelican. And just as they had decided that they had ticked off everything they could expect to see at the ferry there was a juvenile magnificent frigate bird. Huge. A seven-foot wingspan and a forked swallow’s tail. Ferocious, like some throw-back from Jurassic times, Oliver said. It had been blown from the Caribbean by the three days of storm. No one could have predicted it.

That set the tone of the day. It was like a dream. Wherever they went they saw all the species they expected to get, and more. George had never known a day’s birding like it. The birds Rob had staked out on his day of planning were waiting for them. The willet was still displaying on the post by the side of the road leading to the Flats. A solitary sandpiper was still in the ditch. As the day wore on and their score increased they stopped being surprised by their luck and took it for granted. When they bumped into competing teams who complained about birds they had missed they had to control their glee.

‘You always miss a few,’ they said. Though that day they missed nothing.

‘Well,’ George said to Russell, ‘it’s not much like the old Devon Wildlife Trust Bird Race.’

‘No.’ Russell shook his head as if he could not quite take it in. He tried to find words to explain how he was feeling but there was no time. They had to get back into the car and drive on to Anahuac. Rob was worried that they were running behind schedule.

They reached the Anahuac Wildlife Refuge at eleven o’clock. It was airless and hot. A heat haze stretched over the marsh to the horizon. By the visitors’ centre there was a public telephone and George called Molly again.

‘Sorry mate,’ the landlord said. ‘She’s still out.’

For the first time George was concerned. Perhaps he had misjudged the facts of the case and she was in danger. What information could a teacher have which would take all day to pass on?

As he turned away from the phone to return to the car he flushed a large brown moth of a bird which had been lying horizontally along the low branch of a shrubbery tree. Its dead leaf camouflage would have made it impossible to see if it had not moved.

‘Chuck Will’s widow!’ he shouted.

But there was no one to hear him. The others were in the toilet block, and he had to drag them out. Russell hopped out of the cubicle with his trousers round his ankles like a child in a sack race. But they got it. And it fluttered away over the marsh so the carload of birders who pulled up behind them had a brief, tantalizing, untickable view.