Palmer-Jones 01 - A Bird in the Hand (9 page)

“Are you suggesting that Sally sent the letters to herself? Because she wouldn’t have known either. He didn’t phone her until Friday night. Anyway, why should she draw attention to herself?”

“In the hope that people would react in just the way that you’ve done.”

George carefully took her hand.

“I liked her too,” he said. He paused, and for the first time that afternoon his thoughts cleared. “Unless the letter-writer guessed that Tom would be out on the marsh early Saturday morning—and someone who knew him well and had seen the weather forecast could have guessed—the letters and the murder must be completely separate. That is possible, but it would be a very strange coincidence.”

Throughout the afternoon George Palmer-Jones had felt depression and lethargy settle upon him like a fine dust. He felt tainted and constricted by it, and he could not shake it off. He recognized the mood and knew that it would pass, but that did not help. It had not helped him to control the interview with Sally. His refusal to give an expression of unconditional belief in her had given the wrong impression. Now she would not trust him, and it had been important to retain her trust, because he knew that she was hiding something. He was conscious too of a deeper sense of failure that had nothing to do with the investigation. She was a beautiful woman, and he had not impressed her at all. She could not believe in him, and his pride was hurt. He was taunted by the certainty that he had missed an essential point; there had been some word or inflection or insinuation which should have been followed up. He had handled the whole meeting with abysmal incompetence.

He did not speak as he drove from Fenquay, through Rushy village, past the track which led to the marsh, to the White Lodge hotel. Molly knew better than to try to speak to him.

The hotel was set well back from the road in several acres of well-kept park, with cropped grass and some mature oaks. It had once been a pleasant country house, white and solid, a country gentleman’s house with stables, dogs and a well-stocked working garden. Now it was clean, bland, a replica of many other hotels owned by the same large company. There was the same expensive lack of comfort, the same absence of staff. They almost had the place to themselves. Only one other couple sat in the restaurant for dinner.

The food was indifferent—the garden had been superseded by the freezer—it was badly served and George’s depression deepened, turned to anger. Molly made no attempt to intrude. She had already forgiven his lack of tact with Sally. She too recognized his mood. They finished a tiny cup of lukewarm coffee and in a futile gesture of anger he got noisily to his feet. With more purpose than he had shown all day, he made for the bar. Molly stopped him:

“Not yet.”

He looked at her. She became, briefly, the focus of his temper.

“It’s too early to start drinking yet. Especially in that mood. I want to go to see Ella and Jack. You know that they’ll be offended if they hear that we’ve been staying in Rushy and haven’t called.”

Passive still, he allowed himself to be led to the bedroom to change back into his old, comfortable, birdwatching clothes. They left the hotel by a double door at the end of the reception area. This was a square room, furnished with low, impractical chairs in an unpleasant shade of orange. Another double door led to the dining room and bar. By the side of the receptionist’s desk was a door marked “ Staff Only” which appeared to lead from the main building to an annexe presumably housing the kitchens and staff accommodation. A bored, middle-aged woman sat behind the desk and discreetly read a magazine. She smiled brightly and dutifully as they walked past.

“Tom French must have left this way the morning he was killed,” Molly said as she walked out on to the gravelled drive. They both knew that she was trying to stimulate his interest, to lift his mood. “According to your report the last person to see him alive was the night porter, and surely be would be sitting at the reception desk. Which way would he have gone from here?”

George considered, involved despite himself. “Towards the marsh, I should think. Most birders usually start at the marsh. So he would go straight along the drive to the road, and then left towards the village.”

“Where do you think that he was killed?”

“I just don’t know. I don’t think that the police know. It’s a very large area for them to search properly. It was so foggy that he could have been murdered right by the side of the road without too much risk. I’m more interested in the problem of moving the body to the marsh. I wonder why it was moved. Perhaps because it was in a place where it would be immediately seen once the fog lifted.”

They had already left the hotel behind them. They took the path which Tom must have taken, along the drive with its avenue of trees, towards the road. It was still hot but the heat was oppressive and over the sea there was a mountain of thunder clouds.

“Mister. Hey, Mister.”

Even from the call they knew that the man who followed them was not quite normal. It was a wild voice, childishly excited. They turned to see a tall, uncoordinated man of indeterminate age, who was running. His feet scattered the gravel on the path, his loose jacket flapped open. As he reached them he grinned intimately. His teeth were grey and badly spaced.

“Hello, I’m Terry.” He held out a large hand to them, then dropped it uncertainly when there was no immediate response.

“Hello Terry,” said Molly kindly. He rewarded her with another grin.

“Nice lady,” he said. He patted her arm, then turned to George and asked automatically:

“Are you my friend?”

“I don’t think that I know you well enough to be your friend.” George was irritable. He felt that the situation was ridiculous and that he needed to assert his control.

“Don’t be so pompous, George. Of course he’s your friend, Terry.”

Molly smiled again at the man, who had turned hurt from George, understanding the tone if not the words.

“I haven’t got no friends here any more. Not since they killed Tommy.”

“Terry,” George said quickly before the man could walk away, “was Tommy your friend?” He spoke kindly, as he would have done to a child.

The man nodded and shuffled uncomfortably. In his transparent face they saw grief, but they only had time to see and to respond to this before it disappeared and his mood changed.

“Have you got any fags?” he asked hopefully, then, with a leer at Molly: “Are you going to buy me a present?”

“Did Tommy buy you presents?” George asked.

Terry shook his head in disappointment. “He never bought Terry presents. He never took me out neither. He used to go to the bar with Dennis, but they never asked me. And I was Tom’s friend.”

“Was Dennis a friend of Tom’s?”

Terry made a movement with his head as if he did not understand.

“We were Tommy’s friends too, Terry,” George said carefully. He did not want to frighten the man into a change of mood. “ If you talk to me about Tommy we’ll buy you a present. We’ll give you lots of cigarettes.”

“What do you want to know?” Terry was suspicious, but overeager to give the right information, to tell the man what he wanted to hear. As he waited for the reply, George realized that it was almost dark. The trees were black silhouettes against a colourless sky. Then, like a child who knows the answer to a test, Terry waved his arm excitedly. He turned his face towards them, and even in the fading light they could see that it glowed with pride and achievement.

“I know,” he said. “I know. You want me to tell you about seeing him dead that morning.”

“That’s right, Terry,” said Molly very gently. “ That’s just what we want to know. How clever of you to guess. Will you tell us about it?”

“About seeing Tom going down the marsh track?”

“No, Terry.” Molly could sense George’s impatience, and put her hand on his arm to stop him interrupting. “About seeing Tom dead.”

“That’s right,” said the man, nodding his head vigorously. “Dead. Going down the marsh track. In the fog.”

“Why don’t you tell me all about it, Terry? Start from the beginning. Where did you first see him? Was anybody with him?”

They could see that he wanted to tell them. He was fighting to form the words to tell his story, frustrated because he was so inarticulate. He nodded his head in answer to the last question. Then a car drove along the road and swung into the drive of the hotel. Terry was caught in the beam of the headlight, like an actor in a spotlight. The light had startled him, as an animal or a very small baby is frightened by a sudden noise. Before they realized what he was going to do he had run away, across the lawn and into the darkness. They called after him, but he did not seem to hear them.

George helplessly watched him go, confused by his story, but relieved that at last they had found someone who claimed to know a little about Tom’s death. He felt old and tired and knew that they could not follow him.

“I presume that he works in the hotel,” he said, “so we’ll have the opportunity to speak to him tomorrow. Do you think he knew something, or was he just making it up to please us?”

Molly considered, trying to compare Terry with former clients with the same degree of disability.

“He was certainly trying to please us, but I think that there must have been at least some basis of truth.”

“Why do you think that he hasn’t said before that he saw the body? The police interviewed everyone in the hotel.”

“Perhaps they only asked very specific questions and didn’t give him the chance to tell them. Or perhaps they confused him and didn’t understand him. I wonder where he lives.”

“Ella will know.”

They walked in silence to the village. Ella’s cottage was the first house they came to, opposite the Blue Anchor. It was a short walk. There was a moon, but the hot weather had turned to thunder, and it was covered quite often by heavy storm clouds. The wind seemed to blow the dark shadows and the moonlight across the marsh. The strange light and their encounter with the peculiar Terry gave the evening a dream-like quality, which heightened the imagination. Molly found herself conjuring a thick fog and a dead man moving, ghostly and magical, towards the shingle. George was attempting to visualize in a more rational way what Terry could have seen.

Ella was in the kitchen. The curtains were not drawn and they could see her from the road. She was asleep in front of the Aga, her legs stretched in front of her, one strand of her long, dark hair falling across her forehead. Jack was standing at the table, his back to them. He was skinning a rabbit, deftly moving the sharp knife between skin and flesh. Beside him, leaning against the heavy dresser, was a gun. He turned to take the jointed rabbit and the mess of skin and guts into the scullery, and saw them. He smiled a welcome, and beckoned them to open the door to enter, while he went to wash his hands.

The door opened straight into the kitchen. The warmth and the light dazed them, and the smell of dogs and apples and strong tobacco. The noise of their entry wakened Ella. She stood up quickly, wondering how long they had been there, hurriedly tidying her dress and her hair, using the uncurtained window as a mirror. She sat them in the two comfortable chairs, apologizing because there was no fire in the lounge, and after putting the kettle on the range, she perched on a little wooden stool. Jack came back from the scullery with tumblers and a bottle of whisky. He was a tall, thin, angular man. He was still a little in awe of his wife, proud of her beauty, and he was content to let her do most of the talking.

She was talking now, amusing them with a story of a young twitcher who had offended her by questioning the validity of a piece of information she had passed to him. Silently Jack poured out large drinks, passed them round. He caught George’s eye and smiled.

“Well now, Ella,” he said slowly. “Why don’t you shut up and let George ask you some questions.”

Shut up she did, without taking offence. She turned to George, smiling expectantly, full of curiosity.

“I thought this was a social visit. I didn’t know you wanted to ask questions. I thought all that would be secret.”

“It is a social visit, but you know everyone in Rushy so well that I thought you might be able to help. You’re friendly with the birders and the locals, and so, I suppose, was Tom.”

“Well,” she breathed, leaning forward, her elbows on her strong, shapely knees, her eyes gleaming with excitement, “ what do you want to know?”

“We’ve just met a rather strange individual in the hotel grounds. He says that his name is Terry. Do you know him?”

“Of course,” she said. She was a little disappointed. She had been expecting some dramatic revelation. “But he’s harmless, you know. He can’t be the one you’re looking for.”

“Oh?”

This was all she needed to provide them with a full life history.

“He came from the big hospital over towards Skeffingham. That must have been about ten years ago. The Lodge was a different place then, I can tell you. The major and his wife still ran it, and we had a lovely class of guest. I used to go in sometimes as a chambermaid if they were busy. They only had local staff then. The hospital asked the hotel to give Terry a job. The major took him on a month’s trial to do the dirty work in the kitchen, then said that he could stay. But he wouldn’t let Terry live in. He felt that he couldn’t take the responsibility with all the elderly guests, so the hospital looked for lodgings in the village.

“They asked Mrs. Black if he could stay with her. They explained that he’d be working long hours, so she wouldn’t see a lot of him. She wasn’t at all sure what to do. She needed the money because her husband Billy had just ran away with the barmaid from the Dragon at Fenquay. We talked about it and agreed that she ought to take him in. She’s never regretted it. I think she’s fond of him now, though she wouldn’t want to admit it, because folks would laugh. We’ve never had any trouble with Terry. The village is used to him now.”

“Has he ever been violent?”

“No.” She laughed sadly. “The village lads used to bully him and tease him. He’s bigger than any of them but he never had the guts to fight back.”