Palmer-Jones 05 - Sea Fever (21 page)

She sat in a lumpy old armchair, drinking tea, enjoying the familiar bitchiness of social work conversation. They had given all their energy and generosity to their clients and had no compassion left for their colleagues. They discussed divorce, adultery, and the office power games with relish.

“So you know Jane Pym?” one said to Molly. “She was my supervisor when I did a student placement here. She’s a brilliant officer. She taught me an amazing lot! But I can’t stand her husband. Talk about arrogant! Have you heard the way he talks to her?” She lowered her voice in an excited whisper. “I wouldn’t be surprised, you know, if he didn’t beat her up. When I was doing my training here, I’m sure she had a bruised face.”

“Nonsense,” said another, sensing immediately the opportunity for gossip. “He doesn’t beat her up. He might be a sadist with the kids at school, but he wouldn’t dare touch Jane. You probably caught her on one of her bad mornings. She’d have had a hangover. I don’t know any other woman who can drink like Jane. Don’t you remember that party at the Housing Office last New Year?”

Then Molly was entertained by all the old stories which must have been repeated every time there was an audience. She was told about the senior who was so drunk that he tripped down the witness stand steps on his way to give evidence in court, about the local police superintendent who dressed up in women’s clothes, about the parties they attended so they could at last forget clients and enjoy themselves.

She could have stayed all day listening to the warmth of their conversation, but they began slowly to drift away and back to work. She was thinking that she would have to admit defeat and leave, too, when the door was pushed open to reveal a probation officer who had been in court. His arms were full of files, and he stood for a moment helplessly, then tipped them in a heap on an empty chair. He was prematurely middle-aged, balding, with little round spectacles. His suit was crumpled and poorly fitting and was obviously only brought out for the days when he was on court duty. On his feet were brown suede desert boots.

By now only the typists were left in the tearoom. Three of them sat in a row, knitting. They wore almost identical blouses and cotton skirts. One looked up briefly as the man came in.

“Mike,” she said, “This is Mrs. Palmer-Jones. She’s looking for someone who remembers Greg Franks or Louis Rosco. Jo says we should help her.”

He poured stewed tea from a big brown pot, blinked, and looked at Molly.

“I remember Louis Rosco,” he said. “I did the original social enquiry report, visited him a couple of times in prison, and supervised him on parole for a couple of months when he first came out. I expect the papers were transferred to Cornwall. He came from there. He won’t be on parole now, though. It would have ended ages ago.”

In time with each other, like the chorus of a musical, the typists speared wool with knitting needles, sighed loudly, and stood up. They filed in a line out of the room. Molly almost expected them to return and curtsey.

“What was he like?” Molly asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Louis is being held by the police in Cornwall in connection with a murder. As far as I can see, the only reason for his arrest is that he met the victim, Greg Franks, at a probation hostel here. I’m not convinced Louis had anything to do with it.”

“He never meant to kill that security guard in the boat yard,” Mike said. “ I saw him in the remand centre before he went to court, and he was really shocked even then. He was angry, too.”

“Why was he angry?”

The man paused. “ I think there was more to the arson than the police would ever recognise,” he said. “ Officially, at least. I know one of the officers on the case had his suspicions about it, too, but he couldn’t persuade anyone else to take them seriously.” He looked at Molly through his thick spectacles. “I went into a lot of detail to prepare the original social enquiry report,” he explained. “ More than I’d have time for now. I was just out of college. He was the first report on a serious crime I’d ever done. That’s why I remember the case so well.”

“Don’t you think Rosco set fire to the boat yard?”

“Oh, yes,” Mike said. “He admitted that as soon as he was arrested. But I think he’d been paid to do it. By his boss. Only his boss didn’t tell him about the security guard who paid routine visits to the premises throughout the night.”

“Why should anyone want to set fire to his own boat yard?”

“For the insurance money,” Mike said. Later, when she was to discuss this with Claire, Molly thought it significant that Mike had come so close to the truth. He did not have the details about Barnes, but they agreed that Rolfe’s version of events was confirmed and strengthened by the probation officer’s own enquiries at the time of the crime.

“Why didn’t Rosco tell the police that he’d been paid to start the fire?”

“Perhaps he’s not that sort of man. Perhaps he was threatened. Or perhaps the plan all along was that he should be caught and convicted—the insurance company would have to pay up then—but he was well paid for the time spent inside.”

The
Jessie Ellen
, Molly thought. The payment for keeping his mouth shut was the
Jessie Ellen.

“Did you suspect that Rosco had anything to do with drugs?” Molly asked.

Mike shook his head. “I can’t imagine there’d be anything like that,” he said. “According to everyone who knew him, he was quiet, respectable, hardworking. I found him hard to talk to. He only showed any animation when he was discussing boats. He wanted to go back to Cornwall. That was his plan all along.”

“When you supervised him on parole, did you meet any of his friends?” Molly asked.

“No,” the man said. “ We didn’t get close at all. He saw the parole commitment as a formality. He reported to the office when I asked him, but he gave nothing of himself away.”

“He never mentioned Greg Franks to you?”

“No,” Mike said. “I don’t remember that name.” He stood up awkwardly. Molly supposed he had other clients to see. “ Work,” he said. “If you see Louis Rosco, send him my best wishes. I regret sometimes that I never persuaded him to tell me what happened at the boat yard. I was inexperienced; I feel that I’ve let him down.” He shook her hand, and she could imagine his having made the same gesture of sad formality when he sent Rosco home to Cornwall.

Molly began to make her way out of the building to the street. She walked down the long corridor towards reception and noticed that the senior probation officer’s door was open. She hesitated at the door, thinking that she should thank Joanna, say goodbye. But the woman was writing a report with intense concentration and seemed not to notice that Molly was there.

It was almost lunchtime, and when she went outside, the shopping centre was busier. The chip shop was open, and a straggle of people stretched onto the pavement. Near the launderette there was a group of mothers with bin bags of washing perched on prams and pushchairs. They reminded each other optimistically that the kids would be back at school in a couple of days, and then they could have some time to themselves again.

“But at least it’s been fine,” they said, looking at the sky, where the wispy trails of cloud were becoming more substantial. “At least they haven’t been in under our feet for six weeks.” They were cheerful. Now that the holidays were almost over, they could laugh at the ordeal.

They took no notice of Molly standing, bemused, in the centre of the arcade. She was a scruffy little lady who might have come from the old people’s sheltered housing on the edge of the estate. When she took out an
A to Z
and studied the road map, the women thought she could be a social worker or someone from Educational Welfare checking that the regular truants were prepared for school.

Molly looked up the Pyms’ address in the index and then found the map. They lived in an area of the city which she would have to pass on her way back to the hospital.

There was time to walk back, she thought, and she could make a detour past the Pyms’ house, just out of curiosity. She needed the exercise and the time to consider all she had learned in the probation office. She set off down the windy main street towards the town centre, pausing occasionally to study the map. As her surroundings became more respectable, she recalled the events on the
Jessie Ellen
, given greater significance by the information she had learned about Greg and Louis. In a smart suburban shopping street, which might once have been a village high street, she stopped suddenly.

“Of course,” she said to herself. “Of course.”

The well-dressed women with their designer carrier bags watched her with sympathy and fear. Community care was all very well, they thought, but it let such odd characters onto the streets!

Unaware of their mistrust, Molly trudged on.

The Pyms lived in a solid Edwardian terrace not far from the high street. Molly walked slowly past the house, and while she did not actually limp, managed to convey that her pace was the result of arthritis, not undue curiosity. Now that she was here, the detour seemed a waste of time. She would discover nothing from the neat front lawn or the grey stone walls of the house. She was looking at the map again to find the quickest way back to the hospital when a woman came out of the house next to the Pyms’ and called to her.

“Excuse me,” she said. “ You’re not the woman who’s come to look at the house, are you? The estate agent said they might be sending someone. The For Sale sign isn’t up yet, but I can show you round if you like.”

“Please,” Molly said. “That would be very kind.”

“I don’t want to leave really,” the young woman chattered as she opened the door into the front room. “We’ve only just got it straight. My husband’s a do-it-yourself freak. He’s not really happy unless he’s doing up a house. But look at this new kitchen. I’d really miss the ceramic tiles. Would you like some coffee? I’ll make some when I’ve shown you upstairs.”

Molly said she would and waited patiently until the tour of the house was completed. She marvelled at the fitted wardrobes, the rebuilt bathroom, the extra bedroom in the loft. Only when they were sitting in the gleaming streamlined kitchen did she ask about the woman’s neighbours.

“What are they like?” she said, sipping instant coffee. “Neighbours can make so much difference to settling into a new home. Especially in a terrace.”

“I know what you mean,” the woman said. “ We had teenagers at twenty-eight until recently, playing the saxophone all night. But you’re all right. They’ve gone to college now, and they don’t even seem to come home for the holidays.”

“What about the people in thirty-two?” Molly asked. The Pyms lived at thirty-two. “ Do you get any trouble from them?”

“She’s all right,” the woman said, the urge to gossip stronger than the desire to sell the house. “
She’s
very quiet. Always polite but keeps herself to herself. Sometimes I wonder if she’s got some illness. Something progressive that develops early. She always looks so pale, and a couple of times I’ve been to the doctor’s and seen her in the waiting room.”

The woman seemed afraid that as soon as she moved, Jane Pym would make public her life-threatening illness, and she would be denied the drama of it and the satisfaction of telling people that she had known all along.

“What about the husband?” Molly asked. “ What’s he like?”

“He’s a teacher,” the woman said; then again discretion was overwhelmed by her pleasure in a good story. “ But he’s got a dreadful temper.”

“Oh?” Molly said, the ideal audience, wanting more.

“Terrible,” the woman said, and Molly thought that the Bristol accent was perfect for gossip, soft, confiding, friendly. “Last year we creosoted our fence. Roger Pym stormed round here late one night and accused us of killing all the plants in his garden. You could see it wasn’t true, but there was a dreadful scene. I thought I’d have to get the police, but he went quietly enough in the end. His wife made him see sense. We haven’t had much to do with him since then, but”—she paused to heighten the dramatic effect—“one of the neighbours says he killed their cat, strangled it with his bare hands, just because it was taking the birds coming onto their bird table. I knew when we first moved in that he was weird.” She lowered her voice and said in a shocked whisper, “ He’s a grown man, and he goes birdwatching!”

Soon after, Molly left. She thanked the woman for showing her around. She had other properties to see, she said. She was very impressed with the new kitchen but thought she might find it a little intimidating. She had enjoyed the conversation. It had really been very interesting.

In the hospital Molly and Claire found George still in bed but desperate to leave. He was a fractious and unhelpful patient, and the staff would have been pleased to be rid of him, too.

“This is ridiculous!” He was raging to the staff nurse who was trying to take his pulse. “You’ve seen the X rays. You know there’s nothing broken. So why do I have to wait for the doctor?”

“You’ve had a concussion and serious bruising,” she said. “Besides, I’m not supposed to have given you the results of the X rays.”

“This is madness!” he cried. “I should be in Cornwall. There are things I should do.”

He did not tell her that he had heard a gale warning through the radio earphones which hung round his neck like a stethoscope. Hurricane Erin had already hit parts of the Republic of Ireland and was expected over the south-west peninsula after dark.

Claire Bingham took them back to Cornwall. George was in no fit state to drive, and he felt that his nerves were already too frayed to suffer Molly’s speed and erratic braking. They left their car outside Gwen Pullen’s house, deciding it would be easy to get a train back to Bristol, and that they could collect it then.

In the car he listened to the women talking about the fire at the Sinclair yard, the lurking and sinister presence of Barnes, and the domestic habits of Roger and Jane Pym. At first he found it hard to make sense of the mass of detail. The connection between Greg Franks, Louis Rosco, and Barnes seemed so complex. Besides, he found it difficult to concentrate. While the women discussed the case, he daydreamed of black-browed albatross. It was only later, when they were crossing the Tamar Bridge that the implication of the women’s discoveries struck him.