Palmer-Jones 03 - Murder in Paradise (20 page)

“You do accept, then,” he said quietly, “that Robert was murdered?”

“No doubt about it,” said the policeman, glad to return to a point on which they would agree. “The gun was fired only a few yards from the victim. There’s no way that it could have been an accident. I doubt if we’ll ever find out who did it. They’re a close lot on the outer islands. I expect they all know who it was, but no one’s prepared to talk.”

“I won’t take up any more of your time, Inspector,” George said.

He felt the weight of responsibility. It was as if the police had given up, and had handed over the task of finding the murderer to him. He stood up and left the room.

Sylvia Drysdale had arrived at Lutwick before him. She must have hired a taxi, too. It would have been sensible, he supposed, to share one, but he had wanted to be alone. She stood, looking out to sea, watching for the first glimpse of the
Ruth Isabella
with a kind of fraught impatience. She looked as if she had not slept, and smoked cigarette after cigarette. Here in the south of Baltasay the visibility was even worse than in the town and a grey wall of cloud meant that they would not see the boat until it was almost at the jetty.

George walked up to Sylvia. More than ever now he wanted to finish the thing quickly. While he was standing at the bar, the night before, it had occurred to him that he should just fly south, leave Baltasay and Kinness, and never return. Even while he had been drunk, however, that had seemed impossible and his conversation with Johnson had made it essential that he complete the matter before he left.

“You must be glad to be going home,” he said. She did not seem glad. She seemed frightened, desperately unhappy.

“Yes.”

“Who telephoned you from Kinness?”

She stared at him blankly.

“What do you mean?”

“While you were staying in the hotel at Baltasay, a man with a Kinness accent telephoned you. Who would that have been?”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “The only phone call I had was from Jonathan.”

But she twisted the wedding ring round and round on her finger.

It was a monotonous journey back to the island and George looked at his watch with increasing impatience. The sea was flat calm and the mist was so dense that there were no seabirds to watch. After Alec’s outburst at the plane the day before, George had expected some comment from him, but he said nothing. Perhaps Sandy had explained that George was carrying out the investigation with his blessing.

As they approached Kinness the cloud lifted a little and there were a few moments of sunshine. Everything at the jetty there was the same as it always was. The men performed the acts of throwing and tying ropes with their usual easy grace. James was there with the lorry. The islanders worked together to unload the boat’s cargo. There were shouts of friendship, jokes, laughter. The island was green and fresh after the rain.

Jonathan had been waiting for Sylvia, and the couple walked together immediately towards the school house. George watched them carefully. He saw Sylvia smile at Jonathan but it seemed to him false and mechanical, as if she were still thinking of something else.

Sarah had been there to meet Jim. She waved at George, but she was watching her husband. She stood with the men on the lorry and helped to unload sacks of flour. He thought that he had been unfair to separate her from her new family by involving her in the investigation. He would complete the thing by himself. He saw Sarah and Jim smile at each other and thought bitterly: they don’t care that an old man and a child have died. It means nothing to them. The cloud came down again and there was a light persistent rain.

When he got to the school house, Sylvia was upstairs unpacking and Jonathan was alone in the sitting room. His hair was wet and tousled and he looked very young and confused.

“I don’t understand her,” he said. “I don’t know what she wants. You did give her my message?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that she thought it might be too late to make a fresh start.”

“She hasn’t said that much to me. She won’t talk to me. She seems so unhappy. I didn’t realize that she was so miserable.” He looked up from the fire. “ Do you think it’s too late for us?”

“I don’t know,” George said. “How should I know?”

It was nearly dark but he went outside. He walked down the road to the post office. The door was open and the light was on inside the shop. Annie was stacking shelves from boxes and crates which had arrived on the boat. Kenneth had just arrived back from delivering the island mail and was taking off his wet jacket. There was no sign of Elspeth and the boy. The Dances did not see George. He waited outside in the wet and the dark and he listened to them.

“Where are they?” Kenneth asked. His voice was low.

“She’s giving Ben his tea.”

“What was the letter she had?”

“It was from her solicitor. Bain lost his appeal.”

“That will be a relief to her.”

“Yes. She didn’t seem surprised. It was as if she had expected it.” Annie paused. She was standing on some steps, stacking tins of peas on a high shelf. She had a duster in one hand and was wiping tins before putting them on the shelf. She stopped her work, came down the steps, and approached her husband. She was still clutching the duster.

“She wants to tell everyone,” she said. “After managing to keep it to ourselves for so long. She says she can’t stand the strain of keeping it secret anymore.”

“But there’s no need.” His voice louder now and quite excitable. “The police said that they’d be discreet, that there was no need for anyone to know. I thought they were very decent.”

“It’s not that. She said that she’d decided to make it public before she spoke to the police.”

She waited, expecting some response from her husband, and when none came she continued:

“She says she had to face it. It was her responsibility and she has to face it.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Kenneth said. “I don’t know what to do for the best anymore.”

George stepped forward and knocked on the door. They were startled.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“What do you want?” Kenneth Dance asked rudely.

George walked into the room. The door was still open behind him and he could hear the island noises in the darkness: the sea and the animals in the field behind the house. He shut the door and it became just another room.

“I know about Elspeth,” he said. “I have to talk about it.”

They stared at him. The bewildered, gaping faces should have been ludicrous, but he understood their horror and felt only pity and distaste.

“Who’s been talking?” Kenneth Dance said at last.

“No one. Why? Does somebody on Kinness know about it?”

“No,” Kenneth Dance shouted. “How could they?”

“I was wondering if perhaps Mary knew.”

“The child? How could she have found out?”

“She was friends with Ben. He might have told her.”

“No,” Annie answered quietly. “You don’t understand. He won’t talk about it to anyone. The doctor explained that it’s too painful for him to think about it. She wouldn’t have found out from him.”

“I see,” George said. “I’m sorry. I had to ask. You do understand?”

They said nothing and he turned to go.

“Mr. Palmer-Jones!” Kenneth Dance called him back. “You won’t say anything?”

Dance knew in a way that the words were an insult, but he had to be sure.

“No,” George said. “ That’s for your daughter to do.”

George took the road to Sandwick. It was quicker over the fields, but there was no moon and he was not sure enough of the way. The extra distance he had to walk frustrated him. When he reached the house the lights were on and the curtains were drawn. Agnes opened the door to him.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” George said. “I was hoping to speak to Will.”

“He’s in his bedroom. Shall I call him down?”

“No. That’s all right. I’ll go upstairs to him.”

He knew that once Will came downstairs they would have no privacy. She showed him the way and he knocked at the bedroom door.

Will was surprised to see him, but welcomed him in. He was listening to a tape of an Irish folk group, but turned off the cassette recorder and moved books and files from a chair so that George could sit down. It was a typical teenager’s bedroom. The remnants of childhood were still there—the board games and photographs of footballers—but there was a CND poster on the wall and Will’s own sketches of plants and birds.

“Jonathan has just phoned,” Will said. “To ask me to go ringing with him tonight. He wants to catch the swans on Silver Water. I thought I’d go. It would be something to do. Sarah was here when he phoned and she’s asked if she can come, too.”

“I want to talk to you about Elspeth,” George said. “You know, don’t you, why she was so upset at the sale in the hall?”

“No,” Will said quickly. “I don’t know.” But he was blushing.

“We don’t need to discuss it,” George said. “I don’t want to know any details. I just need to know if you told anyone else.”

The boy hesitated.

“Of course not.”

“You didn’t tell Mary? Didn’t you even hint to her that Elspeth might be hiding something she might be ashamed of?”

“Of course not. How could I? Mary was dead.”

“Then you didn’t see the report of the original court case last March?”

“No. I didn’t know anything about it until I went out to school on Monday. I don’t usually buy a paper, so I didn’t read about the case in March. Someone had left a paper on my seat on the bus which collected us at Lutwick and took us to the high school. I recognized Elspeth at once. It was horrible. I hid the paper in one of my bags so that the younger children wouldn’t see it.”

“So you didn’t know about Elspeth before Mary died; you couldn’t have told her?”

“No.”

George had been so sure that he had found Mary’s secret at last. He had been certain that the child had learnt enough about Elspeth’s past to taunt the Dance family, even if she did not realize the implications of what she said. He had been convinced that Will had seen the publicity surrounding the original court case and had passed the information to Mary. Now it was impossible. If Mary had no way of knowing that Ben had been ill treated and that Elspeth and her husband had been in court, then the theory would not work and he would have to start from the beginning again.

Will sat hunched on the bed and waited for more questions, but George left the room and almost ran down the stairs. At the bottom Sandy was waiting for him.

“George,” he said. “My friend. Have you anything to tell us? The police were here again yesterday asking questions but they won’t talk to me.”

“No,” George said. “ I thought that I’d come close to it, but it won’t work.”

“You will find out?”

“Yes. I’ll find out.”

It was a relief to be outside again, away from the questions, the worried faces. It seemed that the stability of the island, preserved by the philosophy of keeping up appearances, was under threat, and that the strict code of conduct was not strong enough to prevent the tension and anger coming to the surface and exploding. It’s not fair, he thought. It’s not really my business. It shouldn’t be my responsibility to hold the place together.

He was angry with himself because he had relied so heavily on the theory that Mary had known about Elspeth, but he could not relinquish it. Perhaps Kenneth and Annie are lying, he thought. Perhaps Ben talks about his father being in prison to anyone who will listen, but they don’t want to admit it. For a moment he thought he would return to the post office, demand to see the child, ask him if he had grown close enough to Mary to confide in her. But that was clearly impossible.

Jonathan might know, he thought with a spark of hope. If Ben had mentioned his father at school or if he and Mary were especially close, then Jonathan should know.

In Unsta, on the surface at least, there was no sense that that the structure of the island was under attack. Sarah and Jim sat in complacent cosiness by the kitchen fire. There was a sports programme on the radio, but they were not listening to it. Jim was reading. He had been up early to go out with the boat. Sarah felt very healthy and well, physically content. She had been up early too, to help Maggie with the Buness milking. She missed the challenge and commitment of nursing more than she had expected, but she was, slowly, starting to make herself useful. Physical activity had become a reasonable substitute.

Sarah lay back in her chair and stretched her stockinged feet towards the fire.

“I’m not sure I want to go out tonight now,” she said.

Jim grunted, turned lazily towards her, and looked up from his magazine.

“You don’t need to go,” he said. “ Give Will a ring. He can go by himself.”

“No,” she said. “I promised. And it’ll be interesting. Besides, I want to find out why George went to Baltasay.”

He put down his magazine.

“I don’t think you should meddle with that anymore,” he said. “Not now that the police are involved.”

“Do they really believe that Robert was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” she said. “ When George was talking about Mary being pushed over the cliff, he was very plausible and convincing, but I never took it seriously. Then Robert was shot and it all started again.” She took Jim’s hand. “The police did believe that you were just shooting rabbits on our land?”

“I think so. They were more interested in finding out about the old man and who had a grudge against him.”

“He seemed harmless enough,” she said. “ I can’t imagine him offending anyone.”

“He was an irritating old fool, always on the scrounge, sticking his nose into other people’s business. No one here liked him.”

“But you can’t think of anyone who would have murdered him?”

“Perhaps not. But I can’t think of many who would rock the boat to find out who did.”

She was quiet. She did not want to spoil their peace together with an argument, but it seemed quite wrong to her. She began to move around, finding warm clothes and waterproofs.