Come Death and High Water (George & Molly Palmer-Jones)

by Ann Cleeves

  “It’s for you,” she said. “Graham Connibear.” They had been living in Gillicombe for ten years. In another ten he would have retired. Yet he still marvelled at the change in her. Graham Connibear was one of his detective constables. That meant that the call was probably a summons to work, but there were no tears, no pleas that he refuse to go. He missed the pace, the urgency of city policing, but perhaps it was a small price to pay.

  His first reaction to the news of the Gillibry murder was a feeling of well-being, of health. His hangover disappeared. He felt immediately more vital. But his voice was restrained. Mary was listening.

  “Sort out transport,” he said. “Notify the scene-of-crime team and the pathologist. And I’ll want a map of the island and some facts about it. Who lives there and what goes on there. I’ll come now. I’ll be in the office in a quarter of an hour.”

  Mary looked up from the newspaper. “Work?” she asked. “Anything special?”

  He hesitated. She would hear about it on the radio. “ Murder,” he said. “ Over on Gillibry, that island in the estuary. I expect it’ll be straightforward. They usually are. But it should be interesting. It’ll take some special organizing. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  He spoke gently, but she recognized the excitement. She smiled. She had long ago lost the habit of panic.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll look forward to hearing all about it when you get home. I’ll expect you when I see you.”

  It was a dismissal.

  Connibear was waiting for him in his office. He was flushed and excited, but in a file on his superior’s desk, was a large scale ordnance survey map of the island, a typewritten sheet explaining the function of the observatory, and even an old observatory report. Connibear needed a haircut. In any other circumstances Savage would have told him so, but today the superintendent ignored him, sat at the desk and read the notes with a desperate intensity. Savage was very thin, drawn, as if his body had been ravaged by disease, but the flesh had been burnt away not by illness but by a restless, insatiable energy. It had not made him popular in the force. He looked up from the papers.

  “Stop dithering, lad,” he said to Connibear, who hovered just inside the door. Except for his training, and a holiday to Malta, Connibear had never been outside North Devon, and Savage, with his Liverpool accent, his Catholicism, his passion, was foreign, unpredictable. “Have we got transport?”

  “Yes sir, Land Rovers. And according to Mr. Lansdown, the observatory warden, we can drive across now.”

  “We’d better go, then.” He moved remarkably quickly and was out of the door before his constable.

  The two men rode together in the first Land Rover. The sand blew in pretty swirls low over the shore and rattled against the windscreen.

  “Do we know anything about the victim?” Savage asked. “Todd is a big name in Gillicombe, isn’t it?”

  “Everyone knows Charlie Todd, sir. He’s a character in his own right. But the family is an institution. They employ a lot of people.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Old man Todd, Charlie’s father, started off as proprietor of the Grand Hotel, on the prom. It really was grand too, in those days. Grand, but old-fashioned. He tarted it up, put in a few more bathrooms, a swimming pool, encouraged coach trips to stay there. Turned it into a sort of high-class holiday camp. Then he started buying land, before prices really rocketed. He never seemed to have any trouble getting planning permission for the development. He owns all those caravan sites and chalets on the other side of the coombe. Since then the Todds have branched out into gift shops, cafés. I’ve heard it said that they own half the property in the High Street, but you’d have to check on that. Old man Todd had three sons …”

  “Is he still alive?” Savage interrupted.

  “The old man? I believe so, sir. He’d be nearly ninety now. My gran went to the board school with him.”

  “Go on. You said he had three sons.”

  “Sir. Ernest, Laurence and Charlie, and there was one daughter. I can’t remember what she was called, but she married another local businessman, called Sandiford. It was seen as a bit of a business merger, but I think that the Todds got the better deal. They still live locally. They had a daughter, and she married …”

  “All right, lad. We’ll skip the detailed family tree for now, shall we? What about the sons?”

  “Sorry, sir. Ernest helped his father at the Grand for a while, then he took charge of all the caravan sites and that holiday camp on the hill. They called the business Todd Leisure Enterprises. I suppose that they formed some sort of company. Laurence was involved too, though I’m not sure what he does.

  “By all accounts Charlie was always a bit—odd. Not simple exactly, but not quite normal. His mother was quite a few years older than Albert, the old man. They say he married her for her money not her looks, and she must have been well into her forties when Charlie was born. Ernest and Laurence went to school here in Gillicombe and left at fifteen to work for their father. I know that, because Ernest was on the board of governors when I was at school, and he told us so every speech day. I suppose because he was a bit slow, Charlie got sent away to some private place.

  “Apparently the old man wanted to make Charlie manager of the Grand when Ernest set up Todd Leisure, but he soon realized that it wouldn’t do. When Charlie came back after National Service he was a bit wild. There was a scandal, I think, about girls in the town. One of them was under age. The parents made a fuss. Old man Todd tried to have Charlie locked up in some sort of mental clinic, but the doctors wouldn’t certify him. His mother had died by then. Albert gave up any hope of Charlie earning his own living, and offered to pay him an allowance if he promised to keep away from Gillicombe. I don’t think it was specially generous, but Charlie seemed to manage on it. He didn’t quite keep his part of the bargain, though. You quite often saw him around Gillicombe.”

  Savage was astounded. Connibear was thirty-five. How could he know what had happened to an unrelated family years before his birth? Even allowing for the curiosity of Gillicombe people, the Todds had made an enormous impact on the folk history of the place.

  “But I thought that he bought the island,” Savage said. “ How did he manage that on a not very generous allowance?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of Charlie Todd, sir? He’s famous. He wrote children’s stories. Smashing stories they are, too. My kids love them. But he only became famous about ten years ago. Before then he had a peculiar life-style. I met him once in a pub. I was only a youngster and I thought he was a real character. Every winter he worked as Father Christmas in one of the big London stores. Then he would go to the Cold Research Council place for a few weeks. He had a friend with a smallholding in Cornwall and he’d go and help out there, until the school summer holidays, when he ran a Punch and Judy stall at St. Ives. Autumn was fruit picking in Kent, and then it was back to London for the season as Father Christmas.”

  “But he settled here when he started writing stories?”

  “I suppose so. He had a cottage down the Storr Valley. I think he still did his stint as Father Christmas. He told me that he loved that.”

  “Who’s that?” Savage interrupted sharply. They were approaching the south end of the island. A figure was walking towards them, a scarf around his face to protect him from the blowing sand.

  “It’ll be John Lansdown, the warden, I should think. He said that he would walk down to meet us. The route on to the island over the rocks is a bit tricky. He was afraid that we’d get the Land Rovers stuck.”

  Savage said nothing.

  John had found Elizabeth in the kitchen. He had still been shaking, but when he told her of Charlie’s murder, she had been calm, very practical. She had offered to tell the others the news of Charlie’s death, and had sent him out to meet the police. He had wanted Elizabeth to go with him, but she refused. She would ring the bell, as if for coffee, and when everyone was gathered in the common room, she would tel
l them. Then she would go out to meet George and tell him. She would be quite safe. She would feel better for telling George.

  In the Land Rover Connibear introduced himself and his superior. Savage remained silent, but John was aware of him, and was nervous because of him. He pointed out the track. As they drove past the Wendy House he wondered if he should explain that Charlie had lived there, but somehow he felt unable to speak. He supposed that it was shock.

  The Land Rovers stopped at the observatory, but Superintendent Savage went straight to the hide. He sent Mark and Nick back to the observatory. He was curt but not unfriendly. He smiled at them. He did not stay there long. In the hide there was not, after all, much for him to see or do. It was the time for the pathologist and the scene-of-crime team. In the cramped space of the hide he was only in the way, and he could feel that his restlessness and impatience irritated the other officers. The wind was still blowing hard as he walked back to the observatory. He pulled his mackintosh around him and was conscious of a deep, spontaneous happiness, followed immediately by guilt. By an effort of will he drove the guilt away. Why should he not enjoy the investigation? He had been trained for just this sort of case, and he had so little opportunity now to exercise his skill.

  Connibear and John Lansdown were still standing by the Land Rovers. They were looking at a tide table.

  “Where are all the residents?” Savage asked.

  “In the common room with one of the uniformed blokes.”

  “So what’s the implication of the tide time?”

  “Crucial, sir. High water was at 7.46 a.m. so there would have been no access to the island after 5.30 this morning.”

  Savage turned to John. “ What about by boat?”

  John shook his head. “Impossible in the sort of wind that there was this morning.”

  “And what time did you find him?”

  “Ten past nine. I’m quite certain because I was hoping to start the seawatch at nine and I realized that we wouldn’t make it.”

  “Gillibry was still cut off from the mainland at that time?”

  “Yes. It would be possible to start walking from the mainland then, but you wouldn’t be able to cross the gully until nearly ten.”

  Talking to himself Savage said: “The pathologist should be able to give us a more accurate time of death.”

  Then to John: “ There would have been no reason for Mr. Todd to be in the hide before 5.30?”

  “None at all. He was there to do a seawatch. There would be no point in being there before it was light.”

  “As far as you know, no one left the island after the tide this morning?” Savage looked at the flat expanse of shore and added: “It would be difficult to slip away unnoticed.”

  John shook his head. “ I didn’t see anyone, and I think that I would have done, but you should ask George, George Palmer-Jones. He walked over straight after the tide and arrived at the same time as your Land Rovers.”

  Savage looked up suddenly at the sound of the new name, but did not comment. “Since we arrived I’ve had two men searching the island and keeping an eye on the shore.” He turned to Connibear. “They haven’t turned anything up?”

  “They’re not back yet.”

  “Have you sorted out about an office?”

  John answered. “ There’s the bird room,” he said tentatively. “We do the ringing there and it holds all the ringing equipment, but I use it as an office too. There’s a telephone extension, a desk, even an old typewriter if you needed it.”

  “That sounds ideal.”

  “Do you want to see it?”

  But Savage felt suddenly impatient with these preliminaries. He wanted to get to the heart of the investigation immediately.

  “Not yet,” he said. He turned to John and smiled, unexpectedly. “If you will, Mr. Lansdown, you’ll show me to the common room. I think it’s time for me to meet everyone.”

  Chapter Four

  In the common room they sat separately, without talking. Occasionally, as if it were some nervous tic, Doctor Derbyshire cleared his throat, seemed about to speak, but never did. Jasmine Carson still read the bird log, but the hand which held the book was shaking, and once she wiped tears from her eyes.

  Foolish old woman, she said to herself. You didn’t even like him. She knew though that she was not weeping for Charlie, but for her brother, killed in the war. Any sudden death brought back the grief, even a news item on the radio or in the newspaper. Silly old woman, she thought again. What will they all think? And she tried to concentrate on her book. Paul Derbyshire found the silence constricting and unnecessary. He wanted to talk. Of course murder was terrible, quite terrible. His mouth formed an embarrassing smile and he quickly erased it. Murder was terrible, but there were more important matters now to be decided. He disliked unpleasantness, and he tried to conjure a more agreeable image: the face of a girl, a slim, athletic body, but even to him that seemed tasteless, inappropriate. His thoughts drifted back to Charlie. What a horrible little man he had been, a threat to all that was important and lovely.

  Pamela Marshall caught Paul Derbyshire’s eye. She smiled beautifully and enjoyed his response, his pleasure at her attention then his sudden embarrassment. What an old woman he is, she thought. He’s just dying to have a good gossip. He doesn’t realize the danger at all. We shall all have to be careful about what we say. I must talk to Jerry.

  Jerry Packham felt physically ill and wondered what would happen if he asked to go to the bathroom. Would someone accompany him?

  Elizabeth was planning lunch. Soup first, then something cold and quick. She supposed that the policemen would cater for themselves.

  Mark realized that he would never enjoy coming to the island again, and grieved more for that loss than for the loss of a man he had hardly known. Will Jonathan be pleased, he thought, or will his uncle’s death be of as little importance to him as it is to me?

  Nick remembered his mother’s death. At least Charlie had died quickly. Then all the old bitterness returned and he knew that Charlie’s death had changed nothing.

  George Palmer-Jones watched everyone, wondered what they were thinking, and tried to suppress a rising and unsuitable curiosity.

  When Savage walked in he seemed to bring all the energy of the storm with him. They looked at him with interest. He was impressive enough, though at first it was hard to explain why he impressed. He was only just tall enough to be a policeman, and slight. It was the extraordinary, drawn face which held their attention and the power and self-confidence which impressed them. There was something Celtic about his dark eyes. Palmer-Jones expected him to be Welsh or Scottish, and the Merseyside accent came as a surprise. He was courteous, but they all felt that he found the formalities irksome and that he was impatient to be elsewhere. While he was talking his eyes moved around the room, and the intensity of his stare contradicted the politeness of his words.

  “I must apologize for not having introduced myself before,” he said, “and for asking you to wait for me here. I’ll be asking you to be patient for a bit longer, I’m afraid. I’ll explain as briefly as I can what we plan to do. I’m sure that you will co-operate.”

  He was standing just inside the door, with Connibear on one side of him and John on the other.

  “Mr. Lansdown has kindly offered us the use of a room, which we will be using as an office. Throughout the day I shall be speaking to each of you. The interview will be taped, but I can assure you that the conversations will be confidential and that no information will be passed on or used unless it is relevant to our inquiries.

  “In the meantime I would like to ask your permission for our men to search your rooms and to take dust and fibre samples from your clothing. Of course you can be present while the search is taking place, but I think that you’d be more comfortable here.”

  He paused, took the silence as consent to his plans, then continued: “The officers will come to see you here. One of my men might ask you to remove certain items of clothing, so
that they can be taken away for tests. I can assume that no one has changed during the morning?”

  Once more there was silence.

  “The officers will ask you to show them your coats and outdoor shoes, and again I would ask you to be co-operative.

  “I understand that you all planned to spend the night here and to return to the mainland tomorrow. I understand that it will be distasteful to you to stay here in the circumstances, but I would be grateful if those arrangements could be maintained. Of course if anyone chooses to leave, he is free to do so, but I’m sure that you can appreciate how much more convenient it will be if we are able to complete at least the preliminary interviews under one roof.”

  It was as if he had completed a set speech. He relaxed, then, and beamed at them, as if they were well-behaved children.

  “That’s splendid. Now, are there any questions?”

  Elizabeth felt that she should raise her hand as if she were at school, but managed to restrain the impulse.

  “I’ll need to go to the kitchen to prepare lunch,” she said. “ That will be allowed?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But perhaps you could wait until my officers have been in to see you.”

  She nodded.

  “Now Mr. Lansdown,” Savage continued, “ perhaps you could show me your ringing room. I know that you’ve spoken to DC Connibear, but I’d be grateful for your help for half an hour or so.”

  John looked helplessly at Elizabeth and at George Palmer-Jones, then followed the two policemen out of the room.

  There was a uniformed policeman in the bird room, and he had rearranged the furniture so that it was no longer familiar to John. Savage sat on one side of the desk and motioned John to sit at the other. The uniformed policeman had disappeared and Connibear stood somewhere out of John’s line of vision.

  “Right then,” Savage started. He leaned forward on the desk and concentrated his attention on John. John found the dark eyes intimidating and turned away from them. “I don’t know anything about the set-up here. So you tell me all about it, and exactly where the deceased came into it all.”