Palmer-Jones 03 - Murder in Paradise

by Ann Cleeves

  Chapter Ten

  George received no news from the police the next day. Would it have been different, he wondered, if I were doing this for a living, if I were being paid for it? Perhaps then there would be more resentment from the authorities and the job would be even more difficult. At about nine o’clock a plane came in. He expected that it would be the police, and when Alec’s car went past the school house towards the airstrip, the theory was confirmed, but the women who had brought their children to school, and stood gossiping in an excited huddle, told him that it was the Woollie Man.

  No one knew why he was called the Woollie Man—none of the clothes he brought into the island were made of real wool. Perhaps the islanders thought he must come from Woolworth’s, because that was the only cheap department store many of them had heard of. He was Sikh. No one knew his real name and he seemed not to mind. He arrived in his chartered plane every autumn, laden with goods to sell as in old days traders from the East must have arrived in Europe with silk and spices. In his boxes and suitcases there were denim jeans, cheap jersey dresses, nylon underwear, and machine-washable sweaters, but to the islanders they seemed just as exotic. He hired the hall and piled the trestle tables with his wares. He put a screen in one corner to make a changing room, because he knew that he would sell none of the skirts and dresses unless the women could try them on. He had a Glasgow accent, and a slick patter laced with good-natured humour, as he tempted his customers to buy the cheap, gaudy things.

  If anyone other than Robert had died, the Woollie Man’s visit would have been cancelled. Mourning was taken seriously on Kinness. But Robert had no family left to ensure that the proprieties were observed and no one else felt able to take responsibility. In many ways it was as if the death had never happened. There was no one left to grieve for him. And perhaps they were comforted by the visit. This was one law which had not been broken and they clung to that. The Woollie Man came every autumn to Kinness. So everyone went to the hall as they always did, even those who had no intention of buying. The Woollie Man brought a touch of excitement, a flavour of a different world. Some of the mothers had kept their children away from school just so that they could see him. They brought their offspring to the hall to see the Woollie Man as if he were Father Christmas in his grotto, then sent them back to their lessons.

  Will Stennet sat in the aeroplane next to the Woollie Man and felt foolish. He had always believed himself to be independent, yet he had allowed his mother to persuade him to return home without argument. He had been away for less than a week, and had just begun to enjoy the social life at school again. She had telephoned to the hostel the night before and told him she had arranged a place for him on the Woollie Man’s plane. To be summoned home now was the worst kind of deprivation: He would have to make it clear to his mother immediately that he did not intend to stay, but he knew that the task would be difficult and he felt sulky and resentful.

  Sandy and Agnes went with Alec to meet the plane. Agnes was desperate to see Will again. She wanted all her children near her. Robert’s death seemed to have shaken her calm and stability. She knew that it was illogical but she wanted Will at Sandwick so that she could see that he was safe. The house was so empty with Mary gone. It felt unnatural. She wanted a child to mother. Alec thought that his mother was being ridiculous.

  “You’re mad,” Alec said, glad to have something to shout about. “There’s not enough work on Kinness for the men who are here.”

  “Your father will retire soon,” she said. “ Will can work the Sandwick land.”

  “That’s crazy. He doesn’t know anything about farming. He doesn’t care. He’s only interested in birds and books and music. He doesn’t want to live on Kinness. He wants to go away to college. It would be disastrous.”

  But Agnes had persuaded herself that Will wanted to live on the island, and it was only the lack of work and opportunity which had prevented him. Sandy felt miserable. He wanted to see Will at home, but he did not feel ready to retire. He still had plans for Sandwick. He thought that Agnes was making a big mistake. The plane arrived almost immediately. Sandy watched as Agnes leaned out of the car window, trying to get the first glimpse of her son. Then she was out of the car and hurrying over the short grass to meet Will. Sadly, Sandy got out of the car and followed her.

  The three of them stood making awkward conversation, stamping their feet because although the sun was shining it was very cold, while Alec helped to unload the plane. There was not enough room for all of them in the car, so Alec drove away with the Woollie Man and his wares, leaving them on the windswept sheep-grazed hill. Will slouched gracelessly, and scuffed the grass with his boots. He had intended, as soon as he arrived, telling Agnes that his stay would only be a short one, but the depth of feeling in her welcome had thrown him off balance.

  “Shall we start walking?” he said. “ It’s cold hanging about.”

  He wanted to ask them about Robert’s death, but he was afraid of a new rush of embarrassing emotion, and they walked in silence. They walked down the track and had almost reached the road by the time Alec met them.

  Maggie was the first customer in the hall. She had come out to escape from Buness. The conversation with George and Sarah had worried her more than she would admit to herself and she felt unwell, with a piercing headache above one eye. At home she had felt restless and trapped. She was confused by this. Usually the house gave her power. It was her domain and she loved being there. Without the house and her role in the family she had no importance. She felt her confidence crumbling. She wondered what Alec was doing. He had been in a foul temper since coming home the afternoon before. She had asked him if he had seen George. Alec had sworn at her and accused her of sending folk to spy on him. She had wanted to discuss things calmly, so that at least they could agree on what they should say if there were any more questions, but he had refused to talk to her. She had remained silent at breakfast, because the boys were there, and immediately afterwards Alec had gone out without telling her how he was planning to spend the day. She was used to Alec’s bouts of childish temper and usually ignored them as she did her children’s tantrums, but now she wondered if his present mood had a more sinister significance.

  At the sale she was a discriminating customer. She hunted through a pile of clothes for a real bargain, checking every seam and hem, feeling the quality of the cloth between thumb and fingers. She realized, as she held the cheap cloth to her cheek, that she was frightened.

  James heard the plane and at Melissa’s insistence he telephoned Kenneth Dance to find out who had arrived on the island.

  “It’s the Woollie Man,” he said, expecting her not to be interested. He had gone to the sale in the past, but she had not seemed to like the things he had chosen to bring home for her.

  “Shall we go?” she asked. He was astounded. Usually a panic attack affected her for weeks. But since George Palmer-Jones had left them alone she seemed altogether stronger, more determined. It was as if she had something to fight for.

  “Shall we go?” she repeated. “I would like to.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. We’ll show them.”

  He did not understand. He was pleased by the change in her, but it worried him, too. It was all too sudden. Everyone on Kinness was frightened of change.

  “We’ll go, then,” he said, “but if you want to leave the hall, you must say.”

  “I won’t show you up.”

  He could not remember the last time they had walked out together, arm in arm in the sunshine. He felt that it should have been a Sunday. Kinness couples often walked out like that on Sunday afternoons when he and Melissa had stayed in the house. He supposed that there was work he should be doing in the croft, but this was more important. He could feel her body close to his as they walked. With every step she swayed against him and the sharp bone of her hip touched his leg. The closeness made him feel breathless, like a young boy out with a girl for the first time.

  When the
y approached the hall, her arm tightened on his, but she did not hesitate.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll go in then?”

  “Yes.”

  He held the door open and she walked ahead of him into the hall. Her back was very straight. People turned towards her, smiling. She smiled and smiled all morning and thought how clever she was to keep it up. Because she knew that she had nothing to smile about.

  Elspeth did not want to go to the sale, but her parents persuaded her.

  “There’ll be nothing worth buying there,” she said, knowing that it was only an excuse.

  “If you’re staying on here for a while, Ben will need more things for school,” her mother said. “ Hard-wearing things. Island wool’s good for Sunday best but it doesn’t wear well.”

  “Do you want me out, then?” Elspeth knew that she was overreacting. She wanted to cry. “ I know that you’re ashamed of me, too.”

  “That’s foolish,” her father said gently. “You stay until you want to go. We want you here.”

  “You want to keep an eye on me. You don’t trust me.”

  “That’s foolish,” he said. He and Annie shared the conspiratorial, slightly superior look of doctors coming to a decision about a difficult patient, which Elspeth recognized and resented. “There’s no point opening the shop this morning. Everyone will be in the hall. We’ll all go.”

  So she agreed to go with them, because if she had refused she would have been thought neurotic and ungrateful. They hardly let her out of their sight now. She longed to be alone. She had hoped that her time on the island would bring a kind of peace. She found it occasionally when lying on the short grass at the top of the cliffs watching the seabirds. She was drawn to the cliffs, and never spent as much time there as she would have liked. Her parents filled her day with chores and visits and she had little time to herself.

  Sometimes she wished that everything were out in the open. Then, at least, they would allow her to be alone. But she felt unable to take the active step of telling anyone about Gordon. She justified her silence by pretending that it was to protect Ben and her parents, but she knew that not to be true. She had never taken any active step in organizing her life. She drifted, like a fulmar hanging on the currents just below the cliff edge, and left everything to fate.

  Jim told Sarah about the Woollie Man when he came in for breakfast. She laughed.

  “Isn’t bringing jumpers to Kinness like selling coals to Newcastle?” she asked.

  “You’ll not want to go, then?” He was a little surprised. All the island women looked forward to the sale.

  “I don’t suppose I’ll buy anything, but I’ll go along.”

  She did not like to admit it to herself, but the thought of a day at home bored her. She had become used to the drama of George’s investigation. She looked at Jim—at the square, uncomplicated face and the square rugby-player’s body—and wondered, horribly, if she would ever be bored with him.

  “What else will you do today?” he asked.

  She was surprised by the question.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going out with George again?”

  “I hadn’t planned to. Would you mind?”

  He considered.

  “It doesn’t make it any easier for me,” he said. “Alec was going on about it this morning.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I said that it was your business and I trusted you to do what was right.”

  “Did you?” She was pleased by his answer but somehow daunted by it. Her decision to go with George had been unthinking, frivolous, and he made it sound so serious. “I’m sorry,” she went on. “ It can’t be easy for you. Do you want me to stop? I’m not really involved. I don’t know why George was so keen to have me there.”

  He thought about it, looked at her. He never makes any decision on impulse, she thought. Everything’s carefully considered. Then she thought that he had been romantic and impulsive in his love for Elspeth, and she disliked Elspeth for having changed him, robbed him of spontaneity.

  “I meant what I said.” He stood up, prepared to go out again. “I do trust you. Carry on if you feel you have to.”

  George Palmer-Jones had no intention of going to the sale until Alec’s car drove past the school house and he saw Will’s moody, teenage face at the car window. Will had been living at Sandwick when Mary had died. He was closest to her in age. Perhaps she had confided in him. Perhaps he knew her secret. The children were out to play and he walked round to the school room to tell Jonathan Drysdale where he was going.

  “It’s like a glorified jumble sale,” Jonathan said. “Everything he has to sell is trash. But they’ll all be there convinced that they’ve got a bargain.”

  “I think I’ll go and see what’s going on. I might buy you a present.”

  Drysdale was not amused. He went into the playground and rang the school bell with a bitter ferocity.

  Will sat outside the hall, on the grass, leaning against the outside wall of the graveyard. He knew that it was a churlish and ineffective gesture to refuse to go into the sale, but he felt manipulated and frustrated. It was quite clear that his mother expected him to live on the island forever. He would have to tell her that it was impossible, and there would be a scene. He felt, too, that some important information was being kept from him. Robert’s death had not been mentioned, and when they spoke of Mary it was with anger. They expected so much of him, but gave very little in return. He was wearing binoculars and began to look at the skylarks at the edge of the stubble field below him. For a while he forgot his family and became absorbed in watching the birds in the sharp, clear light. He stared at a smaller, more compact bird which attracted then held his attention.

  He was still there when George came along. George had only seen him a few times on previous visits to the islands, but the common interest in natural history was strong enough to allow the sort of easy conversation which usually comes with friendship. The boy heard him approaching, looked up, and smiled.

  “I think I’ve just seen a short-toed lark,” he said. “ I was wondering if I should go up to the school and tell Jonathan. He might want to see it in his lunch break.”

  “No, don’t go,” George said quickly. “ I’ll tell Jonathan when I go back.”

  They watched the bird together. George confirmed the identification, then there was a relaxed and friendly silence.

  “Why did you decide to come home?” George asked.

  “I didn’t decide. It was decided for me.” Will put down his binoculars. “What’s going on here?” The question came out in desperation.

  “Did your mother tell you about Robert?”

  “She said that he had died. In a shooting accident.”

  “I don’t think the police even believe that it was an accident. He was murdered. Like Mary.”

  “Mary fell over the cliff.”

  “She was pushed.”

  George thought that Will was going to cry. It was all too much for him to take in. His arrogance had disappeared and he seemed very young.

  “Why didn’t they tell me?” Will said. He was angry and upset. “Why did they hide it from me?”

  “I’m the only person who is certain that it was murder.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I don’t know yet. I need your help. Mary had a secret. She knew something about someone on the island which would have caused so much embarrassment that she had to be prevented from telling it. I believe that Robert found out about it, too, so he had to die.”

  “No,” Will said. “ It can’t have happened like that.”

  “Tell me why?”

  Will struggled to find the words to explain. “What matters is appearance. The whole island might know of something going on, but as long as no one admits that they know, life can continue as usual. It’s the only way, I suppose, that people have managed to live on top of each other for all these years
.”

  “But if Mary were to discover a secret like that, she would make a fuss about it. No one would be able to pretend, then, that they didn’t know.”

  “But you don’t understand,” Will cried. “ The secret probably wasn’t terrible at all. It was probably a little thing. Certainly nothing to commit murder for. It might be a major scandal here if the teacher refuses to go to church or someone kisses someone else’s wife after having too much to drink on Friday night, but it’s not a matter of murder.”

  George spoke quietly.

  “You believe you know Mary’s secret, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  He put his head in his hands.

  “Is it about Sylvia Drysdale and Alec?”

  “How did you know?” The boy felt cheated of the drama of revelation. He was surprised and annoyed.

  “As you said, it wasn’t a very well-kept secret. But no one else is prepared to talk about it. Can you tell me, in confidence, what was going on between Sylvia and Alec, and what the island, especially Maggie and Jonathan, thought about it?”

  “What does it have to do with you?” Will had recovered his poise, adopted again the pose of cool experience.

  “Does it matter? Do you want to protect a murderer?” The words were sharp and Will had no defence against them.

  “I’ll tell you,” he said, trying to pretend that the decision to speak was his. “It won’t do any good but I’ll tell you. Do you want to go somewhere more private?”

  George looked towards the hall. The people coming and going directed their attention to each other, and the goods for sale, and the turbaned Woollie Man. If anyone saw them, it would be assumed that they were birdwatching.

  “No. This will do. When did it all start?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Of course I was out at school until July. There was a big picnic the first fine weekend we were home—there always is—and then a dance afterwards. I didn’t notice anything. Sylvia looked lovely, but she always does. The women here say that she shows off, but it’s the way she is. She danced a lot with Alec, but they’re both fine dancers and they enjoy dancing together. She danced with other men, too. Maggie left early to put the boys to bed and later all the family came back to Sandwick for coffee and a dram. Alec wasn’t there at first and we thought he’d gone straight home to Buness. Then he came in. He was very drunk and seemed pleased with himself, boastful. You can never tell how much is true with him, and how much is wishful thinking, but he said that he’d just walked Sylvia Drysdale home. He started telling us what had happened when he saw that Uncle James was in the room and he shut up. Uncle James is the lay preacher.”