Palmer-Jones 03 - Murder in Paradise (21 page)

“Perhaps you’d better not go tonight,” he said. “ Palmer-Jones has been asking a lot of questions. It isn’t liked. They think he’s some sort of police spy. Perhaps you’d better keep your distance.”

“Will is going.”

“He’s still a boy.”

“You said that I should do what I thought was right.”

She thought that he was going to persist, demand that she stay at home, but he shrugged. “You’d better go, then,” he said.

She sat down again on the chair by the fire and began to lace up her boots.

“I’d better walk up to Sandwick with you,” he said, trying to be friendly again. She smiled at him, grateful for his effort.

“No,” she said. “ Will is coming here to collect me.”

“Take care, then.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “No one’s going to shoot at me.”

George could not understand why Jonathan was so obsessed with catching the swans. The whole thing seemed to him to be a nightmare. He had expected that Jonathan would have used the time while George was at the post office, to talk to Sylvia. He had thought that they would have had a quiet meal together, that they might have reached some understanding about leaving Kinness. But when he returned to the school house from Sandwick, Jonathan was frantically gathering rings and pliers ready for the expedition and Sylvia was nowhere to be seen.

“We’ll get them,” Jonathan said. “Tonight, we’ll get them.”

“Why the rush? Why tonight?” He had other things to discuss with Jonathan.

“There’s no moon,” Jonathan said, “and the birds could go at any time. Will and the Stennet girl are coming, too.”

“I know. Where’s Sylvia?”

“She’s coming with us. She’s just gone to get ready. We were waiting until you came back to eat.”

“I thought you might want to be alone.”

“No need for that,” Jonathan said with forced heartiness. “ We always like company.”

You’re frightened to be alone with her, George thought. You’re frightened of what she might say to you. And she’s trying to avoid it, too.

“I wanted to ask you about one of your pupils,” George said, quickly, wanting to avoid talking in front of Sylvia. “ It’s Elspeth’s son.”

“Yes?” Jonathan was packing the ringing equipment into a small rucksack and George had only half his attention.

“What surname does he use at school?”

“Dance. I think I’ve got the father’s name somewhere, but I can’t remeber what it is. Elspeth said that she’d taken her maiden name again as soon as she’d separated and she’d prefer it used at school. I couldn’t see any problem.”

“Did you ever meet the father?”

“Only at the wedding. Elspeth came back occasionally on holiday but she only brought the boy.”

“They were married on the island?”

“No. They had a quiet wedding in Glasgow. Then we heard that the baby had arrived not very long after.”

“Has Ben ever mentioned his father in school?”

“No. I heard the other kids asking once in the playground where his dad was and what he did. He said that his dad was dead. He seems to have stuck to that story.”

“Isn’t he rather young to have maintained a lie like that?”

“I don’t think so. He’s a very bright child, very mature for his age. But perhaps Elspeth has told him that his father is dead and he believes her.”

“You don’t know anything about the father?”

“Nothing.”

“Was Ben especially friendly with Mary Stennet?”

“I don’t understand,” Drysdale said. “You can’t think that Ben had anything to do with the child’s death.”

“I don’t know.” George was too impatient to hide his exasperation. “Please. Just accept that I need the information.”

“Mary was the oldest child in the school. Occasionally she overwhelmed the little ones. She latched on to Ben. The others had been smothered by her for too long and were glad that she’d found another victim. He seemed not to mind her attentions but they certainly weren’t friends. There was a great difference in their ages but he was the more grown up. He tolerated her but he wasn’t dependent on her.”

“Her death doesn’t seem to have upset him?”

“No.”

That was it. He could persist with his precious theory no longer. If Mary had not learnt of Elspeth’s secret from Will or Ben, then she could not have known about it. At the back of his mind there was another idea, an explanation for Mary’s death and Robert’s, an explanation which fitted all the facts, but before he could explore it properly Sylvia came in. She was dressed in jeans and a heavy jersey, but she was wearing a lot of make-up. The moody preoccupation had gone and she seemed possessed by a disturbing and feverish gaiety. What fun it would be, she said, to catch the swans. How beautiful they would be in the torchlight. She longed to stroke them. She ran her finger along her husband’s forehead, pushing the hair away from his eyes. He was her swan, she said.

George found the scene shocking and embarrassing.

“Why don’t we put it off for another night?” he demanded. “Why is everyone so desperate to catch the swans?”

“It’s a lovely night,” Sylvia said. “ Look outside. It’s a lovely night.”

“It’s raining,” George said.

But it made no difference. They were determined to ring the swans. It seemed to George that the evening proceeded with an awful inevitability, and at such a pace that he had no time to reconsider the facts surrounding his investigation, no time to think clearly at all.

They ate a hurried meal surrounded by the debris needed to ring the swans. Both Jonathan and Sylvia talked continuously, though there was little communication. Jonathan talked about his plans for the evening. Sylvia relived her stay on Baltasay, described the things she had bought, the places she had visited. Despite the flying words he found that his new idea was growing stronger. He longed for quiet, a time to himself. He regretted the time wasted in his rush around the island from the post office to Sandwick, the wasted words.

“I don’t think I’ll come,” he said, suddenly. “I don’t feel very well. I’ll stay here.”

“Nonsense,” said Jonathan. “Whooper swan must be a ringing tick. You’ll never have the opportunity again.”

It was true and he was beginning to feel that he should be there with them out on the hill and that in their present excitable state they needed protecting from their own folly.

Will and Sarah arrived soon after they had finished eating. Sylvia greeted them effusively. Jonathan drew them immediately into plans for the evening. Will was wearing a long army-surplus overcoat, very similar to one George’s son had possessed at a similar age. The reminder of his family made George feel isolated, like a traveller in a foreign land who has just received a letter from home. He no longer wanted to involve Sarah in his investigation and he answered her whispered inquiry about his trip to Baltasay politely but noncommittally. Throughout the evening Will maintained a cool adolescent aloofness, as if the adults’ antics were beyond his comprehension and he participated only through boredom. Sarah, however, seemed to catch the Drysdales’ mood and became as lively and frivolous as they were.

They went outside into the rain and climbed into Jonathan’s Old Land Rover. George sat next to Jonathan and heard Sarah and Sylvia laughing in the back. It seemed to him that Jonathan drove recklessly, but the others seemed to enjoy the speed. The conditions, George had to admit, were perfect. There was no wind, and as they drove past Kell the cloud was so low that they could hardly see the lighted square of the kitchen window. Then the road turned into a track and the laughter in the back was louder as the Land Rover bounced and jolted over ruts and boulders.

“Have you ever done any dazzling?” Jonathan shouted above the noise of the engine and the women’s screams.

“Only waders.”

“It’s the same principle. If you shine a very bright light at a bird, it seems to daze it. Then someone gets behind the swan and catches it. It won’t be easy, but sometimes they actually walk towards the light. They seem stunned by it.”

The track ended in front of the lighthouse. Not many years before, three families had lived there. The light-keepers’ cottages were still there, the windows boarded up. Everything had been left—washing lines, a children’s swing in one of the gardens, a rusting wheelbarrow. It was as if the people had all left quite suddenly and mysteriously. George was reminded of other islands where the whole population had been evacuated because so few people remained. In his torchlight the lighthouse compound evoked the same sad and empty feeling. The beam of the light swung above them, regular, remote, and impersonal. It was switched on automatically now as the daylight faded. Each time it swung above their heads it illuminated the cliffs of a nearby headland. George remembered Mary and thought that it had been right to send the men and their families away. It was not a safe place for children.

The others were unloading the Land Rover with whispered giggles. Jonathan was worried that they would frighten away the swans and was trying to keep them quiet.

He and Will had thigh waders, so they would go into the water to catch the swans.

“I want to hold the torch,” Sylvia said. “ I want to work the magic on them.”

“You won’t hold it steady. Let George to it.”

“No,” she said, sulky as a child. “I want to do it.” And she was given her own way.

The pool they called Silver Water was away from the road, over moorland too boggy to take the Land Rover safely, in a dip in the hills, quite close to the edge of the cliff. To George it hardly seemed bigger than a village duckpond.

Jonathan made them switch off their torches before they started, and they stumbled and splashed through the peat bog. Sylvia and Sarah went arm in arm, giggling together, but Jonathan was taking it very seriously. They stopped just as the land rose and became drier. Jonathan wriggled forward on his stomach and peered over the rocky mound and down to the pool. The swans were there, he whispered. He could hear them. Sylvia would go down to the water one way, with the torch, and he and Will would go the other. George hoped that he would be left alone then. He had known why Robert had been killed right from the beginning. Now he knew why Mary had been murdered and the identity of the murderer could only be one of three people. If he had time, he had the facts to work the thing out. Tomorrow, he thought, it will all be over. But Jonathan would not let him sit alone. He sent George down the bank with Sylvia, saying that he did not trust her to dazzle the birds properly.

So George slithered down the bank after Sylvia. She was crouched by the water, holding the torch with both hands, concentrated and intense. He did not know what had happened to Sarah. They waited to give Jonathan and Will a chance to get into position, then George touched her arm and she switched on the torch. It had a new battery and the light was fierce. The swans were much closer than he had expected. Because he and Sylvia were crouched so low to the water, the birds seemed enormous. They were huge white monsters. There were only three of them and they seemed transfixed, held by the charm of the powerful light. Beyond the birds George could see Jonathan and Will approaching, arms outstretched, ready to jump. They’ll only get one each, George thought. They’ll have to let the other one go. He could hear the water slapping against their waders.

Then there was a gunshot. It seemed to come from behind him and it seemed very close. Somebody screamed and Sylvia must have dropped the torch because suddenly there was no light but the arc of the lighthouse beam swinging relentlessly far above them. The swans honked and the noise seemed louder than the gunshot. He could feel the air from their wing beats as they prepared to fly. There was another gunshot and a thud and a splash. They’ve killed one of the swans, George thought with a rising anger. He stood and turned to face the murderer. The circling spotlight clipped the top of the rocky hillock above him and he thought he saw a silhouette, but it moved on before he could be sure. George began to climb the bank, furious because the swan was dead, and he heard the two remaining whoopers fly above him. At the top of the bank George stopped. He could see and hear nothing. Sylvia must have dropped the torch into the water because it had not been switched on again. The beam from the lighthouse approached, then blinded him. He heard the sound of footsteps on the concrete path which led from the empty cottages to the lighthouse, then a door banged. Whoever had fired the shots was taking refuge in the lighthouse. He ran on. The cold water of the bog trickled inside his Wellingtons and splashed his trousers. He swore because he was so old and moved so slowly. His breath came in gulping gasps.

Afterwards he admitted that it was ridiculous to go into the lighthouse alone. He should have waited for the others. Once inside, there was no escape for the murderer. But in his mind he held the image of the swan preparing to fly, upright, head to the sky, wings beating, and then the shot in the chest. He was angry and the anger clouded his judgement. And stronger than anger was curiosity. He believed that he knew who was hiding in the lighthouse, but he wanted to be certain. The impatience to complete the investigation, which had been growing all day, reached a climax. He wanted that certainty now.

The door at the bottom of the tower had been padlocked. The padlock was open, hooked into a metal ring on the door frame, and the door banged against it. He wished he had a torch, but there must have been some emergency lighting in the room at the top, because a dim light fell down the spiral stone steps. George was not frightened. He had a confidence, an arrogance, that the murderer at the top of the steps would want to speak to him. If they could sit together and talk without interruption, George was certain that he would convince the person to give him the shotgun and go with him peacefully.

George shouted up the tower. He tried to keep his voice calm and friendly, but the echo of the stone tower distorted it. There was no reply.

“I’m coming up,” George called. He really thought he had nothing to fear, but he did feel tense, excited. He remembered playing hide and seek as a boy in the gloomy house where he had lived with his father, and there was the same racing heart, the same exhilaration. He no longer felt old, although the steps were steep and the tower was high. The light was stronger and the shadows on the steps were more dramatic, but George did not hesitate.