Palmer-Jones 05 - Sea Fever (8 page)

But beyond the abandoned hamlet the lane turned again towards the sea. Like a green scar in the bare hillside, a valley cut through the granite to the coast. Porthkennan was the name of the valley and the scattering of houses which had been built in its shelter. There was no real village, no pub, but a forest of vegetation—trees, shrubs, and large exotic flowers—which seemed to overwhelm the houses. Even in winter the place was lush and green. In the valley the light and heat seemed trapped and intensified. If it had been daytime, Claire Bingham would have seen the whitewashed walls of the houses, dark green leaves, shining blackberries, overblown roses, all with a startling clarity. Even now, in the car, they were aware of the stillness and the trees all around them. It was like driving into the jungle.

The vegetation was richest near the stream which followed the valley to a small cove. There the water trickled through smooth boulders as big as a child, and across shingle and sand to the waves.

Louis Rosco’s cottage was almost on the beach, as lifeless from the outside as one of the miners’ cottages on the moor. It had no main electricity, and the water was collected from the roof in a tank. The fishermen in Heanor wondered how he could bear to live there.

Rose Pengelly’s place was much grander. Myrtle Cottage was near the head of the valley. Once a small farmhouse and two cottages had stood on the site, but the house had been converted by a previous owner. It was long, predominantly single-storeyed. It faced the sea. Behind it the stream flowed through the garden, and by its side was the barn which Rose had turned into hostel accommodation for birdwatchers.

They waited for the police in the living room in a state of numb exhaustion. Rose made coffee for them, but Rob Earl produced a bottle of whisky, and they drank that instead. When they did speak, it was not about Greg Franks but about the new bird. Molly was unsure whether this burst of excited conversation was a way of avoiding the subject of Greg’s death, or whether they were so obsessed with the petrel that nothing else, not even murder, was so important. Roger wanted to begin investigations into the identification of the petrel immediately. The person to contact was Jauanin in Paris, he said. He’d done all that magnificent work on Leach’s petrel. If there were any stray unconfirmed records of a large red-footed petrel, he’d know about it. They had to persuade Pym that it might be inconsiderate to telephone so late at night, but still he continued with his plans. They’d have to check all the museums, he said. Many of them, he knew, had piles of unidentified skins, collected by Victorian naturalists. It would take a long time, but they would have to check them all. And then, he said, when all the research was done and they were quite sure, they would have to think of a name for the bird.

When Claire Bingham and Berry arrived at the cottage, it was midnight. There was the sharp smell of elderberry. They could hear the shallow running water of the stream behind the house. There was still no moon. Claire knocked at the door gently, remembering that there was a baby in the house, knowing that there is nothing more annoying than to have coaxed a child to sleep only to have it wakened by a thoughtless visitor. It was opened by the dark woman, the mother of the child.

“Mrs. Pengelly?” Claire asked, and Rose motioned her into the living room, where they were all sitting. The inspector saw then that her instinct had been wrong, and she would get little out of them that night. The animation that had inspired the discussion about the petrel had faded. They were blank and listless. Some of them had been drinking. There was a bottle of whisky on a small table and empty glasses on windowsills, chair arms, the floor. There was, it seemed, little grief. Rather she felt a communal and overwhelming tiredness. She asked them to introduce themselves, and as they gave their names, she thought how ordinary and respectable they seemed.

“Can anyone tell me how Greg Franks died?” Claire Bingham asked. She spoke a little too loudly, fighting against tiredness. “Someone must have seen something.”

They looked at her in silent and unresponsive hostility. So much for a confession, she thought, and an early end to the case.

“Look,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of point in taking detailed statements tonight. If anyone has any information about Mr. Franks, you should tell me now. But it’s late, and you must tired, and if you really think you can’t help, I’ve no objection to most of you going to bed. I’ll leave Sergeant Berry here to look after you.”

“Make sure we don’t run away, do you mean?” It was Roger Pym, a little drunk, very objectionable.

“Yes,” she said. “That, too. Perhaps you will have gathered by now that we have to treat Greg Franks’ death as suspicious. There was no question that it was not an accident. So at the very least you’re all witnesses in a murder enquiry.”

“And suspects?” Roger Pym interrupted again. “ I suppose we’re all suspects, too.”

“Yes,” she said. “ I suppose you are.”

“Can we go, then?” Jane Pym said. The skin on her face seemed to have tightened, so the ridge of cheekbone under her eyes was sharp and noticeable, and her cheeks were thin and drawn.

“Yes,” Claire said. “ Go to bed. I’ll come back early tomorrow to take statements.”

Perhaps by then I’ll feel more confident, she thought. I’ll know how to cope with you.

“All except Mr. Palmer-Jones and Mr. Earl,” she added. “I’d like to talk to you now.”

They filed obediently and helplessly away. At the door Rose paused, and for a moment it was the old Rose who thought that everyone who came to the house needed her care.

“If you’d like anything to eat or drink,” she said, “there’s plenty in the kitchen. Just help yourself.”

Surprised, Claire looked up and nodded, but she said nothing until the door had closed and she was left with the sergeant and the two men.

Molly hoped that Claire Bingham would shake George from his apathy. On their return to Myrtle Cottage from the
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he had been engrossed in his notebook. Sketching the new petrel, adding minute details, checking other species in Rose’s books. It was as if what she thought of as the seawatching madness was still with him. He was brooding and absorbed.

She had succeeded at last in getting him to herself by volunteering to make coffee and forcing him into the kitchen to help.

“You do realise that Greg must have been pushed?” Molly said as she spooned coffee haphazardly into a jug. “Otherwise, how did his bag and the rest of his equipment go missing? He hadn’t taken that on deck with him. That was no accident.”

“No,” George had said. “Probably not.”

“Well,” she said, “what are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with us now. We’ll cooperate fully with the police, tell the inspector everything we know, then leave the rest to her.”

“What about Mr. and Mrs. Franks?” she demanded. “Don’t you think we owe something to them?”

He looked at her, distant and surprised. “No,” he said. “ I don’t think we do.”

Molly began to clatter mugs and spoons onto a tray. His detachment, his cool assumption that Muriel and Dennis Franks were not worth bothering about, that they were, if anything, less important than his precious seabirds, infuriated her. It was not particularly that she wanted to meddle in the case. She did not need that sort of drama. It was that she worried about him. She knew he was trying to protect himself from the destructive guilt and depression which sometimes haunted him but could tell that the self-deception would not work. She thought he should do something. He should take the risk.

“I think you should go to see the Franks,” she said. “They’ll want to know what happened. It will make things easier for them.”

He looked at her.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “ I should only be in the way.”

“No!” she cried. “Trust me! I’m right about this.” As she spoke, she knew she sounded like a domineering nanny—a type of woman she detested.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I’ve done enough damage.”

“You can’t think that Greg was murdered because we were there on the
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to look for him?”

“No,” he said. “ Perhaps not.”

But she knew that in a sense he did feel responsible for Greg’s death, and that if he did not become involved in the search for his murderer, the guilt would remain with him forever.

Molly did not like Claire—she thought she was bossy, overcontrolled—but hoped she would force George to look again at what had occurred on the boat. It would be impossible then for him to pretend that the only thing to have happened of any significance was the discovery of a new seabird.

When most of them filed out of the room, Claire felt more competent and businesslike. It was a room she felt comfortable in. If she lived in a cottage in the country, she would probably have decorated it like this, with white walls and stripped pine. It lacked imagination, and she could believe it belonged to her.

“I presume you have a list of all your clients,” she said briskly to Rob.

“Yes,” he said. “I thought you’d need it.” He handed her a typed list. She looked at it quickly.

“Most of the people here give an address in Avon or Somerset,” she said. “Was that a coincidence?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “We’re based in Bristol and do a lot of local advertising.”

“Greg Franks gave an address in Bristol,” she said. “ The police have been there, but his parents say he hasn’t lived at home for some time. You haven’t anything more recent for him?”

“No,” Rob said. “ I presume he’s been living in the city somewhere. I’ve seen him at a couple of bird club meetings.”

“Did you know him well?”

“Not really,” Rob said. “Whenever I went to see a bird, he was there. We’d talk, maybe go for a beer; then I might not see him again for months. That’s how it is with a lot of serious birders.”

“I see,” she said, but she did not understand the obsession which was the only thing these men had in common. Besides, she would never allow such a chaotic arrangement to rule her social life.

“What work did he do?” she asked. “His parents were rather vague. He must have had some sort of regular employment to afford a car, a holiday like this.”

Rob shrugged. “ Perhaps,” he said, “he had other ways of making money.”

“What do you mean?”

“There were always rumours.”

“What about?” she asked sharply. “Drugs? Was he a dealer?”

“That was what people said.”

“But that didn’t prevent you from allowing him onto the trip?”

“No,” Rob said. “Of course not. They were only rumours. Besides, it’s not something I feel strongly about.”

The inspector looked at him sharply, wondering if he were trying to outrage her, but he was concentrating on rolling a very thin cigarette, and she could not tell.

“Was anyone absent from the deck in the time between Franks’ going to lie down and your realising he was missing?” she asked.

“You must be joking!” Rob said. “I mean, I was looking at a bird which has certainly never been seen before in the western Palearctic and probably never in the world. I didn’t notice anything but that beautiful dark rump and those bloody big feet. I do have some sense of priority.”

His ridicule confused her. She did not have any idea what he was talking about. She turned to George.

“Mr. Palmer-Jones?” she asked with reverence and great hope.

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t notice anyone missing. As soon as we spotted what was obviously a very rare bird, there was a great deal of confusion. Everyone was concentrating on the sea.”

She stared sadly at her small polished fingernails, and he saw that he had let her down. She turned to Rob.

“Who knew that Mr. Franks would be on the trip?” she asked. “Did anyone ask to see a passenger list before boarding?”

“No,” Rob said. “Only George.” He grinned wickedly.

“Is that relevant?” George asked. “ I don’t see, you know, how the murder can have been premeditated. None of us knew that Greg would feel seasick. In normal circumstances he would have been with us throughout the journey. It would have been impossible to kill him then.”

“Not necessarily,” she said so sharply that contradiction was impossible. This was her case, and she was determined to control it in her own way. She turned again to Rob Earl.

“Tell me about Louis Rosco,” she said. “How did you come to charter his boat? Did you go in recommendation or take up references?”

“It was more informal than that,” Rob said. “He’s a friend of Rose’s. We met here. He gave me the names of some divers he’d taken out, and I checked with them. They said he was very good. He showed me round the boat. It seemed just what we wanted.”

“Do you know anything more about him?”

“No. He doesn’t talk about himself at all.”

There was a silence. She suddenly wanted to be at home with Richard. Where there was no need to pretend to be hard and competent. She pushed away the moment of self-doubt.

“You can go to bed now,” she said curtly. “I’ll talk to you again in the morning.”

Rob Earl stood up slowly and left the room. George remained seated.

“Inspector,” he said, “ there are some things you should know.”

He explained about his agency and how he had been hired by the Franks to find their son. The information was almost more than she could take in.

“What do you intend to do now?” she asked.

He paused. “ My wife thinks it would be …” He hesitated again. “… courteous, professionally correct, to visit the Franks, to explain personally as much as we know. I don’t want to interfere in your investigation.”

She looked at him with something approaching disappointment. He was grey, upright, old. She had told him that he had been a hero of hers, and that had been true. Now she only thought he was harmless. Well, she thought defensively, she was too grown up for heros now.

“I’ve no objection to your visiting the Franks,” she said. “They’ve obviously been informed of their son’s death, but I can see it might be helpful to them to talk to someone who was on the boat. Would you be able to do it in a day?”