High Island Blues (6 page)

But in the excitement of the fall the group seemed to have scattered, responding to shouts from all over the reserve:

‘Cerulean warbler. Down by the pool.’

‘Who needs Blackburnian?’

So he was pointing out the orioles to strangers and when he turned to see who he was talking to, the wood was full of birders straining to see the forty red-eyed vireos on the willow by the pond, the black and white warblers against the trunk of an oak. In the end he gave up responsibility for showing the birds to his group and he went with the flow, along the boardwalks and the trails, taking care not to tread on the birds which had landed exhausted, at every step adding a new species to his day list. And all the time he was looking for the big one. Swainson’s warbler which he had never seen in the world before, never even come close to. But while he was listening to the babble around him in case the shout went up that one had been seen, he was frustrated, thinking that half these birdwatchers wouldn’t know a Swainson’s warbler if it bit them.

He pushed his way down a narrow trail to the Prothonotory Pool, a lake of stagnant water with dead, silver trunked trees, emerging from it. There Oliver appeared. Out of nowhere like the migrants, the rainwater glistening in his face like tears. He came up to Rob, laughing, and threw his arms around him.

‘Isn’t it magnificent!’ he yelled, and perhaps he was crying after all. Rob thought they had all gone crazy. ‘ Twenty years of waiting and it was all worth it.’

They took the trail back into the trees and still the birds were arriving. Now they could hardly hear each other speak above the mewing of the catbirds.

‘Where’s Mick?’ Rob cried. ‘And Laurie? The four of us should be together for this.’

‘We came from Smith Oaks together. We knew you’d be here. But as soon as the rain started and things began happening we got separated. You can see what it’s like.’

‘We’ve got to find them. We’ll never get a chance like this again.’

Rob saw that they were back by the entrance of the reserve, and that Oliver had reverted to type. The excitement had left him.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I can’t come with you to look for Laurie and Mick,’ Oliver spoke calmly. ‘ I promised Julia I’d see her at Oaklands.’

‘Sod Julia!’ Rob was furious. ‘You said it yourself. This is what we came for.’

‘It’s not that easy.’

‘We’ve dreamed of this for twenty years and now you’re
leaving?’
Rob realized he was screaming. He tipped back his head so he was looking Oliver in the face and rain dripped down his neck.

‘Tell me,’ he said more quietly. ‘What is it that Julia has on you Oliver? Why don’t you just piss off and let her get on with it?’

‘I’ve already told you,’ Oliver said. ‘ It’s not that easy.’ In his lightweight Barbour jacket and his green wellies he looked like an English county gentleman out for a day’s shooting. Rob looked more like a hunt saboteur.

‘It can’t just be the money,’ Rob persisted. ‘Tell me it’s not just that.’

Oliver turned away and Rob could hardly make out his voice above the rain.

‘It’s important stuff, money,’ he said lightly and he strode away into the street as if he had a spaniel at his heels.

When Oliver left, Rob supposed he should gather his group together but he could not face the chattering Lovegroves, even the good natured enthusiasm of the Mays. He realized that he had been expecting too much of this trip. He had thought they could recreate an old friendship which probably hadn’t even been important to the others. He was a sad case. No wife or steady girlfriend. And all his real friends had been made twenty years before. But he wasn’t so desperate, he thought, that he was going to brood about Oliver Adamson during the most brilliant fall in history. He looked about him to make sure none of his group was around, then took an overgrown path through water oak, willow oak and hackberry trees. Bird watching needed concentration and he preferred to be alone. In the distance he heard American voices calling to each other, but the trail he followed was narrow and empty.

The rain stopped and almost immediately afterwards the sun came out, slanting through the canopy on to the track ahead of him, the sudden heat making steam rise from the sodden undergrowth. In the sunshine the colours of the warblers were dazzlingly bright, the outlines sharp against the green of the spring leaves. It was like walking into the tropical house of a zoo. Or the Garden of Eden, he thought. All I need is Eve. And he wondered again where Mick and Laurie were and if they had been avoiding him.

He found a bench by the trail and he sat there while the sun dried his clothes, thinking how good it would be if Laurie came up the path so they could spend some time together, talk about the time they’d spent together. Then he thought again that he was turning into a sad old man.

He was aware of a shadow in the underbrush. Only a shadow, no colour. No bright yellow or scarlet. This was something brown and understated, more like a British bird than a neotropical warbler. He waited. All thoughts of Laurie were forgotten. There was another movement nearby but the bird disappeared too quickly for him to note any detail. He went through the possibilities. It was too big for a worm eating warbler, too drab for a yellow. And it was certainly behaving like a Swainson’s, skulking at the bottom of the thorn bush. For five minutes nothing happened. Then Rob heard a rustling sound which might have been made by a small mammal rather than a bird.

Rob looked up the trail both ways. He was supposed to be a responsible tour leader and if he was going to break the rules of the sanctuary he didn’t want anyone to see him. The trail was empty but he stayed where he was and made a ‘pshhing’ sound. Again he caught a brief glimpse of the warbler but it was an untickable view. It flew further away from the trail and into the underbrush.

‘Sod it,’ he muttered and he went in, off the trail, stepping over the rope strung between metal stakes which marked the boundary. He kicked at the bushes to flush the bird into the open, looking around him again to make sure that no one could see him.

The bird flew on to a low branch and sat there for five seconds. Rob was on to it immediately. He had to step back so he could focus his binoculars on it. Then he saw everything he needed – the cream eye stripe, the dagger-like bill, before it dropped down again into the tangle of thorn bushes.

‘Got you!’ he shouted out loud, punching the air with his fist ‘Swainson’s warbler. On my list!’

Then he heard voices approaching. Immediately he tried to scramble back on to the trail. He wanted to claim the glory for finding the bird but he didn’t want to be caught out of bounds. The ground was swampy and as he turned back towards the path his boot caught in some twisted roots. He tripped and was so anxious to prevent damage to his binoculars and telescope that he fell flat on his face. Swearing furiously in a whisper, he decided it would be better to wait there until the walkers passed by than face the indignity of having to explain what he was doing away from the trail. He was afraid that the approaching walkers might be sanctuary volunteers. These were usually formidable southern ladies who terrified him.

As they came closer he could tell that the voices were female but not American. It was the Lovegrove sisters and they were still arguing.

‘I’m sure that bird was a chestnut-sided warbler,’ Joan said. ‘ I looked in the book.’

‘I don’t think it could have been, dear.’ Esme was being sweetly patient. ‘It didn’t have chestnut sides.’

‘Of course not!’ Joan was triumphant. ‘It was a female!’

Rob held his breath. He had already decided that the Lovegroves were his least favourite party members. Their ornithological experience seemed limited to feeding the garden birds which came to the table outside their kitchen window. That wouldn’t have mattered if they realized how much they still had to learn, or if they kept quiet long enough to be told.

He had tried looking through the binoculars which they shared, a heavy pair of Ross which Joan said proudly had once belonged to an uncle who served in the navy. There had been a soup of algae behind the lens and he had not been able to see a thing. He found it hard to believe that the sisters were birdwatchers at all and for one fantastic moment had even thought they might be impostors, spies sent by his boss to make sure he was doing a good job.

He lay in the mud and kept quiet.

‘Give me the binoculars now Esme,’ Joan demanded. ‘There’s something I want to look at.’

There was a pause. ‘Just as I thought. Look at that.’

Then he heard them walk on, their sensible shoes thudding on the path. The rainwater had already drained away. They were almost out of earshot when Esme said: ‘ I wonder what Mr Earl was
doing
lying behind that tree. You do suppose he was all right?’

‘Don’t be silly dear.’ Joan was dismissive. ‘It was field craft. I expect he was stalking something. That’s why I didn’t call out to him.’

‘Well if you really think so …’

Rob got to his feet thinking that at least that would be a good story to tell at dinner. It would make Laurie laugh. He mimicked Joan’s voice in his head to make sure that he remembered the words, then looked briefly around him through his binoculars. He was already covered in mud and while he was off limits it might be possible to get a longer view of the Swainson’s warbler. He focused on the undergrowth where the bird had last disappeared. But all he could see was an old boot. A pair of old boots. And looking more closely he saw now that they were not so old. And about his size.

Treading very carefully he walked further into the undergrowth. He didn’t make so much at this business that he could turn his back on an opportunity like this. If some rich birder had chucked away a perfectly good pair of walking boots he was prepared to do his bit by taking home the litter. The boots were leather, well made, American. But they were being worn and beyond the boots he saw a pair of grey trousers with big zipped patch pockets and a blue and white checked shirt and a thin, quilted body warmer. The sun had not reached these clothes and they were still wet from the rain.

The face was turned away from Rob. The wearer of the smart, outdoor clothes lay on his stomach. Rob was pleased about that because he thought if he had seen the face he might have been sick. The man hadn’t tripped like him, and hit his head, though there was a wound of some sort on the back of the skull. Far more sinister was the hole in the quilted body warmer. It had not been made by a bullet, though there was something about the garment which reminded Rob of the bullet-proof vests the police sometimes wore on the television. This gash was too deep, he thought, to have been made by the blade of a knife. Then he thought that the coat had not been soaked only by rain but by blood.

He didn’t need to see the face to know who was lying there. He recognized the clothes. He had seen them the afternoon before. Laurie had mentioned the trousers. They were real hard to get hold of in the States, she had said, and Mick liked to wear them for birding. Sometimes she did business trips to London and she always brought a pair back with her.

At the time Rob had been made jealous by this glimpse into their domestic life. Now he wondered how he would tell Laurie that Mick was dead. And what her reaction would be.

George involved Molly in his investigation for Cecily Jessop. As she never ceased to remind him, they were partners. Besides, he couldn’t work up much interest in the case. He thought Cecily was making a fuss about nothing. What did it matter really, if an over-enthusiastic new charity had used her name without asking?

To his surprise Molly took the thing more seriously, became quite priggish on the subject. Before retirement she had worked as a social worker both for the local authority and in the voluntary field. If this was a con, she said, there was nothing more despicable. Anything which brought charities into disrepute affected the public’s willingness to respond to good causes. It was the worst kind of theft.

She left the tedious business of contacting the Charity Commissioners to George. It was the sort of thing he was good at. He was used to dealing with sober men in grey suits. As a civil servant in the Home Office he’d worn a grey suit himself.

‘I’ll get in touch with the other celebrities in the brochure who are supposed to have endorsed the charity, shall I?’ she asked. ‘See if any of them actually gave permission for their name to be used.’

‘If you can track them down.’ George was beginning to wonder if any of this was worth the bother.

There were four other people listed with Cecily Jessop as supporters of the Wildlife Partnership: two academics, a famous explorer and the presenter of a children’s television natural history show. Molly traced the academics through their universities. Neither had heard of the Wildlife Partnership. It seemed to Molly that both were flattered to have been chosen and would certainly have allowed their names to be listed in publicity material, had they been asked.

The explorer was away in eastern China, but her husband was charming and invited Molly to tea in his pretty little house in Kew. He was elderly, twice as old as his adventurous wife and obviously dazzled by her exploits.

‘I was a businessman,’ he said apologetically. ‘At a conference in Lima. Louise walked into the hotel after one of her treks. Grimy and disheveled and rather sweaty actually. I fell for her straight away. Bullied her into marriage.’ He paused, and added with astonishment, ‘I don’t think she’s regretted it.’

‘So South America was a special interest for her?’

‘It was then,’ he said. ‘I suppose it was the book about her adventures in the rain forest which made her name. More recently she’s become fascinated by China.’

‘Do you know if the Wildlife Partnership approached her about supporting their projects in South and Central America?’

‘I’m sure they didn’t.’ He spoke quite firmly.

‘And you would know?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Since I retired five years ago I’ve taken over all that side of things. I open any mail addressed to Louise and deal with it. Usually I can handle it without bothering her. She’s a very special woman, you see. She shouldn’t be troubled with trivia.’