Palmer-Jones 05 - Sea Fever (22 page)

“You do realise,” he said, “that all the work you’ve done in Bristol gives strength to the idea that Rosco killed Greg Franks. Franks had found out about Barnes’ dubious business practise in the development of Rashwood Hall. We know that because he was blackmailing Duncan James about it. If Barnes had become aware that Franks had access to damaging inside knowledge, was even using it to make a profit, he would want him out of the way. He’d used Rosco to do his dirty work once before. Why not again? It’s obvious. That must be how it happened.”

“No,” Molly said. “You haven’t been listening. There’s another explanation.”

Then she told them what must have happened. They listened, and the thing was so obvious and so simple that they wondered how they had never worked it out for themselves.

“Wargan will never accept it,” Claire Bingham said. “Not without proof. He doesn’t believe in coincidence.”

But George thought he could get Wargan his proof, though he said nothing to the policewoman. Despite her new flexibility she might not approve. As they drove through the grey towns of north Cornwall, the sky was cloudy and overcast. When they came to Porthkennan it started to rain.

Vicky Jones stood in the gloom of Temple Meads Station. She had little idea where she would go. It scarcely mattered. George Palmer-Jones’ visit and the news of his accident had frightened her. There was nothing in Bristol to keep her now.

The storm which first hit Cornwall on the day and night of September third was as strong as the hurricane which devastated the south of England in October 1987, but less was heard of it on radio and television. This might have been because it only touched the west coast of the peninsula and no big centres of population were affected. What interest could most of the country have in a few remote cottages swept away by freak high tides, caravan sites flattened, boats smashed into pieces? Besides, by the time reporters realised the extent of the damage the storm was causing, it was too late to get a film crew there in daylight, and by the next morning the rail link had been broken, and most roads were blocked by fallen trees.

The gale began slowly on the night of September second, the evening of Molly and George’s return from Bristol to Myrtle Cottage. The wind was strong enough by then to make a noise in the trees around the house and to excite the birdwatchers staying there, but it was not unusual. There were strong westerlies every September at neap tide. By the next morning the wind was as strong as anyone could remember, and even at the head of the valley it tasted of salt, with spray blown up from the beach. The storm reached its peak at midafternoon of the third at high tide, and then the noise of water and wind was terrifying, and though the seawatching was so magnificent that the birders continued to stagger out to Porthkennan Point, it was a major expedition to walk the few hundred yards to reach there.

When Molly and George were dropped at Myrtle Cottage by Claire Bingham, the others were sitting much as they had been the night before. Walking through the door, the Palmer-Joneses saw exactly the same scene as Berry had seen when he arrived to collect Jane Pym. Molly thought it was possible to believe that no one had moved all day. They had eaten a meal, and there was the same clutter as before—scraps of French bread, the sad remnants of a salad, empty wine bottles.

The only difference was that Louis Rosco was there, too. That surprised George—he had expected him to be still in custody—but it would make things easier. The relationship between Rosco and Rose seemed to have changed. Rose had taken public possession of him, and the new show of friendship had caused a tension in the room. Gerald Matthews obviously hated it and was making himself unpleasant, criticizing everything, trying to provoke argument. At first glance nothing else seemed to have changed. Rob Earl and Roger and Jane Pym sat in their accustomed places, drinking heavily. Duncan James shrank into his seat, quiet, self-effacing, almost forgotten.

The conversation was no longer of the murder and when they might be allowed home. The real birdwatchers were no longer eager to go. They spoke in a series of bird names—Cory’s shearwater, great shearwater, bonxie—which was a sort of incantation or prayer for the following day. The wind, Molly thought, provoked the same obsession as the boat trip had done. It was the same madness to do with birds and the sea, and she saw, as soon as they arrived, that George was infected by it, too.

When they walked into the kitchen, there was very little response to their arrival. Molly had expected questions about what they had discovered in Bristol, about George’s accident. She thought they would want to know when the enquiry would be finally over, but they seemed to have decided by mutual unspoken consent that Greg Franks should be forgotten. Their lack of concern made her angry. What right had they to decide that Greg’s life was of such little value? Roger Pym’s only interest was in whether George had managed to discuss the red-footed petrel with Gwen Pullen.

“Did you get to the museum? Did Gwen tell you about the old record of a colony of similar birds on the Aleutian Islands? We should have taken a tape recording of the bird’s call, you know. That could be decisive. Did you discuss a name? We really should have a name.…”

And he paused, hoping that they would suggest that the bird should be called after him. He had come to believe that the discovery was his, and he would be remembered forever as the person who had identified Pym’s red-footed petrel.

So George was brought immediately into the conversation, and Molly marvelled that he could appear so calm and absorbed while she felt such a terrible responsibility.

Later in the evening the doorbell began to ring, and all night there was the sound, hardly discernible against the wind, of cars driving down the valley. The people at the door were birdwatchers who had seen the forecast and wanted to be at Porthkennan Head at dawn. Did Rose have any space? they wanted to know. Could she put them up for the night? They stood on the doorstep in the rain like helpless little boys.

At another time she might have tried to help them, given them floor space to unroll their sleeping bags, invited them in for something to eat. But that night she was in no mood to be hospitable. She even resented the old residents. She wanted Louis Rosco to herself. She felt that at any time he might be taken back to Heanor for questioning, and she was edgy and frightened. She would not leave his side, and often she reached out her hand for reassurance. At last, when half a dozen loads of birdwatchers had stopped to ask for shelter, she took a piece of paper and wrote
NO VACANCIES
on it and pinned it to the front door. Then they were only disturbed by the headlights shining in at the kitchen window as the birdwatchers drove on down towards the beach, where they slept in their cars.

The constant movement in the lane outside, the thought of strangers in the valley, unsettled Molly, and she felt that the others were restless, too. Jane stood up from the table and wandered to the window to watch the cars. Duncan James played with the napkin on his plate, pleating and turning it in his short, fat fingers. Yet George seemed not to notice. He sat in a huddle with Roger, Rob, and Gerald, mumbling the same list of skuas and shearwaters, excited, it seemed, by no other thought than the seawatching.

That evening in the police station at Heanor Claire Bingham, Berry, and Wargan had a meeting in the superintendent’s office. The place was unexpectedly busy. There had been flood alerts, and the station was administrating the evacuation of low-lying villages close to the river. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the drama and change from routine. A pile of sandbags had been delivered into the front office, and members of the public came in a stream to collect them. There was a suppressed excitement and a forced community spirit which gave them a taste of what it must have been like in the war. Wargan pointedly ignored the activity. He shut his door on the noise, implying that they at least had real police work to get on with. Yet despite his irritation at the disruption all around him, Claire found him surprisingly enthusiastic. He even congratulated her on her work.

“You did a good job in Bristol,” he said. “ You’ll make a good detective yet.”

She said nothing. Both Wargan and Berry were even more convinced of Rosco’s guilt. They, too, had followed George’s reasoning. The link with Barnes made it devious, Wargan said. He sat behind his desk beaming with self-satisfaction. It was clear to Claire that he had taken credit for all her discoveries in Bristol. Now he wanted the biggest catch of all—the arrest of Brian Barnes.

“The involvement of Brian Barnes with Greg Franks caused some excitement in Bristol,” Wargan said. He was smug, very Cornish. We can teach those city boys a thing or two, he implied. “The serious crime squad has been looking for an excuse to get a closer look at Barnes for a while,” he said. “ There have been all sorts of rumours of corruption but never any proof. Perhaps now he’ll be frightened into making a mistake. A surveillance team will be keeping an eye on him for a few days, and I understand they hope to get authorisation to monitor his phone calls. If they can find a link between Brian Barnes and the Greg Franks murder, we’ll be popular. Very popular indeed.”

“Did they find anything in Vicky Jones’ flat?” Claire asked. She had told the detective in Bristol all the information George had discovered. She had left them to talk to Vicky Jones.

Wargan shook his head. “She’s skipped,” he said. “When they got there, she’d already gone.” He even took satisfaction in this. It indicated an inefficiency on the part of the city police which compared poorly with his own officers. “ Has anyone questioned Barnes about George’s accident?” Claire asked.

“No,” he said. “ Even they’ve got more sense than that. They don’t want to frighten him off. Besides, what would be the point? Palmer-Jones didn’t even get the make of the car. We could never prove it had anything to do with Barnes.”

“Should we bring in Duncan James?” Berry said. “ It wouldn’t be hard to get him to talk.”

But because Wargan was daunted by the technical nature of James’ deception, he dismissed it as insignificant. What did a site of special scientific interest mean? It didn’t seem much of an offence. He had a sneaking sympathy for the developer. His daughter was in Greenpeace, and he thought they were a bunch of weirdos. He had heard enough about the environment to last him a lifetime.

“Not yet,” he said. “At least until we’ve more idea what it’s about. If we have him in, Barnes might guess what we’ve got on him. Leave James to stew. He’s harmless enough. He’s no danger to anyone.”

“What about Rosco?” Berry asked.

“Leave him where he is, too. His solicitor was muttering about his rights last night.” He looked at Claire. “ He’s one of your husband’s mob. Let’s leave him for twenty-four hours and wait for Barnes to make a move. If he tries to get in touch with Rosco, we’ve got them both.”

Then Claire Bingham felt powerless and resentful. The case had been taken from her and was being run by Wargan and his friends in the serious crime squad in Bristol. While it had been considered an accident, even a domestic murder, she had been allowed to handle it. Now she was being told that she had no further part in it. Wargan began an intolerably chummy phone call to a colleague in Bristol and waved his subordinates away.

Even Berry seemed to think that her opinion no longer counted for anything. When she took him into her office and tried to explain why she thought Rosco was innocent, he listened politely but made it clear that he was unconvinced. It seemed farfetched, he said. He couldn’t believe it of a person like that. He, too, had been seduced by the influence of the city policemen, with their advanced technology, and by the very scale of Barnes’ crime. He preferred Wargan’s explanation—it was more exciting—and he refused to look at the facts.

She told no one at Heanor police station of the details of Molly’s theory. She would have felt foolish persisting against such opposition. But she would take great delight in seeing Wargan proved wrong. Instead, she went home to Richard and talked to him.

The first indication that things were wrong was Vicky Jones’ disappearance, but in the beginning Brian Barnes was not too concerned about that. An enquiry agent had been snooping around Rashwood Hall asking questions, and Vicky had agreed to talk to him. Naturally she was frightened. Later Barnes found out that she had been living with Greg Franks, and when the relationship became known to him, he was furious. He vowed never to trust a woman again.

Then there were more disturbing signs of a lack of confidence. He had arranged to meet the deputy chief constable at Rashwood Hall for lunch, but when he arrived at his office, there was a hasty message on his answering machine cancelling the appointment. There was no apology or explanation.

The rumours were whispered in person and over the telephone from early morning. They were passed on by employees hoping for money and by businessmen wanting to extricate themselves from new contracts. Rolfe had worked quickly.

“I hear that the case of the fire at Sinclair’s yard has been reopened,” they said. “ Rosco’s prepared to talk. He’s involved with the death of that lad in Cornwall, and he’s done a deal with the police.”

The informants were frightened because they knew that they would be affected by Barnes’ downfall, but they were pleased, too. No one liked him. He had too much money and too much power. They exaggerated and strengthened the rumours so Rosco became a key witness, essential to the police’s case. It was all over for Barnes, they implied. Rosco had done for him.

The sudden isolation and suspicion did not come as a shock. Like Vicky Jones, he knew that success was temporary and precarious. But he was a fighter, and he was not prepared to let it go easily. There was something exhilarating in the danger. He felt younger, and all his senses were sharper. He saw a man in a navy anorak standing outside his office with his back turned to the blustery wind and knew instinctively that he was a policeman. Barnes looked forward, too, to the excuse for violence. Since he had become outwardly legitimate, there had been little opportunity for that, and he realised now that he missed it. In this state of readiness and tension he saw Rosco as his only enemy. If he could prevent Rosco from appearing in any court case against him, he would be safe. Later he was amazed that he considered the thing so simple, but at the time it was the simplicity of the danger facing him which was exciting. The thrill took him back to the gang fights in the dance halls of his youth.