Smile and be a Villain (19 page)

Where had Harold gone? And
why
had he gone, if not to escape prosecution? We really, really needed to talk to him.

Or maybe we needed to tell the police everything we knew and let them take it from here. Except it was all hearsay and speculation about possible motives. There wasn't the shadow of a hint of evidence, one way or the other.

‘… eleven species of breeding birds on Burhou Island, the most popular of which is the puffin. We're coming up to it soon on your right, ladies and gentlemen. And there, just there, is a puffin out fishing.'

It disappeared, of course, before I could spot it with the binoculars that were thoughtfully provided on board. But it wasn't long before we were close enough to the island to see dozens of the birds, scores of them, in the water and on land. I was converted. I now believe in puffins! And they are adorable. I don't see how they can walk or swim properly, with those outsize beaks, but the beaks are useful for catching fish; I saw one bird carrying at least four small fish caught at one dive.

They're such comical creatures that it wasn't long before everyone on the boat was laughing. Puffin therapy! Just what I needed. I smiled at Alan and ducked as the boat hit a high wave and we got splashed with spray.

Our next destination was the island called Les Etacs (more peculiar French), where there were thousands of gannets. I'd never even heard of gannets, and I didn't find them as immediately appealing as puffins, but they were certainly impressive – big white birds with yellow heads and amazing wingspans. Unlike the puffins, which hunted fish from the surface of the water and bobbed like ducks when they found them, the gannets soared high, riding the thermals until they spotted their prey, when they dove like a screaming rocket, hitting the water at incredible speed. Up to sixty miles an hour, the guide said, with special skull structures designed to absorb the impact.

They were beautiful, but for me a trifle frightening in such high concentration. What if one of them made a mistake and decided we were fish? Ouch. And the rock was white with their droppings, which was unattractive; the pilot of the boat was careful to stay upwind of the guano.

Give me puffins every time.

I was tiring and glad the tour was over as we neared the harbour. Another boat was at our landing place, so we had to disembark via a ladder set into the side of the pier, something of an adventure for an old lady with two artificial knees.

‘That was good, and I'm glad we went, even though we missed our afternoon nap,' I said as we made our way back to the car. ‘It cleared some of the cobwebs out. Now I think I know what our next step should be.'

Alan didn't need to ask, our next step in what?

‘We talk to people. Or rather, we let people talk to us. We don't seek them out. We just sit somewhere having a meal, or a drink, and they'll come. Bet on it?'

‘No bet. After a week in Alderney I know you're right. By now everyone knows us and knows we're the ones who're asking questions about Abercrombie's death.' He looked at his watch. ‘We're too late for Jack's, but just in time for happy hour at the Georgian House. Let's do it.'

I was beginning to recognize some of the regulars at happy hour. The same group of three or four sat always at the table nearest the bar. The same couple of elderly men sat, separately, in the back corner. And there was Robin in his usual place with an untouched pint in front of him. We nodded to him but didn't join him, choosing instead a prominent table near the door.

‘White wine,' I told Alan. ‘Small. I need a clear head for this.'

It might have been a full minute after he brought my wine and his pint back to the table that a woman asked if she could join us. She looked vaguely familiar. ‘We met at church the other day,' she said. ‘I was doing the flowers. Pat Vickers. And you're Mr and Mrs Nesbitt.'

I let it pass. ‘Oh, yes, now I remember you.' I remembered, too, that she had been ambivalent, at best, about Abercrombie. I raised my glass in salute.

‘I understand you've been spreading some rumours about our late parish helper.'

With her I felt no need to tiptoe. I nodded to Alan, who said, ‘I'm afraid they're more than rumours. The information came from his American bishop. He was days away from a criminal charge when he left. His church is missing a great deal of money, and apparently there's ample evidence that he embezzled it.'

‘Nothing they can do about it now,' she said after a thoughtful sip of her wine.

‘No. Fortunately or unfortunately.'

‘Fortunately for him, I'd say.' She shook her head. ‘I don't imagine they'll ever get the money back.'

‘It won't be easy. I'm told he's been spending quite freely.'

‘Well, I for one am not altogether surprised. I thought from the start he was a bit too good to be true. When someone sets about to act saintly, it's almost always a sign that the other thing is lurking about somewhere.'

‘And yet,' I put in, ‘so many people at the church loved him.'

Pat shrugged. ‘I'm a teacher, have been for years. History, at the school here. One learns a good deal about character.'

‘One does. I was a teacher myself, eleven-year-olds. It wasn't long before I could spot a troublemaker when I first laid eyes on him. Or her, though at that age most of the worst brats were the boys.'

‘I teach all ages. It's a small school. And you know, it's remarkable how little they change from babyhood to age fourteen. Not all of them, but most.'

‘I imagine the problem children become even more so at adolescence.'

She shook her head ruefully. ‘Frightful! Raging hormones … I actually feel sorry for them, you know. It's a terrible time in one's life. Everything changes so fast, and you don't know whether you want the familiar security of childhood back, or the freedom of adulthood, and you don't understand your own emotions … terrible time.'

‘You know,' I said, ‘I've never quite understood the Faust legend. Myself, I wouldn't want my lost youth back at any price. If the devil offered it to me, I'd throw it back in his face.'

We both laughed. ‘Of course, we're women,' said Pat. ‘It might be a little different for those cursed with the Y chromosome.'

Alan looked a little taken aback, and I thought it was time to change the subject. ‘But you were saying, about Mr Abercrombie …?'

‘Yes.' She looked around the room and said in a lowered voice, ‘The word is that you both think he was murdered.'

‘Oh, dear.' I looked at Alan for help.

‘That's not true, Ms Vickers, and I hope you'll help quell that rumour. It is true that we think there might be the bare possibility that his death was not entirely accidental.'

She looked amused. ‘A good many of my older pupils have become adept, when an essay must be of a given length, in using twice as many words as necessary to make a statement. I've learned to translate. To me, it sounds like you've just said you think he was murdered.'

‘There's a difference, I assure you. We have some doubts, yes. But there is absolutely no evidence to support a charge of murder against anyone. You have probably heard that I am a retired policeman, and believe me, I do know what I'm talking about.'

‘Evidence is one thing. Belief is another.'

This was getting into dangerous territory. I turned the argument back on her. ‘And what do
you
think, Pat? Did he fall, or was he pushed?'

‘Me? I think he probably fell. But I know of several people who would have liked to push him.'

‘Such as?'

‘Oh, no, you're not going to trap me into saying. I've not yet had enough wine to be indiscreet!'

Alan took that as a hint and got up to buy her another, as Robin came to our table. ‘Still at it, Mrs Martin? Still trying to convict someone of an act that should win him a medal? If such an act was committed, which is plainly open to doubt. I'd have thought better of you, Pat, than to encourage such rubbish.'

‘Stop bullying me, Robin. I'll say what I like, thank you very much. I was no friend of Abercrombie's, and neither were you.'

Her voice was rising, and heads were turning our way. This could turn into a row. I stood. Alan brought Pat her glass of wine and took my arm. ‘Good evening, everyone.'

We got out before things got ugly.

‘Whew!'

‘Yes. I don't know that we learned anything from that except that we're treading on sensitive ground. Tonight, my dear, is definitely a night to stay in our cave and eat leftovers.'

I had nightmares that night, brought on partly by an incompatible mixture of cuisines and partly by anxiety. I didn't remember details in the morning, only a sense of disquiet and lack of rest, which, along with the weather, led to an attack of grumpiness.

‘Rain! We don't
need
any more rain. We can't do anything, we can't go anywhere – drat!'

‘We have a car,' Alan reminded me patiently. ‘We can go anywhere we need to go. Here – I made coffee.'

Alan thinks any of my moods can be cured by an appropriate beverage. Coffee, tea, wine … and the infuriating thing is, he's usually right. I sat up in bed and sipped the coffee sullenly, but I began to feel better, almost unwillingly.

‘Had a bad night, love? You were very restless.'

‘Oh, I suppose I did. I'm sorry if I kept you awake. Was I talking in my sleep?'

‘The odd groan now and again. Nothing serious. And you didn't keep me awake. I went back to sleep straightaway. What was it about?'

‘I don't know. I woke up with a sense of panic, but I don't know why. I have a vague feeling it might have been one of those awful dreams of being chased and not able to run. Or maybe I was the one doing the chasing. Anyway, it was unpleasant. Sorry to take it out on you.'

‘That, my dear, is one of the things a spouse is for. Let's go down to breakfast and talk about interesting things we can do in the rain.'

When I was a child I loved to walk in the rain, but some pleasures fade with age. I don't like cold, wet feet or glasses so obscured with rain that I can't see, or treacherous wet cobblestones. Of course, we did have a car. But what was there to do indoors on this island?

We talked about it over breakfast. ‘I don't want to sit around and wait for people to come and talk to us again,' I said with determination. ‘We're making enemies left and right.'

‘Or pro and con, one might say. The pro-Abercrombie faction thinks we're demeaning his memory, and the antis think we're looking for his murderer, whom they don't especially want found. Not that they'd put it that way.'

‘No. But it's true. Alan, I'm out of ideas, short of turning the whole mess over to the police.'

‘Who have already marked it “case closed”. Or rather, never opened. I think we need to let it rest for a while and wait for inspiration to strike.'

‘I'm not feeling very inspired. This weather shuts down my brain cells.'

‘So let's wake them up. I'm told the museum is quite good, and would give those brain cells of yours some exercise. And when we tire of that, we can go around the corner to the library. There's a display there that you missed before, and I think you'll like it.'

It sounded like a rather dreary way to spend a dreary day, but the alternatives were limited. I finished my coffee and acquiesced. ‘But Morning Prayer first.'

‘We may be royally snubbed.'

‘Doesn't matter.' I badly needed a dose of serenity, and the lovely words of the Book of Common Prayer always soothed my soul.

We timed our arrival at the parish church so that there was little time to talk to anyone, and left promptly at the conclusion of the blessing, earning some disapproving looks in the process. But as I'd said, it didn't really matter. We had walked to the church, it being just across the street, but Alan wondered if I wanted to drive to the museum.

‘I don't think so. Where would we park? It's not that far away, and the rain isn't as bad today.'

‘It could get worse rapidly. Island weather is capricious.'

‘If it does, we'll head straight back to Belle Isle, where we can get into dry clothes.'

The museum building itself was interesting, being the old schoolhouse – really old; a plaque on the wall showed a date of 1790. The inscription was in French, but such simple French that even I could read the basic facts of the school's founding by one Jean Le Mesurier, governor of the island at the time.

Inside, the place didn't show its age. It was clean and bright, and the exhibits turned out to be far more interesting than I had anticipated. I was captivated by the display of artefacts from the Elizabethan shipwreck, which included several cannons in remarkably good condition. ‘They've undergone extensive conservation, of course,' said another visitor in response to my admiring comments. ‘Still, it is amazing, isn't it? All those years in saltwater, and here they are. Have you seen the muskets?'

There was, in fact, a great deal to see. Alan, who remembered almost nothing of World War Two but had lived as a child with the terrible aftermath, was drawn to artefacts from the German occupation he'd been reading about. ‘Slave labour camps,' he murmured to me. ‘Horrible.'

History can be terrifying or amusing or instructive, but it is almost never boring. I was amazed to discover that two hours had passed when an attendant came to us and apologetically announced that the museum was closing for lunch. ‘We'll reopen at two thirty, and no one will charge you another admission fee if you want to come back then.'

‘Goodness! It felt like five minutes,' I said to Alan when we were back on the street, where the rain had diminished to a fine mizzle. ‘This business of shutting down over the lunch hour: so very continental.'

‘We're closer to France than to England,' Alan reminded me. ‘And France, or at least Normandy, ruled here for quite some time. Now, are you hungry, or shall we pop over to the library?'