High Island Blues (17 page)

Edie shook her head. ‘I didn’t even know that he flew back with his friends. The way I heard it he met a girl out there and he stayed. I’m sure that’s what we were told.’

‘His parents didn’t go out for the wedding?’

Edie shook her head again.

‘Did they give any reason?’

‘It was the start of the season, wasn’t it? They were too busy.’

At the other end of the bar the match was finishing. There was a climax of applause as the last dart was thrown. Women gathered at the bar, hugging each other.

Edie Gill leaned forward across the table.

‘You can’t do any good for your friend here, my dear,’ she said. ‘I think you should go home. Save your time and your money.’

The playful tone of the beginning of the evening was gone and this was more like a threat.

‘What happened, Edie?’

‘Nothing at all happened, my dear.’ They both knew it was a lie.

‘I shan’t give up,’ Molly said.

‘That’s up to you, of course, but you’ll find that most people’s memories aren’t as good as mine.’ She paused. ‘There’s another thing you should consider.’

‘Yes?’

‘If I’ve heard that you’re staying in the village asking questions, Mr Brownscombe will have heard too. And he’s not a pleasant man when he’s angry.’ She shook her head to decline another drink and waited to be taken home. Molly did not move.

‘And Mrs Brownscombe,’ she asked. ‘What’s she like?’

‘A hard case,’ Edie said. ‘Not a woman to cross.’ It was another warning.

‘Didn’t she want to see her boy married? Won’t she want to be there at his funeral? He
was
her only son?’

‘And the love of her life, my dear. The apple of her eye.’

‘Why didn’t she stand up on his behalf to her husband?’

‘She wanted what was best for Michael. She knew it would do no good to make a fuss.’

And you should know it too, Edie was saying.

Molly walked Edie home through the rain. She had drunk too much to drive. She held an umbrella over the old lady’s head and stumbled with her up the path to the cottage door. The family must have been listening out because the door opened immediately and Edie was whisked away before Molly could thank her or say goodbye.

When she returned to the pub it was only nine o’clock. With the end of the darts match, men had begun to drift in and the place seemed less friendly. Perhaps because of what Edie had said she imagined the customers knew who she was and were talking about her. ‘Daft old cow,’ she imagined them saying. ‘ Why doesn’t she mind her own business and piss off back to where she belongs?’

She walked up to the bar and ordered another glass of cider. The landlord raised his eyebrows but he poured it. She returned to her seat by the fire, determined to make the drink last. If she had any more she’d be ill in the morning but her room was cold and shabby and she did not feel ready for bed.

‘Hey lady!’ She hadn’t seen him come in. He was a young man. Not local. A northern accent and a Newcastle United shirt, two earrings and a shaved head. Although it was a cool night and despite the rain he wore no jacket. He spoke conversationally, even softly, but the whole bar was listening.

‘Yes?’ Immediately she wished she had not drunk so much. Her glasses had steamed up and she took them off to wipe them. Then her vision was clearer but not her head.

‘Mr Brownscombe would like a word.’

‘Oh, good. I’d like a word with him.’ It was her social worker’s voice, bossy and educated. ‘ Perhaps you could ask him to phone me here and let me know when it would be convenient.’

The young Geordie was thrown off balance.

‘No! He’d like a word now. He’s sent me to fetch you.’

As she stood up to follow him she knew it was foolhardy. If she refused in front of all these people there would be nothing he could do. Partly it was bravado which got her to her feet – she refused to let these whispering men know she was nervous. Partly it was the knowledge that in the morning, when she was sober, she might not have the courage to face Wilf Brownscombe alone.

There was a white house on a headland. When she got out of the car she could hear the waves on the rocks below. It was still raining and she had forgotten her umbrella. The young Geordie stayed in the car, a large, flashy machine which smelled of stale cigarette smoke. A pointed sign swinging like a pub sign in the wind said: White Gables Rest Home. The downstairs curtains had not been drawn and through two long windows she saw women in blue overalls hauling old people from chairs, set in a row. Presumably it was bedtime.

There was a glass door at the side of the house. It was unlocked and led into an overheated lobby. Molly stood for a moment shaking the rain from her hair. In the distance, through an open door, she could see a resident the care assistants had not reached. He sat in a high-backed chair, his face paralysed in a grimace. A towel had been tucked around his neck and he was dribbling.

‘Can I help you?’ Molly jumped. The woman had appeared behind her. She was not in uniform. A boss, Molly thought. One of the management. She looked at Molly, sizing her up. I’m probably as old as a lot of her residents, Molly thought. Perhaps she sees me as a potential client. She’s put me down as a trouble-maker. I’d be offered one of the poky rooms at the back.

‘I understand that Mr Brownscombe wants to see me,’ she said.

The woman said nothing. She turned and expected Molly to follow. She wore a navy blue skirt and jacket and chunky jewellery which was probably gold. Her hair was pale apricot, permed and set like caramelized sugar. She looked to Molly like one of the fierce middle-aged women who run cosmetic counters in high-class department stores and gave Molly the same feeling of inadequacy. There was a thick carpet on the floor and her shoes made no sound.

‘Excuse me,’ Molly called after her. ‘Are you Mrs Brownscombe?’

The woman stopped and turned. She wore glasses on a fine gold chain round her neck. She looked at her watch impatiently, nodded briefly as if she could not afford the time to speak and continued up the corridor. Molly scuttled after her.

‘I’m so sorry about your son,’ Molly said.

The woman stopped again.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

‘Mrs Palmer-Jones,’ Molly said. She was unusually grateful for the stupid name. Mrs Brownscombe seemed impressed. ‘My husband’s an ornithologist. He knew your son. He asked me to find you. To offer our condolences. He’s already in Texas for the funeral.’ It seemed important to tell Viv Brownscombe that she wasn’t working alone. Even to Molly the story sounded unbelievable – condolences were sent by the post not delivered in person by scruffy old ladies.

‘Michael has never mentioned you,’ the woman said coldly.

‘Would he have done? I understood that you weren’t speaking.’

‘What do you want? Money?’ The woman’s voice was dispassionate. ‘You’ll have to discuss that with me. Wilfred’s an undischarged bankrupt. He has no assets.’

In her befuddled state it took Molly a while to realize she was being accused of blackmail. She was trying to put together an answer when a door into the corridor opened. A man appeared in front of them, blocking their path. Molly recognized him from the description of his son. They must have been very similar. He was small and dark and he even had a nervous tic which might have been the result of a lazy eye.

He was also, Molly saw, almost at once, very stupid. He might be a bully but he was the sort of bully who had started off as a victim. If Mick Brownscombe had not been bright enough to go to the Grammar School perhaps he would have ended up the same way.

‘Where have you been?’ He ignored Molly and spoke directly to his wife. ‘ There was a phone call for you. Some relative. I didn’t know what to say.’

The nerve in his cheek twitched. He was very angry. He hated this place, these sick people, being dependent on his wife. Molly felt that at any moment he might lash out. Just throw a tantrum because he was miserable.

‘This is Mrs Palmer-Jones. You were expecting her.’ The conversation in the lobby, the oblique reference to blackmail, might never have taken place.

Brownscombe looked at Molly. Like a butcher at a fatstock market selecting a beast. Then he dismissed her as unimportant. She could tell exactly what he was thinking. He was not sufficiently clever to put on a show. Whatever the rumours going round the village this woman was no threat. He had been worrying about nothing. He smiled.

‘You’d better come in,’ Mrs Brownscombe said. ‘Now that you’re here.’ The impulse to bring Molly to the nursing home had obviously been Wilf’s. She had disapproved of it.

They had been standing in the corridor staring at each other. Wilf moved back through the door. The room was an office, rather overblown and grand. There was a large desk and a leather chair in one corner. Velvet curtains fell to the floor. A chintz sofa and armchair faced an ornate wood and marble fireplace. The gas fire had been lit. Mrs Brownscombe looked very much at home there. As if she had wandered down a floor in the department store from cosmetics to furniture.

‘Perhaps you could ask Ingrid to bring us some tea,’ she said to her husband, speaking slowly, as if he were one of her demented residents. Perhaps she was hoping to get rid of him so she and Molly could continue their conversation but he just went to the door and yelled the message to a woman in a blue uniform who was manoeuvring a drugs trolley down the corridor.

They sat on the sofa and looked at the fire.

‘You wanted to see me,’ Molly said.

‘We’d heard you were asking after us.’

‘As I explained to your wife I wanted to pass on our condolences.’

He accepted that without question. Molly looked at the woman. She hadn’t been taken in but had decided to let Molly continue.

‘You were a friend of Mickey’s then?’ he asked. He reached out to take a tumbler of whisky from the desk and she thought he was probably more drunk than she was. And that he was grieving. So much, she thought, for George’s theory that Wilf was for some reason involved in his son’s murder.

‘My husband knew him. From the old days. You know, when he was at university and he used to go birdwatching with Rob Earl and Oliver Adamson.’

She expected recognition but the names seemed to mean nothing to him.

‘I remember them,’ Mrs Brownscombe said reluctantly. ‘We never met them but Michael used to write home from Brighton every week. It was always Rob this and Oliver that.’

‘Then he went to America with them.’

‘And that was a bloody stupid idea.’ Wilf could hardly contain himself. ‘Three months in America. Just on holiday. I said to him: “Work thirty years without a break like me and then you’ll deserve a holiday.”’

‘But he went anyway,’ Molly said easily, not making too much of it. Kids, she seemed to be saying, they’re all the same, aren’t they? Do what they want. Don’t even think of their parents.

Wilf Brownscombe was not listening. ‘And now I’m on bloody perpetual holiday. Minder to a bunch of poor bastards who can’t wipe their own arses. And not even trusted to do that. Living off a woman. Do you realize I’ve not even got a bank account of my own?’ Molly was aware again of the anger, barely controlled, growing.

‘You had a row then?’ she said brightly. ‘Before Mick went off.’

‘Not in the end. In the end he went off with my blessing.’ He looked up at her. ‘Say what you like, I did my best for him.’ He stared back into his glass.

‘And then of course he got married,’ Viv said chattily. It was so unlike her to volunteer information that Molly realized she was worried Wilf would give something away. Perhaps a confidence or confession which would explain her fear of blackmail. ‘And he set up in business on his own. I understand he’s done very well.’

‘Yes,’ Molly said. ‘Did he tell you about his work?’

‘Nothing,’ Wilf answered angrily.

‘He was working closely with a charity before he died. What they call in the States a non-profit organization. The Wildlife Partnership. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?’

Wilf shook his head.

‘But I believe you’re both very involved in charity work.’

He seemed confused. ‘Before I was made bankrupt I was trustee of the hospice in town,’ he said. ‘ We still support it when we can. And we give to the Donkey Sanctuary in Croyde.’

Unless they were magnificent actors, Molly thought, the Wildlife Partnership meant nothing to them. So that put paid to another of George’s theories.

‘Was Mick always interested in natural history?’ she asked. ‘Even before he went to university and met Rob and Oliver?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Viv Brownscombe said. ‘He’d have turned the house into a zoo if we’d let him, wouldn’t he, Wilf? We had seagulls with damaged wings, a hedgehog in a cardboard box and a sparrow that he’d rescued from the cat.’ She seemed eager to remember him as a boy and Molly realized that in her own way she was grieving, too.

‘We soon put paid to that,’ Wilf said. ‘We couldn’t have vermin cluttering up the place. Not in a hotel. We’d have the health people down on us like a ton of bricks.’

‘Wasn’t there a teacher at the Grammar School who encouraged him?’ Molly asked.

The couple looked at each other but she couldn’t quite make out what they were thinking. Had they disliked the man, resented his influence on their son?

‘That’s right,’ Wilf said. ‘Butterworth. A weedy sort of chap. I could never make out what Michael saw in him.’

‘Does he still live locally? He might be interested to hear of Michael’s death. They might even have been in touch over the years.’

‘No.’ Mr Brownscombe’s answer was quite definite. ‘They won’t have written.’

‘But he does still live in the area?’

‘Well how would we know that? After all this time.’ She turned away impatiently.

‘Is there anyone else I should talk to? Perhaps an old girlfriend of Mick’s?’

‘No,’ Viv snapped. ‘There’s no one left here who remembers him now.’

They sat for a moment.

‘It must have been a shock when Michael married Laurie,’ Molly said gently. ‘And not very convenient for you, Mr Brownscombe. It left you without anyone to take on your business.’