High Island Blues (28 page)

At Anahuac, Rob Earl organized a rail pull. He had prepared the rope in advance. It was coiled in the boot of the car, with the packs of sandwiches and the flasks of cold drink. The rope was twenty yards long, strung every six feet with an old square detergent bottle filled with sand. He gave one end to Oliver and the other to George and made them walk across the wet meadow dragging the rope between them.

‘It’s brilliant!’ he said. His face was red with heat and excitement. ‘There’s nothing like it for flushing out rails.’ He turned to Oliver. ‘If only we’d thought of a trick like this when we were here the first time. There wouldn’t have been so much sitting round the Oaklands Hotel, moaning and waiting for the wind to change.’

Oliver did not reply.

‘Isn’t it cheating?’ George resisted the euphoria. There was the nagging worry about Molly, the unfinished business, the dilemma of what to tell Benson.

‘Nothing against it in the rules.’

‘All the same.’

‘Oh, come on George. Don’t be boring. Not today. Today we’re making history!’

And that was how he saw it. It was as important to him as that.

They walked slowly, tugging the rope through the marsh grass. George suddenly found the situation ridiculous. What was he doing here, up to his ankles in mud? These were boy’s games and he should have grown out of them. He watched the Sora rails which had been skulking in the vegetation fly out into the open. They had short wings and an ungainly, awkward flight which took them only a few yards before they scuttled back into the marsh again. Then he saw a flash of white which made him forget his ethical misgivings. It was the wing of a tiny yellow rail, the bird which Rob must have been after all the time. George felt a rush of adrenaline and yelled with the rest of them. He was still just as much a boy as they were.

Rob was triumphant. ‘There you are George. What did I tell you? Wasn’t that worth it?’

And George admitted that he supposed it was.

In the afternoon they returned to High Island, to the Audubon sanctuaries. Again Rob had left nothing to chance. He had briefed one of his party, the retired doctor from Inverness, to go round the reserves in the morning and the man was at Boy Scout waiting for them, eager to report what had been seen.

They sat at Purkey’s Pond to eat lunch, adding species to the list all the time, feeling like celebrities as people from the Oaklands Hotel turned up to cheer them on.

Connie May was with them. She had been at the sanctuary entrance when they arrived. Perhaps she had been there all morning looking out for the hire car. She beamed.

‘I hear you’ve been doing ever so well,’ she said. She sat next to her husband, unwrapped his sandwiches, poured him a drink. Like a mother flushed with pleasure at her child’s achievements.

Even Julia Adamson came to Boy Scout Wood. Her face was hidden by large round sun-glasses so George could not tell what she made of them all or why she was there. Perhaps she had come to pass on information because he overheard her say to Oliver:

‘The merry widow’s arrived at Oaklands. They’re making a fuss of her of course. You can tell she’s loving every minute. She can hardly be grieving for Michael, can she?’

Oliver said: ‘And I suppose you’d grieve for me?’

The thought of Laurie at Oaklands made George more anxious. He was taking a risk. He should have passed on his suspicions, however tenuous, to Benson. There would at least be a shared responsibility then. He was desperate to talk to Molly but it seemed that the day had a momentum of its own. He could not control it. There was no time to get to a phone.

Rob moved them on. To Smith Oaks. To the Oilfield Ponds. And as night began to fall, back to the coast, to the town of Gilchrist, close to where they had started. In the dusk, black crowned night heron drifted over their heads. As they drove back to the hotel they completed their list with a barn owl which they saw in the headlights hunting along the roadside.

George, who had spent the day expecting a disaster, was relieved. It was over. He could take charge of events again.

‘This is it then,’ Rob said. ‘Glory awaits us.’

They knew they had won. Even cautious George was sure of that.

The others walked ahead of him into the house, their arms round each other’s shoulders, swaying like drunken football fans after an away win.

Rob turned back. ‘Come on, George! We did it! Don’t be such a cold fish!’

George shook his head. The day had been an escape. Nothing had been resolved. With a sudden panic he pushed past them into the hotel.

Molly must have been waiting for his call because the phone was lifted after the first ring.

She spoke. He listened in silence.

‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘What will you do?’

‘It’s not proof.’

‘You could get proof. If you wanted to.’

He didn’t answer.

‘Do you want to?’ she demanded.

He was still thinking about that when she said, ‘I’m going to bed. And in the morning I’m driving home.’

‘I’ll come home tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens.’

He replaced the phone. Somewhere there was an answering click. A door being shut. Or opened. He was in Mary Ann’s flat. He had asked to use the phone there. The rest of the hotel was a madhouse. Even from here he could make out the strains of the country band Mary Ann had hired for the night, cheers, singing. And footsteps. He could hear footsteps on the polished wood floor. He had not locked the door behind him. He turned round, startled, although he had been half expecting her. In her hand was a kitchen knife.

‘Not a chisel then, this time,’ he said.

‘I want to talk to you.’ Her voice was urgent. She waved the knife in front of him.

‘Of course not,’ he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘The chisel was only meant for him, wasn’t it? It was special. Why was that?’ He knew already.

‘Because of Helen,’ she said. ‘ He killed our Helen.’

‘Little Nell.’

‘That was his name for her,’ she spat back angrily. ‘We never called her that.’

‘She was an artist,’ he said.

‘She was brilliant! She could have gone to Art School and made a living at it. All the teachers said that.’

‘It was her chisel? She used it to make her carvings?’

Connie May nodded.

‘When did you find out?’ she said.

‘About Helen? Just now. My wife’s been talking to Paul Butterworth. I should have guessed, shouldn’t I, when I saw you at the High School watching the girls.’

‘She was their age when she died.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’

‘That’s why I’m here,’ she cried. ‘Not to hurt you. To tell you. I had to make you listen. Too many people have walked away while I’ve tried to explain.’

She sat next to him on the sofa with the point of the knife against his chest so he could feel it pricking him through the thin material of his shirt. She had been a school cook. She was confident with knives. He supposed he would be able to overpower her if he had to but he hoped he wouldn’t have to try.

‘Helen was a school-friend of Mick Brownscombe’s wasn’t she?’ he prompted.

She nodded. ‘We were pleased as punch when she got to the Grammar. She was never what you’d call brainy. But a worker. A tryer. And good with her hands.’

‘Younger than Mick?’

She nodded again. ‘She met him at that club Mr Butterworth started for the kiddies. She’d always been fond of animals. We didn’t think there’d be any harm in it.’

‘The school entered a team in the County Trust Bird Race,’ George said.

‘How did you know about that?’

‘I found a winner’s certificate among Mick Brownscombe’s belongings. He’d kept it. Their friendship must have meant a lot to him.’

And that was how I first knew it was you, he thought. That among other things. Russell organized the bird races for the Devon Trust. He must have known Michael, must have recognized him as Wilf Brownscombe’s son but he claimed never to have met him. He could have told me today. I gave him the chance. But still he said nothing.

‘It meant a lot to Helen,’ Connie May said. ‘She waited for him all the time he was at college.’

‘He kept one of her wood carvings,’ George said. ‘ He brought it with him when he left Britain.’

‘When he ran away!’ she said.

They sat for a moment without speaking. Outside in the garden fireworks were being let off. There were shouts and screams.

‘What happened that night?’ George asked.

‘He’d been drinking,’ she said. ‘Working in some bar his father owned.’

And you’ve never had a drink since, George thought.

‘Helen spent the evening there. It was the only way she could get to see him. Wilf never gave him time off. The last bus home was at ten-thirty. She left the bar and walked into the village. It was raining, cold, the end of the season. He told her to wait and he’d drive her home when the bar closed but she was a sensible girl and she said she’d get the bus. He didn’t like that. He followed her. In his father’s car.’

George imagined the narrow Devon lane with its overgrown hedgerows, the boy driving frantically after the girl, hoping to make his peace with her before the bus took her away.

‘He skidded,’ Connie said. ‘Crashed into her.’ She turned her head away but the point of the knife was still at his chest.

‘What did he do?’

‘Left her. Went back to the bar. Phoned an ambulance. And phoned his father Wilf Brownscombe. Just the man to fix anything. By the time the police arrived to find out what had happened there were half a dozen witnesses to swear that Mick Brownscombe had never left the bar all evening.’

‘Why are you so sure that he had?’

‘Russell was a special constable. He had friends who were policemen. He knew what was going on. If anyone had tried hard enough there’d have been forensic evidence to link that car to the accident. But Wilf Brownscombe had money and influence and he knew too much about some very senior police officers. You don’t only get corruption in the city, Mr Palmer-Jones. No one tried very hard.’

And it
had
happened, George thought. Just as Connie had described. Mick admitted it. On High Island in the middle of a storm he told the others how he had crashed his father’s car when he was drunk. He couldn’t admit to it all. That was too terrible a secret even for the truth game. But Laurie had realized there was more to be told. She’d seen him as damaged goods and that she could do what she liked with him.

‘We tried to get justice,’ Connie went on. ‘We wrote to the papers and the chief constable. The letters weren’t printed. Russell was sacked from his job as a special because they said he was too emotionally involved. Then Michael suddenly flew off to America. His dad hadn’t liked the idea before. He’d been dead set against it. But suddenly the trip had his blessing and Michael flew away to enjoy the holiday of a lifetime.’

No, George thought, remembering what Oliver had said about the trip, Michael didn’t enjoy it. He hardly knew where he was. It was only when he came to High Island and met Laurie that he considered any future for himself. And then he grasped the chance. He was desperate. He hated his father for saving him from prosecution. He should have been grateful but he hated him. He couldn’t go home.

‘Everyone forgot about it,’ Connie said. ‘Even some of our friends forgot that we’d ever had a daughter and when people asked us we’d say: “No. No children.” You don’t want to have to explain.’

‘But of course you didn’t forget.’

‘We wanted justice,’ she cried. ‘That was all that kept us going. We’d lost our only daughter.’

As Sally was the Adamsons’ only daughter and Oliver would have done anything for her.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. ‘We knew Michael would have told Mr Butterworth what he’d done,’ she said. ‘They were that close. He would have had to tell someone and there was no one else he could confide in. If Butterworth had come out into the open, made a public statement that would have been enough. We could have left it alone.’

‘But he wouldn’t?’

‘We saw him several times but we couldn’t persuade him. I suppose it was a sort of loyalty.’

‘Why did you leave it so long before trying to find Michael?’

She looked at him as if he were a fool.

‘Because we couldn’t afford it. Until Russell was made redundant.’

‘You knew he was in Houston?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Connie said bitterly. ‘We found out that much. We knew he’d set up in business for himself and was doing very nicely thank you.’

‘So you booked on this trip.’

‘We’d been planning it for years.’

‘There were no friends out here working for British Gas, were there? You thought you would hire a car and go to Houston to find Michael. But there was no need. Michael came to you.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He came to us.’

‘Did you mean to kill him?’

‘No! We wanted to talk to him. To show him how much he’d hurt us.’

‘But you brought the chisel with you.’

‘To remind him. Of what had been. Of the waste.’

‘Why then was he killed?’

She didn’t answer and he changed tack, said conversationally: ‘You shouldn’t have made up that story about overhearing Esme Lovegrove. I was in the lounge the lunchtime of the day she died. She saw you burying the chisel and you had to kill her. You made up the story to save yourself.’

She looked at him with growing horror.

‘Not me,’ she said, so quietly that it was almost a whisper. ‘Is that why you think I’m here?’ She looked at the knife, threw it away from her onto the floor. That was to make you listen. I had to make you understand why he did it. Why do you think I asked you to stay with him all day? So that it couldn’t happen again!’

‘Where is he now?’ George asked.

‘Quite safe. With Rob and Mr Adamson. Everyone’s making a fuss of them for winning the race. I wanted him to have that.’

‘Russell killed Michael and Esme Lovegrove?’

She paused, then nodded. ‘Michael Brownscombe didn’t recognize us at first. We’d followed him down that narrow trail. It was raining. No one else was about. We thought we’d lose him and Russell shouted after him. We’d been talking to him earlier about bird watching in Devon and he didn’t have a clue who we were. You’d think he’d remember, even after twenty years. So Russell shouted. He turned round and then he did know us. Perhaps he had all along and he’d just been pretending. But he wouldn’t stop and talk. He turned his back on us and carried on along the trail. Russell lost his temper then. He picked up one of those metal poles and ran after him. He hit him. He’s never been a violent man and I wasn’t expecting it. I couldn’t stop him. Then he rolled him off the track and stuck the chisel in his back. It was to remind him of Helen, Russell said. As if Michael would know. He must have been unconscious. Russell can’t have known what he was doing. After all those years of brooding … that’s what I came here to explain. And perhaps he was right. Perhaps that’s what Brownscombe deserved.’