Free Palmer-Jones 01 - A Bird in the Hand by Ann Cleeves Page A

show that I did care, in a way. Besides, I’ve got my own reasons for needing to know who killed him.”
    She took three brown envelopes from her bag. One was still unopened. George read the two notes and, after Sally had nodded her approval, he handed them to Molly. He looked carefully at the envelopes.
    “When did these arrive?” he asked.
    “One on the morning that Tom died, and one on Monday. This,” she held up the unopened letter, her hand trembling, “came the day I phoned you.”
    “What are you going to do about it?”
    She took a deep breath. “I’ll open it now. It’s no good just pretending that this isn’t happening.”
    “Oh,” she said, very quietly. “Oh, it’s horrible.”
    It was written in the same uneven capitals. She was blinking back the tears. She showed them.
    “Because of you, Tom French is dead,” it said. “ Perhaps you will be next.”
    “Have you told the police about these?”
    She shook her head, still very upset.
    “The police came to interview me, after Tom died. They weren’t very sympathetic. I just answered their questions. A letter calling me a whore seemed pretty unimportant compared with Tom’s death.”
    “You’ll have to tell them now.”
    “I suppose I will.”
    “Have you any idea who could have sent them?”
    She shook her head helplessly. She was too distressed to think constructively. “ Do you think they were sent by the same person who killed Tom?”
    “I don’t know,” George said slowly, “I really don’t know. Have you ever heard of Bernard Cranshaw?”
    “I can’t remember meeting him. I’ve heard Tom talk about him. It always sounded to me as if he was jealous of Tom.”
    “I’m sure that you’re right. I’m asking because he’s the only person I’ve met who ever expressed any antipathy towards Tom.”
    Sally did not respond at all.
    “Is there anything else you can tell us which might help us to find out who killed him?”
    She made an effort to pull herself together, to collect her thoughts.
    “No, nothing specific. But I know that something happened the week before he died. About two months ago he was offered the chance of working full time for a tour company, leading bird watching holidays abroad. He hated working in the White Lodge and although he loved Rushy he was starting to get restless. It was the sort of thing he’d always wanted to do. The tour company was based in Bristol and he would have had to move there. He very much wanted to take the job—it was a good one and I think there’d been a lot of competition for it. I know that Rob Earl was angry. He felt that it should have been offered to him. Tom was worried about Barnaby and me.”
    She gave a wry smile. “He usually was worried about Barnaby and me. It took him a long time, but finally he decided to take the job, although I made it clear that I was not prepared to move to Bristol. I was very pleased. It gave me the chance to be independent of him, without seeming ungrateful. He knew that we had settled here. It gave him the chance to be independent of me too.
    “Then, a few days before he died, suddenly he seemed to change his mind. He said that I wouldn’t be able to look after Barnaby on my own. He asked me to marry him, to go to Bristol with him. When I refused he got really angry, crazy angry. I think that he’d been drinking. He said that he would get Barnaby taken into care, that he would say he was the father, and apply for custody himself. At first I was frightened. I’d never seen him like that before. He said a lot of cruel things, personal things. Then I lost my temper and told him that I never wanted to see him again. I never did.”
    “Did you tell the police about your argument?”
    “I didn’t need to. The walls of the cottage are very thin and they interviewed the neighbours before they came to see me.”
    “And nothing he said gave you any indication of what had changed his mind?”
    She shook her head.
    “I got the impression that it