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

had been a very sudden change of heart through, that it wasn’t something that he’d thought out clearly. The evening of the row he was late getting here. He’d been having a meal with Ella and Jack, but Ella would have been the last person to try to persuade him not to take the job. She’d understand what it meant to him.”
    “Did you hear from Tom again?”
    “Yes, he phoned the night before he died.”
    “You spoke to him? Even though you had been so angry just a couple of days before?”
    “Yes. You must understand that I had no right to be angry with him. I owed him so much. When he phoned it was as if I’d never lost my temper. There was the same concern, the same worry about me. He phoned to say that he wouldn’t be coming to see me that night. He was going birdwatching early the next morning.”
    “So you knew that he would be out on the marsh early on the day he died?”
    “Yes, I knew.” She understood perfectly the implication of his question.
    “Did you tell anyone else?”
    “No, I didn’t see anyone else.”
    “Where were you on the Saturday morning that Tom died?”
    “I was here. The police don’t believe me. Someone phoned from the hotel to find out why Tom wasn’t at work, and there was no reply. I heard the phone but I was bathing Barnaby. I couldn’t leave him on his own in the bath, and by the time I took him out and reached the phone it had stopped ringing. I told the police but I could tell that they didn’t believe me.”
    Barnaby was sitting on the grass at her side, reaching forward between his bare feet, pulling the heads off daisies. Sally pulled him closer to her, held him tight. He chortled as if it were a game, but she did not seem to be playing.
    “That last letter … it seems to say that I had something to do with Tom’s death.” She was speaking softly, without drama. “The police have looked at Jenny Kenning’s records and they know about our row, so they know all about Tom’s threats to have Barnaby taken into care. When they came to see me they were very polite, but they were so suspicious.”
    If that were a plea for reassurance, none came. Molly wanted to say that Sally was being silly, that of course no one could think that she had killed Tom. But George did not answer, and Molly felt that her words would be meaningless. The silence which expressed their lack of faith in Sally angered her, but George sat, still and impassive, and she dared not speak. In the village the parish bell-ringers were practising. A long way off there was the sound of a tractor. Under the apple tree the silence lingered, grew unbearable. Barnaby seemed to sense the tension and toddled away from the adults to the shady corner behind the tree and grew busy, examining dead blossoms, twigs and a cracked flower pot. It was to defend herself, to break the silence, that Sally said:
    “Tom seemed very popular among the birdwatchers, but some of the younger ones resented him. He patronized them in the same way that he patronized me. He tried to tell them how to behave. He tried to show them birds they had already identified.”
    “How do you know that they felt that way? Did he ever bring any of the twitchers here?”
    He still spoke quietly and unassumingly, but Molly could sense Sally’s hostility and her growing panic.
    “I used to go out with Tom on his day off. It embarrassed me. It was like being on a royal tour. Tom expected everyone to know him. Everyone was supposed to have heard of the famous Tom French. But he hadn’t found a rare bird for ages and that attitude doesn’t go down well with some of the younger lads. Occasionally he brought people to stay the night here. I wouldn’t have minded if it had happened more often. I enjoyed the company but Tom was afraid that it disturbed Barnaby.”
    “Who did Tom bring to stay?”
    “Rob Earl came most often, and there was a schoolboy who stayed a couple, of times.”
    “Adam Anderson?”
    “I can’t remember his name. He was