Free Palmer-Jones 04 - A Prey to Murder by Ann Cleeves Page A

park was still full and cars were parked on the grass verge of the lane, but people were beginning to drift away. Several times he had to stand aside to let cars past, but it was three quarters of an hour later, when he had almost reached the town, that he heard the sound of a vehicle behind him and turned to see his father’s blue van rattle round a corner towards him. For a moment he thought his father had followed him to apologize, to reestablish contact, but the driver hardly seemed to notice him and the van hurtled on down the narrow road, almost touching the overgrown hedges on each side.
    He walked down the high street but saw no one he knew. The shop windows were empty and shuttered for the weekend, and there was no one about. When he arrived home the house, too, was unusually quiet. His mother was alone there. Heather had taken the children for a walk to the park, she said. His mother was ironing. The ironing board was in the middle of the living room and she stood behind it, firm and implacable, pushing the heavy iron over the household’s clothes.
    ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be back yet,’ he said. She usually finished early on a Sunday but it had been so busy at Gorse Hill he had thought she might be working overtime. He was glad she was back. She paused in her ironing.
    ‘I told Mrs Mead I had to finish on time,’ she said grimly. ‘I told her: “ I’ve got a family of my own to look after. This is supposed to be the Wildlife Trust’s Open Day. Let them do their own washing up.” Mrs Masefield would have had something to say but Mrs Mead let me go.’
    She looked sharply at her son. ‘What’s the matter with you, then?’ she said. She had realized immediately that he was upset. ‘What happened?’
    Although the plastic basket was still full of washing she stood the iron on its end, switched it off at the plug and began to wind the flex round the handle.
    ‘Come on,’ she said, already beginning to become irritated. ‘Tell me what it’s all about.’ He had always needed more care than the others. He had taken up more of her time and the others had missed out because of it. They did not seem to mind – Heather said he was sensitive and she should be more sympathetic – but she thought there was something nervy and girlish about him. She wished he were more robust, for his own sake as well as hers.
    He’ll grow out of it, she thought. It’s a stage he’s going through. But she had been thinking that since he was five years old. He had sobbed every day not to be left at school, and he had clung to her as she tried to leave the classroom. He looked very similar now, drained and wretched, slouched on his chair. She wondered when she would make time to finish the ironing. She loved him of course but begrudged the interruption to her peace. She had a lot to think about.
    ‘I saw Dad,’ he said. ‘At the Open Day.’
    ‘What was he doing there?’
    He could not tell whether the information was news to her. Her face and her voice gave nothing away. He had wondered if she had seen Frank at Gorse Hill, if he had been into the kitchen to see her. She left the ironing board standing and sat beside him.
    ‘He was working for the bloke from Puddleworth.’
    She nodded. She understood whom Laurie meant. During her marriage she had lived with Frank’s obsession with birds of prey. At their terraced house in Wolverhampton, the small back garden which she had planned as a safe place for the children to play had been filled with aviaries and cages. She had lived with the rituals of breeding and feeding and flying. When they were first married Frank had been working for British Rail as a steward and the falconry had been a hobby like racing pigeons or growing leeks. Then he had come to the attention of Murdoch Fenn and had become a fanatic.
    ‘So he’s still working at Puddleworth, is he?’ she said, almost to herself.
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘Well,’ she said, turning back to Laurie. ‘ What did your