Palmer-Jones said:
“I could extend my list considerably with unlimited resources.”
He stood too, and said quietly in an off-hand; dismissive way:
“I’ll think about it and let you know.’
Chapter Two
It did not take George Palmer-Jones long to decide that he would accept Anderson’s offer. He was not even sure that there was a decision to make. He wondered for a short time if it was sensible to become involved, but knew that the speculation was pointless, because he already was. He would accept Anderson’s offer as an investment against boredom. It seemed sometimes that a fear of boredom had shaped his entire life; he felt that he was haunted by a childhood of unrelieved tedium.
He had been brought up in a small town in Herefordshire, only a mile from the Welsh border. He was the only child of a moderately prosperous local solicitor. His mother had died when he was an infant, but the town seemed peopled by elderly female relatives who enjoyed the sacrifice of caring for his father and himself. The countryside in the district was magnificent, but until he was old enough to explore it himself he hardly saw it. With his wife’s death his father had become preoccupied with the trivial events of the town, the safe everyday events. George still remembered with dread Sunday afternoons in the gloomy parlour, the identical spinster aunts, his father lifeless and grey, becoming animated only when the aunts began to gossip about petty misdemeanours, property and wills. If the talk approached scandal his father would withdraw, bring the conversation to a close, and George would be left with a tantalizing sense that he had missed something of interest. There had been a clock in that parlour with a loud, distinctive tick. When he experienced the panic of approaching boredom George could still hear the clock ticking in his head.
He had married Molly because he had known from the beginning that she would never bore him. He had chosen his work for similar reasons. His last post had been particularly demanding, because of its ambiguity: he had been neither policeman nor civil servant, but the decision to retire from it was the most difficult he had ever taken. In contrast, although he knew that his position as unofficial investigator would be awkward, his decision to accept the magistrate’s offer was made almost immediately.
The morning after Anderson’s visit he made two phone calls, both of which Molly disapproved. He still had influential friends in the Home Office, and from a contact there obtained the promise of the most recent police report on the French murder. The ease with which this transaction was completed shocked Molly. She would have felt easier if he had lied to gain the information. She gave him a lecture on corruption and privacy, but they had had such rows before, and there was an element of ritual in the argument.
Palmer-Jones phoned the University of Southampton then in an attempt to talk to Rob Earl, the young man they had met in the Windmill the weekend before. He was a postgraduate student there, but his assistant seemed surprised that anyone should expect Rob to be in the laboratory so early in the morning, and George could only leave a message.
George could understand Molly’s disapproval of Rob. He was self-centred to the point of rudeness and ruthless in his determination to live his life just as he wanted. He sought new experience in a selfish, self-confident way which took no heed of his own danger or other people’s inconvenience. George sometimes suspected that much of this was affectation, but could never be quite sure. He liked Rob. Before his retirement they had gone to India together on a bird watching trip. Rob was easy company, entertaining. And he was a vivid storyteller, reliving and sharing his travels. His tales, whether of being chased by an elephant in India or delivering a baby in New Guinea, were always nearly true. He was an impulsive, intuitive birdwatcher and, when his