Palmer-Jones 01 - A Bird in the Hand Read Online Free Page B

cottage on the edge of the shore at Trekewick where birders always stayed. Only one bedroom had been left intact, but although this had no glass in the windows, the roof and walls were sound and it was dry and comfortable. Over the years pieces of furniture appeared. There were a table, an easy chair and a couple of mattresses. Sometimes there were more or less permanent residents, but it was always the best place to stay if there was a good bird in Cornwall.
    As soon as they arrived Tina unrolled her sleeping bag on one of the mattresses and slept immediately, curled up like an animal. Molly, George and Rob sat around the stained table and talked, formally. It was a strange place for a conference. The sunny weather was over and as they had driven there had been hot, heavy showers. Now it was cooler, and through the glassless windows they watched a gusting breeze blow rain-clouds across the moon. When the moonlight shone through a break in the cloud and slanted on to the sea, the breaking waves were speckled with phosphorescence.
    So at last they began to talk about Tom French, about the good friend he had been and the good birder, because here they could talk about him without being trivial. When they had diluted a little the horror of Tom’s death with words, George said:
    “Adam Anderson’s father has asked me to find out if he was killed by one of us, a birder.”
    “Why?” Rob was not questioning Palmer-Jones’s ability to carry out Clive Anderson’s request. It was the request itself which surprised him.
    “He’s a magistrate. He doesn’t want Adam involved.”
    “Did you agree?”
    “I will do.”
    There was a pause.
    “Don’t you think I should?” asked George. He had expected Rob to be enthusiastic. He had thought it the sort of project which would appeal to him, and was puzzled by the lack of response.
    Rob became charming. “Of course. If anyone can find out who did it, you can. It seems unpleasant to think that it might have been one of us. Tom was so popular.”
    “I didn’t know him very well. I used to see him around, in Rushy, at the marsh.” He had a picture of Tom, thin almost to the point that he looked malnourished, curly hair, auburn like a girl’s. He saw him walking along the shingle bank, his telescope already mounted on its tripod on his back. It had been a familiar sight. Tom belonged to Rushy.
    “We started bird watching together.” Rob spoke softly because Molly was dozing. “ We both lived in London and used to go on coach trips run by a group of old ladies teaching in our school. He didn’t get any A-levels. He was hooked on birdwatching at Rushy even then, and used to sag off during the week even if there was nothing to see. He even went in winter. So he couldn’t get into college and when he left school he started work in some office. I think he worked for the Social Security, but he didn’t stay there for long.”
    Rob interrupted his reminiscences and nodded towards the sleeping girl in the corner.
    “Tina could tell you more about that time. Tom was into ringing too, then. She would have been very young but I think she was a trainee in the same ringing group. She was playing with ringing pliers when she was still in nappies. By then I’d started to do more trips abroad and I didn’t see so much of him. We’ve been away a couple of times together. We went to Fair Isle, and to get the albatross on Hermaness last year, and the autumn before he had a cottage on St. Mary’s where I stayed for a few days. I usually saw him when I went to Rushy. Sometimes he let me crash out in his room at the hotel, sometimes I stayed with Sally in Fenquay.”
    “Sally?”
    “His girlfriend. His first and only girlfriend, I should think. Tina was always quite keen on him. At one time she followed him everywhere, but I don’t think she got anywhere. She would have scared him. Sally’s quite different. She needed him. She’s got a little boy called