Palmer-Jones 05 - Sea Fever by Ann Cleeves Page A

woke Richard, he was surprisingly kind to her. Perhaps he recognised her tension. He made her tea, and they drank it together in bed.
    In the Palmer-Jones bedroom in Myrtle Cottage it was cooler than in the rest of the house. The walls were thick and had kept out much of the heat of the day. The sash window was open, and the drawn curtains moved occasionally. Molly was in one of the twin beds reading by a low, heavily shaded lamp. She wore a nightshirt with a huge picture of Mickey Mouse on the front, a present from one of their children after a trip to the States. The children never gave him frivolous presents, he thought. Perhaps he had taken their education too seriously, and they thought him humourless and stern. Molly set down her book and waited for him to speak.
    “I’m going to the Franks,” he said. “Tomorrow morning. Do you want to come?”
    “No,” she said. “ I’ve been thinking about it. It would be better if you went by yourself.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m not sure about that inspector,” she said. “I don’t think she’ll get anywhere with these people.”
    “And you will?” he demanded.
    She ignored the sarcasm. “Yes,” she said. “At least I know how to listen. People will talk to me.”
    She was right. She could sit next to a stranger and, with a quiet and sympathetic energy, charm from him confidences, anxieties, a full life story. It was because she was interested, she said. Most professional listeners weren’t really. Doctors, social workers, teachers asked intimate questions, then used most of their brains to think about what they would have for tea. Professional detachment they called it.
    “Why are you bothering with all this?” he said. “It’s nothing to do with us. Not now. Leave it to the inspector.”
    “No!” she said, leaning forward, so the big Mickey Mouse on the front of the shirt wrinkled and seemed to be frowning.
    “Greg Franks was a drug dealer!” he said. “Did you realise that?” When she was a social worker, Molly had worked with addicts. He had heard her wish a more violent death than drowning on the dealers who supplied them.
    “No,” she said, “but that makes no difference. We have to know who killed him. You don’t understand. Whatever you say, we are involved. You involved us by agreeing to come here. You were involved by those blasted seabirds.”
    And then there was nothing he could say except that at least the trip to Bristol would give him the opportunity to go to the museum to look at their collection of birds’ skins.
    Rose stood quite still in Matilda’s bedroom. It was directly above the living room, and she heard the muffled voices of the people who remained there. The windows were open, and occasionally she caught a full phrase usually spoken by the policewoman, whose voice was clear and shrill.
    The baby was asleep on her side, with one hand stretched above her head beyond the bars of the cot. The room was lit by a low light, and in the corners there was shadow and the faint, mysterious movement of a ceramic mobile hung from the ceiling. Rose stroked the extended hand of the baby, then stood at the window staring out towards the sea.
    She heard the door open but did not look around. She knew it would be Gerald. He had been following her around all evening offering affection, comfort, love. She found his loyalty touching, but she was not sure she could face him now. She had come to the baby’s room to be alone.
    “Rose,” he whispered. He thought she would resent the intrusion, but the sense of her across the room made him feel heady and reckless. All the old dreams of marriage, of settling down with her, becoming a family, returned to him. He had never wanted her so much. “I came to see if there was anything I could do.”
    She turned to face him because she had come to believe that unkindness was worse than anything, and she did not want to hurt him. He saw that she was crying.
    “Oh, Gerald,” she said. “Dear Gerald. I