Palmer-Jones 01 - A Bird in the Hand by Ann Cleeves Read Free Book Online

looked like a student: she had long fair hair and was wearing a flowered skirt, T-shirt and sandals. Giving him a welcoming smile and asking him to follow her, she seemed very young and somehow undaunted by her work. In contrast to the waiting room her office was bright, pretty, with posters and plants and yellow paint. She was very comfortable there, quite relaxed, and sat not behind her desk but in an easy chair beside it. She motioned him to take the other one.
    “How can I help you?” she asked.
    “I want to talk to you about Tom French.”
    “Oh.” She was angry, but also disappointed. She had wanted to help him. “Are you a policeman?”
    “No.”
    “The press.” There was even more disappointment, and contempt.
    “Certainly not the press,” he said firmly.
    “How did you know that I was supervising Tom French?” For the moment this was more important than to find out who he was. “The police got my name from their records but Tom was obsessively secretive about the fact that he was on probation.”
    “The Home Office put me in touch with you.”
    She thought, then, that she understood:
    “It’s some sort of research is it, for the Home Office? The police have got all my records, but I’ll help you as much as I can.”
    He decided to be honest.
    “It’s not official research. I used to know Tom French. We shared an interest.”
    “Not twitching?”
    She was incredulous. She had believed all twitchers to be young, dissolute and probably unwashed. The gentleman before her was immaculate.
    Palmer-Jones ignored her amusement.
    “He explained it to you. Good. I used to work for the Home Office, and did some work for the police. The father of a young lad who is a twitcher too knew that. He’s worried about his son, and asked me to find out if Tom’s death had anything to do with twitching. That’s why I’m here. I really don’t want to ask you to do anything unethical, just to give me some personal impressions of Tom.”
    She was still uncertain.
    “Adam, the lad who’s causing his father concern, is very like Tom in many ways,” George said. “He’s very lonely, rather anxious. We all want to find out what happened.” He paused. “ Perhaps it would be easier if we were away from the office. Mr. Anderson’s generous expenses would pay for a good lunch.”
    As George held the door to show Jennifer out on to the street he was aware that the receptionist was watching them, and when he turned to smile a polite goodbye, her eyes were more curious than ever. Jennifer turned too and gave her a defiant wave.
    The very good lunch lasted for a long time, and George expressed some anxiety about her clients’ well-being.
    “I’ve nothing arranged, for this afternoon. There’s a team meeting. I worry about my clients, but I can’t get excited about team meetings. There are usually endless arguments about who leaves the tea room in a mess, and I really don’t care. Especially as I’m usually the culprit. I’ll tell them that there was a crisis. My clients are always having crises.”
    George thought it would be rather pleasant to be helped by Jenny Kenning.
    “The week before he died,” he said, “Tom told a friend that he was worried about his girlfriend and her child, and that he was going to talk to someone called Jenny. Did he come to see you?”
    “Yes. He phoned up on the Thursday morning before he died. I know because I had to check my records for the police. He was always very anxious about Sally and Barnaby; I thought that he worried unnecessarily. Sally attempted suicide once, more than six months ago. The doctors diagnosed a severe case of post-natal depression, and kept her in hospital for a couple of weeks. Besides all the chemical and physical causes, it’s easy to see why she got so depressed. She lived on her own and didn’t seem to know anyone. She said once that she came to Norfolk because she knew a few twitchers and had heard them talk about it, but she arrived in July and