Palmer-Jones 03 - Murder in Paradise by Ann Cleeves Read Free Book Online Page B

to make tea but there was no electricity. The fire in the range was out and the grate had not been cleaned. How thoughtless of Jim to go out so early without showing her how to light the fire. She tried to remember if he had said anything, the night before, about intending to go out, but at first she could only recall the images of the party. She remembered Agnes sobbing, and the men deciding to search the island. Then it all came back to her. She had walked back with Maggie and the boys, and she had gone to bed alone. She went into the bedroom. There was no sign of Jim’s suit or his smart shoes. He had not been home. For a moment the image of Jim taking Elspeth in his arms to dance returned, and there was a sickening moment of suspicion. Then she told herself that she was being foolish and that there must be some other explanation for his absence.
    She heard the noise of the generator. It must be ten o’clock. Maggie had told her that they had the generator on for two hours every morning for the freezers and so that the women could use vacuum cleaners and washing machines. Sarah boiled a kettle to make a cup of instant coffee. She used the rest of the hot water for washing, then dressed.
    She went outside. There was a cold wind from the north. She walked across the patched tarmac lane to Buness where Alec and Maggie lived. The boys were playing outside with a go-cart. It was Saturday. Parties on Kinness were always held on Friday nights. If they were held on Saturdays, they would have to stop at midnight. Dancing wasn’t allowed on a Sunday. She knocked on the front door of the white house. No one answered and she went round to the back. The back door was open and Maggie was in the kitchen pushing children’s clothes into a spin dryer.
    “Hello,” Sarah said. “I was wondering if you knew where Jim was. Did they find Mary?”
    She felt young and shy in front of this competent woman engrossed with her domesticity.
    Maggie looked up.
    “They hadn’t done last night, when I went to bed. Alec and Jim came here later, not long after we came back. They came to get some warmer clothes. Jim said that he hadn’t unpacked, and borrowed Alec’s. They’d looked in all the obvious places then, but she hadn’t been found.”
    “You haven’t heard anything this morning?”
    Maggie shook her head. “But then I’d be the last person to hear. You’ll get used to that.”
    She straightened her back and switched off the machine.
    “I’m going to make a cup of tea,” she said. “ Come on in and have one.”
    Sarah hesitated.
    “I was going to find Jim. I thought I might be able to help.”
    “They’ll let you know if you can be any use. Come on in.”
    Awkwardly Sarah went.
    Robert found Mary and he wasn’t really looking for her. After looking in the empty buildings and Mary’s usual hiding places, the men had stopped at Sandwick. Robert had followed them at first, after the dancing had finished, limping after them, afraid of missing anything. But he wasn’t invited back to Sandwick and he went home and slept.
    He woke early and went looking for wood. Wood was precious on Kinness, and had been more so when he was a boy and imports were unheard of. All the furniture on the island had been made of driftwood. Robert still hoarded driftwood. He did not use it so much himself now, but it pleased him when one of the younger men came begging for a plank to mend a fence or build a new gate.
    He scrambled down a rabbit track, sliding on his bottom with his stiff leg out before him, to the rock and shingle at the base of the cliffs, and began to walk along the tide line. His dog was with him as it always was. The fresh wind of the day before promised well. He found some small pieces of wood and began to make a pile above the tide line. He would mark the pile with his own sign—a circle of pebbles—so that anyone else scavenging would know that it was his. He would take it home later, a little at a time.
    He found the girl