Palmer-Jones 01 - A Bird in the Hand Read Free

gesture of defiance, and there was little laughter from his friends.
    An elderly couple, the man dressed immaculately like a country gentleman, the woman, in a tweed skirt and wellingtons, pushed open the door of the café and stood just inside. Ella was busy and had her back to them. The young revolutionary smiled broadly, but the gentleman put his finger to his lips and winked at Ella’s back. When she turned round he was standing behind the counter beside her, eating a piece of her fruit cake. There was a real pleasure in her surprise, and when he took her hand she blushed before she sent them both to the customers’ side of the counter, saying that they were in her way.
    “Now, now, my dear,” said the country gentleman. “That’s surely no way to talk to the oldest twitcher in Rushy.”
    “Mr. Palmer-Jones,” replied Ella with great spirit. “ I shall talk to you how I please and how you deserve.”
    Then, affectionate and angry, she turned on the young man:
    “If I catch you behind here again, Robert, with that filthy tobacco, I’ll ban you for a month.”
    Unrepentant, the young man refilled his cup and led his friends to a table to sit down. As he stood to let them past him, he noticed that the sun was shining.
    The fog had remained dense throughout the afternoon, when suddenly, at five, like a vast blind rolled back to the sea, it cleared. So the line of observers lying against the shingle bank, their telescopes unused on their knees, could see Adam running along the straight flat track from the main road. His running was thrown out of balance by the optical equipment he was carrying, and he ran like an excited schoolgirl, legs flying. They sensed his urgency and slid down the shingle and ran too, towards the Windmill. The few people still walking slowly and hopefully through the marsh saw the line of black figures on the bank disappear and they also began to run. When Adam pushed into the hut with so much energy and excitement that it seemed that the room could hardly contain him, there was a crowd behind him jostling him further in. Adam tried to speak, but he was out of breath and the background music was so loud that no one could make out what he said. Ella knew what was expected and turned off the radio. Then there was silence. They all heard when, still fighting for breath and with a slight stutter, he said:
    “Bimaculated lark. On the lawn behind the hotel. I’m sure it is.”
    With tolerance and affection Ella watched the snack bar empty and on her knees to sweep up a cup and plate broken in the confusion, said to her assistant:
    “You’d best get some more bread out of the freezer, Sandra. We’ll be busy tomorrow.”
    Then: “ He’s such a gentleman, Mr. Palmer-Jones. He was a civil servant before he retired. Do you know, he used to work for a minister? He told me once. Fancy young Adam finding a bird like that.”
    All the birdwatchers went inland, to trespass on the parkland surrounding the hotel, and there was no one to disturb the peace of the marsh, where a little boy was playing with his boat in the sun.
    Mr. and Mrs. Palmer-Jones lived in a pretty and tidy village in Surrey. Their house was neither pretty nor tidy. It was a red-brick Victorian vicarage with flaking paint and a garden of tangled undergrowth, with a pond full of newts and toads. A battered old swing had been left to rust on the lawn for the benefit of grandchildren, and the latch on the front gate was always sticking. Mrs. Palmer-Jones shocked the village by standing unsuccessfully each year as a candidate for the Labour Party in local authority elections and going on CND marches. Over the years these idiosyncracies were forgiven, but she refused to join the WI, and that never was. Until she had retired at the age of sixty she had worked as a senior social worker in Guildford. This had been viewed as a respectable occupation for an elderly lady, like working for the WRVS, until Molly Palmer-Jones had made the mistake of