“She was very irrational,” George said vaguely. “ I don’t think she had any plans.”

He did not say that Rosco had come close to death. Throughout the investigation which had followed Jane Pym’s death he had said nothing about Rosco’s revolver. Louis had been through enough, he thought. He was entitled to the opportunity to start a new life with Rose and Matilda without more questions from the police. Even Molly knew nothing about the gun.

They looked at each other. Richard Bingham came round again with the wine, and George noticed that as Berry took a glass of fruit juice, there was a moment of disapproval or perhaps complacence. Was he thinking that alcohol had been Jane Pym’s downfall? That she was a wicked woman because she had succumbed to the demon drink? George knew that it was all more complicated than that.

The telephone broke the silence, and there was a sudden relief because they no longer knew what to say to each other. Claire Bingham went to answer it and returned almost immediately.

“It’s for you,” she said to George and smiled flirtatiously. “It’s a woman.”

The woman was Gwen Pullen, apologetic and enthusiastic at the same time, rather loud.

“I’m sorry to trouble you, George,” she said. “ It took a lot of detective work to track you down actually. But I thought you’d want to know. I’ve just come back from Amsterdam. I’ve been sorting through a pile of skins at the museum. There was one that they never identified. They always thought it was a sort of aberrant mutation. It was a petrel, actually, with red feet.”

She paused, expecting some response from George, and when none came, she continued: “ The bird was remarkably well documented, and this is the most exciting thing. It was donated to the museum by an ordinary seaman who had sailed with a British explorer. I’ve checked everything out, and he was on the Aleutian Islands expedition. He must have been a better shot than the Englishman, don’t you think? The seaman’s name was Damus, which has rather a ring to it. So, if everything is approved by the appropriate bodies, I suggest that your bird is known as Damus’ petrel.… George? Are you there?”

George, who had been holding the receiver away from his ear to prevent himself from being deafened, said that he was there. And he liked the name Damus’ petrel, too.

Copyright

First published in 1993 by Macmillan

This edition published 2013 by Bello
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-4472-5020-3 EPUB
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Copyright © Ann Cleeves, 1993

The right of Ann Cleeves to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.