Palmer-Jones 01 - A Bird in the Hand by Ann Cleeves Page B

the bird. It had been caught by a keen schoolboy staying at the observatory, who had done a trap round at dawn. It had been shown to observatory members, ringed and released. The warden had wanted to keep news of the bird secret. He resented the invasion, the noise, the lack of privacy which always followed the discovery of a rarity. Scardrift was his place and these outsiders did not appreciate it. But the schoolboy was on the grapevine. Every weekend he phoned a person whom he had never met, who lived in Manchester, to find out “what was about.” If there was anything good within cycling or public transport distance he would go to see it. He could not resist the temptation to give information rather than to receive it. He could not resist the glory. The warden would never know how the news had escaped. The boy phoned from a call box in Scarsea to his friend in Manchester, and by the time the majority of Ella’s customers were arriving at the Windmill for a late breakfast, the news was there, waiting for them. By lunchtime it had reached Bristol, Tyneside and South Wales.
    It seemed inconceivable that the bird would have moved during the day. If it was there at dawn, if it were still alive, it would still be there at three o’clock in the afternoon. A rumour spread that the warden had taken it in his car and released it some miles away along the Yorkshire coast. This was denied by observatory members who had seen the bird released.
    Scardrift Flat is a thin crescent of land curling down into the North Sea. It seems that the sandy land is held together only by the mass of vegetation, the bramble and the buckthorn that cover it. Somewhere in those acres of tangled undergrowth the bird must be resting and feeding. On the beach the wives sat in the sun watching the children build sandcastles, too accustomed to their husbands’ obsession to wonder again at the madness of it. They were only grateful that the sun was shining and that the bird had not arrived in the industrial wastes of Merseyside or Tyneside, where there would be nowhere for the children to play. The birdwatchers moved about the area slowly, in small depressed groups, waiting for something to happen. Many drifted back to their cars to return to Norfolk and the Windmill, and reliable information from other parts of the country.
    There had been many false alarms. Anyone staring intently at one spot, or pulling his telescope out of his case, would attract an immediate crowd. So when one of the locals, a middle-aged man with Boots binoculars, nervously called to a teenager with long hair and a long list, that he had “summat a bit funny” in the middle of a thicket of buckthorn the boy sauntered over to look. He knew immediately that the bird had been found, and one raised hand was enough to bring all the birdwatchers in the area to see. The thicket was at the mainland end of the point, but the news spread to the tip without a word being spoken. There was a sound of running footsteps, which attracted people from hidden clumps of undergrowth, from the beach, on to the one track which led up the flat. Soon the watchers were organized into a wide semi-circle surrounding the bushes. Tripods were set up and binoculars focused, and after a few minutes of complete silence, when the bird was stared at and appreciated, tiny details of its plumage and behaviour were discussed and notes were taken.
    Adam Anderson pushed to the front of the crowd with quiet, polite determination. He was sure that he had been looking in that area just before the bird was found, and was angry with himself because he had failed to see it. He stared intently, his concentration so great that he could have been alone, as he made notes of the tail size and shape, leg colour, all the features which made the bird penduline tit.
    Pete Littleton watched the bird with a real sense of joy. He could feel the sun and a slight breeze on his bare arms. The bird was lovely, so small, unique and beautiful as