‘Aren’t you taking chances of journalists getting wind of it and thinking there’s a hot story in it?’ Oliver asked. ‘We could be dealing with a herd of a different kind. Not tourists, but reporters eager to dig into island secrets.’
‘Are there any secrets then?’ LeFevre asked quietly, studying Oliver.
Oliver said, ‘I’d hate to see Jago’s recent drinking spread across a front page. He has family living here who would be hurt.’
LeFevre nodded. ‘I do understand all of that, but the investigation must take precedence. If the press show an interest, refer them to me.’ He turned round. ‘I’ll start the search.’
Oliver said, ‘Don’t you want to search us first?’ It sounded challenging.
LeFevre turned back to him and looked him over. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Our persons. What makes you so sure the gemstones are not in my pocket right now?’
LeFevre laughed softly. ‘You’ve been about the island this morning, Mr Bolingbrooke. You know it well. You could have hidden the gems anywhere. Why would you be so stupid as to carry them on your person?’
Oliver held his gaze. ‘Do you suspect us?’
LeFevre took a deep breath. ‘I suspect everybody, as I should. But I want to say this. Do I think you might steal for this castle? Maybe.’
Oliver’s jaw tightened. Guinevere hoped he wouldn’t burst out and create a scene.
But LeFevre continued, ‘Do I think you would kill Jago? For any reason? No. I don’t think that.’
He ran a hand over his hair. ‘You’ve been through things together. That created a bond. Jago protected you when you needed it most. You would have done the same for him. Somebody else killed him.’ Then he turned away.
Oliver looked down at the floorboards, his jaw tight.
Guinevere felt tears sting behind her eyes. Jago had protected Oliver, but Oliver had not been able to protect Jago. He was dead, and they didn’t understand what for.
Bolingbrooke said in a huff, ‘He thinks we would steal for the castle!’
Oliver banged his fist on the table. ‘That notebook proves you knew it was under threat. That you were going to great lengths to save it. One option you wrote down is: spectacular find, financial windfall.’
Bolingbrooke looked him over. ‘So? Isn’t it possible that one could make a find or have a windfall?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘You know that is not what I mean. You wrote it down after you had heard about Vex’s article. Maybe you even knew he was coming here in person?’
Guinevere held her breath, studying the elderly lord.
Bolingbrooke said, ‘Yes, so we did talk on the phone. And I did give Vex permission to look around.’ He sounded defiant. ‘I can invite whomever I like. It’s my home. And I’d rather have him uncover the goblet than that pompous ass Wadencourt.’
Oliver raised both hands in the air in frustration. ‘How do you think the police will take it when they find out you lied about knowing Vex was coming out here?’
‘Lied, lied. I just kept a few things to myself.’ Bolingbrooke sighed deeply. ‘Vex had warned me that Wadencourt was furious about his article and would show up on Cornisea. I never liked him so I looked forward to a little confrontation. I thought it would be great if he was proven wrong. If he looked the fool in front of everybody. Is that so terrible of me? I would also not have minded Vex turning up the goblet in front of Lady Serena. Her mother could never locate it so it would be a bit of a dent to their self-confidence if somebody else could.’
Oliver studied his father. ‘Did you put Vex up to it? Lady Serena seems to think so. You just denied it to the police. But if you lie in an official investigation, it could come back to bite you.’
‘I didn’t put Vex up to anything. The article was his own idea entirely. When I talked to him over the phone I even asked in particular whether he was working for Lady Serena, just to be on the safe side, not let in the enemy without knowing about it and all that. He laughed out loud and said that he was glad he wasn’t. She was just like a broken record playing the same old tune over and over. His literal words.’
‘Ouch,’ Guinevere said. ‘I bet Vex didn’t say that when he was dating her to get information about the goblet.’
Oliver grimaced. ‘It seems like we’re mixed up in an ugly affair of deceit and manipulation.’
‘That left everybody with empty hands,’ Bolingbrooke concluded sadly. ‘I mean, neither of us got what he wanted. The goblet is ruined; the stones are missing. Wadencourt feels humiliated; his young photographer can forget about this assignment.’
‘And Vex?’ Oliver wondered out loud. ‘What will this mean for him? He wrote about a goblet that was allegedly the stuff of legends, but now it has turned out to be very real and its gems are missing, and someone has died … I think his article will be hot property and now that he’s on the scene, he can write some more about the recent developments and sell it to the highest bidder.’
‘Then maybe Vex stole the stones to create a buzz?’ Guinevere asked. ‘But how? The clues he mentioned to us – about the garden’s pattern and the North Star orientation – don’t seem to be enough to have led him to the niche in the wall, to the statuette of St Ganoc.’
‘In fact,’ Oliver said, ‘it all sounded rather thrown together.’
Haphazard, Guinevere thought. The same word Meraud had used to describe the book Jago had borrowed from her. Had Vex seen Legends of Love and Loss, despite his denials on that point?
‘The astronomy bits were bad,’ Bolingbrooke said. ‘I read the article ahead of time and rather wondered how any editor could let something like that go to print.’
‘Can we see it too?’ Oliver asked.
Bolingbrooke sighed. ‘Why not? The copy is in that notebook. Folded in fours, stuffed into the back.’
Oliver picked up the notebook from the table and turned to the back. ‘There’s nothing here,’ he said.
Bolingbrooke jumped. ‘That can’t be.’ He rushed over and looked for himself, flipping through it in an agitated manner. ‘Where did you put it? You were leafing through this earlier, weren’t you? Can it have fallen to the floor?’ He looked around the room.
Dolly got up from her corner and squeaked, wagging her tail.
‘Yes, you look for it,’ Bolingbrooke said. ‘You find it, girl. Search!’
But Dolly just circled him, yapping.
Rufus and Nero studied the excitement from their spots near the fireplace, too dignified to involve themselves with whatever the little girl in the family was up to.
Guinevere said, ‘The copy of Vex’s article was in there before?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
Oliver said carefully, ‘You’re not the most organized –’
‘I said I’m sure.’ Bolingbrooke’s eyes sparked fire at Oliver. ‘Someone took it.’
Guinevere cleared her throat. ‘Max was looking through books on that top shelf the other night.’
Oliver clapped his hands together. ‘There you have it. Maybe he took it. Could that prove he’s somehow involved in the disappearance of the stones? He said they couldn’t have been removed because the spots were rusty, but that was just a ruse. And he noticed Ganoc wasn’t wearing a belt. When did he have time to study the statuette that closely? He must have held it in his hands last night when he took the stones from the goblet.’
Guinevere shook her head. ‘That’s wild speculation. Max just has an eye for details. You said so yourself – that it’s part of his profession.’
‘Yes, for once I defended him and said something nice about him because you’re so dead set on liking him. But you see now I was wrong to do that because he went through things here and he took something away.’
‘You don’t even know that yet. The article might have simply …’
‘Grown wings and flown off?’ Oliver’s eyes flashed at her.
Bolingbrooke lifted both arms as if to separate them. �
�Take it easy now. We can simply ask Max.’ He went for the door. ‘I just saw him in the yard snapping shots.’
Chapter Ten
They all went out and found Max circling a bush in a pot that was attracting bumblebees and butterflies. He pushed the release button on his camera again and again. The presence of several policemen tapping on the flagstones and checking cavities in the walls didn’t seem to bother him at all.
As he turned to follow a butterfly, he noticed them and lowered the camera to hang by the strap around his neck. ‘Hello. What’s up?’
‘I just wanted to ask if you took something from my library,’ Bolingbrooke opened without preamble. ‘The copy I had of the article Vex was going to publish in his magazine.’
Guinevere held her breath at this straightforward approach, but Max looked unperturbed. ‘Yes, I wanted to read through it and see what the fuss was about. Wadencourt was being so mysterious about everything. I was on an assignment I knew next to nothing about. I just wanted to get an idea of what he was looking for.’
His face was relaxed, his eyes wide and innocent. ‘I need a bit of background before I can do my work. I intended to put it back in place as soon as I had read it.’
At that moment a police officer came over and asked Max what he had in his pockets. He put his hands in them and produced from one pocket a pen, paper, chewing gum, and a magnifying ring for his camera. From the other a facecloth filled with something.
‘That is my homemade beanbag,’ he explained. ‘It’s filled with rice. I use it to balance my camera on for shots where I need more stability.’
The policeman extracted a knife from his pocket, switched out the blade, and cut through the facecloth. Rice rained onto the yard’s cobbles.
‘Hey, what …’ Max watched with wide-open mouth as the police officer spread out the rice until he had seen all of it. He said, ‘Just making sure there are no rubies and diamonds in here.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Max cried. ‘Those stones were removed from the goblet a long time ago. I saw the rust on the places where they have been.’
‘That was created by chemicals.’ The officer looked up at him. ‘Sorry about this, but we have to be thorough.’
Max huffed as he sat on his haunches to gather the rice and put it back into the facecloth.
‘I can lend you needle and thread to sew it up again,’ Guinevere offered.
‘Thanks.’ Max smiled up at her. The dimple in his left cheek showed again.
Guinevere felt a flush crawl up her neck. Max never failed to confuse her. That he had taken the copy of the article bothered her, because he had not asked even though she had come upon him in the library while he was looking for it. He had also just said he had intended to put the article back in place as soon as he had read it. But apparently he hadn’t done that, or they wouldn’t have found it missing.
Max rose to his feet with his damaged property in his hands. ‘Needle and thread it is then.’
‘Come along,’ Guinevere said and took him inside, then up into the tower where her room was. Dolly raced ahead as she always did, like it was a contest to see who reached the highest step first.
Max whistled as he walked with her. ‘You’re a real princess sleeping in the tower. You must have a stunning view from up there.’
‘We can have a look in a minute. Just let me get my sewing kit first.’ Guinevere went into her room.
Max waited at the door. ‘Like it here?’ he asked.
‘Yes, a lot.’
‘But it’s so different from London. No cinemas, no little cafés, no people, no … buzz.’
‘I never went out much. I like it quiet. And I grew up in Devon, in the countryside, so I really love wildlife. Everything from birds to bugs.’
‘So you have a lot in common with Oliver,’ Max concluded.
Guinevere rummaged through the trunk holding her things to locate the sewing kit. She didn’t really know what to say to that. She had once felt like she had a lot in common with Oliver, but recent events had put pressure on their relationship. She could understand Oliver’s feelings about Jago’s death, especially as he had found him and carried his body out of the sea, but he need not accuse people at will.
She said to Max, ‘You also have a lot in common with Oliver. Too impatient to stay in one place for long. Always following the next assignment.’
‘If you put it like that.’ Max leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. ‘Seems I won’t be here long. I suppose Wadencourt’s reasons for being here are all gone now.’
‘Reasons?’ Guinevere asked, surprised by the plural. ‘I thought he was here for the goblet alone.’
‘And to impress the pretty Lady Serena of course. He knew she was angling for the goblet and he hoped to be able to present it to her.’
‘They have been in touch before they came here?’
‘I think so. I heard him on the phone when we were on our way over and he mentioned the name Serena.’ Max nodded slowly. ‘I just assumed her family was going to pay him for turning up the goblet. He does need to earn something every now and then, I suppose.’
Interesting.
Lady Serena had been in touch with Vex before he had come here. And she had been in touch with Wadencourt before he had come here. The demanding lady seemed to pop up everywhere they turned for answers in their case.
Like the spider in the centre of the web.
Guinevere told herself the charming Serena would not liked to be compared to a spider. She carried her sewing kit over to Max. He stepped into the corridor and rested the facecloth and its contents on the windowsill.
Guinevere unzipped her kit and pulled out a needle. ‘I have several colours of thread. Which one do you want?’
‘I don’t really care. This thing is merely practical, doesn’t need to be pretty. That cop already slashed it open like an idiot. He could have done it where it was sewn closed.’ Max pointed to the top of the facecloth. ‘Then it would have been easier to repair. He wasn’t just being thorough, he was taking it too far.’
He glanced at her. ‘Did he really think he would find rubies and diamonds raining down on the cobbles? That he could get a promotion out of it?’
Guinevere shrugged. ‘He has probably been told to look in all likely places.’
Max shook his head. He accepted the needle from her hand. Their fingers touched. He looked into her eyes. ‘How are you holding up?’
‘OK, I guess.’ Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she had to clear her throat before she could talk. The look in Max’s eyes confused her. The idea that he cared for how she was feeling. ‘I don’t mind half as much about those missing diamonds and rubies as I do about Jago.’
Max nodded solemnly. He avoided looking her in the eye when he said, ‘My father drank a lot. We all asked him to stop, but he never listened.’
Guinevere waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, she asked, ‘You used past tense.’
‘Yes, he’s dead.’ It sounded gruff. Max pricked the needle into the facecloth’s material. ‘He had an accident. Drunk of course. My mother even said it was a good thing he had killed himself and not somebody else.’
He looked at her suddenly, his eyes deep and dark. ‘That would have been the final straw for us as a family, to be pointed at as the family of someone who had driven another to death. Instead there was just a vague sort of pity. Oh, the son of that poor sod who …’
Max shrugged. The muscles in his jaw worked as if he had trouble reining in his emotions.
Guinevere said, ‘I’m sorry.’ She handed him some more black thread.
Max accepted it and smiled at her. ‘Don’t be sorry. He didn’t like life. He drank to forget about things. Maybe Jago was the same way. Maybe he’s better off now. Happier.’
Guinevere wrapped her arms around her shoulders. ‘I can’t believe that. Jago was sad, yes, but he might have turned his life around again.’
‘Quit drinking?’ Max
scoffed. ‘Don’t you believe it. They promise it a hundred times, but they never do. The people around them just aren’t important enough. Only the bottle is.’ He sewed up the tear with large angry stitches.
‘Not every drinker is the same,’ Guinevere protested.
Max broke the thread off with a snap. ‘If you say so.’ He put the needle in the windowsill and turned away from her, to go back down. He seemed to have forgotten that he had wanted to look at the view from the tower, with her.
Guinevere said, ‘Max, please.’ She wanted to prolong her time with him, feel the connection when he had asked her how she was holding up. ‘I don’t want to deny what happened in your family. Maybe your father was a bad drinker and maybe his promises to quit were all lies. But it’s important to me to keep a good memory of Jago. I don’t want to think of him as … I don’t want to picture his last moments like …’ She felt tears in her eyes and looked down.
Max came back to her. He gently brushed two fingers down her cheek. ‘I’m sorry, princess. The topic of drinking just rubs me the wrong way. We’ll forget about it.’
He put his hand under her chin and made her look up at him. ‘OK?’
She looked into his deep brown eyes that showed his own hurt but also his concern for her. She felt a little warmth come back into her cold inner core. ‘Thanks.’
‘For what?’
‘Understanding me.’
Max held her gaze. ‘I’d like to understand more about you. About your parents and your life before you came here. But you’re with Oliver all of the time.’
‘To find out how Jago died.’ Guinevere swallowed. ‘I do want to spend time with you. I also want to know more about you and your life before you came here.’
Max brushed her chin. ‘That’s good. Maybe we can take a quiet beach walk together. Tonight? I’m sure you don’t have to dig into Jago’s death 24/7. The police are here now. Who knows what they’ll find?’
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