Secrets

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘That’s a lot of money for back then,’ Naomi said.

  ‘It is, isn’t it? He must have just saved everything, from the year dot, don’t you think? Sad, though, he never had a life outside of the Haversham household.’

  They walked slowly back to where Liz had left her car.

  ‘Naomi, do you know anyone round here?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Because there’s been a man watching us ever since we arrived. I wasn’t sure at first. I thought I was just being over-imaginative, but he got here when we did and I’ve spotted him several times since.’

  ‘A fellow historian,’ Naomi suggested.

  ‘Well, I would think that, except that he’s now leaning against my car.’

  ‘Oh.’ Naomi felt her heart sink. Of course, it could be nothing, someone waiting for them so he could make a perfectly innocent enquiry, but somehow she didn’t think so.

  ‘What does he look like?’

  Liz had halted, obviously not at all certain what she should do. Beside her, Napoleon, who’d been plodding ahead of her in duty mode, and, Naomi suspected, slightly bored, was now unmistakably wagging his tail. You recognize him, don’t you, Poly, Naomi thought.

  ‘Not young,’ Liz said ‘Tall, greying hair. Kind of rugged-looking.’

  Naomi frowned. Liz’s description could fit a great many people. She moved Napoleon forward. ‘We’ll never find out standing here,’ she said.

  Liz took her arm and Naomi wasn’t sure if the gesture was protective, wary or both. Together they approached the car and she heard a sound as though the man had moved towards them. The description might have been vague, but the voice was instantly recognizable, even though she’d only heard it briefly before.

  ‘Hello, Naomi,’ he said.

  ‘Gregory?’ Naomi could not keep the shock from her voice. ‘What in heaven’s name are you doing here?’

  Arthur Fields, late importer of exotic porcelain, must have led a very pleasant life, Alec thought as he looked around the cottage in Stamford that had been his home.

  The mellow stone glowed in the late afternoon sun and the walled garden at the back of the house seemed to have sucked in a whole day’s worth of heat. Peaches had been trained against the far wall and apricots closer to the house. Herbs overflowed from raised beds and the scent of roses permeated the still air. It was a beautiful spot. Though the garden was a little small, he supposed. He’d want a little more land.

  He immediately chided himself for slipping into house hunting mode and wondered at his willingness to consider this house as a possible home, even though there’d been a violent death here, when similar circumstances made theirs suddenly impossible to live in.

  DI Barnes led him through a small door at the end of the walled plot and out into a broader sweep of lawn and flower beds beyond. Mature trees lent shade and somewhere Alec could hear the sound of running water. Naomi and Napoleon would love this, he thought. So much space. You could shut the world out at the front door and still not feel confined.

  ‘The CSI reckoned the killer climbed that tree,’ Barnes told him. ‘He’d get a clear view over the wall and through the kitchen window. It wouldn’t have been an easy shot, but that would be the best vantage point and it lines up with the trajectory. There were scuff marks on the bark up there.’ He pointed to a sturdy-looking branch that pointed back in the direction of the house. ‘Escape route is easy; there’s a low fence down there where the garden backs on to farmland.’

  Alec nodded. ‘So, what’s the link between Fields and Norris? And what, if anything, links them to Molly? There was nothing taken from here?’

  ‘No. The wife was at home and they had friends round for dinner. Arthur Fields had gone through to the kitchen to fetch another bottle of wine, the guests heard the sound of breaking glass and thought he might have dropped something. His wife went through to the kitchen and found him dead.’

  ‘How long before officers were on scene?’

  ‘Paramedics got here in twelve minutes, the first police officer arrived when they did. But before that, one of the Field’s guests had gone out with a torch. He saw nothing.’

  ‘That was a little foolish.’

  ‘That was a retired colonel. A man called Finch, old friend of the Fields family apparently.’

  ‘And Arthur Fields, was he ex-army too?’

  Barnes shook his head. ‘He was a civil servant of some kind,’ he said. ‘You can read the files; I’m having everything faxed over for you.’

  ‘Why?’ Alec asked.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why do you want me involved?’

  Barnes looked away for a moment, then said slowly, ‘Because I’m curious.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘About why the bosses of my bosses are so keen to have you involved. It makes so little sense I’m now intrigued.’

  So am I, Alec thought. And if I’ve got any sense I’ll walk away now, before any of us find out.

  Liz knew a local pub that, she assured Gregory, sold a good range of decent beers. She gave him directions and then set off in the lead.

  ‘So, who is he then?’ she demanded almost before Naomi had her seat belt fastened.

  ‘He’s—’ What was he exactly? ‘He’s someone we met during an investigation,’ she said.

  ‘When you were still on the force?’

  ‘Well, no. It was earlier this year. Liz, it was a bit complicated. He’s not someone I know particularly well.’

  ‘Oh, intriguing,’ Liz said. ‘So, a good idea to take him to a neutral place, then. The pub, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ Naomi said. She was aware of Liz, waiting expectantly for more information, and knew she wouldn’t give up easily.

  ‘Gregory and I, we had a mutual friend. A journalist, I’d known for years. She’d moved to London, found work there … Anyway, she died and Gregory wanted to find out what had happened. That led him to us and the rest, as they say, is history.’1

  ‘Died?’

  Naomi sighed. ‘She was murdered,’ Naomi admitted. ‘It was horrible. Liz, if you don’t mind, I really don’t like to talk about it.’ She could feel Liz’s gaze still fixed on her and ignored it, resolutely. She really wasn’t ready to talk about this, about the death of her friend.

  ‘So, you really don’t know him that well?’

  ‘No.’ Naomi could feel the unspoken questions, the lack of logic Liz would have identified. If they didn’t know him well, Liz was thinking, then why had Gregory gone to the trouble of finding Naomi, of turning up so unexpectedly? It was something Naomi was wondering too. She’d asked how he knew where they’d be and he’d said he’d asked at the hotel. Liz had seemed to accept that, but it raised more questions in Naomi’s mind. One being how had Gregory known where they were staying? Only a couple of their friends were party to that right now. The second was that she was pretty sure she’d mentioned their plans to no one at the hotel and even if they had, it seemed like an odd thing for the hotel to impart to a complete stranger.

  ‘This is the place,’ Liz said and Naomi felt her pull off the road and on to gravel. ‘Hang on till I come round and help you out. The ground’s a bit rough. He’s … um he’s quite a good-looking man, isn’t he? This Gregory.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Naomi told her.

  ‘Oh, no … of course not. I’m so sorry.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘I’m told he’s kind of rugged.’

  ‘Oh, I go for rugged,’ Liz said. ‘I’m not so into smooth.’ She giggled like a teenager and Naomi wondered what Gregory was going to make of the obvious interest her new friend was exhibiting. She wondered if she should warn Liz that he was not the kind of man she should be getting involved with, then figured that would lead to even more questions and she didn’t really think it would put Liz off anyway. Probably the opposite.

  Liz helped her from the car and handed her Napoleon’s harness.

  ‘Hello again,’ she said, presumably to Gregory. ‘There�
�s a nice quiet bit at the back, if we go through that door there. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m hungry and they do decent food.’

  ‘I could eat,’ Gregory agreed.

  He had an interesting voice, Naomi thought. She’d not really had much time to listen to him before; their last encounter had been a somewhat rushed affair, but now she listened, she couldn’t quite place the accent. There was something of a West Country burr to it, perhaps.

  ‘How have you been?’ he asked as they crunched across the gravel.

  ‘We’ve been all right,’ Naomi said cautiously. ‘You?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been fine. I’ve taken a bit of a holiday. First one for a long time. I think it’s been a good thing.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘And now there are just a few things I need to attend to before I leave again. I liked the holiday. Think I might make it a permanent thing.’

  ‘Sounds like the best idea,’ Naomi agreed. She could feel Liz straining to listen, her curiosity palpable.

  ‘You’re planning on early retirement, then,’ Liz asked brightly.

  ‘I hope not,’ Gregory said. ‘I’d like to have time to enjoy life first.’

  ‘Oh.’ Liz sounded puzzled and Naomi hid a smile. Retirement had a somewhat different meaning in Gregory’s business, she thought. She heard the sound of a door being opened and felt solid concrete and then wood beneath her feet. She allowed herself to be steered into a seat and settled Napoleon on the floor beneath the table. Naomi’s mind buzzed with possibilities and at the heart of all that buzzing Molly sat like a queen bee.

  ‘OK, so what are you doing here?’ Naomi asked, taking advantage of the few minutes while Liz left them to find the ladies.

  ‘Sorry to just turn up like this.’

  ‘Which is another question. How did you find us? The hotel would never have told you, even if you really went there.’

  She could almost feel Gregory smile. When he spoke, he sounded amused. ‘Your young friend, Patrick, said you were travelling. I called in a few favours. You’ve got GPS on your mobile, that makes it easy, if you know how.’

  ‘You spoke to Patrick?’

  ‘Off to college soon. I hear. He’ll do well. I like his work.’

  ‘You’ve seen his work? Gregory, I don’t understand. Why keep tabs on us?’

  He shrugged. She heard the creak of the chair as he moved. ‘General interest,’ he said. ‘Anyway, as to why, particularly, an old acquaintance of mine was shot a few weeks ago. I was curious as to what was going on, then the same gun turns up—’

  ‘Molly Chambers,’ Naomi said. ‘I just bloody knew it.’

  ‘She’s quite a character,’ Gregory agreed.

  ‘You know her too?’

  ‘Only by reputation. It’s a small world, Naomi, especially in my line of work. You get to know, or to know about, everyone of any importance in the end. So I wondered if I could take you and Alec out to dinner, maybe, so we could talk about old Molly.’

  Old Molly, Naomi thought. He’d never get away with calling her that to her face. She was about to tell him so when Gregory said, ‘So how’s the house hunting then?’ and she guessed Liz must be heading back.

  ‘Oh, you know. Not going very far,’ she said.

  ‘What’s not going very far?’ Liz asked as she sat down. ‘Ah, looks like food’s arriving. I’m starved.’

  ‘Always ready for a good feed,’ Gregory agreed. ‘Naomi was just telling me about their house hunting.’

  ‘Oooh.’ Liz’s voice was knowing. ‘Not much luck so far. Mind you, this is a pricey area, for what you get, I mean. Lovely villages, but then the price is loaded to reflect that and if you’re in one of the catchment areas for some of the best schools that can load the price, again, by ten grand.’

  ‘Really?’ Gregory asked. ‘So where would you start looking, then?

  This is like a bad joke, Naomi thought. I’m sitting in a pub, having lunch with a potter and an assassin for hire, chatting about the state of the property market.

  At her feet, Napoleon, smelling the arrival of lunch, snuffled approvingly.

  Oh, what the hell, Naomi thought and settled back to enjoy her meal and regale them, as she knew was expected to, with tales of elderly ladies and cats and bungalows with rotting floors.

  ‘So where would you like to live?’ Gregory asked at last. ‘What part of the country, I mean?’

  Naomi found her thoughts drifting back to the little cottage in Somerset. The last place anyone with any sense would want, thinking about the memories it held for them, but …

  ‘I think maybe the West Country,’ she said. ‘We spent a holiday down on the Somerset Levels and it was so peaceful and so quiet. It was like time had just walked out on it, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Sounds like a good place,’ Gregory agreed.

  ‘There was this little house, right in the middle of nowhere. Not very big, but with a great garden and you could smell the sea. I don’t know, maybe somewhere like that.’

  ‘A friend of mine died recently,’ Gregory said. ‘He had a lovely home out at Stamford, just outside of town. It had this beautiful little walled garden and then you went out through a door into the orchard. Beyond that it was all fields and a little stream. Very rural, very lovely.’

  ‘Very pricey,’ Liz said wistfully. ‘I’d love a bigger place, but it isn’t going to happen. Still, mustn’t grumble. It’s a fine little house and I’ve no mortgage to speak of. When my parents died, I sold their place and put all the money into getting somewhere of my own, so I’ve been very lucky really. And there’s room for my kiln in one of the out buildings and I’ve got a little studio.’

  ‘Really? Gregory said. ‘What do you do?’

  Naomi smiled and listened as the two of them flirted over glazing formulas and wondered what Liz would think if she knew what Gregory really was. She had a sneaking suspicion Liz would find it exciting.

  The dead friend, Naomi thought. Was that the friend who’d been killed? The first of the murders Alec had been drawn into, that was in Stamford, so obviously, it must be … what was the man called … Arthur, that was it, Arthur Fields a man who imported fine china from somewhere or other, or was it Chinese porcelain he bought? She really ought to have paid more attention. Maybe she was, finally, shaking off her police persona. She wondered where Alec and DI Barnes had got to and how they were getting on and felt an odd moment of resentment at Alec being called away and a less odd moment of resentment against Molly Chambers.

  She’s an old woman in trouble, Naomi reminded herself and then began to wonder exactly how old Molly was. Alec would have told her at some point, but somehow, things Molly, beyond the fact that Naomi found her deeply irritating, had never really sunk in.

  Belatedly, she realized that Liz was asking her something. Pudding? Right, get back with the programme Naomi, she chided herself. ‘Oh, yes, that would be nice. What do they have?’

  Having selected brownies and ice cream, and being unable to attract the attention of any passing waiting staff, Liz took herself off to the bar to order dessert and coffee.

  ‘Penny for them,’ Gregory said. ‘You were a long way from here.’

  ‘Sorry, I suppose I was. I suppose I wanted to be.’ That sounded rude, she thought, but somehow knew Gregory understood. ‘Is anything ever over?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it is. Some things just get put on hold for a while. Sometimes a long while, but they always come round again. You know that bit in the Bible that talks about the sins of the fathers being visited on future generations?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well I never figured that as being an instruction, you know, more like a statement of fact. What we do, well it can echo down the years until we’ve almost forgotten what the sound of it was in the first place, but echoes always bounce back at us.’

  ‘And this has to do with Molly?’

  ‘Molly Chambers and others.’

  Liz returned, with news of dessert and a
waitress followed with a tray of coffee.

  Echoes, Naomi thought. So often they were amplified by time, not diminished. She didn’t want any of this any more. She wanted peace and quite and a place to settle, and no more problems. No more threats.

  Liz was chatting again and Naomi knew she ought to join in, but a great weight seemed to have descended upon her and sapped what energy she had left. Beside her, Napoleon sat up and laid his head against her knee, sensing her mood. Absently, she stroked the silky black ears and pushed dessert she no longer wanted around her plate.

  ‘I’d best be going,’ Gregory said at last.

  ‘Oh, must you? We must do this again. I mean—’

  ‘It’s been nice,’ Gregory said. ‘Naomi, I’ll give you a call, later.’

  ‘OK,’ she nodded. ‘I’d best be getting back to the hotel, if that’s OK, see if Alec’s back.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Liz said, though she sounded slightly puzzled and a little disappointed at being abandoned.

  ‘He’s nice,’ Liz said as they drove back. ‘Is he single?’

  Naomi laughed. ‘I don’t think he’s had much time for romance,’ she said. ‘Gregory travelled a lot with his job. Some government contract, I think. He doesn’t talk about it a lot.’

  ‘Oh, man of mystery,’ Liz said. She sounded pleased about that. ‘It would be nice to, you know, maybe meet up for a drink or something.’

  ‘I’ll let him know you asked,’ Naomi promised.

  Clay had called twice on her mobile, but she’d ignored him; now, with Bob busy in the studio, she knew she couldn’t ignore the third call.

  ‘I’m assuming you’ve been playing the good wife,’ Clay said.