“All sorts of things. There but not there. So it was a . . . well, rather a bond between China and me. Another bond, that is. Beyond photography. And other things. The motherless bit.”
Simon turned down the burner beneath the soup and leaned against the cooker, watching his wife. “Tough years, those,” he said quietly.
“Yes. Well.” She blinked and offered him a quick smile. “We all muddled through them, didn't we?”
“We did that,” Simon acknowledged.
Peach raised her nose from snuffling around the floor, head cocked and ears at the ready. On the window sill above the sink, the great grey Alaska—who'd been indolently studying the worm tracks of rain against the glass—rose and gave a languid feline stretch, with his eyes fixed on the basement stairs which descended right next to the old dresser on which the cat frequently spent his days. A moment later, the door above them creaked and the dog barked once. Alaska leaped down from the window sill and vanished to seek slumber in the larder.
Cherokee's voice called, “Debs?”
“Down here,” Deborah replied. “We've made you soup and soldiers.”
Cherokee joined them. He looked much improved. He was shorter than Simon by an inch or two and more athletic, but the pyjamas and dressing gown sat on him easily, and the trembles had gone. His feet were bare, however.
“I should have thought of slippers,” Deborah said.
“I'm fine,” Cherokee replied. “You've been great. Thanks. To both of you. It must be a real freak-out, me showing up like this. I appreciate being taken in.” He nodded to Simon, who took the pan of soup to the table and ladled some into the bowl.
“This is something of a red-letter day, I must tell you,” Deborah said. “Simon's actually opened a carton of soup. He'll usually do only tins.”
“Thank you very much,” Simon remarked.
Cherokee smiled, but he looked exhausted, like someone operating from the last vestiges of energy at the end of a terrible day.
“Have your soup,” Deborah said. “You're stopping the night, by the way.”
“No. I can't ask you—”
“Don't be silly. Your clothes are in the dryer and they'll be done in a while, but you surely didn't expect to go back out on the streets to find a hotel at this time of night.”
“Deborah's right,” Simon agreed. “We've plenty of room. You're more than welcome.”
Cherokee's face mirrored relief and gratitude despite his exhaustion. “Thanks. I feel like . . .” He shook his head. “I feel like a kid. You know how they get? Lost in the grocery store except they don't know that they're lost till they look up from what they're doing—reading a comic book or something—and they see their mom's out of sight and then they flip out. That's what it feels like. What it felt like.”
“Well, you're quite safe now,” Deborah assured him.
“I didn't want to leave a message on your machine,” Cherokee said. “When I phoned. It would have been a real downer to come home to. So I decided to try to find the house instead. I got totally screwed up on that yellow line on the subway and ended up at Tower Hill before I could figure what the hell I'd done wrong.”
“Ghastly,” Deborah murmured.
“Bad luck,” Simon said.
A little silence fell among them then, broken only by the sounds of the rain. It splattered on the flagstones outside the kitchen door and slid in ceaseless rivulets down the window. There were three of them—and a hopeful dog—in the midnight kitchen. But they were not alone. The Question was there, too. It squatted among them like a palpable being, breathing noisome breath that could not be ignored. Neither Deborah nor her husband asked it. But as things turned out, neither needed to do so.
Cherokee dipped his spoon into his bowl. He raised it to his mouth. But he lowered it slowly without tasting the soup. He stared into the bowl for a moment before he raised his head and looked from Deborah to her husband.
“Here's what happened,” he said.
He was responsible for everything, he told them. If it hadn't been for him, China wouldn't have gone to Guernsey in the first place. But he'd needed money, and when this deal came up to carry a package from California to the English Channel and to get paid for carrying it and to have the airline tickets provided . . . well, it seemed too good to be true.
He asked China to go because there were two tickets and the deal was that a man and woman had to carry the package over together. He thought Why not? And why not ask Chine? She never went anywhere. She'd never even been out of California.
He had to talk her into it. It took a few days, but she'd just broken up with Matt—did Debs remember China's boyfriend? the filmmaker she'd been with forever?—and she decided she wanted a break. So she called him and told him she wanted to go, and he made the arrangements. They carried the package from Tustin, south of LA, where it had originated, to a place on Guernsey outside of St. Peter Port.
“What was in the package?” Deborah pictured a drug bust at the airport, complete with dogs snarling and China and Cherokee backed into the wall like foxes seeking shelter.
Nothing illegal, Cherokee told her. He was hired to carry architectural plans from Tustin to the English Channel island. And the lawyer who had hired him—
“A lawyer?” Simon queried. “Not the architect?”
No. Cherokee was hired by a lawyer, and that had sounded fishy to China, fishier even than being paid to carry a package to Europe as well as being given the airline tickets to do so. So China insisted that they open the package before they agreed to take it anywhere, which was what they did.
It was a good-size mailing tube, and if China had feared it was packed with drugs, weapons, explosives, or any other contraband that would have put them both in handcuffs, her fears were allayed when they unsealed it. Inside were the architectural plans that were supposed to be there, which set her mind at rest. His mind, too, Cherokee had to admit. For China's worries had unnerved him.
So they went to Guernsey to deliver the plans, with the intention of heading from there to Paris and onwards to Rome. It wouldn't be a long trip: Neither of them could afford that, so they were doing only two days in each place. But on Guernsey, their plans changed unexpectedly. They'd thought they'd make a quick exchange at the airport: paperwork for the promised payment and—
“What sort of payment are we talking about?” Simon asked.
Five thousand dollars, Cherokee told them. At their expressions of incredulity, he hastened to say that yeah, it was outrageous as all get-out and the amount of the payment was the number-one reason China had insisted they open the package because who the heck would give someone two free tickets to Europe and five thousand dollars just to carry something over from LA? But it turned out that doing outrageous stuff with money was what this whole deal was about in the first place. The man who wanted the architectural plans was richer than Howard Hughes, and he evidently did outrageous stuff with his money all the time.
However, they weren't met at the airport by someone with a cheque or a briefcase filled with cash or anything remotely resembling what they'd expected. Instead, they were met by a near-mute man called Kevin Something who hustled them to a van and drove them to a very cool spread a few miles away.
China was freaked out by this turn of events, which admittedly was disconcerting. There they were, enclosed in a car with a total stranger who didn't say fifteen words to them. It was very weird. But at the same time, it was like an adventure, and for his part Cherokee was intrigued.
Their destination turned out to be an awesome manor house sitting on God only knew how much acreage. The place was ancient—and completely restored, Debs—and China shifted into photographic mode the moment she laid eyes on it. Here was a whole Architectural Digest spread just waiting for her to shoot it.
China decided then and there that she wanted to do the photographs. Not only of the house but of the estate itself, which contained everything from duck ponds to prehistoric whatevers. China knew she'd been pre
sented with an opportunity she might never get again, and although it meant taking the photographs on spec, she was willing to invest the time, the money, and the effort because the place was that sensational.
This was fine by Cherokee. She thought it would take only a couple of days and he'd have time to explore the island. The only question was whether the owner would go for the idea. Some people don't like their homes showing up in magazines. Too much inspiration for your B-and-E types.
Their host turned out to be a man called Guy—rhymed with key—Brouard, who was happy enough with the idea. He urged Cherokee and China to spend the night or perhaps a few days or whatever it took to get the photographs right. My sister and I live alone here, he told them, and visitors are always a diversion for us.
The man's son was also there as things turned out, and Cherokee thought at first that Guy Brouard might be hoping that China and the son would hook up. But the son was a disappearing type who showed up only at mealtimes and otherwise kept to himself. The sister was nice, though, and so was Brouard. So Cherokee and China felt right at home.
For her part, China connected big with Guy. They shared a common interest in architecture: hers because photographing buildings was her job, his because he was planning to put up a building on the island. He even took her to see the site and showed her some of the other structures on the island that were important historically. China should photograph all of Guernsey, he told her. She should do an entire book of pictures, not just enough for a magazine article. For so tiny a place it was steeped in history, and every society that had ever dwelt upon it had left its imprint in the form of buildings.
For their fourth and final night with the Brouards, a party had long been scheduled. It was a dressed-to-the-nines blowout that appeared to involve a cast of thousands. Neither China nor Cherokee knew what it was for, until midnight, when Guy Brouard gathered everyone together and announced that the design for his building—it turned out to be a museum—had finally been chosen. Drum rolls, excitement, champagne corks popping, and fireworks afterwards as he named the architect whose plans Cherokee and China had carried from California. A water colour of the place was brought out on an easel, and the partyers oohed, aahed, and went on drinking the Brouards' champagne until something like three in the morning.
The next day, neither Cherokee nor his sister was surprised when no one was up and about. They made their way to the kitchen around eight-thirty and browsed until they found the cereal, the coffee, and the milk. They assumed it was okay to make their own breakfast while the Brouards slept off the previous night's drunk. They ate, phoned for a taxi, and left for the airport. They never saw anyone from the estate again.
They flew to Paris and spent two days seeing the sights they'd only gazed upon in pictures. They were set to do the same in Rome, but as they went through customs at Da Vinci airport, Interpol stopped them.
The police packed them back to Guernsey, where they were wanted, they were told, for questioning. When they asked, Questioning about what? all they were told was that “a serious incident requires your presence on the island at once.”
Their presence, it turned out, was required at the police station in St. Peter Port. They were held alone in separate cells: Cherokee for twenty-four pretty bad hours and China for three nightmarish days that turned into an appearance in front of the magistrate and a trip to the remand section of the prison, where she was now being held.
“For what?” Deborah reached across the table for Cherokee's hand. “Cherokee, what are they charging her with?”
“Murder,” he replied hollowly. “It's completely insane. They're charging China with killing Guy Brouard.”
Chapter 2
DEBORAH TURNED BACK THE covers on the bed and fluffed up the pillows. She realised that she'd seldom felt quite so useless. There was China sitting in a prison cell on Guernsey and here was she bustling round the spare room, drawing curtains and fluffing up pillows—for God's sake—because she didn't know what else to do. Part of her wanted to take the next plane to the Channel Islands. Part of her wanted to dive into Cherokee's heart and do something to calm his anxiety. Part of her wanted to draw up lists, devise plans, give instructions, and take an immediate action that would allow both Rivers to know they were not alone in the world. And part of her wanted someone else to do all of this because she didn't feel equal to any of it. So she uselessly fluffed pillows and turned down the bed.
Then, because she wanted to say something to China's brother, she turned to him where he stood awkwardly by the chest of drawers. “If you need anything in the night, we're just on the floor below.”
Cherokee nodded. He looked dismal and very alone. “She didn't do it,” he said. “Can you see China hurting a fly?”
“Absolutely not.”
“We're talking about someone who used to get me to carry spiders from her bedroom when we were kids. She'd be up on the bed yelling because she'd seen one on the wall and I'd come in to get rid of it and then she'd start yelling, ‘Don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!' ”
“She was like that with me, as well.”
“God, if I'd only let it be, not asked her to come. I've got to do something and I don't know what.”
His fingers twisted the tie of Simon's dressing gown. Deborah was reminded of how China had always seemed like the older sibling of the two. Cherokee, what am I going to do with you, she'd ask him. When are you ever growing up?
Right now, Deborah thought. With circumstances demanding a kind of adulthood that she wasn't sure Cherokee even possessed.
She said to him because it was the only thing she could say, “You sleep now. We'll know better what to do in the morning,” and she left him.
She was heavy at heart. China River had been the closest of friends to her during the most difficult moments of her life. She owed her much but had repaid her little. That China would now be in trouble and that she would be in that trouble alone . . . Deborah only too well understood Cherokee's anxiety about his sister.
She found Simon in their bedroom, sitting on the straight-backed chair that he used when he removed his leg brace at night. He was in the midst of tearing back the brace's Velcro strips, his trousers puddling down round his ankles and his crutches on the floor next to his chair.
He looked childlike, as he generally looked in this vulnerable posture, and it had always taken all the discipline she could muster for Deborah not to go to his assistance when she came upon her husband like this. His disability was, for her, the great leveling force between them. She hated it for his sake because she knew he hated it, but she'd long ago accepted the fact that the accident that had crippled him in his twenties had also made him available to her. Had it not occurred, he'd have married while she was a mere adolescent, leaving her far behind. His time in hospital and then convalescing and then the black years of depression that followed had put paid to that.
He didn't like to be seen in his awkwardness, though. So she went straight to the chest of drawers, where she made a pretence of removing what few pieces of jewellery she wore while she waited for the sound of the leg brace clunking to the floor. When she heard it, followed by the grunt he gave as he rose, she turned. He had his crutches snapped round his wrists, and he was watching her fondly.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Sorry. Have I always been so obvious?”
“No. You've always been so kind. But I don't think I've ever thanked you properly. That's what comes from a marriage too happy for its own good: taking the beloved for granted.”
“Do you take me for granted, then?”
“Not intentionally.” He cocked his head to one side and observed her. “Frankly, you don't give me the chance.” He made his way across the room to her, and she put her arms round his waist. He kissed her gently and then kissed her long, one arm holding her to him, till she felt the wanting that stirred in them both.
She looked up at him then. “I'm glad you can still do that to me. But I'm gladder I can do it
to you.”
He touched her cheek. “Hmm. Yes. Yet all things considered, it's probably not the time . . .”
“For what?”
“For exploring some interesting variations of this ‘it' you were speaking of.”
“Ah.” She smiled. “That. Well, perhaps it is the time, Simon. Perhaps what we learn every day is how quickly life changes. Everything that's important can be gone in an instant. So it is the time.”
“To explore . . . ?”
“Only if we're exploring together.”
Which was what they did in the glow of a single lamp that burnished their bodies gold, darkened Simon's grey-blue eyes, and turned to crimson the otherwise hidden pale places where their blood beat hot. Afterwards, they lay in the tangle of the counterpane, which they hadn't bothered to remove from the bed. Deborah's clothes were scattered wherever her husband had tossed them and Simon's shirt draped from one of his arms like an indolent tart.
“I'm glad you hadn't gone to bed,” she said against his chest, where she rested her cheek. “I thought you might have done. It didn't seem right to just deposit him in the spare room without staying for a moment. But you were looking so tired in the kitchen that I thought you might've decided to sleep. I'm glad you didn't, though. Thank you, Simon.”
He caressed her hair as was his habit, moving his hand into the heavy mass of it till his fingers came into contact with her head. He played them warmly against her scalp, and she felt her body relax in response. “He's all right?” Simon asked. “Is there anyone we can phone, just in case?”
“Just in case what?”
“Just in case he doesn't get what he wants from the embassy tomorrow. I expect they've already been in contact with the police on Guernsey. If they've not sent someone over there . . .” Deborah felt her husband shrug. “Chances are good there's nothing else they intend to do.”
Deborah rose from his chest. “You aren't thinking China actually committed this murder, are you?”
“Not at all.” He brought her back to his arms. “I'm only pointing out that she's in the hands of a foreign police force. There'll be protocols and procedures to be followed and that might be the extent of what the embassy is going to involve itself with. Cherokee needs to be prepared for that. He might also need someone to lean on if that turns out to be the case. That might be why he's come, in fact.”
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