A Place of Hiding

by Elizabeth George

  Deborah felt a wash of warmth across her skin, a reaction that she knew had two distinct sources. It originated in part from the pleasure of female-to-female friendship. But it also had a root in a period of her past that was painful to contemplate. China River had been part of that period, nursing Deborah through it in the most literal sense.

  Deborah said, “I am so . . . What word can I use? Happy to see you? But Lord, that sounds so egocentric, doesn't it? You're in trouble and I'm happy to be here? What a selfish little cod that makes me.”

  “I don't know about that.” China sounded reflective before her contemplative remark segued into a smile. “I mean the real question is: Can a cod be selfish?”

  “Oh, you know cod,” Deborah replied. “A hook in its mouth and all of a sudden it's me, me, me.”

  They laughed together. Deborah went into the little kitchen. She filled the kettle and plugged it in. She found mugs, tea, sugar, and milk. One of the two cupboards even held a wrapped package of something identified as Guernsey Gâche. Deborah peeled back the covering to find a brick-shaped pastry that appeared to be a cross between raisin bread and fruit cake. It would do.

  China said nothing more until Deborah had assembled everything on the table. Then it was only a murmured “I've missed you, too” that Deborah might not have heard had she not been listening earnestly for it.

  She squeezed her friend's shoulder. She carried out the rituals of pouring and doctoring their tea. She knew the ceremony likely wouldn't have the power to comfort her friend for long, but there was something in the act of holding a mug of tea, of curving one's palm round the sides of the cup and allowing the heat to penetrate one's hand, that had always possessed a form of magic for Deborah, as if the waters of Lethe and not leaves from an Asian plant had created what steamed from within.

  China seemed to know what Deborah intended because she took up her mug and said, “The English and their tea.”

  “We drink coffee as well.”

  “Not at a time like this, you don't.” China held the mug as Deborah intended her to hold it, palm curved comfortingly round its side. She looked out of the window, where the lights of the town had begun to form a winking palette of yellow on charcoal as the last of daylight deferred to night. “I can't get used to how early it gets dark over here.”

  “It's the time of year.”

  “I'm so used to the sun.” China sipped the tea and set the mug on the table. With a fork, she picked at a piece of the Guernsey Gâche loaf but she didn't eat. Instead, she said, “I guess I might have to get used to it, though. Lack of sunlight. Being permanently indoors.”

  “That's not going to happen.”

  “I didn't do it.” China raised her head and looked at Deborah directly. “I didn't kill that man, Deborah.”

  Deborah felt her insides quiver at the thought that China might believe that she needed convincing of this fact. “My God, of course you didn't. I haven't come here to play see-for-myself. Neither has Simon.”

  “But they have evidence, see?” China said. “My hair. My shoes. Footprints. I feel like I'm in one of those dreams where you try to shout but no one can hear you because you're not really shouting at all because you can't shout because you're in a dream. It's a round-and-round thing. D'you know what I mean?”

  “I wish I could drag you out of this. I would if I could.”

  “It was on his clothes,” China said. “The hair. My hair. On his clothes when they found him. And I don't know how it got there. I've thought back, but I can't explain it.” She gestured to the legal pad. “I've written down every day as best I can remember it. Did he hug me sometime? But why would he hug me, and if he did, why don't I remember? The lawyer wants me to say that there was something between us. Not sex, he says. Don't go that far. But the pursuit, he says. The hope in his mind of sex. Stuff between us that might have led to sex. Touching. That kind of thing. But there wasn't and I can't say there was. I mean, it's not like the lying bothers me or anything. Believe me, I'd lie my head off if it would do any good. But who the hell's going to support the story? People saw me with him and he never even put a finger on me. Oh, maybe on my arm or something but that was all. So if I go on the stand and say my hair was on him because he—what? hugged me? kissed me? petted me? what?—it's only my word against everyone else's who'll stand up and say he never looked at me at all. We could counter by putting Cherokee on the stand, but no way am I asking my brother to lie.”

  “He's desperate to help.”

  China shook her head in what seemed like resignation. “He's had some sort of scam running all his life. Remember the swap meets at the fairground? Those Indian artifacts he was pawning off on the public every week? Arrowheads, shards of pottery, tools, whatever else he could think of. He almost made me believe they were real.”

  “You're not saying Cherokee . . .”

  “No, no. I just mean I should have thought twice—ten times, actually—about coming along on this trip. What seems simple to him, no strings, too good to be true but true anyway . . . ? I should have seen that there had to be something more involved than just carrying some building plans across the ocean. Not something Cherokee had in mind but something that someone else was scheming.”

  “To use you as a scapegoat,” Deborah concluded.

  “That's all I can figure.”

  “That means everything about what happened was planned. Even bringing an American over to take the blame.”

  “Two Americans,” China said. “So if one wasn't likely to be believable as a suspect, there was a good chance the other one would be. That's what's going on, and we walked right into it. Two dumb Californians who'd never even been to Europe before and you know they had to be looking for that, too. A couple of naïve oafs who wouldn't have a clue what to do if they got caught up in a mess over here. And the kicker is that I didn't really want to come. I knew there was something fishy about it. But I've spent my life being totally incapable of ever saying no to my brother.”

  “He feels wretched about everything.”

  “He always feels wretched,” China said. “Then I feel guilty. He needs a break, I tell myself. I know he'd do the same for me.”

  “He seemed to think he was doing you a good turn as well. Because of Matt. Time to get away from things for a bit. He told me, by the way. About the two of you. The break-up. I'm quite sorry. I liked him. Matt.”

  China gave her mug a half turn, staring at it hard and unwaveringly and for so long that Deborah thought she intended to avoid discussing the end of her longtime relationship with Matt Whitecomb. But just as Deborah was about to change the subject, China spoke.

  “It was tough at first. Thirteen years is too long to wait for a man to decide he's ready. I think I always knew at some level that we weren't going to work out. It just took me this long to get up my nerve to call it quits. It's the whole idea of going it alone that kept me hanging on to him. What'll I do at New Year's? Who'll send me a valentine? Where do I go on the Fourth of July? It's incredible to think how many relationships must be held together for the purpose of having someone to spend national holidays with.” China picked up her piece of the Guernsey Gâche and moved it away from her with a little shudder. “Can't eat this. Sorry.” And then, “Anyway, I've got bigger things than Matt Whitecomb to worry about right now. Why I spent my twenties trying to massage great sex into marriage, the house, the picket fence, the SUV, and the kiddies . . . That's one for me to figure out in my dotage. Right now . . . Funny how things work out. If I wasn't trapped here with a prison sentence hanging over my head, I might be brooding about why it took me so long to see the truth about Matt.”

  “Which is?”

  “He's permanently scared. It was right in front of me, but I didn't want to see it. Talk about committing to something more than weekends and vacations together, and he was always out of there. A sudden business trip. Work piling up at home. A need for a break to think things through. We split up so many times in thirteen years that the r
elationship started feeling like a recurring nightmare. The relationship, in fact, was starting to be all about the relationship, if you know what I mean. Hours talking about why we're having trouble, why I want one thing and he wants another, why he backs off and I rush forward, why he feels suffocated and I feel deserted. What is it about men and committing, for God's sake?” China picked up her spoon and stirred her tea, clearly something to do with her restlessness and not something that needed to be done. She glanced at Deborah. “Except, you're not the person I ought to ask that question, I guess. Men, you, and committing. It was never a problem you had to face, Debs.”

  Deborah didn't have the chance to remind her of the facts: that for her three-year stay in America, she'd been completely estranged from Simon. A sharp knock at the door supervened, heralding the return of Cherokee. A duffel bag angled across his shoulder.

  He set the duffel on the floor and declared, “I'm out of that hotel, Chine. No way am I letting you stay here all alone.”

  “There's only one bed.”

  “I'll sleep on the floor. You need family around you, and that means me.”

  His tone said fait accompli. The duffel bag said there would be no arguing with his decision.

  China sighed. She didn't look happy.

  St. James found the office of China's advocate on New Street, a short distance from the Royal Court House. DCI Le Gallez had phoned ahead to let the lawyer know he'd be having a caller, so when St. James introduced himself to the man's secretary, he waited less than five minutes before being shown into the advocate's rooms.

  Roger Holberry directed him to one of three chairs that encircled a small conference table. There they both sat and St. James laid out for the advocate the facts that DCI Le Gallez had shared with him. Holberry himself would already have these facts, St. James knew. But he needed from the advocate everything that Le Gallez had left out during their interview, and the only way to get it was to allow the other man to note any holes in the blanket of information in order to sew them up.

  Holberry seemed only too happy to do this. Le Gallez, he informed him, had shared St. James's credentials in their telephone call. The DCI wasn't a joyful soldier now that it appeared reinforcements had entered the battle on the side of the opposition, but he was an honest man and he had no intention of attempting to thwart them in their efforts to establish China River's innocence. “He made it clear that he doesn't believe you'll be able to do much good,” Holberry said. “His case is solid. Or so he thinks.”

  “What've you got from forensic on the body?”

  “What's been combed from it so far. Scrapings from beneath the nails as well. Just the externals.”

  “No toxicology? Tissue analysis? Organ studies?”

  “Too soon for that. We've got to send it all to the UK and then it's a case of join the queue. But the means of the killing is a straightforward business. Le Gallez must have told you.”

  “The stone. Yes.” St. James went on to explain to the advocate that he'd pointed out to Le Gallez how unlikely it was that a woman could have shoved a stone down the throat of anyone older than a child. “And if there were no signs of a struggle . . . What did the nail scrapings show you?”

  “Nothing. Other than some sand.”

  “The rest of the body? Bruised, scraped, banged about? Anything?”

  “Not a thing,” Holberry replied. “But Le Gallez knows he's got next to nothing. He's hanging this all on the witness. Brouard's sister saw something. God knows what. He's not told us that yet, Le Gallez.”

  “Could she have done it herself?”

  “Possible. But unlikely. Everyone who knows them agrees she was devoted to the victim. They'd been together—lived together, I mean—for most of their lives. She even worked for him when he was getting established.”

  “As what?”

  “Chateaux Brouard,” Holberry said. “They made a pile of money and came to Guernsey when he retired.”

  Chateaux Brouard, St. James thought. He'd heard of the group: a chain of small but exclusive hotels fashioned from country houses throughout the UK. They were nothing flashy, just historic settings, antiques, fine food, and tranquility: the sort of places frequented by those who sought privacy and anonymity, perfect for actors needing a few days away from the glare of the media and excellent for political figures having affairs. Discretion was the better part of doing business, and the Chateaux Brouard embodied that belief.

  “You said she might be protecting someone,” St. James said. “Who?”

  “The son, for starters. Adrian.” Holberry explained that Guy Brouard's thirty-seven-year-old son had also been a house guest the night before the murder. Then, he said, there were the Duffys to consider: Valerie and Kevin, who'd been part of life at Le Reposoir since the day Brouard had taken the place over.

  “Ruth Brouard might lie for any of them,” Holberry pointed out. She was known to be loyal to the people she loved. And the Duffys at least, it had to be said, returned the favour. “We're talking about a well-liked pair, Ruth and Guy Brouard. He's done a world of good on this island. He used to give away money like tissues during cold season, and she's been active with the Samaritans for years.”

  “People without apparent enemies, then,” St. James noted.

  “Deadly for the defence,” Holberry said. “But all is not lost on that front yet.”

  Holberry sounded pleased. St. James's interest quickened. “You've come up with something.”

  “Several somethings,” Holberry said. “They may turn out to be several nothings, but they bear looking into and I can assure you the police weren't sniffing seriously round anyone but the Rivers from the first.”

  He went on to describe a close relationship that Guy Brouard had with a sixteen-year-old boy, one Paul Fielder, who lived in what was obviously the wrong side of town in an area called the Bouet. Brouard had hooked up with the boy through a local programme that paired adults from the community with disadvantaged teenagers from the secondary school. GAYT—Guernsey Adults-Youths-Teachers—had chosen Paul Fielder to be mentored by Guy Brouard, and Brouard had more or less adopted the boy, a circumstance which might have been less than thrilling to the boy's own parents or, for that matter, to Brouard's natural son. In either case, passions could have flared and among those passions the basest of them all: jealousy and what jealousy could lead someone to do.

  Then there was the fact of that party the night before Guy Brouard met his end, Holberry went on. Everyone had known for weeks it was coming, so a killer prepared to set upon Brouard when he wasn't in top form—as he wouldn't have been after partying till the wee hours of the morning—could have planned in advance exactly how best to carry it off and lay the blame elsewhere. While the party was going on, how difficult would it have been to slip upstairs and plant evidence on clothing and on the soles of shoes or, better yet, even to take those shoes down to the bay to leave a footprint or two that the police could find later? Yes, that party and the death were related, Holberry stated unequivocally, and they were related in more ways than one.

  “This whole business with the museum architect needs dissecting as well,” Holberry said. “It was unexpected and messy, and when things are unexpected and messy, people get provoked.”

  “But the architect wasn't present the night of the murder, was he?” St. James asked. “I was under the impression he's in America.”

  “Not that architect. I'm speaking of the original architect, a bloke called Bertrand Debiere. He's a local man and he, along with everyone else, believed it was his design that would be chosen for Brouard's museum. Well, why not? Brouard had a model of the place he kept showing off for weeks to anyone who was interested and it was Debiere's model, made by his own hands. So when he—this is Brouard—said he was having a party to name the architect he'd chosen for the job . . .” Holberry shrugged. “You can't blame Debiere for assuming he was the man.”

  “Vengeful?”

  “Who's to tell, really? One would think the lo
cal coppers might have given him more than a cursory glance, but he's a Guernseyman. So they're not likely to touch him.”

  “Americans being more violent by nature?” St. James asked. “School-yard shootings, capital punishment, accessible guns, and the rest of it?”

  “Not so much that as the nature of the crime itself.” Holberry glanced at the door as it creaked open. His secretary eased into the room, home written all over her: She carried a stack of papers in one hand and a pen in the other, she wore her coat, and she carried her handbag hooked over her arm. Holberry took the documents from her and began to sign his name as he talked. “There hasn't been a cold start murder on the island in years. No one even knows how long it's been. Not in the memory of anyone at the police department and that goes back quite a way. There've been crimes of passion, naturally. Accidental deaths and suicides, as well. But calculated murder? Not in decades.” He completed his signatures, handed the letters back to his secretary, and bade her goodnight. He himself stood and went back to his desk, where he began to sort through paperwork, some of which he shoved into a briefcase on his chair. He said, “That being the situation, the police are, unfortunately, predisposed to believe that a Guernseyman wouldn't be capable of committing a crime like this.”

  “Do you suspect there are others, then, beyond the architect?” St. James asked. “I mean other Guernseymen with a reason to want Guy Brouard dead?”

  Holberry set his paperwork aside as he pondered this question. In the outer office, the door opened then closed as his secretary went on her way. “I believe,” Holberry said carefully, “that the surface has barely been scratched when it comes to Guy Brouard and the people of this island. He was like Father Christmas: this charity, that charity, a wing at the hospital, and what do you need? Just see Mr. Brouard. He was the patron of half a dozen artists—painters, sculptors, glassmakers, metal workers—and he was footing the bill on more than one local kid's university education in England. That's who he was. Some called it giving back to a community that had made him welcome. But I wouldn't be surprised to find out others had another name for it.”