A Place of Hiding

by Elizabeth George

  “Need to go somewheres, do you?” Billy asked. “And your bike got wrecked. Wicked, that. What people will do.”

  Paul didn't want to cry because he knew that tears would give his brother more roads to take in tormenting him. It was true that tears would give him less satisfaction than defeating Paul in a brutal dust-up, but they still would serve as a better-than-nothing and Paul vastly preferred to give Billy nothing. He'd long ago learned that his brother had no heart and even less conscience. He lived to make the lives of others a torment. It was the only contribution he could make to the family.

  So Paul ignored him, which Billy didn't like. He took up a station leaning against the house, and he lit yet another cigarette.

  Rot your lungs, Paul thought. But he didn't say it. He just set about patching the worn old tyre, taking up the bits of rubber and the glue and stretching them across the ragged incision.

  “Now lemme see where lit'le bruvver might've been going this morning,” Billy said reflectively, dragging in on his fag. “Going to pay a call on Mummy down 't Boots? Take Dad his lunch somewheres out on the road-works crew? Hmm. Don't think so. Clobber's too posh. Matter of fac', where'd he get that shirt? Outta my cupboard? Better hope not. 'Cause pinching from me would require some discipline. But p'rhaps I oughter have a closer look. Just to make sure.”

  Paul didn't react. Billy, he knew, was a coward's bully. The only time he had the bottle to attack was when he believed his victims were cowed. Like their parents were cowed, Paul thought dismally. Keeping him in the house like a nonpaying lodger month after month because they were afraid what he'd do if they chucked him out.

  Paul had once been like them, watching his brother cart off family belongings to flog in car-boot sales to keep himself in beer and fags. But that had been before Mr. Guy had come along. Mr. Guy, who always seemed to know what was going on in Paul's heart and who always seemed able to talk about it without preaching or making demands or expecting anything at all in return but companionship.

  You just keep your eyes focused on what's important, my Prince. As to the rest of it? Let it go if it's not in the way of your dreams.

  This was why he could repair his bike while his brother mocked him, challenging him either to fight or to cry. Paul closed his ears and concentrated. One tyre to patch, one chain to clean.

  He could have caught the bus into town, but he didn't think of that until he had the bike back together and was halfway to the church. At that point, though, he was beyond berating himself for dimwittedness. He'd wanted so fiercely to be there for Mr. Guy's farewell that the sole thought he was even capable of producing when a bus trundled by him on the northern Number Five route and reminded him of what might have been was how easy it would be to ride out in front of the vehicle and put an end to everything.

  That was when he finally cried, in sheer frustration and in desperation. He cried for the present in which his every aim appeared to be thwarted, and he cried for the future, which looked bleak and empty.

  Despite seeing that not a single car remained near the Town Church, he hiked his rucksack higher on his shoulders and went inside anyway. First, though, he scooped up Taboo. He took the dog with him inside although he knew he was out of order in a very big way for this. But he didn't care. Mr. Guy had been Taboo's friend as well and anyway, he wasn't about to leave the animal out on the square not understanding what was going on. So he carried him inside where the scent of flowers and burnt candles was still in the air and a banner saying Requiescat in Pace still stood to the right of the pulpit. But those were the only signs that a funeral had taken place in St. Peter Port Church. After wandering the length of the centre aisle and trying to pretend he'd been one of the mourners, Paul left the building and returned to his bike. He headed south towards Le Reposoir.

  He'd put on what went for his best clothes that morning, wishing he'd not run off from Valerie Duffy on the previous day when she'd made the offer of one of Kevin's old shirts. As a result, all he had was a pair of black trousers with bleach spots on them, his single pair of broken-down shoes, and a flannel shirt that his father used to wear on the colder days inside the meat market. Around the neck of this shirt, he'd looped a knitted tie that also belonged to his dad. And over it all he'd worn his mother's red anorak. He looked a wretched sight, and he knew it, but it was the best he could do.

  Everything he had on was either grimy or sweated through when he got to the Brouard estate. For this reason, he pushed his bike behind an enormous camellia bush just inside the wall, and he ducked off the drive and walked up to the house beneath the trees instead of in the open, with Taboo trotting along beside him.

  Ahead of him, Paul saw that people were coming out of the house in dribs and drabs, and as he paused to try to suss out what was happening, the hearse that had held Mr. Guy's coffin came his way, slowly passed by him where he stood half-hidden to the east of the drive, and turned out of the gates to make the journey back to town. Paul followed its route with his gaze before turning back to the house and understanding that he'd missed the burial as well. He'd missed everything.

  He felt his whole body tightening and surging at once, as something tried to escape him as fiercely as he tried to keep it imprisoned. He took off his rucksack and clutched it to his chest, and he tried to believe that what he had shared with Mr. Guy had not been obliterated in the work of one moment but instead had been sanctified, blessed forever through the means of a message Mr. Guy left behind.

  This, my Prince, is a special place, a you-and-I place. How good are you at keeping secrets, Paul?

  Better than good, Paul Fielder vowed. Better than being able to hear his brother's taunts without listening to them. Better than being able to bear the searing fires of this loss without disintegrating completely. Better, in fact, than anything.

  Ruth Brouard took St. James upstairs to her brother's study. This, he found, was in the northwest corner, and it overlooked an oval lawn and the conservatory in one direction and a semicircle of outbuildings that appeared to be old stables in the other direction. Beyond each of these, the estate spread out: more gardens, distant paddocks, fields, and woodland. St. James saw that the theme of sculpture beginning in the walled garden in which the murdered man had been buried extended to the rest of his estate as well. Here and there, a geometric form done in marble or bronze or granite or wood appeared among the trees and the plants that grew unrestrained across the land.

  “Your brother was a patron of the arts.” St. James turned from the window as Ruth Brouard quietly shut the door behind them.

  “My brother,” she replied, “was a patron of everything.”

  She didn't appear well, St. James decided. Her movements were studied and her voice sounded drained. She walked to an armchair and lowered herself into it. Behind her glasses, her eyes narrowed in what might have developed into a wince had she not been so careful to keep her face like a mask.

  In the centre of the room, a walnut table stood, upon it the detailed model of a building set into a landscape that comprised the passing roadway in front of it, the garden behind it, even the miniature trees and shrubbery that the gardens would grow. The model was so detailed that it included both doors and windows and along the front of it what would eventually be carved into the facing stonework had been neatly applied by a skilled hand. Graham Ouseley Wartime Museum was incised into the frieze.

  “Graham Ouseley.” St. James stepped back from the model. It was low to the ground in the manner of a bunker, save for its entrance, which swept up dramatically like something designed by Le Corbusier.

  “Yes,” Ruth murmured. “He's a Guernseyman. Quite old. In his nineties. A local hero from the Occupation.” She offered nothing more, but it was clear she was waiting. She'd read St. James's name and profession on the card he'd handed her and she'd immediately agreed to talk to him. But she obviously was going to wait to see what he wanted before volunteering any more information.

  “Is this the local architect's version?” St.
James asked. “I understand he built a model for your brother.”

  “Yes,” Ruth told him. “This was done by a man from St. Peter Port, but his plan wasn't the one Guy finally chose.”

  “I wonder why. It looks suitable, doesn't it?”

  “I've no idea. My brother didn't tell me.”

  “Must have been a disappointment to the local man. He appears to have gone to a lot of work.” St. James bent to the model again.

  Ruth Brouard stirred on her seat, shifting her torso as if seeking a more comfortable position, adjusting her glasses, and folding her small hands into her lap. “Mr. St. James,” she said, “how may I help you? You said you've come about Guy's death. As your business is forensics . . . Have you news to give me? Is that why you're here? I was told that further studies of his organs were going to be made.” She faltered, apparently over the difficulty of referring to her brother in parts instead of as a whole. She lowered her head and after a moment, she went on with “I was told there would be studies of my brother's organs and tissues. Other things as well. In England, I was told. As you're from London, perhaps you've come to give me information. Although if something's been uncovered—something unexpected—surely Mr. Le Gallez would have come to tell me himself, wouldn't he?”

  “He knows I'm here but he hasn't sent me,” St. James told her. Then he carefully explained the mission that had brought him to Guernsey in the first place. He concluded with “Miss River's advocate told me that you were the witness whose evidence DCI Le Gallez is building his case on. I've come to ask you about that evidence.”

  She looked away from him. “Miss River,” she said.

  “She and her brother were guests here for several days prior to the murder, I understand.”

  “And she's asked you to help her escape blame for what's happened to Guy?”

  “I've not met her yet,” St. James said. “I've not spoken to her.”

  “Then, why . . . ?”

  “My wife and she are old friends.”

  “And your wife can't believe that her old friend has murdered my brother.”

  “There's the question of motive,” St. James said. “How well did Miss River come to know your brother? Is there a chance she could have known him prior to this visit? Her brother doesn't give any indication of that, but he himself might not know. Do you?”

  “If she's ever been to England, possibly. She could have known Guy. But only there. Guy's never been to America. That I know of.”

  “That you know of?”

  “He might have gone at one time or another and not told me, but I can't think why. Or when, even. If he did, it would have been long ago. Since we've been here, on Guernsey, no. He would have told me. When he traveled in the past nine years, which was rarely once he retired, he always let me know where he could be reached. He was good that way. He was good in many ways, in fact.”

  “Giving no person a reason to kill him? No person other than China River, who also appears to have had no reason?”

  “I can't explain it.”

  St. James moved away from the model of the museum and joined Ruth Brouard, sitting in the second armchair with a small round table between them. A picture stood on this table and he picked it up: an extended Jewish family gathered round a dining table, the men in yarmulkes, their women standing behind them, open booklets in their hands. Two children were among them, a young girl and boy. The girl wore spectacles, the boy striped braces. A patriarch stood at the head of the group, poised to break a large matzo into pieces. Behind him, a sideboard held a silver epergne and burning candles each of which shed an elongated glow on a painting on the wall, while next to him stood the woman who was obviously his wife, her head cocked towards his.

  “Your family?” he said to Ruth Brouard.

  “We lived in Paris,” she replied. “Before Auschwitz.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Believe me. You can't be sorry enough.”

  St. James agreed with that. “No one can.”

  This admission on his part seemed to satisfy Ruth Brouard in some way, as perhaps did the gentleness with which he replaced the picture on the table. For she looked to the model in the centre of the room and she spoke quietly and without any rancour.

  “I can tell you only what I saw that morning, Mr. St. James. I can tell you only what I did. I went to my bedroom window and watched Guy leave the house. When he reached the trees and passed onto the drive, she followed him. I saw her.”

  “You're certain it was China River?”

  “I wasn't at first,” she replied. “Come. I'll show you.”

  She took him back along a shadowy passage that was hung with early prints of the manor house. Not far from the stairway, she opened a door and led St. James into what was obviously her bedroom: simply furnished but furnished well with heavy antiques and an enormous needlepoint tapestry. A series of scenes comprised it, all of them combining to tell a single story in the fashion of tapestries predating books. This particular story was one of flight: an escape in the night as a foreign army approached, a hurried journey to the coast, a crossing made on heavy seas, a landing among strangers. Only two of the characters depicted were the same in every scene: a young girl and boy.

  Ruth Brouard stepped into the shallow embrasure of a window and drew back sheer panels that hung over the glass. “Come,” she said to St. James. “Look.”

  St. James joined her and saw that the window overlooked the front of the house. Below them, the drive circled round a plot of land planted with grass and shrubbery. Beyond this, the lawn rolled across to a distant cottage. A thick stand of trees grew round this building and extended up along the drive and back again to the main house.

  Her brother had come out of the front door as was his habit, Ruth Brouard told St. James. As she watched, he crossed the lawn towards the cottage and disappeared into the trees. China River came out of those trees and followed him. She was in full sight. She was dressed in black. She was wearing her cloak with its hood drawn up, but Ruth knew it was China.

  Why? St. James wanted to know. It seemed clear that anyone could have put his hands on China's cloak. Its very nature made it suitable for either a man or a woman to wear. And didn't the hood suggest to Miss Brouard—

  “I didn't depend on that alone, Mr. St. James,” Ruth Brouard told him. “I thought it odd that she would follow Guy at that hour of the morning because there seemed to be no reason for it. I found it unsettling. I thought I might be mistaken about what I'd seen, so I went to her room. She wasn't there.”

  “Perhaps elsewhere in the house?”

  “I checked. The bathroom. The kitchen. Guy's study. The drawing room. The upstairs gallery. She wasn't anywhere inside, Mr. St. James, because she was following my brother.”

  “Did you have your glasses on when you saw her outside in the trees?”

  “That's why I checked the house,” Ruth said. “Because I didn't have them on when I first looked out of the window. It seemed to be her—I've learned to become good with sizes and shapes—but I wanted to be sure.”

  “Why? Did you suspect something of her? Or of someone else?”

  Ruth put the sheer curtains back in place. She smoothed her hand over the thin material. She said as she did this, “Someone else? No. No. Of course not,” but the fact that she spoke as she saw to the curtains prompted St. James to go on.

  He said, “Who else was in the house at the time, Miss Brouard?”

  “Her brother. Myself. And Adrian, Guy's son.”

  “What was his relationship with his father?”

  “Good. Fine. They didn't see each other often. His mother long ago put that into effect. But when they did see each other, they were terribly fond. Naturally, they had their differences. What father and son don't? But they weren't serious, the differences. They were nothing that couldn't be repaired.”

  “You're sure of that?”

  “Of course I'm sure. Adrian is . . . He's a good boy but he's had a difficult life. His parents' d
ivorce was bitter and he was caught in the middle. He loved both of them but he was made to choose. That sort of thing causes misunderstanding. It causes estrangement. And it isn't fair.” She seemed to hear an undercurrent in her own voice and she took a deep breath as if to control it. “They loved each other in the way fathers and sons love each other when neither of them can ever get a grasp on what the other one is like.”

  “Where do you suppose that kind of love can lead?”

  “Not to murder. I assure you of that.”

  “You love your nephew,” St. James observed.

  “Blood relatives mean more to me than they do to most people,” she said, “for obvious reasons.”

  St. James nodded. He saw the truth in this. He also saw a further reality, but he didn't need to explore it with her at that moment. He said, “I'd like to see the route your brother took to the bay where he swam that morning, Miss Brouard.”

  She said, “You'll find it just east of the caretaker's cottage. I'll phone the Duffys and tell them I've given you permission to be there.”

  “It's a private bay?”

  “No, not the bay. But if you pass by the cottage, Kevin will wonder what you're up to. He's protective of us. So is his wife.”

  But not protective enough, St. James thought.

  Chapter 10

  ST. JAMES CONNECTED WITH Deborah once again as she was emerging from beneath the chestnuts that lined the drive. In very short order, she related her encounter in the Japanese garden, indicating where it was with a gesture towards the southeast and a thicket of trees. Her earlier irritation with him seemed to be forgotten, for which he was grateful, and in this fact he was reminded once again of his father-in-law's words describing Deborah when St. James had—with amusing and what he had hoped was endearing antique formality—asked for permission to marry her. “Deb's a red-'ead and make no mistake about it, my lad,” Joseph Cotter had said. “She'll give you aggro like you've never 'ad, but at least it'll be over in a wink.”