Thief's Mark

by Carla Neggers

  “I’m a garden designer, Nigel,” Henrietta said, keeping any defensiveness out of her voice. “I work with a variety of clients, including Oliver. Your family’s lived in the village a long time. Your mother is aware I’ve known Oliver since I was a small child.”

  “She thinks you’re with the police,” Nigel blurted.

  Tony snorted. “Bloody hell. Henrietta?”

  Nigel put on one of the gloves and nodded. “Maybe MI5 or MI6.”

  “My, my,” Henrietta said mildly. “I never realized what an imagination dear Ruthie has. When did this come up?”

  “Just now. Before I came over here. Mum was in a state.”

  “Maybe she didn’t sleep last night,” Tony said. “That can scramble your thinking.”

  Nigel licked his lips, his cheeks a bit less red. “She thinks you’re the one who arranged it so the FBI agents could talk to us. Then she said maybe you’re working with them.”

  “With the FBI?” Tony snorted. “Your mum needs a quiet day and a good night’s sleep.”

  “I’m hardly an FBI informant.” Henrietta did her best to sound amused. Back in her days as an operator, she’d posed as countless different sorts—street walker, drug addict, religious zealot, money launderer. She could pass herself off as a garden designer and neighbor who was shocked but also entertained at the idea of working on the q.t. with American federal law-enforcement officers. Of course, she was a garden designer and neighbor. It was precisely this scenario that had helped her see that she’d needed to leave the Security Service. She gave a mock shiver. “I can’t imagine, frankly. Special Agents Donovan and Sharpe have a history with Oliver. I don’t know the details, but I’m not working with them.”

  “Mum says it’s more like a collaboration between Scotland Yard or MI5 and the Yanks.”

  “Enough of this, Nigel.” Tony grabbed hold of the left side of the trellis and tugged at it hard, loosening it in the muddy ground. “Your mum needs to stick to watching detective shows instead of thinking she’s in one. She can’t be spreading wild rumors. She’ll get herself in trouble.”

  “That’s what I told her,” Nigel said, chastened.

  Henrietta patted him on the shoulder. “Do I look like a secret agent, Nigel? No offense taken, though. Your mum had a shock yesterday. We all did, and we’re all trying to make sense of it in our own way.”

  “She says her only concern is Mr. York.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Henrietta said, gesturing to the back door. “I’ll go boil those eggs now.”

  “Nigel and I will get to work,” Tony said, pulling two pairs of work gloves out of his toolbox and handing one pair to Nigel.

  Henrietta went into the kitchen. She made short work of the eggs. Too short. The whites were nauseatingly runny, but she averted her eyes and smeared them on heavily buttered toast. No one in the village had suspected she was MI5 when she was MI5. Put on a flowered skirt and dig in the dirt, keep from falling to pieces in an emergency, and all of a sudden she was a spy.

  She’d have a word with Ruthie, if need be.

  She cleaned up the kitchen and brought a fresh cup of tea outside with her and set it on the table. The sun was shining in a blue sky now, not just peeking through scattered clouds. One of the joys of the house was the flow Posey had created between the inside and the outside. Walking from the kitchen to the garden was seamless, as if they were one.

  Nigel and Tony had the trellis down and most of the roses pulled out of it, some of the vines intact in the soil, some in a heap for compost. She half expected Nigel to put her gardening knowledge to the test on behalf of Ruthie, but Tony did the talking. “These are beautiful roses,” he said. “Posey was proud of them. She’d approve of them getting a good chop and a new trellis.”

  “She would, indeed,” Henrietta said.

  “I don’t mean to say I knew her as well as you—I just happened to see her one day when she was out here, and she carried on about them.”

  Henrietta wanted to assure him she wasn’t envious of any time he’d spent with his aunt—her great-aunt—but he didn’t linger, expecting a response. She returned to her tea and Tony and Nigel cleaned up the trellis debris, grabbing weeds and rose trimmings at the same time and dumping them in the compost.

  “Do you have the new trellis yet?” Tony asked when they finished.

  “I’m not sure I’m replacing it. I want to see the space without it before I decide.”

  “Heresy,” he said with a grin. “Ring me if you decide to make a change and Aunt Posey haunts you.”

  Henrietta laughed. “You’ll be the first person I phone.”

  He kissed her on the cheek. “It’s good to see you smiling again, love. I’ll see you later? I’ll be working on the Kershaw cottage.”

  “I’ll probably be in and out. I want to get back to work today myself.”

  “Good for you.” Tony pulled off his work gloves. “Finish your tea and relax first. Work will keep.”

  Nigel shuffled from one foot to the other. “Forget what I said about Mum, okay?”

  Henrietta smiled. “Forgotten.”

  * * *

  Henrietta finished her tea in the garden, enjoying the weather and contemplating the absent trellis. She hadn’t researched its history in Posey’s voluminous files on the property, but she supposed she ought to take a look before she made up her mind what to do. What if Freddy Balfour himself had presented it as a gift? She had a vague memory of walking in the garden with him. She must have been only three or four. He’d held her hand. Would he have approved of his only grandchild’s first career choice? Or would he have wanted something else for her, if only because he’d understood the life of an intelligence officer?

  Aunt Posey had guessed. “You’re an operator,” she’d said, her voice raspy and slow with age but her eyes piercing, certain. “I can see it in the way you carry yourself. You remind me of Freddy.”

  She’d been right, of course.

  Henrietta wondered if both her great-aunt and grandfather would have approved of her career change. They’d have pretended to, at least, even if they’d secretly wanted her to stay with MI5—if they’d have been more proud with an intelligence-officer grand-niece and granddaughter.

  Her parents, of course, were oblivious. “Garden design?” Her father had looked up from his paper, as if he was supposed to know something and didn’t. “Excellent. Fresh air will do you good after working in an office.”

  Her mother had suggested a professional cleaning service now that her only daughter had a full house to look after.

  Henrietta laughed. Clueless but wonderful in their own happy, neglectful way.

  Cassie waved frantically from the stone wall that divided their two properties. “Henrietta—Henrietta, I need you. Please. Can you come over?”

  Henrietta abandoned her cozy spot on the terrace and crossed the garden, her skirt brushing against dripping rhododendrons the sunshine hadn’t yet dried. “I’ll be sopping as badly as the rhodies,” she said, shaking out her skirt as she greeted Cassie, bits of plant debris sticking to the wet splotches of fabric. “I’ll have to change before I go to the York farm. I—Cassie, what’s wrong?”

  Her friend and neighbor was fighting tears, taking in rapid, shallow breaths, close to hyperventilating. She pointed behind her. “I’m a little freaked out. Can you look at something? I’m here alone. The kids are at school and Eugene’s out in the fields.” She blew out a breath as if to get herself under control. “I think...it looks...” She sniffled. “He was here.”

  “Who was here, Cassie?”

  “Maybe I’m overreacting and it was Tony or Eugene or one of the boys. I’ll show you.”

  “Should we ring the police?”

  “No—no, not yet. Just come and take a look. Tell me I’m nuts.”

  Henr
ietta went through the gate and followed Cassie to the cottage she and Eugene were renovating. Cassie, however, bypassed the cottage’s front door and took a path through tall, wet grass to a small attached lean-to, its creaky, half-rotted door ajar. She shoved the door with her shoulder, pushing it open. “I wanted to start clearing out in here. I thought it would help me burn up some nervous energy after yesterday.” She drew in another few rapid breaths and then stood back. “And I found this. Take a look.”

  Henrietta edged past her into the doorway. “Should I brace myself, Cassie?”

  “There’s no body. At least I don’t think so. I didn’t see one at any rate, or any blood.”

  “That’s not terribly encouraging.”

  Henrietta peered into the lean-to, a former wood shed as she recalled. She kept to one side so that sunlight could get into the windowless space and she could see what had sent Cassie into a state of panic and shock. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out a couple of old blankets arranged to create a sleeping mat. A man’s change of clothes was heaped next to the bedding—boxer shorts and socks atop trousers and a rugby shirt, all the items neat, folded and clean. Henrietta poked her head farther inside for a closer look. Receipts, coins and a key fob lay at the foot of the bedding, as if the owner had emptied his pockets before setting off for the day.

  “The man who died at Oliver York’s house must have slept here,” Cassie said, sounding calmer. “It was Davy Driscoll, wasn’t it, Henrietta? That’s not just a wild rumor?”

  She stepped backward out of the lean-to and turned to her friend. “We need to call the police at once.”

  Cassie didn’t move. It was as if she’d frozen in place.

  “Cassie.”

  Finally she nodded. “You call. I’m going to be sick.”

  She backed up in the grass, stumbling on a protruding rock. As she righted herself, she gasped, clutching her chest. Henrietta leaped to her, but Tony got to her first.

  “Sorry, love,” he said, grabbing Cassie by the elbow, steadying her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s all right.” She released her shirt, her hand trembling, but she breathed out, her relief evident. She attempted a smile. “I almost jumped out of my skin.”

  Tony winced. “Sorry about that. I’m back just now—I went over to the York barn with Nigel after we helped Henrietta with her trellis. I heard you two out here.” He stood back, frowning. “Is everything all right?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Henrietta said crisply, pointing at the lean-to. “I’m about to ring the police. Someone decided to bunk in there. It wasn’t a friend of yours, was it?”

  “A friend—” Tony paled slightly and shook his head. “No.”

  He swore under his breath and started toward the door but Henrietta grabbed his arm. “We shouldn’t touch anything.”

  Tony turned to her. “You think it was that fellow who died up at the York farm yesterday?”

  “That’s up to the police to determine. I’m not making any guesses.”

  “All right, I’ll have a look but I won’t touch anything.” He took a quick peek in the lean-to. “Not quite a B and B, is it? I suppose he didn’t want to take a chance someone would see him.”

  Cassie was noticeably calmer. “It doesn’t look as if whoever it was spent much time here.”

  “He couldn’t have,” Tony said. “I’m sure I’d have noticed if anyone was back here when I was working. Once I’m asleep, it takes a lot to wake me. I pop awake at six every morning, but I get in a solid eight hours before that.”

  Henrietta patted her jacket pockets for her phone, but she’d left it with her tea. “Blast. I don’t have my phone. Cassie—”

  Tony already had his phone in hand. “It’s all right. I’ll ring the police.”

  “I really am going to be sick.” Cassie put the back of her wrist to her mouth, as if holding back bile, but she rallied. “I should try to call Eugene. He has his phone with him but coverage is spotty.”

  “I’ll ring him when I finish with the police,” Tony said. “I have his number.”

  Cassie nodded. “Thank you.”

  Rather than sharing Cassie’s relief at Tony’s take-charge attitude, Henrietta found herself faintly annoyed. Of course, Tony didn’t know his younger second cousin was a former MI5 officer who’d confronted far worse than a dead man’s sleeping quarters. She might not look capable of handling an emergency at the moment, but she’d done brilliantly yesterday, hadn’t she?

  She chastised herself for her surly, defensive mood. Tony was only trying to help.

  He made short work of the calls. “Police and Eugene are on the way,” he said, hanging on to his phone.

  Cassie shuddered. “To think this man was here while we were sleeping. If it was one of the men who killed the Yorks—a murderer and a child kidnapper. I don’t care if it was decades ago. I don’t believe people change, and if he was desperate...”

  Tony clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Now, now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s no good in fretting about what didn’t happen. Be glad it didn’t, right?”

  Cassie smiled weakly. “Right.”

  Henrietta decided to let Tony be comforter-in-charge without being small about it. Cassie obviously appreciated his manly presence, and Henrietta was able to focus on the matter at hand. At first glance, the attached lean-to had struck her as a risky, unwise choice for Davy Driscoll to have made, especially given the ongoing work on the cottage, but as she surveyed the immediate area, she saw it had its advantages. It abutted woods that could provide cover for someone sneaking on or off the Kershaw property. Through the woods and across the stream and it was a reasonably convenient, mostly off-road route to the York farm.

  It was also possible Davy Driscoll had chosen the cottage lean-to at random, his bedding bundled up under an arm as he’d...what? Wandered through the fields? Crossed the stream? Had he been lost?

  As far as Henrietta knew, the police hadn’t yet found a vehicle he’d used. Could he have left a car hidden nearby and its location had helped him choose his quarters?

  With Tony right there and work going on in the cottage, Driscoll couldn’t have stayed in the lean-to for more than a night or two, at most.

  A disturbing prospect, nonetheless.

  Cassie at least was looking less green. “Eugene wasn’t back here yesterday, but he stops at the cottage most days—and always if work’s going on. Tony does most of it but Eugene likes to meet contractors, the plumber and electrician and such. We keep the boys away because of the construction. That’s something, anyway.”

  Tony nudged her gently toward the boys’ play area, complete with an elaborate climbing structure they were about to outgrow and a table and chairs—adult-size, fortunately. Henrietta, following Cassie and Tony, would have balked at sitting in a child-size chair while waiting for the police. She itched to get her hands on Reed Warren/Davy Driscoll’s things. Had he planned to come back here after his visit to the York farm?

  The cottage wasn’t visible from her house, but still. Henrietta hadn’t had a clue the now-deceased had holed up there. She’d always prided herself on her situational awareness during her years conducting surveillance on some very dangerous people.

  “I never would have thought to check the lean-to,” Tony said. “I’ve only been in there a time or two.”

  “It was pure happenstance that I went in,” Cassie said. “Maybe it was some kind of sixth sense at work. You don’t think the police will be suspicious, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Tony said without hesitation.

  Cassie shifted to Henrietta. “Do you, Henrietta?”

  “Let’s see if our suspicions are right and it’s not a game the kids got themselves up to.”

  Which sounded lame even to her, but she was spared further awkward small talk
and reassurances by Eugene’s arrival. He was red-faced and sweating profusely, a contrast to Tony’s stoic calm, but Cassie, thankfully, embraced her husband and told him she was relieved and glad he was here.

  Henrietta seized the moment. “Tell the police I’ll be in my garden if they need me.”

  * * *

  Henrietta didn’t get to her garden. She veered off into the woods behind the Kershaw cottage, descended to the stream and leaped across it to the opposite side. She pushed through more trees. She wanted to test her theory about this being a convenient route to the York farmhouse. She thrashed her way up a short hill and emerged on a seldom-used track that ran along the edge of a field.

  For some reason, she wasn’t surprised when she saw Emma and Colin down the hill, crossing the stream, following her trail. In another half minute, they intercepted her on the track.

  “I was restless,” she said before they could say a word. “I’m off on a ramble. I’m only breathing hard because I just crossed a stream. I’m in cracking shape.”

  “You’re used to a team,” Colin said.

  “Reminding me I’m on my own, without backup?”

  “Yes.”

  “We understand you and Cassie found where Driscoll stayed,” Emma said.

  “Right under our noses,” Henrietta said. Looking around, she observed fresh tire tracks. Then, up ahead, a small black sedan. “I think we’ve just found Davy Driscoll’s car,” she said.

  She ran ahead of the two FBI agents and peered through the passenger window of the small car. She heard rustling in the trees behind her. She went on immediate alert but relaxed when a rabbit hopped in front of her and disappeared into the thickets. “Startled by a bunny rabbit,” she said with a laugh as Emma and Colin fell in next to her.