“A nice one of you.”
“Thank you. I had it taken for Mum and Dad’s anniversary. It was supposed to be the two of us, but Tristan got a bee sting in the garden a few days before the photo was to be taken and his face swelled up.”
“That’s a shame. Was that Tristan in the photo with the old car?”
“No. It was a friend of his. I forget his name.”
“I have a thing for old cars. Do you know what it was?”
“I really don’t know. It was beautiful. A lot older than your nice car, though.”
Kingston nodded. “Are there any other places in the house where he might have stored papers, files, electronic storage devices?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Not really. In any case, I wouldn’t know an electronic storage device if it bit me.” She put aside her pen and notepad and stood. “Would you like to see the garden?” she asked.
“I would, very much.”
He followed her through the well-equipped kitchen into a tiled-floor mudroom, which doubled as a pantry. They passed a row of coats, scarves, and odds and ends hanging from wooden pegs on the wall, then through a Dutch door that led to the garden.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, an overpowering fragrance stopped Kingston in his tracks. He didn’t need to look around to locate the florescent source. Symmetrical beds, cut out of a lawn half the size of a football field, were stuffed with a confection of mixed perennials in muted shades of mauve, lavender, and pink. Crowning the rectangular pools of color, tumbles of white shrub roses—Iceberg, he guessed—looked like clumps of snow. The garden was enclosed on his left and right by high hedges of yew and holly, underplanted with what appeared to be Nepeta and English lavender. A flagstone path traced the hedge around the perimeter. The garden was contained at the far end by a ten-foot-high wall of honey-colored brick, smothered with a marriage of climbing roses and clematis. The harmonious scene was embellished with several Chippendale-design teak benches, old garden ornaments and statuary and—the icing on the cake—a circular reflecting pool with a central fountain. He turned to Amanda. “Tristan did all this?”
She nodded. “Most of it. Yes.”
Kingston smiled. “The Constant Gardener?”
She nodded. “An apt description. We have a gardener who comes in to help, one day a week now, but Tristan created the garden many years ago and has maintained it all this time, up until a year ago when he started to get back problems. It’s going to be expensive to keep it up, though.”
“If I lived closer, I would offer a hand.”
“I’m sure I’ll work something out,” she said, as they started their walkabout.
After lingering in the garden for a half hour, Amanda suggested that they return to the house. There were things to do in the kitchen and his room that required her attention.
As they passed through the mudroom, Kingston’s shoulder brushed against the rack of coats and something fell to the floor. He stooped and picked it up. It was a dog collar. Two leashes dangled from the next peg. “You have a dog?” he asked.
Amanda stopped and turned. “We did. A Jack Russell. Winston died about a year ago. I kept his collar and leashes, thinking that one day we’d get another dog, but that never happened. I may reconsider that now, though.”
“A dog around the house would be good in a lot of ways.”
She nodded. “Tristan and Winston were practically inseparable, and though he never said it outright, I don’t think he ever really wanted another dog to take Winston’s place.”
Kingston hadn’t been listening closely to what Amanda was saying, because the unusual ID tag on the collar had caught his attention. Not more than an inch long, it was enclosed in a clear plastic case. On it was printed a logo, TOP TAG PET ID, and above that, Insert into USB Port. Around the center of the plastic case were several nicks and scratches.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
Amanda frowned. “What is it?”
“I’ve never seen a pet tag like this before. It’s a miniature flash drive. It copies and stores information from a computer. In this case, it’s Winston’s CV, I assume?”
“Oh, that thing. Tristan saw it advertised in a magazine and thought it was a brilliant idea. He was always into gadgets and the latest electronic gizmos. I prefer the old- fashioned metal tags myself.”
“These thing can hold a lot of information, though.”
“That’s what he said.”
“Do you mind if I borrow it?”
“Be my guest, though I find it hard to believe you’re interested in Winston’s vaccination record.”
He smiled. “I’m not. I just want to check it out, that’s all. I’ll make sure you get it back.”
By now, Kingston had talked himself into believing that the flash drive could well have been Tristan’s secret hiding place to back up his incendiary files. With Tristan’s computer and Amanda’s laptop gone, he had no way of finding out if he was right. If there was any way of leaving right now without appearing heedless and ungracious, he would take it, but that was out of the question. He had no choice but to wait until he returned home to open it.
Around five in the afternoon, Amanda disappeared without explanation, reappearing several minutes later carrying a bottle of wine, two wineglasses, and a corkscrew. “Here,” she said, placing them on the coffee table, close to Kingston. “I thought we’d have this with supper tonight. I think it’ll go with what I’m throwing together.” She hesitated, brushing fingers across her forehead. “I always left that decision with Tristan, of course. Anyway,” she said, starting to leave again, “if you need me for anything, I’ll be in the kitchen for about a half hour. In the meantime you might want to open that—to see if it’s still okay,” she added with an ingenuous smile, leaving the room.
Kingston picked up the bottle and studied it. Now he knew why she’d questioned its being “okay.” It was a 1978 Gevrey-Chambertin Burgundy.
* * *
The rest of his stay with Amanda was far more pleasant than he’d anticipated. The wine cellar hadn’t disappointed either. Kingston had figured that Tristan’s collection was close to a thousand bottles, many dating back to the 1980s and quite a few Bordeaux and Burgundy reds going back as far as the 1950s.
Considering all she’d been through in the preceding several days and the fact that they’d known each other for such a short time, there wasn’t a single awkward moment between them and no moments where cracks had showed in her self-control in holding back the anguish and sorrow that must surely be roiling close to the surface of her thoughts. On top of that, she’d gone to the trouble to cook two meals for him. How many women who had just lost a loved one would even consider doing that? he marveled. Perhaps it was also a way to help her forget, even if only for a brief time. He decided that she’d either been putting up a brave front or wasn’t self-pitying. He preferred to believe the latter. What was even more encouraging—though she hadn’t said it in so many words—was that from now on she was willing to help him in whatever way she could to track down those responsible for her brother’s death.
TWELVE
Shortly before noon the following day, Kingston arrived back at his flat, impatient to see what was on Winston’s tag. It was a long shot, he knew, but if Tristan was as much a geek as Amanda believed he was—given the scratches on the plastic casing suggesting that it had been opened a number of times—there was an outside chance that he’d used the tag to store additional information, if that were feasible. After all, once the dog’s data were entered, there would seem little need to open it frequently.
Kingston inserted the Pet Tag’s USB connector into one of the ports on his Mac. In seconds a message appeared on the screen. Atop a page of computer hieroglyphics, punctuated with the word Microsoft, were the words THIS PROGRAM CANNOT BE RUN ON DOS. He had no idea what it meant in technical terms but figured that the Pet Tag inventors had decided arbitrarily either to market it to Windows users only, or had conduc
ted a focus-group study, concluding that dog-loving Mac owners were not worthy of such innovative technology. There was a simple answer, though: Andrew. As former owner of an IT company, he’d be able to sort it out. Kingston picked up the phone.
Andrew, being Andrew, seized on Kingston’s request as another opportunity to have lunch. This suited Kingston because it was as good a time as any for him to tell Andrew everything that had happened during his time in Stafford. Andrew’s response had been as expected: exasperation followed by resignation. Three hours later, the two arrived back at Kingston’s flat where Andrew opened his laptop and inserted the Pet Tag.
“Well, we know it works,” said Andrew. A window had appeared on the screen showing a columnar template with Winston’s name and contact information. Scrolling down revealed more spaces showing his medical records, food and dietary requirements, vet and grooming information, and more.
“Let’s see what else is on here,” he said, fingers jiggling on the touch pad.
Seconds later, the screen was filled with dog photos.
“Good grief,” said Kingston, “it’s even got Winston’s holiday pictures, by the looks of it.”
For a few moments they continued to view the on-screen information in silence.
Kingston wanted to move on, to find out what else the tag contained, but he bit his tongue and watched Andrew tinker with the program and mutter to himself, technical jargon mostly. After a minute of this, Andrew glanced at Kingston. “It looks as though you may be partly right,” he said, going back to the touch pad. “I think it’s possible to add text copy into the program.” A few wordless seconds passed. “Even better,” said Andrew. “Not only that, it can be done so that it’s hidden. Unless you know where to look for it, it can’t be seen by anyone nosing around your pet’s bio. Clever.”
“Is there anything hidden on this one?” Kingston asked, his hopes building.
“Let’s see.”
Kingston sat on pins and needles while Andrew tapped away at the keyboard with impressive speed and dexterity.
He stopped suddenly and rolled his chair back. “Voilà!” he said with a grin.
Kingston moved closer to the screen. His heart skipped a beat. He was looking at a page of single-spaced text. Even at a glance he could tell that it was what he’d been hoping for: details of Veitch’s research. Andrew scrolled down through page after page of typed and scanned handwritten notes.
“This page deals with the construction of the monuments,” Kingston said.
Andrew scrolled some more.
“Correspondence between the admiral and his brother, by the looks of it.”
Andrew kept scrolling.
“Stop there,” said Kingston. “This is a letter from the architect, Seward, stating how many men he plans to hire to build one of the monuments. Amazing.”
Andrew was grinning as he watched Kingston, whose eyes were glued to the screen. “I have to give you credit, your idea wasn’t as nutty as I thought,” he said.
“Sometimes you get lucky,” said Kingston, leaning back.
Andrew sighed. “If I’d been smart, I’d have let you believe that it stored only the dog’s ID. If nothing else, it might have given you pause to at least reconsider aborting this obsessive and risky hobby of yours.”
Kingston ignored both the unintentional pun and the admonishment, and thanked Andrew for his effort. After printing the entire thirty-plus pages of Veitch’s notes and copying them onto a CD, Andrew departed, but not before reminding Kingston once more of his commitment to attend Andrew’s Open Garden at Bourne End.
For the next three hours, Kingston immersed himself in reading, organizing, and trying to piece together a coherent picture of what perhaps had led Veitch to reach his startling conclusions. He was encouraged initially by the volume of information but soon discovered that it was merely an accumulation of disparate data, facts, and observations assembled from various sources. None of it was chronological or in any particular priority. It was as if it had been compiled over a lengthy period: a sporadic scribbling of thoughts, speculative ideas, place-names, biographical references, Web sites, anything and everything that Veitch thought relevant about the Morley family from its beginnings in the early eighteenth century.
Despite several handwritten references to the “cover-up” and the “money trail,” there was no hard evidence or documentation, however tenuous, to substantiate financial malfeasance of any kind. Neither was there any evidence of criminal intent by any Morley, save for a reference to the perpetual rumor alleging grand theft by Samuel Morley: that while his legendary admiral brother James was making history and amassing a huge fortune with his great sea victories of the Seven Years’ War, Samuel was secretly salting away, for his own purposes, a goodly share of the moneys contributed by James, funds intended exclusively for the expansion of Sturminster. One entry alluded to allegations that much of that money was unaccounted for and likely hidden somewhere on the estate by Samuel Morley. Conspicuously absent was mention of the coded message that Veitch had given a nod to, or anything whatsoever to suggest that he had started, was in the middle of, or had completed a book or full-length treatise on the supposed exposé. This led Kingston to believe that if Veitch had started to write the story, he must have considered it either insufficiently developed or too premature to warrant mention when the notes were compiled. It also struck Kingston as odd in another way: If Veitch had intended all along to use the exposé for profit, a book would be the logical way to go. Why hadn’t he mentioned it?
Nearing the end of the document, Kingston was becoming reconciled to the idea that it wouldn’t provide anything like the evidence he’d hoped for: nothing even close to the incriminating information to which Veitch had alluded with such conviction on his deathbed. For all Kingston knew, he might have stored these notes on the Pet Tag months or years ago. It might have been an experiment that he’d later abandoned because of insufficient information or hard evidence. The more he thought on it, anything was possible.
It wasn’t until page twenty-three that something incongruous caught his attention. It was at the end of a two-page section describing the succession of Morleys over the years. Scrawled in barely decipherable handwriting was a list of a dozen and a half names—first and last—some crossed out, including a few with the Morley surname. The list offered no clues as to the identity of the people, if they were living or dead, how they might be connected—if they were—or why Veitch had singled them out and chosen to include them in the first place. One name jumped out at him: Julian Heywood. Could it be the same Julian he’d met at Sturminster, with Simon Crawford? Kingston remembered Crawford saying that the young man was Francis Morley’s nephew, but that didn’t mean they shared the same surname. He leaned back and considered the implication. If they were one and the same, it didn’t necessarily mean that some of the names on the list couldn’t be from past generations. But what if all of them were alive and well today? That would certainly work in Kingston’s favor.
While it was hardly a game changer, at least it was something tangible to go on. It could also have bearing on his meeting with Lord Morley. On top of dropping the bombshell about Veitch’s allegations, he must now divulge this new information. While it was only a list of names, Veitch must have had good reason for noting them. Perhaps Morley might have some thoughts on the matter. How many of them would he be able to identify? Kingston wondered.
Following the family history pages and the list of names, Kingston was perplexed to find five pages devoted to biographical notes of several notable persons living when Samuel Morley was developing Sturminster. Highlighted were Sir Robert Walpole, described as Britain’s first prime minister; his son Horace Walpole, member of Parliament, playwright, and novelist; Thomas Gray, one of the most important poets of the eighteenth century; and a passing reference to the architect Matthew Seward. Kingston knew a little about the first three but not Seward, though the name sounded familiar. Then he remembered where he’d heard it. Cr
awford had said that it was Matthew Seward who had designed the monuments at Sturminster. Why Veitch had thought it significant to mention these men in his notes puzzled him. He read the first page about the life of Robert Walpole and, finding it dull, he decided to read the rest of the notes in the morning.
He put the pages aside and thought about his upcoming meeting with Lord Morley. According to Crawford, Morley was returning from his trip the day after tomorrow, so Kingston could expect a call soon. He poured himself a Macallan with a splash of water and reflected on Veitch’s words at the hospital. If everything he’d said was true, casting a net in the murky waters of the Morley family could bring interesting things to the surface, even if not fish of the predatory kind. Forearmed with this potentially explosive information, his meeting with Morley was going to assume an entirely different tone. It would be illuminating to see how he would respond to Veitch’s accusations, true or not. On top of that, it would be interesting to observe his reaction when presented with Veitch’s list of names and told that it was Kingston’s plan to interview if not all, most of those on the list who were still alive.
* * *
Kingston was up with the dawn chorus of birdsong on Thursday. Chelsea was obviously nothing like the English countryside in that respect, but Cadogan Square’s plentiful greenery offered refuge to a sizable population of songsters. In addition to the ubiquitous blackbirds and sparrows, he’d spotted a growing number of gabbling starlings, finches, linnets, and the occasional house martin. Somewhere he’d read that in recent years the number of birds in and around London had increased. That rare tidbit of environmental news had pleased him no end. As a scientist, he was all for saving the planet but was beginning to tire of the incessant drumbeat of climate change and end-of-the-world hysteria.
Having been gone, on and off, for the better part of a week, chores needed tending to and shopping had to be done. The refrigerator shelves had empty spaces that he hadn’t seen for weeks, he was out of milk and bread, and his hall-closet wine cellar was getting low on reds. Over breakfast he spent a half hour trying to finish the Times crossword, with middling success. Most of that time was spent on one clue that he finally realized was a devilishly concealed anagram. The clue was: He has no plans to purchase my pub and leisure complex. The jumbled (complex) twelve letters of my pub and leisure, when rearranged, provided the answer: impulse buyer.
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