by K. C. Wells
“That’s fine, Bill,” Mike told him. “You go back to your plumbing.”
“Gotcha.” Bill left after firing an inquiring glance in Josh’s direction.
DI Mablethorpe stepped into the room, followed by Graham. “Mr. Brent? I wonder if you’d accompany us to the police station to answer a few questions.” He gave Mike a curt nod. “I was told we’d find you here.”
“And you’ll find evidence in the bathroom, and his gloves in the car. Jonathon and I will follow you to the station to tell you everything we know.”
The DI arched his eyebrows. “Indeed. And following that, we might have a little conversation about sticking your noses into police business. It appears you need a reminder.” He gestured with his arm. “This way if you please, Mr. Brent.” He led Josh from the room.
Jonathon glared at the door where the DI had stood. “How d’you like that? He’s more polite with the murder suspect than he is with us, and we just handed him the case on a platter. If I hadn’t phoned….”
Graham snickered. “Thanks for that, by the way. Most of it made sense.”
“I was in a hurry,” Jonathon remonstrated. “And then we kept him talking to give you time to get here.” He paused. “How is George, by the way?”
“He’s in the cells, and he’s okay. You can drop by tomorrow and see him. Looks like we’ll be charging him with causing actual bodily harm.” Graham smiled. “But I’ll keep an eye on him, don’t you worry. Now I’d best be on my way, before the DI complains. Again.” He gave them a nod. “See you at the pub later, though.”
Mike grinned. “Where there’ll be a pint with your name on it.”
“One pint?” Graham looked wounded.
Mike laughed. “As many pints as you can drink before someone has to carry you home.”
Graham rubbed his hands together energetically. “Now you’re talking.” He left them and headed for the street.
Mike held out his hand. “Home?”
“Whose home?”
“Doesn’t matter. Wherever you are is home.” It sounded corny, but it had to be said. And judging from the way Jonathon’s face glowed, it was exactly the right thing to say too.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Monday, November 20
“THANKS, GUYS. I think that’s everything.” Graham signed their statements and placed them in a folder. He beamed at them. “I like this. You two do all the work and I get the credit.” He winked. “Only kidding. But the DI had to admit, you came up trumps.”
“Eventually, he admitted it,” Mike said with a chuckle. “But it didn’t stop him from giving us a lecture about interfering.”
“Did it have any effect?” Graham asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“None whatsoever.”
Graham burst out laughing. “Thank God for that.”
“Has Brent changed his tune yet? Or does he still think he can get away with it?”
“He keeps talking about his friends in high places.” Graham snorted. “Funny thing is, most of those friends seem to be keeping a distance. Word has gotten around. Now, I wonder how that happened.” His eyes gleamed.
“Nothing to do with us,” Jonathon said innocently.
Graham merely arched his eyebrows. “I dare say he’ll change his tune when the forensic report gets in. That’ll be a while yet, though.” Graham smiled. “Pity he’ll have to stay in custody until then.” He walked away, whistling.
Jonathon leaned in to Mike and lowered his voice. “I suspect word getting around has a lot to do with my father. Not a man to cross.”
“Good for him. Now, if he could only let you get on with your own life, I might actually like the man.” Mike sighed. “But I suppose that’s too much to ask.”
“Excuse me?” They turned to find a woman, her blond hair streaked with white and tied back, wearing a pair of sweats and a baggy sweater, a bag slung over her shoulder. At her feet sat a suitcase. “Hi. I’d like to talk to someone about Jane Teedle?” There were dark shadows under her blue eyes.
Mike shook her hand. “Hello. You must be Gabriela, Naomi’s—Jane’s—daughter. The accent was a bit of a giveaway.” He frowned. “Have you come straight from Heathrow?”
Gabriela smiled. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. I had a layover in Singapore, and I managed to sleep on the flight.” She squinted at him. “And who might you be?”
“Sorry. I’m Mike Tattersall. I run the village pub.”
Her face lit up. “You don’t have a room going, do you? I didn’t book any accommodation before I left. I was in too much of a hurry to get here. My husband got back from his trip, and I booked the first available flight out.”
“I think we can do better than a room at the pub,” Jonathon said with a smile. He held out his hand. “I’m Jonathon de Mountford.”
Gabriela’s eyes widened. “The photographer? Do you live around here?” Then she rolled her eyes. “I am such a drongo. Of course you do. You live in the manor house. Mum told me about you in her last letter.” Her face tightened. “Are the police any closer to finding out who did this?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, but….” Whichever way Mike looked at it, Gabriela was in for a shock. “Tell you what. Let’s find a couple of chairs, I’ll get my constable friend to provide us with tea or coffee, and we’ll tell you what we know. Except…. This is not going to be easy.”
“Is that your nice way of preparing me for a few nasty surprises?” Gabriela sighed. “Mum always said she didn’t get on with some people in Merrychurch. When I heard she’d been murdered, I didn’t imagine this was gonna be pleasant.” She squared her shoulders. “Let’s get it over with.”
Mike gave her a warm smile before addressing Jonathon. “I’ll go find Graham. Can you ask someone if we can use an interview room? I don’t suppose anyone will mind. They’ve got enough on their plate with George and Brent in custody.”
Jonathon nodded. “Sure.”
Mike went in search of Graham, his heart going out to Gabriela. Poor woman. Fancy finding out that your mother was a blackmailer?
They’d break it to her as gently as possible.
GRAHAM CLOSED the folder. The four of them were seated around a table in the interview room. “That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid. We’re following a few lines of inquiry, and once we get some results back from forensics, we should be able to make an arrest.” He put the folder aside on the table.
Gabriela sighed wearily. “Thanks. And thank you for not sugarcoating it. I needed to know what Mum had been up to.” She shivered. “Though I don’t think I’ll be sharing that with the kids. They don’t need to know.”
“Will you be staying in the UK long?” Jonathon asked. He couldn’t imagine she’d want to, especially after learning the truth about her mother’s death.
“Long enough to get a better look at Merrychurch,” she said with a tired smile. “I only saw a bit of it from the taxi as we drove here. It looks gorgeous. Reminds me of this TV show where there were all these murders in sleepy little villages. I guess this is life imitating art.” She let out a sigh. “I’ve lived 99 percent of my life in Oz. Five minutes in this place, and yeah, I could live here. In a heartbeat. Who’d have thought it?”
Jonathon frowned. “Ninety-nine percent?”
She chuckled. “Not sure what the actual percentage is. I’m not sure how old I was when we moved to Australia. I mean, it’s not like I remember traveling there. I was only little, not even a toddler.”
“But you were born in Australia,” Mike said.
It was Gabriela’s turn to frown. “Er, sorry, but you’ve got that wrong. I was born in the UK.” She smiled. “And I can prove it.” She opened the bag she’d slung over the back of the chair and pulled out a brown envelope. “I brought this with me in case I had to prove who I was.” Gabriela removed a folded square of paper. “There you go. My birth certificate.” She handed it to Mike, who opened it up and stared at it for the longest time.
The hair on the back of Jon
athon’s neck prickled. “Mike? What is it?”
In silence, Mike got out his phone and scrolled across the screen. “This is the email Keith sent me, with the birth and death certificates attached.” He tapped the screen, then handed it to Jonathon. “Take a look at this. Then look at the certificate.”
Jonathon took the phone and the certificate, holding them a distance apart. At first he couldn’t see anything wrong, but then—
“Oh my God,” he said softly.
“What? What’s wrong?” Gabriela’s voice held a note of panic. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Jonathon met Mike’s gaze. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”
“Well, will one of you tell me?” Gabriela demanded, sounding exasperated.
“Yeah, and then let me in on it?” Graham asked. “’Cause I’m lost here.”
Jonathon handed her the phone. “Your mother had a child, a boy, Gabriel. Born in 1968. But he died when he was a few months old. This is his death certificate.”
She studied it carefully. “Oh wow. Born the same year as me. She never said a thing. Come to think of it, how is that possible?” Then she paused. “He was called Gabriel?”
Jonathon nodded. “We’d assumed she named you Gabriela as a reminder of him. Now scroll left. This is his birth certificate. What you have there is a copy of the original. They tend to be smaller.”
Gabriela peered at the screen, frowning. Then her breath caught, and she jerked her head to stare at her birth certificate. “But… this means we were born on the same day.”
“No, you weren’t. It’s just the same birth certificate.” Mike gently took it from her and pointed to the column headed Sex. “Take a closer look. She added FE to change it from male to female. Then she added an a to change Gabriel into Gabriela.”
She stared at them, blinking. “I don’t understand.”
Jonathon took hold of her hand. “We have a story to tell you that might clear things up.”
Gabriela glanced at his hand. “I’m not gonna like this, am I?”
Jonathon said nothing but held on tight as Mike told her the story George had related. He didn’t leave out anything, and Gabriela gripped Jonathon’s hand tightly when Mike got to the part about hearing two babies crying. When Mike finished, she stared at the tabletop in silence for a minute, Jonathon’s hand still curled around hers.
Finally she raised her head. “She wasn’t my mother, was she? I was only a baby that she stole.” She appeared dazed, shaking her head every now and then.
“That’s what it looks like,” Jonathon admitted.
“Back in a minute.” Graham got up and left the room.
“Maybe she was suffering from depression after his death,” Mike suggested. “She wasn’t thinking clearly. All she could see was a young girl who was so off her head, she didn’t even know she was in labor—and then she had twins. Maybe Naomi thought no one would believe the girl if she ever said anything. After all, it was just the two of them.”
“And it does explain why she took that passage to Australia so quickly. She wanted to get away—to get you away.”
The door opened, and Graham entered. “I think there’s someone you should meet,” he said softly. Then he gave a nod toward the door, and George came in. His face lit up when he saw Mike and Jonathon.
“Hey. Have they told you? It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill her.”
“We know, George.” Jonathon gestured to the chair Graham had vacated. “Sit down, please.”
George sat before giving Gabriela a polite nod. “It seems so crazy that someone else would walk in there after me and….” Gradually, his gaze came back to her, and he stared, his mouth falling slightly open.
Gabriela was staring too. “Why do I feel like I know you from somewhere?”
Mike patted George on the shoulder. “Looks like your mum didn’t imagine what she heard that night after all.”
George flashed him a confused glance before bringing his attention back to Gabriela.
Jonathon was buzzing. “George… this is your twin, Gabriela.”
The shared looks of dawning realization, followed by soft cries of wonder and joy, left Jonathon feeling so light that he was giddy with it.
He gestured to Mike, and the three men crept out of the room where none of them were needed right then.
“I DID offer to put Gabriela up here,” Jonathon murmured against Mike’s back. He was warm and drowsy, in that pleasant state just before sleep takes over. “But she’s staying at George’s place.” His hand was on Mike’s chest, and he was sleepily rubbing it.
“Mm-hmm.”
“She says she’s going to spend a few weeks here, getting to know him.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Jonathon chuckled. “Are you even listening to me?”
Mike rolled over and kissed him on the lips. “Yes, dear. Now go to sleep.” Then he turned back onto his side.
Jonathon snuggled against his back. “Love you,” he whispered.
“Love you too. Now go to sleep.”
Jonathon’s last thought before sleep claimed him was that if this was what married life was like, he couldn’t wait.
Epilogue
Saturday, December 23
JONATHON STEPPED back and surveyed the entrance hall. The Christmas tree stood at the foot of the stairs, all fifteen feet of it. It had taken him, Mike, Sue, Andrew, and Janet more than five hours to cover all its branches with baubles and tinsel. The overall effect was so magical, he was lost for words. It reminded him strongly of Christmases past, when all the family had descended upon the manor house to celebrate the season.
Those days are gone. Time for a change.
“Admiring our handiwork?” Mike asked as he came up from the kitchen, carrying two mugs of steaming hot chocolate.
Jonathon laughed. “Why not? We did a fantastic job.” He wrapped his hands around the offered mug. “Just what I need.”
Mike jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. “I took a look in the fridges. Are you expecting an army for Christmas? There’s a hell of a lot of food down there.” He snickered. “Ivy must be having kittens at the thought of cooking all that.”
“She isn’t, because she’s not the one who’ll be cooking it.” Jonathon had been waiting all morning to reveal his plans, and once he’d received the text, it was finally official.
Mike narrowed his gaze. “What’s going on?”
“It’s going to be a different sort of Christmas here this year. I’ve given Ivy the time off so she can be with her family. Janet is staying, however. Apparently we’re her only family now.” If he could only get her to call him Jonathon, that would be the best present she could give him.
“So who’s doing the cooking?”
“Anyone who happens to be around. Although I should add that I’m expecting guests. They’ll be joining in too. It’s going to be an all-hands-to-the-pump kind of Christmas.” Mike looked so stricken that Jonathon laughed. “Relax. It’ll be fun. I am quite capable of roasting a turkey and whatever comes with it. And whenever you can tear yourself away from the pub, you’re more than welcome to join us.”
Mike gazed at him thoughtfully. “You said nothing about guests. I had no idea.”
Jonathon knew Mike well enough by now to guess what was on his mind. “Just because there will be people staying does not mean you and I will not have time to be together. Trust me. They’ll have other activities planned, rather than demanding all my attention.” He held out his hand, and Mike took it. “And they’re the sort of guests who wouldn’t blink if we disappeared to my bedroom now and again,” Jonathon added with a grin.
“Now you’re really intriguing me. When do they get here?”
“Oh, not long now.” When the doorbell rang, he laughed. “But not that soon.” Before he could get to the front door, Janet was there first.
“Mr. Barton, sir,” she announced.
I wonder why he wants to see me? Jonathon’s stomach clenched. Stupid question. I helped bring this whole sorry mess to light. The least he could do was be there if the man needed help.
“Let him in, Janet. And then you can call it a day, if the room is ready for my guests. As of now, you’re off for Christmas.”
She beamed. “Thank you, sir.” Then she stood aside, and Jonathon did a double take as not John Barton entered the hallway, but Jason, bundled up in a thick coat.
“Is… is it okay for me to call round?” There was an air of such dejection about him that Jonathon’s heart went out to him.
“Of course it is,” he said warmly. “In fact, you’re just in time for some hot chocolate.”
Mike took the hint and came over, holding out the mug. “Here. You take that. It looks like you need to warm up. Is it snowing yet?”
“Not yet, but it definitely feels cold enough for it.” Jason took the mug. “Thanks.”
“Now, why don’t you and Jonathon go into the drawing room and have a talk? There’s a fire going.” Mike caught Jonathon’s gaze. “I’ll be in there once I’ve made some more hot chocolate.”
Which was Mike shorthand for “I’ll give you two time to talk.”
Not for the first time, Jonathon was thankful for having Mike in his life.
“Let’s go,” he told Jason, leading him through the house. Once they were inside the warm drawing room, Jonathon took his coat and placed it over a chair back. They sat on the couch in front of the fire, the only sound the crackling and spitting of the logs.