A Place of Hiding (25 page)

Deborah examined the small white bundle in her hand and then looked at her husband. “This could be evidence,” she said. “Beyond the hair they found, beyond the footprint they have, beyond witnesses who might be lying about what they saw in the first place. This could change everything, couldn't it, Simon?”

“It could indeed,” he said.

 

Margaret Chamberlain congratulated herself for insisting upon the reading of the will directly after the funeral reception. She'd earlier said, “Call the solicitor, Ruth. Get him over here after the burial,” and when Ruth had told her Guy's advocate would be present anyway—yet
another
of the man's tedious island associates who had to be accommodated at the funeral—she thought this was far more than just as well. It was decidedly meant. Just in case her sister-in-law intended to thwart her, Margaret had cornered the man himself as he stuffed a crab sandwich into his face. Miss Brouard, she informed him, wanted to go over the will immediately after the last of the guests left the reception. He did have the appropriate paperwork with him, didn't he? Yes? Good. And would it present any difficulty to go over the details as soon as they had the privacy to do so? No? Fine.

So now they were gathered. But Margaret wasn't happy about who constituted the group.

Ruth had evidently done more than merely contact the solicitor upon Margaret's insistence. She'd also made sure that an ominous collection of individuals were present to take in the man's remarks. This could mean only one thing: that Ruth was privy to the details of the will and that the details of the will favoured individuals other than family members. Why else would she have taken it upon herself to invite an assembly of virtual strangers to join the family for this serious occasion? And no matter how fondly Ruth greeted and seated them in the drawing room, they
were
strangers, defined—according to Margaret's thinking—as anyone not directly related by blood or marriage to the deceased.

Anaïs Abbott and her daughter were among them, the former as heavily made up as she'd been on the previous day and the latter as gawky and slump-shouldered as she'd been as well. The only thing different about them was their clothing. Anaïs had managed to pour herself into a black suit whose skirt curved round her little bum like cling film on melons, while Jemima had donned a bolero jacket that she wore with all the grace of a dustman in morning dress. The surly son had apparently disappeared, because as the company assembled in the upstairs drawing room beneath yet another of Ruth's tedious needlepoint depictions of Life As A Displaced Person—this one apparently having to do with growing up in care . . . as if she'd been the
only
child who'd had to endure it in the years following the war—Anaïs kept wringing her hands and telling anyone who'd listen that “Stephen's gone off somewhere . . . He's been inconsolable . . .” and then her eyes would fill yet again in an irksome display of eternal devotion to the deceased.

Along with the Abbotts, the Duffys were present. Kevin—estate manager, groundsman, caretaker of
Le Reposoir,
and apparently whatever else that Guy had needed him to be at a moment's notice—hung back from everyone and stood at a window where he made a study of the gardens below him, adhering to what was evidently his policy of never doing more than grunting at anyone. His wife Valerie sat by herself with her hands gripped together in her lap. She alternated between watching her husband, watching Ruth, and watching the lawyer unpack his briefcase. If anything, she looked utterly bewildered to be included in this ceremony.

And then there was Frank. Margaret had been introduced to him after the burial. Frank Ouseley, she'd been told, longtime bachelor and Guy's very good friend. His virtual soul mate, if the truth be told. They'd discovered a mutual passion for things relating to the war and they'd bonded over that, which was enough to make Margaret observe the man with suspicion. He was behind the whole benighted museum project, she had learned. This made him the reason that God only knew how many of Guy's millions might well be diverted in a direction that was not her son's. Margaret found him particularly repugnant with his ill-fitting tweeds and badly capped front teeth. He was heavy as well, which was another mark against him. Paunches spoke of gluttony which spoke of greed.

And
he was speaking to Adrian at the moment, Adrian who obviously didn't have the sense to recognise an adversary when he was standing in front of him breathing the same air. If things worked out the way Margaret was beginning to fear they might work out in the next thirty minutes or so, she and her son could very well be at legal loggerheads with this dumpy man. Adrian
might
be wise enough to realise that, if nothing else, and to keep his distance as a result.

Margaret sighed. She observed her son and noted for the first time how much he actually resembled his father. She also noted how much he did to play down that resemblance, cropping his hair drastically so Guy's curls weren't visible, dressing badly, shaving close to his skin to avoid anything that remotely resembled Guy's neatly trimmed beard. But he could do nothing about his eyes, which were so like his father's. Bedroom eyes, they'd been called, heavy-lidded and sensual. And he could do nothing about his complexion, swarthier than the average Englishman's.

She went to him where he stood near the fireplace with his father's friend. She linked her arm through his. “Sit with me, darling,” she said to her son. “May I steal him from you, Mr. Ouseley?”

There was no need for Frank Ouseley to respond because Ruth had closed the drawing room door, indicating that all relevant parties were present. Margaret led Adrian to a sofa that formed part of a seating group near the table on which Guy's solicitor—a reedy-looking man called Dominic Forrest—had set out his papers.

Margaret didn't fail to notice that everyone was attempting to look as unanticipatory as possible. This included her own son upon whom she'd had to prevail to attend this meeting at all. He sat slumped, his face expressionless and his body a declaration of how little he cared to hear what his father had intended with his money.

This made no difference to Margaret because
she
cared. So when Dominic Forrest put on his half-moon spectacles and cleared his throat, she was all attention. He'd made sure that Margaret knew this formal reading-of-the-will situation was extremely irregular. Far better for beneficiaries to be made aware of inheritances in a setting that allowed them the privacy to absorb the information and to ask any questions they might have without the delicacy of their situation being revealed to parties who might have no vested interest in their individual welfare.

Which, Margaret knew, was legalese for how much Mr. Forrest would have preferred to be able to make arrangements to see each beneficiary separately in order to bill each one individually later. Nasty little man.

Ruth perched birdlike on the edge of a Queen Anne chair not far from Valerie. Kevin Duffy remained at the window, Frank at the fireplace. Anaïs Abbott and her daughter came to sit on a love seat where the one wrung her hands and the other tried to tuck her giraffe legs somewhere where they wouldn't seem so obtrusive.

Mr. Forrest took a seat and shook his papers with a flick of his wrist. The last will and testament of Mr. Brouard, he began, was written, signed, and witnessed on the second of October in this current year. It was a simple document.

Margaret didn't much like the way things were developing. She steeled herself to hear news that was potentially less than good. This was wise on her part, as things turned out, because in extremely short order Mr. Forrest revealed that Guy's entire fortune consisted of a single bank account and an investment portfolio. The account and portfolio, in accordance with the laws of inheritance in the States of Guernsey—whatever that meant—were to be divided equally into two parts. The first part, once again in accordance with the laws of inheritance in the States of Guernsey, was to be distributed evenly among Guy's three children. The second part was to be given half to one Paul Fielder and half to one Cynthia Moullin.

Of Ruth, beloved sister and lifelong companion of the deceased, there was no mention made at all. But considering the properties Guy owned in England, in France, in Spain, in the Seychelles, considering his international holdings, considering his stocks, his bonds, his works of art—not to mention
Le Reposoir
itself—none of which had even been
mentioned
in his will, it was no difficult feat to work out how Guy Brouard had made his feelings about his children crystal clear while simultaneously taking care of his sister. God in heaven, Margaret thought weakly. He must have given Ruth everything while he was still alive.

Silence, which was stunned at first and which only slowly turned to outrage on Margaret's part, greeted the conclusion of Mr. Forrest's recitation. The first thing she thought was that Ruth had orchestrated this entire event to humiliate her. Ruth had never liked her. Never, never, never, never
once
had she liked her. And during the years in which Margaret had kept Guy from his son, Ruth had no doubt brewed a real hatred of her. So what true pleasure she would be getting from this moment when she was able to witness Margaret Chamberlain get her deserved comeuppance: not only being sandbagged by learning that Guy's estate was not as it had seemed but also having to witness her son receiving even less of that estate than two complete strangers called Fielder and Moullin.

Margaret swung on her sister-in-law, ready to do battle. But she saw on Ruth's face a truth she didn't want to believe. Ruth had gone so pale that her lips were rendered in chalk, and her expression illustrated better than anything could that her brother's will was not what she had expected it to be. But there was more information than
that
contained in the combination of Ruth's expression and her invitation to the others to hear the will's reading. Indeed, those two facts led Margaret to an ineluctable conclusion: Not only had Ruth known about the existence of an
earlier
will, but she had also been privy to that will's contents.

Why else invite Guy's most recent lover to be present? Why else Frank Ouseley? Why else the Duffys? There could be only one reason for this: Ruth had invited them all in good faith to be present because Guy had at one time left each of them a legacy.

A legacy, Margaret thought. Adrian's legacy. Her own
son's
legacy. Her vision seemed occluded by a thin red veil at the realisation of what had actually occurred. That her son Adrian should be
denied
what was rightfully his . . . That he should be in effect cut out of his own father's will, despite the fancy dancing Guy may have done to make it seem otherwise . . . That he should be placed in the humiliating position of actually receiving
less
than two people—Fielder and Moullin, whoever the hell they were—who were no apparent relation of Guy's . . . That the vast majority of his father's possessions had obviously already been disposed of . . . That he should thus be literally set adrift with
nothing
by the very man who had given him life and then abandoned him without a fight and then apparently felt
nothing
in that abandonment and then sealed whatever rejection was
implied
in the abandonment by having his way with his only son's lover when that lover was on the verge—yes the
verge—
of the kind of commitment that could have changed his life forever and made him whole at last . . . It was inconceivable. The act itself was unconscionable. And someone was going to pay for it.

Margaret didn't know how and she didn't know who. But she was determined to set matters right.

Setting them right meant first wresting away the money her former husband had left to two utter strangers. Who were they, anyway? Where were they? More important, what had they to do with Guy?

Two people clearly knew the answer to these questions. Dominic Forrest was one of them, he who was returning his paperwork to his briefcase and making some sort of noises about forensic accountants and banking statements and investment brokers and the like. And Ruth was the other, she who was hustling over to Anaïs Abbott—of all bloody people—and murmuring something into her ear. Forrest, Margaret knew, was unlikely to part with any more information than he'd given them during the reading of the will. But Ruth as her own sister-in-law and—crucially—as Adrian's aunt, Adrian who'd been so badly used by his father . . . Yes, Ruth would be forthcoming with facts when approached correctly.

Next to her, Margaret became aware of Adrian trembling and she brought herself round abruptly. She'd been so caught up in thoughts of what-to-do-now that she'd not even considered the impact this moment was probably having on her son. God knew that Adrian's relationship with his father had been a difficult one, with Guy vastly preferring a long line of sexual liaisons to a close connection with his eldest child. But to be dealt with in this fashion was cruel, far more cruel than a life cut off from paternal influence ever could have been. And he was suffering for it now.

So she turned to him, ready to tell him that they hadn't reached the end of
anything
in this moment, ready to point out that there were legal channels, modes of recourse, ways of settling or manipulating or threatening but in any case ways of getting what one wanted so he wasn't to worry and more than that he wasn't ever to believe that the terms of his father's will meant
anything
other than his father's momentary lunacy inspired by God only knew what . . . She was ready to say this, ready to put her arm round his shoulders, ready to buck him up and send her steel through his body. But she saw that none of that would be necessary.

Adrian wasn't weeping. He wasn't even withdrawing into himself.

Margaret's son was silently laughing.

 

Valerie Duffy had gone into the reading of the will worried for more than one reason, and only one of her worries was assuaged by the conclusion of the event. This was the worry pertaining to losing her home and her livelihood, which she'd feared might happen once Guy Brouard died. But the fact that
Le Reposoir
hadn't been mentioned in the will suggested that the estate had already been disposed of elsewhere, and Valerie was fairly certain in whose care and possession it now resided. That meant she and Kevin wouldn't be immediately forced out onto the street without employment, which was a vast relief.