A Place of Hiding (33 page)

“But it's Cyn's money, isn't it,” Henry Moullin went on, dashing her hopes as effectively as he'd dashed to pieces the creations of shell and cement that surrounded them. “If Cyn wants the payoff . . .” He trudged to the shovel where it lay on the path to the door. He picked it up. He did the same to a rake and a dustpan. Once he had them, however, he gazed round, as if unsure what he'd been doing with them in the first place.

He looked at Margaret and she saw that his eyes were bloodlined with grief. He said, “He comes here. I go there. We work side by side for years. And it's: You're a real artist, Henry. You aren't meant to do greenhouse work all your life. It's: Break out and break away from it, man. I believe in you. I'll help you a bit. Let me take you on. Nothing ventured, nothing ever God damn gained. And I believed him, see. I wanted it. More than this life here. For my girls, I wanted it, yes, for my girls. But for me as well. Where's the sin in that?”

“No sin,” Margaret said. “We all want the best for our children, don't we? I do, too. That's why I'm here, because of Adrian. My son and Guy's. Because of what was done to him. He was cheated out of his due, Mr. Moullin. You do see how wrong that is, don't you?”

“We were all cheated,” Henry Moullin said. “Your ex-husband was good at that. He spent years setting every one of us up, biding his time with us all. Not a man to take, our Mr. Brouard, not a man to operate wrong side of the law. Wrong side of what was
moral,
see. Wrong side of what was dutiful and right. He had us lapping milk from his hands without our knowing he'd put poison in it.”

“Don't you want to be part of making that right?” Margaret said. “You can, you know. You can talk to your daughter, you can explain. We wouldn't ask Cynthia to give up all the money he's left her. We'd only want to make things even, a reflection of who is Guy's blood and who isn't.”

“That's what you want?” Henry Moullin said. “That's what you think will balance the scales? You're just like him, then, aren't you, Missus? Think money makes up for every sin. But it doesn't, and it never will.”

“You won't talk to her, then? You won't explain? We're going to have to take this to another level?”

“You don't get it, do you?” Henry Moullin asked. “There
is
no talking to my girl any longer. There is no explaining left to be done.”

He turned and carried his tools the way he'd come with the shovel just a few minutes earlier. He disappeared round the side of the house.

Margaret stood for a moment, unmoving on the path, and found herself for the first time in her life at a loss for words. She felt nearly overwhelmed by the strength of the hate that Henry Moullin left behind him. It was like a current that pulled her into a tide from which there was only the barest hope of escape.

Where she least expected to find it, she felt a kinship with this disheveled man. She understood what he was going through. One's children were one's own, belonging to no one else in quite the same way they belonged to you. They were not the same as one's spouse, one's parents, one's siblings, one's partners, or one's mates. One's children were
of
one's body and soul. No intruder easily broke the bond that was created from that kind of substance.

But if an intruder attempted or, God forbid, succeeded . . . ?

No one knew better than Margaret Chamberlain the extent someone might go to in order to preserve a relationship one had with his child.

Chapter 13

S
T.
J
AMES STOPPED AT
the hotel first when he returned to St. Peter Port, but he found their room empty and no message at reception from his wife. So he went on to the police station, where he interrupted DCI Le Gallez in the midst of wolfing down a baguette crammed with prawn salad. The DCI took him to his office, offering a portion of his sandwich (which St. James refused) and a cup of coffee (which St. James accepted). He put chocolate digestives on offer as well, but since they looked as if their coating had melted and reconstituted itself one time too many, St. James declined and made do with the coffee alone.

He brought Le Gallez into the picture with regard to the wills of the Brouards, brother and sister. Le Gallez listened as he chewed, and he jotted notes on a legal pad that he snared from a plastic in-and-out box on his desk. As St. James spoke, he watched the DCI underline
Fielder
and
Moullin,
adding a question mark next to the second name. Le Gallez interrupted the flow of information to explain that he knew about the dead man's relationship with Paul Fielder, but Cynthia Moullin's was a new name to come up. He also jotted down the facts of the Brouard wills and listened politely as St. James posited a theory he'd considered on the way back to town.

The earlier will that Ruth Brouard knew about remembered individuals deleted from the more recent document: Anaïs Abbott, Frank Ouseley, Kevin and Valerie Duffy, along with Guy Brouard's children as required by law. This being the case, she had asked those individuals to be present when the will was read. If, St. James pointed out to Le Gallez, any of those beneficiaries had known about the earlier will, they had a clear motive to do away with Guy Brouard, hoping to collect sooner rather than later what was coming to them.

“Fielder and Moullin weren't in the earlier will?” Le Gallez enquired.

“She didn't mention them,” St. James replied, “and as neither was present when the will was read this afternoon, I think it's safe to conclude that the legacies they were left came as a surprise to Miss Brouard.”

“But to them?” Le Gallez asked. “They might have been told by Brouard himself. Which puts them in the frame with motives as well. Wouldn't you say?”

“I suppose it's possible.” He didn't think it likely, considering the two were teenagers, but he welcomed any indication that Le Gallez's thinking was, at least for the moment, encompassing something more than China River's putative guilt.

Seeing the inspector's thoughts ranging wider than they had been earlier, St. James hated to do anything that might remind Le Gallez of his previous mindset, but he knew that his conscience would never rest unless he was completely honest with the other man. “On the other
hand . . .” St. James felt reluctant to do so—his loyalty to his wife seemed to call for a similar loyalty to her friends—and despite knowing how the inspector was likely to react to the information, he next handed over the material that Ruth Brouard had passed to him during their last conversation. The DCI flipped through Guy Brouard's passport first, then went on to the credit card bills and the receipts. He spent a moment studying the receipt from the Citrus Grille, tapping his pencil against it as he took another bite of his sandwich. After some thought, he swung his chair round and reached for a manila folder. He opened this to reveal a set of typed notes, which he fingered through till he found what he apparently wanted.

“Postal codes,” he said to St. James. “They both begin with nine two. Nine two eight and nine two six.”

“One of them is Cherokee River's, I take it?”

“You knew already?”

“I know he lives somewhere in the area Brouard visited.”

“The second code's his,” Le Gallez said. “The nine two six. The other is this restaurant's: the Citrus Grille. What does that suggest to you?”

“That Guy Brouard and Cherokee River passed some time in the same county.”

“Nothing more, then?”

“How can it suggest more? California's a large state. Its counties are probably large as well. I'm not sure anyone can extrapolate from postal codes that Brouard and River met prior to River's coming to the island with his sister.”

“You find nothing coincidental in this? Nothing suspiciously coincidental?”

“I would do, yes, if we had only the facts right in front of us at this moment: the passport, the receipts, and Cherokee River's home address. But a lawyer—no doubt with a similar postal code—hired River to deliver architectural plans to Guernsey. So it seems reasonable to assume that Guy Brouard was in California, meeting that lawyer—as well as the architect, who probably also has a similar postal code—and not with Cherokee River. I don't expect they knew each other till the moment River and his sister arrived at
Le Reposoir.
”

“But you'll agree that we can't discount it?”

“I'd say we can't discount anything.”

Which, St. James knew, included the ring that he and Deborah had found at the bay. He asked DCI Le Gallez about this, about the possibility of there being fingerprints upon it, or at least a partial print that might be useful to the police. The ring's appearance suggested it hadn't been lying on the beach for any length of time, he pointed out. But no doubt the DCI had himself already reached that conclusion when he'd examined it.

Le Gallez set his sandwich aside and wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. He took up a cup of coffee that he'd been ignoring as he ate, and he cradled it in his palm before he spoke. The two words he said made St. James's heart sink.

“What ring?”

Bronze, brass, some baser metal, St. James told him. It was fashioned into a skull and crossed bones with the numbers thirty-nine-stroke-forty on the skull's forehead along with an inscription in German. He'd sent it into the station earlier with instructions that it be handed over to DCI Le Gallez personally.

He didn't add that his own wife had been the courier because he was in the process of steadying himself to hear the inevitable from the DCI. He was already asking himself what that inevitable meant, although he thought he knew the answer.

“Haven't seen it,” Le Gallez told him, and he picked up the phone and rang reception to make sure the ring wasn't waiting for him below. He spoke to the duty officer in charge, describing the ring as St. James had done. He grunted when the officer made a reply and he eyed St. James as he listened at some length to a recitation on one subject or another. He finally said, “Well, bring it
up
here, man,” which allowed St. James to breathe easily again. He went on with “For God's sake, Jerry, I'm not the person to grouse to about the bloody fax machine. Just sort it out and have done with it, will you?” and he slammed down the phone with a curse and dashed St. James's peace of mind a second time in three minutes when he next spoke.

“No ring in sight. Want to tell me more about it, then?”

“There may have been a misunderstanding.” Or a traffic accident, St. James wanted to add, although he knew this was an impossibility since he'd taken the same route his wife would have taken to return from
Le Reposoir
and there hadn't been so much as a broken headlamp on the road to suggest a car crash had kept Deborah from fulfilling her duty. Not that anyone drove fast enough on the island for a car crash, anyway. A minor collision, perhaps, with bumpers crunching or wings denting. But that would be the extent of it. Even that wouldn't have kept her from bringing the ring to Le Gallez as he'd instructed her to do.

“A misunderstanding.” Le Gallez spoke with far less affability now. “Yes. I do see, Mr. St. James. We've got ourselves a misunderstanding.” He looked up as a figure appeared in his doorway, a uniformed officer bearing paperwork in his hand. Le Gallez waved him off for a moment. He got up from his seat and shut the door of his office. He faced St. James with his arms crossed over his chest. He said, “I don't much mind if you nose about, Mr. St. James. It's a free you-know-what, and if you want to talk to this bloke or that bloke and he doesn't mind, it's fine by me. But when you start messing about with evidence, we've got another situation entirely.”

“I do understand. I—”

“I don't think so. You've come here with your mind made up, and if you think I'm not aware of that and where it can lead, you'd best think again. Now, I want that ring. I want it at once. We'll deal later with where it's been since you lifted it off the beach.
And
with why you lifted it, by the way. Because you know bloody damn well what you ought to've done. Have I made myself clear?”

St. James hadn't been reprimanded since adolescence, and the experience—so similar to being dressed down by an outraged schoolmaster—wasn't pleasant. His skin crawled with the mortification of the moment, made worse because he knew he richly deserved it. But that didn't make the ordeal any less chastening, nor did it go any length to soften the blow this moment could do to his reputation should he not be able to handle the situation expeditiously.

He said, “I'm not sure what happened. But you have my most profound apologies. The ring—”

“I don't
want
your bloody apologies,” Le Gallez barked. “I want that ring.”

“You'll have it directly.”

“That, Mr. St. James, damn well better be the case.” The DCI stepped away from the door and swung it open.

St. James couldn't remember a time he'd been dismissed with so little ceremony. He stepped out into the hall, where the uniformed officer stood waiting with his paperwork in hand. The man averted his eyes, as if with embarrassment, and hurried into the DCI's office.

Le Gallez slammed the door shut behind him. But not before he snapped, “Sodding little cripple,” as a parting remark.

 

Virtually all the dealers in antiques on Guernsey were in St. Peter Port, Deborah found. As one might expect, they were in the oldest part of the town, not far from the harbour. Rather than visit them all, however, she suggested to Cherokee that they begin on the phone. So they retraced their steps down to the market and from there they crossed over to the Town Church. To one side of it stood the public telephone they needed, and while Cherokee waited and watched her earnestly, Deborah fed coins into the phone and rang up the antiques shops till she was able to isolate those that offered militaria. It seemed logical to begin there, broadening the investigation if they found it necessary.

As things turned out, only two shops in the town had military items among their merchandise. Both of them were in Mill Street, a cobbled pedestrian walkway snaking from the meat market up a hillside, wisely closed to traffic. Not, Deborah thought as they found it, that a car could have possibly passed along the street without running the risk of scraping the buildings on either side. It reminded her of the Shambles in York: slightly wider, but just as redolent of a past in which horse-drawn carts would have lurched along, acting the part of transport.

Small shops along Mill Street reflected a simpler period, defined by spare decoration and no-nonsense windows and doors. They were housed in buildings that might easily have served as homes, with three trim floors, dormer windows, and chimney pots lined up like waiting schoolboys on their roofs.

There were few people about in the area, which was some distance from the main shopping and banking precincts of the High Street and its extension,
Le Pollet.
Indeed, it seemed to Deborah as she and Cherokee looked for the first name and address which she'd scribbled upon the back of a blank cheque, that even the most optimistic of retailers stood a good chance of failure if he opened a shop here. Many of the buildings were vacant, with
to let
or
for sale
signs in their windows. When they located the first of the two shops they were seeking, its front window was hung with a droopy going-out-of-business banner that looked as if it had been passed round from shop owner to shop owner for quite some time.

John Steven Mitchell Antiques offered little in the way of military memorabilia. Perhaps owing to its imminent closure, the shop contained only a single display case whose contents had a military origin. These comprised mainly medals, although three dress daggers, five pistols, and two
Wehrmacht
hats accompanied them. While Deborah found this a disappointing show, she decided that since everything in the case was German in origin, matters might actually be more hopeful than they appeared.

She and Cherokee were bent over the case, studying its merchandise, when the shop owner—presumably John Steven Mitchell himself—joined them. They'd apparently interrupted his washing up after a meal, if his stained apron and damp hands were any indication. He offered his help pleasantly enough as he wiped his hands on an unappealingly dingy dishcloth.

Deborah brought forth the ring that she and Simon had found on the beach, careful not to touch it herself and asking John Steven Mitchell not to touch it either. Did he recognise this ring? she asked him. Could he tell them anything about it?

Mitchell fetched a pair of spectacles from the top of a till and bent over the ring where Deborah had placed it on the case of military items. He took up a magnifying glass as well, and he studied the inscription on the forehead of the skull.

“Western bulwark,” he murmured. “Thirty-nine, forty.” He paused as if considering his own words. “That's the translation of
die Festung im Westen.
And the year . . . Actually, it suggests a memento of some sort of defensive construction. But it could be a metaphorical reference to the assault on Denmark. On the other hand, the skull and crossed bones were specific to the
Waffen-SS,
so there's that connection as well.”

“But it's not something from the Occupation?” Deborah asked.

“It would have been left then, when the Germans surrendered to the Allies. But it wouldn't have been directly connected to the Occupation. The dates aren't right for that. And the term
die Festung im Westen
doesn't have any meaning here.”