This Body of Death (46 page)

She finally said, “They come for advice. I try not to give it directly. That’s not how it works. But in her case, I could feel something more and I needed to know what it was in order to work with her. She had information that would have helped me, but she didn’t want to part with it.”

“Information about whom? About what?”

“Who’s to tell? She wouldn’t say. But she asked where she should meet someone if hard truths had to be spoken between them and if she feared to speak them.”

“A man?”

“She wouldn’t tell me that. I said the obvious, what anyone would say: She must choose a public place for her meeting.”

“Did you mention—”

“I did
not
tell her that cemetery.” She stopped her pacing. She was on the other side of the table and she faced him across it, as if she needed the safety of this distance. She said, “
Why
would I tell her that cemetery?”

“I take it you didn’t recommend her local Starbucks either,” Lynley pointed out.

“I said choose a place where peace predominates and where she could feel it. I don’t know why she chose that cemetery. I don’t know how she even knew about it.” She resumed her pacing. Round the table once, twice, before she said, “I should have told her something else. I should have seen. Or felt. But I didn’t tell her to stay away from that place because I didn’t see danger.” She swung round on him. “Do you know what it means that I didn’t see danger, Mr. Lynley? Do you understand the position that puts me in? I’ve never doubted the gift for a moment, but now I do. I don’t know truth from lies. I can’t
see
them. And if I couldn’t protect her from danger, I can’t protect anyone.”

She sounded so wretched that Lynley felt a surprising twinge of compassion although he did not for a moment believe in psychic phenomena. The thought of protecting someone, however, made him think of the stone Jemima was carrying. A talisman, a good luck charm? He said, “Did you try to protect her?”

“Of
course
I did.”

“Did you give her anything to keep her safe prior to this meeting she intended to have?”

But she hadn’t. She had sought to protect Jemima Hastings only with words of advice—“vague mutterings and imaginings,” Lynley thought—and they’d been useless.

At least, however, they now knew what Jemima had been doing in Abney Park Cemetery. On the other hand, they had only Yolanda’s word for what she herself had been doing in Oxford Road that day. He asked her about this; he also asked her what she’d been doing at the time of Jemima’s death. To the latter she said she’d been doing what she was always doing: meeting with clients. She had the appointment book to prove it and if he wanted to phone them he was welcome to do so. As to the former, she’d already said: She was attempting to purify the bloody house before someone else met death unexpectedly. “McHaggis, Frazer, the Italian,” she said.

Did Yolanda know them all? Lynley asked her.

By sight if not by acquaintance. McHaggis and Frazer she’d spoken to. The Italian, not.

And did she have occasion to open any of the recycling bins in the garden? he enquired.

She looked at him as if he were mad. Why the bloody hell would she open the bins? she asked. The bins don’t need purifying, but that house does.

He didn’t want to go down that road again. He reckoned he’d got all there was to be had from Yolanda the Psychic. Until the spirit world revealed more to her, she seemed like a closed book to him.

W
HEN
R
OBBIE
H
ASTINGS PULLED ONTO
G
ORDON
J
OSSIE’S
holding, he wasn’t sure what he intended to do, for Jossie had lied to him not only about wanting to remain with Jemima, but also—as things turned out—about when he’d last seen her. Rob had had this latter piece of information from Meredith Powell, and it was a phone call from her that had sent him to Jossie’s property. She’d been to see the police in Lyndhurst; she’d given them proof positive that Gordon had traveled into London on the morning of Jemima’s death. He’d even stayed the night in a hotel, she told Rob, and she’d given the police that information as well.

“But, Rob,” she had said and through his mobile he could hear anxiety in her voice, “I think we’ve made a mistake.”

“‘We’?” Half of
we
turned out to be Gina Dickens, in whose company Meredith had been ushered into the presence of Chief Superintendent Whiting—“because we said, Rob, that we wouldn’t talk to
anyone
but the man at the top”—and there they’d demanded to know the whereabouts of the two detectives who’d come to the New Forest from New Scotland Yard. They had something of grave importance to hand over to those detectives, they told him, and of course he asked what it was. Once he knew what it was, he asked to see it. Once he saw it, he put it into a filing folder and asked where it had come from. “Gina didn’t want to tell him, Rob. She seemed afraid of him. Afterwards she told me he’s been on the property to talk to Gordon and
when
he came to talk to Gordon, she didn’t know he was police. He didn’t say, and Gordon didn’t either. She said she went all cold when we walked into his office and she saw him cos she reckons Gordon must’ve known who he was all along. So now she’s nearly out of her mind with fear because
if
this bloke shows up on the property and
if
he takes that evidence with him,
then
Gordon’ll know how he got it because how else could he have got it except from Gina?”

As the information continued to pile up, Robbie had difficulty taking it all in. Train tickets, a hotel receipt, Gina Dickens in possession of both, Gordon Jossie, Chief Superintendent Whiting, New Scotland Yard …And then there was the not small matter of Gordon’s complete lie about Jemima’s departure: that she had someone in London or elsewhere, that he himself had wanted to remain with her and
she
had left
him
rather than what the truth probably was, that he had driven her off.

Meredith had gone on to say that Chief Superintendent Whiting had kept the rail tickets and the hotel receipt in his possession, but once she and Gina had left him and once Gina had revealed the man’s connection—“whatever it is, Rob”—to Gordon Jossie, Meredith herself had known absolutely that he was
not
going to give the information to New Scotland Yard although she couldn’t say why. “And we didn’t know where to find them,” Meredith wailed, “those detectives, Rob. I’ve not even talked to them yet anyway, so I don’t know who they are, so I wouldn’t recognise them if I saw them on the street. Why haven’t they come to
talk
to me? I was her friend, her best friend, Rob.”

To Rob, only one detail actually mattered. It wasn’t that Chief Superintendent Whiting had potential evidence in his hands and it wasn’t the whereabouts of the Scotland Yard detectives or why they hadn’t spoken yet to Meredith Powell. What mattered was that Gordon Jossie had been to London.

Rob had taken the call from Meredith just at the end of a meeting of the New Forest’s verderers, which they’d held, as usual, in the Queen’s House. And although this location was not far from the police station where the chief superintendent operated, Rob didn’t even think about going there to question Chief Superintendent Whiting about what he intended to do with the information from Meredith and Gina Dickens. He had only one destination in mind and he set off for it with a grinding of the Land Rover’s gears and Frank lurching on the seat next to him.

When he saw from the absence of vehicles that no one was at home on Jossie’s holding, Rob paced intently round the cottage as if he’d be able to find evidence of the man’s guilt leaping out of the flower beds. He looked into windows and tested doors, and the fact that they were locked in a place where virtually no one locked their doors seemed to declare the worst.

He went from the cottage to the barn and swung open the doors. He strode inside to his sister’s car, saw that the key was in the old Figaro’s ignition, and tried to make something of this, but the only thing he could make of it didn’t amount to sense anyway: that Jemima had never gone to London but had been murdered here and buried on the property, which of course hadn’t happened at all. Then he saw that the ring attached to the ignition key held another, and assuming this was the key to the cottage, Robbie took it and hurried back to the door.

What he intended to look for, he didn’t know. He only understood that he had to do something. So he opened drawers in the kitchen. He opened the fridge. He looked in the oven. He went from there to the sitting room and took the cushions off the sofa and the chairs. Finding nothing, he dashed up the stairs. Clothes cupboards were neat. Pockets were empty. Nothing languished under the beds. Towels in the bathroom were damp. A ring in the toilet bowl spoke of cleaning needing to be done, and although he wanted something to be hidden inside the cistern, there was nothing.

Then Frank started barking outside. Then another dog began barking as well. This took Robbie to one of the windows where he saw two things simultaneously. One was that Gordon Jossie had come home in the company of his golden retriever. The other was that the ponies in the paddock were just that,
still
in the damn paddock when Rob would have sworn to God that they belonged out on the forest, so why the hell were they still here?

The barking increased in frenzy, and Rob dashed down the stairs. Never mind that he was the one trespassing. There were questions to be asked.

Frank sounded insane, as did the other dog. Rob saw as he burst out of the cottage that for some reason Jossie had stupidly opened the door of the Land Rover and had let Frank jump out and he himself was now bent into the vehicle and searching through it as if he didn’t bloody well already know who owned it.

The Weimaraner was actually howling. It came to Rob that the animal was howling not at the other dog but at Jossie himself. This fueled Rob’s rage because if Frank howled it was because he’d been harmed, and
no
one was meant to lay a hand on his dog and certainly not Jossie who’d laid hands elsewhere and death was the result.

The retriever was yelping now because Frank was howling. Two dogs from the property across the lane joined in and the resulting cacophony set the ponies in motion inside the paddock. They began to trot back and forth along the line of the fence, tossing their heads, neighing.

“What the hell’re you doing?” Robbie demanded.

Jossie swung round from the Land Rover and asked a variation of the same question and with far more reason, as the door to the cottage stood wide open and it was only too clear what Rob had been up to. Rob shouted at Frank to be quiet, which only set the dog into a complete paroxysm of barking. He ordered the Weimaraner back into the vehicle, but instead Frank approached Jossie as if he intended to go for the thatcher’s throat. Jossie said, “Tess. That’ll do,” and his own animal ceased barking at once, and this made Rob think of power and control and how a need for power and control could be at the heart of what had happened to Jemima and then he thought of the railway tickets, of the hotel receipt, of Jossie’s trip to London, of his lies, and he strode over to the thatcher and heaved him against the side of the Land Rover.

He said through his teeth, “
London
, you bastard.”

“What the hell …” Gordon Jossie cried.

“She didn’t leave you because she had someone else,” Robbie said. “She wanted to marry you, although God knows why.” He pressed Jossie back, had his arm across the thatcher’s throat before Jossie could defend himself. With his other hand, he knocked the man’s sunglasses to the ground because he damn well intended to see his eyes for once. Jossie’s hat went with them, a baseball cap that left a line across his forehead like the mark put on Cain. “But you didn’t want that, did you?” Rob demanded. “You didn’t want
her
. First you used her, then you drove her away, and then you went after her.”

Jossie pushed Rob away. He was breathing hard, and he was, Rob found, far stronger than he looked. He said, “What’re you talking about? Used her for
what
, for the love of God?”

“I can even see how it worked, you bastard.” It seemed so obvious now that Rob wondered he hadn’t seen it before. “You wanted this place—this holding, didn’t you?—and you reckoned I could help you get it, because it’s part of my area, and land with common rights isn’t easy to come by. And I’d want to help because of Jemima, eh? It’s all fitting now.”

“You’re round the bend,” Jossie said. “Get the hell out of here.” Rob didn’t move. Jossie said, “If you don’t get off this property, I’ll—”

“What? Call the cops? I don’t think so. You were in London, Jossie, and they know it now.”

That stopped him cold. He was dead in whatever tracks he thought he was about to make. He said nothing, but Robbie could tell he was thinking like mad.

The upper hand his, Rob decided to play it. “You were in London the very day she was murdered. They’ve got your rail tickets. How d’you like that? They’ve got the receipt from the hotel and I expect your name’s on it large as life, eh? So how long d’you expect it’ll be before they come after you for a little chat? An hour? More? An afternoon? A day?”

If Jossie had been considering lying at this point, his face betrayed him. As did his body, which went limp, all fight gone because he knew he was done for. He bent, picked up his sunglasses, rubbed them against the front of his T-shirt, which was marked by sweat and stained from work. He returned the glasses to his face, seeming to hide his wary eyes, but it didn’t matter now because Rob had seen in them everything he wanted to see.

“Yes,” Robbie said. “Endgame, Gordon. And don’t think you can run because I’ll follow you to hell if I have to and I’ll bring you back.”

Jossie reached for his cap next, and he slapped it against his jeans, although he didn’t put it back on. He’d removed his windcheater and left it in a lump on the Land Rover’s seat. He grabbed it up in the same lump and said, “All right, Rob.” His voice was quiet and Rob saw that his lips had gone the colour of putty. “All right,” he said again.

“Meaning what exactly?”

“You know.”

“You were there.”

“If I was, whatever I say won’t make a difference.”

“You’ve lied about Jemima from the first.”

“I’ve not—”

“She wasn’t running to someone in London. She didn’t leave you for that. She
had
no one else, in London or anywhere. There was only you, and you were who she wanted. But you didn’t want her: commitment, marriage, whatever. So you drove her away.”

Jossie looked towards the ponies in the paddock. He said, “That’s not how it was.”

“Are you denying you were there, man? Cops check the CCTV films from the railway station—in Sway, in London—and you’ll not be on them the day she died? They take your photo to that hotel and no one’ll remember you were there for a night?”

“I had no reason to kill Jemima.” Gordon licked his lips. He glanced over his shoulder, back towards the lane, as if seeking someone coming to rescue him from this confrontation. “Why the hell would I want her dead?”

“She’d met someone new once she got to London. She told me as much. And then it was dog in the manger for you, wasn’t it. You didn’t want her but, by God, no one else was going to have her.”

“I’d no idea she had anyone else. I still don’t know that. How
was
I to know?”

“Because you tracked her. You found her, and you talked to her. She would have told you.”

“And if that’s what happened, why would I care? I had someone else as well. I
have
someone else. I didn’t kill her. I swear to God—”

“You don’t deny being there. There in London.”

“I wanted to talk to her, Rob. I’d been trying to find her for months. Then I got a phone call …Some bloke had seen the cards I’d put up. He left a message saying where Jemima was. Just where she worked, in Covent Garden. I phoned there—a cigar shop—but she wouldn’t talk to me. Then she rang me a few days later and said yes, all right, she was willing to meet me. Not where she worked, she said, but at that place.”

At the cemetery, Rob thought. But what Jossie was saying didn’t make sense. Jemima had someone new. Jossie had someone new. What had they to talk about?

Rob walked to the paddock, where the ponies had gone back to grazing. He stood at the fence and looked at them. They were too sleek, too well fed. Gordon was doing them no service by keeping them here. They were meant to forage all year long; they were part of a herd. Rob opened the gate and went into the paddock.

“What are you doing?” Jossie demanded.

“My job.” Behind him, Rob heard the thatcher follow him into the paddock. “Why’re they here?” he asked him. “They’re meant to be on the forest with the others.”

“They were lame.”

Rob went closer to the ponies. He
shushed
them gently as, behind him, Jossie closed the paddock gate. It didn’t take any longer than a moment for Rob to see that the ponies were perfectly fine, and he could feel their restless need to be out of there and with the others in the herd.

He said, “They’re not lame now. So why’ve you not—” And then he saw something far more curious than the oddity of healthy ponies locked up in a paddock in July. He saw the way their tails were clipped. Despite the growth of hair since the last autumn drift when the ponies had been marked, the pattern of the clipping on these ponies’ tails was still quite readable and what that pattern said was that neither one of the animals belonged in this particular area of the New Forest at all. Indeed, the ponies were branded as well, and the brand identified them as coming from the north part of the Perambulation, near Minstead, from a holding located next to Boldre Gardens.