A Place of Hiding (14 page)

The visitors' gallery was up above, and at the moment it was occupied only by four out-of-season tourists wearing see-through rain slickers and a woman clutching a handkerchief. Beneath them, the courtroom spread out like something from a costume drama. Here was the judge—red-gowned and forbidding in wire-rimmed spectacles and a wig that dripped sheep curls down to his shoulders—sitting in a green leather chair, one of five that spread across the top of the room on a dais that separated him from his lessers. These were the black-gowned barristers—defending and prosecuting—lined up along the first bench and table at right angles to the judge. Behind them were their associates: junior members of chambers and solicitors as well. And across from them was the jury with the clerk in between, as if refereeing what might happen in the room. The dock was directly below the gallery, and here the accused sat with an officer of the court. Opposite him was the witness box, and it was to this box that Deborah and Cherokee directed their attention.

The Crown Prosecutor was just concluding his cross-examination of Mr. Allcourt-St. James, expert witness for the defence. He was referring to a many-paged document, and the fact that he called Simon
sir
and
Mr. Allcourt-St. James if you will,
didn't hide the fact that he doubted the opinions of anyone who didn't agree with the police and by extension the CPS conclusions.

“You seem to be suggesting Dr. French's laboratory work is wanting, Mr. Allcourt-St. James,” the Crown Prosecutor was saying as Deborah and Cherokee slid onto a bench at the front of the gallery.

“Not at all,” Simon replied. “I'm merely suggesting that the amount of residue taken from the defendant's skin could easily be consistent with his employment as a gardener.”

“Are you then also suggesting it's a coincidence that Mr. Casey”—with a nod at the man in the dock the back of whose neck Deborah and Cherokee could study from their position in the gallery—“would have upon his person traces of the same substance that was used to poison Constance Garibaldi?”

“As Aldrin's use is for the elimination of garden insects and as this crime occurred during the height of the season when those same insects are prevalent, I'd have to say that trace amounts of Aldrin on the defendant's skin are easily explainable by his profession.”

“His long-standing quarrel with Mrs. Garibaldi not withstanding?”

“That's right. Yes.”

The Crown Prosecutor went on for several minutes, referring to his notes and consulting once with a colleague from the row behind the barristers' seats. He finally dismissed Simon with a “thank you, sir,” which released him from the witness box when the defence required nothing more of him. He began to step down, which was when he caught sight of Deborah and Cherokee above him in the gallery.

They met him outside the courtroom, where he said, “What's happened, then? Were the Americans helpful?”

Deborah related to him what they'd learned from Rachel Freistat at the embassy. She added, “Tommy can't help either, Simon. Jurisdiction. And even if that weren't the problem, the Guernsey police ask Cornwall or Devon for assistance when they need it. They don't ask the Met. I got the impression—didn't you, Cherokee?—that they got a bit shirty when Tommy even mentioned the idea of help.”

Simon nodded, pulling at his chin thoughtfully. Around them, the business of the criminal court went on, with officials hurrying past with documents and barristers strolling by with their heads together, planning the next move they would make in their trials.

Deborah watched her husband. She saw that he was seeking a solution to Cherokee's troubles, and she was grateful for that. He could so easily have said, “That's it, then. You'll have to go the course and wait for the outcome on the island,” but that wasn't his nature. Still, she wanted to reassure him that they hadn't come to the Old Bailey to place further burdens upon him. Rather, they had come to let him know they'd be setting off for Guernsey as soon as Deborah had a chance to pop home and collect some clothes.

She told him as much. She thought he'd be grateful. She was wrong.

 

St. James reached a swift conclusion as his wife related her intentions to him: He mentally labeled the idea sheer lunacy. But he wasn't about to tell Deborah that. She was earnest and well-intentioned and, more than that, she was worried about her California friend. In addition to this, there was the man to consider.

St. James had been happy to offer Cherokee River food and shelter. It was the least he could do for the brother of the woman who'd been his wife's closest friend in America. But it was quite another situation for Deborah to think she was going to play detectives with a relative stranger or with anyone else. They could both end up in serious trouble with the police. Or worse, if they happened to stumble upon the actual killer of Guy Brouard.

Feeling that he couldn't pop Deborah's balloon so callously, St. James tried to come up with a way merely to deflate it. He guided Deborah and Cherokee to a spot where all of them could sit, and he said to Deborah, “What is it you hope to do over there?”

“Tommy suggested—”

“I know what he said. But as you've already found out, there's no private investigator on Guernsey for Cherokee to hire.”

“I know. Which is why—”

“So unless you've already found one in London, I don't see what your going to Guernsey is going to achieve. Unless you want to be there to offer China support. Which is completely understandable, of course.”

Deborah pressed her lips together. He knew what she was thinking. He was sounding too reasonable, too logical, too much the scientist in a situation where feelings were called for. And not only feelings but action that was immediate, no matter how ill thought out.

“I don't mean to hire a private investigator, Simon,” she said stiffly. “Not at first. Cherokee and I . . . We're going to meet China's advocate. We'll look at the evidence the police have gathered. We'll talk to anyone who'll talk to us. We're not the police ourselves, so people won't be afraid to meet with us, and if someone knows something . . . if the police have missed something . . . We're going to uncover the truth.”

“China's innocent,” Cherokee added. “The truth . . . It's there. Somewhere. And China needs—”

“Which means someone else is guilty,” St. James interrupted. “Which makes the situation inordinately delicate and dangerous as well.” He didn't add what he wanted to add at this point.
I forbid you to go.
They didn't live in the eighteenth century. Deborah was—if anything—an independent woman. Not financially, of course. He could stop her there by tightening her purse strings or whatever it was that one did to cut a woman off financially. But he liked to think he was above that kind of machination. He'd always believed that reason could be employed more effectively than intimidation. “How will you locate the people you want to talk to?”

“I expect they have phone books on Guernsey,” Deborah said.

“I mean how will you know who to talk to?” St. James asked.

“Cherokee will know. China will know. They were at Brouard's house. They met other people. They'll come up with the names.”

“But why would these people want to talk to Cherokee? Or to you, for that matter, once they learn of your connection to China?”

“They won't learn of it.”

“You don't think the police will tell them? And even if they do speak to you—to Cherokee as well—and even if you manage that part of the situation, what will you do with the rest?”

“Which . . . ?”

“The evidence. How do you plan to evaluate it? And how will you recognise it if you find more?”

“I hate it when you . . .” Deborah swung to Cherokee. She said, “Will you give us a moment?”

Cherokee looked from her to St. James. He said, “This is making too much trouble. You've done enough. The embassy. Scotland Yard. Let me head back to Guernsey and I'll—”

Deborah cut in firmly. “Give us a moment. Please.”

Cherokee glanced from husband to wife then back to husband. He looked inclined to speak again, but he said nothing. He took off to inspect a list of trial dates that was hanging from a notice board.

Deborah turned on St. James furiously. “Why are you
doing
this?”

“I just want you to see—”

“You think I'm bloody incompetent, don't you?”

“That's not the truth, Deborah.”

“Incapable of having a few conversations with people who might just be willing to tell us something they haven't told the police. Something that could make a difference. Something that could get China out of gaol.”

“Deborah, I don't mean you to think—”

“This is my friend,” she persisted in a fierce low voice. “And I mean to help her. She was
there,
Simon. In California. She was the
only
person—” Deborah stopped. She looked ceilingward and shook her head as if this would shake off not only emotion but also memory.

St. James knew what she was recalling. He didn't need a road map to see how Deborah had traveled to her destination. China had been there as soul mate and confessor during the years that he himself had failed Deborah. Doubtless she had been there as well while Deborah fell in love with Tommy Lynley and perhaps she had wept along with Deborah during the aftermath of that love.

He knew this but he could no more bring it up at that moment than he could undress in public and put his body's damage on display. So he said, “My love, listen. I know you want to help.”

“Do you?” she asked bitterly.

“Of course I do. But you can't crash round Guernsey just because you want to help. You haven't the expertise and—”

“Oh thank you very much.”

“—the police aren't going to be the least bit cooperative. And you have to have their cooperation, Deborah. If they won't divulge every bit of their evidence, you'll have no way of truly knowing whether China is actually innocent.”

“You
can't
think she's a killer! My God!”

“I don't think anything one way or another. I'm not invested as you are. And that's what you need: someone who's not invested either.”

Even as he heard his own words, he felt himself becoming committed. She hadn't asked it of him and she certainly wouldn't ask it of him now, after their conversation. But he saw how it was the only solution.

She needed his help, and he had spent over half his lifetime extending his hand to Deborah, whether she reached out for it or not.

Chapter 6

P
AUL
F
IELDER WENT TO
his special place when he fled Valerie Duffy. He left the tools where they were. He knew this was wrong because Mr. Guy had explained that at least one part of good workmanship was the care and maintenance of the workman's tools, but he told himself that he'd go back later when Valerie couldn't see him. He'd sneak round the other side of the house, the part that wasn't near to the kitchen, and he'd collect the tools and return them to the stables. If it felt safe, he might even work on the shelters then. And he'd check the duck graveyard and make sure the little plots were still marked by their circlets of stones and shells. He knew that he had to do all of that before Kevin Duffy happened upon the tools, though. If Kevin happened upon them lying in the damp growth of weeds, reeds, and grass that surrounded the pond, he wouldn't be pleased.

Thus, Paul didn't go far in his flight from Valerie. He just circled round the front of the house and rode into the woods along the east side of the drive. There he dove onto the bumpy, leaf-strewn path beneath the trees and between the rhododendrons and ferns and he followed it till he came to the second fork to the right. Here he dumped his old bike next to a mossy sycamore trunk, part of a tree once felled by a storm and left to become the hollowed home of wild things. The way was too rough to ride the bike forward from this point, so he shouldered his rucksack more firmly and took off on foot with Taboo trotting along beside him, pleased to be out on a morning adventure rather than waiting patiently as he usually did, tied to the ancient
menhir
that stood beyond the wall at the edge of the school yard, a bowl of water at his side and a handful of biscuits to see him through till Paul fetched him at the end of the day.

Paul's destination was one of the secrets he had shared with Mr. Guy. I think we know each other well enough now for something special, Mr. Guy had said the first time he introduced Paul to the spot. If you want to—if you think that you're ready—I have a way that we can seal our friendship, my Prince.

That was what he had called Paul,
my Prince.
Not at first, of course, but later, once they grew to know each other better, once it seemed like they shared an uncommon sort of kinship. Not that they
were
kin and not that Paul would
ever
have thought they could be kin. But there had existed between them a fellowship, and the first time Mr. Guy had called him
my Prince,
Paul was certain the older man felt that fellowship as well.

So he had nodded his assent. He was quite ready to seal his friendship with this important man who'd entered his life. He wasn't altogether sure what it meant to seal a friendship, but his heart was always full to bursting when he was with Mr. Guy and Mr. Guy's words surely indicated
his
heart was full to bursting as well. So whatever it meant, it would be good. Paul knew that.

A place of the spirits was what Mr. Guy called the special place. It was a dome of land like an upended bowl on the earth, grassed over thickly, with a flattened path running round it.

The place of the spirits lay beyond the woods, over a drystone wall, part of a meadow where the docile Guernsey cows once had grazed. It was overgrown with weeds and fast becoming encroached upon by brambles and bracken because Mr. Guy had no cows to eat the undergrowth, and the greenhouses that might have replaced the cattle had themselves been dismantled and carted off when Mr. Guy first purchased the property.

Paul scrambled over the wall and dropped down to the path at its base. Taboo followed. It led through the bracken to the mound itself and there they tripped along another path which wound round to the southwest side. Here, Mr. Guy had once explained, the sunlight would have burned the strongest and the longest for the ancient people who had used this place.

A wooden door of far more recent vintage than the dome itself stood halfway round the circumference of the mound. It was hung from stone jambs beneath a stone lintel, and a combination lock thrust through a hasp on the door kept it safely closed.

Took me months to find a way inside, Mr. Guy had told him. I knew what it was. That was easy enough. What else would a mound of earth be doing in the middle of a meadow? But finding the entrance . . . ? That was the devil, Paul. Debris was piled up—brambles, bushes, the lot—and these entryway stones had long been overgrown. Even when I located the first ones under the earth, telling the difference between the entry and the support stones inside the
mound . . . Months, my Prince. It took me months. But it was worth it, I think. I ended up with a special place and believe you me, Paul, every man needs a special place.

That Mr. Guy had been willing to share his special place had caused Paul to blink in surprise. He'd found his throat blocked by a great plug of happiness. He'd smiled like a dolt. He'd grinned like a clown. But Mr. Guy had known what that meant. He said, Nineteen three twenty-seven fifteen. Can you remember that? That's how we get in. I give the combination only to special friends, Paul.

Paul had religiously committed those numbers to memory, and he used them now. He slipped the lock into his pocket, and he shoved the door open. It stood barely four feet from the ground, so he removed his rucksack from his back and clutched it to his chest to give himself more room. He ducked beneath the lintel and crawled inside.

Taboo trotted ahead of him, but he paused, sniffed the air, and growled. It was dark inside—lit only from the door by the shaft of weak December light that did very little to pierce the gloom—and although the special place had been locked, Paul hesitated when the dog seemed uncertain about entering. He knew there were spirits on the island: ghosts of the dead, the familiars of witches, and fairies who lived in hedges and streams. So although he wasn't afraid there was a human within the mound, there could well be something else.

Taboo, however, had no qualms about encountering something from the spirit world. He ventured inside, snuffling the stones that comprised the floor, disappearing into the internal alcove, darting from there into the centre of the structure itself, where the top of the mound allowed a man to stand upright. He finally returned to where Paul still stood hesitantly right inside the door. He wagged his tail.

Paul bent lower and pressed his cheek to the dog's wiry fur. Taboo licked his cheek and bowed deeply into his forelegs. He backed up three paces and gave a yip, which meant he thought they were there to play, but Paul scratched his ears, eased the door shut, and buried them in the darkness of that quiet place.

He knew it well enough to find his way, one hand holding his rucksack to his chest and the other running along the damp stone wall as he crept towards the centre. This, Mr. Guy had told him, was a place of deep significance, a vault where prehistoric man had come to send his dead on their final journey. It was called a dolmen, and it even had an altar—although this looked much like a worn old stone to Paul, raised a mere few inches off the floor—and a secondary chamber where religious rites had been performed, rites they could only speculate upon.

Paul had listened and looked and shivered in the cold that first time he'd come to the special place. And when Mr. Guy had lit the candles that he kept in a shallow depression at the side of the altar, he had seen Paul shaking and had done something about it.

He took him to the secondary chamber, shaped like two palms cupped together, and accessed by squeezing behind an upright stone that stood like a statue in a church and had worn carvings upon its surface. In this secondary chamber Mr. Guy had a collapsible camp bed. He had blankets and a pillow. He had candles. He had a small wooden box.

He said, I come here to think sometimes. To be alone and to meditate. Do you meditate, Paul? Do you know what it is to make the mind go to rest? Blank slate? Nothing but you and God and the way of all things? Hmm? No? Well, perhaps we can work on that, you and I, practise it a bit. Here. Take this blanket. Let me show you round.

Secret places, Paul thought. Special places to share with special friends. Or places where one could be alone. When one needed alone. Like now.

Paul had never been here by himself, however. Today was his very first time.

He crept carefully into the centre of the dolmen and felt his way to the altar stone. Molelike, he ran his hands across its flat surface to the depression at its base, where the candles were. A Curiously Strong Mints tin was tucked into this depression as well as the candles, and inside were the matches, protected from the damp. Paul felt for this and brought it forth. He set his rucksack down and lit the first of the candles, fixing it with wax to the altar stone.

With a little bit of light, he felt less anxious about being alone in this damp, shadowy place. He looked round at the old granite walls, at the curving ceiling, at the pockmarked floor. Incredible that ancient man could build a structure like this, Mr. Guy had said. We think we have everything over the stone age, Paul, with our mobiles, our computers, and the like. Instant information to go along with our instant everything else. But look at this, my Prince, just look at this place. What have we built in the last one hundred years that we can declare will be standing in one hundred thousand more, eh? Nothing, that's what. Here, Paul, take a look at this stone . . .

Which he had done, Mr. Guy's hand warm on his shoulder as the fingers of his other hand followed the marks that hand upon hand upon hand before him had worn into the stone that stood guard to the secondary alcove where Mr. Guy kept his camp bed and blankets. Paul went there now, to that secondary alcove, his rucksack in his hand. He scooted behind the sentinel stone with another candle lit and Taboo at his heels. He placed his rucksack on the floor and his candle on the wooden box where melted wax marked the spot of dozens of candles placed there before it. He took one of the blankets from the camp bed for Taboo, folding it into a dog-sized square and putting it on the cold stone floor. Taboo hopped onto it gratefully and circled three times to make it his own before settling down with a sigh. He lowered his head to his paws and fixed his eyes lovingly on Paul.

That dog thinks I mean you ill, my Prince.

But no. That was just Taboo's way. He knew the important role he played in his master's life—sole friend, sole companion until Mr. Guy had come along—and knowing his role, he liked Paul to
know
he knew his role. He couldn't tell him, so instead he watched him: his every move, in every moment, during every day.

It was the same way Paul had watched Mr. Guy when they were together. And unlike other people in Paul's life, Mr. Guy had never been bothered by Paul's unwavering stare. Find this interesting, do you? he'd ask if he shaved while they were together. And he never poked fun at the fact that Paul himself—despite his age—did not yet need to shave. How short should I have it cut? he'd ask when Paul accompanied him to the barber in St. Peter Port. Have some care with those scissors, Hal. As you can see, I've got my man watching your moves. And he'd wink at Paul and give the signal that meant Friends Till We Die: fingers of his right hand crossed and placed against the palm of his left.

Till We Die had arrived.

Paul felt the tears coming, and he let them come. He wasn't at home. He wasn't at school. It was safe to miss him here. So he wept as much as he wanted to weep, till his stomach hurt and his eyelids were sore. And in the candlelight, Taboo watched him faithfully, in complete acceptance and perfect love.

Cried out at last, Paul realised he had to remember the good things that had come from knowing Mr. Guy: all the things he had learned in his company, all that he had come to value, and all that he had been encouraged to believe. We serve a greater purpose than just getting through life, his friend had told him more than once. We serve the purpose of clarifying the past in order to make the future whole.

Part of their clarifying the past was going to be the museum. To that end, they had spent long hours in the company of Mr. Ouseley and his dad. From them and from Mr. Guy, Paul had learned the significance of items he once might have tossed heedlessly to one side: the odd buckle from a belt found on the grounds of Fort Doyle, hidden among the weeds and buried for decades till a storm beat the earth away from a boulder; the useless lantern from a car boot sale; the rusty medal; the buttons; the dirty dish. This island is a real burial ground, Mr. Guy had told him. We're going to do some exhuming here. Would you like to be a part of that? The answer was easy. He wanted to be a part of anything that Mr. Guy was a part of.

So he threw himself into the museum work with Mr. Guy and Mr. Ouseley. Wherever he went on the island, he kept his eyes open for something to contribute to the vast collection.

He'd finally found something. He'd ridden his bike all the miles southwest to
La Congrelle,
where the Nazis had built one of their ugliest watch towers: a futuristic concrete eruption on the land with slits for their anti-aircraft guns to shoot down anything approaching the shore. He hadn't gone looking for anything related to the five years of German occupation, however. Instead, he'd gone to have a look at the most recent car that had plummeted over the cliff.

La Congrelle
possessed one of the few cliff tops on the island that were directly accessible by car. Other cliff tops one had to hike out to from a car park a safe distance away, but at
La Congrelle
one could drive to the very edge. It was a good spot for a suicide that one wished to be seen as an accident, because at the end of the road from
Rue de la Trigale
to the Channel, one merely had to veer to the right and accelerate the last fifty yards through the low-growing gorse and across the grass to the edge of the cliff. A final stomp on the accelerator as the land in front of the bonnet disappeared and the car would shoot over and plunge down to the rocks, end over end till it was stopped by a jagged barrier of granite, exploded into the water itself, or erupted into flames.