A Place of Hiding (50 page)

“What are they?”

“The plans for the design Mr. Brouard selected for the wartime museum. You've not seen them yet, have you?”

He'd seen only what the rest of the islanders at Brouard's party had seen, Debiere informed him: the detailed, three-dimensional drawing that was the American architect's rendering of the building.

“A total piece of crap,” Debiere said. “I don't know what Guy was thinking about when he decided on it. It's about as suitable as the space shuttle for a museum on Guernsey. Huge windows in the front. Cathedral ceilings. The place would be impossible to heat for less than a fortune, not to mention the fact that the entire structure looks like something designed to sit on a cliff and take in the view.”

“Whereas the museum's actual location . . . ?”

“Down the lane from St. Saviour's Church, right next door to the underground tunnels. Which is about as far inland and away from any cliff as you can get on an island this size.”

“The view?”

“Sod all. Unless you consider the car park for the tunnels a worthy view.”

“You shared your concerns with Mr. Brouard?”

Debiere's expression became cautious. “I talked to him.” He weighed the nail pouch in his hand as if considering whether he would put it on and resume his work on the tree house. A quick glance at the sky, taking in what little remained of daylight, apparently prompted him to forgo further building. He began to gather the pieces of timber he'd assembled on the lawn at the base of the tree. He carried them to a large blue polythene tarpaulin at one side of the garden, where he neatly stacked them.

“I was told that things between you went a bit further than talking,” St. James said. “You argued with him, apparently. Directly after the fireworks.”

Debiere didn't reply. He merely continued carrying timber to the pile, a patient log man like Ferdinand doing the magician's bidding. When he had this task completed, he said quietly, “I was m-m-meant to get the bloody commission. Everyone knew it. So when it w-w-w-went to someone else . . .” He returned to the sycamore where St. James waited and he put one hand on its mottled trunk. He took a minute during which it seemed that he worked to be the master of his sudden stammer. “A tree house,” he finally said in derision of his own efforts. “Here I am. A bloody tree house.”

“Had Mr. Brouard told you you'd have the commission?” St. James asked.

“Told me directly? No. That w-w-” He looked pained. When he was ready, he tried again. “That wasn't Guy's way. He never promised. He merely suggested. He made you think of possibilities. Do
this,
my man, and the next thing you know,
that
will happen.”

“In your case, what did that mean?”

“Independence. My own firm. Not a minion or a drone, working for someone else's glory, but my own ideas in my own space. He knew that's what I wanted and he encouraged it. He was an entrepreneur, after all. Why shouldn't the rest of us be?” Debiere examined the bark of the sycamore tree and gave a bitter laugh. “So I left my job and forged out on my own, started my own firm. He'd taken risks in his life. I would, too. Of course, it was easier for me, thinking I was secure with an enormous commission.”

“You said you wouldn't let him ruin you,” St. James reminded him.

“Words overheard at a party?” Debiere said. “I don't remember what I said. I just remember having a look at that drawing instead of drooling over it like everyone else. I could see how wrong it was and I couldn't understand why he'd chosen it when he'd said . . . when he'd . . . he'd as much as promised. And I remember f-f
-feeling—
” He stopped. His hand was white at the knuckles from the grip he had upon the tree.

“What happens with his death?” St. James asked. “Does the museum get built anyway?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Frank Ouseley told me the will didn't allow for the museum. I can't imagine Adrian would care enough to fund it, so I expect it's going to be up to Ruth, if she wants to go forward.”

“I dare say she might be amenable to suggestions at this point.”

“Guy made it clear that the museum was important to him. She's going to know that without anyone telling her, believe me.”

“I didn't mean amenable to building the museum,” St. James said. “I meant amenable to changes in the design. Amenable in ways her brother wasn't, perhaps. Have you spoken to her? Do you intend to?”

“I intend to,” Debiere said. “I've not much choice.”

“Why is that?”

“Look around, Mr. St. James. I've two boys and a baby on the way. A wife I talked into leaving her job to write her novel. A mortgage here and a new office in Trinity Square, where my secretary expects to be paid now and then. I need the commission and if I don't get it . . . So I'll talk to Ruth. Yes. I'll argue my case. I'll do anything it takes.”

He apparently recognised the wealth of meaning in his final statement because he moved away from the tree abruptly and returned to the pile of timber at the edge of the lawn. He pulled the sides of the blue tarpaulin up round the neat stack of boards, revealing rope precisely coiled on the ground. This he took up and used to tie the polythene sheet protectively over the wood, whereupon he began to gather up his tools.

St. James followed him when he took his hammer, nails, level, tape measure, and saw into a handsome shed at the bottom of the garden. Debiere replaced these items above a workbench, and it was on this bench that St. James set the plans he'd taken from
Le Reposoir.
His main intention had been to learn whether Henry Moullin's elaborate windows could be used on the building design that Guy Brouard had chosen, but now he saw that Moullin wasn't the only person whose participation in the construction of the wartime museum might have been crucial to him.

He said, “These are what the American architect sent over to Mr. Brouard. I'm afraid I know nothing about architectural drawings. Will you look at them and tell me what you think? There appear to be several different kinds.”

“I've already told you.”

“You might want to add more when you see them.”

The papers were large, well over a yard long and nearly as wide. Debiere sighed his agreement to inspect them and reached for a hammer to weigh the edges down.

They were not blueprints. Debiere informed him that blueprints had gone the way of carbon paper and manual typewriters. These were black-and-white documents that looked as if they'd come off an elephantine copying machine, and as he sorted through them, Debiere identified each for what it was: the schematic of every floor of the building; the construction documents with labels indicating the ceiling plan, the electrical plan, the plumbing plan, the building sections; the site plan showing where the building would sit at its chosen location; the elevation drawings.

Debiere shook his head as he fingered through them. He murmured, “Ridiculous” and “What's the idiot
thinking
?” and he pointed out the ludicrous size of the individual rooms that the structure would contain. “How,” he demanded, indicating one of the rooms with a screwdriver, “is
this
supposed to be set up as a gallery? Or a viewing room? Or whatever the hell it's designed to be? Look at it. You could comfortably fit three people into a room that size, but that's the limit. It's no bigger than a cell. And they're all like that.”

St. James examined the schematic that the architect was indicating. He noted that nothing on the drawing was identified and he asked Debiere if this was normal. “Wouldn't you generally label what each room is meant to be?” he asked. “Why's that missing from these drawings?”

“Who the hell knows,” Debiere said dismissively. “Shoddy work's my guess. Not surprising considering he submitted his design without even bothering to walk the site. And look at this—” He'd pulled one of the sheets out and placed it on top of the stack. He tapped his screwdriver against it. “Is this a courtyard with a
pool,
for God's sake? I'd love to have a talk with this idiot. Probably designs homes in Hollywood and thinks no place's complete unless twenty-year-olds in bikinis have a spot to lie in the sun. What a waste of space. The whole thing's a disaster. I can't believe that Guy—” He frowned. Suddenly, he bent over the drawing and looked at it more closely. He appeared to be searching for something but whatever it was, it wasn't part of the building itself because Debiere looked at all four corners of the paper and then directed his gaze along the edges. He said, “This is damn odd,” and shifted the first paper to one side so that he could see the one under it. Then he went to the next, then the one after that. He finally looked up.

“What?” St. James asked.

“These should be wet-signed,” Debiere said. “Every one of them. But not one is.”

“What d'you mean?”

Debiere pointed to the plans. “When these're complete, the architect stamps them. Then he signs his name over that stamp.”

“Is that a formality?”

“No. It's essential. It's how you tell the plans are legitimate. You can't get them approved by planning or building commissions if they're not stamped, and you sure as hell can't find a contractor willing to take on the job, either.”

“So if they aren't legitimate, what else might they be?” St. James asked the architect.

Debiere looked from St. James to the plans. And then back to St. James once again. “Stolen,” he replied.

They were silent, each of them contemplating the documents, the schematics, and the drawings that lay across the workbench. Outside the shed, a door slammed and a voice cried out, “Daddy! Mum's made you short bread as well.”

Debiere roused himself at this. His forehead creased as he apparently tried to comprehend what seemed so patently incomprehensible: a large gathering of islanders and others at
Le Reposoir,
a gala event, a surprising announcement, a mass of fireworks to mark the occasion, the presence of everyone important on Guernsey, the coverage in the paper and on island television.

His sons were shouting “Daddy! Daddy! Come in for tea!” but Debiere didn't seem to hear them. He murmured, “What did he
intend
to do, then?”

The answer to that question, St. James thought, might go far to shedding more light on the murder.

 

Finding a solicitor—Margaret Chamberlain refused to think of or call them
advocates
because she didn't intend to employ one for longer than it took to strong-arm her former husband's beneficiaries out of their inheritances—turned out to be a simple matter. After leaving the Range Rover in the car park of a hotel on Ann's Place, she and her son walked down one slope and up another. Their route took them past the Royal Court House, which assured Margaret that lawyers were going to be quite easy to come by in this part of town. At
least
Adrian had known that much. On her own, she would have been reduced to the telephone directory and a street map of St. Peter Port. She would have had to ring and do her importuning without having seen the situation into which her phone call was received. This way, however, she had no need to ring at all. She could storm the citadel of her choosing, satisfactorily on the controlling end of employing a legal mind to do her bidding.

The offices of Gibbs, Grierson, and Godfrey ended up as her selection. The alliteration was an annoyance, but the front door was imposing and the lettering on the brass plate outside was of a stark nature that suggested a ruthlessness which Margaret's mission required. Without an appointment, then, she entered with her son and requested to see one of the eponymous members of the organisation. As she made her request, she stifled her desire to tell Adrian to stand up straight, assuring herself it was enough that he had—for her benefit and protection—earlier arm-wrestled that little hooligan Paul Fielder into submission.

As luck would have it, none of the founders were in their offices on this afternoon. One of them had apparently died four years earlier and the other two were out on some sort of quasi-important lawyerly business, according to their clerk. But one of the junior advocates would be able to see Mrs. Chamberlain and Mr. Brouard.

How junior? Margaret wanted to know.

It was a loose term only, she was assured.

The junior advocate turned out to be junior in title alone. She was otherwise a middle-aged woman called Juditha Crown—“Ms. Crown,” she told them—with a fat mole beneath her left eye and a mild case of halitosis that appeared to have been brought on by a half-eaten salami sandwich which sat on a paper plate on her desk.

As Adrian slouched nearby, Margaret disclosed the reason for their call: a son cheated out of his inheritance and an inheritance that was absent at least three-quarters of the property it should have comprised.

That, Ms. Crown informed them with an archness that Margaret found a little too condescending for her liking, was highly unlikely, Mrs. Chamberlain. Had Mr. Chamberlain—

Mr. Brouard, Margaret interrupted. Mr. Guy Brouard of
Le Reposoir,
Parish of St. Martin's. She was his former wife, and this was their son, Adrian Brouard, she announced to Ms. Crown and added pointedly, Mr. Guy Brouard's eldest and his only male heir.

Margaret was gratified to see Juditha Crown sit up and take notice of this, if only metaphorically. The lawyer's eyelashes quivered behind her gold-framed spectacles. She gazed upon Adrian with heightened interest. It was a moment during which Margaret found she could finally feel grateful for Guy's relentless pursuit of personal accomplishment. If nothing else, he had name recognition and, by association, so did his son.

Margaret laid out the situation for Ms. Crown: an estate divided in half, with two daughters and a son sharing the first half of it and two relative strangers
—strangers,
mind you, in the person of two local
teenagers
practically unknown to the family—sharing the other half equally between them. Something needed to be done about this.