A Place of Hiding (8 page)

She eyed Peach as Alaska began to saunter back and forth meaningfully between her legs. The dog hated going out in the rain—walkies became carries whenever there was so much as a drop of precipitation—so a walk was out of the question. But a quick dash up into the back garden to do the necessary was completely in order. Peach seemed to read Deborah's mind, however. The dachshund beat a hasty retreat back into her basket as Alaska began to mew.

“Don't plan on a lengthy lie-in,” Deborah told the dog, who watched her mournfully, making her eyes go diamond-shaped in that way she had when she wanted to look especially pathetic. “If you don't go out right now for me, Dad shall take you on a march to the river. You do know that, don't you?”

Peach seemed willing to risk it. She deliberately lowered her head to her paws and let her eyes sink closed. Deborah said, “Very well,” and shook out the cat's daily allotment of food, placing it carefully out of the reach of the dog who, she knew, would appropriate it the instant her back was turned, feigned sleep notwithstanding. She made her tea and carried it upstairs, feeling her way in the dark.

It was frigid in the study. She eased the door shut and lit the gas fire. In a folder on one of the bookshelves she'd been assembling a set of small Polaroids that represented what she wanted to photograph next. She carried this to the desk, where she sat in Simon's worn leather chair and began to flip through the pictures.

She thought about Dorothea Lange and wondered if she herself had what it took to capture in a single face that was the
right
face one unforgettable image that could define an era. She had no 1930s dust bowl America whose hopelessness etched itself on the countenance of a nation, though. And to be successful in capturing an image of this, her own age, she knew she would have to think beyond the box that had long been defined by that remarkable aching arid face of a woman, accompanied by her children and a generation of despair. She thought she was up to at least half of the work: the thinking part of it. But she wondered if the rest was what she really wanted to do: spend another twelve months on the street, take another ten or twelve thousand photographs, always attempting to look beyond the mobile-phone-dominated fast-paced world that distorted the truth of what was really there. Even if she managed all that, what would it gain her in the long run? At the moment, she simply didn't know.

She sighed and placed the pictures on the desk. She wondered not for the first time if China had chosen the wiser path. Commercial photography paid the rent, bought food, and put clothes on one's body. It didn't necessarily have to be a soulless endeavour. And despite the fact that Deborah was in the fortunate position of not
having
to pay the rent, buy the food, or put clothes upon anyone, the very fact of that caused her to want to make a contribution somewhere else. If she wasn't needed to assist in their economic situation, then at least she could use her talent to contribute to the society in which they lived.

But could turning to commercial photography actually do that? she wondered. And what kind of commercial pictures would she take? At least China's pictures related to her interest in architecture. She'd actually set out to be a photographer of buildings, and professionally doing precisely what she had set out to do was not in any way selling out, not as Deborah would consider herself selling out if she took the easier route and went commercial. And if she
did
sell out, what on earth would she take pictures of? Toddlers' birthday parties? Rock stars being released from gaol?

Gaol . . . Lord. Deborah groaned. She rested her forehead in her hands and closed her eyes. How important was any of this, measured against China's situation? China, who had been there in Santa Barbara, a caring presence when she needed one most.
I've seen the two of you together, Debs. If you tell him the truth, he'll take the next plane back. He'll want to marry you. He wants to already.
But not like this, Deborah had told her. It can't be like this.

So China had made the necessary arrangements. China had taken her to the necessary clinic. Afterwards, China had sat by her bed so when she opened her eyes, the first person she saw was China herself, simply waiting. Then saying, “Hey, girl,” with such an expression of kindness that Deborah thought in the span of her life she would never again have such a friend.

That friendship was a call to action. She could not allow China to believe, any longer than possible, that she was alone. But what to do was the question, because—

A floor board creaked somewhere in the corridor outside the study. Deborah raised her head. Another board creaked. She got up, crossed the room, and pulled open the door.

In the diffused light that came from a lamp still lit outside on the early-morning street, Cherokee River was removing his jacket from the radiator, where Deborah had placed it to dry overnight. His intention seemed unmistakable.

“You can't be leaving,” Deborah said incredulously.

Cherokee whirled round. “Jeez. You scared the
hell
out of me. Where'd you come from like that?”

Deborah indicated the study door, where behind her the lamp shone on Simon's desk and the gas fire dipped and bobbed a soft glow against the high ceiling. “I was up early. Sorting through some old pictures. But what are you doing? Where are you going?”

He shifted his weight, ran his hand through his hair in that characteristic gesture of his. He indicated the stairs and the floors above. “Couldn't sleep. I swear I won't be able to again—anywhere—till I get someone over to Guernsey. So I figured the embassy . . .”

“What time is it?” Deborah examined her wrist to discover she'd not put on her watch. She hadn't glanced at the clock in the study, but from the gloom outside—even exacerbated by the insufferable rain—she knew it couldn't be much later than six. “The embassy won't be open for hours.”

“I figured there might be a line or something. I want to be first.”

“You still can be, even if you have a cup of tea. Or coffee if you like. And something to eat.”

“No. You've done enough already. Letting me stay here last night?
Inviting
me to stay? The soup and the bath and everything? You bailed me out.”

“I'm glad of it. But I'm not going to hear of your going just now. There's no point. I'll drive you over there myself in plenty of time to be first in line if that's what you want.”

“I don't want you to—”

“You don't have to want me to anything,” Deborah said firmly. “I'm not offering. I'm insisting. So leave the jacket there and come with me.”

Cherokee appeared to think this over for a moment: He looked at the door where its three window panes allowed the light to come through. Both of them could hear the persistent rain, and as if to emphasise the unpleasantness he would face if he ventured out, a gust of wind shot like a prize fighter's blow from the Thames and cracked loudly within the branches of the sycamore just along the street.

He said reluctantly, “All right. Thanks.”

Deborah led him downstairs to the kitchen. Peach looked up from her basket and growled. Alaska, who'd taken up his normal daytime position on the window sill, glanced over, blinked, and went back to his perusal of the patterns the rain was making on the panes.

Deborah said, “Mind your manners,” to the dog and established Cherokee at the table, where he studied the scars that knife marks had made upon the wood and the burnt rings left from the assault of too-hot pans upon it. Deborah once again set the electric kettle to work and took a teapot from the ancient dresser. She said, “I'm making you a meal as well. When did you last have a real meal?” She glanced over at him. “I expect not yesterday.”

“There was the soup.”

Deborah snorted her disapproval. “You can't help China if you fall apart.” She went to the fridge for eggs and bacon; she took tomatoes from their basket near the sink and mushrooms from the dark corner near the outside door, where her father kept a large paper sack for them, hanging from a hook among the household's macs.

Cherokee got up and walked over to the window above the sink, where he extended his hand to Alaska. The cat sniffed his fingers and, head lowered regally, allowed the man to scratch behind his ears. Deborah glanced over to see Cherokee gazing round the kitchen as if absorbing every one of its details. She followed his gaze to register what she took for granted: from the dried herbs that her father kept hanging in neatly arranged bunches to the copper-bottomed pots and pans that lined the wall within reach above the hob, from the old worn tiles on the floor to the dresser that held everything from serving platters to photographs of Simon's nieces and nephews.

“This is a cool house, Debs,” Cherokee murmured.

To Deborah, it was just the house in which she'd lived from childhood, first as the motherless daughter of Simon's indispensable right-hand man, then however briefly as Simon's lover before becoming Simon's wife. She knew its draughts, its plumbing problems, and its exasperating lack of electrical outlets. To her, it was simply home. She said, “It's old and draughty and it's mostly maddening.”

“Yeah? It looks like a mansion to me.”

“Does it?” She forked nine rashers of bacon into a pan and set them cooking beneath the grill. “It actually belongs to Simon's whole family. It was quite a disaster when he took it over. Mice in the walls and foxes in the kitchen. He and Dad spent nearly two years making it livable. I suppose his brothers or his sister could move in with us now if they wanted to since it's everyone's house and not just ours. But they wouldn't do that. They know he and Dad did all the work.”

“Simon has brothers and sisters, then,” Cherokee remarked.

“Two brothers in Southampton . . . where the family business is . . . shipping . . . His sister's in London, though. She used to be a model but now she's campaigning to be an interviewer of obscure celebrities on an even more obscure cable channel that no one watches.” Deborah grinned. “Quite the character, is Sidney. That's Simon's sister. She drives her mum mad because she won't settle down. She's had dozens of lovers. We've met one after another at holidays and each one is always the man of her dreams at last at last.”

“Lucky,” Cherokee said, “to have family like that.”

A wistfulness in his voice prompted Deborah to turn from the cooker. “Would you like to ring yours?” she asked. “Your mum, I mean. You can use the phone on the dresser there. Or the one in the study if you'd like privacy. It's . . .” She looked at the wall clock and did the maths. “It's only ten-fifteen last night in California.”

“I can't do that.” Cherokee returned to the table and dropped into a chair. “I promised China.”

“But she does have the right—”

“China and Mom?” Cherokee cut in. “They don't . . . Well, Mom was never much of a mom, not like other moms, and China doesn't want her to know about this. I think it's because . . . you know . . . other moms would catch the next plane out, but our mom? No way. There might be an endangered species to save. So why tell her in the first place? At least, that's what China's thinking.”

“What about her father? Is he . . . ?” Deborah hesitated. The subject of China's father had always been a delicate one.

Cherokee raised an eyebrow. “Locked up? Oh yeah. He's inside again. So there's no one to call.”

A step sounded on the kitchen stairs. Deborah put plates on the table and heard the uneven nature of someone's cautious descent. She said, “That'll be Simon.” He was up earlier than usual, far before her father, which Joseph Cotter wouldn't like. He'd cared for Simon throughout his long-ago convalescence from the drunken road crash that had crippled him, and he didn't like it if Simon denied him the chance to hover protectively over him.

“Fortunately, I'm making enough for three,” Deborah said as her husband joined them.

Simon looked from the cooker to the table where she had laid crockery. “I hope your father's heart is strong enough to sustain this shock,” he said.

“Most amusing.”

Simon kissed her and then nodded at Cherokee. “You look much better this morning. How's the head?”

Cherokee fingered the plaster near his hairline. “Better. I had a pretty good nurse.”

“She knows what she's doing,” Simon said.

Deborah poured the eggs into the pan and set about scrambling them efficiently. “He's definitely drier,” she pointed out. “After we eat, I've said I'll pop him over to the American embassy.”

“Ah. I see.” Simon glanced at Cherokee. “Guernsey police haven't notified the embassy already? That's unusual.”

“No. They have,” Cherokee said. “But the embassy didn't send anyone. They just phoned to make sure she had a lawyer to speak for her in court. And then it was Good, that's fine, she's being represented then, phone us if you need anything else. I said I
do
need you. I need you here. I told them we weren't even on the island when it happened. But they said the police would have their evidence and there was really nothing else they could do till things got played out. That's what they said.
Till things got played out.
Like this was a basketball game or something.” He moved away from the table abruptly. “I need someone from the embassy
over
there. This whole thing's a set-up, and if I don't do something to stop it from happening, there's going to be a trial and a sentence before the month's up.”

“Can the embassy do anything?” Deborah put their breakfast on the table. “Simon, do you know?”

Her husband considered the question. He didn't work often for embassies, more often instead for the CPS or for barristers who were mounting a criminal defence in court and required an outside expert witness to offset the testimony of someone from one police laboratory or another. But he knew enough to be able to explain what the American embassy would doubtless offer Cherokee when he put in his appearance in Grosvenor Square.