“We don’t really know. Oliver phoned Miss Whitney from a public booth in the north of London. He charged it to his credit card. According to that conversation, he claims to have had no knowledge of his father’s murder or of his sister’s disappearance. He did, however, tell Julianna that he could not return home at the moment. That there was something he had to accomplish first.”
Halliwell had stopped listening to Cox. His focus now was on Julianna. “What something?”
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, eyes averted for a moment. Then she lifted her chin and gazed directly at him. “He wouldn’t say. All I can tell you is that I know him better than anyone except maybe Collette, and his surprise sounded completely genuine to me. I wanted to get him to tell me more, or at least when to expect him back in the States, but something happened wherever he was. Someone was calling to him and he said a quick good-bye and hung up. It sounded . . . well, from his voice, it sounded like whatever interrupted him, it wasn’t good.”
With a nod, Halliwell went back to perusing the documents in front of him. “You’ve contacted the police in London, I assume? Have they been able to find him?”
The room was silent. The lawyers stared at him intently, Julianna included. Cox cleared his throat.
“Actually, Detective,” Steven began, smoothing his stylish tie, “we haven’t involved the London police as yet. If our information is correct, it would be useless to bring them into it. The manager at the American Express office was cooperative when talking to Mr. Cox. It seems in addition to cash and a rental car, they also provided maps, driving directions, and arranged a private ferry passage from mainland Scotland to a place called Canna Island, which is in the . . .”
He frowned, trying to remember. Steven glanced at the folder in front of Halliwell, obviously wishing he could have it back to double-check his information.
“The Hebridean Sea,” Julianna finished for him.
Halliwell turned his attention on her and Cox again. “All right. So we know where he’s headed. As you’re both well aware, the sheriff’s department would like to speak with Mr. Bascombe to see if he can shed light on his father’s murder, his sister’s whereabouts, and at least one other killing.”
Julianna flinched. “What do you mean? What other killings are you talking about?”
He studiously ignored the question and looked only at Cox now. “It would be helpful, I’d think, to ask the Scottish authorities to detain him. Even to question him. But other than that, without some evidence to link him to one of these crimes, it isn’t like he can be extradited if he doesn’t want to come home.”
Cox nodded. “True. Which is where you come in, Detective Halliwell. You’re aware that the firm has attempted throughout this process to keep the more sensational details of the case out of the media, and to monitor the progress of the investigation.”
Halliwell wanted to laugh. Bascombe & Cox had brought the sheriff’s department into a case that was fundamentally not their jurisdiction, exerting whatever power they had to keep it in the sheriff’s hands— in Halliwell’s own hands— instead of leaving it to the Kitteridge P.D. That hadn’t worked out as well as they had planned. The murder had made news, all right. But so far, the mutilation of Max Bascombe had been kept from the public.
“So what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Go to Scotland and get him? It’s a bit outside my jurisdiction, Mr. Cox.”
Cox gave him the enigmatic smile of a man who never had to bluff at poker because the other players would sooner fold than dare to beat him.
“We aren’t talking about jurisdiction, Detective. Bascombe and Cox has a small office in London. We do business in the United Kingdom. You would locate Oliver and let him know that he is the executor of his father’s estate and that he needs to return home to see to his duties to his family and to this firm. We have worked hard to keep the press from portraying him as a suspect in his father’s murder. If that were to change, it would create a spectacle that would reflect very poorly on the firm. So we would like you to go to Scotland and tell him all that I’ve said. That ought to give you ample opportunity to ask him whatever questions you like about his behavior and the whereabouts of his sister.”
Halliwell cocked his head and looked around the room, unable to believe the utter arrogance of the man. Of all of them. Julianna raised an eyebrow and one side of her mouth lifted in amusement, but without malice.
“If you have offices there,” Halliwell said, focused on Cox rather than any of his silent partners, “I’m sure there are people you could send to retrieve him. He works for you, after all. Though if you have an office there and he didn’t go there when he needed cash and a shave, I’d guess he didn’t feel like checking in with the firm. In any case, I have a job, Mr. Cox. It isn’t as if I can run off to—”
Andrew Cox waved a hand in dismissal. “Sheriff Norris has already agreed to give you a paid leave of absence. On top of that, this firm will pay you quite well for your trouble, as well as covering all expenses. Jackson Norris has made it clear that he holds you in high regard, Detective Halliwell. We need a man we can trust, a man with your skills, and whose credentials will earn him cooperation from U.K. law enforcement if that becomes necessary.”
Halliwell took a breath and sat back in his chair. There was a reason for Cox’s arrogance. The man was shrewd. He had thought of everything. Looking into his eyes, Halliwell realized that the outcome of this meeting had never been in doubt. Much as he despised the man’s presumption and swagger, he was deeply troubled by this case and the firm was handing him the means to pursue the investigation far beyond the parameters he would have otherwise been shackled with. Halliwell would have been frustrated as hell knowing Oliver Bascombe was out of his reach. Now he had a chance to confront the vanishing lawyer, and thanks to Cox, he was even more frustrated.
But he couldn’t walk away from the opportunity. Cox had been counting on that. He nodded, but slowly, and he used his eyes to let Cox know he was a prick. Not that the old man would care what Ted Halliwell thought.
“All right, Mr. Cox. When do I leave?”
“You will depart from Bangor International this evening, accompanied by our firm’s investigator.”
Halliwell raised his eyebrows. They were hiring him to go find Bascombe and fetch him back to Maine. That made him the investigator. Why did they need to send someone from the firm along for the ride? To monitor his expenditures?
Then Cox glanced at Julianna. “I’m sure Miss Whitney will be of great assistance to you.”
And Halliwell put it all together. Julianna Whitney had gone to law school, but she wasn’t employed by the firm as a lawyer. She was their investigator, doing background checks on clients and opponents alike, digging up dirt, tracing shell corporations, and finding out which way Augusta politicians were going to vote.
She was Oliver Bascombe’s fiancée and she wanted to go find him. Cox wanted him found as well, for all the reasons he’d already said. Julianna was likely more than capable of finding Oliver on her own. But Halliwell was insurance. If love wouldn’t make the errant Bascombe come home, they were hoping intimidation would.
Halliwell was being manipulated. He was surprised to find that he did not care. What he wanted was answers, and he thought perhaps that having Julianna Whitney along would help him get them. The law firm might be using him, but Halliwell figured two could play at that game.
He stood up from the chair and smiled thinly at Andrew Cox. “I’ll pack.”
CHAPTER 18
T
he Isle of Canna was off the western coast of Scotland, part of the chain called the Inner Hebrides. Oliver had driven all through the afternoon and into the evening. Gong Gong had not ridden in the car, choosing instead to pace them from high above in the gray clouds and on into the darkness of night. It had been a relief and a surprise to discover that Blue Jay was capable of driving an automobile. By his own admission he had not done so for years, but Oliver had the distinct impression that the trickster knew the world of men quite well. Though he chose to do most of the driving himself— he was, after all, the only one with a license and the sole driver on the rental agreement— Oliver allowed Blue Jay to spell him twice, for an hour the first time and nearly three the second.
It had been the longest drive he had ever undertaken.
With the clock creeping toward midnight, they had at last arrived in Mallaig, a small coastal town with an inn where he and Kitsune had secured a room. Blue Jay, Frost, and Gong Gong made themselves scarce during the check-in and even afterward the male Borderkind had all chosen to keep watch over the inn rather than try to take any rest.
Oliver could feel their impatience bristling within them, crackling in the air. It raised the small hairs on his arms, so tangible was their need to be moving on. The nights and days might be longer on the other side of the Veil, but none of them wanted to wait another night before making their way to the island where they hoped to find Professor Koenig at long last. But they had made the best time that was possible, stopping only for gas and food and for Oliver to use the toilet. Even without those stops they would have arrived hours after dark and the boat that he had chartered through the travel office back in London would not run them out to Canna during the night.
The night had seemed eternal. Whatever frisson of possibility had made his previous close-quarters experiences with Kitsune so tense had been shattered by his grief and his anticipation. His father was dead. Julianna was frightened and confused and he had abandoned her. Over the course of the long drive, this had begun to sink in to Oliver in a way that it had not before, and by the time they had arrived in Mallaig he was hollow and numb. He had been relieved to learn that the inn had rooms with separate beds. The clerk at the desk had offered to give them separate rooms for no additional cost, the place being nearly deserted this time of year, but Kitsune had quickly declined. And rightly so. If the Hunters managed to track them, they would be better off together.
All through the trip and the night that followed the Borderkind were quiet and grim from the need to resolve their obligation to him, to see this through, and he felt the same compulsion. Blue Jay would flutter on nearly silent wings to land upon their window ledge every couple of hours and Oliver had slept so lightly that night that the scritch-scratch of the bird’s feet upon the ledge would rouse him.
But there was nothing they could do to make the night fly more swiftly.
In the small hours of the morning it began to snow, so that when dawn arrived there was a dusting of white outside the window. The snow continued, the sort of gentle winter fall that cast a hush upon the land. This was not difficult to do in a village on the coast of Scotland so late in the year. It took Oliver twenty minutes and the promise of an additional hundred pounds to convince Barclay Moncreiffe, the captain of the chartered boat, to set out for Canna Island in spite of the storm.
Now the grizzled Scotsman stood in the wheelhouse of the boat, peering out at the snow and the tumultuous sea, a firm grip on the wheel. Once upon a time it had been a fishing vessel but had been converted some years past to carry tourists from island to island and to deliver supplies to the smaller islands, where the ferry stopped every week or two. This morning the nameless ship carried three passengers, and for the trip Moncreiffe was likely taking in more money than he normally made all winter long.
Blue Jay stood on the prow with the snow falling all around him. The swell of the sea threatened at any moment to dash him to the deck or into the water, yet he seemed remarkably at ease. Kitsune was below in the small cabin, nursing a cup of strong coffee the aging, bearded captain had offered from the thermos he had brought on board. The angry seas made her nervous.
Oliver did not blame her. With the snow falling and the sea churning he had at first kept to the cabin himself, but then his stomach began to roil and bile had risen in the back of his throat. Nausea had driven him up onto the deck. Moncreiffe had recommended coffee and some gingersnaps from a box he had below, but the idea of ingesting anything only made his gut lurch. He hung his arms over the railing and waited to be sick.
“Watch the horizon,” Blue Jay said, appearing beside him. “Focus on the distance and your belly will settle.”
With no better suggestion, Oliver took this advice and within minutes his nausea began to abate. Snow accumulated on his coat and hair and he blinked it away from his eyelashes as he searched for the island ahead.
“Gong Gong is out there somewhere?”
“Somewhere,” Blue Jay said. “He’s far more clever than he appears. He’ll join us when we find your professor.”
“And Frost?” Oliver narrowed his eyes and tried to see between the snowflakes, searching for any sign that the winter man was with them.
Blue Jay gazed upward, snow whipping into his face. “Distracted. A storm like this, the snowfall is intoxicating to him, or it might just as well be. He revels in it. He’ll be tempted to lose himself in it, but that was how the Falconer nearly killed him the last time.”
