Perfect Sins (10 page)

Hazel had known Pete Byrfield most of her life. He'd been a slightly supercilious fourteen-year-old on a quad when she was an enthusiastic ten-year-old exercising his sisters' outgrown ponies. Later they'd grown to a friendship that was casual but deep, enduring. She hoped, and with some confidence expected, that they'd still be friends in their dotage, corresponding in increasingly shaky hands from their respective nursing homes.

She knew when he was scared. He was scared now.

So she didn't tell him to stop being a drama queen, that such things didn't happen in the twenty-first century—or even late in the twentieth. In the world he was born into, which he knew better than she, perhaps they did. That didn't mean he
wasn't
jumping to a terrible, unwarranted conclusion. It did mean that she had to take his concerns seriously, and help him if she could.

“They couldn't have kept their first child a secret,” she said gently. “People would have known it was on the way. Even in ordinary families, you tell people before it becomes blindingly obvious. In your family it would have been a cause for particular celebration. They couldn't just shut him away in the attic like Mrs. Rochester!”

“She had a miscarriage,” mumbled Byrfield.

Hazel froze. “What?”

“My mother's first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. At least, that's what they told people. That she was pregnant, that she lost, it during a holiday abroad. But Hazel”—his eyes were tortured—“what if she didn't lose it at all? What if they kept him for ten years, out of sight, as an insurance against Byrfield going to cousin Rodney? And then got rid of him when it looked as if they weren't going to need him after all?”

The shock of that—that he thought that might have happened, in his own family; that he might have been the beneficiary of it—struck her like a blow. Nevertheless she gripped his forearms with her two strong hands, making him look at her. “Pete, listen to me. I'm not going to tell you it isn't possible. I think it's highly unlikely, but it really doesn't matter what I think, or even what you think, because you can find out for sure.”

“I can't ask my mother!” There was a shrill note of panic in his voice.

“You
could
ask your mother,” Hazel retorted. “What's more, you
should
ask your mother. Whether there's any truth in it or not, she ought to know what's on your mind. But if you really can't face talking to her, or wouldn't believe what she told you, get yourself DNA-tested.”

“Ask Inspector Norris to test me as well as David? He'd want to know why! In fact, he'd guess why. Because I've reason to think I might be related to that poor dead child. I can't do that to my family, even if…” He stopped and swallowed. “I'm sorry, Hazel, maybe I should, but I can't.”

“You don't have to involve the police, at least not at this stage. Go to a commercial lab. It's a standard procedure these days, the staff will assume it's a paternity issue.”

Byrfield was drawn to the idea. But already he could anticipate problems. “They'd need the child's DNA to compare it with. How would I get that?”

“You couldn't,” Hazel conceded. She gave it some more thought. “Okay, how about this? Get the test done, and send the results to Norris under my name. I'll explain that it's purely to rule something out, and that if there's no correlation between the two results, I'll be respecting the subject's wish to remain anonymous. If, God forbid, there
is
a correlation, then we'll have to be honest with him. This is a murder inquiry, we can't withhold evidence that would help him solve it.”

She regarded her friend with compassion, taking in the haggard face and haunted eyes. “Are you ready for that, Pete? Because once we start this we have to see it through. If you're right, you can support your mother but you can't protect her. Not from this.”

Byrfield nodded jerkily. “I understand. I suppose, if … if that's what it shows … I wouldn't want to protect her.”

“We're talking as if your mother is the only one who could be implicated,” Hazel realized. “But if you had an older brother who was kept a secret for ten years and then killed, your father had to be involved as well. She may claim it was his doing.”

Byrfield flinched as if she'd slapped him. “You knew my father. Which of them would you feel inclined to blame?”

Hazel didn't have to think long. “Fair enough. So, is that what you're going to do?”

It was almost as if he'd committed himself by talking about it. While it was just a worm eating away in his brain he had the option of doing nothing about it. But he'd chosen to share his fears—with a police officer, of all people—and even if Hazel wouldn't have bullied him into doing something he didn't want to, his own conscience would. It wasn't just a sick thought anymore. He'd acknowledged it was a possibility, and now he owed it to the child buried by his lake—whoever he might turn out to be—to find the truth.

And, of course, the same sample that could turn his whole family upside down could equally well set his mind at rest. If it did, he swore to himself he would never complain about the weather or the suicidal tendencies of sheep or the fact that his expensive new bull was a card-carrying member of Gay Pride ever again.

He set his jaw. As a member of the aristocracy it wasn't his best feature, but he did what he could. “Yes,” he said. “As soon as I can arrange it.”

“Will you tell David what you're doing?”

“No.”

“Or your mother?”

“Good God, no!” Byrfield sounded horrified. “I'm not telling anyone, unless I have to. If the results mean that I have to.”

Hazel nodded. “It's your decision.”

“But you don't think it's the right one.”

“Pete,” she said patiently, “it's none of my business. Only that you're my friend, and I want you to walk away from this with your soul intact. Do what you're comfortable with. Do what you can face doing. But there's a risk that events may take the decision out of your hands. If that happens, it may become harder, not easier, to talk to your mother. I wouldn't like to think you missed your last best chance.”

His gaze dipped. “You think I'm being pathetic.”

Hazel shook her head. “I think you've had a shock. I think you're trying to deal with it without hurting anybody's feelings. I just think this is too important for hurt feelings to be an issue. You need to be honest with your mother. I'd like to think she'd be honest with you in return.”

“You'd think so, wouldn't you?” he said wistfully. “I know you're right. It's just … I haven't got your moral courage. I know what you did in Norbold. You did what was right, what needed doing, even though it put your life in danger. I'm not that brave.”

“Pete.” She reached out and took his hand. She was surprised to find he was actually trembling. “You may have to be. If this thing goes pear-shaped, it'll be your job to hold the family together. To look after your sisters, and Byrfield. You'll need to be brave then, and strong. But you know, don't you, you can count on your friends.”

He managed a shame-faced little smile. “I'm glad you're here.”

 

CHAPTER 11

C
OUNTESS
B
YRFIELD, RETURNING
late from a charity lunch in Cambridge, passed the strange dog on the stairs up to her apartments. Each turned her head to watch the other as the countess continued climbing and the lurcher headed toward the kitchen. The countess was thinking, In better days than these the gamekeeper would have shot a mongrel like that. Who knows what Patience was thinking?

At least her own rooms remained a haven of peace from her son's ridiculous friends: the one who was always covered in mud, the impertinent one with the dog, and the one who if memory served—and it always did—was actually the handyman's brat! Alice Byrfield closed her door behind her with an audible sigh of relief. At least in here the world still operated according to the rules that had obtained for most of her life. At least in here things knew their place.

At least here she had the privacy to consider how these new developments might affect her. How much, if at all, she should admit to knowing. She was alone—her maid didn't come in on Sundays: how very different things were when she was a girl! So slowly, thinking all the time, she took off her jacket and hung it up, and took off her earrings and put them away, and pressed the button on the electric kettle, which was as close to domestic work as Alice Byrfield ever got.

With the cup of Earl Grey thus provided, she sat down in her wing chair in the bay window, with its matchless view across the park toward the lake and the fields of Home Farm, and thought about the little hummock in the grass and whether the discovery of its contents had the power to disturb the life she had created here.

*   *   *

Finding herself at a loose end after tea, Hazel gravitated—as she had in spare moments through much of her childhood—toward the stables. The brick-built boxes were empty, but curious heads lifted from grazing in the paddocks beyond. She recognized Viv's old hunter, twenty-five years old but still game for a day out if the opportunity presented; the old earl's favorite broodmare, barren now, which Pete Byrfield occasionally threw a saddle on; even one of the old ponies Hazel had ridden. A quick calculation told her their combined ages must now be something over seventy. Don Jackson, the local knacker, who for years had looked forward to getting a call about them, had just about given up, suspecting that the three horses would dance at his funeral.

A footstep on the cobbles behind her warned Hazel she had company, and she turned, to find Lady Vivienne Byrfield—unmarried despite her mother's best efforts, highly successful as Something in the City—bearing down on her like a Corvette at full revolutions. She hadn't been a pretty girl and she wasn't a handsome woman, but she radiated a mixture of self-confidence, genuine competence, and a totally unsentimental kindness that made people like her anyway.

“Hazel!” she boomed as she strode across the stable yard. She always managed to give the impression of being a much bigger woman than she was. Her brother had monopolized whatever tall genes dangled from the family tree: Viv was on the short side of medium height and the broad side of medium build. “Taking Starlight for a spin?”

Hazel gave a rueful grin. “I'd need something a bit bigger these days. The last year I Pony Clubbed him, I had to pick my feet up over the jumps.”

“Take Leary, then.”

Even from half a field away, even at twenty-five, Cavalier was a bigger, stronger horse than Hazel had any ambitions to ride. “Thanks for the offer, but—would you believe it?—I left my parachute at home.”

Viv grinned. “He's a bit keen, that's all. You'd enjoy him.”

“No,” said Hazel carefully, “Mill Reef was a bit keen. Desert Orchid was a bit keen. Arkle was a positive slug by comparison. Maybe I'll get Pete to saddle Blossom for me sometime.”

“That old thing!” snorted Viv, tossing her dark brown hair as a horse tosses its mane. “Couldn't jump out of your way. Couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag.”

“My point entirely.” Hazel smiled.

Viv Byrfield gave in with a good grace. “I'm really here to see Pip. Just wanted to say hello to the old chap on my way in.”

As they walked toward the house, Hazel reflected on the paradox of the English nobility—or one of them—which was that someone like Lord Byrfield could trace every relative, every forefather (and -mother), every dotty aunt, disappointed cousin, and strategically married sister back to the Battle of Bosworth and still be not quite secure in his own identity. She decided it was something to do with the names. Guardians of the lineage gave their children names like Peregrine because they'd look good on the pedigree, not because they'd wear well on the child. They didn't even use them themselves—his mother called the current earl Pippin, his sisters called him Pip, friends called him Pete. No wonder he was never entirely sure who he was.

“I got this weird phone call from him a couple of hours ago,” confided Viv. “I don't suppose you know what it's about?”

Hazel played for time. “What did he say?”

“Just that something had happened and he needed me down here, ASAP. My first thought was Mother, but he said she's all right. He said he was all right, too, though I'm not sure I believed him.”

There were things Byrfield had said to Hazel that Hazel couldn't possibly pass on, not even to his sister. But there were other things that were a matter of public record, and if Viv knew about the grave they'd found, it might make it a little easier for Pete to open the conversation that was to come. Though God only knew how he was going to end it.

So she explained about the archaeological survey, the grassy mound between the woods and the lake, and what it turned out to be hiding. “So now Byrfield's in the middle of a police investigation. My friend and I just happened to be visiting my dad at the time. I imagine Pete's looking to you for moral support.”

Viv broke her mannish stride just long enough to give Hazel what used to be called an old-fashioned look. “Really? When you're here?”

Hazel shrugged that off without much thought. “Of course I want to help, any way I can. But when things get unpleasant, there's nothing quite like family.”

“That's true,” agreed Vivienne. “There's certainly nothing quite like mine.”

Ash, who seemed to have slipped into the role filled in earlier times by the butler, met them at the door. Hazel was introducing them, and about to ask where Byrfield was, when the answer preceded the question. Despite the immense solidity of the building, raised voices were making their way through the heavy doors and down the wide staircase. It was hard to make out words, impossible to follow the conversation, but when Hazel identified one as Byrfield's—she'd never heard him shout before—she knew at once both who the other was and what the subject of the argument must be.