Satisfied with Oliver’s attentions, Alfred flopped onto his belly in the shade. “He’s learning well,” Martin said. He’d grown up in the village and had worked first for Oliver’s grandparents, then for him. He was in his fifties now, as solitary in his own ways as Oliver was—or had been.
A puppy, Henrietta. Life was changing for them.
“I suppose,” Oliver said. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Tea.”
“Ruthie cooked too much. Help yourself.”
“Where’s Henrietta?”
“She’ll be along. She’s at Posey’s house. Deadheading, I think.”
The house was a short walk from the York farm. Posey Balfour had died last year in her nineties; she’d been a stalwart fixture in the Cotswolds hamlet for decades. Her older brother, Freddy, an MI5 legend, had owned a small farm adjoining her property. He’d died shortly before a pair of handymen had decided to murder Oliver’s parents and kidnap him. He remembered Freddy had liked opera and hated gardening, the latter as if to spite his sister, perhaps the keenest gardener in the village.
Oliver slathered butter on a triangle of granary toast. “Henrietta and I are meeting at the dovecote this morning for a walk.”
“Tell me what happened in London with Verity Blackwood,” Martin said.
As his personal assistant and irreplaceable right arm, Martin deserved to know more than Oliver sometimes shared with him. Did he deserve to know—need to know—about Graham and Verity Blackwood? No reason not to tell him, and Henrietta wouldn’t arrive for a bit.
Oliver sighed. “Let’s refill the kettle and have a chat, then.”
“Someone’s died.”
“Unfortunately, yes, but not Mrs. Blackwood, thankfully.”
Martin helped himself to toast and marmalade while Oliver told him everything he knew about the Blackwoods. As was Martin’s way, he listened without interruption. Oliver could tell his friend and assistant was absorbing every word of the sad, dreadful tale and processing the combined impact on the farm, Oliver’s schedule, the London apartment and probably a host of other things Oliver wouldn’t think of but mattered nonetheless.
Martin poured the last of the tea. “Is MI5 involved?” he asked once Oliver had finished.
“I imagine so.”
“Henrietta?”
Oliver arranged his features to make sure he concealed any emotions. “Do you still believe she’s with MI5?” he asked.
“She is.”
No hesitation. Another area of stubborn disagreement. Martin insisted he knew Oliver couldn’t—wouldn’t—acknowledge either Henrietta’s or his own involvement with the secretive intelligence service. “I don’t ask,” Oliver said.
“One can draw reliable conclusions from the facts at hand.”
“Or make assumptions that later come back to haunt one.”
A small smile. “That, too,” Martin said.
After breakfast, Martin didn’t join Oliver on the walk to the dovecote, instead staying with Alfred and whatever needed to be done at the farmhouse. There was always something. If Oliver had to manage on his own, he’d have to sell the place, hire another assistant—unimaginable—or live in a corner of the kitchen and lock up all the other rooms. And the London apartment? He supposed he could easily find help there, but two contract workers had murdered his parents in the library and kidnapped him to Scotland thirty years ago. Oliver had a low level of trust.
The small dovecote was constructed of the ubiquitous yellow stone that was the hallmark of twee Cotswolds villages. It was a gem on the edge of the farm, above a wooded hillside at the bottom of which ran a stream. Henrietta was fussing with dahlias she’d planted earlier in the summer, when she’d been a garden designer—a career transition that hadn’t held and, Oliver suspected, had never been full on. His heart jumped when he spotted her. He was damaged goods—a boy orphaned to violence he’d witnessed, traumatized by his own kidnapping, haunted by a sense of guilt and abandonment he never could explain...and now an MI5 informant or whatever he was, a former thief, a man who would like nothing better, at this moment, than to go for a walk with this woman he’d known since childhood and talk about sheep and wildflowers. But that wasn’t to be, at least not yet.
Henrietta strode up the lane, dressed in a long, flowered skirt, a tank top, a denim jacket and wellies that might have belonged to her departed aunt, given their battered state. She smiled that bright, energetic smile of hers. “Good morning, love.” She slung her arms over his shoulders and kissed him. “Sleep well?”
“Like a stone.” He held her close, relishing the smell of her sweat and almond soap. “More’s the pity since I could have done with a couple of hours of nighttime amusements. I had the energy.”
“Ah, is that so? You could have joined me in the garden. I’ve been at it since dawn. I’ve deadheaded, fertilized, snipped, plucked and yanked.”
“What I had in mind—”
“Similar pursuits in their own way, no doubt.”
He smiled dryly. “No snipping and such.”
She laughed in that way she had. “Posey’s place looks amazing. It’s in its full summer glory. As you must gather by now, unlike you, I didn’t sleep like a stone.” She eased onto a bench by the dovecote entrance. “Verity Blackwood is improving. She had a good night. Her doctors are still waiting to determine if she’s suffered any permanent damage.”
“Is she able to speak yet?”
“Not yet, at least not with the likes of us. Her medical situation is precarious.”
“I wonder how she’ll take her husband’s death.”
“I suppose it’ll depend on whether she had a hand in it.”
There was that. Oliver spotted a wilted blossom on the peach and yellow dahlias he and Henrietta had planted in the old terra-cotta pot she swore had belonged to his great-grandmother. He had his doubts, but he was positive the dahlia needed to go. Since Henrietta didn’t leap up in disapproval when he plucked it, he gathered he was right.
He tossed the wilted blossom into the grass. “Do you have any new information on how Verity got hold of the drugs she took?”
“Not yet. Pills, definitely, not an injection. I’m sure we’re right about the herb bottle.” Henrietta stretched out her long legs and took in the view of pasture and grazing sheep. “I went to bed early and awoke early, but it was good to work in Posey’s garden. I’m afraid I’ve neglected it. The things I don’t want growing are overtaking the things I do want. It’s a jumble. I’ll need to hire a gardener. Can you imagine? I’m a gardener.”
“A garden designer. Not quite the same, is it? You tell gardeners what to do.”
“I don’t know if I’m any good at it.”
“You’ve done wonders here on the farm.”
“It’s a start. There’s more to go.”
“There always is.” Oliver brushed bits of dahlia off his hands. “It would help if you weren’t also an MI5 officer.”
“So you say. I think I’ve spent far too much time this summer lazing around with you.”
“You wouldn’t trade a minute.”
She smiled, her eyes shining with happiness, at least what he hoped was happiness. He wasn’t always good at emotional cues. It could be simple lust. Whatever the complications and uncertainties of their relationship, there were no doubts when they were in bed. He was a bloody brilliant lover if he did say so. And Henrietta...
“Oliver?”
He jerked himself back into the moment and smiled at her. “You’re not torn, Henrietta, lazy summer and me aside. You’re MI5 through the bone. You’re just feeling guilty you’ve neglected your garden.”
“I still think of it as Aunt Posey’s garden. I miss her terribly.”
He nodded, solemn as he pictured old Posey in her later years. “Missing her is good, Henrietta. Imagine if you didn’t. What that
would mean about your relationship.”
She squinted up at him. “I used to think you were solitary because you had low self-esteem. One more thing I’ve been wrong about in recent months.”
“I like that you can admit you’re wrong. It’s not something I always see in you MI5 types.”
“I’m ignoring you.” She crossed her ankles, a chunk of mud dropping off the bottom of one wellie. “Verity cleared customs going to and from the US without any problem. As we suspected, she has no history of illegal drug use and no history of prescribed narcotics.”
“Have you ever taken a narcotic for pain?”
“Never. I’ve never had serious injury or surgery. I loaded up on whatever doctors would give me when my wisdom teeth were extracted. What a miserable experience that was. What about you?”
“Nothing.”
“No surgeries or serious injuries?”
“I wrenched my knee badly in Dallas a few years ago. I had to extend my stay, but I managed with RICE—rest, ice, compression and elevation.”
“Tripped helping yourself to a painting or two?”
Three lovely landscapes, actually. They’d been particularly tricky to return to the Dallas corporate offices where he’d lifted them. He’d managed that feat in early winter, not a bad time to be in Texas. He’d celebrated the paintings’ successful return with a stay at a five-star Dallas hotel. He wasn’t quite convinced Emma Sharpe hadn’t known he was in town, despite his fake passport and surreptitious help from MI5.
He smiled at Henrietta. “You know what they say in America. I’ll take the Fifth.”
“You got a decent look at the Fletcher Campbell painting at the Blackwoods’. It was signed, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. That’s how I knew it was his work. Why? It’s not his work?”
“Just checking,” Henrietta said. “They all paint or painted, you know, including Stefan Petrescu. Ophelia Campbell gave him lessons.”
Oliver leaned forward. Now this was interesting. “Anything there?”
“An affair, you mean? I suppose it’s possible.” She paused, her turquoise eyes darkening as she looked down at her hands. Thinking. Not her long suit. She was an all-in or all-out type and a woman of action. Finally, she looked up again. “What if Stefan could tell the Fletcher Campbell painting we saw was a forgery, or he had questions that would lead to it being discovered as a forgery? Who would care enough to kill him?”
“Sometimes caring isn’t rational. Graham could care because he’d look the fool. Verity could care because she could think her husband was trying to defraud her. Fletcher could care because it’s his work. A collector could care because a forgery could devalue not only that particular painting—obviously—but potentially other Fletcher Campbell paintings.”
Henrietta’s brow had furrowed as she listened. “Because one forgery would raise questions about other forgeries, or at least cause a ruckus and prompt other owners of his works to have them checked out. Time-consuming, expensive, embarrassing.”
“Have you ever bought original art by a well-known painter?”
“No, I could never see spending the money when a trip to IKEA would suit me.”
Oliver rolled his eyes. She probably was serious. He adjusted the dahlia pot to give himself something to do. He envisioned his grandmother out here. She’d been a keen gardener. It had been her idea to convert the dovecote into a potting shed—his idea, many years later, to add a secret stone-working studio. For a decade, he’d polished small stones he’d selected from the stream below the dovecote and inscribed them with miniature Saint Declan crosses. He’d sent one to Wendell Sharpe after each heist. Later, he’d sent them to his FBI-agent granddaughter and her mentor, Matt Yankowski.
A mad, frantic business that had been.
He crushed the lump of mud that had dropped off Henrietta’s boot under his shoe. “If the drugs Verity took were in her carry-on, tucked in the herb bottle, they went right through security and customs. Is that possible these days? I suppose she could have picked up the opioids or been given them here, but why would she take them before her meeting with Wendell? Why not wait until after they’d chatted?”
“To settle her nerves.” Henrietta stared out at the pasture, but Oliver doubted she was seeing the sheep and green grass under the sunny sky. “Verity might have been intimidated by Wendell’s reputation.”
“Or concerned about what she was telling or asking him and where his answers would lead her. Is he under suspicion?”
Henrietta shook her head. “I’m sure he’s not, but now with Graham dead in Maine, who knows? I was beginning to think Verity’s a garden-variety drug addict and we could bow out of this little drama.”
“She still could be, and Graham died supporting her habit.”
“Risky to stay behind in Maine for drugs, don’t you think?” Henrietta rose smoothly, adjusting her skirt. “Security would have taken a closer look at him even without his wife’s overdose. Easier for her to go home on schedule than for him to explain why he canceled his flight at the last minute and stayed on in Maine. He’d never have sailed through with a stash of drugs. I’m certain of that.” She examined the dahlias. “I hope slugs haven’t been at them.”
“I loathe slugs.”
“Well, they love dahlias.”
“I didn’t dare touch the leaves in case I did something wrong.”
“Oh, you won’t hurt anything.” She stood straight, her cheeks flushed. “Do you have contacts in your world who might be able to help us better understand the Blackwoods?”
His world? But Oliver knew what she meant. “I’m afraid not.”
Henrietta nodded thoughtfully. “Just the Sharpes, I suppose, and they’re in the thick of this thing. All of them. Wendell, Lucas, Emma.” She slipped her hand into his. “Shall we take a walk and let all this simmer for an hour?”
* * *
Their walk took them on one of the countless way-marked trails that crisscrossed the rolling hills and pastures of the Cotswolds. This one was mostly along lanes—no muddy footpaths—and very familiar to them since it happened to run through the York farm and wind its way to Henrietta’s house. They walked hand in hand but mostly in silence, distracted and preoccupied as they were by recent events. The smells of summer, the sounds of birds, sheep and stream, the beauty of lush pastures and midsummer gardens were soothingly familiar, but Oliver didn’t know if he’d arrived at any solutions when Henrietta left him at the table on her garden terrace. She disappeared inside to make tea and take a call.
Oliver watched a butterfly in the garden. He swore Posey Balfour haunted the small house she’d had built to her specifications. It was relatively new by village standards, and constructed of brick rather than locally quarried limestone. He supposed the brick could be local.
He blew out a breath. He felt helpless, useless and faintly annoyed. He had nothing to offer the Blackwood investigation—nothing to help his friends in New England find Tamara McDermott. Henrietta said she understood his mood but she, at least, had contacts, given her MI5 status.
He was relieved when he noticed Finian Bracken texted him. Can you please call me today?
Oliver immediately hit the number for his Irish friend in Maine.
Finian answered after several rings. “Oliver, dear God, it’s half five here.”
“You said to call.”
“I didn’t mean now. I’m getting ready for the day.”
“What does that entail for a priest, I wonder? Don’t answer. I prefer to maintain the mystery. Is it foggy in Rock Point? Bleak?”
“It’s a glorious morning. Where are you?”
“I’m in Henrietta’s garden watching bees hum in...something purple.”
He heard Finian’s soft laugh. “Bees are attracted to purple.”
“Good for them. Shall I hang up and call you later? Don’t tell me y
ou just got out of the shower. I’m glad I didn’t ring you on Skype or FaceTime.”
“Now is a fine time to talk. I just was surprised to hear from you so soon.”
“Well, then. What can I do for you, Father Bracken?”
“I’m worried about Wendell Sharpe. I know about the Blackwoods—the English couple.”
“Ah. So now we’re down to it. Have you spoken with Wendell?”
“He should be on his way to Dublin with Sean Murphy.”
“Not in handcuffs, I hope,” Oliver said. Sean Murphy was another law enforcement officer who wanted to arrest him.
“No, no. Wendell was in Declan’s Cross without a car.”
“Happily for other Irish drivers. He doesn’t know anything about Graham Blackwood’s death, does he?”
“I don’t believe so, no,” Finian said. “Aoife said he was melancholy.”
Ah. Aoife. Beautiful, talented, testy and in love with Father Bracken. Oliver settled back in his uncomfortable chair. “It can happen after one comes upon a young woman near death of a drug overdose. It’s such a waste. Did you meet the Blackwoods in Maine, Finian? Did they confess a dark secret and now you’re tortured about what you know?”
“That’s not it.” Finian sounded long-suffering, as if he’d expected Oliver to say something like that. “I didn’t meet them.”
“Are you positive?”
“Colin showed me photos of them last night.”
“My good friend Special Agent Donovan. Did you have chowder and whiskey at that crumbling restaurant on the harbor? I expect it to collapse into the tide any day.”
“There are safety checks, Oliver, and you love it here—and yes, that’s precisely what we did.”
“I suppose Rock Point would have a certain appeal for tourists who like to get a taste of real Maine life. I doubt the Blackwoods are that type.” Oliver kept his tone amiable. “Henrietta’s making tea.” He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d had her garden bugged, but he’d decided to keep that opinion to himself. “Anything else on your mind, my friend? One does worry about Wendell. It’s natural, I suppose.”
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