A Place of Hiding

by Elizabeth George

  Her exchange with Margaret had been blessedly and surprisingly brief. “I'll deal with the rest of this mess later on,” her sister-in-law had asserted, wearing the expression of a woman in the presence of rancid meat, her body stiff with outrage. “As for now, I want to know who the hell they are.”

  Ruth knew Margaret was referring to the two beneficiaries of Guy's will other than his children. She gave Margaret the information she wanted and watched her sweep from the room to engage in what Ruth knew very well was going to be a most dubious battle.

  This left Ruth with the others. Frank Ouseley had been surprisingly easy. When she approached him to stumble through an embarrassed explanation, saying surely something could be done about the situation because Guy had made his feelings quite clear with respect to the wartime museum, Frank had said in reply, “Don't trouble yourself about this, Ruth,” and had bade her goodbye without the slightest degree of rancour. He would be disappointed enough, though, considering the time and effort that he and Guy had put into the island project, so before he could leave she told him that he wasn't to think the situation was hopeless, that she herself felt sure that something could be done to bring his dreams to reality. Guy had known how much the project meant to Frank and he'd surely intended . . . But she couldn't say more. She couldn't betray her brother and his wishes because she didn't yet understand what he'd done or why he had done it.

  Frank had taken her hand into both of his, saying, “There'll be time to think about all this later. Don't worry about it now.”

  Then he'd gone, leaving her to deal with Anaïs next.

  Shell shocked popped into Ruth's mind when she was at last alone with her brother's lover. Anaïs sat numbly on the same love seat she'd taken during Dominic Forrest's explanation of the will, her posture unchanging and the only difference being that she sat there now alone. Poor Jemima had been so eager to be dismissed that when Ruth murmured, “Perhaps you might find Stephen somewhere in the grounds, dear . . . ?” she'd caught one of her great large feet on the edge of an ottoman and nearly knocked over a small table in her haste to be gone. This haste was understandable. Jemima knew her mother quite well and was probably foreseeing what was going to be asked of her in the way of filial devotion in the next few weeks. Anaïs would require both a confidante and a scapegoat. Time would tell which role she would decide her gangling daughter was going to play.

  So now Ruth and Anaïs were alone and Anaïs sat plucking the edge of a small cushion from the love seat. Ruth didn't know what to say to her. Her brother had been a good and generous man despite his foibles, and he'd earlier remembered Anaïs Abbott and her children in his will in a fashion that would have relieved her anxiety enormously. Indeed, that had long been Guy's way with his women. Each time he took a new lover for any period longer than three months, he altered his will to reflect the extent to which he and she were devoted to each other. Ruth knew this because Guy had always of necessity shared the contents of his wills with her. With the exception of this most current and final document, Ruth had read each one of them in the presence of Guy and his advocate because Guy had always wanted to be certain that Ruth understood how he meant his money to be distributed.

  The last will Ruth had read had been drawn up some six months into her brother's relationship with Anaïs Abbott, shortly after the two of them had returned from Sardinia, where they'd apparently done very little more than explore all the permutations of what a man and woman could do to each other with their respective body parts. Guy had returned glaze-eyed from that trip, saying, “She's the one, Ruth,” and his will had reflected this optimistic belief. Ruth had asked Anaïs to be present for that reason and she could see by the expression on her face that Anaïs believed Ruth had done so out of malice.

  Ruth didn't know which would be worse at the moment: allowing Anaïs to believe that she harboured such a desire to wound her that she would allow all her hopes to be dashed in a public forum or telling her that there had been an earlier will in which the four hundred thousand pounds left to her would have been the answer to her current dilemma. It had to be the first alternative, Ruth decided. For although she didn't actually want to be the recipient of anyone's antipathy, telling Anaïs about the earlier will would likely result in having to talk about why it had been altered.

  Ruth lowered herself to the seat. She murmured, “Anaïs, I'm terribly sorry. I don't know what else to say.”

  Anaïs turned her head like a woman slowly regaining consciousness. She said, “If he wanted to leave his money to teenagers, why not mine? Jemima. Stephen. Did he only pretend . . . ?” She clutched the cushion to her stomach. “Why did he do this to me, Ruth?”

  Ruth didn't know how to explain. Anaïs was devastated enough at the moment. It seemed inhuman to devastate her more. She said, “I think it had to do with Guy's having lost his own children, my dear. To their mothers. Because of the divorces. I think he looked at these others as a way of being a father once again when he couldn't any longer be a father to his own.”

  “And mine weren't enough for him?” Anaïs demanded. “My own Jemima? My Stephen? They were less important? So inconsequential that two virtual strangers—”

  “Not to Guy,” Ruth corrected her. “He's known Paul Fielder and Cynthia Moullin for years.” Longer than you, longer than your children, she wanted to add but did not because she needed this conversation to end before it reached ground she couldn't bear to cover. She said, “You know about GAYT, Anaïs. You know how committed Guy was to being a mentor.”

  “So they insinuated themselves into his life, didn't they? Always with the hope . . . They got introduced and they came here and had a good look round and knew if they played their cards just so, there was a chance he'd leave them something. That's it. That's what happened. That's it.” She threw the cushion to one side.

  Ruth listened and watched. She marveled at Anaïs's capacity for self-delusion. She felt inclined to say And that's not what you yourself were up to, my dear? Were you instead attaching yourself to a man nearly twenty-five years your senior out of blind devotion? I don't think so, Anaïs. Instead, she said, “I think he was confident that Jemima and Stephen would do well in life under your wing. But the other two . . . They didn't have the same advantages your children have been blessed with. He wanted to help them out.”

  “And me? What did he intend for me?”

  Ah, Ruth thought. Now we've arrived at the real point. But she had no answer that she was willing to give to Anaïs's question. All she said was “I'm so sorry, my dear.”

  To which Anaïs replied, “Oh, I expect you are.” She glanced round her as if she'd come fully awake, taking in her environment as if seeing it for the very first time. She gathered her belongings and rose. She headed towards the door. But there she paused and turned back to Ruth. “He made promises,” she said. “He told me things, Ruth. Did he lie to me?”

  Ruth replied with the only fact that felt safe to give the other woman. “I never knew my brother to lie.”

  And he never had done, not once, not to her. Sois forte, he had told her. Ne crains rien. Je reviendrai te chercher, petite soeur. And he'd been as good as that simple promise: returning to find her in care, where she'd been deposited by a harried country to whom two refugee children from France meant only two more mouths to feed, two more homes to find, two more futures dependent upon the appearance of two grateful parents who would come to fetch them. When those parents hadn't shown up and the great enormity of what had occurred in the camps became widespread knowledge, Guy himself had come. He had sworn fiercely beyond his own terror that cela n'a d'importance, d'ailleurs rien n'a d'importance to mitigate her fears. He'd spent his life proving that they could survive parentless—even friendless if necessary—in a land they had not claimed for themselves but one that had been thrust upon them. So Ruth did not see and had never seen her brother as a liar, despite knowing that he had to have been one, had to have created a virtual web of deceit in order to betray two wives and a score of lo
vers as he'd moved from woman to woman.

  When Anaïs left her, Ruth considered these points. She pondered them in light of Guy's activities in the last several months. She realised that if he'd lied to her even by omission—as was the case with a new will she'd known nothing about—he could have lied about other things as well.

  She rose and went to Guy's study.

  Chapter 11

  “AND ARE YOU QUITE certain of what you saw that morning?” St. James asked. “What time was it when she passed the cottage?”

  “Shortly before seven,” Valerie Duffy replied.

  “Not fully light, then.”

  “No. But I'd gone to the window.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Cup of tea in the morning. Kevin not down yet. Radio on. I was just standing there, organising the day in my head, the way people do.”

  They were in the sitting room of the Duffys' cottage, where Valerie had ushered them as Kevin disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes to put on the kettle for a cup of tea. There they sat beneath the low ceiling until his return, amid shelves of photo albums, oversize art books, and every video made by Sister Wendy. It would have put a strain on the room to contain four people in the best of circumstances. With additional books piled on the floor and several stacks of cardboard boxes along the walls—not to mention the scores of family pictures everywhere—the human presence was overwhelming. As was the proof—if any were required—of Kevin Duffy's surprising education. One wouldn't expect a groundskeeper-handyman to have an advanced degree in art history, and perhaps that was why in addition to family photos, the walls also held Kevin's framed university degrees and several portraits of the graduate much younger and sans wife.

  “Kev had parents who believed the purpose of education is education,” Valerie had said as if in answer to an obvious and unasked question. “They didn't believe it necessarily had to lead to a job.”

  Neither of the Duffys had questioned St. James's advent or his right to make enquiries about the death of Guy Brouard. After he'd explained his profession to them and handed over his card for their perusal, they'd been willing enough to talk to him. They also didn't question why he'd come with his wife, and St. James said nothing to indicate that the accused murderer was well known to Deborah.

  Valerie told them that she generally rose at six-thirty in the morning in order to see to Kevin's breakfast before heading over to the manor house to prepare the Brouards' meal. Mr. Brouard, she explained, liked to have a hot breakfast when he got back from the bay, so on this particular morning, she was up as usual despite the late night that had preceded it. Mr. Brouard had indicated he'd be swimming as he always did, and as good as his word, he passed by the window while she stood there with her tea. Not a half minute later, she saw a dark-cloaked figure follow him.

  Did this cloak possess a hood? St. James wanted to know.

  It did.

  And was the hood up or down?

  It was up, Valerie Duffy told him. But that hadn't prevented her from seeing the face of the person who wore it, because she passed quite near to the shaft of light that came from the window and that made it easy to see her.

  “It was the American lady,” Valerie said. “I'm sure of that. I got a glimpse of her hair.”

  “No one else relatively the same size?” St. James asked.

  No one else, Valerie asserted.

  “No one else blonde?” Deborah put in.

  Valerie assured them she'd seen China River. And this was no surprise, she told them. China River had been thick enough with Mr. Brouard during her stay at Le Reposoir. Mr. Brouard was always charming to the ladies, of course, but even by his standards things had developed rapidly with the American woman.

  St. James saw his wife frown at this, and he himself felt wary about taking Valerie Duffy at her word. There was something about the ease of her answers that was discomfiting. There was something more that couldn't be ignored in the manner in which she avoided looking at her husband.

  Deborah was the one to say politely, “Did you happen to see any of this, Mr. Duffy?”

  Kevin Duffy was standing in silence in the shadows. He leaned against one of the bookshelves with his tie loosened and his swarthy face unreadable. “Val's generally up before I am in the morning,” he said shortly.

  By which, St. James supposed, they were to take it that he had seen nothing at all. Nonetheless, he said, “And on this particular day?”

  “Same as always,” Kevin Duffy replied.

  Deborah said, “Thick enough in what way?” to Valerie, and when the other woman looked at her blankly, she clarified. “You said China River and Mr. Brouard were thick enough? I was wondering in what way.”

  “They went out and about. She quite liked the estate and wanted to photograph it. He wanted to watch. And then there was the rest of the island. He was keen to show her round.”

  “What about her brother?” Deborah asked. “Didn't he go with them?”

  “Sometimes he did, other times he just hung about here. Or went off on his own. She seemed to like it that way, the American lady. It made things just the two of them. Her and Mr. Brouard. But that's no real surprise. He was good with women.”

  “Mr. Brouard was already involved, though, wasn't he?” Deborah asked. “With Mrs. Abbott?”

  “He was always involved somewhere and not always for long. Mrs. Abbott was just his latest. Then the American came along.”

  “Anyone else?” St. James asked.

  For some reason the very air seemed to stiffen momentarily at this question. Kevin Duffy shifted on his feet, and Valerie smoothed her skirt in a deliberate movement. She said, “No one as far as I know.”

  St. James and Deborah exchanged a look. St. James saw on his wife's face the recognition of another direction their enquiry needed to take, and he didn't disagree. However, the fact that here before them was yet another witness to China River's following Guy Brouard towards the Channel—and a far better witness than Ruth Brouard, considering the inconsequential distance between the cottage and the path to the bay—was something that couldn't be ignored.

  He said to Valerie, “Have you told DCI Le Gallez about any of this?”

  “I've told him all of it.”

  St. James wondered what, if anything, it meant that neither Le Gallez nor China River's advocate had passed the information on to him. He said, “We've come across something that you might be able to identify,” and he removed from his pocket the handkerchief in which he'd wrapped the ring that Deborah had plucked from among the boulders. He unfolded the linen and offered the ring first to Valerie and then to Kevin Duffy. Neither reacted to the sight of it.

  “It looks like something from the war, that,” Kevin Duffy said. “From the Occupation. Some sort of Nazi ring, I expect. Skull and crossed bones. I've seen 'em before.”

  “Rings like this one?” Deborah asked.

  “I meant the skull and crossed bones,” Kevin replied. He shot his wife a look. “D'you know anyone who has one, Val?”

  She shook her head as she studied the ring where it lay in St. James's palm. “It's a memento, isn't it,” she said to her husband, and then to St. James or Deborah, “There's ever so much of that sort of thing round the island. It could've come from anywhere.”

  “Such as?” St. James asked.

  “Military antiques shop, for one,” Valerie said. “Someone's private collection, perhaps.”

  “Or some yob's hand,” Kevin Duffy pointed out. “The skull and crossed bones? Just the bit a National Front yobbo might like to show off to his mates. Make him feel the real man, you know. But it's a bit too big and when he's not aware, it falls off.”

  “Anywhere else it might have come from?” St. James asked.

  The Duffys considered this. Another look passed between them. Valerie was the one to say slowly and as if with some thought, “No place at all that I can think of.”

  Frank Ouseley felt an asthma attack coming on the moment he swung his ca
r into Fort Road. This was no great distance from Le Reposoir, and as he'd actually been exposed to nothing that might have bothered his bronchial tubes on the route, he had to conclude he was reacting in advance to the conversation he was about to have.

  This wasn't even a necessary dialogue. How Guy Brouard had intended his money to be distributed in the event of his death wasn't Frank's responsibility, as Guy had never sought his advice in the matter. So he didn't actually have to be the bearer of bad tidings to anyone since in a few days the whole of the will would undoubtedly become public knowledge, island gossip being island gossip. But he still felt a loyalty that had its roots in his years as a teacher. He wasn't enthusiastic about doing what needed to be done, however, which was what his tightening chest was telling him.

  When he pulled up to the house on Fort Road, he took his inhaler from the glove compartment and used it. He waited for a moment till the tightness eased and during this moment he saw that on the middle of the green across the street from where he sat, a tall thin man and two small boys were kicking a football round the grass. Not one of them was very good at it.

  Frank climbed out of the car into a light cold wind. He struggled into his overcoat and then crossed over to the green. The trees that edged its far side were quite bare of leaves in this higher, more exposed spot on the island. Against the grey sky their branches moved like the arms of supplicants, and birds huddled in them as if watching the ball players down below.

  Frank tried to prepare his opening remarks as he approached Bertrand Debiere and his sons. Nobby didn't see him at first, which was just as well, because Frank knew that his face was probably communicating what his tongue was reluctant to reveal.

  The two little boys were crowing with pleasure at having their father's undivided attention. Nobby's face, so often pinched with anxiety, was momentarily relaxed as he played with them, kicking the ball gently in their direction and calling out encouragement as they tried to kick it back. The elder boy, Frank knew, was six years old and would be tall like his father and probably as ungainly. The younger was only four and joyful, running about in circles and flapping his arms when the ball was directed towards his brother. They were called Bertrand Junior and Norman, probably not the best names for boys in this day and age, but they wouldn't be aware of that till they learned it at school and started praying for nicknames that signaled more acceptance than that which their father had received at the hands of his own schoolmates.