A Place of Hiding

by Elizabeth George

  “No,” she said. “Wrong. We did not know that. We suspected. And based upon that suspicion, you asked me to take the ring. But if it was so crucial that the police get their hands on it in the next breath—if the ring was so obviously critical—you damn well might've brought it into town yourself instead of swanning round wherever you decided to swan, which was obviously more important to you than the ring in the first place.”

  St. James heard all this with rising irritation. “And you know damn well I was talking to Ruth Brouard. Considering she's the sister of the murder victim, considering that she asked to see me, as you well know, I'd say we have something that was marginally important for me to attend to at Le Reposoir.”

  “Right. Of course. While what I was attending to has the value of dust motes.”

  “What you were supposed to be attending to—”

  “Don't harp on about that!” Her voice rose to a screech. She seemed to hear it herself, for when she went on, she spoke more quietly although with no less anger. “What I was attending to”—she gave the verb the auditory equivalent of a sneer—“was this. China wrote it. She thought you might find it useful.” She rooted through her shoulder bag a second time and brought forth a legal pad folded in half. “I also found out about the ring,” she went on with a studied courtesy that was as meaningful as the sneer. “Which I'll tell you about if you think the information might be important enough, Simon.”

  St. James took the legal pad from her. He ran his gaze over it to see the dates, the times, the places, and the descriptions, all written in what he presumed was China River's hand.

  Deborah said, “She wanted you to have it. As a matter of fact, she asked that you have it. She also bought the ring.”

  He looked up from the document. “What?”

  “I think you heard me. The ring or one like it . . . China bought it in a shop in Mill Street. Cherokee and I tracked it down. Then we asked her about it. She admitted she bought it to send to her boyfriend. Her ex. Matt.”

  Deborah told him the rest. She delivered the information formally: the antiques shops, the Potters, what China had done with the ring, the possibility of another like it having come from the Talbot Valley. She concluded with “Cherokee says he saw the collection himself. And a boy called Paul Fielder was with him.”

  “Cherokee?” St. James asked sharply. “He was there when you tracked down the ring?”

  “I believe I said that.”

  “So he knows everything about it?”

  “I think he has the right.”

  St. James cursed in silence: himself, her, the whole situation, the fact that he'd involved himself in it for reasons he didn't want to consider. Deborah wasn't stupid, but she was clearly in over her head. To tell her this would escalate the difficulty between them. Not to tell her—in some way, diplomatically or otherwise—ran the risk of jeopardising the entire investigation. He had no choice.

  “That wasn't wise, Deborah.”

  She heard his tone. Her reply was sharp. “Why?”

  “I wish you'd told me in advance.”

  “Told you what?”

  “That you intended to reveal—”

  “I didn't reveal—”

  “You said he was there when you tracked the source of the ring, didn't you?”

  “He wanted to help. He's worried. He feels responsible because he was the one who wanted to make this trip and now his sister's likely to stand trial for murder. When I left China, he looked like . . . He's suffering with her. For her. He wanted to help, and I didn't see the harm in letting him.”

  “He's a suspect, Deborah, as well as his sister. If she didn't kill Brouard, someone else did. He's one of the people who were on the property.”

  “You can't be thinking . . . He didn't . . . Oh, for God's sake! He came to London. He came to see us. He went to the embassy. He agreed to see Tommy. He's desperate for someone to prove China innocent. Do you honestly think he'd do all that—do any of that—if he was the killer? Why?”

  “I have no answer for that.”

  “Ah. Yes. But you still insist—”

  “I do have this, though,” he interrupted. He hated himself even as he allowed the bitter rush of pleasure to wash through him: He'd cornered her and now he had the blow to defeat her, to establish exactly who was in the right and who in the wrong. He told her about the paperwork he'd delivered to Le Gallez and what that paperwork revealed about where Guy Brouard had been on a trip to America that his own sister hadn't known he'd taken. It didn't matter to St. James that, during his discussion with Le Gallez, he'd argued the very opposite of what he was now telling his wife about the potential connection between Brouard's trip to California and Cherokee River. What did matter was that he impress upon her his own supremacy in matters that touched upon murder. Hers was the world of photography, his words suggested: celluloid images manipulated in a darkroom. His, on the other hand, was the world of science, the world of fact. Photography, however, was another word for fiction. She needed to keep all that in mind the next time she decided to forge a path he knew nothing about.

  At the conclusion of his remarks, she said, “I see,” and her posture was stiff. “Then I'm sorry about the ring.”

  “I'm sure you did what you thought was right,” St. James told her, feeling all the magnanimity of a husband who's reestablished his rightful place in his marriage. “I'll take it over to Le Gallez right now and explain what happened.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I'll go with you if you like. I'm happy to make the explanation, Simon.”

  He was gratified by the offer and what it revealed about her realisation of wrongdoing. “That's really not necessary,” he told her kindly. “I'll handle it, my love.”

  “Are you sure you want to?” The question was arch.

  He should have known what her tone meant, but he failed miserably, saying, instead, like the fool who thinks he can ever better a woman at anything, “I'm happy to do it, Deborah.”

  “Funny, that. I wouldn't have thought.”

  “What?”

  “That you'd forgo the opportunity to see Le Gallez put the thumbscrews on me. Such a fun sight. I'm surprised you want to miss it.”

  She gave a bitter smile and pushed past him abruptly. She hurried back up the path in the direction of the street.

  DCI Le Gallez was climbing into his car in the police station's courtyard when St. James came through the gates. The rain had begun to fall once again as Deborah left him in the sunken garden, and although in his haste he'd departed the hotel without an umbrella, he didn't follow Deborah in order to pick one up from reception. Following Deborah at that point seemed like an act of importuning her. As he had nothing to importune her for, he didn't want to give the appearance of doing so.

  She was behaving outrageously. It was true that she'd managed to collect some information that could prove valuable: Discovering where the ring had come from saved everyone time, and managing to uncover a potential secondary origin of the ring provided ammunition that could shake the local police from their belief in China River's guilt. But that didn't excuse the stealthy and dishonest manner in which she'd gone about her private investigation. If she was going to set off on a path of her own devising, she needed to tell him first so that he didn't end up looking every which way the perfect fool in front of the lead officer in the case. And no matter what she'd done, what she'd discovered, and what she'd gathered from China River, there remained the fact that she'd shared with the woman's brother a score of valuable details. She'd had to be made to see the utter foolishness of such an action.

  End of story, St. James thought. He'd done what he had the right and the obligation to do. Still, he didn't want to follow in her wake. He told himself he'd give her time to cool off and to reflect. A little rain wouldn't hurt him in the cause of her education.

  In the grounds of the police station, Le Gallez saw him and paused, the door of his Escort hanging open. Two identical infant safety seats were strapped in the bac
k seat of the car, empty. “Twins,” Le Gallez said abruptly when St. James glanced at them. “Eight months old.” As if these admissions accidentally indicated a fellowship with St. James that he did not feel, he went on. “Where is it?”

  “I have it.” St. James added everything that Deborah had told him about the ring and finished with “China River doesn't recall where she last put it. She says if this ring isn't actually the one she bought, you'll have hers already among the rest of her belongings.”

  Le Gallez didn't ask to see the ring at once. Instead, he slammed the door of his car, said “Come with me, then,” and went back inside the station.

  St. James followed. Le Gallez led the way upstairs to a cramped room that appeared to do service as the forensic laboratory. Black-and-white photographs of footprints hung on drooping strings against one wall, and the simple equipment to lift latent fingerprints with cyanoacrylate fuming stood beneath them. Beyond this, a door marked darkroom burned a red light, indicating it was in use. Le Gallez pounded three times upon this, barked “Prints, McQuinn,” and “Let's have it,” to St. James.

  St. James handed over the ring. Le Gallez did the necessary paperwork on it. McQuinn emerged from the darkroom as the DCI signed his name, adding a flourish of dots beneath it. In short order, what went for the full strength of the island's forensic department was applied to the evidence from the bay where Guy Brouard had perished.

  Le Gallez left McQuinn to his glue fumes. He next led the way to the evidence room. From the officer in charge there, he demanded the documents listing China River's belongings. He looked through them and reported what St. James had already begun to suspect would be the case: There was no ring among anything the police had already taken from China River.

  Le Gallez, St. James thought, should have been greatly satisfied by this. The information, after all, put yet another nail into China River's fast-closing coffin. But instead of gratification, the DCI's face appeared to reflect annoyance. He looked as if a piece to the puzzle that he'd thought would take one shape had taken another.

  Le Gallez eyed him. He examined the list of evidence another time. The evidence officer said, “It's just not there, Lou. Wasn't earlier, isn't now. I had a second look through everything. It's all straightforward. Nothing applies.”

  St. James understood from this that Le Gallez wasn't looking for a ring alone in his examination of the paperwork. The DCI obviously had come up with something else, something he hadn't revealed at their earlier meeting. He studied St. James as if considering how much he wished to tell him. He breathed the word “Damn,” and then said, “Come with me.”

  They went to his office, where he swung the door shut and indicated a chair he wanted St. James to use. He himself pulled out his own desk chair and plopped into it, rubbing his forehead and reaching for a phone. He punched in a few numbers, and when someone on the other end answered, he said, “Le Gallez. Anything? . . . Hell. Keep looking, then. Perimeter. Fingertip. Whatever it takes . . . I bloody well know how many people've had the chance to mess things about there, Rosumek. Believe it or not, being able to count is one of the qualifications for my rank. Get on with it.” He dropped the phone.

  “You're doing a search?” St. James asked. “Where? At Le Reposoir?” He didn't wait for confirmation. “But you would've been calling it off just now if that ring was what you were looking for.” He pondered this point, saw there was only one conclusion he could draw from it, and said, “You've had a report from England, I expect. Do the post-mortem details prompt a search?”

  “You're nobody's fool, are you?” Le Gallez reached for a folder and took out several sheets that were stapled together. He didn't refer to them as he brought St. James into the picture. “Toxicology,” he said.

  “Something unexpected in the blood?”

  “Opiate.”

  “At the time of death? So what are they saying? He was unconscious when he choked?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “But that can only mean—”

  “That the over isn't over.” Le Gallez didn't sound pleased. There was little wonder in that. Because of this new information, in order to tie things together, either the victim himself or the police's number-one suspect in his murder now needed to be linked to opium or to any of its derivatives. If that couldn't be made to happen, Le Gallez's case against China River shattered like an egg dropped on stone.

  “What are your sources of it?” St. James asked. “Any chance he was a user?”

  “Shooting up before he went for a swim? Making early-morning visits to the local dope den? Not likely unless he wanted to drown.”

  “No track marks on his arms?”

  Le Gallez shot him a do-you-think-we-are-complete-fools look.

  “What about residue in the blood from the previous night? You're right—it doesn't make sense he'd use a narcotic before swimming.”

  “It doesn't make sense he'd use at all.”

  “Then someone drugged him that morning? How?”

  Le Gallez looked uncomfortable. He thrust the paperwork back onto his desk. He said, “The man choked on that stone. No matter what was in his blood, he died the same bloody way. He choked on that stone. Let's not forget it.”

  “But at least we can see how the stone came to be lodged in his throat. If he'd been drugged, if he'd lost consciousness, how difficult would it be to shove a stone down his throat and allow him to suffocate? The only question would be how he came to be drugged. He wouldn't have sat by and allowed an injection. Was he diabetic? A substitution made for his insulin? No? Then he had to have . . . what? Drunk it in a solution?” St. James saw Le Gallez's eyes tighten marginally. He said to the DCI, “You think he did drink it, then,” and he realised why the detective was suddenly being so amenable to St. James's having new information despite the difficulty caused by Deborah's failure to bring the ring immediately to the station. It was a form of quid pro quo: an unspoken apology for insult and loss of temper given in exchange for St. James's willingness to refrain from dragging Le Gallez's investigation over the metaphorical coals. Considering this, St. James said slowly as he reflected on what he knew of the case, “You must have ignored something at the scene, something innocent looking.”

  “We didn't ignore it,” Le Gallez said. “It got tested along with everything else.”

  “What?”

  “Brouard's Thermos. His daily dose of ginkgo and green tea. He drank it every morning after his swim.”

  “On the beach, you mean?”

  “On the bloody effing beach. Quite the fanatic about his daily dose of ginkgo and green, matter of fact. The drug has to've been mixed with it.”

  “But there was no trace when you tested it?”

  “Salt water. We reckoned Brouard rinsed it out.”

  “Someone certainly did. Who found the body?”

  “Duffy. He goes down to the bay because Brouard's not returned to the house and the sister's phoned to see if he's stopped at the cottage for a cuppa. He finds him laid out cold as a fish and he comes back on the run to phone emergency because it looks like a heart attack to him and why wouldn't it? Brouard's nearly seventy years old.”

  “So in the coming and going, Duffy could have rinsed the Thermos.”

  “Could have done, yes. But if he killed Brouard, he either did it with his wife as an accomplice or with her knowledge, and in either case that makes her the best liar I've come across. She says he was upstairs and she was in the kitchen when Brouard went for his swim. He—Duffy—never left the house, she says, till he went searching for Brouard down the bay. I believe her.”

  St. James glanced at the phone then, and considered the call Le Gallez had made with its allusions of an ongoing search. “So if you're not looking for how he was drugged that morning—if you've decided the drug came from the Thermos—you must be looking for what held the opiate till it was used, something it might have been put in to convey it onto the estate.”

  “If it was in the tea,” Le Gallez sai
d, “and I can't think where else it could have been, that suggests a liquid form. Or a soluble powder.”

  “Which in turn suggests a bottle, a vial, a container of some sort . . . with fingerprints on it, one would hope.”

  “Which could be anywhere,” Le Gallez acknowledged.

  St. James saw the difficulty that the DCI was in: not only an enormous estate to search but also a cast of hundreds to suspect now, since the night before Guy Brouard's death Le Reposoir had been peopled by partygoers, any one of whom might have come to the celebration with murder in mind. For despite the presence of China River's hair on Guy Brouard's body, despite the image of an early-morning stalker in China River's cape, and despite the misplaced skull-and-crossed-bones ring on the beach—a ring purchased by China River herself—the opiate ingested by Guy Brouard shouted a tale that Le Gallez would now be forced to hear.

  He wouldn't much like the predicament he was in, though: Until this moment, his evidence suggested China River was the killer, but the presence of the narcotic in Brouard's blood showed a premeditation that was in direct conflict with the fact that she'd met Brouard only upon coming to the island.

  “If the River woman did it,” St. James said, “she would have had to bring the narcotic with her from the States, wouldn't she? She couldn't have hoped to find it here on Guernsey. She wouldn't have known what the place was like: how big the town, where to make the score. And even if it was her hope to get a drug here and she brought it off by asking round St. Peter Port till she found it, the question still remains, doesn't it? Why did she do it?”

  “There's nothing among her belongings that she could have used to transport it in,” Le Gallez said as if St. James had not just brought up an extremely cogent point. “No bottle, jar, vial. Nothing. That suggests she tossed it out. If we find it—when we find it—there'll be residue. Or fingerprints. Even one. No one allows for every possibility when they kill. They think they will. But killing doesn't come naturally to people if they're not psychopaths, so they get unhinged when they bring it off and they forget. One detail. Somewhere.”