A Place of Hiding

by Elizabeth George

  “I was looking for Baby Ruths or Butterfingers.” China patted her capacious shoulder bag in which she'd apparently stowed the sweets. “Those're his favourites. But they don't have them anywhere, so I got him what I could. I'm hoping they'll let me see him.”

  They hadn't done on her first visit to Hospital Lane, China told her. She'd gone directly to the police station when she'd left Deborah and her husband earlier, but she'd been refused access to her brother. During a suspect's interrogation period, she'd been told, they allowed only his advocate inside to see him. She should have known this, naturally, having been held for questioning herself. She'd phoned Holberry. He'd said he would do what he could to make arrangements for her to see her brother, which was what had led her to go out and about looking for the chocolate bars. She was on her way to deliver them. She glanced towards the plaza and the junction of streets a short distance above them. “Want to come with?”

  Deborah said that she did. So they walked together to the police station, a mere two minutes from the point at which they'd met.

  At the reception counter, they learned from an unfriendly special constable that Miss River would not be allowed to see her brother. When China said that Roger Holberry had made specific arrangements for her to be admitted, the special informed her that he personally knew nothing about anything from Roger Holberry, so if the ladies didn't mind, he'd be getting on with his work.

  “Call the guy in charge,” China told him. “The investigator. Le Gallez. Holberry probably got in touch with him. He said he'd make arrangements . . . Look. I'd just like to see my brother, okay?”

  The man was immovable. If arrangements had been made, he informed China, by Roger Holberry via anyone, then that person—be it DCI Le Gallez or the Queen of Sheba—would have made certain that reception had access to that information. Barring that occurrence, no one save the suspect's advocate was allowed inside to see him.

  “But Holberry is his advocate,” China protested.

  The man smiled in perfect unfriendliness. “I don't see him with you,” he replied, making much of looking over her shoulder.

  China began to make a hot remark which started with “Listen, you little—” when Deborah intervened. She said calmly to the special, “Perhaps you can just take some sweets to Mr. River . . . ?” at which point China said abruptly, “Forget it,” and stalked out of the station, her delivery unmade.

  In the courtyard that served as the car park, Deborah found her sitting on the edge of a planter, savagely tearing at the shrubbery it held. As Deborah approached, China said, “Bastards. What d'they think I'm going to do? Break him out?”

  “Perhaps we can get through to Le Gallez ourselves.”

  “I'm sure he'd be thrilled to give us a break.” China threw her handful of leaves to the ground.

  “Did you ask the advocate how he's coping?”

  “‘As well as can be expected, considering the circumstances,' ” China replied. “Which was supposed to make me feel better but which could mean anything, and don't I know it. There's jack shit in those cells, Deborah. Bare walls, bare floor, a wooden bench that they'll only too cooperatively make up into a bed if you're forced to be there overnight. A stainless steel toilet. A stainless steel sink. And that big blue immovable door. Not a magazine in sight, not a book, not a poster, not a radio, not a crossword puzzle, not a deck of cards. It'll make him nuts. He's not prepared . . . he isn't the type . . . God. I was so glad to get out. I couldn't breathe in there. Even the prison was better. And no way can he . . .” She seemed to force herself to slow down. “I need to get Mom over here. He'd want her here, and if I do that much, I can feel less guilty about being relieved that someone else is inside and I'm not. Jesus. What does that make me?”

  “Feeling relieved to be out is human nature,” Deborah said.

  “If I could just get in to see him, to find out he's okay.”

  She stirred on the planter's edge and Deborah thought she intended to attack the fortress of the police station another time. But Deborah knew it would be useless, so she stood. “Let's walk.”

  She headed back the way they'd come, dipping to the far side of the war memorial and taking the direct route to the Queen Margaret Apartments. Too late Deborah realised that this route would curve directly in front of the Royal Court House, at whose steps China hesitated, gazing up at the imposing front of the building that housed all the legal machinery of the island. High above it flew Guernsey's flag, three lions on red, snapping in the breeze.

  Before Deborah could suggest that they move on, China was climbing the steps to the front doors of the building. She went inside, so there was nothing for Deborah to do but to follow, which she hurriedly did.

  She found China in the lobby, consulting a directory. When joined, she said, “You don't have to stay with me. I'll be okay. Simon's probably waiting for you anyway.”

  “I want to stay with you,” Deborah said. “China, it's going to be all right.”

  China said, “Is it.” She strode across the lobby, past the doors of wood and translucent glass on which were printed the various departments to be found within. She headed for a dramatic stairway that climbed past an oak wall holding the gilt-painted names of old island families, and on the floor above the entry she found what she was apparently looking for: the chamber in which trials were held.

  This didn't seem the best place for China to go to lighten her spirits, and her choice of it served to underscore the differences between her and her brother. In the same position, with a sibling innocent of a crime but still under arrest, Cherokee had been all action in keeping with his restless nature: the ultimate man with the ultimate plan. Deborah could see that despite its being the despair of his sister, Cherokee's scheming character had its advantages, one of which was never to give in to disheartenment.

  “This isn't a good place for you to be right now,” Deborah said to her friend as China sat at the end of the room farthest from the judge's bench.

  As if Deborah hadn't spoken, China said, “Holberry told me about the way they do trials here. When I figured I was going to be the one, I wanted to know how things would play out, so I asked him.” She looked straight ahead, as if she could see the scene in front of them as she described it. “Here's the deal: They don't use juries. Not like we do. I mean, not like at home. There's no putting people in the jury box and asking them questions to make sure they haven't already decided to send someone to the chair. What they use here are professional jurors. It's their job, like. But I don't see how you can get a fair trial out of that. Doesn't it mean anyone can talk to them in advance? And they can read about the case if they want to, can't they? They can probably even conduct their own investigations, for all I know. But it's different than at home.”

  “That makes it scary,” Deborah admitted.

  “At home I'd have an idea what to do right now because I'd know how things work. We could find someone who knows how to scope out jurors and choose the best ones. We could give interviews to the press. We could talk to TV reporters or something. We could mould public opinion in some way so that if it came to a trial—”

  “Which it won't,” Deborah said firmly. “Which it won't. You do believe that, don't you?”

  “—we'd at least have made some kind of inroad into how people feel and what they think. He's not without friends. I'm here. You're here. Simon's here. We could do something. Couldn't we? If things were the same, like at home . . . ?”

  Home, Deborah thought. She knew her friend was right. What she was having to face would be so much less excruciating if she were at home, where the people were familiar, the objects all round were familiar, and where, most important, the procedure itself—or at least what led up to it—was also familiar.

  Deborah realised that she couldn't offer China the sense of ease that came with familiarity, not in this place that spoke of a frightening future. She could only suggest a marginally less awful environment in which she might be able to comfort the woman who'd been
such a comfort to her.

  She said softly into the silence that followed China's remarks, “Hey, girlfriend . . .”

  China looked at her.

  Deborah smiled and chose what China herself might have said and what China's brother definitely would have said. “It's a downer here. Let's blow this joint.”

  Despite her present frame of mind, Deborah's old friend smiled in turn. “Yeah. All right. Cool,” she said.

  When Deborah rose and offered China her hand, she took it. And she didn't let go till they were out of the courtroom, down the stairs, and out of the building.

  In a thoughtful state, St. James rang off from his second conversation of the day with Lynley. Vallera & Son hadn't been difficult to extract information from, according to what the New Scotland Yard superintendent had told him. Whoever had been at the receiving end of Lynley's call had apparently not been playing with a full deck of the intelligence cards: Not only had the individual yelled to someone “Dad! Hey! Got a call from Scotland here! D'you believe it?” when Lynley had identified himself after tracking down the business in Jackson Heights, New York, but he had also been cooperatively voluble when Lynley inquired as to the exact nature of Vallera & Son's professional pursuit.

  In an accent worthy of The Godfather, the man—Danny Vallera he said he was called—informed Lynley that Vallera & Son was an enterprise that cashed paycheques, offered loans, and wired money “all around the world if you want. Why? You looking to send some bucks over here? We c'n do that for you. We c'n change stuff to dollars. What you got over there in Scotland, anyway? You guys use francs? Crowns? You on the euro? We c'n do it all. 'Course, it's gonna cost you.”

  Affable to the end and clearly without a grain of sense—much less suspicion—he'd explained that he and his dad wired money in increments of nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars—“And you can add the ninety-nine cents if you want to”—with a chuckle—“but that seems like stretching things, don't it?”—for discriminating individuals who didn't want the Feds to come knocking upon their doors, which they probably would do if over time Vallera & Son reported wire transfers of ten thousand dollars or more as required by “Uncle Samuel and the Washington jerk-offs.” So if someone from Scotland wanted to send someone in the U.S. of A. anything less than ten thousand buckos, Vallera & Son would be happy to play the middleman in the operation, for a fee of course. In the U.S. of A., centre of politicians on the take, lobbyists on the give, elections fixed, and capitalism gone mad, there was always a fee.

  And if the amount to be wired was more than nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, what happened then? Lynley had inquired.

  Oh, then Vallera & Son had to report the amount to the Feds.

  And what did the Feds do?

  Got interested when they got around to getting interested. If your name was Gotti they got interested pronto. If you were Joe Schmo Recently in the Dough, it might take them longer.

  “It was all quite illuminating,” Lynley had said to St. James at the conclusion of his report. “Mr. Vallera might have gone on indefinitely because he seemed to be delighted to have a call from Scotland.”

  St. James chuckled. “But he didn't go on?”

  “Apparently Mr. Vallera Senior came on the scene. There was some background noise suggesting someone's displeasure and the line went dead shortly thereafter.”

  “You're owed, Tommy,” St. James said.

  “Not by Mr. Vallera Senior, I hope.”

  Now in his hotel room, St. James contemplated his next move. Without getting one agency or another of the United States government involved, he reached the ineluctable conclusion that he was on his own, that he would have to ferret out more facts in one way or another and use those facts to smoke out Guy Brouard's killer. He considered several ways of going at the problem, made his decision, and descended to the lobby.

  There he inquired about using the hotel's computer. The receptionist, to whom he had not endeared himself earlier by having her track him round the island, didn't meet his request with unbridled enthusiasm. She drew her lower lip in under her protruding upper teeth and informed him she would have to check with Mr. Alyar, the hotel's manager. “We don't usually give residents access . . . People generally bring their own. You don't have a laptop?” She didn't add “or a mobile?” but the implication was there. Get with it her expression told him just before she went in search of Mr. Alyar.

  St. James cooled his heels in the lobby for nearly ten minutes before a barrel-shaped man in a double-breasted suit approached him from beyond a door that led into the inner reaches of the hotel. He introduced himself as Mr. Alyar—Felix Alyar, he said—and asked if he could be of help.

  St. James explained his request more fully. He handed over his business card as he spoke, and he offered DCI Le Gallez's name in an effort to seem as legitimate a part of the ongoing investigation as possible.

  With far more good grace than the receptionist had possessed, Mr. Alyar agreed to allow St. James access to the hotel's computer system. He welcomed him behind the reception counter and into a business office behind it. There, two additional employees of the establishment sat at work at terminals and a third fed documents into a fax machine.

  Felix Alyar directed St. James to a third terminal and said to the faxer, “Penelope, this gentleman will be using your station,” before he left “with the hotel's compliments” and a smile that bordered on the flagrantly insincere. St. James thanked him and made short work of accessing the Internet.

  He began with the International Herald Tribune, logging on to their Web site, where he discovered that any story over two weeks old could be accessed only from the site at which the story itself had originated. He was unsurprised, considering the nature of what he was looking for and the limited scope of the paper. So he went on to USA Today, but there the news had to cover too wide an area and was thus confined to the Big Story in nearly every case: governmental issues, international incidents, sensational murders, bold heroics.

  His next choice was the New York Times, where he typed in PIETER DE HOOCH first and, when that brought him nothing, ST. BARBARA second. But here again, he achieved no useful result, and he began to doubt the hypothesis he'd developed upon first hearing about Vallera & Son of Jackson Heights, New York, and upon then hearing the exact nature of Vallera & Son's business.

  The only option left, considering what he knew, was the Los Angeles Times, so he moved on to that broadsheet's Web site and began a search of their archives. As before, he entered the time period he'd been using all along—the last twelve months—and he followed that with the name Pieter de Hooch. In less than five seconds, the monitor's screen altered and a list of relevant articles appeared, five of them on one page and an indication that more followed.

  He chose the first article and waited as the computer downloaded it. What appeared first on the screen was the headline A Dad Remembers.

  St. James scanned the article. Phrases leaped out at him as if rendered in a script bolder than the rest. It was when he saw the words decorated World War II veteran that he slowed down his reading of the story. This covered a long-ago, heretofore unheard of triple-transplant operation—heart, lungs, and kidneys—that had been performed at one St. Clare's Hospital in Santa Ana, California. The recipient had been a fifteen-year-old boy called Jerry Ferguson. His father, Stuart, was the decorated veteran mentioned in the article.

  Car salesman Stuart Ferguson—for so he was—had apparently spent the remainder of his days seeking ways to repay St. Clare's for having saved his boy's life. A charity hospital whose policy it was to turn away no one, St. Clare's had required no payment for what had amounted to a hospital bill well over two hundred thousand dollars. A car salesman with four children had little hope of amassing that kind of money, so upon his death Stuart Ferguson had willed St. Clare's the only thing of potential value that he possessed: a painting.

  “We had no idea . . .” his widow was quoted as saying.
“Stu certainly never knew . . . He got it during the war, he said . . . A souvenir . . . That's all I ever learned about it.”

  “I just thought it was some old picture,” Jerry Ferguson commented after the painting had been evaluated by experts at the Getty Museum. “Dad and Mom had it in their bedroom. You know, I never thought much about it.”

  Thus, it seemed that the delighted Sisters of Mercy, who ran St. Clare's Hospital on a shoestring budget and spent most of their time raising the funds just to keep it afloat, had found themselves the recipients of a priceless work of art. A photograph accompanying the story featured the adult Jerry Ferguson and his mother presenting Pieter de Hooch's painting of St. Barbara to a dour-looking Sister Monica Casey, who, at the time of presentation, had absolutely no idea what she was laying her pious hands upon.

  When later asked if they had regrets about parting with something so valuable, Ferguson's mother and son said, “It gave us a surprise to think of what was hanging in the house all those years” and “Heck, it was what Dad wanted and that's good enough for me.” For her part, Sister Monica Casey admitted to “heart flutters aplenty” and she explained that they would sell the de Hooch at auction once they had it properly cleaned and restored. In the meantime, she'd told the newspaper reporter, the Sisters of Mercy would keep the de Hooch “some place quite safe.”

  But not safe enough, St. James thought. That fact had put the ball in motion.

  He clicked on the succeeding stories and he felt little surprise at the manner in which events had unfolded in Santa Ana, California. He read them quickly—for that was all the time it took to ascertain how Pieter de Hooch's St. Barbara had made the journey from St. Clare's Hospital to Guy Brouard's home—and he printed up the relevant ones.

  He gathered them together with a paper clip. He went upstairs.

  Deborah made tea as China alternately picked up the telephone receiver and dropped it back into its cradle, sometimes punching in a few numbers, sometimes not even getting that far. On their walk back to the Queen Margaret Apartments, she had finally decided to phone her mother. She had to be informed what was going on with Cherokee, China said. But now that she faced the Moment of Truth, as she called it, she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. So she'd punch in the numbers for the international line. She'd punch in the number one for the United States. She'd even get as far as punching in the area code for Orange, California. But then she'd lose her nerve.