A Place of Hiding

by Elizabeth George

  Ruth said, “Adrian, why have you come back? Your mother . . . Well, she didn't say exactly, I suppose, but when she told me she was leaving, I assumed . . . My dear, I know how disappointed you are about your father's will, but he was quite adamant. And no matter what, I feel I must respect—”

  “I don't expect you to do anything about the situation,” Adrian told her. “Dad made his point. Sit down, Aunt Ruth. I'll fetch you some wine.”

  Ruth felt some concern and confusion. She waited where he left her and sought out the larder which Guy had long ago turned into his wine cellar. There she could hear Adrian making his selection from among his father's expensive bottles. One of them clinked on the old marble shelf on which meats and cheeses had once been kept. In a moment, she heard the sound of pouring.

  She considered his actions, wondering what he was up to. When he returned moments later, he bore an opened burgundy in one hand and a single glass of wine in the other. The bottle was old, she saw, and its label was dusty. Guy wouldn't have used it for so unimportant a meal.

  She said, “I don't think . . .” but Adrian swept past her and pulled out a chair from beneath the table with much ceremony.

  “Sit, Madam,” he said. “Dinner is served.”

  “Aren't you eating?”

  “I had something on the way back from the airport. Mum got off, by the way. She's probably already landed by now. We've washed our hands of each other at last, which William—that's her current husband, in case you've forgotten—will no doubt deeply appreciate. Well, what else can you expect? He didn't plan on taking in a permanent lodger in the person of his stepson when he married her, did he?”

  If Ruth hadn't known otherwise about her nephew, she would have seen both his behaviour and his conversation as evidence of a manic state. But in the thirty-seven years of his life, she'd never witnessed anything in him that could be remotely described as manic. This, then, was something else she was seeing. She just didn't know how to label it. Or what it meant. Or how, indeed, she should feel about it.

  “Isn't it odd?” Ruth murmured. “I quite thought you'd packed. I didn't see the suitcases, but I . . . It's odd, isn't it, how things appear to us when we have our minds made up about them?”

  “How right you are.” He dished out rice for her and topped it with the beef. He set the plate in front of her. “That's the trouble we bring on ourselves: looking at life with preconceived notions. Looking at people with preconceived notions. You're not eating, Aunt Ruth.”

  “My appetite . . . It's difficult.”

  “I'm going to make things easier, then.”

  “I don't see how you can.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I'm not actually as useless as I look.”

  “I didn't mean . . .”

  “It's okay.” He lifted her glass. “Have a sip of wine. One thing—probably the only thing—I learned from Dad was how to pick out a wine. This little selection”—he held the wine to the light and gazed at it—“I'm pleased to say has outstanding legs, magnificent length, excellent bouquet, a little bite at the finish . . . Fifty quid a bottle, perhaps? More? Well, no matter. It's perfect for what you're eating. Have a taste.”

  She smiled at him. “If I didn't know better, I'd think you were hoping to get me drunk.”

  “Poison you more likely,” Adrian said. “And inherit the fortune that doesn't exist. I trust I'm not your beneficiary either.”

  “I am sorry about that, my dear,” Ruth told him. And then as he urged the wine upon her, “I can't. My medicine . . . The mixture wouldn't be good for me, I'm afraid.”

  “Ah.” He set the glass down. “Not willing to live a little dangerously, then?”

  “I left that to your father.”

  “And look where it got him,” Adrian said.

  Ruth dropped her gaze and fingered her cutlery. “I'm going to miss him.”

  “I expect you are. Have some of the beef. It's very good.”

  She looked up. “Have you tasted it?”

  “No one cooks like Valerie. Eat up, Aunt Ruth. I won't let you leave the kitchen till you have at least half of your dinner.”

  Ruth didn't miss the fact that he didn't answer the question. In conjunction with his return to Le Reposoir when she'd expected him to leave with his mother, this gave her pause. She could see no real reason to be leery of her nephew, though. He knew about his father's will, and she'd just told him about her own. Still, she said, “All this concern about me. I'm quite . . . quite flattered, I suppose.”

  They observed each other over the table, over the steaming bowls of beef and rice. The silence between them was different from the silence Ruth had enjoyed earlier, however, and she found herself glad when the telephone rang, fracturing the moment with its insistent double brring.

  She began to rise to answer it.

  Adrian intercepted her. He said, “No. I mean you to eat, Aunt Ruth. You've spent at least a week not taking care of yourself. Whoever it is will phone back eventually. In the meantime, you'll get some food inside you.”

  She lifted her fork although its weight seemed enormous. She said, “Yes. Well. If you insist, my dear . . .” because she realised it didn't really matter one way or another. The end was going to be just the same. “But if I might ask . . . Why are you doing this, Adrian?”

  “The one thing no one ever understood was that I actually loved him,” Adrian replied. “In spite of everything. And he'd want me here, Aunt Ruth. You know that as well as I. He'd want me to see things through to the end because that's what he would have done himself.”

  He spoke a truth that Ruth could not deny. That was the reason she lifted her fork to her mouth.

  Chapter 29

  WHEN DEBORAH LEFT THE Queen Margaret Apartments, Cherokee and China were going through their belongings to make certain everything was accounted for in advance of their removal from the island. Cherokee first demanded China's shoulder bag, however, and rustled through it noisily in search of her wallet. He was looking for funds so that they might all go out to dinner and carouse for the night, he announced. However, he ended up saying, “Forty pounds, Chine?” when he saw the paucity of his sister's cash position. He went on to declare, “Jesus. I'll have to spring for the meal myself, I guess.”

  “Now, that makes a change,” China remarked.

  “But wait.” Cherokee held up one finger in the manner of a man hit by sudden inspiration. “I bet there's an ATM you can use on the High Street.”

  “And if there isn't,” China added, “by sheer coincidence I happen to have my credit card.”

  “God. Today is my lucky day.”

  Brother and sister laughed together companionably. They opened their duffel bags to sort through everything. At this point, Deborah said her goodnights. Cherokee was the one who saw her to the door. Outside, he stopped her in the dim light on the step.

  In the shadows, he looked much like the young boy he would probably always be at heart. He said, “Debs. Thanks. Without you here . . . without Simon . . . Just . . . thanks.”

  “I don't think we actually did much.”

  “You did a lot. And anyway, you were here. In friendship.” He gave a brief laugh. “I wish it could have been more. Damn. Married lady. I was never lucky when it came to you.”

  Deborah blinked. She grew hot but said nothing.

  “Wrong time, wrong place,” Cherokee continued. “But if things had been different, either then or now . . .” He looked past her to the tiny courtyard and beyond that to the lights of the street. “I just wanted you to know. And it's not because of this, because of what you've done for us. It's the way it always was.”

  Deborah said, “Thank you. I'll remember, Cherokee.”

  “If there's ever a time . . .”

  She put a hand on his arm. “There won't be,” she said. “But thank you.”

  He said, “Yeah. Well,” and he kissed her on the cheek. Then, before she could move away, he held her chin and kissed her full on the mouth as well. His
tongue touched her lips, parted them, lingered, and withdrew. “I wanted to do that the first time I saw you,” he said. “How the hell did these English guys get so lucky?”

  Deborah stepped away but still tasted him. She felt her heart beat lightly, fast and pure. But that would not be the case if she stood in the semi-darkness with Cherokee River a moment longer. So she said, “The English are always lucky,” and she left him by the door.

  She wanted to think about that kiss and all that had preceded it as she walked back to the hotel. So she didn't walk directly there. Instead, she descended Constitution Steps and wended her way over to the High Street.

  Very few people were out. The shops were closed, and what restaurants there were sat farther along, towards Le Pollet. Three people waited in a queue at Cherokee's cash machine in front of a Nat West and a group of five adolescent boys were sharing a loud mobile phone conversation that echoed off the buildings which lined the narrow street. A skinny cat ascended the steps from the quay and slunk along, hugging the front of a shoe shop while somewhere nearby a dog barked frantically and a man's voice shouted to silence it.

  Where the High Street veered right and became Le Pollet, descending to the harbour in a slope of neatly set cobblestones, Smith Street marked a passage up the hill. Deborah turned here and began the climb, thinking about the way in which twelve brief hours had managed to turn the day on its ear. What had begun in concern and growing desperation had ended in revelry. In revelation as well. But that was something she quickly dismissed. Cherokee's words, she knew, came from the exuberant pleasure of the moment, of experiencing a freedom he had so nearly lost. One couldn't take seriously anything that was said in the height of such jubilation.

  But the kiss . . . She could take that seriously. For what it was, only, which was simply a kiss. She'd liked the feel of it. More, she'd liked the excitement of it. But she was wise enough not to confuse excitement with anything more. And she felt neither disloyalty to Simon nor guilt. It had, after all, been only a kiss.

  She smiled as she relived the moments that had led up to it. Such childlike joy had always been a characteristic of China's brother. This interlude on Guernsey had been the exception in his thirty-three years, not the rule.

  They could resume their travels now or return to their homes. In either case, they took part of Deborah with them, the part that had grown from girl to woman in three brief years in California. No doubt Cherokee would continue to exasperate his sister. China would continue to frustrate her brother. They would continue to spar as any two complex personalities might. But they would always come together in the end. Such was the way of siblings.

  Thinking about their relationship, Deborah passed the shops in Smith Street, barely aware of her surroundings. It was only when she reached the midpoint that she stopped, some thirty yards from the news vendor where she'd bought a paper earlier. She gazed at the buildings on either side of the street: Citizens Advice Bureau, Marks & Spencer, Davies Travel, Fillers Bakery, St. James's Gallery, Buttons Bookshop . . . Seeing all of them and more, she frowned. She retraced her steps to the bottom of the street and then walked more slowly—more conscientiously—once again to the top. She stopped when she got to the war memorial. I'll have to spring for the meal myself.

  She hurried to the hotel.

  She found Simon not in their room but in the bar. He was reading a copy of the Guardian as he enjoyed a whisky, which sat at his elbow. A contingent of businessmen were sharing the bar with him, noisily tossing back their gin-and-tonics as they dipped into bowls of crisps. The air was acrid with their cigarette smoke and with the sweat of too many unwashed bodies soaked through at the end of a long day of offshore finance.

  Deborah worked her way through them to join her husband. She saw that Simon was dressed for dinner. She said hastily, “I'll go up and change.”

  He said, “No need. Shall we go on in? Or would you like a drink first?”

  She wondered why he didn't ask where she'd been. He folded the newspaper and picked up his whisky, waiting for her reply. She said, “I . . . perhaps a sherry?”

  He said, “I'll fetch it,” and he went to do so, weaving his way through the others in the bar.

  When he returned with her drink, she said, “I've been with China. Cherokee was released. They were told they could go. They were told they had to go, in fact, as soon as there's a flight available off the island. What's happened?”

  He seemed to study her, and he did so for a moment that went on and on and brought new heat to her cheeks. He said, “You quite like Cherokee River, don't you?”

  “I quite like them both. Simon, what's happened? Tell me. Please.”

  “The painting was stolen, not purchased,” he said, and added evenly, “In Southern California.”

  “Southern California?” Deborah knew she sounded immediately worried but could not help it despite the events of the last two hours.

  “Yes. Southern California.” Simon told her the story of the painting. All the time he gazed at her, a long look that began to vex her, making her feel like a child who has in some way disappointed her parent. She hated that look of his—she always had—but she said nothing, waiting for him to complete his explanation. “The good nuns of St. Clare's Hospital took precautions with the painting when they knew what they had, but they didn't take enough. Someone inside either learned or already knew the route, the means, and the destination. The van was armoured and the guards had weapons coming and going, but this is America we're talking about, land of the free and the easy purchase of everything from AK-47s to explosives.”

  “The van was waylaid, then?”

  “Bringing the picture back from being restored. As easy as that. And waylaid by something they would never have suspicions about on a California motorway.”

  “A tailback. Road-works.”

  “Both.”

  “But how was it done? How could someone get away?”

  “The van overheated in the crush of cars, assisted by a slow leak in the radiator, as was discovered later. The driver pulled onto the verge. He had to get out to see to the motor. A motorcyclist took care of the rest.”

  “In front of all those witnesses? In all the other cars and lorries?”

  “Yes. But what did they actually see? A cyclist stopping to offer help to a disabled vehicle, first, and then later that same cyclist skimming along between the traffic lanes where the cars are idling—”

  “Unable to follow him. Yes. I see how it happened. But where . . . How would Guy Brouard have known . . . All the way in Southern California?”

  “He'd been looking for the painting for years, Deborah. If I found the story about it on the Internet, how difficult would it have been for him to do the same? And once he had the information, his money and one visit to California did the rest.”

  “But if he didn't know how important a piece it was . . . who the artist was . . . anything, really . . . Simon, that means he would have had to follow every story about art that he could get his hands on. For years.”

  “He had the time to do it. And this particular story was extraordinary. A World War Two veteran makes a deathbed gift of his wartime ‘souvenir' to the hospital that saved his son's life in childhood. The gift turns out to be a priceless work of art that no one even knew the artist had painted. It's worth millions upon millions and the nuns are going to sell it at auction to bolster their hospital's funds. It's a big story, Deborah. It was only a matter of time before Guy Brouard saw it and did something about it.”

  “So he went there personally . . .”

  “To make the arrangements, yes. That's all. To make the arrangements.”

  “So . . .” Deborah knew how he might interpret her next question, but she asked it anyway because she needed to know, because something wasn't right and she could sense it. She'd sensed it in Smith Street. She sensed it now. “If all this happened in California, why has DCI Le Gallez released Cherokee? Why is he telling them both—Cherokee and China—to leave the i
sland?”

  “I expect he's got new evidence,” Simon answered. “Something pointing to someone else.”

  “You didn't tell him . . . ?”

  “About the painting? No, I didn't tell him.”

  “Why?”

  “The person who delivered the painting to the Tustin attorney for transport to Guernsey wasn't Cherokee River, Deborah. He bore no resemblance to Cherokee River. Cherokee River was not involved.”

  Before Paul Fielder could even put his hand on the knob, Billy opened the front door of their terraced house in the Bouet. Obviously, he'd been waiting for Paul's return, no doubt sitting in the lounge with the television blaring, smoking his fags and drinking his lager, shouting to be left alone if one of the younger kids happened too near. He'd've been watching through the window for the moment Paul came up the uneven path. When he saw Paul trudging in the direction of the door, he'd stationed himself where he would be the first to have contact with him.

  Paul wasn't inside the house before Billy said, “Well, lookit here. The cat's furball's finally come home. Police done with you, wanker? They show you a good time up the gaol? I hear that's what they do best, the cops.”

  Paul pushed past him. He heard his dad calling out, “That our Paulie?” from somewhere upstairs and his mum said, “Paulie? That you, dear?” from the kitchen.

  Paul looked towards the stairs and then the kitchen and wondered what his parents were both doing home. When darkness fell, his dad always returned from the road crew, but his mum worked long hours at the till at Boots and she always worked overtime if she could get it, which was most days. As a result, evening meals were pretty much a catch-as-catch-can affair. You took a tin of soup or one of baked beans. You might make toast. You did for yourself, except for the little ones. Paul generally did for them.

  He went towards the stairs, but Billy stopped him. He said, “Hey. Where's the dog, wanker? Where's your constant con-pan-yon?”

  Paul hesitated. At once, he felt fear grip his insides. He hadn't seen Taboo since the morning, when the police had come. In the back of the panda car, he'd squirmed round in his seat because Taboo was following. The dog was barking. He was running behind them, determined to catch them up.