Maddy wore a neat blue suit, appropriate for both court hearings and funerals, Peter thought. She looked beautiful but appeared tired and contemplative to him. “You didn’t have to come all this way. Joan or Tommy could have fetched me.”
She responded with a quick, judgemental frown. Clearly, she thought they were beyond such niceties. He smiled and she flashed her sly grin.
“I’m pregnant!” she blurted out, her smile widening.
For the next two hours in the car, they chatted about her and Michael’s plans and their expectations of parenthood, and Peter, nodding frequently, played the role of protective father-in-law. Maddy had already told Joan about the baby but Peter felt that his daughter-in-law was confiding in him in a special way. After all, they were partners.
As they neared the town, Maddy said, “Is there something important we’re looking for in New Bosk?”
“I’m not sure.”
She allowed him this vagueness, knowing he would get to his theory. She sensed that Washington and Montreal had worn him down.
Eventually, Peter said, “Joe is pretty much the only one who can give us details about Alice Nahri. This time we’ll be careful how we approach him.” His comment was in part a signal to Maddy that he was relying on her; she had fully debriefed him on her visit to Henley, and her insight into Alice’s relationship with her mother could prove useful.
Maddy and Peter arrived a few minutes before the scheduled start of the ceremony. Several mourners still milled around on the lawns beside the ancient walls of the Romanesque church, appreciating the warm day. Peter saw no one else from the Yard. Everyone was local, and dressed in black.
“Do you see any of the family?” Maddy whispered.
“They’re inside, no doubt.”
“We should find our places.”
It was then that Peter balked from entering the church. He emerged from the car into the sunlight, and with no warning the memory of his brother blindsided him. He feared that death, not catharsis or forgiveness, held sway inside the old church. He had only one thing to offer the Carpenters. He would find their son’s killer and lift their grief. But he could not, at this moment, enter this chamber.
He stood there in morbid contemplation. All the guests were inside now. He took another minute. The old professional instincts were returning. He was in the sorting-out phase, what Joan sometimes called his mystical stage. There was something wrong with the Carpenter investigation. He probed in his mind for a way through the fog and as usual it was the women who came into focus, who offered a path: Nicola Hilfgott, Alice Nahri, Maddy, and Joan. And Carole Carpenter. Women were his salvation, the ones who made sense of his cases. Yes, finding Alice was the key.
But his brother’s ghost displaced any optimism. Peter was a detective and should have been able to compartmentalize his grief. For now, he believed what Emerson said: “Sorrow makes us all children again. The wisest know nothing.”
Maddy saw the pain of loss in his eyes. She had her own loss to mourn. And so she waited to see whether he wanted her to join the congregation inside. She would take on the role he’d assigned to her. She did not see what her father-in-law hoped to learn at the funeral, yet she had faith in him, and now she waited even longer, obediently. She believed that she had shown restraint when it counted, holding back on her wilder theories. Their partnership would proceed however Peter shaped it.
Peter took a moment to focus on her once more. He offered a wan smile of encouragement. He supposed that he was mildly in love with Maddy but what he craved above all was to protect her. Part of that sheltering required trusting her.
“I want you to go inside with the rest,” he said. “I’ll stay out here until the service ends. You probably have a few minutes, so see if you can diplomatically get into the annex, if there is one. I don’t know about this diocese but I expect that the flowers of condolence are set up in a separate space. There’s a renovated crypt underneath but I haven’t been down there.”
“Will they be holding the reception, food and the like, in the annex, do you think?” Maddy said, nervous. “There may be the local serving ladies to contend with.”
“I can’t imagine there’d be room enough for food and drink for all this lot. But on an occasion such as this, the flowers will be set up to be admired. Take a look at all the To-and-Froms on the bouquets. Let me know if any names strike you.”
She knew that he was being slightly coy: there was at least one name he was searching out. “Am I to stay for the service?”
“If you would. I’ll hide out in the car.”
“I knew we should’ve brought Jasper. You could have walked her.”
Maddy joined a cluster of mourners at the covered main doorway of the church. It began to sprinkle rain and the throng moved in more decisively. The church would be full. Her first sight of the Romanesque arches drew her eye upwards to the vaulted ceiling. The angle made her dizzy; these days, she interpreted her every feeling in terms of her pregnancy and now she steadied herself against a stone column. The delirium persisted and she turned to the entryway, halting by another pillar. The steps to the downstairs gaped on her immediate left. She had missed the stairs; the crowd had obscured them when she entered.
The scent of flowers wafted up from below. As she descended, Maddy wondered who had decided to gut the catacomb in favour of what was probably a linoleum-floored reno job.
But the compromise had been thought through. Off to the right, the subterranean burial chamber still stood, out of sight behind a locked oak door. She raised an eyebrow at the sign by the door: “Crypt. No Entry.” The room on the other side was an excavated space, about thirty feet long, twenty wide. The room could accommodate a reception crowd, she estimated, but the steps were the problem, forcing single-file climbs and descents. With the fluorescent lighting, the atmosphere in the room was submarine-like. As Peter had predicted, no food was set out but she counted ten floral arrangements arrayed on two draped tables. She could see that most came from the same florist.
She started at the near end. One tag read “We loved you, Johnny.” Another said “We’ll miss you, Fitz.” There was no bouquet from Alice Nahri. In fact, none of the scribbled names meant anything to her until she came to the seventh bouquet. The tag read “Our condolences. Dunning Malloway.”
“Malloway not here, then?” a voice said directly behind her.
Maddy turned, struggling to look innocent. She knew that this was the brother. His eyes were sunken and sad. He might have had a drink already.
“I don’t know,” was all she could manage.
“I guess if he’s in Montreal with Johnny’s killer, he can be excused,” Joe Carpenter said. He was not being overly aggressive with her, perhaps because he was playing truant himself. He took out a pack of Nicorette gum and put a piece in his mouth; she noticed that it was a four-gram stick, the stronger dose. “You representing Scotland Yard?”
She sensed a tailing off of his hostility to her, although she knew that it was momentary and she must be careful. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“My brother was the best. My mum calls him the best hope. How do you think that made me feel? They’ve charged the book dealer. Have you found the girl?”
Maddy walked over to him. The crowd could be heard above them. She reached out and touched his sleeve, a movement that surprised both of them.
“After you,” Joe said.
The funeral lasted forty-five minutes, during which Peter waited outside the car in the lot. The local hearse stood ready twenty yards away with its back doors open but Peter paid it no mind. Most idlers would have wandered about the tombstones, some of which looked ancient, but Peter had little interest in them . He checked his phone messages three times; there were none. What he wanted to do was call Deroche at the Sûreté. If any part of the investigation felt underdeveloped it was the role of Leander Greenwell in all this: unless and until he d
isclosed an alliance with Alice or Nicola, then all the authorities had was guesswork about the deeper motives underpinning the murder of John Carpenter. There it was again, he thought: the women driving the case.
Mainly from restlessness, he made a call to Henry Pastern, who answered on the fourth ring. He was out of breath. “Hello, Special Agent Pastern.”
“Did I get you from somewhere, Henry?”
“Peter Cammon? Where are you calling from?”
“I’m at John Carpenter’s funeral.”
“Always making interesting moves, Peter. But I’m surprised. Malloway said he talked to Carpenter’s brother and there wouldn’t be a burial until the killer had been found and convicted.”
“News of Greenwell’s arrest changed Joe’s mind. It’s happening as we speak.”
“Then he didn’t hear the latest news. Malloway tells me the case against the book dealer is faltering. I called Deroche, and reading between the lines of what he told me, there are problems with a lack of physical evidence. Maybe police conduct as well. Leander’s all lawyered up.”
“So you’ve kept in touch with Malloway?”
“Heck, Peter, he was here yesterday. Blew in for an overnight with a long list of questions. I spent most of the day with him. Showed him the car. He went home on a red-eye flight last night. He must be closer to you than me by now.”
The sudden possibility that Dunning Malloway might show up at John’s funeral made Peter turn towards the church. He recovered enough to say, clumsily, “What do you think he thinks, Henry?”
Peter wanted Pastern’s overall impression of Malloway, and Henry’s response did not disappoint him. “I was a bit surprised. He discounted Greenwell’s role. He believes Alice Nahri killed your man. Theft is the only motive. And I’ll tell ya, Peter, the opinion here in Art Crime is that those letters, especially the one with Booth’s John Henry on it, could bring a hundred thousand on the auction market.”
“Does he believe that Carpenter himself might have gotten involved in stealing the documents?”
Henry paused thoughtfully. “Didn’t mention it. Didn’t seem interested. Finding Nahri is his top priority, quote-unquote.”
“I may have a line on Alice Nahri’s latest alias. I’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks, Peter. Any news on the hunt for Nahri, I’ll call.”
When the casket emerged, Joe among the bearers, Peter faded back a step behind the car, although it did not fully conceal him. The hearse crunched down further into the gravel as the long box was loaded. Obviously, John Carpenter had been moved from the shipping container into the family’s walnut coffin but Peter couldn’t help imagining, however irrationally, that the three letters lay inside. It was to be a cremation.
The milling crowd outside the church did not serve to hide Peter, and so he made no more effort to conceal his presence. He waited by the parking area, knowing Joe Carpenter would find him. He could see that Maddy was chatting by the graveyard with Joe’s sister, Carole; it was the kind of gesture Joan or Sarah would make. He watched as the sweet girl brought Maddy over to introduce her to the mother. Peter was pleased that his daughter-in-law was at ease with these people; she even won a smile from the sister.
The business with the hearse complete, the crowd moved to their cars and began to fall in line behind the hearse. Peter remained by Maddy’s vehicle, the only person in the car park not on the move. Peter knew that Joe had seen him the second he came out of the church. He watched the brother approach, saw him calculating his confrontation so that he could say his piece in one dramatic outburst (and who cared if everyone heard), and hop into the trailing car with his mother and sister.
“You must think I’m thick.”
Peter Cammon’s policy was to let aggressive witnesses burn themselves out. He kept silent. He wasn’t afraid.
“Bring a gun then, did ya?” Joe added.
This was the natural point for Peter to offer condolences but he judged that even kindnesses would provoke Joe. Peter hardened his look.
“Did Malloway send you? You and the woman bein’ the token mourners from London?”
“Malloway’s looking for the girl,” Peter said.
“So? You’ve given it up?”
“I’m here of my own accord to pay my respects and to ask you about Alice Nahri.”
“She and the book dealer were in it together. We can agree on that.”
Peter hesitated. “Yes, she was involved.”
“You’re representing Malloway, or what?”
Carpenter knew that he was being tiresome. Peter replied, “You know I’m not. Not on any count. I owe your brother my best effort. I’m here because you’re one of the few people to meet the woman.”
“And if I get my way, I’ll be the last one she’ll ever see.”
“You know the Canadian police and the FBI are looking. They’ve the best hope of finding her.”
“She has a mum and a sister over in Oxfordshire. Mother’s white, I’m told. Father’s from India.” Dunning Malloway had revealed more than he should have done, Peter thought.
“The father is dead.”
“I know that. The bitch has a long criminal record. How’d she get into Canada and America with a criminal record? Into this country, for that matter?”
Peter let Joe run on but now he nodded towards the stalled procession. “They’re waiting.”
Joe Carpenter walked back down the line to the last car as Maddy arrived at Peter’s elbow. Perhaps it was a Lincolnshire custom to place the family at the back of the cavalcade, Peter guessed.
Peter was unsure how much Maddy had overheard. They got into her car.
“Did you get what you wanted?” Maddy said.
“Yes, I did,” he said.
Maddy sat back and put on her seat belt. “Okay, what exactly did you want to know from Joe?”
“I realized he wouldn’t give me much. But I confirmed what I suspected, that Joe Carpenter knows an awful lot about the girl, and about Malloway’s efforts to find her.”
“He got to know the girl well, then?”
“That’s not what I mean. He knows about Alice’s mother and sister, where they live. Dunning Malloway is the only possible source for that information. Why did Malloway give him so much background?”
“You’re right,” Maddy said. “It’s not information he has any need of.”
“Malloway is obsessed with Alice. That’s becoming clear.”
Maddy started the motor. “I talked to the mother and the sister. The sister is very nice. I wrote down my number — not on my business card — and said to call me sometime.”
Peter looked over at her. She was like Sarah, able to make friends so easily. She was pretty effective with witnesses, too, he reflected. It had been shrewd, not giving the sister her business card; Joe would not have an excuse to overreact to “Director, Women’s Services.”
“Joe’s a man at odds with his life,” Maddy ventured. “He thinks that—”
Joe rapped on the passenger door. Reluctantly, Peter lowered the window. The mechanic said, in a surreal tone, a mix of a whisper, a cough, and the artificial projection of a ventriloquist, “Find her or I’ll come and fucking kill you instead.”
They fought traffic and heavy rain all the way to the cottage. The challenge of the elements provided an excuse for not talking, for Maddy was in a state of shock. Peter regretted bringing her so close to murder, especially now that he knew she was pregnant. At her job she had seen husbands and boyfriends threaten beatings, but murder, and its counterpart revenge, were too much. Joe Carpenter had issued an unequivocal warning. Maddy understood that he would kill Alice if given the chance. The dead bite back, Peter had heard more than one policeman say.
Maddy recovered by the time they reached the cottage. She touched his arm as he turned off the motor. “Don’t say anything to Jo
an to make her worry.”
She composed herself and agreed to stay the night. While she went upstairs to wash up for dinner, Peter and Joan stood on the veranda. Joan turned and kissed his cheek.
“There’s more happening, isn’t there? Go with it, Peter. Trust Maddy. You’ve been doing the right thing so far. Keep her involved and keep her safe.”
Peter stood in shock, marvelling again at the women in his life. Joan had seen the core of everything without his saying a word. But then he turned the conversation into a detective moment by articulating Joan’s crisis.
“Your sister’s fading quickly, isn’t she?”
Joan’s look confirmed it. “She won’t last the week.”
The three of them sat in the dining room, Jasper under the table, and reviewed the investigation. Peter violated a half dozen Metropolitan Police rules of confidentiality but he hardly hesitated. He was only on contract with the Yard. His retirement status gave him some latitude. He told himself that he was positioned at just the right distance from Stephen Bartleben and his big desk.
There were so many threads to the case that Peter didn’t try to channel the discussion towards any particular thesis. Once Maddy and Joan got going, he had no chance of asserting discipline. Both women inevitably returned the conversation to Alice. The young woman was the touchstone for how they felt about the case; she embodied the mystery of it, and all three of them agreed that she was the solution.
After three hours, Maddy looked exhausted. Joan told her to go upstairs and to take her time in the morning. As Maddy got up from the table, Peter recalled, “At the funeral today, dear, you said that Joe Carpenter is at odds with his life.”
Maddy turned back; her face glowed in the light of the chandelier. “Yes. An older brother, respected for staying at home, loyal to the women in the family, sure. But that storyline only holds together as long as there’s someone to sacrifice for. The family’s move up the ladder depended on John Fitzgerald, the young Kennedy, their hope for the future. He’s dead now. Topsy-turvy.”
The Drowned Man Page 27
