Thief's Mark

by Carla Neggers

  “Oliver didn’t kill that man,” Martin said with conviction. “I promise you he didn’t.”

  Colin looked up at the clouds. “How well did you know Davy Driscoll and Bart Norcross?”

  Martin gave no indication he was taken aback, irritated or even surprised at the sudden mention of the two men accused of killing Oliver’s parents and kidnapping him as a boy. “We met a few times.” A note of expectation had crept into his tone, as if he’d been waiting for their names to crop up. “I didn’t hire them. Deborah York—Oliver’s mother—did. They didn’t work here at the farm.”

  “London, then?”

  “Almost entirely.” Martin glanced at the field across from the dovecote, sheep grazing, oblivious to the events around them. “The active manhunt went on for weeks. The police had their names. We thought they’d find and arrest them, but they never did.”

  “The dead man this morning,” Colin said. “One of this pair?”

  Martin steadied his gaze on him. “Why do you ask?”

  Colin glanced at Emma and she answered. “It might help explain Oliver’s reaction. He called me after he fled. He didn’t give any details about what happened or where he was.”

  “I can’t say for certain who the dead man is.” Martin’s voice was subdued. “I didn’t get a good look at his face and it’s been...” He stopped himself.

  “And it’s been thirty years,” Colin said, finishing for him.

  “All right, then.” Martin cleared his throat, squared his shoulders. Any hesitation vanished. “I’ll tell you. If the man I saw dead this morning wasn’t Davy Driscoll, it was his long-lost twin brother or a dead ringer.”

  “That must have been a shock,” Emma said quietly. “Would Oliver have recognized him?”

  Martin tilted his head back, eyeing her with sudden coolness. “There’s no way for me to know the answer to that question, Special Agent Sharpe.”

  In the US, she and Colin might have pushed the point, but they had a different role here. “I’m sorry for what you’re going through,” Emma said.

  “Thank you.” He had a slight catch to his voice, but the coolness had gone as quickly as it had come about. “I’m sorry for everyone. This is a bloody mess is what it is.”

  “Oliver needs to come in,” Colin said, blunt. “If you’re in contact with him or know how to reach him, tell him that. Don’t mince words.”

  “I’m not in contact with him. I wish I were. I wish I had more I could tell you that would be of help.” Martin gave a vague wave. “I should get back to the house. I’ll finish cleaning up here later. I hope we meet again under better circumstances. You’ll head on to London after you speak with Henrietta?”

  “We’ll see,” Emma said. “Take care, Martin.”

  “I will. Yes. Thank you.” He hesitated, as if he meant to ask a question or make a comment, but he nodded down the lane toward the police car. “I’ll go on and tell the police about Alfred. Henrietta should be along soon. I’ll leave you to speak with her.”

  Colin watched Martin head down the lane until he was out of earshot. “This situation is finally hitting him. Shock’s wearing off. Hambly’s your stiff-upper-lip sort, but I bet he thought Oliver hid in the bushes and would turn up by lunchtime. Oliver’s put him through his paces for a long time.”

  “There’s a big difference between stealing a painting and killing a man.” Emma eased next to Colin. The breeze had died down, and now she only smelled the dirt Martin had stirred up during his tidying. “Oliver’s art thefts were an emotional outlet for him, a way to cope with the trauma he’d experienced. It was an inappropriate outlet—”

  “And illegal.”

  “No question,” Emma said. “I’ve always believed when it comes to his parents’ deaths and his own kidnapping Oliver’s more interested in answers and justice than personal revenge.”

  “That was before he found himself face-to-face with one of his boyhood tormentors. We need confirmation the dead man is Davy Driscoll. It’s a good bet, whether or not Oliver recognized him. Ten-to-one DI Lowe suspects it’s Driscoll but he won’t say too much until he has confirmation.” Colin shifted his gaze to Emma, his blue-gray eyes more gray against the English landscape. “How’re you doing?”

  “I miss Ashford Castle.” She gave him with a quick smile, hoping it reached her eyes. “The first night of our honeymoon.”

  “It was a good night.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  6

  Emma wanted to take a look behind the dovecote, so Colin went with her. He didn’t know if interviewing witnesses was getting them anywhere, but presumably Henrietta Balfour was next. She could be interesting. He stayed on the strip of grass between the back of the dovecote and a wooded hillside that descended to a stream, barely visible through the dense foliage. Emma was inspecting disturbed ground a few yards away, likely where Martin Hambly had dug his bucket of fresh loam. Henrietta had found her vintage flowerpot in the heap of junk by the back wall. She and Martin wouldn’t necessarily have seen or heard someone walking past the front of the dovecote. Even if they’d run into the man they’d later found dead, it would have been reasonable for them to assume he was a walker on the waymarked trail.

  It would have been a feat for either of them to sneak up to the house, attack the now deceased and then slip back to the dovecote to discuss flowerpots with Oliver York. To work, such a scenario would have required a significant delay between the cut and the man’s death. Someone—including possibly the dead man himself—would have had to apply pressure to the wound long enough for Oliver to get back to the house from the dovecote.

  Fairly implausible and perhaps not technically, medically or humanly possible. Colin didn’t even know for certain the deceased had been attacked. He and Emma might not get the final determination ahead of the public. He’d been in similar positions as DI Lowe when he’d been with the Maine marine patrol. He tended to be tight-lipped by nature but some investigations called for trust and sharing. He couldn’t say this one did, especially given his and Emma’s relationship with their fugitive. If Colin was in charge, he’d probably tell them to turn around and go back to London, MI5 or no MI5.

  Colin had promised to keep crusty Jeremy Pearson—his MI5 contact—in the loop, but he’d gotten the mildest of warnings in return. “That’s okay,” Pearson had said. “I’ll know what you two are up to.”

  “Henrietta Balfour?”

  “Don’t be fooled because she’s planting flowers these days.”

  “I’m never fooled by people who plant flowers.”

  Pearson hadn’t laughed.

  Colin gathered that Henrietta was a garden designer for the same reasons he sometimes flirted with becoming a tour-boat operator—it was a way to avoid or cope with the stress of the job, burnout, decompression. He hadn’t quit to take tourists out on the Atlantic to see puffins, seals, whales and Arctic terns. Henrietta Balfour had quit MI5 to design gardens.

  A woman he assumed was the ex-MI5 officer came around the dovecote. “You must be Special Agent Donovan,” she said, approaching him as she tucked windblown red-brown curls behind her ear with one hand and lifted the hem of her maxi skirt with the other. “Henrietta Balfour. I understand you and Special Agent Sharpe want to talk to me.”

  “We would, thanks.” Colin took in her muddy, somewhat disheveled state. She had on a dark green rain jacket over her top and skirt. He wasn’t sure anything matched. He had to admit she wasn’t what he’d expected. “I spoke to a mutual friend earlier. He says you’ll be straight with me and give complete answers to my questions.”

  “Mmm. Yes.”

  “Do you want to speak with him yourself?”

  She shook her head. “He called me before I left the house. We have a history. I got the message loud and clear. Since when is the FBI investigating a UK crime?�
�

  “We’re not. We’re assisting.”

  “Is that what you call it? I know about you two. You’re Oliver’s FBI-agent friends.”

  Colin gritted his teeth at being referred to as one of Oliver York’s friends. “Would you like to talk here or would you prefer to go somewhere else?”

  “Here is perfect.” She breathed deeply, as if the smell of the lush greenery was just what she needed, and then looked up at the sky before shifting to him with a slight smile. “The rain’s holding off but we’ve had such a stretch of beautiful weather, I won’t complain when it downpours. We could use the rain. Honestly, Special Agent Donovan, I don’t know how I can help you. I’m a simple garden designer these days. I told the police everything I saw.”

  A cagey remark since saw wasn’t quite know and Henrietta, an experienced intelligence officer, would know the difference. Colin let it go. “Where have you been since you finished with the police?”

  “I had tea and a sandwich at home, met friends, cleaned the kitchen, took a shower and walked here. I wasn’t in a hurry. Now, what can I do for you? You must already know the basics. Martin Hambly and I found a man dead on Oliver York’s doorstep.”

  “Go through your story with me if you would.” Colin paused, not sure yet what to make of her. “And tell me why you’re here.”

  “I’m here because you want to talk to me.”

  “Ms. Balfour.”

  She gave him a cool look. “You mean tell you why an ex-MI5 officer is now a garden designer and Oliver is a client. I suppose now isn’t the time to get cheeky with you, is it?”

  “Not for me to say.”

  “Of course it isn’t but you’ve managed to make your point, anyway, haven’t you? I’m not the sort to break into a sweat, but I’m out of practice and your rugged, kick-ass American manner is breaking me into quite the sweat.”

  “Could be you walked faster than you thought,” Colin said mildly.

  She gave him a grudging smile. “Could be. I didn’t kill that man, if that’s what you’re trying not to ask me, seeing how you have no jurisdiction here, but that you want to know, seeing how you are an FBI agent.”

  “Ms. Balfour, if I have something to ask, I’ll ask. Answering is up to you.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and he saw she was on her game—alert, deliberate, calculating. “All right, then. Fair enough. This morning I was mucking about here in the potting shed with Martin. Then Oliver arrived for a few minutes, gave us his opinion on a vintage flowerpot I’d discovered back here and left. Not long after that, Ruthie Burns, the housekeeper, alerted us to an emergency at the house involving Oliver and a dying man. I had her ring the police and Martin and I went to see what we could do. By then it was too late. The man was dead and Oliver was gone.”

  “Did you recognize the dead man?”

  “No, but I think Martin might have. There was a great deal of blood. There’s not much question his brachial artery was cut. I shouldn’t be surprised, should I, Special Agent Donovan, if you have personal experience with cutting arteries? My own experience is theoretical. I’ve never actually seen an arterial bleed-out before. I did help stop one a while back, before it could spurt blood.”

  “An injured colleague?”

  “In fact, no. A suspect. Not that it matters.” She seemed to just notice a spot of mud on her skirt, by her right hip, then flicked it off and zeroed in on Colin again. “Presumably you, Special Agent Sharpe and I are all on the same side. We want to find Oliver and we want to know what happened today that resulted in that man’s death. Who he is, why he died, how.”

  Colin considered her crisp account and decided she wasn’t unaffected by the morning’s events. “No argument from me,” he said.

  “But you’re not satisfied. You want all the details.” She sighed, glancing down toward the stream. “I had such different plans for today. I wonder if the man who died did, too, or if the day went exactly as he’d planned. And Oliver.” She turned to Colin, a warmth to her eyes but also an intensity that suggested her MI5 past. “You had different plans for today, too, I’m sure. I understand you’re on your honeymoon.”

  “Were.”

  “Yes. Well, then. I’ve given you the basics, but why don’t I repeat exactly what I told the police? Then you can ask any questions.”

  “Whatever suits you.”

  “Mmm, yes. No doubt.”

  She ditched the sarcasm and gave him the details of the morning in a professional manner, with the specificity Colin would expect from someone with her background. He didn’t notice any obvious discrepancies between her and Martin Hambly’s versions.

  “Who hired you to do the York gardens?” Colin asked when she finished.

  If she was surprised by his question, she didn’t show it. “Martin Hambly, with Oliver’s approval. My grandfather and my great-aunt were friends with the elder Yorks.”

  “Could Oliver have gotten out of here without Martin’s assistance?”

  “Oliver managed to steal paintings in at least eight cities across the globe without Martin’s assistance.”

  “That’s the assumption,” Colin said. “Did you recommend MI5 get in touch with Oliver?”

  “How is that relevant?”

  “I don’t know that it is.”

  “My aunt died last year and left me her house. I’d been in and out of the village a lot, and I decided to make a career change.”

  “Tired of being an intelligence officer or were you helped along in your career change?”

  “You mean was I sacked? No, I wasn’t. I could have been, thanks to our mutual friend, if that matters.”

  Colin shrugged. “It doesn’t to me. You didn’t answer my question about Oliver but we can let that go. Any guess how long between the cut to the artery and unconsciousness and death?”

  “It’s impossible for me to say. It was a grievous wound, obviously. It’s possible but not certain pressure would have made a difference or he’d have survived if he’d received medical attention sooner.”

  Colin motioned to the dovecote-turned-potting-shed. “Do you get restless digging up old flowerpots, Ms. Balfour?”

  “Henrietta. Please.” His question didn’t seem to bother her. “I’ve always loved gardening. My aunt’s death and then the last months of my previous career helped me to see I was more suited to gardening than to intelligence work. Perhaps a tough FBI agent such as yourself wouldn’t understand. It’s been a dark day, Colin. I’m entitled to let off a bit of steam. And it’s all right if I call you Colin, isn’t it?”

  “Sure thing, Henrietta.”

  “To answer your earlier question, I have no doubt Oliver managed to get away without help. Absolutely. He’s a solitary creature and I suspect he had a plan in place for years for a quick exit should the need arise.”

  “I’ve no doubt, either,” Colin said, appreciating her directness.

  “We’re in agreement? Excellent. I have no idea where Oliver is. I have no relationship with him besides impressing upon him the importance of a proper pruning regimen.”

  “But you did put MI5 onto him.”

  She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “It’s not as simple as that. We knew about him after you and Emma—I hope it’s all right to call her Emma—unveiled him as a serial art thief. I suggested we could benefit from his particular expertise, contacts and outright brazenness. Since I quit to do garden design, I don’t know what happened with my suggestion.”

  “Would you tell me if you did?”

  “Yes.”

  Colin suspected she was telling the truth. “The police?”

  “They aren’t FBI agents with high-level MI5 friends.”

  “I understand you and Oliver grew up together.”

  “I grew up in London but I visited my aunt often. Oliver’s th
ree years older than I, and we did see each other growing up, and since. If you’re asking if I’m sleeping with him—”

  “I’m not but you can tell me if you want,” Colin said, his tone neutral.

  “Right.” As if she knew what he was thinking. “Did our ‘mutual friend’ put you up to this line of questions? Because it’s ridiculous. Oliver is as solitary as they come. He doesn’t have relationships.”

  “No one put me up to anything, Henrietta.”

  She pulled a bit of dried leaf out of her hair and cast it into the grass. “Oliver and Martin could be friends, I suppose. Martin can be formal and old-fashioned, but so can Oliver in his own peculiar way. At root, though, theirs is an employer-employee relationship. It’s not what I would call a true friendship.”

  “A lonely existence for them both?”

  “Perhaps, to an outside eye. Martin’s driven by an uncompromising sense of duty to the Yorks. Oliver’s a survivor.” She gave her curls a shake, as if she wasn’t sure if more leaves might fall out. “What about you and Emma? Is your relationship with Oliver a true friendship?”

  Colin shook his head. “Not going there, Henrietta.”

  A light breeze blew curls into her face but she didn’t brush them aside, instead keeping her gaze steady on him. “Oliver says your hometown is a gloomy fishing village on the southern Maine coast, not far from Heron’s Cove, where Sharpe Fine Art Recovery has its central offices. Oliver likes Heron’s Cove. Right so far?”

  “Right so far, except my hometown isn’t gloomy.” Colin grinned. “It’s not always gloomy, anyway.”

  There was a spark of humor in her eyes. “I suppose even struggling Maine fishing villages have their charms. It’s not as cute as Heron’s Cove, though, is it?”

  “Few places are.”

  “This area is famous for its twee honey-stone villages.”

  Emma joined them from her spot by the digging. Colin introduced her. She’d been within decent if not great earshot but wouldn’t want to interrupt an interview or distract them. She and Henrietta shook hands.