Thief's Mark

by Carla Neggers

  She stepped away from him. He glared at her. “I don’t want to end up like that man, bleeding to death in the grass.”

  “You won’t. You’ll be shot, not cut.” Henrietta got out her phone. “Oh. How convenient. The police are on the way. The FBI agents were worried about us and called on friends in high places. Perfect.” She put her hand out toward Oliver. “Best I have the gun when the police get here.”

  Oliver hesitated.

  “Oliver,” she said. “I’ve got him.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes. He’s not going anywhere. I promise.”

  “No worries, then.” He handed Henrietta the gun. “He’s not your cousin.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  Oliver turned to the other man. “You’re Bart Norcross,” he said. “You’ve done your best to change your appearance, play a somewhat older man...but it’s you. I wouldn’t have recognized you even without changes as readily as I did Davy, but I see it now. You aren’t Tony Balfour. You’re one of the men who murdered my parents and kidnapped me.”

  “You’re wrong, Oliver.” Tony—Bart—spoke with absolute conviction. “I’m Tony Balfour. I’m Freddy Balfour’s only nephew. My father was Anthony Balfour, Freddy and Posey’s brother. I didn’t know them growing up because my father died young and my mother moved to the US with me. I grew up there. She separated me from my only family except for her. I moved back to the UK thirty years ago.”

  “That’s what the real Tony did,” Henrietta said. “You killed him and took over his identity. No wonder you’re able to haul trellises and swing hammers like a man ten years younger. You are ten years younger. Bastard.”

  Oliver paced in front of Norcross, who sat in the grass by the side of the road, sullen, still convinced from the look of him that he had a way out of his predicament. “You killed Davy,” Oliver said. “You know my farm well enough. You’ve been around. People know you, but you took care not to be seen, just in case. Did you intend to nick his brachial artery or was that a happy accident? An artery cut was a good choice for the chisel you used.”

  “I haven’t killed anyone. I thought it was you. Maybe I got that wrong.” He sounded reasonable, apologetic. “Maybe Eugene did. He hasn’t told the truth about your parents. You’ll see.”

  “Why come up here?” Henrietta asked. “Why grab the gun?”

  “I don’t know who is friend or foe. Reed—Davy—told me things I didn’t want to know. You know what he said? He said you two would have had dull, ordinary lives without the deaths of the Yorks. Those were his words. Dull and ordinary. Imagine that.”

  “You two provided motivation, did you?” Oliver asked coolly.

  “Not me. I’m an innocent bystander. I admit I could have handled myself better but I’m just a guy and Davy Driscoll’s death scared the hell out of me. I was afraid I was being framed. Still am. Driscoll did a lot of damage before his untimely end.”

  Henrietta remained still as a breeze stirred. “When did you kill the real Tony Balfour?”

  He raised his eyes to her. The breeze blew his thin, graying hair, but Oliver could see now that he wasn’t as old as he was pretending. “You don’t want to hear the truth, either of you. Trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you,” she said coolly, “but I do want to hear the truth.”

  “When I returned to England thirty years ago, I wanted to meet my father’s family. I came to see Uncle Freddy and Aunt Posey in their quaint Cotswold village. I ran into Davy Driscoll and Bart Norcross at the pub. Everyone thought they never made it out to the twee Cotswolds, but they did. It was before they started work for the Yorks in London. I figure now they were gauging how wealthy the Yorks were and starting to make their plans to rob them. They just seemed like a couple of regular guys to me. I went on to see my only cousin—your dad, Henrietta—in London, but we never got on.”

  “What rubbish,” she said.

  “What did you expect to find here?” Oliver asked casually. “Were you looking for evidence that would show you’re not the real Tony Balfour? You knew Henrietta and I would find Davy’s caravan up here. The police would have found it eventually. Did you come up here to make sure any evidence of your true identity was destroyed?”

  “If there’s any so-called evidence, it’s fake.”

  Sticking to his story, he was. Oliver ignored him. “I’ll guess Driscoll didn’t know you were pretending to be Tony Balfour until he saw you in the village. That must have been a moment. Was he blackmailing you with what he knew about you? Was he afraid you’d kill him because he recognized you? You enjoy being a Balfour. Posey left you money.”

  “Davy told me his buddy Bart had an affair with your mother.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Oliver,” Henrietta said.

  Tony smirked. “The two of them got it on at the Kershaws’ cottage. Her painting hobby was cover for screwing the help.”

  Henrietta rolled her eyes. “I hope you’re enjoying your stories. It’s good practice. You can tell them to your cellmates in prison.”

  “I can’t help what I know,” he said, all innocence, his focus on Oliver not wavering. “Driscoll was in love with your mother himself, but not in that way. He didn’t want to screw her. He idolized her. She was the classy, beautiful upper-class woman he put on a pedestal. She painted photographs of Scotland, places she’d gone and loved before she was saddled with a husband and child. Other places she wanted to go but couldn’t, not then. He believed her little cottage studio was all about the painting. Never occurred to him she was an unfaithful wife.”

  “You can’t rile me,” Oliver said. “I’ve had thirty years to imagine meeting you face-to-face.”

  “He wasn’t the only one who adored your mother, you know. She had a way about her, and she was unhappy and needy. The bored, rich housewife. Classic. I saw right through her but I never said anything. Then she was killed. I’d left the village by then. I worked, lived my life, but I couldn’t erase what I knew. Why do you think I stopped coming around?”

  “Because you’re Bart Norcross,” Henrietta said calmly. “The real Tony Balfour was dead and you’d taken over his life and couldn’t risk you’d left any loose ends—people who might recognize you, ask a question you couldn’t answer. After Posey’s death, you grew more confident no one was left who could spoil your life as a Balfour. You must have killed the real Tony when he visited Freddy shortly before his death—before you killed the Yorks, I think.”

  “You’re the one talking rubbish, Henrietta.”

  “Where did you bury my real cousin Tony?”

  “I am your cousin.”

  “No, you’re not. You killed him. The poor man.”

  Oliver turned to Henrietta and saw her mouth had thinned but her hand remained steady on the gun. “Do you want me to take over the gun?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “The police will be here in minutes.” She held up her phone in her other hand. “I’ve a text to that effect.”

  Not a ploy, Oliver saw.

  The fake Tony looked less confident. “Eugene killed Bart Norcross.” His voice held an edge of defiance. “I see that now and so will the police when it’s all done and said. Young Eugene was besotted with Deborah York. She wasn’t sure what to do about him. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I suspect she introduced Eugene...you know, to the pleasures of the flesh.”

  Henrietta sighed. “You can stop this nonsense anytime.”

  “She wouldn’t be the first older woman to have her way with a teenage boy. I was the fly on the wall—the eccentric cousin from America no one paid attention to. No one even remembers I was around thirty years ago. I didn’t want to sully her reputation. Who would I tell, anyway? It’d be shoot-the-messenger time. Then she and her husband were murdered and awkward little Oliver was kidnapped...” He shook his head.
“Awful. I admit I got away from there. I didn’t want to get into the middle of that mess.”

  “Why come back, then?” Oliver asked.

  “Because Posey left him money,” Henrietta said. “He likes being a Balfour. Don’t you, Bart?”

  “You’re mistaken, love,” he said. “You’ll see that soon. I don’t blame you. You were traumatized by the York tragedy, too. I only saw Bart and Davy that one time, but my guess is they didn’t plan to hurt anyone that night. They wanted profit, sure, but they weren’t violent. Didn’t have it in them.”

  Henrietta shook her head. “Amazing. Keep going, Bart.”

  He shrugged. “As you wish. These two lowlifes figured they’d grab cash and valuables and be done and gone, no one the wiser it was them. They’d melt back into their lives doing odd jobs, until the next opportunity. Only the Yorks were at home in London with their kid. You, Oliver. Driscoll wasn’t lying. You killed them, didn’t you? Will the police discover that’s your dad’s gun? No one will blame you. You were scared. Did you cry? Were your mum and dad trying to keep you quiet? Damn. What that must be like to have on your conscience.”

  Henrietta inhaled sharply. “You’re a thorough but unconvincing liar.”

  “I’m not lying,” he said with a hint of anger. “I’m sorry you don’t want to hear the truth. I’ve been doing my damnedest to spare you and Oliver both.”

  “I was there.” Again Oliver heard the hollowness in his own voice. “What you describe isn’t what happened.”

  “He wants you agitated, Oliver,” Henrietta said. “Don’t let him get to you.”

  “I’m not,” he assured her.

  Tony—Bart Norcross—settled his gaze on Oliver. “Your memory of that night is unreliable. Everyone will understand your emotions got the better of you the other day when you recognized Davy Driscoll and killed him. He had a hell of a nerve showing up on your doorstep and threatening you.”

  “He didn’t threaten me. He tried to warn me. In the end, I believe Davy Driscoll wanted to stop hiding, stop running. He wasn’t a good man, but I wanted him to tell his story to police. He didn’t get that chance because you killed him.” Oliver paused, noting that his voice sounded more normal as he absorbed the truth, the reality that Bart Norcross was here in front of him and soon would be in police custody. “You will spend the rest of your life in prison for killing three people and kidnapping and planning to kill a boy. You intended to kill me no matter if you received a ransom, didn’t you?”

  “I’m not Bart Norcross. I am Tony Balfour.” He swallowed, faltering, and then smiled at Henrietta. “You always have believed you were Posey’s favorite. She was desperate for family at the end. Her brothers were gone, and she had no children. Your father never had much to do with her—with you, either. And then you neglected her. Too busy with your work in London. I was there for her. She liked me. She was disappointed in you after all she’d done for you. I talked her out of cutting you out of her will.”

  “He’s baiting you,” Oliver said.

  “Yes, I’m aware of that.”

  He heard the police arrive. Henrietta had given them a description of the situation. Tony Balfour—Bart Norcross—was arrested without further incident, and Henrietta handed the police the gun. She turned to Oliver with a smile. “My knees are a bit wobbly.”

  He hooked an arm around her waist. “Liar. You’re as steady as a rock.”

  She put her arm around him and pulled him close. “And you, Oliver. Not a word he said about your mother was true, or about you.”

  “No.”

  “Bloody fool doesn’t realize forensics have advanced in thirty years. It’ll take no time to prove he’s Bart Norcross.” She was silent. “You remember something from that night, don’t you?”

  He nodded, feeling her warmth. “A painting. They stole my mother’s painting.”

  * * *

  The police presence was, indeed, thanks to Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan, but also to Jeremy Pearson, who, of course, would make certain his name—his identity as an MI5 officer—wasn’t involved. Henrietta couldn’t wait to get away from Bart Norcross and was only too happy when he disappeared inside a police car. He’d killed Oliver’s parents and he’d killed her cousin, a man she’d never had the opportunity to know. Davy Driscoll hadn’t been an innocent bystander in the York murders—he’d been a willing accomplice—but he hadn’t pulled the trigger that night.

  Police discovered Deborah York’s painting in the caravan. It was an unframed canvas mounted on board. They carried it out for Oliver to identify. He stared at it, transfixed at the image of three figures—a man, a woman and a small child—walking hand-in-hand on a lane, past a pasture and a small honey-stone building. It took a moment, but Henrietta recognized the dovecote on the farm, flowerpots and potting equipment arranged by the door. Her eyes filled with tears when she realized it was the image Oliver had been trying to understand.

  “My mother was devoted to her family,” he said. “She did none of those things Norcross described.”

  Henrietta nodded. “You can see her love for her family in the painting.”

  “He and Driscoll took it that night. I remember now. I had never seen it. She had it in the library, and she showed it to me to help me to stay calm. It was her first attempt to paint a scene on the farm. She said everything else she painted were scenes in Scotland.”

  “Driscoll would have known it wasn’t valuable.”

  “Norcross didn’t.”

  “It’s one reason he came here,” Henrietta said. “It’s not the only one, or even the main one. He was looking for the photograph Davy had threatened him with of the real Tony Balfour, only it was never here. It never left the US. And poor Nigel... Norcross left him for dead. He wouldn’t give up. He knew his life as Tony Balfour was unraveling but he thought with Davy dead, if he got here before the police found the caravan...there was a chance.”

  “Eugene, Nigel, you, me.” Oliver’s eyes were shining with tears. “We were all so young, Henrietta.”

  “Yes, we were. The police have no more questions for us for the moment. Now we have to drive home.” She made a face, hoping to cut through Oliver’s somber mood. “We should have flown up here.”

  He made a decent attempt at a smile. “Leave the car. We’ll fly home and come back for it when we’re ready.”

  “We can stay in the castle and have breakfast in bed and play golf and take falconry lessons, is that it?”

  But her humor fell flat, and she saw him glance back toward the ruin, its Celtic crosses and headstones visible through the trees. “I remember everything,” he whispered. He turned to her with a genuine smile and touched her hair. “It frizzes up in any humidity, did you know?”

  “I’ll never get used to it.”

  A text interrupted their hair discussion. It was from Jeremy Pearson. He’d made travel arrangements for them. An MI5 officer would drive her car back to the Cotswolds. She and Oliver would fly. Pronto.

  23

  The Cotswolds, England

  Henrietta and Oliver were back at the York farm well before the June sunset. Colin had almost nixed joining them at Oliver’s farmhouse, and he knew Emma had had her doubts, too. But here they were, in the York sitting room. Henrietta and Oliver sat next to each other on the couch. They looked as if they wanted to hold hands. Colin couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but something about the way they were with each other suggested the easy familiarity of adults who’d known each other since childhood yet were surprised to discover they were falling for each other.

  The turn to romance between them was impossible to miss, and Colin doubted it was just the result of their whirlwind trip to Scotland and their encounter with Bart Norcross. Whether it would last was anyone’s guess. Colin would bet it would. He’d bet on him and Emma, and they’d been a less certain match.
She sat on the floor, legs stretched out in front of her, as if she was visiting friends.

  It’d been a long, intense day. They hadn’t made it to London. In the hours since they’d arrived at the Kershaw farmhouse, Sam Padgett had been all over Tony Balfour’s history in the US. School records, friends, neighbors, his mother’s records—if he thought it could be relevant and it existed, he had it. There was no question the man in custody in Scotland wasn’t Tony Balfour. He was Bart Norcross, and the remains the police unearthed in the Kershaw garden would no doubt prove to be the real Tony Balfour.

  “Norcross fed us such lines,” Henrietta said. “I almost didn’t want to stop him, just to see what he’d come up with next. He didn’t want to give up being Tony Balfour.”

  Colin appreciated that Jeremy Pearson had briefed him and Emma on what had transpired in Scotland. Driscoll hadn’t been the one with expertise in faking identities. That was Norcross. He’d created Driscoll’s Reed Warren alias. The difference was, Davy didn’t take over a real person’s identity as Reed Warren.

  “Police didn’t have good photos of either Driscoll or Norcross,” Colin said. “Norcross had no real family. He had an early failed marriage as Tony Balfour. Driscoll had a mother and a sister. He never married or settled down as Reed Warren. He went from job to job and lived a nomadic life in his caravan, painting.”

  “He never made any money at his painting,” Emma said. “He probably didn’t dare try, but the police found art supplies and a stash of sketches and watercolors in his caravan.”

  “I spoke with Finian Bracken on the way down here.” Oliver’s voice was quiet, none of his natural cheekiness in evidence since he’d arrived at his farmhouse. “Driscoll told him it had been hard on him not to see his mother especially.”

  Henrietta snorted. “I’m not shedding a single tear for him. I never had a clue he wasn’t Tony.” She paused. “Sociopathic bastard.”

  A faint smile from Oliver. Colin doubted either of them would spend any time berating themselves for not having figured out it wasn’t the real Tony Balfour retiring to the Cotswolds. “Davy never fully confessed to Finian or told him his plans,” Oliver said. “He didn’t tell him the man we knew as Tony Balfour was in fact Bart Norcross.”