by Will North
Jeremy sat on a straight-backed wooden chair in the stark beige interview room in the Camborne station later that morning. Davies sat opposite him across the old metal table and had already cautioned him.
“This is not a cell, Mr. Rhys-Jones, it is an interview room. You are here so we can have a chat.”
“I am a British citizen!”
“Correct. You are a British citizen who entered this country and registered at the Garrack Hotel using an Italian passport.
Rhys-Jones smirked. “I also have Italian citizenship, from my mother’s side.”
“That may be so, but the name on your passport is inconsistent with both your Italian and British passports, which are on record. Our police and MI5 don’t like that, they don’t like that at all: people sneaking into the country using a false identity, what with terrorist attacks and all.”
“I am not a terrorist.”
“Perhaps not, though I suspect that is splitting hairs. How does one define ‘terrorist?’ Someone who does things to induce terror in others? I am interested only in your recent activities here in Cornwall.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Ah, but we do, Jeremy, we do. We know a lot, you see. So, let’s talk about that, shall we?”
Rhys-Jones folded his arms across his chest. Morgan wondered whether it was out of belligerence or fear.
She opened a thick manila folder the contents of which had nothing to do with Jeremy Rhys-Jones. It was meant to unnerve him and she watched him eye it. She flicked several pages and then scrutinized one, letting Rhys-Jones wait. She looked up.
“For quite some time now, you have been renting a self-catering cottage in Boswednack from a Mary Trevean. Am I right?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You’re repeating yourself, Jeremy. Also lying. We found the registration book you dumped into the wheelie bin at the Tinners Arms, the one listing you—or rather “Geremio Riso”—as her last tenant. The last before she was murdered, that is. Not the smartest move you’ve ever made, tossing that book, if I may say so.”
“I don’t know anything about that. Nothing to do with me.”
“Do you refer to the registration book or the murder, Jeremy?”
He did not respond but she saw color rising from the base of his throat.
IN THE DARKENED viewing room where Terry Bates watched a video screen and listened to the interview, the door opened and an older gentleman in suit and tie entered. She stood.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Sir Michael Rhys-Jones. You must be Terry Bates. I hear good things about you from Arthur.”
“Arthur?”
“Penwarren. A close friend.”
“Oh!” She offered her seat.
“No, no thank you. I’ve been sitting in a Royal Navy attack helicopter for more than an hour. I’ll stand.”
“YOU DO NOT deny, do you, that you rented Mary Trevean’s Chicken Coop cottage?”
Rhys-Jones looked to an opposite wall as if for instruction.
“No,” he said finally. “I do not.”
“Thank you. But I can’t help but wonder why? There you were in lovely northern Italy, where many of us might like to be, but then you left for windy and wet Cornwall. I can’t figure that, know what I mean?”
“I grew up here. Cornwall’s home.”
Morgan turned a few more pages in her phony file, and then looked up.
“So, it wasn’t because you had fled Italy after having sexually assaulted and nearly killed a female colleague who worked with you at the...” she looked at the file again, “the Credit Suisse Bank in Milan? Because the Italian Polizia have been looking for you, you see. This being Europe, our police services are all closely linked.”
Rhys-Jones looked at the ceiling and took a breath. “I did not attack that woman,” he said returning her gaze. “She was sex crazy. Wanted me to do certain things to her when we made love. Crazier every time.”
“Like what, Jeremy?”
“Like choke her during sex, if you must know. It intensified her orgasm, she claimed; said she liked to be dominated.”
“And you do like to dominate women, don’t you? Even assault them? Like your ex-wife, Nicola?”
He did not even blink.
“So, what went wrong with this Italian girl?”
Jeremy looked at the scratched surface of the steel table between them.
“Not a girl. My age. Mature. But I’d never done something like that before. I didn’t know what I was doing. Next thing I knew she was unconscious. I panicked and left her in her flat.”
“I see. Well, you may be pleased to hear that she survived, though not without some damage, according to the records of her case against you.”
“It was her idea. That’s all I’ll say.”
“Was it Mary Trevean’s idea that you suffocate her, too?”
“What? That’s crazy!”
“No, Jeremy, that’s how she died. Were you in some kind of bizarre sexual relationship with her, too…she a lonely widow and by all accounts quite lovely?”
Rhys-Jones stood. “That’s absurd. I’m leaving.”
“I’m afraid you’re not, actually. Sit down.
“For one thing, Jeremy, you have no fixed address, do you? For another, you have already demonstrated that you are a flight risk, both in Italy and here. Finally, you entered this country using false identity documents, a serious offense. Now, as you seem unwilling to cooperate further, we need only step outside to another room, take your fingerprints, and swab your cheek for DNA. And after that, you will be a guest of Her Majesty here in Camborne. We’ll chat again soon.”
Sir Michael was waiting in the corridor when a constable led Jeremy out of the interview room. Seeing his father, Jeremy stopped. Sir Michael stared at him, motionless, and finally shook his head in disbelief. Jeremy walked on, the constable’s hand on his elbow.
“WHAT NOW, ARTHUR?”
Sir Michael and Penwarren sat at a small table in the incident room that had been established at the Camborne station following the murder of Mary Trevean. Until this morning, it hadn’t seen much use. Now, Davies, Bates, and Novak sat at computers entering updates into the database for the case. HOLMES II would automatically correlate and cross-reference the reports, looking for discrepancies.
“We have no choice but to suspect your son in the Trevean murder, Michael. But I’m afraid that even if your son had nothing to do with her death, he is in serious legal trouble. Though he has legal Italian citizenship, he used a forged Italian passport to enter the UK; fake passports are easily obtained throughout Europe, as your friends at MI5 know. He could have entered using either his British passport or his legal Italian passport. But they would have carried his real name. Instead he had a new passport created with this ‘Geremio Riso’ alias. The question is why? I can only assume it’s because he knew he was being sought in Italy and did not want to be tracked returning to the UK. Our immigration laws frown upon such deceit. He could face a ten-year sentence. I’m sorry.”
Michael looked away. “No, no. I am the one who is sorry. Sorry to have dragged your people into this matter, even sorrier that he is my son.”
“He’s an adult, Michael, and no longer your responsibility.”
“Yes, I know.” He shook his head. “I have always thought Jeremy to be a bit off-kilter in some ways. I put it down to his mother’s genes, though perhaps that’s unfair. But after he beat up Nicola I wanted nothing more than to be shot of him.” He held his palms up, as if surrendering: “And now this.”
“Why do you think he came here?”
“He’s always had some kind of special connection with Cornwall, and Trevega House especially. He was furious when I told him, after the divorce, that he could never return, and even angrier when he learned Nicola and Andrew were living there.”
“When did he learn you’d dispossessed him, Michael?”
The old man sighed.
“Only recently. Between his trust and his income at the bank in Milan, he’d suddenly decided he would buy the estate from me. That’s when he learned I’d bequeathed it to Nicola and her heirs.”
Morgan left her desk and joined them.
“These malicious events at Trevega, Sir Michael…do you think he might have been behind them?”
“That has been my suspicion all along, Inspector. I shared it with Arthur some time ago.”
“And that’s why you’ve pressed us to investigate Trevega?”
Penwarren nodded.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“No evidence, Morgan. None.”
Sir Michael rested his gray and balding head in the palm of his left hand. “I am struggling to take this all in…”
“We all are, Michael,” Penwarren said, resting his hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “But you are in good hands with my people.”
Michael looked up. “Yes. I know. And I am grateful.”
“It’s too late for you to return to London, unless the ‘copter is waiting. Shall I arrange accommodation for you? One of Rick Stein’s places in Padstow? He’s an old friend and I’m going there anyway. I have influence. We could have dinner together.”
Michael waved a hand. “Thank you, Arthur, but I think I’ll stay with my Nicola and Andrew and that splendid girl of theirs.”
Penwarren nodded. “Constable?” he said turning to Novak.
“It would be an honor. Ready when you are, Sir Michael. Take us no time at all to get down there. Shall I call them?”
“I’ll take care of that,” Penwarren said.
“THAT SIR MICHAEL, or whatever we’re supposed to call him: he’s coming. He’s almost here and he is hungry,” Lee announced. “I sensed it.” She’d just come in from taking Randi out for a very short walk, the most he was allowed yet.
Nicola looked at Andrew. He shrugged. They knew from Penwarren’s call that Michael was on his way; Lee did not. Moments later they heard tyres crunching on the gravel terrace behind the kitchen. Michael opened the passenger door and seemed to struggle to extract himself from Novak’s squad car. Suddenly, Lee was there to help him. Nicola hadn’t even heard her leave and watched from the kitchen window. Lee took his arm, gave him a sideways hug, and then helped him toward the house. Novak followed with a small, well-used leather overnight bag.
“See?” Lee said to Nicola as she tugged the old man into the kitchen. “I told you!”
Nicola embraced her ex-father-in-law and sat him down in a chair at the long kitchen table. She heard his driver’s car depart.
“Lee says you’re hungry,” she said.
“Must be a mind reader, this girl.” Lee was beside him, bouncing on her toes. He squeezed her hand.
“When did you last eat, Dad?”
“Last night. They had me on an attack ‘copter just as the sun came up this morning. No respect for the elderly.”
Nicola shook her head. Michael’s face was pale as plaster.
“I made lamb shepherd’s pie last night and can warm it up in no time in the Aga. Would that suit for a late lunch?”
“Certainly. But not as much as a very large glass of a decent red wine, if you can arrange it.”
Andrew patted his shoulder: “Be right back, Sir Michael.”
“When’s that boy going to learn, Nicola? That ‘sir’ nonsense…?”
“He can’t help it; he’s polite.”
“You could do worse.”
She laughed. “I know, Dad. I have done.”
Michael’s head dropped.
As if in slow motion, he turned to look at her and took a deep breath.
“Nicola. Jeremy is here. Has been for a while, apparently. He’s in police custody now, a ‘person of interest,’ as we say so delicately here, in the murder of a woman just down the road in Boswednack from whom he’d been renting a self-catering cottage. That’s why they hauled me down here from London.”
“Wait! You don’t mean Mary Trevean? We knew her. Oh my God! It can’t be! But Jeremy? Why is he even here?”
“He fled from Italy after assaulting a woman, a work colleague. Then he apparently vanished from the Boswednack cottage after the murder. My friend DCI Arthur Penwarren’s people found him holed up at the Garrack Hotel under a false Italian name.”
“The Garrack? Jesus, Dad, that’s barely a mile from here!”
“I know.”
“What’s he want?”
“Truly, my love, I have no idea.”
Andrew returned with a dusty bottle of French burgundy. He wiped it off, showed the label to Michael, and uncorked it with a flourish. “Cote du Nuits, Gevrey-Chambertin, 2003.
“Excellent choice, young man, even if it is one of my own…but do give it a moment to breathe before you pour. No, on second thought, don’t waste any time.”
“We’ll need another, sweetie.”
Andrew saw that Nicola’s face had lost its joy. His eyebrows lifted in question but she shook her head. He went back to the cellar.
Jamie and Flora came in through the kitchen door, led by Lee. Again, Nicola hadn’t even noticed the girl had gone missing to fetch them. She was like a wraith.
“We heard there was company,” Flora announced. “And wine.” She leaned over and kissed the shiny top of Michael’s head. “Hello, Michael, you old reprobate…”
“My dear Flora,” he mumbled, grinning.
“Steady on there, sir, that there’s my dear Flora!” Jamie countered.
“Somebody pour my friend Jamie and me some wine before we end up in fisticuffs over this lovely lady,” Michael commanded, chuckling.
Nicola poured.
Andrew returned from the cellar, opened the second bottle, and let it breathe.
A few minutes later, while everyone was chatting, Nicola set a fragrant bowl of shepherd’s pie in front of Michael. There were diced carrots and peas mixed into the savory sauce with the lamb, the whole capped by browned mashed potatoes. He took a forkful, sniffed it, and chewed.
“Perfect. Are you sure you’re really from American Boston, and not the Boston up in Lincolnshire…?”
Michael picked at and pushed around his late lunch, preferring the burgundy to eating. Nicola noticed.
“Do you want to talk about today, Dad?”
Michael glanced at Lee, who sat beside him.
“Not just now. Maybe this evening. Long day already. Might have a nap this afternoon. Taking more of them lately; I seem to get tired a lot. Bedroom available?”
“Your very own; it’s always made up for you, Dad.”
“What a fine hotel this is. What’s for dinner?”
“Fresh made fettuccini with homemade basil pesto, ripe tomatoes, olives, prosciutto, new peas, and shaved parmesan. A salad if you’re good.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
“Yay!” Lee cried, hugging Michael’s arm. Michael beamed.
Nicola helped him upstairs. He paused often. This was new. She let him take his time. In the room, she turned back his bed and fluffed the down pillows.
“Are you all right, Dad?”
“Never better, dear. I’ll just rest up here a bit. I won’t bother to undress. Wake me for dinner; I’m already looking forward to it.”
She unlaced and removed his shoes, polished black brogues, kissed him, and closed the door.
When she checked on him two hours later he had stopped breathing.
Twenty-Nine
DCI PENWARREN STRODE into the cramped Camborne incident room at eight on Friday morning. The MCIT members were already there.
Bates studied their leader. Penwarren looked like he hadn’t slept. His normally handsome face sagged at the edges of his mouth. He’d hadn’t shaved.
“Would you like a chair, Sir?” she asked.
He shook his head and went to the window.
Unlike the always calming rural scene he viewed from the windows of his Bodmin office, the Camborne station faced a busy roundabout in a crowded neighb
orhood near the center of the town, a view as characterless as that in any aging market town in Britain, the shops in the center slowly dying thanks to superstores on their fringes. It was raining, the view to the street like a washed-out watercolor.
“Sir Michael Rhys-Jones is dead,” he said to the window.
Everyone stood. It was as if someone had called for a moment of silence.
Finally, a soft voice: “Sir?”
“What, Morgan?”
“Come sit. Please.”
He did so. He rested his elbows on the small round table, and dug his hands deep into his long silver hair as if struggling to keep his head intact.
They waited.
“Died yesterday afternoon,” he began, “during a nap at Trevega House. Had a heart problem, apparently, and high blood pressure. All these years of friendship and I never knew. The man was full of secrets. He’d been hustled out of London so early yesterday Nicola guesses he missed his medication. That, perhaps, and the stress of all this,” he added, his hand waving absently in the air.
“Nicola’s shattered.”
Morgan thought immediately of Calum. The idiot thought his weak heart, too, was indestructible. It drove her crazy.
As if summoned, Calum himself bounced into the incident room with papers in his fist and that boyish grin.
“We have a match!” he announced. Only then did he notice that the people in the room seemed frozen in place. He stopped just inside the door.
Morgan caught his eye and shook her head. A moment passed.
Penwarren looked up and then stood. “What have you got, Calum?”
Calum stared a question at Morgan.
She raised her right palm as if in warning.
“Calum?” Penwarren insisted.
West turned to the boss. “We’re still working on the DNA, Sir, but the partial print on that leg hold trap almost matches Rhys-Jones’s.”
“Almost? What the hell’s that mean?”
“The partial matches part of the whole.”
“How many points in common?”
“Eight.”
“Won’t hold up in court. What about the print your people lifted from the lid of the bin at the cottage?”
“Not his, Sir.”
