“It was easy,” Nadia told us. “She was out in the grounds, close to the woods.”
“Why Rose?”
“You’re smart, Inspector. You know why Rose.”
“Rosemary,” Richard spoke aloud, looking at his brother, “you named her after her.”
“Of course, I did.”
“We couldn’t save our sister.” Richard looked away. “We can save Rose.”
Nadia scoffed. “Who saved me?” she asked bitterly, her face shadowed, eyes welling. Sebastian took her hand, her fingers gripping his like a vice. “You know how many children actually get adopted? And how many are shuffled about like spare furniture from place to place? I was alone, my whole life.” She snapped then. “I got beaten, abused, and abandoned over and over again because you—” She broke off, breathing heavily. “You turned your backs on her. I never even got a mother.”
“Selene gave you up,” Richard countered. “She gave you up for adoption.”
“Because she was scared!” Sebastian retorted. “She could barely even raise me, let alone two of us! If one of you had bothered to step up, we’d have been together, Nadia would have been safe, and she might not have died.”
“Sebastian,” Lord Hocking tried.
“Don’t you dare call me that,” he quickly interrupted. “She named me that. You don’t have the right.”
“Did you really love her?” Nadia asked them quietly.
“We did,” Richard said earnestly.
“Then why did you leave her? Why did you leave us?”
“It’s complicated,” Lord Hocking told them.
“No, it’s not,” Rupert piped up, looking at all of them with unveiled disgust. “You love a girl, and she had children that are certainly your blood relation.” He sidestepped just who was the father, and I was grateful to him for that. “The least you can do is pay a passing interest. Send over a check every now and then at the very least.”
“Rupert’s right.” Henry slung an arm around his brother. “You had a duty to Selene and to her children and you failed, both of you, and tore our family apart in the process.” He took a few, hesitant steps towards the twins. “Why did you take Rose?”
“To bring you all here,” Sebastian said. “We got impatient with all the sneaking around, leaving little notes.”
“Can I have my little sister back?” Henry asked.
“When we’re done here.”
“What do you want? A scandal?” Lord Hocking asked. “To drag our name through the mud?”
“We thought about it,” Nadia told him. “There’s plenty of people who’d pay for that story. Thought we could even blackmail you. Money, for our privacy.”
“More money than the painting is worth,” Rupert realised.
“What would you even do with that much?” Lord Hocking exclaimed.
“We’re owed a family,” Sebastian practically snarled at him. “We’re owed a home and a family and to be together.”
“You want to fix the mill,” I voiced the thought aloud, “make it your home.”
“It was hers.” Nadia looked around her brother to me. “If we lived here, it’d be like she was here too.”
“Happy families,” Mills muttered.
“Why not just do that then? Why not make your demands clear?” Lord Hocking’s face was turning purple. “Why abduct my daughter?”
“To make sure you were taking us seriously, Lord Hocking,” Nadia spat the name out, “to make sure you wouldn’t just laugh it off or involve them.” She pointed at Mills and me.
“They needed the proof,” I explained to the Lord and his brother, “that Selene had borne children of the Hocking family bloodline. If they didn’t have proof, they had no leverage over you. They needed something else. Something of equal importance.”
“Rosie.” Rupert turned to look sourly at his father. “you might have made it less obvious that she’s your favourite, you know? If not for our sake, then evidently for hers.”
“She’s not my favourite.”
Henry laughed outright. “Course she isn’t,” he drawled sarcastically.
“We have the painting,” I eventually ended this tiresome argument. “Maps of the Hocking estate. Sebastian Whitlock and Nadia White, I’m placing you under arrest for theft and kidnapping. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
I walked toward them as I spoke, pulling the handcuffs from my belt, Mills behind me.
“This isn’t right!” Nadia protested, taking a few steps back. “They’re in the wrong!”
“Morally, I can’t argue with you. But they haven’t broken the law,” I told her gently.
“No!” Nadia scuttled further back, even as Sebastian bowed his head and let Mills secure his wrists behind his back.
“It’ll be alright, Nadia,” he called out to her. “We’ll be alright!”
But Nadia, face flushed with fear, eyes wide and tears falling, turned and ran.
“Nadia!”
I raced after, following her past the stack of wood and the water wheel, to where the bank thinned out, and the mud stretched down to the water’s edge. In a sorry excuse of a boat, held to the shore by an ancient piece of rope, Rose Hocking sat with her knees under her chin, ankles and wrists bound, a piece of cloth around her mouth. I spared her little time, focused on Nadia who stood precariously on the bank, holding the rope in her hand. I wasn’t sure where the river led, but from the look on Nadia’s face and the state of the boat Rose was in, I doubted it mattered. This wouldn’t end well.
I slowed down, holding my hands out before me, tucking the handcuffs back into my pocket.
“Nadia,” I pleaded with her, “don’t do this. You’re not this person. You’re not going to hurt her. None of this is her fault.”
“I never had a mum,” she said through her teeth, through her tears. “Never had a dad or a sibling. I was alone, for so, so long. And then I found Seb. I have a brother, Inspector. I have a family now. And I learnt what those people did to my mother, what they did to all three of us. Why do we deserve to lose each other and not them?” Her grip on the rope slackened, the boat drifting slightly in the current.
“If you let that rope go, Rose might die. And then you’ll never see Seb again,” I tried to reason with her, slowly taking little steps closer. She wiped at her face with her sleeve. “And then what? You’ll be no better than them, Nadia. At the moment, your brother’s right. You’ll probably be okay. But not if you do this.”
“I don’t want to go to jail,” she sobbed. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’ll be there longer unless you give me that rope.” I reached out a hand, palm side up for it.
She looked at my hand, her face pink, and chewed on her lip. There was a slight scuffle behind me, but I didn’t turn away from her. She focused on whoever appeared over my shoulder, her resolve wavering.
“Give him the rope, Nadia.” Sebastian came up to stand beside me. His hands were no longer cuffed, but Mills wasn’t far behind. He gave me a nervous glance.
“Come on.” Sebastian smiled at his sister. “Don’t do this. We’ll be home before you know it, right, Inspector?”
It was hard to tell what the court might decide. They both had clean records, slightly dubious, but given their backgrounds, they might garner some sympathy, Nadia especially.
“Give him the rope.” Sebastian didn’t give me much time to respond, thankfully. “Give him the rope, Nadia.”
She reached out, her arm trembling and placed the ratty, rough rope in my hand. I relaxed and secured it again to the mooring bollard on the bank. As I rose back to my feet, Nadia looked around, and panic seemed to settle on her again, feet taking her a few steps backwards.
She left the grass, stepping into a slope of mud that ran down into the river, and slipped, flailing down the bank.
“Nadia!” Sebastian yelled
.
I swore and lurched after her, grabbing her wrist and hauled her towards me, hearing her cry out in pain as I lugged her against me, back up the bank. With my grip still on her, I held her wrists behind her back and fished my handcuffs out, watching Mills do the same.
“Thank you,” I said to Sebastian. He nodded sadly, looking at his sister and back at the mill.
“She deserved better,” he said quietly.
“You both did,” I replied, my tone bleak. Mills was right about what he said in the car. Sometimes, I did feel like I was on the wrong side. I sat Nadia down on the bank, her brother kneeling beside her as she leant against his chest, crying silently, and made my way carefully back to the bank. The four Hockings appeared through the gap, and Henry and Rupert ran over, each taking hold of the rope and together, we hauled the boat close enough to shore for Henry to clamber in and untie Rose, helping her out onto the bank. She clung onto them, shaking like a leaf, and I couldn’t help but look at the twins. Taking her only made matters worse for them, and it was more for their sake than for Rose’s that I wished they hadn’t. She glared at them with more venom than either of her brothers had, and Henry looked from the twins to me.
“Can I talk to them?”
Normally, I’d say no, but we got them back to the station, chance would be a fine thing.
“Quickly,” I said, giving Rose a slight nudge up to her father who met her with outstretched hands. As Henry made his way to the twins, I turned to Rupert.
“You went to your uncle’s?”
“Told him about the whole mess,” Rupert answered, looking blustered by the wind and sticking his hands into his pockets. “Told him to get his act together and put bygones be bygones. Brought him back to the house and told dad the same thing.”
“How well did that go down?” I asked.
He grinned with brilliant mischief. “Horribly. They started yelling at each other, wouldn’t listen to Henry or me. Then mum shows up in the doorway, snaps at both of them. By the time she was finished, they looked like two overgrown schoolboys who just got caught colouring on the walls. She kicked them out of the house and told them not to come back until they got her daughter and could behave like men. Lucky they knew about this place.”
“She’s a good woman, your mum.”
“The best. Good to have one brilliant parent, isn’t it?” He looked at his father, at his protective searching of Rose’s wrists and face, making sure she was alright. “Can’t help but wonder if he’d do that for me.”
“You’re his son. We have to believe he would.”
Rupert shrugged, his gaze falling on the twins, who were listening to Henry with strangely bright faces. “Not his only one,” he muttered darkly. He offered me a hand. “It’s been nice knowing you, Inspector. All things considered.”
“You’re a smart lad, Rupert,” I told him, taking his hand. “Don’t let your family get you down.”
“Don’t intend to,” he smirked, striding over to Henry and clapping an arm on his shoulder before walking over to talk to his uncle.
I went over to the twins just as Henry left them, and they looked up at me.
“He’s going to fix the mill,” Sebastian told me. “Make sure it’s all up and running. Safe for us when we come back.”
“Henry’s a good man,” I told them. “Nothing like his father. He’d probably have said yes if you’d just asked him.”
“It's a shame we never got to find that out for ourselves,” he only muttered. Mills and I hauled them to their feet, leading them away from the mill and back down the road, into the back of the car. We stood outside, letting them take one last look at the old ruin as the Hocking family appeared around the corner. Mills took a few steps aside, calling the station to get some uniform out here to finish the leg work.
“I told you I’d get your painting back,” I said to Lord Hocking.
“So, you did.” He offered me a hand. “Thank you, Inspector.”
I shook his head without much gusto. And he subtly looked past me into the car, to the twins huddled together in the backseat.
“I’d like to put all this right, somehow,” he muttered.
“Hard to know where to start,” I pointed out.
“I’ve got an idea,” he replied, looking over to where his brother conversed with his children.
“Families are complicated,” I gave him a wry smile. “Good day to you, Lord Hocking.”
He nodded, shook Mills’s hand as he came back, putting his phone away, and drifted back to his family.
“And you thought this would be an easy case,” Mills drawled.
“Stolen paintings usually are,” I said in my own defence. As the family headed back to their car, my phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket, gave a dry laugh and held it up to Mills, who grinned as Jeannie’s face flashed up on the screen.
Epilogue
I trailed off, looking down sadly at my empty glass.
“Blimey,” Gavin muttered, “I thought for sure it would have been the butler.”
“I’m confused.” Lois held up a hand. “How did Nadia even find Sebastian?”
“She went to her social worker just before she retired. Found out what she could.” I remembered talking to her about it all in the station, hunched over in her baggy cardigan, toying with the strands of hair. Her blonde roots had begun to show at that point, I imagined by now, the dye would have faded completely.
“There wasn’t much on her mother, but she tracked down Sebastian. The two of them spent some time getting to know each other, talked about what had happened to their mother and decided to do something about it.”
“It must have been a long time,” Sally muttered, “getting all that intel on the family.”
I nodded. “Some months. Lucky that they did, really, else Nadia would have wandered in there looking like a member of the family.”
“Did they ever find out which one was their father?” Ahmed asked me.
I shook my head. “Makes no difference to them. So long as one of them was, they could get what they wanted.”
“Only they didn’t,” Sally trailed off sadly. “What about the mill?” she asked.
Henry had kept his word, the place was no brilliant feat of architecture, but it had a roof and walls and floors. When the twins made their way back, it’d be a fine enough home for them.
“All that,” Gavin sighed, “from a missing painting.” He looked up at me and raised a glass. “No wonder you made Inspector.”
I ducked my head, not a fan of compliments, and Sally propped her arm upon my shoulder.
“He’d be more if he didn’t make life so difficult for everyone.”
“Very unkind,” I told her. “Besides, they’d likely move me to a different station if that happened. Place would fall apart without me.” The thought of it made me anxious. A station without Sharp or Crowe or Mills. And all that responsibility, all that extra paperwork. No, I’d resolved myself to that long ago when Sharp had first brought it up.
“I’m sure Mills would step in,” she said sweetly. I narrowed my eyes at her and turned back to the group sitting opposite us.
“So, what happened to the family?” Alex asked, sitting eagerly forward.
I scratch the back of my neck. I’d heard tidbits, of course, seen some of them at the court. Rose had stayed put, still living in the house and gradually the tension there had eased. Rupert was rarely home, and when he was, he stayed in the other wing of the house with Henry and Eloise. The eldest sibling hadn’t wanted to stick around, but the estate couldn’t run with him. I dreaded the Christmas dinner they’d end up having this year.
“They’re getting on with it all,” I told them, “most everyone stayed. Though I hear Dennis took some convincing,” and that Eloise and Lady Hocking were the voices of reason there. “Only one of the maids, Lara, left because of it all.”
“Weren’t she and Rupert, involved?” Gavin asked with a wiggle of his eyebrow.
“Something along
those lines. Not sure what happened there, but she’s probably better off. That family’s too complicated for most people.”
“But not for you,” Lois smiled at me, leaning forward.
“Nope,” I smiled and took Sally’s glass. “Excuse me, I’ll freshen these up.”
I stood up and picked my way through the tangle of legs that stuck out from the sofa and left the library, trying to find where the bar might have been placed. I passed through the fancy entrance, shoes clipping on the marble floor and through to another parlour style room. The layout of this house was not dissimilar to Hocking estate, and I was more comfortable now in wandering around than I would have been before.
I headed through a set of double doors to a dining room and spotted the bar at the far end of the room. A red-headed woman leant against it. I frowned and walked towards her, taking in the bright curls, the smattering of freckles across her shoulders, and grinned.
“Hello, Jeannie,” I greeted her as I placed the empty glasses on the bar. She turned around, offering me a brilliant smile. She looked me over, taking in the smart suit and fixed hair with her sharp eyes.
“Hello, Thatch. I liked your story,” she told me.
I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t seen her anywhere. “You were in there?”
“Behind you. Left at the end, I know what happens next. Do I feature in many of your stories?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.
I shrugged. “A few.” She featured in almost all my favourite ones, but I wouldn’t give her the privilege of knowing that particular little insight.
“Not that I was very useful in that one, was I?” she added with a curl of her lip.
“Your art dealer came in handy,” I assured her.
Her smile grew, and her gaze flicked over my shoulder, looking around the house with a slight sigh. “I hate places like these.”
That wasn’t surprising, Jeannie looked more comfortable in a coat and a set of boots, charging around the fields than she did now in her long black dress, small touches of makeup on her face.
“Why are you here?” I asked, surprised that both of us would be here at the same time. Chances were slim. “Are you on a date?” I asked carefully, not all that sure if I really wanted the answer.
DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Books 1-3 Page 50
