A Place of Hiding

“How far from this can that be?”


St. James frowned. He didn’t actually know, having never been to California and being completely unfamiliar with its towns other than Los Angeles and San Francisco, which, he knew, were more or less at opposite ends of the state. He did know, however, that the place was vast, connected by an incomprehensible network of motorways that were generally glutted with cars. Deborah would be the one to offer an opinion on the feasibility of Guy Brouard’s having made a journey to Santa Barbara during his time in California. When she’d lived there, she’d done a great deal of traveling, not only with Tommy but also with China.

China. This thought tweaked his mind into recalling his wife’s telling him about the visits she’d made to China’s mother, to China’s brother as well. A town like a colour, she’d said: Orange. Home of the Citrus Grille, whose receipt Guy Brouard had tucked among his papers. And Cherokee River—not his sister China—lived somewhere in that area. So how unlikely was it that Cherokee River, not China, had known Guy Brouard before coming to Guernsey?

St. James thought about what this implied and said to Ruth, “Where were the Rivers staying in the house those nights they were with you?”

“On the second floor.”

“Their rooms facing which direction?”

“The front, the south.”

“A clear view to the drive? The trees along it? The Duffys’ cottage?”

“Yes. Why?”

“What made you go to the window that morning, Miss Brouard?

When you saw the figure following your brother, what was it that made you look out in the first place? Was that normally what you did?”

She considered his question, finally saying slowly, “I generally wasn’t yet up when Guy left the house. So I think it must have been...” She looked pensive. She folded her thin hands together on top of the manila envelope and St. James saw how papery her skin was, stretched like tissue across her bones. She said, “I’d actually heard a noise, Mr. St. James. It woke me, frightened me a bit because I thought it was the middle of the night still, with someone creeping about. It was so dark. But when I looked at the clock, I saw it was nearly the time Guy swam. I listened for a few moments, then I heard him in his room. So I assumed he’d made the noise himself.” She saw the direction St. James was heading and said, “But it could have been someone else, couldn’t it? Not Guy at all, but someone already up and about. Someone about to head out to wait by the trees.”

“It seems so,” St. James said.

“And their rooms were above my own,” she said. “The Rivers’ rooms. On the floor above. So you see—”

“Possibly,” St. James said. But he saw more than that. He saw how one could look at partial information and ignore the rest. So he said, “And where was Adrian staying?”

“He couldn’t have—”

“Did he know the situation with the wills? Yours and your brother’s?”

“Mr. St. James, I assure you. He couldn’t...Believe me, he wouldn’t...”

“Assuming he knew the laws of the island and assuming he didn’t know what his father had done to effectively cut him off from a fortune, he would believe he stood to inherit...what?”

“Either half of Guy’s entire estate divided into thirds with his sisters,”

Ruth said with clear reluctance.

“Or one-third of everything had his father simply left the lot only to his children?”

“Yes, but—”

“A considerable fortune,” St. James pointed out.

“Yes, yes. But you must believe me, Adrian wouldn’t have harmed a hair on his father’s head. Not for anything. And certainly not for an inheritance.”

“He has money of his own, then?”

She didn’t reply. A clock was ticking on a mantelpiece and the sound grew loud, like a waiting bomb. Her silence was answer enough for St. James.