A Place of Hiding

“Obstructing a police investigation isn’t egg on anyone’s face,” he said tersely. “It’s a crime.”


“I wasn’t obstructing. I’ve got the damn ring.” She thrust her hand into her shoulder bag, brought out the ring wrapped in his handkerchief, grabbed his arm in a grip that was as tight as his own had been on hers, and slammed the shrouded ring into his palm. “There. Happy? Take it to your precious DCI Le Gallez. God knows what he might think of you if you don’t run it over there straightaway, Simon.”

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Me? Why are you?”

“Because I told you what to do. Because we have evidence. Because we know it’s evidence. Because we knew it then and—”

“No,” she said. “Wrong. We did not know that. We suspected. And based upon that suspicion, you asked me to take the ring. But if it was so crucial that the police get their hands on it in the next breath—if the ring was so obviously critical—you damn well might’ve brought it into town yourself instead of swanning round wherever you decided to swan, which was obviously more important to you than the ring in the first place.”

St. James heard all this with rising irritation. “And you know damn well I was talking to Ruth Brouard. Considering she’s the sister of the murder victim, considering that she asked to see me, as you well know, I’d say we have something that was marginally important for me to attend to at Le Reposoir. ”

“Right. Of course. While what I was attending to has the value of dust motes.”

“What you were supposed to be attending to—”

“Don’t harp on about that!” Her voice rose to a screech. She seemed to hear it herself, for when she went on, she spoke more quietly although with no less anger. “What I was attending to”—she gave the verb the auditory equivalent of a sneer—“was this. China wrote it. She thought you might find it useful.” She rooted through her shoulder bag a second time and brought forth a legal pad folded in half. “I also found out about the ring,” she went on with a studied courtesy that was as meaningful as the sneer. “Which I’ll tell you about if you think the information might be important enough, Simon.”

St. James took the legal pad from her. He ran his gaze over it to see the dates, the times, the places, and the descriptions, all written in what he presumed was China River’s hand.

Deborah said, “She wanted you to have it. As a matter of fact, she asked that you have it. She also bought the ring.”

He looked up from the document. “What?”

“I think you heard me. The ring or one like it...Chi na bought it in a shop in Mill Street. Cherokee and I tracked it down. Then we asked her about it. She admitted she bought it to send to her boyfriend. Her ex. Matt.”

Deborah told him the rest. She delivered the information formally: the antiques shops, the Potters, what China had done with the ring, the possibility of another like it having come from the Talbot Valley. She concluded with “Cherokee says he saw the collection himself. And a boy called Paul Fielder was with him.”

“Cherokee?” St. James asked sharply. “He was there when you tracked down the ring?”

“I believe I said that.”

“So he knows everything about it?”

“I think he has the right.”

St. James cursed in silence: himself, her, the whole situation, the fact that he’d involved himself in it for reasons he didn’t want to consider. Deborah wasn’t stupid, but she was clearly in over her head. To tell her this would escalate the difficulty between them. Not to tell her—in some way, diplomatically or otherwise—ran the risk of jeopardising the entire investigation. He had no choice.

“That wasn’t wise, Deborah.”

She heard his tone. Her reply was sharp. “Why?”

“I wish you’d told me in advance.”

“Told you what?”

“That you intended to reveal—”

“I didn’t reveal—”

“You said he was there when you tracked the source of the ring, didn’t you?”

“He wanted to help. He’s worried. He feels responsible because he was the one who wanted to make this trip and now his sister’s likely to stand trial for murder. When I left China, he looked like...He’s suffering with her. For her. He wanted to help, and I didn’t see the harm in letting him.”

“He’s a suspect, Deborah, as well as his sister. If she didn’t kill Brouard, someone else did. He’s one of the people who were on the property.”

“You can’t be thi nki ng...He didn’t... Oh, for God’s sake! He came to London. He came to see us. He went to the embassy. He agreed to see Tommy. He’s desperate for someone to prove China innocent. Do you honestly think he’d do all that—do any of that—if he was the killer?

Why?”

“I have no answer for that.”