A Place of Hiding

But to kill? That was the problem. She could believe China River had followed him to the bay, probably for a tryst that had been prearranged. She could believe that a great deal—if not everything and then some—had passed between them before that morning as well. But she could not bring herself to think the American woman had killed Guy Brouard. Killing a man—and especially killing a man as this man had been killed—was not the work of a woman. Women killed their rivals for a man’s affections; they didn’t kill the man.

With this in mind, it stood to reason that China River herself had been the one in danger. Ana?s Abbott couldn’t have been pleased to witness her lover giving his attention to someone besides herself. And were there others, Valerie wondered, who’d watched the two of them—China River and Guy Brouard—and put down the quick understanding that had developed between them as the budding of a relationship? Not just a stranger come to stay a few days at Le Reposoir and then to move on but a threat to someone’s plans for the future, plans that had, until China River’s advent upon Guernsey, seemed breathlessly close to fruition. But if that was the case, why kill Guy Brouard?

Answer, answer, Valerie told the phone.

And then, “Val, what’re the police doing here?”

Valerie dropped the receiver into her lap. She whirled round to find Kevin standing in the doorway of their bedroom, his half-unbuttoned shirt suggesting he’d planned to change his clothes. She gave a fleeting moment to wonder why—her scent upon them, Kev?—but then saw that he was choosing from the wardrobe something heavier against the cold: a thick wool fisherman’s sweater that he’d be able to work in outside. Kevin looked at the phone in her lap, then at her. Faintly, the ear piece emitted the sound of continued ringing at the other end of the line. Valerie grabbed it up and replaced it in the cradle. She became aware of what she hadn’t noticed before: sharp pain in the joints of her hands. She moved her fingers but winced with the shock of dull soreness. She wondered she hadn’t noticed it before.

Kevin said, “Bad, is it?”

“Comes and goes.”

“Ringing the doctor, were you?”

“As if that would change things. There’s nothing wrong is what he keeps saying. You don’t have arthritis, Mrs. Duffy. And those pills of hi s...I expect they’re nothing but sugar, Kev. Humouring me. But the pain is real. Days I can’t even make my fingers work.”

“Another doctor, then?”

“It’s so hard for me to find someone I trust.” How true, she thought. At whose knee had she learned such suspicion and doubt?

“I meant the phone,” Kevin said as he pulled the grey wool sweater over his head. “Are you trying another doctor? If the pain’s got worse, you need to do something.”

“Oh.” Valerie looked at the phone on the bedside table so as to avert her eyes from her husband’s. “Yes. Yes. I was trying...I couldn’t get through.” She produced a quick smile. “Don’t know what the world’s coming to when doctors’ phones don’t get answered, not even in their surgeries.” She slapped her hands on her thighs in a gesture of finality, and she rose from the bed. “I’ll fetch those pills, then. If it’s all in my head like the doctor thinks, p’rhaps the pills’ll fool my body into believing.”

Taking her pills gave her time to collect herself. She fetched them from the bathroom and carried them down to the kitchen so that she could take them as she always took medicine: with orange juice. There was nothing out of the ordinary in that for Kevin to notice. When he descended the stairs and joined her, she was ready for him. She said brightly, “All’s well with Mary Beth? Get her windows done up?”

“She’s worried about Christmas coming. This first one without Corey.”

“Rough, that is. She’s going to miss him for a long long time. Like I’d miss you, Kev.” Valerie dug a fresh dishcloth out of the linen drawer and set to wiping down the work tops with it. They didn’t need it, but she wanted to be doing something to stop the truth spilling out. Keeping occupied went hand in glove with making sure her voice, her body, and her expressions did nothing to betray her, and she wanted that: the comfort of knowing that she was safe, with her feelings guarded. “It’s trying as well, I expect, when she sees you. She looks at you, sees Corey.”

Kevin didn’t reply. She was forced to look at him. He said, “It’s the girls she’s worried over. They’re asking Father Christmas to bring their daddy back. Mary Beth’s worried what’ll happen with them when he doesn’t.”

Valerie rubbed at the work top, where a too-hot pot had burnt a black smudge into its old surface. Rubbing wouldn’t alleviate the problem, though. It had been created too long ago and should have been seen to then.

Kevin said again, “What’re the police doing here, Val?”

“Searching.”

“For?”

“They’re not saying.”

“It’s to do with...?”

“Yes. What else? They’ve taken Ruth’s pills—”

“They’re not thinking Ruth—”

“No. I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Valerie stopped her rubbing and folded the dishcloth. The spot remained, unchanged.

“Not like you to be here this time of day,” Kevin said. “Work to be done in the big house? Meals to prepare?”

“Had to stay out of the way of that lot,” she said, meaning the police.

“They ask that of you?”