A Place of Hiding

“Life improvement. My girls started it when the wife left us.”


“You’ve more than one daughter?” St. James asked.

Moullin seemed to weigh the question before answering. “I’ve three.”

He turned and took up another sheet of glass. He put it on the bench and bent over it: a man not to be disturbed from his work. St. James took the opportunity to approach. He glanced at the plans and the drawings above the bench. The words Yates, Dobree Lodge, Le Vallon identified the site of the complicated conservatory. The other drawings, he saw, were for stylised windows. They belonged to G. O. Wartime Museum. St. James examined Henry Moullin at work before he said anything else. He was a thick-boned man who looked strong and fit. His hands were muscled, which was evident even beneath the plasters that at the moment were crosshatching them haphazardly.

“You’ve cut yourself, I see,” St. James said. “That must be an occupational hazard.”

“True enough.” Moullin sliced through the glass and then repeated the action, with an expertise that gave the lie to his remark.

“You make windows as well as conservatories?”

“The plans would indicate that.” He raised his head and tilted it towards the wall of drawings. “If it’s glass, I do it, Mr. St. James.”

“Would that be how you came to the attention of Guy Brouard?”

“It would.”

“You were intended to do the museum windows?” St. James gestured towards the drawings posted on the wall. “Or were these just on spec?”

“I did all the glasswork for the Brouards,” Moullin answered. “Took down the original greenhouses on the property, built the conservatory, replaced windows in the house. Like I said, if it’s glass, I do it. So that would be the case for the museum as well.”

“But you can’t be the only glazier on the island. Not with all the greenhouses I’ve seen. It wouldn’t be possible.”

“Not the only one,” Moullin acknowledged. “Just the best. Brouards knew that.”

“Which made you the logical one to employ for the wartime museum?”

“You might say that.”

“As I understand it, though, no one knew what the exact architecture was going to be on the building. Until the night of the party. So for you to make drawings in advance...Did you fit them to the local man’s plans?

I’ve seen his model, by the way. Your drawings look suitable for his design.”

Moullin ticked off another item on his paper-napkin list and said, “Did you come here to talk about windows?”

“Why only one?” St. James asked.

“One what?”

“Daughter. You’ve three but Brouard remembered only one in his will. Cynthia Moullin. Your...what? Is she your oldest?”

Moullin got another sheet of glass and made two more cuts. He used the tape measure to confirm his result and said, “Cyn’s my oldest.”

“Any thoughts why he singled her out? How old is she, by the way?”

“Seventeen.”

“Finished school yet?”

“She’s doing Further Education in St. Peter Port. University’s what he suggested for her. She’s clever enough, but there’s nothing like that here. She’d need England for it. England costs money.”

“Which you didn’t have, I take it. Nor did she.”

Till he died hung between them like smoke from an unseen cigarette.

“Right. It was all about money. Yeah. Lucky us.” Moullin turned from the workbench to face St. James. “ ’S that all you want to know, or is there more?”

“Any thoughts about why only one of your daughters was remembered in the will?”

“None.”

“Surely the other two girls would benefit from higher education as well.”

“True.”

“Then...?”

“They weren’t the right age. Not set to go to university yet. All in good time.”

This remark pointed the way to an overall illogic in what Moullin was suggesting, and St. James seized upon it.

“But Mr. Brouard couldn’t have expected to die, could he? At sixtynine, he wasn’t a young man, but to all reports, he was fit. Isn’t that the case?” He didn’t wait for Moullin to answer. “So if Brouard meant your oldest daughter to be educated with the money he left her...When was she supposed to be educated, by his account? He might not have died for twenty years. Or more.”

“Unless we killed him, of course,” Moullin said. “Or isn’t that where you’re heading?”

“Where is your daughter, Mr. Moullin?”

“Oh, come on, man. She’s seventeen years old.”

“She’s here, then? May I speak with—”

“She’s on Alderney.”

“Doing what?”

“She’s caring for her gran. Or hiding out from the coppers. Have it which way you will. It’s no matter to me.” He went back to his work, but St. James saw that the vein in his temple throbbed, and when he made his next cut on the sheet of glass, it went off the mark. He muttered a curse and flung the resulting ruined pieces in a rubbish bin.