A Place of Hiding

“Let’s have a look through the catalogues at least,” Frank said. “If there was a ring, one of us would have documented it as long as we’d already come across it.”


He took them the way his father had taken them and pulled out the first of the notebooks. There were four of them and counting, each of them set up to log possession of a particular type of wartime article. So far he had a notebook for wearing apparel, one for medals and insignia, one for ammunition and arms, one for documents and papers. A perusal of the notebook for medals and insignia showed River and the St. James woman that no ring like the one they were describing had yet come to light. This did not, however, mean that no ring lay somewhere among the vast assortment of material still to be gone through. Within a minute it was quite clear that both of his visitors knew that.

Were the rest of the medals and the other insignia kept in one place, Deborah St. James wanted to know, or were they spread throughout the collection? She meant the medals and the insignia not catalogued already. Frank recognised that.

He told her that they weren’t kept in one place. He explained that the only items that were stored with like items were those that had already been handled, sorted through, and catalogued. Those things, he explained, were in organised containers that had been carefully labeled for convenient access when the time came to set up exhibits in the wartime museum. Each article was logged into the designated notebook, where it was given an item number and a container number against the day it would be called for.

“Since there was no ring mentioned in the catalogue,” Frank said regretfully, and he let an eloquent silence fill in the rest of his remark: There was probably no ring at all, unless it was hidden somewhere among the Gordian knot of articles still to be dealt with.

“But there were rings catalogued,” River pointed out. His companion added, “So during a sorting period, someone could even have pinched a skull-and-crossedbones ring without your knowing, isn’t that right?”

“And that person could have been anyone who came with Guy at one time or another,” River added. “Paul Fielder. Adrian Brouard. The Abbott kid.”

“Perhaps,” Frank said, “but I don’t know why someone would.”

“Or the ring could have been stolen from you at another time, couldn’t it?” Deborah St. James said. “Because if something got pinched from your uncatalogued material, would you even know it was missing?”

“I suppose that depends on what it is that was taken,” Frank answered.

“Something large, something dangerous...I’d probably know. Something small—”

“Like a ring,” River persisted.

“—I might overlook.” Frank saw the glances of satisfaction they exchanged. He said, “But see here, why is this important?”

“Fielder, Brouard, and Abbott.” Cherokee River spoke to the redhead and not to Frank, and within a brief span of time, the two of them took their leave. They thanked Frank for his help and hurried to their car.

He overheard River saying in reply to something the woman pointed out to him, “They all could have wanted it for different reasons. But China didn’t. Not at all.”

At first Frank thought River was referring to the skull-and-crossedbones ring. But he soon came to realise they were talking about the murder: wanting Guy dead and, perhaps, needing him dead. And beyond that, knowing that death might well be the only answer to imminent peril. He shuddered and wished he had a religion that would give him the answers he needed and the route to walk. He closed the door of the cottage on the very thought of death—untimely, unnecessary, or otherwise—

and he gave his gaze to the mishmash of wartime belongings that had defined his own life and the life of his father over the years. It had long been Look what I’ve got here, Frankie!

And Happy Christmas, Dad. You’ll never guess where I found that one. Or Think of whose hands fired this pistol, son. Think of the hate that pressedthe trigger.

Everything he now had had been amassed as a way to have an unbreakable bond with a giant of a man, a colossus of spirit, dignity, courage, and strength. One couldn’t be like him—couldn’t even hope to be like him, to have lived as he lived, to have survived all that he had survived—

so one shared what he loved and in that way, one made a tiny mark on the ledger on which one’s own father’s mark was and would always be larger than life, bold and proud.