A Place of Hiding

“Ridiculous” and “What’s the idiot thinking?” and he pointed out the ludicrous size of the individual rooms that the structure would contain.

“How,” he demanded, indicating one of the rooms with a screwdriver, “is this supposed to be set up as a gallery? Or a viewing room? Or whatever the hell it’s designed to be? Look at it. You could comfortably fit three people into a room that size, but that’s the limit. It’s no bigger than a cell. And they’re all like that.”

St. James examined the schematic that the architect was indicating. He noted that nothing on the drawing was identified and he asked Debiere if this was normal. “Wouldn’t you generally label what each room is meant to be?” he asked. “Why’s that missing from these drawings?”

“Who the hell knows,” Debiere said dismissively. “Shoddy work’s my guess. Not surprising considering he submitted his design without even bothering to walk the site. And look at this—” He’d pulled one of the sheets out and placed it on top of the stack. He tapped his screwdriver against it. “Is this a courtyard with a pool, for God’s sake? I’d love to have a talk with this idiot. Probably designs homes in Hollywood and thinks no place’s complete unless twenty-year-olds in bikinis have a spot to lie in the sun. What a waste of space. The whole thing’s a disaster. I can’t believe that Guy—” He frowned. Suddenly, he bent over the drawing and looked at it more closely. He appeared to be searching for something but whatever it was, it wasn’t part of the building itself because Debiere looked at all four corners of the paper and then directed his gaze along the edges. He said,

“This is damn odd,” and shifted the first paper to one side so that he could see the one under it. Then he went to the next, then the one after that. He finally looked up.

“What?” St. James asked.

“These should be wet-signed,” Debiere said. “Every one of them. But not one is.”

“What d’you mean?”

Debiere pointed to the plans. “When these’re complete, the architect stamps them. Then he signs his name over that stamp.”

“Is that a formality?”

“No. It’s essential. It’s how you tell the plans are legitimate. You can’t get them approved by planning or building commissions if they’re not stamped, and you sure as hell can’t find a contractor willing to take on the job, either.”

“So if they aren’t legitimate, what else might they be?” St. James asked the architect.

Debiere looked from St. James to the plans. And then back to St. James once again. “Stolen,” he replied.

They were silent, each of them contemplating the documents, the schematics, and the drawings that lay across the workbench. Outside the shed, a door slammed and a voice cried out, “Daddy! Mum’s made you short bread as well.”

Debiere roused himself at this. His forehead creased as he apparently tried to comprehend what seemed so patently incomprehensible: a large gathering of islanders and others at Le Reposoir, a gala event, a surprising announcement, a mass of fireworks to mark the occasion, the presence of everyone important on Guernsey, the coverage in the paper and on island television.

His sons were shouting “Daddy! Daddy! Come in for tea!” but Debiere didn’t seem to hear them. He murmured, “What did he intend to do, then?”

The answer to that question, St. James thought, might go far to shedding more light on the murder. Finding a solicitor—Margaret Chamberlain refused to think of or call them advocates because she didn’t intend to employ one for longer than it took to strong-arm her former husband’s beneficiaries out of their inheritances—turned out to be a simple matter. After leaving the Range Rover in the car park of a hotel on Ann’s Place, she and her son walked down one slope and up another. Their route took them past the Royal Court House, which assured Margaret that lawyers were going to be quite easy to come by in this part of town. At least Adrian had known that much. On her own, she would have been reduced to the telephone directory and a street map of St. Peter Port. She would have had to ring and do her importuning without having seen the situation into which her phone call was received. This way, however, she had no need to ring at all. She could storm the citadel of her choosing, satisfactorily on the controlling end of employing a legal mind to do her bidding.