“The worst would be China standing trial,” Deborah responded.
“The worst would have been China’s going to prison. Taking the fall for...taking the fall for...for someone...” Her words di ed out as she realised how right her husband was. Without warning, with no time to adjust, she felt as if she were caught between two alternatives named bad and worse. Her first loyalty was to her old friend. So she knew she should have been experiencing a fair degree of joy from the fact that a false arrest and a faulty prosecution that could have resulted in China’s imprisonment appeared—at this eleventh hour—to have been obviated altogether. But if the cost of China’s rescue came at the expense of knowing that her own brother had orchestrated the events that had led to her arrest...How could anyone celebrate China’s deliverance after being presented with that sort of information? And how could China herself ever recover from such a betrayal? “She’s not going to believe he’s done this to her,” Deborah finally said. Simon asked quietly, “What about you?”
“Me?” Deborah stopped walking. They had reached the corner of Berthelot Street, which sloped steeply down to the High Street and the quay beyond it. The narrow lane was slick, and the rain snaking towards the bay was beginning to form serious rivulets that promised to grow in the coming hours. It was no wise spot for a man uncertain of his footing to walk, yet Simon turned towards it resolutely while Deborah thought about his question.
She saw that midway down the slope, the windows of the Admiral de Saumarez Inn winked brightly in the gloom, suggesting both shelter and comfort. But she knew these were specious offerings even at the best of times, no more permanent than the rain that fell on the town. Nonetheless, her husband headed towards them. She didn’t answer his question till they were safely within the shelter of the inn’s front door. Then she said to him, “I hadn’t considered it, Simon. I’m not exactly sure what you mean, anyway.”
“Just what I said. Can you believe?” he asked her. “Will you be able to believe? When it comes down to it—if it comes down to it—are you willing to believe Cherokee River has framed his own sister? Because that will likely mean he came to London expressly to fetch you. Or me. Or both of us, for that matter. But he didn’t come only to go to the embassy.”
“Why?”
“Did he fetch us, you mean? To have his sister believe he was helping her. To make sure she didn’t dwell on anything that could have caused her to look on him with suspicion or, worse, turn the spotlight on him in the eyes of the police. I’d suggest that he was applying salve to his conscience as well by at least having someone here for China, but if he intended her to take the fall for a murder, I don’t actually believe he has a conscience in the first place.”
“You don’t like him, do you?” Deborah asked.
“It’s not a matter of liking or disliking. It’s a matter of looking at the facts, seeing them for what they are, and spelling them out.”
A Place of Hiding
Elizabeth George's books
- Bared to You
- Beauty from Pain
- Beneath This Man
- Fifty Shades Darker
- Fifty Shades Freed (Christian & Ana)
- Fifty Shades of Grey
- Grounded (Up In The Air #3)
- In Flight (Up In The Air #1)
- Mile High (Up In The Air #2)
- KILLING SARAI (A NOVEL)
- Not Today, But Someday
- Point of Retreat (Slammed #2)
- Slammed (Slammed #1)
- Tatiana and Alexander_A Novel
- THE BRONZE HORSEMAN
- The Summer Garden
- This Girl (Slammed #3)
- Bait: The Wake Series, Book One
- Beautiful Broken Promises
- Into the Aether_Part One
- Loving Mr. Daniels
- Tamed
- Holy Frigging Matrimony.....
- MacKenzie Fire
- Willing Captive
- Vain
- Reparation (The Kane Trilogy Book 3)
- Flawless Surrender
- The Rosie Project
- The Shoemaker's Wife
- CHRISTMAS AT THOMPSON HALL
- A Christmas Carol
- A High-End Finish
- Always(Time for Love Book 4)
- Rebel Yells (Apishipa Creek Chronicles)
- TMiracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America
- Rising Fears
- Aftermath of Dreaming
- The Death of Chaos
- The Paper Magician
- Bad Apple - the Baddest Chick
- The Meridians
- Lord John and the Hand of Devils
- Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance
- Fall of Angels
- Ten Thousand Charms
- Nanny
- Scared of Beautiful
- A Jane Austen Education
- A Cliché Christmas
- Year Zero
- Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade
- Colors of Chaos
- Rising
- Unplugged: A Blue Phoenix Book
- The Wizardry Consulted
- The Boys in the Boat
- Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General
- It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways
- yes please
- The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
- An Absent Mind
- The Pecan Man
- My Sister's Grave
- A Week in Winter
- The Orphan Master's Son
- The Light Between Oceans
- All the Light We Cannot See- A Novel
- Departure
- Daisies in the Canyon
- STEPBROTHER BILLIONAIRE
- The Bone Clocks: A Novel
- Naked In Death
- Words of Radiance
- A Discovery of Witches
- Shadow of Night
- Written in My Own Heart's Blood
- The Magician’s Land
- Fool's errand
- The High Druid's Blade
- Stone Mattress
- The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
- Die Again
- A String of Beads
- No Fortunate Son A Pike Logan Thriller
- All the Bright Places
- Saint Odd An Odd Thomas Novel
- The Other Language
- The Secret Servant
- The Escape (John Puller Series)
- The Atopia Chronicles (Atopia series)
- The Warded Man
- Return of the Crimson Guard
- The Source (Witching Savannah, Book 2)
- Dragonfly in Amber
- Assail
- Return of the Crimson Guard
- Authority: A Novel
- The Last Town (The Wayward Pines Trilogy 3)
- The Man In The High Castle