A Place of Hiding

“Ana?s, he just showed me his house. He showed me the estate. He wanted me to see—”

“He wanted, he wanted,” Ana?s scoffed, but her voice quavered, and the tears that filled her eyes spilled over. “You knew he was mine. You knew it, you saw it, you were told it by everyone, and you went ahead anyway. You decided to seduce him and you spent every minute—”

“I was just taking pictures,” China said. “I saw the chance to take pictures for a magazine at home. I told him about that and he liked the idea. We didn’t—”

“Don’t you dare deny it!” Her voice rose to a cry. “He turned away from me. He said he couldn’t but I know he didn’t want...I’ve lost everything now. Everything. ”

Her reaction was suddenly so extreme that Deborah began to wonder if they had stepped out of the Escort into another dimension and she sought to intervene. “We need to talk to Stephen, Mrs. Abbott. Is he here?”

Ana?s backed into the door. “What do you want with my son?”

“He went to see Frank Ouseley’s Occupation collection with Mr. Brouard. We want to ask him about that.”

“Why?”

Deborah wasn’t about to tell her anything more, and certainly not anything that might make her think her son could bear some responsibility for Guy Brouard’s murder. That would likely push her over the edge on which she was obviously teetering. She said, walking a thin line between truth, manipulation, and prevarication, “We need to know what he recalls seeing.”

“Why?”

“Is he at home, Mrs. Abbott?”

“Stephen didn’t harm anyone. How dare you even suggest...” Ana?s opened the door. “Get off my property. If you want to talk to anyone, you can talk to my advocate. Stephen isn’t here. He isn’t going to talk to you now or ever.”

She went inside and slammed the door, but before she did so, her glance betrayed her. She looked back in the direction they had come, where a church steeple rose on a slope of land not a half mile away.



That was the direction they took. They retraced their route up LaGarenne and used the steeple as their guide. They found themselves in short order at a walled graveyard that rose along a little hillside on the top of which was the church of St. Michel de Vale, whose pointed steeple bore a blue-faced clock with no minute hand and an hour hand pointing—permanently, it seemed—to the number six. Thinking that Stephen Abbott might be inside, they tried the church door.

Inside, however, all was silence. Bell ropes hung motionless near a marble baptismal font, and a stained glass window of Christ crucified gazed down on an altar with its decorative spray of holly and berries. There was no one in the nave and no one in the Chapel of Archangels to one side of the main altar, where a flickering candle indicated the presence of the Sacrament.

They returned to the graveyard. China was saying, “She was probably trying to fake us out. I bet he’s at the house,” when Deborah caught sight of a pond across the street. It had been hidden from the road by reeds, but from the vantage point of the little hilltop, they could see it spread out not far from a red-roofed house. A figure was throwing sticks into the water, an indifferent dog at his side. As they watched, the boy gave the dog a shove towards the pond.

“Stephen Abbott,” Deborah said grimly. “No doubt entertaining himself.”

“Nice guy” was China’s reply as they followed the path back to the car and crossed the road.

He was throwing yet another stick into the water when they emerged from the heavy growth round the pond. He was saying, “Come on, ” to the dog, who hunkered not far away, staring dismally at the water with the forbearance of an early Christian martyr. “Come on!” Stephen Abbott cried. “Can’t you do anything? ” He threw another stick and then another, as if determined to prove himself the master of a creature who no longer cared about submission or the rewards therein.

“I expect he doesn’t want to get wet,” Deborah said. Then, “Hullo, Stephen. D’you remember me?”

Stephen glanced over his shoulder at her. Then his gaze slid to China. It widened but only momentarily before his face became closed and his eyes hard. “Stupid dog,” he said. “Just like this stupid island. Just like everything. Bloody stupid.”

“He looks cold,” China said. “He’s shivering.”

“He thinks I’m going to wallop him. Which I am if he doesn’t get his arse in the water. Biscuit!” he shouted. “Come on. Get out there and get that fucking stick.”

The dog turned his back.

“Pile of shit’s deaf anyway,” Stephen said. “But he knows what I mean. He knows what I want him to do. And if he knows what’s good for him, he’s going to do it.” He looked round and found a stone, which he weighed in his hand to see its potential for harm.

“Hey!” China said. “Leave him alone.”

Stephen looked at her, lip curled. Then he flung the stone, shouting,