A Place of Hiding

He either gave it to you already or it’s hidden somewhere and the only way I will know whether I ought to continue to pursue this is if you tell me the truth. Did he give you money?”


“Don’t pursue it” was his laconic reply. They were coming up to the airport, where a plane was making its approach to touch down, presumably the same plane that would fuel up and, within the hour, take Margaret back to England. Adrian turned in along the lane to the terminal and came to stop in front of it rather than parking in one of the bays across the way.

“Let it go,” he said.

She tried to read his face. “Does that mean...?”

“It means what it means,” he said. “The money’s gone. You won’t find it. Don’t try.”

“How do you...He gave i t to you, then? You’ve had it all along? But if that’s the case, why haven’t you said...? Adrian, I want the truth for once.”

“You’re wasting your time,” he said. “And that’s the truth.”

He shoved open his car door and went to the back of the Range Rover. He opened the back of it and the cold air rushed in as he pulled her suitcases out and dumped them with no notable ceremony on the kerb. He came round to her door. It seemed their conversation was finished. Margaret got out, drawing her coat more closely round her. Here in this exposed area of the island, a chill wind was gusting. It would ease her flight back to England, she hoped. In time, it would do the same for her son. She did know that about Adrian despite what he seemed to think about the situation and despite how he was acting at the moment. He would be back. It was the way of the world in which they lived, the world she had created for both of them.

She said, “When are you coming home?”

“That’s not your concern, Mother.” He fished out his cigarettes and took five tries to light one in the wind. Anyone else would have given up after the second match went out, but not her son. He was, in at least this way, so like his mother.

She said, “Adrian, I’m fast running out of patience with you.”

“Go home,” he told her. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“What exactly are you planning to do, then? If you’re not coming home with me.”

He smiled without pleasure before striding round to his side of the car. He spoke to her over its bonnet. “Believe me, I’ll think of something,” he said.

St. James parted with Deborah as they climbed the slope from the car park towards the hotel. She’d been thoughtful all the way back from Le Reposoir. She’d driven the route with her usual care, but he could tell that her mind wasn’t on the traffic or even on the direction they were traveling. He knew she was thinking about her proffered explanation to a priceless painting’s being cached in a prehistoric, stone-lined mound of earth. He certainly couldn’t fault her for that. He was thinking of her explanation as well, simply because he couldn’t discount it. He knew that just as her predilection for seeing the good in all people might lead her to ignore basic truths about them, so could his penchant for distrusting everyone lead him to see things as they were not. So neither of them spoke on the drive back to St. Peter Port. It was only as they approached the hotel’s front steps that Deborah turned to him as if she’d reached some sort of decision.

“I won’t come in just yet. I’ll have a walk first.”

He hesitated before replying. He knew the peril of saying the wrong thing. But he also knew the greater peril of not saying anything in a situation in which Deborah knew more than she ought to know as a party who was not disinterested.

He said, “Where are you going? Wouldn’t you rather have a drink? A cup of tea or something?”

Her expression altered round the eyes. She knew what he was really saying despite his efforts to pretend otherwise. She said, “Perhaps I need an armed guard, Simon.”

“Deborah...”

She said, “I’ll be back soon enough,” and headed off, not in the direction they had come but down towards Smith Street, which led to the High Street and the harbour beyond.

He could do nothing but let her go, admitting as he did so that he knew no better than she at this moment what the truth was about the death of Guy Brouard. All he had were suspicions, which she appeared to be bound and determined not to share.

Upon entering the hotel, he heard his name called and saw the receptionist standing behind the counter with a slip of paper extended towards him. “Message from London,” she told him as she gave him the paper as well as his room key. He saw that she’d written “Super Linley” on a message chit in apparent reference to his friend’s position at New Scotland Yard but nonetheless looking like a characterisation that would no doubt have amused the acting superintendent, despite the misspelling of his name. “He says to get a mobile phone,” she added meaningfully. Up in the room, St. James didn’t return Lynley’s call at once. Instead, he went to the desk beneath the window and punched in a different number.