A Place of Hiding

Adrian snorted. “It should be. She was always hanging round, thrusting them into his face just in case he started thinking of something that didn’t immediately relate to her. Quite the distraction, she provided. So we never talked. And then it was too late.”


Margaret hadn’t asked before because she hadn’t wanted to elicit the information from Ruth, who had sounded on the phone as if she was already suffering enough. And she hadn’t wanted to ask her son as soon as she saw him because she’d needed to assess his state of mind first. But now he’d given her an opening, and she took it.

“How exactly did your father die?”

They were entering a wooded area of the island, where a high stone wall richly covered in ivy ran along the west side of the road while the east side grew thick groves of sycamores, chestnuts, and elms. Between these in places the distant Channel showed through, a sheen of steel in the winter light. Margaret couldn’t imagine why anyone would have wanted to swim there.

Adrian didn’t reply to her question at first. He waited till they’d passed some farmland, and he slowed as they came to a break in the wall where two iron gates stood open. Tiles inset into the wall identified the property as Le Reposoir, and here he turned in to a drive. It led in the direction of an impressive house: four storeys of grey stone surmounted by what looked like a widow’s walk, the inspiration, perhaps, of a former owner who’d undergone some form of enchantment in New England. Dormer windows rose beneath this balustraded balcony, while beneath these windows the fa?ade of the house itself was perfectly balanced. Guy, Margaret saw, had done quite well for himself in retirement. But that was hardly surprising. Towards the house, the drive emerged from the trees that tunneled it and circled a lawn at the centre of which stood an impressive bronze sculpture of a young man and woman swimming with dolphins. Adrian followed this circle and stopped the Range Rover at steps that swept up to a white front door. It was closed and it remained closed as he finally replied to Margaret’s question.

“He choked to death,” Adrian said. “Down at the bay.”

Margaret was puzzled by this. Ruth had said that her brother had not returned from his morning swim, that he had been waylaid on the beach and murdered. But choking to death didn’t imply murder at all. Being choked did, of course, but being choked had not been Adrian’s words.

“Choked?” Margaret said. “But Ruth told me your father was murdered.” And for a wild moment she considered the fact that her former sister-in-law may have lied to her in order to get her to the island for some reason.

“It was murder, all right,” Adrian said. “No one chokes accidentally—or even normally—on what was lodged in Dad’s throat.”





Chapter 5


“This is just about the last place I thought I’d ever be showing up at.”

Cherokee River paused for a moment to observe the revolving sign in front of New Scotland Yard. He ran his gaze from the silver metallic letters to the building itself with its protective bunkers, its uniformed guards, and its air of sombre authority.

“I’m not sure if it’s going to do us any good,” Deborah admitted. “But I think it’s worth a try.”

It was closing in on half past ten, and the rain had finally begun to abate. What had been a downpour when they’d set off earlier for the American embassy was now a persistent drizzle, from which they sheltered beneath one of Simon’s large black umbrellas.