A Place of Hiding

“You said she might be protecting someone,” St. James said. “Who?”


“The son, for starters. Adrian.” Holberry explained that Guy Brouard’s thirty-seven-year-old son had also been a house guest the night before the murder. Then, he said, there were the Duffys to consider: Valerie and Kevin, who’d been part of life at Le Reposoir since the day Brouard had taken the place over.

“Ruth Brouard might lie for any of them,” Holberry pointed out. She was known to be loyal to the people she loved. And the Duffys at least, it had to be said, returned the favour. “We’re talking about a well-liked pair, Ruth and Guy Brouard. He’s done a world of good on this island. He used to give away money like tissues during cold season, and she’s been active with the Samaritans for years.”

“People without apparent enemies, then,” St. James noted.

“Deadly for the defence,” Holberry said. “But all is not lost on that front yet.”

Holberry sounded pleased. St. James’s interest quickened. “You’ve come up with something.”

“Several somethings,” Holberry said. “They may turn out to be several nothings, but they bear looking into and I can assure you the police weren’t sniffing seriously round anyone but the Rivers from the first.”

He went on to describe a close relationship that Guy Brouard had with a sixteen-year-old boy, one Paul Fielder, who lived in what was obviously the wrong side of town in an area called the Bouet. Brouard had hooked up with the boy through a local programme that paired adults from the community with disadvantaged teenagers from the secondary school. GAYT—Guernsey Adults-Youths-Teachers—had chosen Paul Fielder to be mentored by Guy Brouard, and Brouard had more or less adopted the boy, a circumstance which might have been less than thrilling to the boy’s own parents or, for that matter, to Brouard’s natural son. In either case, passions could have flared and among those passions the basest of them all: jealousy and what jealousy could lead someone to do. Then there was the fact of that party the night before Guy Brouard met his end, Holberry went on. Everyone had known for weeks it was coming, so a killer prepared to set upon Brouard when he wasn’t in top form—as he wouldn’t have been after partying till the wee hours of the morning—could have planned in advance exactly how best to carry it off and lay the blame elsewhere. While the party was going on, how difficult would it have been to slip upstairs and plant evidence on clothing and on the soles of shoes or, better yet, even to take those shoes down to the bay to leave a footprint or two that the police could find later? Yes, that party and the death were related, Holberry stated unequivocally, and they were related in more ways than one.

“This whole business with the museum architect needs dissecting as well,” Holberry said. “It was unexpected and messy, and when things are unexpected and messy, people get provoked.”

“But the architect wasn’t present the night of the murder, was he?” St. James asked. “I was under the impression he’s in America.”

“Not that architect. I’m speaking of the original architect, a bloke called Bertrand Debiere. He’s a local man and he, along with everyone else, believed it was his design that would be chosen for Brouard’s museum. Well, why not? Brouard had a model of the place he kept showing off for weeks to anyone who was interested and it was Debiere’s model, made by his own hands. So when he—this is Brouard—said he was having a party to name the architect he’d chosen for the job...” Holberry shrugged. “You can’t blame Debiere for assuming he was the man.”

“Vengeful?”

“Who’s to tell, really? One would think the local coppers might have given him more than a cursory glance, but he’s a Guernseyman. So they’re not likely to touch him.”