Roses in Moonlight

chapter 4





Derrick leaned against a handy outcropping in an otherwise quite uninspired bit of brick wall and watched the door a hundred feet to his left. It was not quite seven, but he’d had a feeling the excitement would begin quite early in the day. He glanced to his right as Oliver simply appeared from nowhere, two cups of something steaming in his hands. He gave one to Derrick, then joined him in his leaning. He looked alert, which Derrick could definitely not say about himself, and he had been the one sleeping through the night whilst Oliver kept watch over the Cookes’ residence.

“You could have slept in this morning,” Derrick remarked.

“I slept at the office last week.”

There was no denying that. Among Oliver’s many gifts was the uncanny ability to lose himself in slumber in any location and on any surface. Derrick had avoided him rather well in the lobby of Cameron’s suite of offices, stepped over him several times in the middle of the rug in his own office, and marveled at his ability to make himself comfortable on a sofa that just wasn’t quite long enough for him.

“Perhaps I’ll sleep on the train,” Oliver continued easily, as if he discussed whether to have a scone or a croissant for breakfast. “Or not. No matter. What of you?”

“I slept.”

“After you snooped, no doubt.”

Derrick conceded that with a slight nod. “Had to have something useful to do.”

“What’d you find out?”

“Nothing that makes any sense.”

“Criminals are like that.”

Derrick sighed, then returned to his study of the Cookes’ front stoop. “They’re both humanities professors, though they seem to do an appalling amount of acting.” He had to take a deep breath because he did indeed know more about Edmund Cooke than he wanted to admit, but it was nothing he would divulge. He would just have to feign a sort of baffled ignorance. “They’re not rich,” he continued, “but they’re comfortable. No points on their licenses, no brushes with the law, current on their council taxes, no illegal telly time.”

“How boring.”

Derrick almost smiled. “It would look that way, wouldn’t it?”

“And what do they have of ours?”

Derrick looked at him then. “A rather large, perfectly preserved piece of sixteenth-century lace.”

“The one the Earl of Epworth left behind his utterly inadequate piece of glass?”

Derrick nodded. “That’d be the one.”

Oliver shook his head and looked vaguely unsettled, if such a thing were possible. “Don’t care much for that thing, if you want the truth. I think it’s cursed.”

“Or worth a fortune.”

“Cursed sounds more interesting.” He sipped his coffee. “How do you know they stole it?”

Derrick set his cup down at his feet, then folded his arms over his chest. “I watched the security tapes at Epworth’s castle. Professional burglar, if you can believe it. The Cookes were also attending a house party at the castle the same night.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“So was watching the thief as he visited our good Mr. Cooke in his office a week later. I thought perhaps our sticky-fingered lad’s backpack seemed a little lighter afterward.”

Oliver pursed his lips, but his eyes almost twinkled. “Still on the thin side, don’t you think?”

“The subsequent conversation Mr. Cooke had with his wife about their new lacey acquisition wasn’t.”

“Very well, I’m convinced. What now? Are you telling me these two paragons haven’t been squirreling away their ha’pennies, waiting for just enough of them to buy this legally?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Oliver shook his head. “Not much market for a whacking great piece of lace of that vintage, is there?”

“That’s what baffles me,” Derrick admitted. “It isn’t as if they could dispose of it at a flea market, is it? I didn’t pay any calls to seedier suspects, but I did have friendly visits with most every legitimate dealer who would be interested in that sort of thing. I came up empty-handed.”

“Most,” Oliver repeated, glancing at him briefly. “Who’d you miss?”

“This is what doesn’t make sense,” Derrick said slowly. He looked at Oliver. “The only reputable bloke I didn’t talk to was Gavin Drummond.”

Oliver rolled his eyes, which for him was an appalling display of deep emotion. “That pansy-waisted Yank? He can’t even overcharge for bad art and you think he’s in the market for stolen lace?”

“I’m just wondering about him,” Derrick said, shrugging. “I’ve often wondered if he’s using Yolynda’s gallery as a stepping-stone to bigger things.” He shot Oliver a look. “Do you know who his parents are?”

“His mother is some long-winded harridan with a penchant for cheap Victorian knickknacks and his father is a blowhard who thinks he’s the second coming of Sir Laurence Olivier, and both of them hold court in some exclusive little university in the States where their students no doubt live in fear of what’ll happen to their marks if they indulge in a very justifiable bit of sleeping to stave off the utter boredom of the classes this narcissistic pair purports to teach.” He looked at Derrick blandly. “Is that about right?”

Derrick laughed a little in spite of himself. “Something like that.”

“And why do you think Gavin Drummond’s trying to better his life?”

Derrick watched the door open and a woman in her twenties step out onto the sidewalk. She was pretty, in a bookish, spinsterish sort of way. All she was missing to complete the picture were librarian-style glasses. He wondered, absently, what she might look like if someone had cut off the thick, nondescript braid that hung down her back. He had certainly considered that a time or two the day before when he’d been putting himself in her way in the Castle’s great hall. He nodded toward her.

“Because of that lass there.”

“The one who looks like she’s been kept in storage for the past thirty years?”

“The very same.” Derrick looked at him. “Know who she is?”

“Samantha Drummond,” Oliver said. “Gavin’s youngest sister.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I believe you were shadowing her yesterday.”

“My faith is restored.”

“I wasn’t snoozing.”

“You never do.”

Oliver shrugged. “I have a reputation to maintain. Pray I don’t disappoint when you need me the most.”

“I do, laddie, every day.”

“And you think she’s involved in this?”

“I can hardly credit it,” Derrick said, “but the timing of her arrival is suspicious. As is her occupancy here with this particular set of antique collectors.” He glanced at Oliver. “Wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s convenient,” Oliver conceded. “Find out anything useful about her yesterday?”

“She believes in paranormal happenings.”

Oliver smiled briefly. “How interesting.”

“I thought so, too.”

Oliver was silent for a moment or two, then pushed off from the wall. “See you at the station. I’ll catch her bus. I checked us out of the hotel, by the way. In cash.”

Derrick expected nothing else. They’d both spent so many years flying under the radar whilst ferreting out details for Robert Cameron that remaining as anonymous as possible was simply second nature. Derrick wondered now and again if that had made him paranoid, but he never wondered about it enough to change how he did business. He tossed his coffee in the trash, slung his backpack over his shoulders and walked down the street to catch a taxi on the busier cross street, not looking up as the bus passed him. The next train south left in an hour, which was enough time to make a few alterations to his appearance, have breakfast, then get a seat near his quarry.

It was possible, he supposed, that she might go another direction besides south. It had been all he could do earlier that morning not to hack into Lydia Cooke’s bank account as well as paw through her emails to see what sort of travel arrangements she’d booked for Gavin’s sister, but that would have made things feel too easy.

The very sad truth was, he was slightly bored.

He wasn’t proud of it, but there it was. He wasn’t so bored that he’d become sloppy, not truly, but enough that he had left things unknown that he normally would have investigated without hesitation. Perhaps he had spent too many years rubbing shoulders with villains and the criminal class had ceased to hold any fascination for him. Their methods were different, true, but in the end they were all nothing more than a lot of punters with no respect for the law or anyone else’s property.

He supposed there were those who might say the same about him for reading their private correspondence, but he supposed he wasn’t the only one, so perhaps that made it less unpalatable than it might have been otherwise.

He crawled into the back of the taxi that pulled to a stop in front of him, gave the cabbie his destination, then sat back against the seat with a weary sigh. He was getting old, perhaps. He would be thirty-two in the fall, old enough to have settled down by now. Perhaps he was getting broody, though he couldn’t imagine any woman wanting to settle down with him. Instead of nights down at the pub with the lads, he spent his weekends—and some weeks, truth be told—with James MacLeod. Not exactly anything to write home about.

Perhaps he simply had too many irons in the fire. He could give up something, perhaps, and have a bit more peace in his life. Cameron Antiquities, though, was his business and his source of not only pride but funds to keep petrol in his cars and food on his table. The other, well, he wasn’t sure he was willing to give up the exhilaration that was traveling to exotic locales with the madman from the castle down the way. It was no wonder Jamie was addicted to it. It was a damned good time.

And what would he give it up for? If he’d heard one more London socialite coo, “Ooh, you’re Robert Cameron’s cousin, aren’t you?” whilst attempting to look discreetly around him for a Ferrari hiding behind his back, he would have likely cracked his teeth from grinding them in frustration. If he’d had one more Scottish lass from the village he’d been a part of for the better part of his life do the same, well, he would have moved to London permanently.

He paid the cabbie and walked into the station, choosing a fairly large group to become a part of. He already had the train times committed to memory, so he kept a casual eye on Samantha Drummond, then noted the track she subsequently walked toward. He purchased a ticket, then followed her with equal casualness, passing and ignoring Oliver on his way. He waited until the train arrived, waited until the others disembarked, then followed Miss Drummond on board. He slid into a seat across the aisle and a row or two behind her where he could keep an eye on her without being overly obvious.

He supposed to be fair he would have to admit that she was really quite lovely in a New-England-prep-school sort of way. He wouldn’t have been surprised to have watched her break out a mystery novel and read it whilst dressed in bobby socks and saddle shoes. If he’d been going on first impressions, he would have said she was nothing more than a very sheltered though well-educated youngest daughter of two academics with sterling reputations who had sent her across the Pond to associate with other sterling-reputationed academics who would look after her innocent self with as much care as her parents would have.

Obviously, it was a very well-crafted front.

Determining what lay behind that front caused him to lift a mental eyebrow, but he firmly resisted the impulse to pull out his tablet and quickly find those answers. He would pretend to be just a normal bloke without access to all sorts of things he shouldn’t have had access to and see if he couldn’t pry answers out of her the old-fashioned way. He wasn’t quite ready to resort to a deerstalker hat and pencil and paper, but he was close. He was that desperate to keep himself awake.

He watched her for an hour, wondering where in the world she was going to stop and who, if anyone, would meet her there. Perhaps she was off on a little explore to look for other items of a textile nature to poach.

She started to gather her things together as they approached the station at York. That wasn’t where he would have expected her to get off, but then again, what did he know? He was just tracking down a priceless piece of lace for a man who simply wanted a piece of history behind glass and hadn’t listened when Derrick had told him to improve his security system.

Derrick supposed he hadn’t done himself any favors when he’d paid His Lordship a little visit one evening. He’d listened to a few of the earl’s stories, then bid the man a fond farewell, leaving him sitting in his study with a glass of wine. He had then waited half an hour before he had broken back into the man’s house, disarmed the security system and lifted that very fine piece of lace in under ten minutes, silently and without detection. He’d walked back in the front door, been escorted to the man’s study, and handed him his treasure.

It was, he was absolutely convinced, only the sterling reputation of the Cameron name that had saved him from being dragged off in irons right then. The earl, white-faced and trembling, had taken his lace back and promised to have someone out the very next day. Either that hadn’t happened or the abilities of the security firm had been sadly lacking.

Derrick followed his little librarian off the train and out of the station. He continued to trail after her as she wandered along streets, looking down at a journal she held in her hands, completely oblivious to what was going on around her. He raised his eyebrows briefly. Either she was cleverer than she looked, or the Cookes were idiots. He felt something stir in him that wasn’t the very vile pasty he’d snagged on his way to the platform. It was something that felt almost a bit like interest. Enthusiasm was overstating it, but a flicker of interest, aye, that was possible.

Who would entrust a piece of lace that valuable to the clueless tourist in front of him who was gawking at everything around her as if she’d never seen anything interesting before in the whole of her life?

His phone chirped at him. He looked down and found a text from Oliver waiting there.

Have scissors?

Derrick smiled to himself, because he’d been thinking the same thing, though as he followed Samantha Drummond, he found himself less tempted to cut her hair than simply unbraid it. She could have done with a bit of, ah, unbuttoning.

The rest of his morning included nothing more interesting than watching her check without fanfare, though rather early, into a modest hotel. He found himself a discreet place to sit and watch the front door, then he sat and watched. No curtains moved, as if she peered out to see who was coming to meet her. No shifty-eyed textile brokers slipped into the lobby for an exchange of goods. Nothing happened at all except for his eventual inability to feel his backside and a slight twinge in his knee that made him look heavenward to see if it was going to rain anytime soon.

Time crawled by.

Oliver texted him a picture of a hotel he’d checked them into. Tourists passed him, chatting in various languages. An old granny on a bicycle almost ran over his toes, then cackled as she pedaled away. He almost fell asleep in the sunshine, then woke to the feel of his pack starting to leave his fingers. He glared at a cheeky yob, who then held up his hands and bolted.

He sat there for at least another hour before he couldn’t ignore his stomach any longer. Either Samantha Drummond had snuck out the back, which hacking into the hotel’s security camera had assured him she hadn’t, or she was the single most boring thief in the history of textile thievery. He’d had more interesting mornings helping Cameron’s secretary clean out her spam folder.

Oliver appeared suddenly and sat down next to him on the bench. “Go. I’ll shadow her for a bit.”

“Shadow,” Derrick echoed with a snort. “Shadow her where? She hasn’t gone anywhere.”

“Wherever else she doesn’t go, I’ll follow her.” He looked at Derrick and frowned. “You need a lie-down.”

“Why are you so well rested?”

“I’ve already had four lattes this morning,” Oliver said blandly.

Derrick smiled. “Don’t lose her whilst you’re in the loo.”

“I’ll try not to.”

He looked down at Oliver’s shoes. They were fluorescent green. It was such an appalling sight, he could hardly believe what he was seeing.

“Discreet?”

“Backup plan,” Oliver said. “In case the lattes fail.”

Well, either those shoes would keep the lad awake or they would give him nightmares. Derrick sighed and picked up his backpack.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“No worries,” Oliver said. “I’ve plenty to do here.”

Aye, fight off the boredom of watching for a woman who was probably inside her room either watching the telly or having a long, luxurious nap. He was struck by a feeling that he eventually identified as envy.

Perhaps he needed a holiday.

Derrick rose. “Best of luck.”

Oliver waved him off, looking as if he were somehow not quite sitting still as he sat there, still. Derrick headed toward his hotel. Of course Oliver hadn’t provided him with an address, but that wasn’t surprising. There would have been no sport in having everything laid out for him.

He found the hotel without trouble, accepted a key, then took himself upstairs and decided that perhaps he would succumb to weariness and have himself a decent rest. He took off his boots, then simply stretched out with his hands behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling and wondered about Samantha Drummond.

What in the world was she up to? Admittedly, she was Gavin’s sister, which meant she could have been up to almost anything, but even Gavin had spoken kindly of her the one time he’d actually spoken of her. She didn’t fit the profile of a high-class thief and her background probably wouldn’t allow her to become a low-class thief.

He shook his head. He just couldn’t figure her.

But he would.

Just as soon as he woke up, hopefully not after having dreamed about those vile green shoes he’d just been subjected to.