A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(107)

“I have it.” St. James added everything that Deborah had told him about the ring and finished with “China River doesn’t recall where she last put it. She says if this ring isn’t actually the one she bought, you’ll have hers already among the rest of her belongings.”

Le Gallez didn’t ask to see the ring at once. Instead, he slammed the door of his car, said “Come with me, then,” and went back inside the station. St. James followed. Le Gallez led the way upstairs to a cramped room that appeared to do service as the forensic laboratory. Black-and-white photographs of footprints hung on drooping strings against one wall, and the simple equipment to lift latent fingerprints with cyanoacrylate fuming stood beneath them. Beyond this, a door marked darkroom burned a red light, indicating it was in use. Le Gallez pounded three times upon this, barked “Prints, McQuinn,” and “Let’s have it,” to St. James. St. James handed over the ring. Le Gallez did the necessary paperwork on it. McQuinn emerged from the darkroom as the DCI signed his name, adding a flourish of dots beneath it. In short order, what went for the full strength of the island’s forensic department was applied to the evidence from the bay where Guy Brouard had perished.

Le Gallez left McQuinn to his glue fumes. He next led the way to the evidence room. From the officer in charge there, he demanded the documents listing China River’s belongings. He looked through them and reported what St. James had already begun to suspect would be the case: There was no ring among anything the police had already taken from China River.

Le Gallez, St. James thought, should have been greatly satisfied by this. The information, after all, put yet another nail into China River’s fast-closing coffin. But instead of gratification, the DCI’s face appeared to reflect annoyance. He looked as if a piece to the puzzle that he’d thought would take one shape had taken another.

Le Gallez eyed him. He examined the list of evidence another time. The evidence officer said, “It’s just not there, Lou. Wasn’t earlier, isn’t now. I had a second look through everything. It’s all straightforward. Nothing applies.”

St. James understood from this that Le Gallez wasn’t looking for a ring alone in his examination of the paperwork. The DCI obviously had come up with something else, something he hadn’t revealed at their earlier meeting. He studied St. James as if considering how much he wished to tell him. He breathed the word “Damn,” and then said, “Come with me.”

They went to his office, where he swung the door shut and indicated a chair he wanted St. James to use. He himself pulled out his own desk chair and plopped into it, rubbing his forehead and reaching for a phone. He punched in a few numbers, and when someone on the other end answered, he said, “Le Gallez. Anything?...Hell. Keep looking, then. Perimeter. Fingertip. Whatever it takes...I bloody well know how many people’ve had the chance to mess things about there, Rosumek. Believe it or not, being able to count is one of the qualifications for my rank. Get on with it.” He dropped the phone.

“You’re doing a search?” St. James asked. “Where? At Le Reposoir?”

He didn’t wait for confirmation. “But you would’ve been calling it off just now if that ring was what you were looking for.” He pondered this point, saw there was only one conclusion he could draw from it, and said,

“You’ve had a report from England, I expect. Do the post-mortem details prompt a search?”

“You’re nobody’s fool, are you?” Le Gallez reached for a folder and took out several sheets that were stapled together. He didn’t refer to them as he brought St. James into the picture. “Toxicology,” he said.

“Something unexpected in the blood?”

“Opiate.”

“At the time of death? So what are they saying? He was unconscious when he choked?”

“Looks that way.”

“But that can only mean—”

“That the over isn’t over.” Le Gallez didn’t sound pleased. There was little wonder in that. Because of this new information, in order to tie things together, either the victim himself or the police’s number-one suspect in his murder now needed to be linked to opium or to any of its derivatives. If that couldn’t be made to happen, Le Gallez’s case against China River shattered like an egg dropped on stone.

“What are your sources of it?” St. James asked. “Any chance he was a user?”

“Shooting up before he went for a swim? Making early-morning visits to the local dope den? Not likely unless he wanted to drown.”

“No track marks on his arms?”

Le Gallez shot him a do-you-think-we-are-complete-fools look.

“What about residue in the blood from the previous night? You’re right—it doesn’t make sense he’d use a narcotic before swimming.”

“It doesn’t make sense he’d use at all.”

“Then someone drugged him that morning? How?”

Le Gallez looked uncomfortable. He thrust the paperwork back onto his desk. He said, “The man choked on that stone. No matter what was in his blood, he died the same bloody way. He choked on that stone. Let’s not forget it.”

“But at least we can see how the stone came to be lodged in his throat. If he’d been drugged, if he’d lost consciousness, how difficult would it be to shove a stone down his throat and allow him to suffocate? The only question would be how he came to be drugged. He wouldn’t have sat by and allowed an injection. Was he diabetic? A substitution made for his insulin? No? Then he had to have...what? Drunk it in a solution?” St. James saw Le Gallez’s eyes tighten marginally. He said to the DCI, “You think he did drink it, then,” and he realised why the detective was suddenly being so amenable to St. James’s having new information despite the difficulty caused by Deborah’s failure to bring the ring immediately to the station. It was a form of quid pro quo: an unspoken apology for insult and loss of temper given in exchange for St. James’s willingness to refrain from dragging Le Gallez’s investigation over the metaphorical coals. Considering this, St. James said slowly as he reflected on what he knew of the case,