A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(138)

When his father was absorbed once again by the television, Frank tracked down River and the redhead. They were standing near the tattered deck chairs on the overgrown lawn behind the cottages. They appeared to be in deep discussion. As Frank approached them, their conversation ceased.

River introduced his companion as a friend of his sister’s. She was called Deborah St. James, he said, and she and her husband had come over from London to help China. “He deals with this kind of thing all the time,” River said.

Frank’s main concern was his father and not leaving him alone to get up to further mischief, so he replied to the introduction with as much courtesy as he could muster. “How may I help you?”

They answered him in concert. Their visit apparently had to do with a ring that was associated with the Occupation. It was identified by an inscription in German, by a date, and by its unusual design of skull and crossed bones.

“D’you have anything like that in your collection?” River sounded eager.

Frank looked at him curiously, then at the woman, who was watching him with an earnestness that told him how important the information was to them both. He thought about this fact and about every possible implication of every possible answer he might give. He finally said, “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like that.”

To which River said, “But you can’t be sure, can you?” When Frank didn’t affirm this, he went on, gesturing to the two additional cottages that grew out from the water mill. “You’ve got a hell of a lot of stuff in there. I remember your saying not all of it’s even catalogued yet. That’s what you guys were doing, right? You and Guy were getting it ready to show, but first you had to have lists of what you have and where it is right now and where to put it in the museum, right?”

“That’s what we were doing, yes.”

“And the kid helped out. Paul Fielder. Guy brought him along now and then.”

“As well as his son once and the Abbott boy as well,” Frank said. “But what’s this got to do with—”

River turned to the redhead. “See? There’re other ways to go. Paul. Adrian. The Abbott kid. The cops want to think every road leads to China, but it damn well doesn’t, and here’s our proof.”

The woman said gently, “Not necessarily. Not unless...” She looked pensive and directed her next remarks to Frank. “Is there a chance you’ve catalogued a ring like the one we’ve described and merely forgotten it? Or a chance that someone besides yourself catalogued it? Or even that you had one among your things and have forgotten you have it?”

Frank admitted that there was that possibility, but he allowed himself to sound doubtful because he knew the request she was likely to make and he didn’t want to grant it. She made it straightaway, nonetheless. Could they have a look among his wartime artifacts, then? Oh, she knew there was no realistic way they were going to be able to go through everything, but there was always a slim chance that they could get lucky...

“Let’s have a look through the catalogues at least,” Frank said. “If there was a ring, one of us would have documented it as long as we’d already come across it.”

He took them the way his father had taken them and pulled out the first of the notebooks. There were four of them and counting, each of them set up to log possession of a particular type of wartime article. So far he had a notebook for wearing apparel, one for medals and insignia, one for ammunition and arms, one for documents and papers. A perusal of the notebook for medals and insignia showed River and the St. James woman that no ring like the one they were describing had yet come to light. This did not, however, mean that no ring lay somewhere among the vast assortment of material still to be gone through. Within a minute it was quite clear that both of his visitors knew that.

Were the rest of the medals and the other insignia kept in one place, Deborah St. James wanted to know, or were they spread throughout the collection? She meant the medals and the insignia not catalogued already. Frank recognised that.

He told her that they weren’t kept in one place. He explained that the only items that were stored with like items were those that had already been handled, sorted through, and catalogued. Those things, he explained, were in organised containers that had been carefully labeled for convenient access when the time came to set up exhibits in the wartime museum. Each article was logged into the designated notebook, where it was given an item number and a container number against the day it would be called for.

“Since there was no ring mentioned in the catalogue,” Frank said regretfully, and he let an eloquent silence fill in the rest of his remark: There was probably no ring at all, unless it was hidden somewhere among the Gordian knot of articles still to be dealt with.

“But there were rings catalogued,” River pointed out. His companion added, “So during a sorting period, someone could even have pinched a skull-and-crossedbones ring without your knowing, isn’t that right?”

“And that person could have been anyone who came with Guy at one time or another,” River added. “Paul Fielder. Adrian Brouard. The Abbott kid.”

“Perhaps,” Frank said, “but I don’t know why someone would.”

“Or the ring could have been stolen from you at another time, couldn’t it?” Deborah St. James said. “Because if something got pinched from your uncatalogued material, would you even know it was missing?”