A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(142)

“This has nothing to do with Adrian.”

“Nonetheless...”

“I expect he’s driving his mother somewhere. She’s not familiar with the island. The roads are poorly marked. She’d need his help.”

“He’s been a frequent visitor to his father, then? Throughout the years? Familiar with—”

“This is not about Adrian!” She sounded shrill even to her own ears. Her bones felt pierced by a hundred spikes. She needed to be rid of this man, no matter his intentions towards her and her family. She needed to get to her medicine and to douse herself with enough to render her body unconscious, if that was even possible. She said, “Mr. St. James, you’ve come for some reason, I expect. I know this isn’t a social call.”

“I’ve been to see Henry Moullin,” he told her.

Caution swept over her. “Yes?”

“I didn’t know Mrs. Duffy is his sister.”

“There wouldn’t be a reason for anyone to tell you.”

He smiled briefly in acknowledgement of this point. He went on to tell her that he’d seen Henry’s drawings of the museum windows. He said they put him in mind of the architectural plans in Mr. Brouard’s possession. He wondered if he might have a look at them. Ruth was so relieved that the request was simple that she granted it at once without considering all the directions her doing so might actually take them. The plans were upstairs in Guy’s study, she told him. She would fetch them at once.

St. James told her he’d accompany her if she didn’t mind. He wanted to have another look at the model Bertrand Debiere had constructed for Mr. Brouard. He wouldn’t take long, he assured her. There was nothing for it but to agree. They were on the stairs before the Londoner spoke again.

“Henry Moullin,” he said, “appears to have his daughter Cynthia locked up inside the house. Have you any idea how long that’s been going on, Miss Brouard?”

Ruth continued climbing, pretending she hadn’t heard the question. St. James was unrelenting, however. He said, “Miss Brouard...?”

She answered quickly as she headed down the corridor towards her brother’s study, grateful for the muted day outside and the darkness of the passage, which would hide her expression. “I have no idea whatsoever,” she replied. “I make it a habit to stay out of the business of my fellow islanders, Mr. St. James.”

“So there wasn’t a ring logged in with the rest of his collection,” Cherokee River said to his sister. “But that doesn’t mean someone didn’t snatch it sometime without him knowing. He says Adrian, Steve Abbott, and the Fielder kid all have been there at one time or another.”

China shook her head. “The ring from the beach’s mine. I know it. I can feel it. Can’t you?”

“Don’t say that,” Cherokee said. “There’s going to be another explanation.”

They were in the flat at the Queen Margaret Apartments, gathered in the bedroom where Deborah and Cherokee had found China sitting at the window in a ladderback chair she’d brought from the kitchen. The room was extraordinarily cold, made so by the fact that the window was open, framing a view of Castle Cornet in the distance.

“Thought I’d better get used to looking at the world from a small square room with a single window,” China had explained wryly when they came upon her.

She hadn’t donned a coat or even a sweater. The goose-pimples on her skin had their own goose-pimples, but she didn’t seem to be aware of this. Deborah took off her own coat. She wanted to reassure her friend with a fervency identical to Cherokee’s, but she also didn’t want to give her false hope. The open window provided an excuse to avoid a discussion of the growing blackness of China’s situation. She said, “You’re freezing. Put this on,” and she draped her coat round China’s shoulders. Cherokee leaned past them and shut the window. He said to Deborah,

“Let’s get her out of here,” and he nodded in the direction of the sitting room, where the temperature was marginally higher.

When they had China seated and Deborah had found a blanket to wrap round her legs, Cherokee said to his sister, “You know, you need to take better care of yourself. We can do some things for you, but we can’t do that.”

China said to Deborah, “He thinks I’ve done it, doesn’t he? He hasn’t come because he thinks I’ve done it.”

Cherokee said, “What’re you—”

Understanding, Deborah cut him off. “Simon doesn’t work that way. He examines evidence all the time. He’s got to have an open mind to do it. That’s how it is just now for him. His mind is open.”

“Why hasn’t he come over here, then? I wish that he would. If he did—if we could meet and I could talk to him...I’d be able to explain if things need explaining.”

“Nothing,” Cherokee said, “needs explaining because you didn’t do anything to anyone.”

“That ring...”

“It got there. On the beach. It just got there somehow. If it’s yours and you can’t remember having it in your pocket when you went down to check out the bay sometime, then you’re being framed. End of story.”

“I wish I’d never bought it.”

“Hell, yes. Damn right. Jesus. I thought you’d closed the book on Matt. You said you made it over between you.”