A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(158)

Deborah said, “Stuffy.” She offered China an affectionate smile. China took the juice that St. James poured for her. “My mind won’t stop the stream of if-onlys. I didn’t want to come to Europe and if only I’d stayed firm...If only I’d refused to talk about it again...If only I’d had enough work going on to keep me at home...He might not have come either. None of this would have happened.”

“It doesn’t do any good, thinking that,” Deborah said. “Things happen because they happen. That’s all. Our job isn’t to un-happen them”—she smiled at her neologism—“but just to move forward.”

China returned her smile. “I think I’ve heard that before.”

“You gave good advice.”

“You didn’t like it at the time.”

“No. I suppose it seemed...well, heartless, really. Which is how things always seem when you want your friends to join you in a long-term wallow.”

China wrinkled her nose. “Don’t be so rough on yourself.”

“You do the same, then.”

“Okay. A deal.”

The two women gazed fondly at each other. St. James looked from one to the other and recognised that a feminine communication was going on, one that he couldn’t comprehend. It concluded with Deborah saying to China River, “I’ve missed you,” and China returning with a soft laugh, a cock of her head, and a “Boy, that’ll teach you.” At which point, their conversation closed.

The exchange served as a reminder to St. James that Deborah had more of a life than was expressed by the stretch of years he had known her. Coming into his conscious world when she was seven years old, his wife had always seemed a permanent part of the map of his particular universe. While the fact that she had a universe of her own did not come as a shock to him, he found it disconcerting to be forced to accept that she’d had a wealth of experiences in which he was not a participant. That he could have been a participant was a thought for another morning when far less was at stake.

He said, “Have you spoken to the advocate yet?”

China shook her head. “He’s not in. He would’ve stayed at the station as long as they were questioning him, though. Since he didn’t call me...”

She fingered a piece of toast from the rack as if she meant to eat it, but she pushed it away instead. “I figured it went on into the night. That’s how it was when they talked to me.”

“I’ll begin there, then,” St. James told her. “And you two...I thi nk you need to pay a call on Stephen Abbott. He spoke to you the other day, my love,” to Deborah, “so I expect he’ll be willing to speak to you again.”

He led the two women outside and round to the car park. There they spread out a map of the island on the Escort’s bonnet and traced a route to Le Grand Havre, a wide gouge into the north coast of the island comprising three bays and a harbour, above which a network of footpaths gave access to military towers and disused forts. Acting as navigator, China would guide Deborah to that location, where Ana?s Abbott had a house in LaGarenne. In the meantime, St. James would pay a call at the police station and glean from DCI Le Gallez whatever information he could regarding Cherokee’s arrest.

He watched his wife and her friend drive off, their route established. They dipped down Hospital Lane and followed the road in the direction of the harbour. He could see the curve of Deborah’s cheek as the car made its turn towards St. Julian’s Avenue. She was smiling at something her friend had just said.

He stood for a moment and thought about the myriad ways he might caution his wife had she been willing and able to hear him. It’s not what I think, he would have told her in explanation. It’s everything that I do not yet know.

Le Gallez, he hoped, would fill in the gaps in his knowledge. St. James sought him out.

The DCI had just arrived at the police station. He still had on his overcoat when he came to fetch St. James. He shed this on a chair in the incident room and directed St. James to a china board, at the top of which a uniformed constable was attaching a line of colour photographs.

“Check them,” Le Gallez said with a nod. He looked quite pleased with himself.

The pictures, St. James saw, featured a medium-size brown bottle, the sort that often contained prescription cough syrup. It lay cradled in what looked like dead grass and weeds, with a burrow rising on either side of it. One of the pictures showed its size in comparison with a plastic ruler. Others showed its location with respect to the nearest live flora, to the apparent field in which it lay, to the hedgerow shielding the field from the road, and to wood-shrouded road itself which St. James recognised since he’d walked it himself.

“The lane that leads to the bay,” he said.

“That’s the spot, all right,” Le Gallez acknowledged.

“What is it, then?”

“The bottle?” The DCI went to a desk and picked up a piece of paper that he read from, saying, “Eschscholzia californica.”

“Which is?”

“Oil of poppy.”

“You’ve got your opiate, then.”

Le Gallez grinned. “That we do.”

“And californica means...”

“Just what you’d expect. His prints are on the bottle. Big as life. Clear and lovely. A sight for work-sore eyes, let me tell you.”