A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(161)

Impulsively Deborah put her arms round her friend. China’s body was unyielding at first, but Deborah held on till she felt her soften. She said, “We’ll get him out of this. We’ll get you both out of it. You will go home.”

They returned to the car. As Deborah reversed it out of the lay-by and made the turn back onto the main road, China said, “If I’d known they were going to come for him next...This sounds like a martyr thing. I don’t mean it that way. But I think I’d rather do the time myself.”

“No one’s going to prison,” Deborah said. “Simon is going to see to that.”

China held the map open on her lap and looked at it as if checking their route. But she said tentatively, “He’s nothing like...He’s very di fferent...I wouldn’t ever have thought...” She stopped altogether. Then, “He seems very nice, Deborah.”

Deborah glanced at her and completed her thought. “But he’s nothing like Tommy, is he?”

“Not in any way. You seem...I don’t know...less free with him?

Less free, anyway, than you were with Tommy. I remember how you laughed with Tommy. And had adventures together. And acted wild. Somehow I don’t see you doing that with Simon.”

“No?” Deborah smiled, but it was forced. There was plain truth in what her friend was saying—her relationship with Simon couldn’t have been more different to her time with Tommy—but somehow China’s observation felt like a criticism of her husband, and that criticism put her in the position of wanting to defend him, a sensation she didn’t like. “Perhaps that’s because you’re seeing us in the midst of something serious just now.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” China said. “Like you said, he’s different from Tommy. Maybe it’s because he’s...you know. His leg? He’s more serious about life because of that?”

“Perhaps it’s just that he has more to be serious about.” Deborah knew this wasn’t necessarily true: As a homicide detective, Tommy had professional concerns that far outweighed Simon’s. But she sought a way to explain her husband to her friend, a way to allow her to see that loving a man who dwelt almost entirely within his own head wasn’t that terribly different to loving a man who was outspoken, passionate, and thoroughly involved in life. It’s because Tommy can afford to be those things, Deborah wanted to tell her in defence of her husband. Not because he’s wealthy but because he’s simply who he is. And who he is is sure, in ways that other men aren’t.

“His handicap, you mean?” China said after a moment.

“What?”

“What Simon has to be more serious about.”

“I never actually think about his handicap,” Deborah told her. She kept her gaze on the road so her friend couldn’t read her face for the message that said this was a lie.

“Ah. Well. Are you happy with him?”

“Very.”

“Well then, lucky you.” China gave her attention back to the map.

“Straight across at the intersection,” she said abruptly. “Then right at the one after that.”

She guided them to the north end of the island, an area completely unlike the parishes that held Le Reposoir and St. Peter Port. The granite cliffs of the south end of Guernsey gave way on the north to dunes. A sandy coast replaced the steep and wooded descent to bays, and where vegetation protected the land from the wind, it was marram grass and bindweed that grew on the mobile dunes, red fescue and sea spurge where the dunes were fixed.

Their route took them along the south end of Le Grand Havre, a vast open bay where small boats lay protected on the shore for the winter. On one side of this section of the water, the humble white cottages of LePicquerel lined a road that veered west to the collection of bays that defined the low-lying part of Guernsey. On the other side, La Garenne forked to the left, a route named for the rabbit warrens that had at one time housed the island’s chief delicacy. It was a thin strip of pavement that followed the eastern swoop of Le Grand Havre. Where La Garenne curved with the coastline, they found Ana?s Abbott’s house. It stood on a large piece of land walled off from the road by the same grey granodiorite blocks that had been used in the construction of the building itself. An expansive garden had been planted in front and a path wound through it to the house’s front door. Ana?s Abbott was standing there, arms crossed beneath her breasts. She was in conversation with a briefcase-carrying balding man who appeared to be having difficulty keeping his eyes focused above the level of her neck. As Deborah parked on the verge across the lane from the house, the man extended his hand to Ana?s. They shook in conclusion of some sort of deal, and he came down the stone path between the hebe and the lavender. Ana?s watched him from the step and, as his car was parked just in front of Deborah’s, she saw her next two visitors as they alighted from the Escort. Her body stiffened visibly and her expression—which had been soft and earnest in the presence of the man—altered, her eyes narrowing with swift calculation as Deborah and China came up the path towards her. Her hand went to her throat in a protective gesture. She said, “Who are you?” to Deborah and “Why are you out of gaol? What does this mean?” to China. And “What are you doing here?” to them both.

“China’s been released,” Deborah said, and introduced herself, explaining her presence in vague terms of “trying to sort matters out.”