A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(178)

“My brother didn’t do this,” China said insistently. “Look: We’ve got Ana?s Abbott with a motive. We’ve got Henry Moullin with a motive, too. We’ve even got Stephen Abbott with a motive if he wanted into Cynthia’s pants or wanted to separate his mom from Brouard. So where does Cherokee fit? Nowhere. And why? Because he didn’t do it. He didn’t know these people any more than I did.”

Deborah added, “You can’t discount everything that points to Henry Moullin, not in favour of Cherokee, can you? Not when there’s nothing that even indicates he might’ve been involved in Guy Brouard’s death.”

She appeared to read something on St. James’s face as she made the final remark, though, because she went on to say, “Unless there is something. And there must be, because why else would they have arrested him. So of course there’s something. What’ve I been thinking? You went to the police. What did they tell you? Is it about the ring?”

St. James glanced at China—who leaned towards him attentively—

and then back at his wife. He shook his head and said, “Deborah,” and then concluded with a sigh that breathed his apology. “I’m sorry, my love.”

Deborah’s eyes widened as she seemed to realise what her husband was saying and doing. She looked away from him and St. James could see her pressing her hands into her lap as if this gesture would contain her temper. Evidently, China read her as well because she stood, despite her coffee going undrunk. She said, “I think I’ll go see if they’ll let me talk to my brother. Or I can find Holberry and send a message in with him. Or...”

She hesitated, her gaze going to the door of the lounge, where two women loaded with Marks & Spencer bags were coming in for a break in their morning shopping. Watching them get settled, listening to their easy laughter and chatter, China looked bleak. She said to Deborah, “I’ll catch you later, okay?” She nodded to St. James and grabbed her coat. Deborah called out her name as she hurried from the room, but China didn’t turn. Deborah did, on her husband. “Was that completely necessary?” she demanded. “You as much as called him a murderer. And you think she’s in on it as well, don’t you? Which is why you wouldn’t say what you have, not in front of her. You think they did it. Together. Or one of them. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

“We don’t know they didn’t do it,” St. James replied, although this wasn’t really what he wanted to say to Deborah. Instead of responding, he knew he was reacting to his wife’s tone of accusation despite realising that this reaction came from irritation and was a first step on the path of arguing with her.

“How can you say that?” Deborah demanded.

“Deborah, how can you not?”

“Because I’ve just told you what we’ve come up with, and none of it has to do with Cherokee. Or with China.”

“No,” he agreed. “What you’ve come up with doesn’t have to do with them.”

“But what you have does. That’s what you’re saying. And like a good little detective, you’re keeping it to yourself. Well, that’s just fine. I may as well go home. I may as well just let you—”

“Deborah.”

“—handle it all on your own since you’re so intent on doing that.”

Like China, she began to put on her coat. She struggled with it, though, and was unable to make the dramatic exit she no doubt wished to make. He said, “Deborah. Sit down and listen.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. I’m not a child.”

“Then don’t act like—” He stopped himself at the edge and raised his hands, palms towards her in a gesture that said Let’s call this to a halt. He forced himself to be calm and forced his voice to be reasonable. “What I believe isn’t important.”

“Then you do—”

“And,” he cut in determinedly, “what you believe isn’t important either. The only thing that is important is the facts. Feelings can’t intrude in a situation like this.”

“Good God, you’ve made your decision, haven’t you? Based on what?”

“I haven’t made any decision at all. It’s not my place to do that, and even if it were, no one’s asking for my decision.”

“Then?”

“Things don’t look good. That’s what it is.”

“What d’you know? What do they have?” When he didn’t answer at once, she said, “God in heaven, you don’t trust me? What d’you think I’m going to do with the information?”

“What would you do if it implicates your friend’s brother?”

“What sort of question is that? What d’you think I’d do: tell him?”

“The ring...” St. James hated to say it, but it had to be said. “And as it turned out, he recognised it from the first but still said nothing at all. How do you explain that, Deborah?”

“I’m not meant to explain it. He is. He will.”

“You believe in him that much?”

“He’s not a killer.”

But the facts suggested otherwise, although St. James couldn’t take the risk of revealing them to her. Eschscholzia californica, a bottle in a field, fingerprints on the bottle. And everything that had gone on in Orange County, California.