A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(53)

“Simon’s come as well,” Deborah said. “We’re going to sort this out. You’re not to worry.”

China glanced at her brother, who’d shut the door behind them. He’d gone to the alcove that served as the flat’s kitchen, where he stood shifting from foot to foot and looking like the sort of male who wishes to be in another universe when females are exhibiting emotion. She said to him, “I didn’t intend you to bring them back with you. Just to get their advice if you needed it. But...I’m glad you did, Cherokee. Thanks.”

Cherokee nodded. He said, “You two need...? I mean, I could go for a walk or something...? You got food here? You know, here’s what: I’ll go find a store.” He took himself out of the flat without waiting for a response from his sister.

“Typical man,” China said when he was gone. “Can’t deal with tears.”

“And we haven’t even got to them yet.”

China chuckled, a sound which lightened Deborah’s heart. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like, trapped in a country that was not your own and charged with murder. So if she could help her friend not think about the jeopardy she faced, she wanted to do it. But she also wanted to reassure China: about the kinship she still felt for her. So she said, “I’ve missed you. I should have written more.”

“You should have written period,” China replied. “I’ve missed you, too.” She took Deborah into the kitchen alcove. “I’m making us some tea. I can’t believe how happy I am to see you.”

Deborah said, “No. Let me make it, China. You’re not going to start us off by taking care of me. I’m reversing our roles and you’re going to let me.” She marched the other woman over to a table that stood beneath an east-facing window. A legal pad and a pen lay upon this. The top sheet of the pad bore large block letters of dates and paragraphs beneath them rendered in China’s familiar looped scrawl. China said, “That was a bad time for you back then. It meant a lot to me to do what I could.”

“I was quite a pathetic blob,” Deborah said. “I don’t know how you were able to cope with me.”

“You were nowhere near home and in big trouble and trying to figure out what to do. I was your friend. I didn’t need to cope with you one way or another. I just needed to care. Which was pretty damn easy, to tell you the truth.”

Deborah felt a wash of warmth across her skin, a reaction that she knew had two distinct sources. It originated in part from the pleasure of female-to-female friendship. But it also had a root in a period of her past that was painful to contemplate. China River had been part of that period, nursing Deborah through it in the most literal sense. Deborah said, “I am so... What word can I use? Happy to see you?

But Lord, that sounds so egocentric, doesn’t it? You’re in trouble and I’m happy to be here? What a selfish little cod that makes me.”

“I don’t know about that.” China sounded reflective before her contemplative remark segued into a smile. “I mean the real question is: Can a cod be selfish?”

“Oh, you know cod,” Deborah replied. “A hook in its mouth and all of a sudden it’s me, me, me.”

They laughed together. Deborah went into the little kitchen. She filled the kettle and plugged it in. She found mugs, tea, sugar, and milk. One of the two cupboards even held a wrapped package of something identified as Guernsey Gache. Deborah peeled back the covering to find a brickshaped pastry that appeared to be a cross between raisin bread and fruit cake. It would do.

China said nothing more until Deborah had assembled everything on the table. Then it was only a murmured “I’ve missed you, too” that Deborah might not have heard had she not been listening earnestly for it. She squeezed her friend’s shoulder. She carried out the rituals of pouring and doctoring their tea. She knew the ceremony likely wouldn’t have the power to comfort her friend for long, but there was something in the act of holding a mug of tea, of curving one’s palm round the sides of the cup and allowing the heat to penetrate one’s hand, that had always possessed a form of magic for Deborah, as if the waters of Lethe and not leaves from an Asian plant had created what steamed from within. China seemed to know what Deborah intended because she took up her mug and said, “The English and their tea.”

“We drink coffee as well.”

“Not at a time like this, you don’t.” China held the mug as Deborah intended her to hold it, palm curved comfortingly round its side. She looked out of the window, where the lights of the town had begun to form a winking palette of yellow on charcoal as the last of daylight deferred to night. “I can’t get used to how early it gets dark over here.”

“It’s the time of year.”

“I’m so used to the sun.” China sipped the tea and set the mug on the table. With a fork, she picked at a piece of the Guernsey Gache loaf but she didn’t eat. Instead, she said, “I guess I might have to get used to it, though. Lack of sunlight. Being permanently indoors.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I didn’t do it.” China raised her head and looked at Deborah directly.

“I didn’t kill that man, Deborah.”

Deborah felt her insides quiver at the thought that China might believe that she needed convincing of this fact. “My God, of course you didn’t. I haven’t come here to play see-for-myself. Neither has Simon.”