A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(54)

“But they have evidence, see?” China said. “My hair. My shoes. Footprints. I feel like I’m in one of those dreams where you try to shout but no one can hear you because you’re not really shouting at all because you can’t shout because you’re in a dream. It’s a round-and-round thing. D’you know what I mean?”

“I wish I could drag you out of this. I would if I could.”

“It was on his clothes,” China said. “The hair. My hair. On his clothes when they found him. And I don’t know how it got there. I’ve thought back, but I can’t explain it.” She gestured to the legal pad. “I’ve written down every day as best I can remember it. Did he hug me sometime? But why would he hug me, and if he did, why don’t I remember? The lawyer wants me to say that there was something between us. Not sex, he says. Don’t go that far. But the pursuit, he says. The hope in his mind of sex. Stuff between us that might have led to sex. Touching. That kind of thing. But there wasn’t and I can’t say there was. I mean, it’s not like the lying bothers me or anything. Believe me, I’d lie my head off if it would do any good. But who the hell’s going to support the story? People saw me with him and he never even put a finger on me. Oh, maybe on my arm or something but that was all. So if I go on the stand and say my hair was on him because he—

what? hugged me? kissed me? petted me? what?—it’s only my word against everyone else’s who’ll stand up and say he never looked at me at all. We could counter by putting Cherokee on the stand, but no way am I asking my brother to lie.”

“He’s desperate to help.”

China shook her head in what seemed like resignation. “He’s had some sort of scam running all his life. Remember the swap meets at the fairground? Those Indian artifacts he was pawning off on the public every week? Arrowheads, shards of pottery, tools, whatever else he could think of. He almost made me believe they were real.”

“You’re not saying Cherokee...”

“No, no. I just mean I should have thought twice—ten times, actually—about coming along on this trip. What seems simple to him, no strings, too good to be true but true anyway...? I should have seen that there had to be something more involved than just carrying some building plans across the ocean. Not something Cherokee had in mind but something that someone else was scheming.”

“To use you as a scapegoat,” Deborah concluded.

“That’s all I can figure.”

“That means everything about what happened was planned. Even bringing an American over to take the blame.”

“Two Americans,” China said. “So if one wasn’t likely to be believable as a suspect, there was a good chance the other one would be. That’s what’s going on, and we walked right into it. Two dumb Californians who’d never even been to Europe before and you know they had to be looking for that, too. A couple of na?ve oafs who wouldn’t have a clue what to do if they got caught up in a mess over here. And the kicker is that I didn’t really want to come. I knew there was something fishy about it. But I’ve spent my life being totally incapable of ever saying no to my brother.”

“He feels wretched about everything.”

“He always feels wretched,” China said. “Then I feel guilty. He needs a break, I tell myself. I know he’d do the same for me.”

“He seemed to think he was doing you a good turn as well. Because of Matt. Time to get away from things for a bit. He told me, by the way. About the two of you. The break-up. I’m quite sorry. I liked him. Matt.”

China gave her mug a half turn, staring at it hard and unwaveringly and for so long that Deborah thought she intended to avoid discussing the end of her longtime relationship with Matt Whitecomb. But just as Deborah was about to change the subject, China spoke.

“It was tough at first. Thirteen years is too long to wait for a man to decide he’s ready. I think I always knew at some level that we weren’t going to work out. It just took me this long to get up my nerve to call it quits. It’s the whole idea of going it alone that kept me hanging on to him. What’ll I do at New Year’s? Who’ll send me a valentine? Where do I go on the Fourth of July? It’s incredible to think how many relationships must be held together for the purpose of having someone to spend national holidays with.” China picked up her piece of the Guernsey Gache and moved it away from her with a little shudder. “Can’t eat this. Sorry.” And then, “Anyway, I’ve got bigger things than Matt Whitecomb to worry about right now. Why I spent my twenties trying to massage great sex into marriage, the house, the picket fence, the SUV, and the kiddies...That’s one for me to figure out in my dotage. Right now...Funny how things work out. If I wasn’t trapped here with a prison sentence hanging over my head, I might be brooding about why it took me so long to see the truth about Matt.”

“Which is?”

“He’s permanently scared. It was right in front of me, but I didn’t want to see it. Talk about committing to something more than weekends and vacations together, and he was always out of there. A sudden business trip. Work piling up at home. A need for a break to think things through. We split up so many times in thirteen years that the relationship started feeling like a recurring nightmare. The relationship, in fact, was starting to be all about the relationship, if you know what I mean. Hours talking about why we’re having trouble, why I want one thing and he wants another, why he backs off and I rush forward, why he feels suffocated and I feel deserted. What is it about men and committing, for God’s sake?” China picked up her spoon and stirred her tea, clearly something to do with her restlessness and not something that needed to be done. She glanced at Deborah. “Except, you’re not the person I ought to ask that question, I guess. Men, you, and committing. It was never a problem you had to face, Debs.”