A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(55)

Deborah didn’t have the chance to remind her of the facts: that for her three-year stay in America, she’d been completely estranged from Simon. A sharp knock at the door supervened, heralding the return of Cherokee. A duffel bag angled across his shoulder.

He set the duffel on the floor and declared, “I’m out of that hotel, Chine. No way am I letting you stay here all alone.”

“There’s only one bed.”

“I’ll sleep on the floor. You need family around you, and that means me.”

His tone said fait accompli. The duffel bag said there would be no arguing with his decision. China sighed. She didn’t look happy.

St. James found the office of China’s advocate on New Street, a short distance from the Royal Court House. DCI Le Gallez had phoned ahead to let the lawyer know he’d be having a caller, so when St. James introduced himself to the man’s secretary, he waited less than five minutes before being shown into the advocate’s rooms. Roger Holberry directed him to one of three chairs that encircled a small conference table. There they both sat and St. James laid out for the advocate the facts that DCI Le Gallez had shared with him. Holberry himself would already have these facts, St. James knew. But he needed from the advocate everything that Le Gallez had left out during their interview, and the only way to get it was to allow the other man to note any holes in the blanket of information in order to sew them up. Holberry seemed only too happy to do this. Le Gallez, he informed him, had shared St. James’s credentials in their telephone call. The DCI wasn’t a joyful soldier now that it appeared reinforcements had entered the battle on the side of the opposition, but he was an honest man and he had no intention of attempting to thwart them in their efforts to establish China River’s innocence. “He made it clear that he doesn’t believe you’ll be able to do much good,” Holberry said. “His case is solid. Or so he thinks.”

“What’ve you got from forensic on the body?”

“What’s been combed from it so far. Scrapings from beneath the nails as well. Just the externals.”

“No toxicology? Tissue analysis? Organ studies?”

“Too soon for that. We’ve got to send it all to the UK and then it’s a case of join the queue. But the means of the killing is a straightforward business. Le Gallez must have told you.”

“The stone. Yes.” St. James went on to explain to the advocate that he’d pointed out to Le Gallez how unlikely it was that a woman could have shoved a stone down the throat of anyone older than a child. “And if there were no signs of a struggle...What did the nail scrapings show you?”

“Nothing. Other than some sand.”

“The rest of the body? Bruised, scraped, banged about? Anything?”

“Not a thing,” Holberry replied. “But Le Gallez knows he’s got next to nothing. He’s hanging this all on the witness. Brouard’s sister saw something. God knows what. He’s not told us that yet, Le Gallez.”

“Could she have done it herself?”

“Possible. But unlikely. Everyone who knows them agrees she was devoted to the victim. They’d been together—lived together, I mean—for most of their lives. She even worked for him when he was getting established.”

“As what?”

“Chateaux Brouard,” Holberry said. “They made a pile of money and came to Guernsey when he retired.”

Chateaux Brouard, St. James thought. He’d heard of the group: a chain of small but exclusive hotels fashioned from country houses throughout the UK. They were nothing flashy, just historic settings, antiques, fine food, and tranquility: the sort of places frequented by those who sought privacy and anonymity, perfect for actors needing a few days away from the glare of the media and excellent for political figures having affairs. Discretion was the better part of doing business, and the Chateaux Brouard embodied that belief.

“You said she might be protecting someone,” St. James said. “Who?”

“The son, for starters. Adrian.” Holberry explained that Guy Brouard’s thirty-seven-year-old son had also been a house guest the night before the murder. Then, he said, there were the Duffys to consider: Valerie and Kevin, who’d been part of life at Le Reposoir since the day Brouard had taken the place over.

“Ruth Brouard might lie for any of them,” Holberry pointed out. She was known to be loyal to the people she loved. And the Duffys at least, it had to be said, returned the favour. “We’re talking about a well-liked pair, Ruth and Guy Brouard. He’s done a world of good on this island. He used to give away money like tissues during cold season, and she’s been active with the Samaritans for years.”

“People without apparent enemies, then,” St. James noted.

“Deadly for the defence,” Holberry said. “But all is not lost on that front yet.”

Holberry sounded pleased. St. James’s interest quickened. “You’ve come up with something.”

“Several somethings,” Holberry said. “They may turn out to be several nothings, but they bear looking into and I can assure you the police weren’t sniffing seriously round anyone but the Rivers from the first.”

He went on to describe a close relationship that Guy Brouard had with a sixteen-year-old boy, one Paul Fielder, who lived in what was obviously the wrong side of town in an area called the Bouet. Brouard had hooked up with the boy through a local programme that paired adults from the community with disadvantaged teenagers from the secondary school. GAYT—Guernsey Adults-Youths-Teachers—had chosen Paul Fielder to be mentored by Guy Brouard, and Brouard had more or less adopted the boy, a circumstance which might have been less than thrilling to the boy’s own parents or, for that matter, to Brouard’s natural son. In either case, passions could have flared and among those passions the basest of them all: jealousy and what jealousy could lead someone to do. Then there was the fact of that party the night before Guy Brouard met his end, Holberry went on. Everyone had known for weeks it was coming, so a killer prepared to set upon Brouard when he wasn’t in top form—as he wouldn’t have been after partying till the wee hours of the morning—could have planned in advance exactly how best to carry it off and lay the blame elsewhere. While the party was going on, how difficult would it have been to slip upstairs and plant evidence on clothing and on the soles of shoes or, better yet, even to take those shoes down to the bay to leave a footprint or two that the police could find later? Yes, that party and the death were related, Holberry stated unequivocally, and they were related in more ways than one.