A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(56)
“This whole business with the museum architect needs dissecting as well,” Holberry said. “It was unexpected and messy, and when things are unexpected and messy, people get provoked.”
“But the architect wasn’t present the night of the murder, was he?” St. James asked. “I was under the impression he’s in America.”
“Not that architect. I’m speaking of the original architect, a bloke called Bertrand Debiere. He’s a local man and he, along with everyone else, believed it was his design that would be chosen for Brouard’s museum. Well, why not? Brouard had a model of the place he kept showing off for weeks to anyone who was interested and it was Debiere’s model, made by his own hands. So when he—this is Brouard—said he was having a party to name the architect he’d chosen for the job...” Holberry shrugged. “You can’t blame Debiere for assuming he was the man.”
“Vengeful?”
“Who’s to tell, really? One would think the local coppers might have given him more than a cursory glance, but he’s a Guernseyman. So they’re not likely to touch him.”
“Americans being more violent by nature?” St. James asked. “Schoolyard shootings, capital punishment, accessible guns, and the rest of it?”
“Not so much that as the nature of the crime itself.” Holberry glanced at the door as it creaked open. His secretary eased into the room, home written all over her: She carried a stack of papers in one hand and a pen in the other, she wore her coat, and she carried her handbag hooked over her arm. Holberry took the documents from her and began to sign his name as he talked. “There hasn’t been a cold start murder on the island in years. No one even knows how long it’s been. Not in the memory of anyone at the police department and that goes back quite a way. There’ve been crimes of passion, naturally. Accidental deaths and suicides, as well. But calculated murder? Not in decades.” He completed his signatures, handed the letters back to his secretary, and bade her goodnight. He himself stood and went back to his desk, where he began to sort through paperwork, some of which he shoved into a briefcase on his chair. He said, “That being the situation, the police are, unfortunately, predisposed to believe that a Guernseyman wouldn’t be capable of committing a crime like this.”
“Do you suspect there are others, then, beyond the architect?” St. James asked. “I mean other Guernseymen with a reason to want Guy Brouard dead?”
Holberry set his paperwork aside as he pondered this question. In the outer office, the door opened then closed as his secretary went on her way.
“I believe,” Holberry said carefully, “that the surface has barely been scratched when it comes to Guy Brouard and the people of this island. He was like Father Christmas: this charity, that charity, a wing at the hospital, and what do you need? Just see Mr. Brouard. He was the patron of half a dozen artists—painters, sculptors, glassmakers, metal workers—and he was footing the bill on more than one local kid’s university education in England. That’s who he was. Some called it giving back to a community that had made him welcome. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find out others had another name for it.”
“When money’s paid out, favours are owed?”
“That’s about it.” Holberry snapped his briefcase closed. “People tend to expect something in return when they hand out money, don’t they? If we follow Brouard’s cash round the island, I reckon we’ll know sooner or later what that something was.”
Chapter 8
Early in the morning, Frank Ouseley made arrangements for one of the farmwives from Rue des Rocquettes to descend to the valley and look in on his father. He didn’t intend to be gone from Moulin des Niaux more than three hours, but he really wasn’t sure how long the funeral, the burial, and the reception would take. It was inconceivable that he should be absent from any part of the day’s proceedings. But leaving his father on his own was too risky to contemplate. So he phoned round till he found a compassionate soul who said she’d bike down once or twice “with something sweet for the old dear. Dad likes his sweeties, doesn’t he?”
Nothing was necessary, Frank had assured her. But if she did truly wish to bring Dad a treat, he was partial to anything with apples in it. Fuji, Braeburn, Pippin? the good woman inquired.
Really, it didn’t make a difference.
Indeed, truth to tell, she probably could have made something out of bedsheets and passed it off as apple strudel. His father had eaten worse in his time and had lived to make it a topic of general conversation. It seemed to Frank that as the end of his father’s life approached, he talked more and more about the distant past. This was something Frank had welcomed several years previously when it had begun, since aside from his interest in the war in general and the occupation of Guernsey in particular, Graham Ouseley had always been admirably reticent about his own heroics during that terrible time. He’d spent most of Frank’s youth deflecting personal questions, saying, “It wasn’t about me, boy. It was about all of us,” and Frank had learned to cherish the fact that his father’s ego needed no bolstering through reminiscences in which he himself played a key role. But as if he knew his time was drawing nigh and wished to leave a legacy of memory for his only son, Graham had started to talk in specifics. Once he had begun this process, it seemed there was no end to what Frank’s father was able to remember from the war.