A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(69)

Ruth Brouard stepped into the shallow embrasure of a window and drew back sheer panels that hung over the glass. “Come,” she said to St. James. “Look.”

St. James joined her and saw that the window overlooked the front of the house. Below them, the drive circled round a plot of land planted with grass and shrubbery. Beyond this, the lawn rolled across to a distant cottage. A thick stand of trees grew round this building and extended up along the drive and back again to the main house.

Her brother had come out of the front door as was his habit, Ruth Brouard told St. James. As she watched, he crossed the lawn towards the cottage and disappeared into the trees. China River came out of those trees and followed him. She was in full sight. She was dressed in black. She was wearing her cloak with its hood drawn up, but Ruth knew it was China.

Why? St. James wanted to know. It seemed clear that anyone could have put his hands on China’s cloak. Its very nature made it suitable for either a man or a woman to wear. And didn’t the hood suggest to Miss Brouard—

“I didn’t depend on that alone, Mr. St. James,” Ruth Brouard told him. “I thought it odd that she would follow Guy at that hour of the morning because there seemed to be no reason for it. I found it unsettling. I thought I might be mistaken about what I’d seen, so I went to her room. She wasn’t there.”

“Perhaps elsewhere in the house?”

“I checked. The bathroom. The kitchen. Guy’s study. The drawing room. The upstairs gallery. She wasn’t anywhere inside, Mr. St. James, because she was following my brother.”

“Did you have your glasses on when you saw her outside in the trees?”

“That’s why I checked the house,” Ruth said. “Because I didn’t have them on when I first looked out of the window. It seemed to be her—I’ve learned to become good with sizes and shapes—but I wanted to be sure.”

“Why? Did you suspect something of her? Or of someone else?”

Ruth put the sheer curtains back in place. She smoothed her hand over the thin material. She said as she did this, “Someone else? No. No. Of course not,” but the fact that she spoke as she saw to the curtains prompted St. James to go on.

He said, “Who else was in the house at the time, Miss Brouard?”

“Her brother. Myself. And Adrian, Guy’s son.”

“What was his relationship with his father?”

“Good. Fine. They didn’t see each other often. His mother long ago put that into effect. But when they did see each other, they were terribly fond. Naturally, they had their differences. What father and son don’t? But they weren’t serious, the differences. They were nothing that couldn’t be repaired.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Of course I’m sure. Adrian is...He’s a good boy but he’s had a difficult life. His parents’ divorce was bitter and he was caught in the middle. He loved both of them but he was made to choose. That sort of thing causes misunderstanding. It causes estrangement. And it isn’t fair.” She seemed to hear an undercurrent in her own voice and she took a deep breath as if to control it. “They loved each other in the way fathers and sons love each other when neither of them can ever get a grasp on what the other one is like.”

“Where do you suppose that kind of love can lead?”

“Not to murder. I assure you of that.”

“You love your nephew,” St. James observed.

“Blood relatives mean more to me than they do to most people,” she said, “for obvious reasons.”

St. James nodded. He saw the truth in this. He also saw a further reality, but he didn’t need to explore it with her at that moment. He said, “I’d like to see the route your brother took to the bay where he swam that morning, Miss Brouard.”

She said, “You’ll find it just east of the caretaker’s cottage. I’ll phone the Duffys and tell them I’ve given you permission to be there.”

“It’s a private bay?”

“No, not the bay. But if you pass by the cottage, Kevin will wonder what you’re up to. He’s protective of us. So is his wife.”

But not protective enough, St. James thought.





Chapter 10


St. James connected with Deborah once again as she was emerging from beneath the chestnuts that lined the drive. In very short order, she related her encounter in the Japanese garden, indicating where it was with a gesture towards the southeast and a thicket of trees. Her earlier irritation with him seemed to be forgotten, for which he was grateful, and in this fact he was reminded once again of his father-in-law’s words describing Deborah when St. James had—with amusing and what he had hoped was endearing antique formality—asked for permission to marry her. “Deb’s a red-’ead and make no mistake about it, my lad,” Joseph Cotter had said.

“She’ll give you aggro like you’ve never ’ad, but at least it’ll be over in a wink.”

She’d done a good job with the boy, he discovered. Despite her reticence, her compassionate nature gave her a way with people that he himself had never possessed. It had long suited her choice of profession—

subjects far more willingly posed for their pictures if they knew the person behind the camera shared a common humanity with them—just as his even temperament and analytical mind had long suited his. And Deborah’s success with Stephen Abbott underscored the fact that more than technique and skill in a laboratory were going to be needed in this situation.