A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(94)

“No sin,” Margaret said. “We all want the best for our children, don’t we? I do, too. That’s why I’m here, because of Adrian. My son and Guy’s. Because of what was done to him. He was cheated out of his due, Mr. Moullin. You do see how wrong that is, don’t you?”

“We were all cheated,” Henry Moullin said. “Your ex-husband was good at that. He spent years setting every one of us up, biding his time with us all. Not a man to take, our Mr. Brouard, not a man to operate wrong side of the law. Wrong side of what was moral, see. Wrong side of what was dutiful and right. He had us lapping milk from his hands without our knowing he’d put poison in it.”

“Don’t you want to be part of making that right?” Margaret said. “You can, you know. You can talk to your daughter, you can explain. We wouldn’t ask Cynthia to give up all the money he’s left her. We’d only want to make things even, a reflection of who is Guy’s blood and who isn’t.”

“That’s what you want?” Henry Moullin said. “That’s what you think will balance the scales? You’re just like him, then, aren’t you, Missus?

Think money makes up for every sin. But it doesn’t, and it never will.”

“You won’t talk to her, then? You won’t explain? We’re going to have to take this to another level?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Henry Moullin asked. “There is no talking to my girl any longer. There is no explaining left to be done.”

He turned and carried his tools the way he’d come with the shovel just a few minutes earlier. He disappeared round the side of the house. Margaret stood for a moment, unmoving on the path, and found herself for the first time in her life at a loss for words. She felt nearly overwhelmed by the strength of the hate that Henry Moullin left behind him. It was like a current that pulled her into a tide from which there was only the barest hope of escape.

Where she least expected to find it, she felt a kinship with this disheveled man. She understood what he was going through. One’s children were one’s own, belonging to no one else in quite the same way they belonged to you. They were not the same as one’s spouse, one’s parents, one’s siblings, one’s partners, or one’s mates. One’s children were of one’s body and soul. No intruder easily broke the bond that was created from that kind of substance.

But if an intruder attempted or, God forbid, succeeded...?

No one knew better than Margaret Chamberlain the extent someone might go to in order to preserve a relationship one had with his child.





Chapter 13


St. James stopped at the hotel first when he returned to St. Peter Port, but he found their room empty and no message at reception from his wife. So he went on to the police station, where he interrupted DCI Le Gallez in the midst of wolfing down a baguette crammed with prawn salad. The DCI took him to his office, offering a portion of his sandwich (which St. James refused) and a cup of coffee (which St. James accepted). He put chocolate digestives on offer as well, but since they looked as if their coating had melted and reconstituted itself one time too many, St. James declined and made do with the coffee alone. He brought Le Gallez into the picture with regard to the wills of the Brouards, brother and sister. Le Gallez listened as he chewed, and he jotted notes on a legal pad that he snared from a plastic in-and-out box on his desk. As St. James spoke, he watched the DCI underline Fielder and Moullin, adding a question mark next to the second name. Le Gallez interrupted the flow of information to explain that he knew about the dead man’s relationship with Paul Fielder, but Cynthia Moullin’s was a new name to come up. He also jotted down the facts of the Brouard wills and listened politely as St. James posited a theory he’d considered on the way back to town.

The earlier will that Ruth Brouard knew about remembered individuals deleted from the more recent document: Ana?s Abbott, Frank Ouseley, Kevin and Valerie Duffy, along with Guy Brouard’s children as required by law. This being the case, she had asked those individuals to be present when the will was read. If, St. James pointed out to Le Gallez, any of those beneficiaries had known about the earlier will, they had a clear motive to do away with Guy Brouard, hoping to collect sooner rather than later what was coming to them.

“Fielder and Moullin weren’t in the earlier will?” Le Gallez enquired.

“She didn’t mention them,” St. James replied, “and as neither was present when the will was read this afternoon, I think it’s safe to conclude that the legacies they were left came as a surprise to Miss Brouard.”

“But to them?” Le Gallez asked. “They might have been told by Brouard himself. Which puts them in the frame with motives as well. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose it’s possible.” He didn’t think it likely, considering the two were teenagers, but he welcomed any indication that Le Gallez’s thinking was, at least for the moment, encompassing something more than China River’s putative guilt.

Seeing the inspector’s thoughts ranging wider than they had been earlier, St. James hated to do anything that might remind Le Gallez of his previous mindset, but he knew that his conscience would never rest unless he was completely honest with the other man. “On the other hand...” St. James felt reluctant to do so—his loyalty to his wife seemed to call for a similar loyalty to her friends—and despite knowing how the inspector was likely to react to the information, he next handed over the material that Ruth Brouard had passed to him during their last conversation. The DCI flipped through Guy Brouard’s passport first, then went on to the credit card bills and the receipts. He spent a moment studying the receipt from the Citrus Grille, tapping his pencil against it as he took another bite of his sandwich. After some thought, he swung his chair round and reached for a manila folder. He opened this to reveal a set of typed notes, which he fingered through till he found what he apparently wanted.