A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(95)

“Postal codes,” he said to St. James. “They both begin with nine two. Nine two eight and nine two six.”

“One of them is Cherokee River’s, I take it?”

“You knew already?”

“I know he lives somewhere in the area Brouard visited.”

“The second code’s his,” Le Gallez said. “The nine two six. The other is this restaurant’s: the Citrus Grille. What does that suggest to you?”

“That Guy Brouard and Cherokee River passed some time in the same county.”

“Nothing more, then?”

“How can it suggest more? California’s a large state. Its counties are probably large as well. I’m not sure anyone can extrapolate from postal codes that Brouard and River met prior to River’s coming to the island with his sister.”

“You find nothing coincidental in this? Nothing suspiciously coincidental?”

“I would do, yes, if we had only the facts right in front of us at this moment: the passport, the receipts, and Cherokee River’s home address. But a lawyer—no doubt with a similar postal code—hired River to deliver architectural plans to Guernsey. So it seems reasonable to assume that Guy Brouard was in California, meeting that lawyer—as well as the architect, who probably also has a similar postal code—and not with Cherokee River. I don’t expect they knew each other till the moment River and his sister arrived at Le Reposoir. ”

“But you’ll agree that we can’t discount it?”

“I’d say we can’t discount anything.”

Which, St. James knew, included the ring that he and Deborah had found at the bay. He asked DCI Le Gallez about this, about the possibility of there being fingerprints upon it, or at least a partial print that might be useful to the police. The ring’s appearance suggested it hadn’t been lying on the beach for any length of time, he pointed out. But no doubt the DCI had himself already reached that conclusion when he’d examined it. Le Gallez set his sandwich aside and wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. He took up a cup of coffee that he’d been ignoring as he ate, and he cradled it in his palm before he spoke. The two words he said made St. James’s heart sink.

“What ring?”

Bronze, brass, some baser metal, St. James told him. It was fashioned into a skull and crossed bones with the numbers thirty-nine-stroke-forty on the skull’s forehead along with an inscription in German. He’d sent it into the station earlier with instructions that it be handed over to DCI Le Gallez personally.

He didn’t add that his own wife had been the courier because he was in the process of steadying himself to hear the inevitable from the DCI. He was already asking himself what that inevitable meant, although he thought he knew the answer.

“Haven’t seen it,” Le Gallez told him, and he picked up the phone and rang reception to make sure the ring wasn’t waiting for him below. He spoke to the duty officer in charge, describing the ring as St. James had done. He grunted when the officer made a reply and he eyed St. James as he listened at some length to a recitation on one subject or another. He finally said, “Well, bring it up here, man,” which allowed St. James to breathe easily again. He went on with “For God’s sake, Jerry, I’m not the person to grouse to about the bloody fax machine. Just sort it out and have done with it, will you?” and he slammed down the phone with a curse and dashed St. James’s peace of mind a second time in three minutes when he next spoke.

“No ring in sight. Want to tell me more about it, then?”

“There may have been a misunderstanding.” Or a traffic accident, St. James wanted to add, although he knew this was an impossibility since he’d taken the same route his wife would have taken to return from Le Reposoir and there hadn’t been so much as a broken headlamp on the road to suggest a car crash had kept Deborah from fulfilling her duty. Not that anyone drove fast enough on the island for a car crash, anyway. A minor collision, perhaps, with bumpers crunching or wings denting. But that would be the extent of it. Even that wouldn’t have kept her from bringing the ring to Le Gallez as he’d instructed her to do.

“A misunderstanding.” Le Gallez spoke with far less affability now.

“Yes. I do see, Mr. St. James. We’ve got ourselves a misunderstanding.” He looked up as a figure appeared in his doorway, a uniformed officer bearing paperwork in his hand. Le Gallez waved him off for a moment. He got up from his seat and shut the door of his office. He faced St. James with his arms crossed over his chest. He said, “I don’t much mind if you nose about, Mr. St. James. It’s a free you-know-what, and if you want to talk to this bloke or that bloke and he doesn’t mind, it’s fine by me. But when you start messing about with evidence, we’ve got another situation entirely.”

“I do understand. I—”

“I don’t think so. You’ve come here with your mind made up, and if you think I’m not aware of that and where it can lead, you’d best think again. Now, I want that ring. I want it at once. We’ll deal later with where it’s been since you lifted it off the beach. And with why you lifted it, by the way. Because you know bloody damn well what you ought to’ve done. Have I made myself clear?”

St. James hadn’t been reprimanded since adolescence, and the experience—so similar to being dressed down by an outraged schoolmaster—