Missing Joseph Part 50

Lynley smiled. "I dare say that's better than gifts."

"Did she tell you about the rest?"

"Obliquely. She said she had a weakness for dark foreign men: Greeks, Italians, Iranians, Pakistanis, Nigerians. She said, 'They just crook their fingers and I come up pregnant. I can't think how.' Only Maggie's father was English, she said, and look what sort of bloke he was, Mister Inspector person."

"Do you believe her story? About how Maggie came to have the injuries?"

"What difference does it make what I believe at this point? Robin Sage believed her. That's why he's dead."

They climbed inside the Range Rover, and the engine caught. Lynley reversed it. They inched past a tractor and threaded through the maze of cars to the street.

"He'd decided on that which is moral," St. James noted. "He threw himself behind the lawful position. What would you have done, Tommy?"

"I'd have checked into the story, just as he did."

"And when you found out the truth?"

Lynley sighed and turned south down the c.l.i.theroe Road. "G.o.d help me, Simon. I just don't know. I don't have the kind of moral cert.i.tude Sage seems to have garnered. There's no black or white for me in what happened. Grey stretches forever, despite the law and my professional obligations to it."

"But if you had to decide."

"Then I suppose it would all come down to crime and punishment."

"Juliet Spence's crime against Sheelah Cotton?"

"No. Sheelah's crime against the baby: leaving her alone with the father so that he had the opportunity to injure her in the first place, leaving her alone in the car at night only four months later so that someone could take her. I suppose I'd ask myself if the punishment of losing her for thirteen years-or forever-fit or exceeded the crimes committed against her."

"And then what?"

Lynley glanced his way. "Then I'd be in Gethsemane, praying for someone else to drink from the cup. Which is, I imagine, what Sage himself did."

Colin Shepherd had seen her at noon, but she wouldn't let him into the cottage. Maggie wasn't well, she told him. A persistent fever, chills, a bad stomach. Running off with Nick Ware and dossing down in a farm building- even if only for part of the night-had taken its toll. She'd had a second bad night, but she was sleeping now. Juliet didn't want anything to waken her.

She came outside to tell him, shutting the door behind her and s.h.i.+vering in the cold. The first seemed a deliberate effort to keep him out of the cottage. The second seemed designed to send him on his way. If he loved her, her quaking body declared, he wouldn't want her standing out in the cold having a chat with him.

Her body language was clear enough: arms crossed tightly, fingers digging into the sleeves of her flannel s.h.i.+rt, posture rigid. But he told himself it was merely the cold, and he tried to read beneath her words for an underlying message. He gazed at her face and looked into her eyes. Courtesy and distance were what he read. Her daughter needed her and wasn't he being rather selfish to expect her either to want or accept a distraction from that need?

He said, "Juliet, when will we have a chance to talk?" but she looked up at Maggie's bedroom window and answered with "I need to sit with her. She's been having bad dreams. I'll phone you later, all right?" And she slipped back into the cottage and shut the door soundlessly. He heard the key turning in its lock.

He wanted to shout, "You've forgotten, haven't you? I've my own key. I can still get in. I can make you talk. I can make you listen." But instead he stared long and hard at the door, counting its bolts, waiting for his heart to stop pounding so angrily.

He'd gone back to work, making his rounds, seeing to three cars that had misjudged the icy roads, herding five sheep back over a disintegrating wall near Skelshaw Farm, replacing its stones, rounding up a rogue dog that had finally been cornered in a barn just outside the village. It was routine business, nothing to occupy his mind. And as the hours pa.s.sed, he found himself more and more needing something to keep his thoughts in order.

Later had come, and she did not phone. He moved about his house restlessly as he waited. He looked out the window at the snow that lay unblemished in the graveyard of St. John the Baptist Church and, beyond it, upon the pasture land and the slopes of Cotes Fell. He built a fire and let Leo bask in front of it as day drew towards evening. He cleaned three of his shotguns. He made a cup of tea, added whisky to it, forgot about drinking it. He picked the phone up twice to make certain it was still in working order. The snow, after all, could have downed some lines. But he listened to the dialling tone's heartless buzz telling him something was very wrong.

He tried not to believe it. She was concerned about Maggie, he told himself. She was rightfully concerned. It was no more than that.

At four o'clock he could stand the waiting no longer, so he did the phoning. Her line was engaged, and engaged at a quarter past, and engaged at half past, and every quarter hour after that until half past five when he understood that she had taken the phone off the hook so that its ringing would not disturb her daughter.

He willed her to phone from half past five to six. After six, he began to pace. He went over every brief conversation they'd had in the two days since Maggie had returned from her short-lived experience of running away. He heard Juliet's tone as she had sounded on the phone-resigned, somehow, to something he did not want to understand-and he felt a growing desperation.

When the phone rang at eight, he leapt to answer it, hearing a terse voice ask: "Where the h.e.l.l have you been all day, boy-o?"

Colin felt his teeth set and made an effort to relax. "I've been working, Pa. That's what I usually do."

"Don't get a mouth with me. He's asked for a wopsie, and she's on her way. Do you know that, boy-o? Are you up on the news?"

The telephone was on a lengthy cord. Colin cradled the receiver against his ear and walked to the kitchen window. He could see the light from the vicarage porch, but everything else was shape and shadow, curtained off by the snow that was falling as if disgorged in an explosion from the clouds.

"Who's asked for a wopsie? What're you talking about?"

"That blighter from the Yard."

Colin turned from the window. He looked at the clock. The cat's eyes moved rhythmically, its tail ticked and tocked. He said, "How do you know?"

"Some of us maintain our ties, boy-o. Some of us have mates that're loyal to the death. Some of us do favours so that when we need one, we can call it in. I've been telling you that from day one, haven't I? But you don't want to learn. You've been so b.l.o.o.d.y stupid, so flaming sure..."

Colin heard a gla.s.s clink against the receiver at his father's end. He heard the rattle of ice. "What is it?" he asked. "You having gin or whisky tonight?"

The gla.s.s crashed against something: the wall, a piece of furniture, the cooker, the sink. "G.o.d d.a.m.n you ignorant piece of filth. I'm trying to help you."

"I don't need your help."

"b.u.g.g.e.r that for a lark. You're in so deep you can't smell the s.h.i.+t. That ponce was locked up with Hawkins, boy-o, for nearly an hour. He called in forensic and the DC who came up there when you first found the body. I don't know what he told them, but the end result was that they phoned for a wopsie and whatever that bloke from the Yard has up his sleeve to do next, it's with c.l.i.theroe's blessing. You got that, boy-o? And Hawkins didn't phone and put you in the picture, did he? Did he?"

Colin didn't reply. He saw that he'd left a pot on the AGA at lunchtime. Luckily, it had held only salted water which had long since boiled away. The bottom of the pot, however, was crusted with sediment.

"What d'you think that means?" his father was demanding. "Can you put it together or do I have to spell it out?"

Colin forced himself to sound indifferent. "Bringing in a wopsie's fine with me, Pa. You're in a state over nothing."

"What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I missed some things. The case needs to be re-opened."

"You d.a.m.n fool! Don't you know what it means to botch a murder investigation?"

Colin could picture the veins in his father's arms standing out. He said, "I'm not making history. This won't be the first time a case has been re-opened."

"Simpleton. a.s.s," his father hissed. "You gave evidence for her. You took the oath. You've been playing in her knickers. No one's likely to forget that when it comes time to-"

"I've some new information, and it's nothing to do with Juliet. I'm ready to hand it over to that bloke from the Yard. It's just as well he's going to have a female PC with him because he'll be wanting her."

"What're you saying?"

"That I've found the killer."

Silence. In it, he could hear the fire crackling in the sitting room. Leo was chewing industriously on a ham bone. He had it locked in his paws against the floor, and the sound resembled someone planing wood.

"You're sure." His father's voice was wary. "You've evidence?"

"Yes."

"Because if you c.o.c.k this up any further, you're done for, boy-o. And when that happens-"

"It's not going to happen."

"-I don't want you crying to me for help. I'm through covering your a.r.s.e with HuttonPreston's CC. You got that?"

"I've got it, Pa. Thanks for having confi dence."

"Don't you give me your b.l.o.o.d.y-"

Colin hung up the phone. It began ringing again within ten seconds. He let it ring. It jangled for a full three minutes while he watched it and pictured his father at the other end. He'd be cursing steadily, he'd be aching to batter someone into pulp. But unless one of his pieces of sweet female flesh was there to oblige him, he was going to have to face his furies alone.

When the phone stopped ringing, Colin poured himself a tumbler of whisky, returned to the kitchen, and punched Juliet's number. The line was still engaged.

He carried his drink to the second bedroom that served as his study and sat down at the desk. From its bottom drawer, he took the slim volume. Alchemical Magic: Herbs, Spices, and Plants. He set it next to a yellow legal pad and began to write his report. It flowed easily enough, line after line, piecing fact and conjecture into an overall pattern of guilt. He had no choice, he told himself. If Lynley was asking for a female PC, he meant to start trouble for Juliet. There was only one way to stop him.

He had just completed his writing, revised it, and typed it when he heard the car doors slam. Leo began to bark. He got up from the desk and went to the door before they had a chance to ring the bell. They would find him neither unprepared nor unaware.

"I'm glad you've come," he said to them. He sounded a mixture of sure and expansive, and he felt good about the sound. He swung the door home behind them and led them into the sitting room.

The blond-Lynley-took off his coat, his scarf, and his gloves and brushed the snow from his hair as if he intended to stay for a while. The other-St. James-loosened his scarf and a few b.u.t.tons of his coat, but the only things he removed were his gloves. These he held and played through his fingers while the snowflakes melted into his hair.

"I've a WPC coming up from c.l.i.theroe," Lynley said.

Colin poured them both a whisky and handed the gla.s.ses over, uncaring of whether they chose to drink or not. Not was the case. St. James nodded and set his on the side table next to the sofa. Lynley said thank you and placed his on the floor when he sat, unbidden, in one of the armchairs. He beckoned Colin to do likewise. His face was grave.

"Yes, I know she's on her way," Colin answered easily. "You've got second sight among your other gifts, Inspector. I was twelve hours away from phoning Sergeant Hawkins for one myself." He handed over the slender book first. "You'll be wanting this, I expect."

Lynley took it and turned it over in his hands, putting on his spectacles to read the cover first and then the descriptive copy on the back. He opened the book and ran his glance over the table of contents. Pages were folded down at the corners-the result of Colin's own perusal of the book-and he read these next. On the floor by the fire, Leo returned to gnawing his ham bone. His tail thumped happily.

Lynley finally looked up without comment. Colin said, "The confusion and the false starts in the case are my fault. I wasn't on to Polly at first, but I think this clears things up." He pa.s.sed the stapled report to Lynley, who handed the book over to St. James and began to read. He went through the pages. Colin watched him, waiting for a flicker of emotion, recognition, or dawning acceptance to move his mouth, raise his eyebrows, light his eyes. He said, "Once Juliet took the blame and said it was an accident, that's what I focussed on. I couldn't see that anyone had a motive to murder Sage and when Juliet insisted that no one could have had access to the root cellar without her knowledge, I believed her. I didn't realise then that he was never the target in the first place. I was worried about her, about the inquest. I wasn't seeing things clearly. I should have realised earlier that this murder had nothing to do with the vicar at all. He was the victim by mistake."

Lynley had two pages left to read, but he closed the report and removed his spectacles. He replaced them in his jacket pocket and handed the report to Colin. When Colin's fingers were on it, he said, "You should have realised earlier...An interesting choice of words. Would this be before or after you a.s.saulted her, Constable? And why was that, by the way. To get a confession? Or merely for pleasure?"

The paper felt weightless beneath his fingers. Colin saw that it had slipped to the floor. He picked it up, saying, "We're here to talk about a murder. If Polly's turning the facts so that I'm under suspicion, that should tell you something about her, shouldn't it?"

"What tells me something is that she hasn't said a word. About being a.s.saulted. About you. About Juliet Spence. She doesn't act much like a woman who's trying to hide her culpability."

"Why should she? The person she was after is still alive. She can tot the other up as a simple mistake."

"With a motive of thwarted love, I take it. You must think a great deal of yourself, Mr. Shepherd."

Colin felt his features hardening. He said, "I suggest you listen to the facts."

"No. You listen. And you hear me well because when I'm done you'll resign from policework and thank G.o.d that's all your superiors expect from you."

And then the inspector began to talk. He listed names that had no meaning to Colin: Susanna Sage and Joseph, Sheila Cotton and Tracey, Gladys Spence, Kate Gitterman. He talked about cot death, a long-ago suicide, and an empty grave in a family plot. He sketched the vicar's route through London, and he laid out the story that Robin Sage-and he him-self-had pieced together. In the end he unfolded a poor copy of a newspaper article and said, "Look at the picture, Mr. Shepherd," but Colin kept his eyes where he'd placed them the moment the man had started speaking: on the gun cabinet and the shotguns he'd cleaned. They were primed and ready and he wanted to use them.

He heard Lynley say, "St. James," and then his companion began to speak. Colin thought, No. I won't and I can't, and he conjured up her face to hold the truth at bay. Occasional words and phrases pierced through: most poisonous plant in the western hemisphere...root stock...would have known...oily juice upon cutting an indication of...couldn't possibly have ingested...

He said in a voice that came from so far within him he couldn't quite hear it himself, "She was sick. She'd eaten it. I was there."

"I'm afraid that's not the case. She'd taken a purgative."

"The fever. She was burning. Burning."

"I expect she'd taken something to elevate her temperature as well. Cayenne, probably. That would have done it."

He felt cleaved in half.

"Look at the picture, Mr. Shepherd," Lynley said.

"Polly wanted to kill her. She wanted to clear the way."

"Polly Yarkin had nothing to do with any of this," Lynley said. "You were a form of alibi. At the inquest, you'd be the one to testify to Juliet's illness the night Robin Sage died. She used you, Constable. She murdered her husband. Look at the picture."

Did it look like her? Was that her face? Were those her eyes? It was more than ten years old, the copy was bad, it was dark, it was blurry.

"This doesn't prove a thing. It's not even clear."

But the other two men were relentless. A simple confrontation between Kate Gitterman and her sister would tell the tale of identification. And if it didn't, the body of Joseph Sage could be exhumed and genetic testing could be done upon it to match him to the woman who called herself Juliet Spence. Because if she was indeed Juliet Spence, why would she refuse to be tested, to have Maggie tested, to produce the doc.u.ments attendant to Maggie's birth, to do anything possible to clear her name?

He was left with nothing. Nothing to say, no argument to propose, and nothing to reveal. He got to his feet and carried the copied photograph and its accompanying article to the fireplace. He threw them in and watched the flames take them, curling the paper at the edges first, then lapping eagerly, then consuming entirely.

Leo watched him, looking up from his bone, whining low in his throat. G.o.d, to have everything simple, like a dog. Food and shelter. Warmth against the cold. Loyalty and love that never wavered.

He said, "I'm ready, then."

Lynley said, "We won't be needing you, Constable."

Colin looked up to protest even as he knew he had no right. The doorbell rang.

The dog barked, quieted. Colin said bitterly, "Would you like to answer that yourself, then?" to Lynley. "It'll be your wopsie."

It was. But it was more. The female PC had come in uniform, bundled against the cold, her spectacles flecked with moisture. She said, "PC Garrity. c.l.i.theroe CID. Sergeant Hawkins's already put me in the picture," while behind her on the porch listened a man in heavy tweeds and boots with a cap pulled low on his head: Frank Ware, Nick's father. Both of them were backlit by the headlamps of one of their two vehicles which blazed a blinding white light into the steady fall of the snow.

Colin looked at Frank Ware. Ware looked uneasily from the PC to Colin. He stomped the snow off his boots and pulled at his nose. He said, "Sorry to disturb. But there's a car gone into a ditch out next the reservoir, Colin. I thought I best stop by and tell you. It looks to me like Juliet's Opel."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.