Desperate Measures: A Mystery (22 page)

If Hazel had been a man, they’d have declined to go through it all again. But she wasn’t. She was an attractive young woman with a lot of curly fair hair wrestled into a rough bunch behind her neck, and she had bright green eyes flecked with copper and an open, engaging smile; and the older brother ushered her to the best chair while the younger put the kettle on.

They talked for a while, Patience curled up quietly on the rug. Neither of the brothers liked dogs, but it was too hot to leave her in the car, and they tolerated her because Hazel Best had a talent for making people enjoy talking to her. Then they went upstairs to the Anderson apartment.

The scenes of crime officer had finally finished, taking his tools and his tape with him, leaving behind the furniture and the powdery residue of his fingerprinting.

Hazel had been here before, the day she and Ash followed Graves to the flat where he talked to the pirates. It hadn’t struck her at the time—there had been other things to think about—but she realized now that Graves’s girlfriend, ostensibly abroad on business, had already moved out. Though furnished, the place hadn’t felt lived in. Since then that impression had been compounded by the work of serious professionals stripping it down for whatever secrets it might be hiding, so that now the apartment was like a hotel room, equipped with all the necessities for the next person to come through the door and nothing to make them feel they were entering someone else’s space.

“
Did
she actually live here?” asked Hazel. “I understand she was abroad a lot.”

“No, she lived here all right,” said the older of the two brothers. “It didn’t always look like this. I was up here a few times—problems with the central heating—and it looked like anybody’s flat then. Magazines on the coffee table, coats in the hall cupboard, kids’ toys, everything.”

“How long was she here?”

“Three and a half years.” He’d had to look it up for the police.

“I don’t suppose she told you where she was going?” Hazel knew what the answer had to be.

“Didn’t even tell us
that
she was going. First we knew was when the police turned up, and all her stuff was gone.”

Hazel nodded. “So when was the last time you saw her?”

“A month ago, or maybe a little more. The boyfriend came by sometimes, said he was keeping an eye on the place for her. We just thought she was on holiday again. She did like her foreign holidays. Always topping up her tan somewhere.”

Hazel heard an echo of something that had been said before. “Kids’ toys? Miss Anderson had children?”

The older brother leered at her. “Now, miss, don’t be so old-fashioned. Lots of single ladies have kids. None of our business, as long as they don’t disturb the other residents.”

“And did they?”

“Quiet as mice,” said the younger brother. “Almost
too
quiet. You expect little boys to make a
bit
of noise, it’s only natural. All those guns, and not so much as a pop out of them.”

Hazel’s eyebrows rocketed. “All
what
guns?”

The younger of the brothers grinned. “Don’t be silly, miss—
toy
guns, not real ones. They had a real collection. It’s funny, that. People don’t like their kids playing with guns so much these days.”

“No, they don’t,” agreed Hazel. “But the man who used to come here was in the arms business. It probably seemed quite natural to him.”

The older brother looked sidelong at her. “Were they his children?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” That was one possibility: that, unsuspected by his wife, Graves had been living a second life for years. That he’d had children with his mistress, and kept them all in comfort in Cambridge and took them abroad for holidays in the sun. She wondered how she could check if the business trips he’d made on behalf of Bertrams corresponded to Miss Anderson’s holidays.

But it wasn’t the only possibility. “I hope so,” she heard herself say.

Something occurred to her. She rooted through her bag, finally found her phone. Trepidation delayed her only a moment longer; then she held it out. “Have a look at this.…”

CHAPTER 24

H
AZEL KNEW IN THE MOMENT
of waking that the day ahead was going to be a long and difficult one. It was going to be difficult if she couldn’t get the answers she needed to the questions plaguing her, and even more difficult if she did.

She began by phoning her father’s employer.

Peregrine, Lord Byrfield—known almost universally as Pete—was delighted to hear from her. Until they’d renewed their acquaintance a few weeks earlier, it had been years since they’d done much more than wave to each other across a field, and Byrfield had somehow never updated his memory of the handyman’s daughter from when he knew her as an outdoorsy twelve-year-old exercising his sisters’ outgrown ponies.

Hazel wasn’t twelve anymore—Byrfield had also forgotten that when she was, he was only sixteen himself—and though she still seemed entirely at home amid the woods and meadows of his estate, he had to admit that she’d changed. The corn-colored hair had turned a shade of rosy gold; the frank, open gaze had acquired depth and understanding without losing its impish good humor; and the tomboy’s freckled face had changed in the myriad tiny ways that happen when girls become women, and at the same time had hardly changed at all. Quite apart from her support at an unsettling time in his life, Byrfield had enjoyed her company and looked forward to her next visit.

She was quick to disappoint him. “It’s not actually you I’m looking for,” she admitted honestly. “Is David still at Byrfield?”

Pete’s half brother—they’d agreed on that as a viable description, though the reality was in fact more complicated—was an archaeologist. “Sorry, no,” said Byrfield. “He’s on his way to Carnac.”

“Karnak in Egypt?”

“Carnac in France. Something to do with standing stones.”

Hazel had a pen ready. “Can I have his number?”

Byrfield read it out to her. “If it’s urgent, you might catch him in London before he leaves.”

“I don’t need to see him. I only want to pick his brains.”

Pete Byrfield felt a quiver of satisfaction that he would not have acknowledged—not to her, not to anyone.

David Sperrin’s phone rang for so long that Hazel was ready to give up. Then he answered with a characteristically graceless “Now what?”

She didn’t know what questions to ask him, only the answers she wanted him to give. She vaguely remembered something he’d said—she couldn’t help it, but when he held forth on archaeological method, part of her brain shut down in self-defense—about science’s being able not only to date ancient human remains but to reveal details of people’s lives that seemed impossible to know thousands of years later.

“Uh-huh.” She seemed to hear him nod. “Stable isotope analysis.”

Hazel waited for him to explain. Sperrin waited to be prompted. Hazel breathed heavily at her phone. “Which is what?”

He gave her the abridged version. When she still didn’t understand, he gave her what he thought of as the version for idiots and small children. Taking notes, she had him spell some of the words. “Enamel hypoplasias,” he said a second time. “H-Y-P-O-P-L-A-S-I-A-S.”

“-A-S-I-A-S,” repeated Hazel, scribbling furiously.

And: “Mass spectrometry,” said David Sperrin. “S-P-E-C-T-R-O-M-E-T-R-Y.”

“-M-E-T-R-Y,” echoed Hazel.

And: “The ratio of strontium-87 to S-86.”

And: “In the case of deciduous teeth, you can even say at what age nursing ceased.”

When she’d worked out what he was saying, Hazel held the phone away from her, glaring at it as if he were there in person. “And what
possible
excuse,” she demanded incredulously, “could I offer for asking someone to pull one of her children’s teeth out?”

Now she heard Sperrin shrug. Interpersonal relationships had never been his strong point. “How about hair?”

“How
about
hair?”

The explanations were getting shorter. Hazel could almost see him checking his watch. “Look, Hazel, it’s great that you’re finally taking an interest in archaeology, but could we talk about this some other time?”

“No,” she said firmly. “Tell me about hair.”

When she used that tone of voice, usually she got what she wanted. This time she got David Sperrin to tell her about hair. About stable isotopic ratios of strontium and oxygen. About how water percolating through rocks picked up their mineral signature. About hair fixing the relative proportions of minerals present in the drinking water.

“Okay?” said Sperrin. “Hazel, I really have to go now. If you need any more”—she thought he was going to tell her to call again—“Google it. Bye.” And the phone went dead, leaving her to wonder what kind of urgency could attend the study of ancient artifacts.

*   *   *

Hazel didn’t like lying. She’d been brought up to tell the truth and shame the devil; and in her professional life, too, while there might occasionally be some merit in the little white lie that salved feelings and persuaded the lethally offended to believe they might have misheard, on the whole she had found honesty to be the best policy. Lying required too much imagination and too good a memory.

This wouldn’t be a little white lie. She had a horrible suspicion growing at the back of her mind, and she was looking for the evidence that would either prove it or dismiss it entirely. If she could have seen a way to obtain it legitimately, that’s what she’d have done. But she had no authority to demand what she wanted, and though she could have asked DI Gorman to make the request, she’d have had to tell him why. And she really didn’t want to do that. If she was wrong, she didn’t want anyone to know that the notion had even crossed her mind.

And if she was right, she wanted to talk to Ash before she spoke to anyone else.

Cathy opened the front door on to a hall filled with suitcases. For a moment Hazel didn’t know what to say. “Going somewhere nice?”

“To visit my mother,” said Cathy, folding T-shirts. “She hasn’t seen the boys for four years, and she’s not well enough to travel herself. So we’re going up to Chester for a week or two.”

“Cheshire’s lovely at this time of year,” Hazel mumbled weakly. “Er … before you go…”

“Hmm?”

“I have a favor to ask.”

Cathy looked surprised. They weren’t exactly friends. But she understood that Hazel had been kind to her husband and didn’t want to seem churlish. “What do you need?”

“I’m putting together a token bag. It’s a kind of tradition in my part of the country. When somebody dies, you collect tokens from the people who cared about him. A photograph, a poem, a holiday souvenir, a bit of jewelry. Then you bury the bag with him.”

Cathy was looking at her as if she was mad. “Gabriel will be cremated.”

“That works, too.” Hazel nodded desperately. “It’s just a way of seeing someone off. Like a wake, only you don’t have to get the carpets cleaned afterward.”

Cathy shook her head bemusedly. “And you want me to contribute something to this … token bag? What?”

“I was hoping you would. Anything. A wedding photo? Something he bought for you? A favorite CD—anything.”

It wasn’t worth arguing about. “All right. I’m sure I can find something. Does it have to be now? As you see, I’m rather busy.”

That was the bit Hazel hadn’t anticipated. It required some tap dancing. “Would you mind? Only, once it’s made up, it has to go around to his friends for everyone to raise a glass to it.” Oh God—did that sound even
remotely
credible?

Cathy blinked. “I didn’t know Gabriel
had
that many friends.”

Hazel worked at keeping the amiable smile in place. “He made a lot of friends in the last few months. My father, for one. And the family my father works for. I need to take it down to Cambridgeshire for them to toast it.”

Was it her imagination, or did that cause a flicker of concern to cross Cathy Ash’s face? “That’s where you’re from?”

“It’s where I grew up. My father was in the army. When he left, he took a job on a small country estate. He still lives there.”

If it had ever been there, the concern was gone now. “All right. Fine. I’ll go and get something.” Cathy headed for the stairs.

“Thanks,” said Hazel. “And, er…”

Cathy turned back. “Yes?”

“I was hoping you’d snip a lock of hair off each of the boys.”

By now all Cathy Ash wanted was to get rid of her late husband’s weird young friend with her bizarre country rituals. “Yes, sure. They’re in their room. Give me a minute.” She vanished around the turn of the stairs.

Even so, Hazel didn’t entirely believe she’d succeeded until Cathy returned with an envelope. Since it was unsealed, Hazel opened it enough to see inside. There were two photographs: an old one of Cathy and Ash, and a much more recent one of the two boys, taken since their return. There were also two snippets of hair, one mid-brown, the other almost black.

“Thank you,” said Hazel, and she sealed the envelope.

CHAPTER 25

S
HE DIDN’T WANT TO SEE ASH UNTIL SHE KNEW,
one way or the other. He was too good at reading her expression, plucking secrets from behind her eyes as if they were books on a library shelf, titles printed on their spines for all to see. She’d talk to him when she knew what she had to say. To share her suspicions and then make him wait for proof would be cruel. So she went to bed early, turned out her light, and stopped her ears to the only sign of his arrival, which was the soft, happy thump of his dog’s tail against the back of the sofa in the sitting room downstairs.

Saturday made breakfast again in the morning. He had news of his own. “I got the job!”

Hazel had dismissed the possibility so completely that she struggled now to recall the details. “The one at…”

“Whorley Cross,” he reminded her impatiently, “the filling station. I got it. And before you ask,” he added pointedly, “I was not the only applicant.”

“Well, that’s … great,” said Hazel, mustering enthusiasm for the boy’s sake. “The interview went okay, then.”