Carla Neggers - Thief's Mark

Emma did so, repeating Oliver’s words verbatim. It wasn’t as if there’d been many to remember. The DI twisted his mouth to one side, taking in the information. He and the investigative team had been professional and courteous, but it was clear they didn’t appreciate two FBI agents turning up, even with MI5 having paved the way—through whatever means, direct or indirect. Emma understood their reluctance. She and Colin had a personal and professional history with Oliver that could help, but it also complicated matters. The personal history irked Colin but Oliver deliberately exaggerated their relationship. Despite his attempts to forge a friendship, Emma considered her relationship with their unrepentant art thief entirely within her role with the FBI.

“And this break-in at your grandfather’s house in Dublin?” the DI asked. “Relevant?”

“I don’t know,” Emma said. “The Irish police are investigating.”

Lowe nodded. “We’ll speak with them.”

Colin watched two members of the forensic team finishing up by a stone bench across the driveway from the entrance. “How close are you to identifying the deceased?”

“Not close enough. We’ll know when we know. I don’t guess, Special Agent Donovan.”

“Duly noted. Thanks for your time.”

They left the DI to his work and walked down to the dovecote, taking the same route DI Lowe had described Ruthie Burns had taken from the house to alert Martin Hambly and Henrietta Balfour. The gray weather only seemed to make the sloping fields look greener, a contrast to the grim events earlier in the day. Emma had been here in February on FBI business, winter in the Cotswolds different but still beautiful.

“I smell roses,” she said.

Colin shook his head. “Not me.”

“What do you smell?”

“Sheep.”

She smiled, appreciating the light moment. She watched a lamb prance in the grass on her right, near the fence. She could imagine whiling away an afternoon out here, enjoying the views of bucolic fields, listening to sheep baaing. She doubted Oliver made much of an income off the farm, but she knew it met expenses. Her grandfather had given her that information when he’d visited in January.

A police car was just down the lane past the dovecote, an officer at the wheel. Emma was familiar with the dovecote, built to house pigeons at a time when they were a pricey, sought-after delicacy. Pigeons had fallen out of favor on the dinner plate, and now only a comparatively few dovecotes remained. The York dovecote was on the smaller side as dovecotes went, but it was well-suited to its modern purpose as a potting shed. Ruthie Burns was out front, frowning at the mess Emma assumed Henrietta and Martin had left behind—bags of potting soil and composted manure, a bucket of what appeared to be freshly dug loam, an array of garden tools and a cracked terra-cotta pot. It was as if the ordinary work of the day would resume at any moment.

The DI had let them know Ruthie wasn’t doing well emotionally, but she’d agreed to talk with them. “Please, ask whatever questions you’d like,” she said even before Emma could greet her. “I’d be happy to answer them. DI Lowe said I should.” She paused, her eyes red and puffy from tears, her skin ashen from the shock of the morning. “You and Special Agent Donovan are Oliver’s friends.”

Emma didn’t voice any objection to the housekeeper’s characterization of her and Colin’s relationship with her missing boss. Now wasn’t the time, and she saw that Colin agreed. “We want to help if we can,” she said.

“I understand. I’m sorry you’re not here under better circumstances.”

“I am, too.”

“Mr. York didn’t know you were coming?”

“We called this morning and left a voice mail. I don’t know if he received it.”

“You called on his mobile?”

Emma nodded. “Yes.”

Ruthie bit her lower lip, crossed her arms tight on her chest and lowered them again. “I don’t know what to do with myself—stay here, go home, be alone, be with people. I can’t make sense of today.” She spoke more to herself than to Emma. “I keep seeing the blood—so much blood—and Mr. York, desperately trying to help. You hear about such things but never expect to see something like it yourself.”

Ruthie pointed up the lane to a thickset man shambling toward the dovecote. “That’s my son, Nigel. He’s a mechanic.”

“Was he here this morning?” Emma asked.

“He was, yes. He was at the barn, working on one of the tractors.”

Nigel reached the dovecote, coming up the rudimentary flagstone path to the entrance. He rubbed the back of his hand across his jaw and its two-day stubble of beard, mostly dark but splotched with gray. No sign of gray in his thick, fair, curly hair. He looked to be in his early forties, a solidly built man in oil-smeared work clothes. He addressed his mother. “Police said I should come down here and tell the FBI agents what I saw this morning. That all right with you, Mum?”

“Of course. Do what the police say.”

Colin sat on a bench next to the front door, a gesture, Emma suspected, to make him look less intimidating. “You were here on the farm this morning, Nigel?”

“Yes, I got here about eight o’clock. I was working on the old tractor down at the barn.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, clearly awkward and uncomfortable in his role as witness. “I came to tell you Mr. York is gone.” Nigel reddened to his ears. “Not dead. I don’t mean that. He left in his car a few minutes before the police got here. No more than that. I saw him myself.”

“Do you mean you saw the car or that you saw Oliver?” Colin asked.

“I saw them both,” Nigel said without hesitating. “Mr. York was driving. I didn’t see anyone with him.”

Ruthie twisted her hands together, as if she needed to release tension before she hit someone. “Are you sure it was Mr. York?”

“I am. No question.”

Colin put a foot on the rim of a bucket of dirt. “Where exactly did you see the car?”

Nigel pointed a thick, callused finger down the lane, in the direction of the barn, which wasn’t visible from the dovecote. “The west gate. He drove past the barn. It’s on this lane.”

“It meets up with the main road to Chipping Norton,” Ruthie added. “The public route continues across the road through a hay field but it’s strictly a walking trail. It can’t handle a vehicle.”

“I didn’t see which way Mr. York went once he reached the road,” Nigel said. “Even if I’d thought to look, I wouldn’t have been able to see from where I stood.”

Emma considered his response. “And where was that?”

“I told you—” Nigel stopped, took in a breath. “In front of the barn door facing the lane. I was up on the tractor, heard the car and took a look, since it’s odd to have the Rolls-Royce down there.”

Colin toed a small pile of spilled soil. “You recognized the Rolls-Royce by the sound of its engine? Before you saw it?”

“I did. Always’ve had an ear for an engine. I told the police.”

“They were all right with it,” Ruthie said.

Colin’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Emma knew he, too, had heard the note of defiance in Nigel’s tone and the protectiveness in Ruthie’s. “How did Mr. York look to you?” she asked.

Nigel picked up an open bag of soil that had fallen on its side and stood it upright against the dovecote. “Same as always,” he said, stepping back. “Only unusual thing was seeing him driving down by the barn. He didn’t look as if he’d been hurt or was bloody or in pain, anything like that. You know. Given what happened up at the house.”

“And the dead man?” Colin asked. “Did you see him?”

“I didn’t see anyone else, sorry. I got to the farm at ten and went to work. I drove. I know you’ll be asking. I live in the workers’ rooms at the pub. I do some work there, too. It’s temporary. My ex lives in the village with our two kids.” Nigel again shoved his hands into the pockets of his work jacket. “I’m saving for a place of my own. I’ve worked for the Yorks on and off since I was in my teens. Mr. Hambly can vouch for me. So can my mum, but, y’know—” He grinned at her. “She’s my mum.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “That’s it.”