6.The Alcatraz Rose (4 page)

Kingston knew that the average reader would likely find the story of a transatlantic-hopping rose nothing more than mildly curious, but to scientists, horticulturists, rose aficionados, and serious gardeners, it was the equivalent of finding a mummified English rose in King Tut’s tomb. How on earth could a rose that to all intents and purposes had ceased to exist, that had been classified by botanical authorities worldwide as extinct, suddenly pop up on, of all places, a wind-swept, barren rock jutting out of the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay? Roses were much hardier than they were given credit for, but as a survival test in the wild, this, by all standards, would be cruel and unusual punishment.

As familiar as Kingston was with the genus
Rosa
, his knowledge of Alcatraz Island and its notorious penitentiary was passable at best. On their one visit to San Francisco, back in the early eighties, he and his wife Megan had taken the Alcatraz tour. Back in those days, however, visitors were permitted to tour only the prison itself, and all other areas of the island were strictly off-limits. The areas surrounding the buildings had been a tangle of wild vegetation, a survival of the fittest. Their guide had made no mention of gardens or plant cultivation—why would he? Least of all a rose garden of any kind. That, Kingston would certainly have remembered.

Yet the more he thought about it, the more he become convinced that the only possible explanation for the rose’s appearance on Alcatraz was that it had been brought there when the prison was in operation. But by what process? And brought by whom? The warden? One of the prison staff, perhaps, or even a civilian worker? If so, what would have motivated someone to acquire such a thing? More important, who would have been able to supply him with the rose’s seeds—or, more probable, cuttings?

The rose had been first cultivated at Belmaris Castle. What an amazing coincidence. Clifford would have been gobsmacked to learn that Kingston was going there that very afternoon and that the head gardener was a close friend. What a strange world, he thought.

Getting ready to leave—Andrew would be ringing the doorbell any moment—he hoped that the trip to Belmaris might provide answers to some of those questions.

4

B
EHIND THE WHEEL
of his racing-green TR4, the top down, Andrew in the passenger seat alongside, Kingston was in a chipper mood. Much of the reason for this bonhomie had to do with the prospect of meeting Emma Dixon. An equal measure had to do with their visit afterward to Belmaris. And the cornflower blue skies and warm sun that bathed the green and pleasant countryside of the Cotswolds made it all the more agreeable.

Andrew appeared to be in a similar state of geniality; he’d been in fine humor all morning. Not surprising, perhaps, since the day had started off with a smile. They’d met at nine o’clock to take off for Kingston’s garage, only to find that they were wearing near-identical clothes: navy blazers with tan slacks and open-neck check sport shirts. After flipping a coin, Kingston had popped back into the flat to swap his blazer for a suede jacket.

It was several years since Kingston had been in the Cotswolds Hills, considered by natives and tourists alike as the most quintessentially British region in the isles. The clusters of small towns and villages tucked into folds under steep-sided hills; picture-postcard houses, shops, old inns, and tearooms of local stone and black-and-white timber had remained unchanged over the centuries and were a magnet for tourists. On a day like today, the Triumph was one with the road as it tooled through the winding muddle of minor roads that meandered through sheep-flecked pastures, hemmed in by ancient drystone walls that crossed humpback bridges over bubbling streams, with names like Windrush, Evenlode, and Churn.

After a break for a plowman’s lunch at the Angel, in the market town of Burford, they arrived in the village of Winchcombe. Driving at a crawl through the absurdly narrow high street, flanked on both sides by
half-timbered medieval and honey-color limestone buildings, Kingston pointed out to Andrew examples of the traditional architecture, trotting out his knowledge of Cotswolds trivia by commenting that wall-mounted signs were no longer permissible because of damage to buses and other large vehicles. Andrew did not appear to be overly impressed. He’d wanted to stay for a second pint at the pub.

They soon arrived at Emma Dixon’s modest Vine Street bungalow. “You can’t miss the pillar-box-red front door,” she’d said when they’d talked on the phone. At the time he’d detected a dry wit in her conversation, reasoning that anyone who chose to paint her front door bright red could hardly be a crashing bore.

As she opened the door, smiling, Kingston’s first thought was how unlike a policewoman she looked.

“Dr. Kingston?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Emma Dixon.”

They shook hands.

Emma was considerably smaller than he’d expected—five four at the most. Police height requirements must now be a thing of the past, he suspected. Her shoulder-length dark hair was tied in a ponytail and, other than a pale shade of lipstick and a judicious touch of mascara, she wore no discernible makeup. Didn’t need to, Kingston thought. She had dark brown inquisitive and restless eyes that reminded him in some ways of a hummingbird—hovering for a while, then darting off to gather more nectar: another thought, another observation or witticism. He judged her to be in her late thirties or early forties.

“A pleasure to meet you,” she said.

She turned to the man with Kingston. “And you of course are Andrew.”

“That’s me,” he said, leaning forward to shake her hand, too.

“I recognize you from the TV interview in Staffordshire after your friend broke the code and survived the shooting. It was very impressive.”

Andrew looked embarrassed. “I thought it was awful.”

“Nonetheless, I’m glad you’re here. Won’t you come in please, gentleman?”

“They followed her inside. “We work as sort of a team,” Kingston added.

Emma’s smile was playful. “Holmes and Watson, eh? Except, you’re the doctor.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he replied with a broad smile. “First of all, I want you to know that we greatly appreciate your going to all the trouble of helping, Emma. That’s what this is really all about.”

Emma nodded, looking more earnest. “I wanted to do it, because the case is still important to me—it always will be. The way I look at it, it’s still an unsolved incident—and for all we know, a criminal case—and, frankly, if I were still at that desk in Gloucester, I would be working day and night looking for ways to solve it. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it an obsession, but it’s cost me a lot of sleepless nights, and the more clever brains that can be put to work to help solve it, the better—official or unofficial. And, I confess, retirement isn’t as interesting as I’d hoped.”

She led them into a sunny living room where they sat in chintz-covered chairs in an alcove by a bay window. On the phone, Kingston had told Emma that Andrew would be accompanying him and of their plan to stop for lunch on the way down, so she’d forgone the courtesy of offering tea or cold drinks. Tea later would be welcome, they agreed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kingston noticed that some of the books piled on one end of the coffee table were related to gardening; he wondered what kind of garden, if any, might be behind the small bungalow. That led him to wonder how someone with the temperament of a policewoman would take to the slow, let-nature-take-its-course pace of gardening, and what nature of policewoman she had been. Despite knowing that it was blatantly chauvinistic, he couldn’t suppress the thought of being arrested by her. Would all that warmth and amiability suddenly evaporate, to be replaced by a humorless and authoritative nature? Or would she simply smile benignly while placing a hand on his head as he was eased into the patrol car? He banished his musing as Emma told them briefly of her accident—a side-impact collision involving a drunk driver when she was returning home one night after working late on an interview. That segued into her many months of recuperation and therapy, adjusting to early-age retirement and life in the slow lane,
the pros and cons of living in Winchcombe, closing with a customary peroration about the merits of the Cotswold climate.

All this gave him a several minutes to quietly size her up, to picture her and Letty together and visualize how they would get on; if Letty would be persuaded that this might be her last chance to reach some kind of closure; and, perhaps most important of all, if she would accept the advice and judgment offered by a woman detective who probably knew and could recall more about the case than anyone else.

The niceties over, Kingston got down to the matter at hand.

“When Inspector Sheffield told me that you’d worked on the Fiona McGuire case and that you were prepared to talk to me—and possibly to Letty as well—it was a big load off my shoulders. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. That said—and not knowing police regulations in these matters—I wondered how much information on the case you would be allowed to disclose. I certainly don’t want to be responsible for your exposing yourself to censure, or future problems, for divulging information about a criminal case that’s filed as undetected. That’s been worrying me. The last thing I want is for you to risk losing your pension or anything like that.”

“It’s not a problem,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Good. I brought it up because in his letter Sheffield stated only that he’d discussed the matter with a Gloucester senior officer. It struck me as being uncharacteristically vague for him. So, before we start, I just want to make sure you can talk freely about the case and not have to worry about repercussions. Also, if any aspects of the case are still officially off the record.”

Emma smiled. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Doctor, but don’t worry on my behalf, it’s a nonissue.”

“Please call me Lawrence,” Kingston interjected.

Emma smiled. “Thank you. I didn’t want to appear too presumptuous. Lawrence is much better. So, to continue, I spoke at length with Charlie Endersby about it. He was the SIO on the case back then, and he has no worries about my ‘spilling any beans.’ In any case, the rules are more relaxed now. There’s more latitude. We’re obligated to disclose much more information to victims and families than in the past. It’s all
spelled out in what’s aptly, if a little grimly, called ‘the Victims Charter,’ yet another Home Office masterpiece that lays down rules and regs for crime victims’ rights. Essentially, we’re still an institutionalized lot and like to do things with some degree of permission, after which we are masters at bending that permission to suit.”

This brought a smile from Kingston as well as from Andrew, who was only too well aware of his friend’s penchant for bending the rules.

Emma continued. “By the way, Endersby wanted me to stress that during the investigation, the foster parents were provided with detailed information on all aspects of the case and that, as far as he knew, nothing was withheld. If the truth be known, from my involvement, there wasn’t much to divulge in the first place.”

Her expression had shifted, now more thoughtful and purposeful.

“I cannot imagine how it must have eaten away at Letty over the years, the frustrating lack of information. Her mother vanishing overnight and not a shred of evidence to explain why or how.”

“Impossible to,” said Kingston.

Emma nodded. “It’s truly heartbreaking. I did meet Letty once, but only briefly. It was on our first visit. Molly—her foster mother—had warned me that Letty was still confused, crying a lot, asking why her mum had left and when she was coming back. Molly told me that Fiona had dropped off Letty that morning, as usual, and everything appeared normal with her. She wasn’t able to provide any clues whatsoever. She was at a complete loss to explain it.”

“You do know, of course, that Letty’s foster parents hired a private investigator?” Kingston said. “Apparently that ended up costing them a lot of money and sod all to show for it.”

Emma nodded. “That was several months later and, yes, we were informed. Not that it makes much difference because”—she gave Kingston a knowing look—“we always find out eventually if someone else is out there playing detective. It was frustrating for everyone. There was literally nothing to go on, hardly anyone to talk to, no eyewitnesses whatsoever. There’s pretty much an established procedure in missing person cases: conducting interviews with anybody and everybody who
had, or might have had, contact with the missing person. In most cases we end up with a laundry list of contacts, and it takes weeks, sometimes months of plodding and knocking on doors to interview everyone. It was different with the McGuire case, though. We quickly ran out of potential contacts, credible witnesses. Naturally, we started with Molly and her husband, Richard—Richie—Collins. We’d hoped that they could provide some useful information and contacts, but that wasn’t the case. Richie and Terry McGuire—Fiona’s husband—had worked together at one time. That’s how they first met.” She paused. “Some of this you probably know already.”

Kingston nodded. “Some, but please continue.”