EG02 - The Lost Gardens (21 page)

‘How did it happen—the accident?’

‘The steering on her car went out.’

‘I’m surprised. That’s a brand-new car.’

‘I know. She was very lucky. It could have been much worse.’

Dot paused, biting her lip. ‘Do you think it could it have been—’

‘Done on purpose?’

Dot nodded.

‘I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.’

‘But who would want to hurt her?’

‘At this point, I’ve no idea.’

‘The poor thing—when can she come home?’

‘I’m hoping tomorrow.’

Dot had gone back to ironing. It was rare for her to carry on this much of a conversation.

Kingston plucked a handful of grapes from the bowl on the table. Popping one in his mouth, he went on—although she didn’t ask—telling her about the break-in at his flat.

Dot listened, occasionally looking up from her ironing.

‘Well, I’m glad that nothing was stolen,’ she said when he was finished. ‘Jamie told me why you’d gone, by the way. Would you like me to make you some tea?’

‘No thanks,’he answered, getting up. ‘I’m going up to the Griffin in a while. I’ll give Jamie a call in the morning, let you know when she’s coming home.’ Near the door, he turned and looked at her. ‘Anybody here today, Dot?’ he asked. ‘Other than the workmen and China, I mean. Any visitors?’

‘No, sir,’ she replied, continuing to iron, glancing up at him.

‘By any chance were you in the cottage, cleaning?’

She had stopped ironing and was taking her time folding the sheet. ‘No, I wasn’t. I couldn’t get round to it. I’ll see to it that it gets done tomorrow, doctor.’

‘Fine,’he said, opening the door and leaving.

Kingston looked at his watch. Nearly six, all the workmen would have left by now. He walked along the side of the house, across the lawns, on to the path leading to the Wedgwoods’ cottage. Prettier than his, the narrow garden in front of the geranium red door was a cheerful jumble of perennials, climbing roses and honeysuckle. He lifted the polished brass knocker and rapped twice.

China opened the door, holding a napkin in his hands. ‘Oh—’ello, doctor.’ He paused, surreptitiously hiding the napkin behind him. ‘Well, come on in,’he said.

‘No thanks, Stanley, I’m interrupting your meal. I just wanted to let you know that Jamie’s fine. By the looks of it she’ll probably be home tomorrow.’

‘That is good news. We’ve been worried sick since Dot told us about it. Gwyneth’s going to be so relieved.’

‘Well, sorry again to interrupt your dinner, China. Oh—there was one more thing. Were there any visitors today? Did anyone show up, asking for me or Jamie?’

China thought for a moment then shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t see anyone.’

‘Well, thanks. Say hello to Gwyneth for me, will you.’

China closed the door and Kingston starting walking in the direction of the chapel. He hadn’t gone too far when he heard China calling him. He turned and walked back till he was within earshot.

China reached the gate where he stopped. ‘Gwyneth said there was a man asking for you today. She forgot to tell me. She’s like that a lot nowadays, poor thing. Seems with nobody at the big house—Dot must have been outside or something—he came down here and knocked on the door. An older man, grey hair—she said ’e was very polite. She told him you’d gone up to see Jamie in the hospital. When she asked if there was any message, he said no, and that he would call you. That’s about it, doc.’

Kingston thanked him, adding that he thought he knew who the man might be, and said goodbye for a second time.

The only person Kingston could think of that answered Gwyneth’s vague description was Ferguson. It was possible that he’d just stopped by without calling first. He’d done that on his first visit. Somehow, though—even knowing how badly Ferguson wanted to see the chapel—he just couldn’t picture him going to the cottage, taking the key and opening up the chapel. That was too hard to swallow. Tomorrow, Kingston would phone and ask if he
was
at Wickersham.

First, he pulled on the chapel door handle to make sure it was locked. Then he unlocked the door and entered. He walked down the centre aisle to the pulpit and flicked on the floodlights. They had been left in place since that first day. Sitting in the front pew, he gazed around the room. Since Ferguson’s revelation, he’d given a lot more thought to the chapel and the coins.
If
there was another way into the chapel, it could only be from the floor or the back section where it had been built into the wall. One of his theories was sparked by a long-ago visit to the Hell-Fire caves in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. There, in the 1750s, former Postmaster General and wealthy landowner, Sir Francis Dashwood excavated a labyrinthine series of tunnels, chambers and banqueting rooms deep into the chalk hills, creating a meeting and partying place for the part mythical Hell-Fire Club—the Knights of St Francis. So Kingston had hypothesized that, at one time, there could have been a cave in the wall that had led to the underground rooms at Wickersham. And when the chapel was built—or more likely, long before—it was purposely concealed or permanently sealed. Several times he’d gone over the walls in that area with a fine-tooth comb and had concluded that the latter must be the case. That left the floor.

The entire floor was composed of flagstones, each exactly sixteen inches square. He had closely examined it on his hands and knees to see if there were any places where the floor didn’t conform to the overall pattern or appeared irregular. He had also painstakingly traced the grout lines of cement to see if a section had been disturbed or was of a different colour or texture. His efforts had revealed nothing.

With its virginal white walls, Spartan trappings and cool silence, as intended the space was conducive to prayer and contemplation. He sat thinking of Jamie and the accident. All along, he had been prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt inasmuch as there were credible explanations for all the unaccountable things that had taken place at Wickersham since he’d arrived. But now, with the accident—the first event to actually involve Jamie physically—he was more certain than ever that
he
was right. This had changed everything and the thought hadn’t escaped him that he could be vulnerable, too. While it was reassuring to know that Chadwick and his people were now actively involved, Kingston was keenly aware that it was also very much up to him to keep a close eye on Jamie and everything that happened on the estate. He was also determined, whether Jamie approved or not, to keep up his search for the paintings and find out what was really behind all the many mysteries shrouding Wickersham Priory.

He sighed and got up, taking one last look around. As of now, it looked very much as if his exploration of the chapel was ended. He walked up the aisle, locked the door behind him and headed in the direction of the courtyard of the big house where his TR4 was parked. He was looking forward to a medium rare entrecote steak and a couple of glasses of Burgundy.

In the morning, he waited until eight thirty before calling the hospital. After several minutes, first being transferred then put on hold, he was informed that Jamie would be discharged sometime after two o’clock, and he should call again, closer to that time, just to make sure. Next, he called the police station in Taunton to find out where Jamie’s car had been towed. Spinning a convincing story about wanting to retrieve some items from the car, whose owner was in hospital, he was told that the Volvo had been towed to Larkin’s garage on William Street, a repair and storage facility under contract to the Taunton police force. Before picking up Jamie, he planned to call at Larkin’s and afterwards buy her some flowers.

He found Larkin’s with no trouble, parking in a huge yard that was surrounded by a high metal fence with security warning signs posted every twenty feet or so. Walking past rows of parked cars, many whose rubber would never see a road again, he entered the hangar-like garage. Inside, a number of cars were being worked on. Hip-hop music blared around the cavernous space. Off to his right, he saw a glass-fronted office, walked over, knocked on the door and entered.

A thin balding man, fiftyish, gestured for Kingston to sit down. The name Sean was stitched on to the chest of his oily overalls. The metal desk between them was cluttered with messages, bulging folders, stacks of papers with metal car parts as paperweights, and clipboards laid out in a shingle pattern, the work orders for the day, by the looks of it. Kingston explained why he was there.

‘The silver Volvo, right.’ Sean sniffed and continued. ‘Yeah, we did get a chance to take a quick look at it when it came in,’ he said, shaking his head. His expression telegraphed what was going to be bad news. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you too much until we’ve taken another look at it and filed a report with the police, but I can tell you one thing—it was no accident, mate.’

Chapter Eighteen

Grim-faced and shaken, Kingston left Sean and crossed Larkin’s yard. Numbed by what he had just heard, he walked right past his car without realizing. He would have called Chadwick right there and then but he’d left the damned mobile on charge at the cottage. Getting into the TR4 he glanced at the clock: it was almost one fifteen. Barely enough time to buy the flowers and be at the hospital by two to pick up Jamie. How was he going to break the news to her? There was no way to do it without avoiding the terrible truth. Someone had wanted to harm or kill her.

While he waited at a traffic signal, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, another thought crossed his mind. On the drive back from London, it had occurred to him that the burglary might have been carried out for no other reason than to get him away from Wickersham. At the time he had dismissed this idea as being a bit too far-fetched. But now, with Jamie’s accident, he wasn’t quite so sure. If that
were
the case there wouldn’t be much point if it were just he that were absent. But with Jamie gone, too, it would be much easier for someone to snoop around—to go over the inside of the chapel for starters. Pursuing this line of reasoning led to more questions. It would also mean that the person responsible must know about the chapel and the fact that it might hold a secret: a means of entry to the underground rooms—if, indeed, they existed. Another thing, how would they know where the key to the chapel was? It all suggested prior knowledge.

He arrived at the florist’s shop just as a Rover was pulling out of a parking spot. In the space of five minutes, he and the young florist had assembled a large bouquet. When it came to selecting flowers, Kingston didn’t waste any time. He not only knew exactly what every single flower was, by common and Latin name, but could also tell right off what was going to last and what was likely to go into terminal shock the minute it left the shop. The bouquet was made up of a dozen white old garden roses, pale peach oriental lilies, tuberose for their fragrance and ferns and salal leaves as filler. Laying the flowers carefully in the boot, he took off for the hospital.

Jamie was waiting at the front door when he arrived, the hospital bracelet still on her wrist. Pulling out of the hospital parking area, Kingston told her about his conversation with Sean. There was no point in saving it for later. She took it remarkably well. Not the reaction that he’d expected. But then again, she had had a lot of time to think about it and must have come to grips with the possibility, no matter how much she wanted to disbelieve it, that someone had purposely sabotaged her car.

‘Are they absolutely sure about the steering, Lawrence? I mean—it seems so—so inconceivable. It doesn’t make any sense. Who would do something like that—and why?’

Kingston took his eyes off the road and glanced at her. ‘There’s no question about it, I’m afraid. The chap at the garage was positive.’

‘God! I could easily have been killed.’ She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. ‘Or someone else could have been killed.’

‘I know. Whoever did it is obviously prepared to go to any lengths to get what they want.’

Jamie leaned back in her seat. ‘So, you think this has something to do with—
what
?’

‘I’m not sure. I’ve got one theory that makes sense but it doesn’t really explain much.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That your accident and my flat being burgled were done by the same person. To get us off the estate, away from Wickersham.’

She frowned. ‘For what purpose?’

‘So that whoever was responsible could take his or her time having a close look at the chapel.’

‘Her? Surely you don’t think Dot had anything to do with it, or poor old Gwyneth, do you?’

‘I don’t. No. But at the risk of sounding like a cracked record, I’m more convinced than ever that all these things that have been going on are not random incidents. They’re connected.’

‘I know, Lawrence, you’ve told me before, a hundred times—connected to Ryder. You have this fixation that he’s at the bottom of all this—a dead man, mind you—but who is actually doing all this stuff? Who in hell would have purposely wrecked my car? I mean it’s not as though we have a long list of suspects, do we? People ready to run the risk of attempted murder to get what they want—whatever
that
is.’

Kingston kept his eyes on the road. He was about to respond when she raised the question that had been on his mind. He had expected it sooner.

‘God,’ she said, shaking her head from side to side. ‘I’m beginning to wonder about Jack now. Maybe you’re right after all, and he wasn’t killed because of his debts.’

‘Right. It’s beginning to look more and more likely that that wasn’t the case. You haven’t heard from Chadwick, have you?’

‘No.’

‘I’m not surprised, really. He’s probably getting a little tired of listening to my crackpot ideas. I wonder if he knows about your accident yet?’

‘He must have got a report from the garage by now, don’t you think?’

‘Probably. I think I’d better call him, anyway, when we get back.’

The conversation petered out. Jamie, clearly brooding over the accident, stared out of the window at the countryside.