Wellington boots made for excellent footwear to keep your feet dry. Why they didn’t also come with actual tread to keep you from falling on your ass, Jo didn’t know, but the fact remained. It was one she unfortunately learned the hard way.
Gwilym managed to pull her up without falling down himself, but only just. The previous day’s sunshine may have dried out the puddles, but the trail remained slippery and muddy. It was lonely, too. The effect might be softened by late-spring greenery, but these were the environs of Wuthering Heights and every bit as isolated.
“How did Roberta walk this whole trail by herself?” Gwilym asked.
“Fourteen generations of Wilkinsons,” Jo explained. Roberta had genetic fortitude. Jo, on the other hand, had a wet backside. She’d spent most of her life between Chicago and New York, scarce able to catch a bit of unbroken sky between high-rises, or more than a few stray stars above the pink haze of light pollution. Out here, the land rolled away like the gathered edge of a bed skirt dotted blue yellow with furze and heather. Clouds had moved in, but across a fat stretch of sky wide enough to bend at the edges. If Roberta could still hike it at eighty-three, she would, too. “Where was I?”
“Your uncle Aiden.”
“Right. So, we already knew he was the one with Evelyn’s photo. He also kept the original—and he wanted to bring Evelyn ‘home,’ whatever that means. But here’s the weird part. Even though the Ardemore estate was technically under his management back in the eighties, he never lived there. Didn’t even seem to want to take care of it. When did he suddenly get interested in our family history?”
“I guess about the time he went to such great lengths to get the painting repaired,” Gwilym offered. “But since we’re talking about him, if not the Ardemore estate, where did he live?”
“Had his own flat in York, which was sold after his death. But according to the neighbor, he was almost never there, either.”
“Another home someplace?”
Home. Funny word; it had never been the sort Jo collected for cutting her teeth on, but neither was it as straightforward as it pretended. Had she ever felt at home in Chicago, with her mother and aunt? Had she felt at home in the Brooklyn flat with her ex?
“Where is home, though, anyway?” she asked. “Is Swansea home for you?”
“I suppose. I’m Welsh.”
“Tula’s Irish, but Ireland isn’t her home.”
“Fair point. Always meant to ask about that,” Gwilym admitted, sidestepping a particularly opaque puddle.
“She probably wouldn’t tell you much,” Jo said. “But Abington is her home. Mine too, I guess, now. What about Evelyn?”
“As in, Painting Evelyn?”
“As in, Ancestor Evelyn, yes.”
“Well, she’s also from Wales, if I recall from our research, but I see your point. Note on the photo you found from your uncle says ‘Evelyn comes home,’ but who’s home?”
These were the questions that kept Jo up nights, and that was no euphemism. Did it refer to Evelyn’s home in Wales, before she moved in with Gwen and William?
“We searched for months and never found evidence of Evelyn living anywhere else,” she reminded him.
“Or any mention of a baby mysteriously turning up in Abington,” Gwilym agreed. “I mean, assuming the baby lived, you would think an orphan would get some kind of attention around here.”
He kicked a dirt clod from the path. That had been his hobbyhorse: orphan hunting. Jo had focused on William and Gwen, but no child of any sort ever darkened their door—there weren’t even nieces or nephews to hand. And not a mention of Evelyn herself, either, alive or dead.
“Maybe Aiden meant Evelyn’s home here in Abington, you know? Ardemore House? Assuming you gained home status by being buried somewhere.”
“Ugh. That is not a nice thought.” Jo frowned. “Maybe Aiden meant his own home. Either York or . . . somewhere else. I’m not giving up.”
“Of course you aren’t! We aren’t. But you have to admit, murders in ditches during town celebrations are very distracting.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
“There it is, I think,” she said. Just beyond them was a rise in the landscape; the North Pennines surrounded Abington on three sides, and the Pennine Way could be picked up from Upper Lane. She’d learned all that from Tula and Ben, and been forced to walk it more than once with Roberta. Up ahead, police tape flapped in the wind, and Gwilym gave his hoodie strings an enthusiastic tug.
“Oh gosh. That’s banging! C’mon!” He skipped down the trail till he reached its nadir. Jo leaned over with care. Ditch wasn’t quite the right word—culvert? Steep sides and a mucky middle that police boot prints had turned into a slovenly pond.
“That can’t have been easy,” Jo said, trying to imagine getting a body out of it. Gwilym was imagining it, too, but with greater appreciation.
“Like excavating a bog body or something. On the other hand, plenty easy to put him in. There’s a good incline—you’d just have to roll him out and let gravity do the work.”
Unpleasant. But he had a point.
“Why here, though? Just the solitude?”
“Sure! No one would find him right away. Oh. Well. I mean, in theory.” Gwilym turned in place. “It beats odds, doesn’t it? Roberta walking right up on him.”
Jo scanned the horizon. Maybe—or maybe not. It was close to a pull-off; people parked there sometimes. In fact, someone appeared to be parked there now. Up ahead on the road, something stood out against the brown and green. Two somethings, as it happened. A hiker, maybe, and something bigger . . .
“Look up there. Is that a car?” Gwilym squinted but couldn’t differentiate at a distance.
“I see a yellow blur and a white blur?”
“Windbreaker and the backside of something—an SUV maybe.” It was a lonely place, but not deserted after all. Of course, if you weren’t familiar with the area, you might not know that.
“I see her now.” Gwilym raised his arms and cheerfully hallooed.
“Please don’t do that.” Jo grimaced. She was not in new-people mode. This did not stop Gwilym, who was always in new-people mode.
He started jogging to catch up. Now Jo had to scamper after him. When they had covered about twenty yards, he gave another shouted greeting, and this time the hiker turned around. Jo caught a distant glimpse of her face, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t even slow down.
“Headed for the van, I guess?” Gwilym asked, slowing to a walk. “That is a van, isn’t it?” Jo’s vision was better, but they were still half a football pitch away.
“Seems to be,” she said. “It has letters on one side: B-U-T-T-Y.” The word lived nowhere in Jo’s extensive mental catalog, however. “Butt-tee? Boot-ee?”
Gwilym erupted in laughter.
“Laird, have you never eaten a bacon butty?” he asked. “I love a bacon butty, me—and a chip butty. Gorgeous. Like a cwtch for your insides.”
“Is this a Welsh thing?” Jo asked.
“It is a sandwich, Jo. A right guilty one. Butter and back bacon on thick white bread—didn’t expect a butty van out here, but I’ll take it! Let’s get one, shall we? You’ll love it.”
Jo had experienced the British equivalent of bacon and wasn’t sure love was the right word. Maybe they also did chips. Essentially a food truck, a window opened to one side, and a tiny counter jutted out with condiments of various kinds. Gwilym tapped on the window and the thick jowls of a mostly bald man appeared.
“What can I do for ye?” he asked.
The accent was thick; Jo tried to place it—glottal stops, she thought. The audible release of air after complete closure of the glottis. Cockney? No. Something else. Gwilym asked about her order, but her brain couldn’t get past the other blur they had just seen.
“Where’s the hiker?” she asked.
Gwilym took a quick look around. “Maybe she already ordered?”
“But she’s not here,” Jo insisted. She stood on her tiptoes to better see the proprietor. “Excuse me, did you see a woman in a yellow rain slicker?”
“Nar.”
“Did you see anyone?” Gwilym asked.
“Nar, I seed. Ye gan order something or nowt?”
“Oh! Yes, um. Bacon butty, please,” Gwilym said, hunting his clothes for cash.
“Aye. In a min’t.”
Gwilym dutifully awaited his sandwich. It seemed to be taking a very long time, so Jo climbed a little rise next the road and peered out over the moors. No one. Not anywhere. It shouldn’t bother her. But like other unexplained errors in the general skein of things . . . it did. A lot.
* * *
An hour and four minutes on the 694—surprisingly breezy driving for a Sunday. MacAdams stopped first in Whickham to put eyes on Foley’s former address, a brick terraced house with sizable garage and impressive garden.
“Nice village. Good parks,” Green said. “Geet place, as the Geordies say.”
“Means big, yes?”
“You could keep a lot of kit in there, is what I mean. Leaves all this behind for a by-month rental?”
“A furnished one, at that,” MacAdams added, pulling away from the curb again.
“Right. So, where’s his stuff?”
It was an excellent question. Newcastle Uniform did a preliminary sweep the day before; everything, right down to the ice trays, came with the flat.
“We’ve probably looking for storage, a unit. Something,” he said. An officer met them at the door, and proffered paper booties for their shoes. It wasn’t a crime scene. At least, MacAdams didn’t think so. But then again . . . He tugged them over his oxfords.
The inside had the appeal of a cheap chain hotel. Furnishings were perfectly serviceable—everything a shade of familiar beige.
“Where do you want to start?” Green asked.
“Divide and conquer,” MacAdams said, pointing her to the kitchen and heading down the short, narrow hall to the only bedroom. Here, at least, the linens were personalized: pale green sateen and a comforter with blue stripes. It had clearly been slept in recently; they waited on forensics, but chances were good it had been Foley. MacAdams peered into the closet. Button-downs, pressed trousers, all reasonable quality. Jo had described him as disheveled on the night of, but his sartorial choices were smart business casual. Only one suit. It might have been a good match for his silk shirt, but hadn’t been worn. The tags were still on it.
“Kitchen’s barely worth notice. Not much a cook, apparently.” She paused, looking down at him from the doorway. “Why are you on the floor?”
“Shoes,” MacAdams explained, his head partway into closet corner. “What did Struthers say? The shirt needed a different ensemble. Found a suit. And—” He backed out of the closet, pulling a pair of white-and-buff brogues. “Hello there. Very expensive shoes.”
“These are fancy?”
“Oh yes. Foster & Son. Bespoke.” He ran a thumb down the hand detailing. “That’s a two-thousand-pound shoe. Starting.”
“No shit.” She pushed aside a few hangers. “The other clothes are all off-the-rack, though. I mean, nice brands. But not tailored.”
MacAdams put the shoes on the bureau to get a better look.
“Basic apartment. But one very top-shelf pair of shoes—an unworn suit and a flashy red silk shirt to be murdered in.”
“I’ll bite. What’s that tell us?”
“I don’t know,” MacAdams admitted. “Except something doesn’t fit.”
“What’s this?” Green reached into the left shoe and tugged out the purple silk fabric with a gloved hand. It was a woman’s scarf.
“That’s surely not Foley’s,” MacAdams said.
“No judgment if it is, but there’s perfume on it.” Green held it under his nose: sweet, vanilla, floral.
MacAdams headed for the apartment’s shower room and opened the medicine cabinet. A pair of nail clippers fell out, and can of shaving cream nearly did; he caught it with one hand. He didn’t find perfume. But that didn’t make it uninteresting.
“Green, have a look at this,” he said, holding the cabinet door open.
“Messy,” she said. Then she sniffed at the whipped white goop smearing the internal shelf. “Shaving cream?”
“Yes. I suspect it fell over in there.” MacAdams showed her the canister, where additional foam had crusted from the dispensing head. “Tell me what’s missing.”
“Razor and toothbrush, which we found in the bag.” Green frowned. “But—then why leave the toothpaste and cream?”
“And cologne,” MacAdams added, picking up the bottle with gloved fingers. It had fallen on its side.
“Packed in a hurry?” Green tapped her chin with an index finger. “Or maybe in a panic? Starts tossing things into a bag?”
MacAdams nodded, tossing being the operative word. Almost as if he’d swept a hand along the shelf and kept whatever fell out.
“He packs one nice shirt but not the suit, brings less than half of his toiletries.” He replaced the shaving cream. “This isn’t just hurry. These are the actions of someone on the run. Bag this up along with the shoes, and let’s see if we can get DNA from the scarf.”
“Right. Together with the earring, I’m guessing a lady friend.” Green collected evidence bags from the Newcastle officer and wrapped the Foster & Sons in plastic. She handed them to MacAdams with a smirk.
“You know, I didn’t have you down as a shoe man,” she said.
“I’m not,” he said. But Annie was. She bought him a pair for their first anniversary. He’d still never worn them. “We’re here, let’s look up Burnhope.”
In truth, MacAdams still planned—even preferred—to meet Burnhope at his offices for Hammersmith. Everything suggested the meeting there had galvanized Foley’s runner to Abington (even if it didn’t explain the gap between a five-forty booking and turning up at 10:00 p.m. for a commute that should’ve been under two hours). All the same, he wanted to get eyes on Burnhope’s housing situation. Had he, like Foley, recently sold up? It was easy enough to find out with a drive across town.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, MacAdams determined the answer, apparently, was no.
They pulled up to a four-story detached manor-style house awash in gardens and situated on almost an acre in Jesmond. The last alone would have fetched over a million before a brick had been laid.
“My God, there’s a pool,” Green said, noting the enclosed solarium to the southwest. “Who the fuck has a pool in Newcastle?”
“In all of Northumberland,” MacAdams agreed as he rang the bell.
A moment later, a young woman answered the door. She had deep olive skin, black hair parted in the center and an accent MacAdams couldn’t place. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Detective Chief Inspector MacAdams, and I’m looking for Stanley Burnhope,” MacAdams said.
“Not here,” she said abruptly—but a velvety voice rang from somewhere farther inside.
“Mary, who is that?” The words were followed by a willowy woman dressed in white from head to house-slipper, coupled with platinum hair and near-translucent skin. It didn’t seem possible that she owned the heady voice which now greeted them.
“Mary, who have we here?”
“It’s police, ma’am,” the woman said unsteadily. Mrs. Burnhope, or so MacAdams presumed, put a hand upon her shoulder.
“That’s all right Maryam; please look to the children,” she said, then turned her gaze upon them. “Can you tell me what this is about?”
“It would be better if we could come in, Mrs. Burnhope,” MacAdams said, but she was already fading backward to allow it.
“Of course.”
The entryway glistened in polished marble, but despite the manorly look from outside, the inner sanctum had been re-created in sleek modern elegance. Deep mahogany wood offset by a grand white marble fireplace that somehow spoke of old money without any semblance of old style. And there was a lot of glass, some of it architectural, some of it clearly artwork . . . and some which might be both of either. But they hadn’t seen anything yet. Mrs. Burnhope led them through to a bright room with a grand piano and stands of music, overseen by what appeared to be a trio of molten-glass figures, at least four feet tall. Their sweeping arms caught the light, translucent, pearlescent.
“Wow,” was Green’s very natural reaction.
“My muses,” she said. “I play here. It’s my room, you might say. Art and music.” She shut the door behind them.
“You’ll understand, I hope, that I don’t want to upset Mary. She’d been through quite enough.”
MacAdams and Green exchanged glances. Both of them more or less blank.
“Quite enough of what, Mrs.—”
“Call me Ava. And I’m quite sure we have done all the necessary work to provide her with stability at last. So if this is a matter of paperwork, we can handle that through better channels than house calls.”
Her behavior wasn’t exactly unfriendly; it wasn’t stony, either—but definitely unyielding. Commanding, too, in the demure but expectant way only those of the upper crust could be.
“We are not here regarding Mary at all,” MacAdams said. “We are investigating a murder.”
“A—murder?”
He now watched Ava perform a mental backstep, and then sink into a seated position on the sofa. He used the moment to his advantage; bad news was better sitting down.
“Did you know your husband’s business partner?” MacAdams asked.
“Sophie Wagner? Something’s happened at the club?” Ava’s tone bore honest concern, but MacAdams had the peculiar sensation that he’d just stumbled into someone else’s investigation.
“Sorry, his partner at Hammersmith.”
Ava simply stared, eyes like the glass chandeliers. “He doesn’t have a partner at Hammersmith. I thought this was about the charity, Fresh Start? It’s for sponsoring refugees. Maryam, for example, she’s been here a year, from Syria. But then what’s this about? Who’s been murdered?”
“Ronan Foley,” MacAdams said.
Ava shook her head. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
So far, the interview had been an exercise in non-sequitur. Green, above and to the left of Ava, had given up on stoicism; he could almost read the words what the fuck? on her cheekbones.
“Ronan Foley worked with—or for—your husband at Hammersmith. He handled properties in York and abroad. We know he met with Mr. Burnhope on Friday at four thirty; between roughly eleven thirty Friday night and 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning, he was murdered. We would like to speak to Mr. Burnhope; can you tell us where he is?”
It was a lot of information at once, but he’d delivered it in emotionless bullet points. Ava—who had preserved a mostly emotionless veneer so far—was animated at last, but the principal feeling seemed to be one of confusion.
“Murdered,” she repeated, the velvet voice wrapping the word up at both ends. “I’m sorry. But I still don’t know the man. Maybe if I saw a photograph? Stanley consults with a lot of people for his firm; I can’t remember them all. We keep our careers mostly separate, anyway.”
“And your career, Ms. Burnhope?” Green asked.
Ava half turned to look at her, the platinum wave falling forward over her shoulder.
“I am a vocalist and concert pianist,” she said, gesturing to the piano. “We work together for the charity. That’s where we were on Friday. I performed for the ball at Sable Green. The golf club. And it’s where Stanley is at the moment.”
“Meeting with—Sophie Wagner?” MacAdams asked, consulting his notes.
“Golfing,” she corrected. Then she stood up. “I can show you out.” The interview was clearly over. MacAdams didn’t need to extend it—yet.
“Thank you,” he said aloud as they re-passed the glass kitchen. “We’ll be in touch if we have further inquiries.”
Ava merely opened the front door and wished them a colorless “good afternoon.”
Back outside, Green sucked air through her teeth.
“That was weird.”
“It was,” MacAdams agreed. “Foley’s email specifically requested a meeting between himself and Stanley as partners.”
“Not that. Or, not only that.” Green was scrolling through her phone. “Ava Burnhope—is also Ava Thompson. Look.” She held up the phone to reveal Ava attired in brilliant red at a piano under a spotlight. “I didn’t put it together at first, but she was well-known in the city. Daughter of Newcastle’s chief executive officer, Andrew Thompson—he’s outlasted two Lord Mayors.”
MacAdams took the phone and scrolled; two images down Stanley appeared at her side, both of them posing with another woman in front of a banner that read Fresh Start.
“I take it that’s Sophie.” He handed the phone back. “We’ll go there next.”