Chapter Fifteen

When Laurence was a child, he had learned how to draw a maze.

While they had arrived in the country with little, his father had gradually accumulated a library's worth of books and encouraged his son to read whatever he fancied. Many had been too dense and esoteric for a child—although that had not stopped him attempting them—but there had been one particular book, an old tome on mysteries and ancient civilizations, that he had always loved, and he had found the method for drawing a maze concealed in there.

You started by drawing a cross. You added a dot in each of the four open squares that created, and then a curve on the top, like the end of a shepherd's crook. Finally, you drew a series of curling lines that ran around the whole shape, joining this dot up to that point of the cross, and so on. The lines became increasingly complicated, weaving between others, but were always guided by the endpoint they were curving inexorably toward. If you followed the instructions carefully, you created a simple maze.

As a child, that had felt like magic.

It was only when he was older that he had realized it wasn't a proper maze. Because there was no way of going wrong or losing your way. There were no choices to be made. No possibility of making a mistake. It offered the illusion of complexity at first glance, but in reality it was simply a single path that swirled elaborately around, turning bewilderingly back and forth on itself, before ending inevitably at the center.

Talking to Professor Nelson had brought that memory closer to the surface, and he was reminded of it properly a short while later, as he drove through the network of streets around Saint William's Church.

From above, he imagined this leafy suburb would look like one of those mazes. A single road led in, then coiled around between endless rows of expensive retirement bungalows and detached family homes. The neat grass verges were dotted with apple trees, and every hedge in sight was carefully trimmed. Everything was tranquil and quiet, the atmosphere outside the car almost soporific. It made it easy not to notice that there were few turnings on this road at all, and that it led almost inescapably to the church at its heart.

Upon reaching it, Laurence parked up on the curb and then walked up the wide driveway. Saint William's loomed overhead, the brickwork brown and clean, and the colors in the stained glass windows so bright and vivid that it was as though light was somehow streaming out from inside.

At the top, a black hearse was parked, a smaller car beside it. The entrance to the church was an enormous arched doorway that reminded him of the entrance to Hobbes's mansion. One of the doors was open, and the sound of organ music drifted out. He stepped inside, then followed the trail of music down a short corridor and into the main body of the church. The vaulted ceiling was supported by massive stone columns above rows of wide pews. The air smelled of dust and wood, and a hint of wax from the racks of flickering candles that lined the walls.

In the far corner, an ancient man was working away slowly behind the vast brass pipes of an organ, his thin shoulders rolling along with the solemn music. Two men were before the altar. A priest, who was standing straight and formal, listening attentively, and Richard Gaunt. The lawyer was holding a clipboard and talking quietly.

Laurence coughed loudly.

The sound echoed around the church. The man at the organ continued playing, but Gaunt and the priest looked up. And was the lawyer startled to see him? Laurence wasn't sure. He had called the man's office after leaving the philosophy department and been told he would find him here. It was official business, apparently, and so it wasn't like Gaunt was hiding from him. And yet from the expression on his face, it would be easy to believe he had been.

Laurence nodded and gestured behind, and then walked back out of the church without waiting to see if the lawyer would follow. Perhaps he would make a show of turning a few more pages on his clipboard first in order to refute any suggestion he had been summoned. In the meantime, Laurence stepped back out into the light, and then followed a path that led to the rear of the church.

He found himself on the edge of a graveyard. An area of grass the size of a small field lay ahead of him. The ground was uneven, and so the mass of headstones stuck up at odd angles, like teeth grown crooked out of the earth. There was nobody else in sight, although a rusted yellow digger was parked, still and silent, by a hollowed-out plot.

Laurence made his way between the headstones.

When he reached the open grave, he peered in. The hole was deep, the cut ends of roots emerging from the surrounding soil. Which he found curious. Looking around, there were no trees nearby. It was as though the tendrils were reaching out from the graves to the side.

Laurence stepped to the right and looked at the stone.

CHARLOTTE MARY HOBBES

AUGUST 9, 1952–JUNE 29, 1985

SLEEP WELL, BELOVED WIFE

And then the one beside it.

JOSHUA CHARLES HOBBES

June 29, 1985–April 13, 1986

SLEEP WELL, BELOVED SON

He stared between the graves, reading the dates once again in order to be sure. A shiver went through him.

"Detective Page."

He turned to see Gaunt approaching—picking his way awkwardly between the graves. He seemed unsure of his footing and younger than he had during their previous meeting. A little of his confidence had faded, and it didn't look like he was going to rally any of it back any time soon.

"Mr. Gaunt," Laurence said.

"Might I ask why you're here today?"

"By coincidence, that was going to be my first question to you as well." Laurence smiled politely and waited.

Gaunt relented.

"I'm here to make arrangements for Mr. Hobbes's funeral," he said. "He left a very specific and detailed list of requirements for the ceremony with my company."

"But his body hasn't been released yet." Laurence checked his watch and frowned. "In fact, the postmortem is still taking place even as we speak. It seems premature to be planning anything yet."

"I'm just doing what I'm told."

Gaunt looked a little helpless, as though he wanted to have a better and more authoritative answer, but didn't.

Laurence angled his body slightly.

"When were these requirements given to your company?"

"A few weeks ago, I think."

"You think or you know?"

Gaunt thought about it.

"Actually, perhaps more recently than that," he said.

"Interesting."

"Well, you have to remember that Mr. Hobbes was very old. He was in poor health. It isn't strange that he was making those kinds of plans."

Laurence nodded to himself, resisting the urge to point out to Gaunt that it was not for him to suggest to a police officer what was strange or needed to be remembered. But it was possible the lawyer was correct.

"I have an understanding of Mr. Hobbes's work and finances now," he said. "But I know very little about his private life. For example, I had the impression he had no family."

"He didn't."

"Except he did." Laurence pivoted at the waist and gestured at the graves. "And here they are."

Gaunt looked past him at the two plots.

"Well, yes. But that was a long time ago."

"Even so. Do you know what happened to Professor Hobbes's family?"

"I know that his wife died in childbirth." Gaunt smiled. "Hard to believe in this day and age, right?"

"No," Laurence said.

Gaunt put the smile away quickly.

"What happened to the child?" Laurence said.

"There was a fire. Mr. Hobbes was away from the estate at a conference. The fire broke out in the room his son was sleeping in. There was staff there at the time, and they managed to raise the alarm and contain the blaze, but not in time to save Mr. Hobbes's son. You might have noticed the damage it caused when you visited yesterday?"

Laurence thought back to arriving at Hobbes's house and recalled the charred, collapsed section he'd seen at the center of the building.

"What was the cause of the fire?" he said.

Gaunt hesitated. "I can imagine what you might be thinking," he said. "But my understanding is the incident was fully investigated at the time. It was an electrical fault. It's an old building, and parts of it have been in a state of neglect for quite some time."

"Why would I be thinking anything else?" Laurence wondered.

"Sorry?"

"It just seems odd you would say that."

"I—I'm not sure." Gaunt shook his head. "What does the fire have to do with anything?"

"Nothing, I'm sure."

Which was most likely the truth, and yet Laurence realized his thoughts kept running off on these strange tangents. Perhaps that was just a result of his natural curiosity, but whatever might be most likely here, he couldn't quite shake the sensation of there being a complicated network of cogs turning below the surface of this case.

But again, he stored the information away for now.

"You told us yesterday that you had some knowledge of Professor Hobbes's possessions?"

"Yes. He had an extensive library. Some of the philosophical texts he'd collected over the years are intensely valuable. Your chief has kindly allowed us to begin removing them for safekeeping."

"Yes, Chief Barnes is renowned for his kindness. Is anything missing?"

"Not from there."

"From where, then?"

"Mr. Hobbes was a very rich man." Gaunt looked awkward. "Over the years, he had amassed an additional collection of… I don't know how to describe it. Shall we say artwork?"

"I don't know. Shall we?"

"Well, it's all just money in another form, isn't it? Some of the items in this collection were also valuable. Very valuable indeed. As far as I've been able to tell, most of it's there. But there might be a couple of things missing. Although one of them in particular—potentially the most expensive—there's no way of knowing if it's actually missing, or if it's stored elsewhere, or if it even—"

Laurence lost patience. "What is this item?"

Gaunt gave a humorless laugh.

"A book," he said.

Laurence was quiet for a moment. He thought back to the footage he had watched, picturing the object that Christopher Shaw had brought out from the archway. It was about the right size and shape for a book. It had glinted in the light, but he presumed a valuable book would need to be wrapped in something to protect it.

He was about to press Gaunt for more information when his phone rang. He held up a hand to signal their conversation was far from over and the lawyer must wait, and then stepped away and took the call.

It was Pettifer with an update on the search for Christopher Shaw. She and another officer had gone to Shaw's mother's house and spoken to her, but the woman insisted she hadn't seen her son in two years. Laurence detected in his partner's frustrated tone that the woman had not been particularly easy to deal with. Regardless, Pettifer had managed to excuse herself for the bathroom, at which point she had ducked her head quickly into the various rooms and found no evidence of Shaw's presence.

"Did you believe her?" Laurence said.

"I don't know," Pettifer said. "But given what happened, it wouldn't surprise me if Shaw hadn't been in touch."

"Anything else?"

"Postmortem's just finished; we'll be getting a provisional result from that shortly. And we might have visuals on Shaw. I've found a bank account registered to him, and he's made various withdrawals from cash machines over the last few months. The most recent was yesterday. I'm waiting on security footage from that now."

"That's something," he said.

Silence on the line.

"Sorry," he said. "Of course what I meant was that's excellent work."

"That's better. And how are you doing?"

Laurence glanced at Gaunt.

"I'm not sure yet," he said. "I'll let you know shortly."

He ended the call and then stepped back over, joining the lawyer by the graves and staring down at them for a moment. Two were filled with the victims of terrible tragedies. One was waiting to be with the victim of an equally horrific murder.

And all because of what?

Laurence looked up at Gaunt.

"Tell me about this book," he said.