Chapter Forty-two

The law firm that Richard Gaunt worked at was situated on a pleasant, leafy street to the north of the city center, nestled into a row of shops between a bakery and a barber shop, a driveway leading down beside the latter. As Laurence drove along the road toward it, Pettifer hung up the call she had been on.

"Anything?"

He could already tell from her body language that it wasn't.

"No," she said. "They've finally tracked down Kieran Davies."

"Who?"

"Well, exactly. The last member of Hobbes's staff. He's finally turned up, alive and well, and there's an officer talking to him now."

"Huh."

It seemed like a long time ago that he'd been concerned with the abruptly dismissed staff members. Then again, it was important to dot the i's and cross the t's. Especially because the developments of the day so far had only confirmed how little they still knew. The whole picture might have been coming slowly into focus, but it remained far too complicated for him to understand what the hell he was looking at.

The address Sam Gardener had given them had indeed been Christopher Shaw's home—an apartment that also turned out to be part of Alan Hobbes's portfolio of properties—but it had obviously been abandoned. They had a name for his traveling companion now—a boyfriend, it appeared—and were trying to locate him, but there were several James Aldersons in the city to work their way through, and even if they came up with the right address, Laurence highly doubted they were going to walk in to find the two of them curled up by the fire.

No further sightings of Christopher Shaw.

Laurence had arranged for Katie Shaw's mother to be spoken to again. Assuming Gardener was correct, there had been some level of contact between her and her son, which meant she had been lying to them the other day. If so, she was still lying to them now; she remained adamant she had not seen Chris and had apparently sat there the whole time with her face set like stone. The officer had asked Laurence if he wanted her arrested, but Laurence had decided not. Despite his frustration, he found himself almost admiring the woman. Her stubbornness verged on the elemental.

But there had been two more interesting developments.

Pettifer sighed.

"Remind me what we're doing here again?"

"Following a hunch," Laurence said. "Besides, what else do we have to do?"

He flicked the blinker and turned in to the law firm's driveway.

"Ah!" he said. "And would you look at that?"

Because they encountered Gaunt sooner than he'd been expecting. The lawyer was in his own vehicle, on his way off the premises, and their cars came to a halt nose to nose, blocking each other's way. Gaunt stared at the pair of them through the windshield for a few seconds, a blank expression on his face. Laurence smiled patiently. Beside him, Pettifer raised a hand and waved. Gaunt got the message. A few seconds later, he reversed backward, and Laurence rolled their car slowly down the driveway and parked up alongside.

Another minute and we'd have missed him.

Which felt like a coincidence. Except he was beginning to think there were fewer coincidences in this case than he was comfortable with.

Laurence and Pettifer got out of the car, and he signaled for Gaunt to do the same. Again, the lawyer seemed reluctant, but then he joined them on the driveway. Laurence thought he seemed even younger now than he had when they'd spoken in the churchyard. Pale and nervous about something. Not guilty exactly—more like he'd gotten himself involved in something that scared him without him quite understanding why.

"Mr. Gaunt," Laurence said happily. "We meet again. How are you today?"

"Busy."

"Managing Mr. Hobbes's estate?"

"Yes." Gaunt looked slightly sick. "Among others."

"Excellent. That's actually one of the reasons we're here."

He had brought the padded envelope with him. He held it up briefly to show Gaunt, and then slid the contents out of the open end.

"I was at the house of a woman named Katie Shaw earlier when this was delivered. The details on the reverse indicate that it was sent by you. Can you tell me what it is?"

Gaunt stared at it.

"A book," he said flatly.

"Thank you. It is a book, yes—and a valuable one. But not only a book."

The book itself was wrapped in a protective transparent cover. But there had been something else included in the package. A photograph. Laurence held it up carefully for Gaunt to see.

"This is Professor Hobbes, isn't it? And I assume the woman beside him must have been his wife?"

Gaunt looked at the image.

"Yes," he said. "I mean, I never asked, but he used to keep that by his bed."

"And so what do you make of this?"

Laurence flipped the photograph over, revealing what had been written on the back.

Gaunt read the message there and then looked a little helpless.

"I've honestly no idea," he said. "I mean, I didn't even know the photograph was there. Mr. Hobbes left very detailed instructions for what to do with his library after he died, and he'd packaged a few of them up already. Some of them had to be delivered to people, and this was one of those. I remember it needed to arrive at a specific time on a Sunday. But I have no idea why, or who the woman is it was sent to—Katie Shaw?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I don't know who she is."

Laurence waited. But he knew by now that Gaunt was not good at leaving silences unfilled, and it became obvious he was telling the truth. Hobbes had arranged for this book—with a photograph and a message secreted within—to be sent out to Katie Shaw for reasons unknown.

Interesting.

He put the items back carefully into the envelope.

"Does the name Edward Leland mean anything to you?" he said.

Another hunch. But Sam Gardener had told him Katie Shaw had a newspaper clipping about a missing child named Nathaniel Leland, and there had to be a reason for that. Laurence had looked into the case. The date of Nathaniel's abduction was only a few days earlier than the fire that killed Alan Hobbes's son—and the similarities did not end there. Nathaniel's father was also a very wealthy man, albeit one who had remained curiously absent from the public eye. A man who made his money in the dark and kept it there. He was only two years older than Alan Hobbes.

And then there was the name.

You have committed blasphemy, and it will be corrected.

—Edward

And even though it was only a hunch, he could tell from Gaunt's expression that the name was familiar. That it was perhaps even responsible for some of the sickness the lawyer appeared to be feeling right now.

"Mr. Leland is also one of our clients," he said.

"Your firm seems an odd choice for him."

"How so?"

"He lives fifty miles away."

Despite himself, Gaunt gave a nervous laugh.

"Tell me about it," he said. "I have to do the round trip all the time."

"Really? When was the last time you visited?"

"Yesterday."

"For what purpose?"

"Well—money, of course. It's always money with these people. And they have so much that they don't understand how it works." Gaunt looked away briefly. "I can't go into details. Let's just say Mr. Leland wanted to withdraw a significant amount of money from one of his accounts, and it was my job to facilitate that."

Laurence was aware of Pettifer tensing up beside him. He himself felt a thrill. All the other details they had were small and meaningless by themselves. They might have pointed toward Edward Leland being connected in some way, but they were in no way conclusive. But this felt a little more solid. They had Christopher Shaw in possession of a stolen book he might wish to sell. And now they had a man withdrawing a large sum of money, with which—perhaps—to pay for it.

"What did Mr. Leland want the money for?"

"I don't know. It's not my job to ask things like that. All I know is that Mr. Leland is a valued client, and has been for many years, and that grants him certain privileges. It's much easier when he sends one of his people here to us, but…" He glanced behind him at the office building for a second, then back at Laurence. "But I just do what I'm told. If he wants me to go there and arrange something, I go there and arrange it. That's how it works."

Laurence peered at him. Gaunt still seemed nervous, he thought. There was something else going on here that he was reluctant to reveal. Was it there in the glance he'd just given?

"You said Mr. Leland sometimes sends one of his people here?"

Gaunt started to look at the office again and didn't quite stop himself in time.

Laurence smiled at him.

"Mr. Gaunt," he said patiently. "A man is dead. Other lives are at stake. You are very busy. So let me be simple. Signal to me with blinks if you like—two for yes, one for no. Is one of Mr. Leland's men here now?"

"No. But one was earlier."

"Wishing to arrange more money for him?"

Gaunt shook his head.

"Like I told you, we're in the process of managing Mr. Hobbes's estate. There is a huge amount to deal with, and some of our existing clients are aware of potential sales. It's only speculative at this point, of course, and it's not strictly aboveboard. But these are valued clients. And it makes our lives easier to begin planning things now."

"Go on."

"Mr. Leland is interested in buying the house. He wanted to look around."

Gaunt looked sicker than ever. It was as though he was sure, deep down in his bones, that he had done something wrong—something that went well beyond being aboveboard—but couldn't quite understand what.

"He wanted to borrow the key."