He’s lying.
Peter Oakley was an enigma—sometimes affable and charming like his father; other times tense and sullen. Today he looked ill, shifting his feet and picking at his cuticles.
Several ideas were forming in the back of my brain—and one of them had to do with the police drugs investigation. I put a slight pressure on Tom’s arm.
He looked at me. Go ahead.
“How often do you ship out of this warehouse?” I asked.
“This is where we receive goods,” Nigel said. “If there’s anything to ship, we have the items packed and shipped by DHL in Ipswich. They provide insurance.”
“I wondered because the first day Lady Barbara and I were here, the day you received the shipment from France, I saw several boxes being loaded onto the transport vehicle.”
“Those weren’t ours—were they, Peter?”
“I … ah, I’m not sure. I mean, it’s possible Martin, ah—” Peter Oakley’s sentence stumbled and fell.
Tom handed Nigel one of his cards. “If you hear from Martin, let me know.”
As soon as we were out of earshot, I said, “I think Peter was talking about Lucy. We’d better get to Hapthorn Lodge.”
“What was all that about packages and shipping?”
We slid into the car and shut the doors. “You said drugs are shipped in from the Continent—possibly by truck—and distributed to small-time dealers all over East Anglia. What better cover than a shipment of high-end antiques?”
“And the packages shipped back?”
“Cash payment? Antiques they can turn into cash? I don’t know. It’s a hunch.” I clicked my seat belt.
“Based on what?”
“On the fact that starting an art and antiques auction house from scratch takes more than a lovely venue. Nigel Oakley invested a lot of money in that tithe barn—fine. He probably fronted some cash as well. But consignments are only a percentage of their business. Peter told me Martin buys whole lots from estates in France and Italy. That takes serious money, and I think I have an idea where it came from.”
Tom looked at me. “The missing jewelry.” He got on the phone. “Cliffe, get down to Oakley’s Barn. Get a search warrant for the computer. Bring in the father and son for questioning.” His mouth tightened. “Keep it friendly.” He listened. “Any charge you want. Just make sure you hold them for twenty-four hours. Kate and I are headed for Hapthorn.
“So, is Lucy working with him?” Tom asked.
The flooded fields rushed by in a gray, watery blur.
“I honestly don’t know. She’s still in love with him, but I don’t think she’s been lying to me. She really had no idea where he was all those years—or why he’d abandoned her without an explanation.”
“Why would he abandon her? If he was after her money, they could have gotten married—even without her mother’s blessing. Eventually she would have inherited that big trust fund.”
“Maybe that was his plan, but I think something happened the night of the inquest.”
“We know Colin tried to give Evelyn Villiers a note—hoping to win her over?”
Bits and pieces of what Lucy told me were coming back. “Lucy heard her mother arguing with someone that night in the back garden. She never saw her mother alive after that.”
Tom turned to look at me. “You think Evelyn Villiers is dead.”
“I think she died eighteen years ago, the night of the inquest.”
“Murder?”
“Or suicide. Either way, Colin Wardle saw his chance to cash in by keeping her alive in the person of a substitute—his own mother. The real questions are, why did Emily Wardle agree, and why did she have to die too?” I settled back in my seat and listened to the rhythmic whap-whap, whap-whap of the wipers. “A young man from a small village in Essex is given the chance of a lifetime because he reminds a wealthy investor of himself at that age. Instead of being grateful, the young man betrays the trust placed in him and steals a valuable painting. He also romances the man’s naïve daughter and plans to elope with her, no doubt assuming her father will come around in the end. When they’re caught and the man dies of a stroke, the young man disappears. Next thing we know, the wealthy widow is dead and the young man’s mother takes her place. Why would she agree to impersonate Evelyn Villiers?”
“A chance to live in wealth?”
“But she didn’t live in wealth, Tom. She lived like a nun—never used the money she had access to. She must have felt guilty about what she was doing. I think she did it to save her son—and partly out of fear. Sheila Parker said Colin Wardle bullied his mother.”
Tom braked behind a farm tractor. The farmer, soaked to the skin, moved far to the left to allow us to pass. “And then one day, she decides to sell a valuable Chinese jar. Why?”
“Maybe she was tired of living like that and wanted to escape. Or maybe something happened, and she feared for her life.”
“Afraid of her own son.”
“That’s it, Tom—” I grabbed his arm. “That’s what Emily Wardle said when she was dying. Not Meissen—my son. She was telling us who killed her, except we never put it together because we assumed she was Evelyn Villiers.”
The road ahead of us had been closed with barriers. A policeman in a neon-yellow rain slicker was waving a torch.
Tom turned onto a smaller road heading north. “Do you think Lucy knew about her mother?”
“You mean did she know her mother died the night of the inquest? I’m sure she didn’t. She was truly heartbroken over her mother’s death. She thought it had just happened.”
“Why heartbroken when they’d never gotten along?”
“She must have held out hope her mother would forgive her. Wounds do the most damage when they’re inflicted by someone who’s supposed to love us.”
The tires thumped over the uneven road surface. Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal.
Fields, now lakes, hemmed us in on both sides. Spills of dirty water blurred the edges of the road, forcing the car toward the center. Was the rain letting up?
We’d reached a railroad crossing. “How
