“Colin is going to need a good lawyer.”
“I’ll make sure he gets one.” She must have seen the look of surprise on my face. “He is my brother, Kate.”
The door opened.
“Ready?” Tom smiled at us. “Let’s get your statements out of the way. Then I’ll take you both out for lunch at The Dog & Partridge.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Monday, May 27
Five days after the arrest of Colin Wardle and the Oakleys, Tom and I got our walk—but not along the River Stour. While the flood waters had mostly receded, the towpaths were still impassable, some stretches washed away completely. We walked instead on higher ground, along sheep meadows and through wooded bowers from Long Barston to Little Gosling. Far in the distance, church bells rang out—a practice session, no doubt, for the change ringers.
Sunlight dappled the hawthorn hedges, their glossy oak-like leaves dotted with clusters of fragrant white flowers. Tom walked ahead of me along the narrow foot path, helping me through the kissing gates and over the styles. In the fields, the younger lambs nursed. The older ones butted heads in mock battles while their patient mothers munched grass and enjoyed the sun on their wooly backs.
After two and a half hours, we stopped where the path widened, found a convenient log, and sat. I retied my hiking boots. “You haven’t mentioned the case once today. What’s happening? If you can tell me, that is.”
“You of all people deserve to know.” Tom pulled a water bottle out of his backpack and handed it to me. “Forensics deciphered the logo on the bottom of the third set of shoe prints in Ivor’s stockroom—Bally, the luxury Swiss shoemaker. We matched the prints to a pair in Colin’s closet. He’d cleaned them, but we found blood traces in the stitching.”
“He must have been confident he’d never be suspected.”
“We can now place him at both murder scenes.”
“Enough to convict?” I took a long drink of water.
“Not quite, but there’s more. I said we needed a body, and we got one. The floods at Hapthorn Lodge swept through the rock garden, partially uncovering the skeleton of a woman, about the same age as Evelyn Villiers. We’re checking the DNA with Lucy’s, but there’s little doubt. A forensic examination showed the hyoid bone had been broken. Rare except in cases of manual strangulation when the killer’s hand gets up high underneath the victim’s chin. Information like that impresses a jury.”
“Is that enough?”
Tom stretched out his long legs and smiled. “There’s more. We identified the two men in the van chased by Cliffe—CCTV footage at the car hire lot. They confessed and fingered Peter Oakley as their contact. When we presented Peter with the evidence, he crumbled. Most bullies are cowards at heart, Kate. He’s agreed to testify against Colin Wardle.”
“Peter knew about the murders?’
“He says no, but he saw Colin the night of the May Fair with blood on his shirt and trousers. And he knew about Colin’s nefarious activities in France. He has facts, dates.”
“How about Nigel Oakley?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“He had nothing to do with any of it. Come on.” He pulled me to my feet. “Two more miles to Little Gosling. Lunch and a glass of white wine at The Packhorse?”
We gathered that evening in the small dining room at Finchley Hall—Lady Barbara and Vivian, Lucy, Tom, and me. Ivor was the only one missing, but I’d have plenty of time in the coming weeks to answer his questions. Or try. Some things, like the true circumstances of Evelyn Villiers’s death, might never be known.
Francie Jewell had prepared an amazing dinner of English beef with small roasted potatoes, fresh peas from the garden, and all the trimmings. She’d filled our crystal wineglasses with a vintage cabernet from the Lady Barbara’s wine cellar. Finchley Hall’s fine old Royal Crown Derby china gleamed in the candlelight.
I reached for Tom’s hand under the table, overwhelmed with gratitude for his life and with love for the people I’d come to care about in this small, perfect English village.
With Lucy’s permission, Tom had outlined Colin’s story about confronting Evelyn Villiers the night of the inquest and about their argument in the garden, ending in her accidental death. Then he’d explained about the skeleton and the broken hyoid bone.
“So he strangled her,” Lady Barbara said. She glanced at Lucy. “Oh, my dear. Is this too much too soon?”
Lucy was looking pale, but she squared her shoulders. “Hearing the truth is hard, but not as hard as believing all those years that my father’s death was my fault. Now I know my mother didn’t send me away. And she didn’t write the note I found the morning after the inquest.” She looked at Tom. “I want to know everything.”
“Colin really thought Evelyn Villiers would welcome him as her husband’s heir?” Vivian huffed. “He must be delusional.”
“I think he was trying to salvage something out of the deal,” I said. “He’d just learned he could never marry Lucy. He must have hoped he could charm his way into Evelyn Villiers’s good books—it had worked for him in the past. Or at least he might leave with a substantial sum of money to keep quiet. She probably laughed in his face.”
“That’s exactly what she would have done,” Lucy said.
“We may be able to prove he stole her jewelry,” Tom said. “He hasn’t admitted to that yet, but the Yard is tracing sales in France and Italy.”
“I think the jewelry provided the cash he needed for a start in the antiques trade,” I said.
“He probably convinced himself it was his due,” Lucy said, “in lieu of the inheritance he thought he deserved.”
“Did he take the missing pieces of Meissen as well?” Vivian asked.
“We found proof of that on his laptop,” Tom said. “Colin learned about an auction of old Meissen in Paris and couldn’t resist selling the commedia dell’arte figurines.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t sell the
