The Rhyme of the Magpie (23 page)

Loud voices out in the barn made me jump. Michael's arms tensed, and I saw Flint start toward the door.

“Where is she? I won't—get off me!”

Gavin stumbled in with a copper on each arm, and I collapsed back into Michael with relief. “God, Julia, there you are. Did they get Spore? Are you all right? Hello, Rupert,” he said, straightening his black leather jacket.

“All's well, Gavin,” I said. “Where were you?”

“I'd gone up to look round the loft,” Gavin said. “That's the last thing I remember.”

“How are you feeling?”

He shook his head and sank to his knees. “I'm a bit dizzy.”

“You'd better get in the ambulance.”

“Yeah, right. I'll do that,” he said. “But I'm not the only one, Julia—you need a doctor for your foot.” Gavin pointed a shaky finger and glared at Michael. “And you, Sedgwick—you mind yourself when it comes to this woman.”

Ambulance workers appeared, Gavin willingly fell onto the stretcher, and they wheeled him away.

“Did Spore do that?” Michael asked, looking down at my breadloaf of a foot.

I shook my head and leaned forward, pretending to take a closer look, but suddenly wanting to be away from Michael's arms. We were all safe now—Rupert, Michael, me, even Gavin. Relief had poured through me, but along with it came a trickle of anger. “No,” I said. “I did it to myself when I mistook the front door of my cottage for your backside.”

“Julia,” he began.

“Ms. Lanchester, you can ride along with Mr. Lecky,” Flint said.

“Is that necessary?”

“Yes,” Michael said. “You need the doctor.”

“I won't go to hospital,” I said.

“You will go,” Michael said hotly.

“I won't,” I said, and realized how foolish I sounded. “Well, I will go, but I don't need to go in the ambulance.”

Michael hopped up. “I'll drive her in,” he said, looking down at me with eyebrows slightly raised. I knew the question he asked—will you come with me so that I can explain why I didn't tell you about my past?

I'd've walked in the opposite direction if I could've, but perhaps it was a good thing that my entire foot throbbed and every step gave me a sharp pain. A good thing because it would force me to do one of my least favorite things—talk it out. Right, I'd listen to Michael, and I hoped that Bianca would be proud of me. And Gavin, too, for that matter. Here was a first—Julia Lanchester listens.

Michael lifted me off the floor and I believe would've scooped up me in his arms, but I wriggled away. “I can walk,” I said, dusting myself off and—for a
moment—allowing
my pride and my anger to override my common sense. It didn't last long. I needed to lean on someone. And I really desperately needed a cup of tea.

Dad knew what I was supposed to be doing this afternoon, and perhaps he had a good idea of why I had taken a return to my obstinate self. “I'll go back with Sergeant Flint, Jools,” he said. “They've brought a car round from the fen. Let Michael help you, why don't you?”

I shrugged. He hugged me and made me promise to ring after I'd been seen and asked if I wouldn't come to dinner or perhaps—he hesitated only a moment—he and Beryl might drop in just to make sure I was all right.

Of course that would be all right—I was sure it would be. One day quite soon. But first, I'd ring them from my cottage. And before that, I'd get a full accounting from Michael Sedgwick of HMS, Ltd.

I made it out the door of the barn like a brave soldier, Michael following. What clouds there had been were gone and the sun created pools of light between the trees' canopies. I made for the first one and stood, soaking up the warmth. I could feel Michael close at my side. The few clouds had cleared and it was a beautiful spring
afternoon—perfect
weather for a picnic at the seaside.

I caught a movement in my peripheral vision. I peered into a stand of reeds not far away to our left—the beginning of the fen. A little bird darted among the stems. Michael saw it, too, and we both crept forward a few steps to get a better look.

“What is it?” he whispered in my ear.

“It looks like a blackcap,” I said, scrunching up my nose and squinting. “You see his black head and gray body.” We heard his call—but instead of the blackcap's fluty sound, it was a short, harsh string of rattles. A shiver went through me.

“He sounds in a bit of a hurry,” Michael said.

I grabbed Michael's arm. “Can you take a photo with your camera?” I whispered. “Can you get him clear enough?”

Michael's eyes broadened with wonder. “Is that him?”

I nodded. “I think so,” I mouthed.

In slow motion, Michael pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it at arm's length. The bird blended in well with its surroundings, and I realized with disappointment that it would be almost impossible to see it in the photo.

Then the Sardinian warbler hopped to the tiptop of the reed stem, holding on as it swayed.
Click
—and off he flew.

Michael pulled up the photo, and there the bird was, clear as day. We were speechless with wonder.

“Such a little thing—doesn't look like he'd be involved in a murder, now does it?” Michael asked, putting his arm round me and kissing my cheek.

I leaned into him, but then remembered I was still quite annoyed.

“Poor Gavin,” I said with a touch of remorse. “He so wanted to see a Sardinian warbler.”

“Well, we can show him the snapshot,” Michael said.

“Oh yes, that'll make up for it,” I said, rolling my eyes. We were back to the moment. I hobbled the other way, toward the field, to where police worked in and around the pig hut. I stopped.

“What is it?” Michael asked.

I pointed to just inside the hut and said to a woman PC standing nearby, “Could I have my bag, please? It's just there.”

“I'm sorry, it'll be part of the case and we'll need to take it in to the station,” she replied.

“But it isn't evidence, it's just my bag with my personal things. Can't I take it now?” I felt a panic rising, and although I realized I might sound a bit crazy, I had a need to touch my
Observer's Book of British Birds
.

“We aren't allowed to do that, this is—”

“Give her the bag!”
Michael said, taking a step forward.

“Let her have the bag, Constable,” Flint said from behind us.

“Thank you,” I said with dignity. “Do you want to look inside?” I held it open for Flint.

“No, Ms. Lanchester,” the sergeant replied. “Not unless you've got one of those Sardinian warblers in there.”

I snorted with laughter, and Michael put his arm round me. “We'd best be on our way,” he said.

The police returned to their business, and I looked across the field, which seemed to have grown to twice its normal length. “Are you up there, in the car park?” I asked.

“I am. Let me carry you. Please?”

“Don't be silly. You can't carry me all that way.”

“I wouldn't mind giving it a try.” I wouldn't mind letting him, but couldn't say so. “Well, how about this, then?” He stood on my right and put his arm tightly round my waist, and I put mine round his. We walked three-legged—his left and my right acting as one. It took most of the weight off my foot and much of the pain away. Good thing it still hurt a bit, though, because otherwise I would've enjoyed the journey far too much. We paused once for only a moment—long enough for me to catch my breath and Michael to rest his lips against my hair. We clambered over the stile and up the incline before I dropped onto the long grass.

“Here,” I said. “Let's sit here and rest for a minute.”

We were quiet. I knew Michael would talk—I wouldn't budge until he did. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the sun. When I opened them, Michael was watching me.

“I'm sorry,” he said at last. “I should've told you who I was, about my family and my brother and our business. Only, I missed the opportunity that first evening, and the longer I waited, the more difficult it became.”

“There were countless times you could've explained,” I said. “You could've told me Thursday evening.”

His eyes melted into a deep, warm cobalt and his lips twitched. “I was distracted Thursday evening.”

I didn't try to hide my smile. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“I planned to tell you on Friday at dinner, but that got postponed, and so it was to be today on our picnic. I thought if you were still angry when I finished, you could throw me in the sea.”

I raised an eyebrow. “It was quite easy for you to avoid mentioning something that huge. Keeping it a secret took no effort at all, did it?”

He laughed, but it lacked joy. Looking out over the field, he said, “I've spent my entire adult life controlling the flow of
information—and
yes, I'm quite good at it. It isn't easy to come to an abrupt stop.”

“That's what you do at HMS, Ltd.—lie to people?”

He gave me a sharp look. “It wasn't how my dad intended it. He started the company to help small businesses get noticed—worthy businesses, friends of his, people he believed in. And he made it work, but he died just when he'd expanded a bit too far. All at once, my family's livelihood was in danger. Miles had been working with Dad a couple of years. I was twenty, at university. I had grander plans than public relations. But Miles said the family needed to work together—even our sisters did their bit for a few years. No one seemed to mind pitching in—I didn't either, really, although I felt as if I had walked out of my real life and into a pretend one.”

“Miles ran the firm?”

“We had a couple of fellows who'd worked with Dad for ages; they advised him to begin with, but Miles wanted it to be the brothers that ran HMS. He took to the business like a duck…” His voice petered out, and he grabbed at a stalk of grass and began pulling it apart. “All I wanted was to help the company back on its feet so that I could get on with my life.”

“Which was…?”

Michael blushed and looked away from me. “Saving the world, of course. Remember, I was twenty.”

“But you never left?”

“Why did I stay—isn't that what you want to know?” he asked, so quiet I almost didn't hear. “I'm afraid I don't have an answer to that. I'll quit tomorrow, I'd say to myself. After the project with this client is finished. But Miles would persuade me to stay for the next client, and—fair play to him—he knew I enjoyed that sense of power and control. So then it would be just another year and I'd phase out. Then another.”

I watched the sadness on his face as his eyes faded to a blue-gray. “And you never left,” I said.

“Time passes and you don't even know it. Twenty-three years later, I woke up and thought, ‘How the hell did I get here?' It was Power to the People that put me over the edge. Miles was full of himself for getting that account, but I'd been keeping up, I knew Woodcock was trying to bully the government committees into allowing the wind farm where it shouldn't be. At long last, I'd had enough. We had a row, my brother and I.”

“It didn't end in fists, did it—like when you got that?” I nodded at his scar.

“No, it ended after that press conference when Rupert called Kersey out.”

“You said you were there—you weren't the one filming it, were you?”

He shook his head. “No. You can see me in it—just a bit of the back of my head and a shoulder, off to the other side. You didn't notice.”

“I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for you.”

“I told Miles I'd have none of this scheme, and I walked. He didn't believe I'd really do it—called after me, ‘Don't forget the staff meeting in the morning.' ”

“But you didn't completely leave. Miles said you were in just yesterday morning.”

“I was. I looked into Spore's building application and the problems he was having. It's public information, but I got it a great deal faster using HMS as a cover. And also, I was there to call Miles out over posting that doctored video of Rupert at the press conference. I told him to take it down. I pointed out that the firm has a few powerful clients that wouldn't be happy to know how HMS…massages the truth.”

“You threatened him?” I wish I could've seen Miles be humbled. “But why didn't you tell me this from the start—about HMS and your background?”

“Because that first evening in Cambridge, I didn't know how much your opinion of me would matter.”

“You mean to Rupert?”

“No—to me.”

He took my hand. I let him keep it. But I wasn't finished yet. “Why would Rupert hire you if you had worked for the PR firm that supported Oscar Woodcock's plan to run roughshod over research into where wind farms should be placed?”

“Because I told Rupert that I wanted the truth to be known, not the truth according to my brother. And I didn't steal information from HMS—everything I gave to Rupert was public knowledge, although Miles tried his best to hide it for Woodcock.”

“Miles said you were tilting at windmills.”

“There's no room for idealism in business, not according to my brother. It's the mission of HMS, Ltd., to make the client look good—no matter what the cost or the consequence.”

“So you decided to take my job away from me.”

“I didn't!” He said it with such indignation that I laughed. “I'd talked with Rupert once or twice, offered to do some research for him, told him all about my past. He said he'd think about it, but after Christmas—when you'd left your post—he rang, asked if I wanted a job.”

“That means you've me to thank for your new career—me and my
pigheadedness.”
I shuddered. “Forget I said that.”

Michael's grip on my hand tightened, and his face and eyes drained of color. I knew he was reliving, just as I was, that second when Val was poised to plunge the knife into me. I felt light-headed, fell back into the grass, and covered my face. Michael lay beside me.