Page 114

Alan raised his brows. “Wee girls going hungry. That excuses the theft of bread.”

“Only a rich man sitting behind his mahogany desk thinks a silver inkstand is a silver inkstand.” Reeve snorted. “For everyone else, a silver inkstand is bread. A year of it. Should we ask the baker herself?”

Alan twisted and saw Nina marching back to them, flushed, more of her hair loose around her shoulders. She held a bottle in each hand, long green necks in a white-knuckled grip.

“Birdie.” Reeve waved with his cigarette. “Mr. De’Ath thinks it’s all right to steal so long as it’s from bakeries. What do you think?”

“Stop it,” demanded Nina, eyes flashing. “Please.”

Reeve’s smile held more than a hint of hostility. “I can, if he can.”

“When the police come . . .” Nina walked forward, put the bottles on the table, and took a breath before she faced them. “I’m turning myself in too.”

“Like hell you are.” Reeve’s face blotched with red.

“We worked together.” Nina wrapped her arms around herself. “A team.”

Alan rose, and Nina looked at him. Now that she was here, in this garden, he could tell that her eyes were the color of spring earth, of life itself. Her hair a canvas for shifting shade and light.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said. She sounded firm, her calm rehearsed. She hadn’t been crying on an aunt’s bosom inside the cottage. She’d been fortifying her resolve. “I forged dozens upon dozens of pictures. Write the full story. Leave nothing out.”

“No.” Something clawed was rummaging in his guts.

“I’m with De’Ath on this one.” Reeve leapt to his feet, pistol in his hand. He trained it on her. “Not another word out of you.”

Nina stared. “Oh, please.” Alan was stepping around her before he realized this particular please wasn’t an entreaty but an expression of disgust.

“Put the gun down.” He moved toward Reeve. Nina tried to sidle between them, to shield him with her body.

“Out of the way.” She shoved again. “He won’t shoot me.”

Alan didn’t budge. He felt the pistol’s barrel dig into his ribs. Reeve directed a fierce glare at Nina.

“Concerned for him, are you?” He cocked the pistol, frowning. “If he’s concerned for you, he’ll help me lock you in the henhouse.” He met Alan’s gaze and gave an infinitesimal nod. The two of them could settle this for her, without her, in her best interest. Alan took a breath, overwhelmed by the desire to do exactly that. He was slow to shake his head.

“She can decide what she says to the police.”

Reeve cursed a steady stream of filth.

“And so can I,” Alan said. Anticipation—and suspicion—flared in Reeve’s eyes.

The gate banged. Reeve jerked backward, shoving the pistol into his pocket.

“You get in the henhouse.” Alan shouldered past him. “And tomorrow get on a bloody boat.”

A man shambled into view. Not one of the detectives. Not a detective at all. Father Time, perhaps. His flowing white beard reached midway down his chest.

The gate banged again. Up in the tree, Fritz shrilled, a warning cry. A rotund dog bounded into the garden.

“Opal!” A rotund woman dressed all in pink appeared at the top of the path. “Catch her, Mr. Middleton!”

Father Time made an ineffectual swipe at the dog. Poultry scattered. The dog waddled straight to Nina.

“I missed you too,” she said, dropping into a crouch. The dog wiggled and licked her face, tail thumping the grass.

“These hens are a menace!” The woman in pink swatted one with her hat. “Lolly! Why are the hens out? You knew I was bringing Opal.”

A broad, aproned woman with a serving dish had emerged from the cottage. Her red hair circled her head in a braided crown.