Hamish found the latch at the bottom of the wall and pulled the door panel open. “Does anyone have a flashlight? Sorry, a torch?”
“Here.” Trevor passed him a small LED light, and Hamish shone it into the dark space. Dust danced in its beam as he played it around without actually climbing in.
Then he spotted a pile of boxes down at the far end. “There,” he said.
Trevor pushed through into the space, taking the flashlight from Hamish as he passed. Hamish stepped out of the way so Peyton could follow. But the space wasn’t large enough for more than two people to move around in, and even then, only if they were used to being uncomfortably close.
It turned out there were eleven boxes. Using a bucket brigade method, they handed them out to Hamish, who stacked them in the hallway. Once they’d emptied it, Peyton produced a pocket knife and sliced the tape on the first box to open it.
It contained photos, some very old albums, and even older paperwork from as early as the late 1800s.
Hamish recognized a few of the people. “I’m certain these others were packmates, if not extended family,” he said.
They opened another box, and he was surprised to see it crammed full with pictures of Hyacinth and their sons, taken from before World War II. But Peyton had already moved on to slice open the next several boxes, which contained more paperwork and a few pictures.
“Let’s shift all these downstairs to the office,” Trevor said. “From the dust on them, I’d say they’ve been undisturbed for decades. I didn’t see any bare spots in the dust that would indicate he’d been storing something in there which was recently removed.”
Peyton nodded. “Agreed.” He turned to Hamish. “Any others?”
“Another plumbing corridor, but narrower than this one.” He led the way and they opened the access panel. Peyton shone a light inside, quickly emerging and shaking his head. “Nothing but dust and cobwebs.”
Before returning downstairs, Hamish checked a small panel inside the closet that had once been in his room, but nothing remained there except dust. He’d emptied it when he moved to the cottage and didn’t know if Donnel and Faegan knew of it.
“Would there be other places like that in the other bedrooms?” Peyton asked..
“Unlikely. I built that when I was not even fifteen.” He sadly smiled. “Bryn used to steal my sweets when she was little, and of course it annoyed me. When I was older, I showed it to her so she’d have a place to store anything she didn’t want our parents or brothers to find.”
“Such as?”
“She had a journal, but as far as I know she took it with her. I checked the space just after she left and found nothing.”
“All right,” Peyton said. “Let’s rejoin the others and see if there’s anything we can use.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Hamish
Ken set his laptop aside to help them sort through the newly discovered boxes. After an hour, one of Trevor’s men fetched takeaway for lunch, and they settled around the dining room table.
“I’m surprised there aren’t any pictures of Hyacinth on the walls,” Hamish noted as he ate, once again staring at one of a much younger Tamsin. In it, she rode a tricycle on the flagstone patio out back and couldn’t have been more than three or four. “Or more of Tam. Or of Faegan’s other sons.” He snorted. “Not shocked there aren’t any of me or Bryn, although I haven’t seen any of Donnel, either.”
“We found several newer photo albums,” Trevor said. “They’re stacked in the office with the other paperwork. We scanned some of the most recent photos to pass along to our people not long after this started.”
“Does it mean something to you that there aren’t any of Donnel?” Peyton asked Hamish.
“Who knows with that feckin’ cunt,” Hamish said. “But to me it suggests they didn’t part on good terms.” He pointed to several places on the wall that looked odd, the wallpaper slightly darker as if larger frames were removed and replaced by smaller ones. Those mostly contained pictures of Tamsin. “There were some hanging in here of Donnel and me. You haven’t found any hint of his whereabouts?”
“No,” Trevor said. “Nothing at all. Hyacinth has no clue, either.”
Hamish sucked his teeth. “And you’re quite certain there’s no possibility she’s lying or obfuscating?”
“None,” Peyton said. “I and several other Primes questioned her. Plus, we added a trigger that she’s not allowed to lie about anything when being interrogated by any of our people.”
“It’s too bad you couldn’t get more information out of his sons,” Hamish said.
Dark rage filled Trevor’s face. “My main regret is I wasn’t the one to execute both of them personally.”
After lunch, the search through the paperwork in the office resumed. Hamish and Trevor focused on the newly recovered paperwork and photos while Ken and Peyton scoured the items that had been in the office when Faegan went to ground.
