As it happened, it was not Oliver Tynedale who had been prevented by ill health from attending Simon Croft’s funeral two days before, but Simon’s sister Emily; her heart simply could not accommodate either the travel or the stress. “He looked remarkably chipper,” Mickey had said of Oliver Tynedale. “Certainly doesn’t look in his nineties.” Mickey had told Jury this; Mickey had gone to the funeral, but kept his distance, hanging back beneath the dripping trees.
Jury had hoped to speak to Emily Croft following the funeral, but since he couldn’t, that meant a trip to Brighton.
Brighton in December, although still a fairly bustling city, bore little relation to Brighton in June or August. Jury often felt there were few things bleaker than a seaside town in winter. He walked across a beach less sand than shale and broken shells and stood listening to the hollow fall of waves, the hiss and whisper of the foaming tide coming in. He had come here as a child. It was a memory that now receded like the tide. He was no longer sure about memory.
Emily Croft was a thread that had loosened from the tightly knit Croft and Tynedale clans. Not that he expected or even wished that she’d spill all sorts of secrets about the others. It surprised him, though, that she lived here in Brighton in a “facility” such as this that could only be depressing.
Jury thought about this standing in front of a high window that looked over the edge of the bluff to the sea, pewter to dark gray farther out and rather quiet today. He had been shown into this sitting room with its cold and glaring marble fireplace to wait. The furniture was sound but homely, dark blue and brown, the armchairs bulbous with stuffing.
The door opened and Emily Croft walked in. She was wearing yellow, which made him smile. One so seldom saw it in clothes, not a pale, liquid yellow, but a sunny yellow dress and cardigan. She was thin and a little angular, but still, at seventy-three, in possession of skin and cheekbones a model would kill for. She did not look the least bit infirm, nor did she move as if she were ill. He wondered if this iron stamina which both Emily Croft and Oliver Tynedale had in abundance was characteristic of the rest of the families.
“Miss Croft.” He held out his hand. He had called from London and arranged to see her. “First, I’m very sorry about your brother.”
It was obvious she had been crying, but the Tynedales and Crofts were a resilient sort and he knew there would be little breaking down here.
She smiled. “Superintendent Jury,” she said, taking his hand.
“I really like your dress.” He rather blurted this out, realizing its in-aptness after he’d said it.
She laughed as if the compliment were unexpected. “Thank you. Let’s go out here to the sunporch.” She extended her arm to indicate a glassed-in sunporch and led the way. “Please sit down.”
The furniture was white wicker, the carpet sisal. It was more relaxed out here, and with the sun slanting in, far more cheerful. A better background for a yellow dress.
“You came about Simon’s death.”
“I’m very sorry about your brother, I truly am.”
“So am I, so am I.” Her voice wavered and she looked out to the sea, which the sun brightened momentarily. She cleared her throat. “Simon was a stolid person, but a good one. And very, very smart. The idea that anyone would want him dead is so alien to me-” She stopped again and looked out. “I’ve thought of little else since it happened. I’ve tried to come up with some reason or other. I can’t.”
“When did you last see him?”
“About three weeks ago. Simon tried to come every week. Sometimes he didn’t make it, but usually he did. Both he and Marie-France, though she doesn’t come as often. Ian, too, visits me once in a while, and I know Oliver would if the doctor hadn’t offered to chop off his feet.” She laughed, but the laugh broke in two. “Let me tell you what happened, since you must be wondering why I’m here and not in London. About five years ago I lived by myself in Knightsbridge. When I developed this heart problem, my doctor advised me to get someone in. People advise you to do that as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, when it’s really one of the hardest. Living in a two-bedroom flat with a stranger? Please. Oliver asked me to come to the Lodge where there were people around but where there was also privacy. I could have gone to Simon or Marie-France, but there goes the privacy for all of us. The Lodge was ideal; it was perfect. You could walk around for days without running into anyone if you chose.” She stopped and reached in the pocket of her dress for cigarettes. She turned the THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING sign backward. “That always makes me want to light up.”
Jury laughed and took the lighter from her and lit her cigarette. Lighters had such a satisfying little rasp and snap to them.
“You must have been a smoker once, Superintendent, the way you’re looking so covetously at this.”
“You’re right.”
“Well, be proud of yourself, though I doubt virtue is much of a reward for you. I’ve tried several times to give them up and can’t.”
“And did you choose not to?”
She was puzzled. “Not to what… oh! You mean to bump into people at the Lodge?” She laughed again. “If you mean Kitty Riordin, yes. I’m not terribly fond of Maisie either, if it comes to that.” She looked at Jury, as if perplexed by his question. “I expect that’s why I’m here and not there.”
“You didn’t get along with Mrs. Riordin.”
“I’ve always thought her a cold fish. I’m rather surprised that Oliver didn’t finally get tired of her.” She shrugged. “I expect having her there got to be a habit with him. He’s a very good judge of character, Oliver. So was my father. He had presence; so does Oliver. But I don’t think it comes from wealth and power-and believe me, Oliver has both in abundance. I think, rather, it comes from honesty. Both of them were-are-fueled by honesty. And perhaps we all inherited something of that. I hope so.”
“You did.”
Emily Croft smoked and rocked. Peacefully, Jury thought. He doubted she would put up with any constant irritation in her life; she would do something about it. “But if it was a choice between you and Kitty Riordin, he wouldn’t choose her, would he?”
“No. But I certainly wasn’t going to bother him with all of this. He’s ninety-six or seven, you know. He’s remarkable. As much as I love the Lodge and always have, I decided I’d give this place a try.” She looked around, walls and ceiling, as if assessing it for the first time. “You want to know about Simon, I expect.”
“I want to know about everybody.”
“Yes, of course. You know, I always got along with Simon. Remember, I was years older than Simon and Marie-France; I was eighteen, nearly Alexandra’s age. We were fairly close, Alex and I. I expect that’s why she confided in me. Did you know she had another child? I don’t know if she told anyone else; perhaps she told Kitty, since she was close to Kitty because she took care of Maisie. But I know she told Oliver she’d decided to take a trip to the Continent.” Emily laughed. “I wonder how many trips to the Continent could be blamed on illegitimate babies.”
“Not Ralph Herrick’s?”
“Oh, no. It was just before Ralph came along; they were married that Christmas and Alexandra got pregnant soon after. I’ve always thought that her sadness at having to give up that first child made her immediately want another.”
“She didn’t tell you who the father was of that first baby?”
Emily shook her head.
“Tell me about Ralph Herrick.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “Ah, Ralph. Yes, I wondered if anyone was going to get around to him. Simon and Ian idolized him, and no wonder. A handsome flier, a hero. Made to order for hero worship. Well, Simon was, what? Ten or eleven? I suppose it’s understandable.”
“You didn’t admire Ralph Herrick as much as the others?”
“Not even with the help of the Victoria Cross, Superintendent. Admittedly, he was daring, though ‘audacious’ might be a better word. Ralph was an opportunist. I’ve always been a matter-of-fact person, not very imaginative. As I said, I admired Oliver Tynedale and my father because they’re fueled by honesty. Ralph was running on empty.” She stubbed out her cigarette in a thin, aluminum ashtray and went on. “I really tried to warn Alex, but she wouldn’t pay any attention. Neither would I had the situations been reversed.” She sighed. “Poor Alexandra. I don’t think in the year they were married he turned up more than half a dozen times. If he had been present more, I think she would have discovered he was bad news. He was too plausible. I’m always suspicious of overly credible people. What surprises me is that Oliver and Dad were taken in. They were such cool characters themselves, I’d think they’d be alert to someone who reminds one of those old 1920s Chicago gangsters, one of those smooth racketeers one sees in old American films.” She shrugged. “Ralph would’ve made a wretched father. He hadn’t it in him to be anything but.”
“What about Maisie?”
“I’m none too fond of her, obviously, since she engineered my leaving. Helped to, I mean. I think she’s completely deluded when it comes to Kitty Riordin.”
Jury did not want to put words in her mouth. He sat back. “If you’ll excuse the curiosity-and there is a reason for it-by the terms of Mr. Croft’s will, was anything settled on Kitty Riordin?”
“No. There were no surprises in his will, Superintendent. The bulk of his money and his property come to my sister and me. There were bequests made to Ian and Maisie and-I thought this rather sweet-to Mrs. MacLeish. I understand it was she who found Simon’s body, poor woman. You know she came to cook for him, of course. Oh, yes, and Simon left some money in trust for little Gemma Trimm. That was nice of him, I thought, as he had no reason to do it, especially in light of what I expect Gemma will inherit from Oliver. Simon was just a very generous man. Well, so was my father, so is Oliver. But regarding the will, no, as I said, there were no surprises.”
Actually, he did know because Mickey had found out. Jury simply wanted to hear what Emily Croft said about the will. He waited. When there was nothing else, he said, “You go up to London occasionally, I understand.”
“I do. It’s one of the nice things about having money, Mr. Jury. You don’t have to constantly disrupt your life. I didn’t have to sell my flat in order to live at this place. Oh-is this by way of asking me if I was in London the day that Simon was shot?” Her smile was sad.
“Were you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. I got there in the early afternoon; I wanted to do my Christmas shopping. I stayed overnight, but I didn’t get word about Simon’s death until the next evening, after I’d returned here. I was simply too exhausted to turn around and go back. My doctor didn’t want me going to London in the first place.”
Jury nodded. That was no alibi, at least not so far. “What about your brother’s house, Miss Croft? You and your sister have inherited it, I expect.”
She turned her head to gaze out of the window to the sea, and said, mournfully, “Yes. But I doubt either of us will live there. When you get old, Superintendent, you don’t feel much like turning your life over yet once again.”
“You’ll sell it?”
She gave him a long look, a head-to-feet look. “Are you considering real estate as a night job?”
Jury burst out laughing. He thought it was the first good laugh he’d had since the case started. “Would I make a good one?”
“Oh, probably not. You just seem to worry about the disposal of flats and houses, as if that’s a sideline with you.” She laughed herself. “No, we won’t sell it. I don’t want to lose Simon altogether. As I said, it’s the nice thing about money. You can keep things as they were.”
“Not really, though.”
She gave him another long look, this one full of empathy. “Death is always with us, Mr. Jury. Always.” She smiled. “ ‘The fellow in the bright nightgown,’ is what W. C. Fields called it. I love that image, but I don’t agree with it. There is no bright raiment. Death comes along in the same old clothes, nothing new, nothing different from what we’re used to seeing. And we do see him, all the time, and know it, and try not to. I find it comforting that death holds no surprises.” She looked at him, kindly. “Hold on to that notion, Superintendent. In your line of work, you’d do well to hold on.”
Her expression was inscrutable. He felt the need to counter it, he didn’t know why.
“‘Death is always with us’-that’s a bit of a cliché, isn’t it?” He smiled.
“No.” She smiled, too.
The Tynedale maid, Rachael, opened the door to admit Jury and a white cat who’d been looking squarely up at him. Jury told the maid he had an appointment to speak to Oliver Tynedale. He was twenty minutes early, he knew. “I’d also like to see Miss Tynedale, if that’s possible.” Jury looked down. “I can’t answer for the cat.” Rachael giggled and led him down the hall. The cat followed.
She was writing at a desk in a bow window and rose to greet him. “Superintendent Jury.” Her tone was as level as her eyes, neither welcoming; she softened up a little when she saw the cat. “I see you’ve brought Snowball. She belongs to Mrs. Riordin; she’s a strange animal.”
The cat resumed its glaring at Jury. “I know all about strange when it comes to cats, believe me. May I sit down?” He detected a hesitation before Maisie held out her arm to indicate the chair he stood by. The cat saw this and walked back to the door.
“Has something else come up?”
“No.” He did not elaborate, wanting her to do the talking.
“You upset Kitty Riordin, you know.”
“Police have a way of doing that.”
“You wanted to talk about the war and about what happened.”
“Isn’t that what police do? Talk about what happened?”
Maisie seemed to be looking at everything in the room except him. Now, she seemed to be studying whatever document was on her desk blotter. “ ‘What happened,’ ” she responded to his question, “was Simon being murdered. Not the war, not the Blue Last.” She was trying not to show the extent of her anger.
Jury looked at her speculatively. “How do you know that, Miss Tynedale?”
She looked around the desk as if she couldn’t lay her hands on what she wanted. “What happened was an air raid, and the Blue Last took a direct hit. This was fifty-five years ago, right after Christmas, December twenty-ninth. East London was devastated. It was the heaviest raid of the war, some seven hundred bombers. My mother’s-Alexandra-and Francis Croft’s deaths. That’s what happened.”
Half a century ago and she still felt the emotional devastation? Jury didn’t think so. “You have all of those details right. They must have been told to you time and again. I was a tiny kid then and I remember nothing; at least, nothing right. And as for your mother’s death being so long ago, you know perfectly well one death can affect another, no matter how far apart in time.”
“Not in this case. No.”
“You’re certainly sure about that. Why?”
She merely shook her head.
She wasn’t going to answer, so he said, “You didn’t mention the Riordin baby.”
“Erin, too, of course.” Maisie studied her hands. The disjointed fingers seemed still to shame her a little. “I know those bones were discovered.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see what they tell you. I don’t see how you’d know they were my mother and Erin Riordin.”
“Many ways. The sex is fairly easy, certainly in the case of the adult. A child that young, well, perhaps not so easy. One has to guess on the basis of other things. The child’s skeleton was so near the adult’s and there were apparently no other children in the pub…” Jury shrugged. “They can go by the composition of the soil, the vegetation-a number of things besides the condition of the bones themselves. Teeth, for instance. Even in infants; the teeth might not have broken through yet but there’s maturation below the gum. In the case of your mother and Erin Riordin, there’s the bombing itself. Fragments of shells, that sort of thing. Forensic anthropology is quite amazing. You know what can be done with reconstructing a face from the skull, the bone structure.”
She studied her hands, then looked, again, around the desk as if searching for something. She was searching, Jury thought, simply for time.
“I’d like to know more about Mrs. Riordin. You’re very fond of her.”
“Certainly. I hate clichés, but she’s been like a mother to me.”
Jury wondered why Maisie didn’t see the other side, the corollary to that. “How did she come to be employed?”
Maisie reflected. “Well, she had just come over from Dublin-like any number of Irish girls. She was quite young, just a little younger than my mother, Alexandra. My mother went to an agency and found her. Of course, Kitty hadn’t told them she had a baby because she knew the agency wouldn’t put her on their list. Kitty just hoped whoever interviewed her would be understanding. She was lucky it was Alexandra, who was, from what I’ve been told, the most understanding person in the world.”
“She was with you for how long before that December raid?” He noted the way in which she referred to “my mother” and “Alexandra,” and not “mum” or “mummy.” Of course, Maisie hadn’t really known her mother, but, still…
“A little over a year. I guess it was right after I’d been born.”
“Your grandfather liked her?”
“Oh, yes. If it hadn’t been for Kitty, I’d be dead.”
“And she more or less lived with and for the family after that.”
“That’s so. I’ve wondered why she didn’t marry again. I’m pretty certain she had opportunities.”
“Is the family-are the families-so close it might have been, well, consuming?”
She thought about this. “I think not in a bad way. We’re very tightly knit, yes.”
“The trouble with that is, you pull one strand loose and the piece unravels.”
“That metaphor’s a bit strained, isn’t it? If one of us falls on his face that doesn’t mean all of us will.”
“It might. Especially since you don’t know which one fell.”
Maisie ran her hand through her black hair, and it dropped back in place just as neatly as it had been. He imagined this to be like the disturbance of the past, as if the placid surface of a lake had been raked by wind and rain, and then returned to glassy smoothness.
He wondered if this was why she hadn’t married, because of her ties to the past and the families who constituted it, or for some other, perhaps more mundane reason. Certainly it couldn’t be because she hadn’t the opportunity. She was too attractive, too intelligent and too rich. The money alone would be an inducement.
She had risen and was leaning against the desk, her ankles crossed, her face turned down. “My father was in the RAF; he was decorated. The Victoria Cross.”
Jury felt himself once again pulled back into something he did not understand. “So was mine. I mean, in the RAF. He was shot down over Dunkirk.”
“I’m sorry.”
It rather surprised Jury that she seemed to mean it. “It was a long time ago.”
She nodded. “I don’t like sounding sorry for myself, but I feel really cheated, not only having lost both my mother and father, but having no memories of them either.”
“It would be just another version.”
“ ‘Version’?”
“Of what really happened. Of reality, I suppose I mean. How well do we remember anything? How well do we remember yesterday?”
She smiled for the first time. “That’s sophistry, now. Or you find consolation in thinking that.” She had left the desk and now stood by the bow window behind it.
“Oh, I’m unconsoled,” he said. Feeling more tired than he knew he should, he rose and went to the window himself. They stood there. The ground was spongy with morning rain and the beech tree, the one with the wood plank between its thick branches, seemed still to bear the weight of the rain.
Jury watched as the gardener, Mr. Murphy, leaned a hoe or rake against the garden wall and bent over a small plot of some delicate-looking white flower. His hand went to the small of his back as he stood upright. Arthritis, rheumatism, probably. He was too old, Jury thought, to take care of this garden all by himself. He wondered where Gemma Trimm was. Had he been more fanciful (but “fancy” he tried to relegate, like whiskey, to his off hours) he might have supposed his encounter with Gemma was imaginary. She seemed so unrelated to this house, so fairy light.
“What are you thinking? You’re smiling.”
“Tell me about the little girl.”
Maisie looked, just for a second, puzzled. Was it possible that Gemma made such tiny inroads on the family consciousness that they really had to stop to think? How could any child living here-much less one as interesting as Gemma Trimm-make so little impression? Further, a child beloved of the patriarch, the man with the money? Did none of them view the child as a threat? How much was Tynedale worth? Perhaps so much that a million here or there scarcely scratched the surface.
“She’s Granddad’s charge.”
An interesting way of putting it. Just as she said it, Gemma appeared at Mr. Murphy’s side. It was as if she had physically to appear to remind them all of her existence.
“She has no family? None?” Jury asked. That had a ring of fatalism.
“None I know of. Granddad notified the authorities and tried to find out where she belonged for a good two or three months.”
“Even if he had located her relations, I’m sure he could have made some sort of arrangement to keep her.”
Her smile was wan. “I’m sure you’re right. But don’t sound so righteous about it.”
“Do I? Sorry, it’s just that money makes so many problems go away. Anyone who says it can’t buy happiness obviously doesn’t have any.”
“My goodness, Superintendent, you never struck me as a cynic.”
“But I’m not.”
Mr. Murphy had wandered beyond their line of vision while Gemma and her doll waited by the flower-bed. He soon returned pushing a wheelbarrow with what looked like a great deal of effort.
“Poor man,” said Maisie. “Angus is too old and too rheumatic for all of this work. But we’ve tried out several gardeners to help him, and none of them seemed very dedicated to the work and only irritated him to death. The last one, Jenny Gessup, just up and left. Now, I expect I’m going to try again. The agencies send such rubbish. But he really needs someone for the hard work.”
“Really?”
“I was wondering,” said Oliver Tynedale, lying back among the cushions of his very large bed, “when you were ever going to get around to me.”
“I’m here in a-what? A semiofficial capacity?”
“Well, hell, if you don’t know, be sure I don’t. I don’t know what semi gets you these days.” He reached around to pummel his cushions. “Me, I’m the whole of the Tynedale Brewery.”
“I’m doing this because Michael Haggerty asked me to help. If I tax your patience just toss me out.”
Oliver Tynedale lay back. “Throw out a Scotland Yard superintendent? That sounds like fun. I don’t mind talking to you and I’m not as weak as I look.”
“You don’t look weak. But they wouldn’t let me talk to you when I was here before.”
Oliver waved that aside as nonsense. “Bunch of pansies. Who kept you out? Barkins? Not that nurse because I fired her after twenty-four hours. Last, I hope, in a string of them. I’m stuck in bed right now. Worse luck. Wait a minute, I’ll show you-”
Jury was rather surprised with the man’s alacrity in getting out of his bed. He was very tall, easily as tall as Jury himself, thin (but hardly emaciated) and didn’t walk with a stoop or as if he were in pain. He was into his bathroom and out again, pulling his oxygen equipment on a wheeled, stainless-steel trolley. “Don’t you wish you had one of these?”
“Lord, yes. Wish I had those pajamas, too.” They were printed all over with Mickey, Goofy, and Tweetie Bird.
Oliver had left the trolley behind Jury and come back to sit on the edge of his bed, whereupon he looked down at his pajamas. “Well, you’re not getting these, unless I decide at some point I need to bribe you. I know the commissioner, by the way. Word to the wise and so forth.” He swung his legs up and under the covers and sat back again among the cushions with a sigh.
No wonder his son Ian was so easy to deal with. He’d inherited his father’s pleasant nature and springy genes.
But then Oliver’s expression changed and he looked off toward the wide window which showed nothing but a bleak, oyster-colored sky, a few black branches tapping the glass. He had gone lax.
“Mr. Tynedale?”
Oliver looked around at Jury and said, “What happens is, for a moment you forget. You forget what’s happened. Maybe that’s the merciful side of life. Simon really was like a son. He really was.”
Jury leaned toward him and put his hand on the older man’s shoulder. It seemed so natural a gesture that he didn’t hesitate. “I’m sorry. I’m honestly sorry.”
Oliver sighed and pulled the blanket up toward his chin in the way children do. He looked around the room as if something of Simon Croft had materialized there, sitting in that chair, or standing by that window looking down, or pulling a book from those shelves. Jury wondered if the air would grow so thin with desolation they would all need oxygen.
“If you’re going to ask me do I know of anyone who could have done this? No.”
Jury thought for a moment. “Simon Croft was writing a book, I understand. Did he talk about it?”
Oliver seemed surprised at this turn in the inquiry. “The book about the war and the pub being bombed? His father, Francis, you see, owned a pub-”
“The Blue Last. Yes, I know. I know it was bombed in December of 1940. Mickey Haggerty told me.”
“Yes. His father was one of Francis’s very good friends. I knew Haggerty, too, but not so well. I don’t really know his son, except for the one time I tried to help him out, but I have it on good authority he’s a very good policeman. I think Simon was really enjoying writing this book-though ‘enjoy’ sounds like the wrong word. What I mean is, he felt he was doing some good for himself and perhaps for the rest of us by delving into it. Like the expiation of a sin, though there was no sin involved. The working out of something. But why do you ask about the book?”
“Because there was no sign of it. No manuscript, no notes, and whoever did this took Croft’s laptop, too, and diskettes, assuming there were some and I can’t imagine there not being. From what I’ve heard of him he was a careful man. He’d back up his work.”
“I know there was a manuscript. He read me a little of it now and then, to see, I think, if he could jog the old memory.” Oliver tapped his temple. “He was hoping I’d remember more and more if he could furnish details-you know, setting a scene, putting in details, just as-” he swept his arm over the room “-describing a chair or a sofa might help you see someone out of the past sitting there.”
Which Jury had just done.
“They took the damned thing? The manuscript?”
“As far as we can determine. I wasn’t questioning its existence, but whether there was something in it that could injure someone-I’m assuming there is, or was. Mr. Tynedale, think.”
Oliver nodded and pursed his lips. “You wouldn’t have a fag on you?”
Jury laughed. “I wish I did. I stopped.”
“Oh, hell. Didn’t you find it was easier to think when you had a smoke?”
“No doubt at all.”
Oliver leaned back, heavily. There was a silence. “I’m thinking.”
Jury smiled and nodded. Behind him he heard a brief hiss and looked around, wondering if something had happened to the oxygen canister. It was Snowball. How had that cat got in here? The door was shut.
“That’s the surliest damned animal I’ve ever come across,” said Oliver. “Always in a bad mood. Always turning up where he isn’t wanted, which is bloody everywhere. Belongs to Kitty Riordin; she should keep him on a short lead.” He scratched his bald pate. “Ralph Herrick-have you come across his name? He was my daughter Alexandra’s husband. Not, unfortunately, for very long. He was a fighter pilot, RAF. Very young for a captain, but good enough to shoot down a slew of Messerschmitt 109s. That was the German fighter, the main one. Ralph was pretty dazzling. Just plowed right into them and-” He made a machine gun of his arms and rat-tat-tatted as if he were ten years old.
Jury grinned. “Yes, I was told that. Had he something to do with this book?”
“Not directly, at least I think not directly. What Simon seemed especially interested in was that Bletchley Park operation. The cryptanalysts, that lot, you know? The Enigma machines. Alan Turing. Anyway, Ralph was involved in that. It was after he was wounded and mustered out that he went to Bletchley Park. He was, apparently, as good at decoding as he was at blasting German planes out of the sky. I don’t know what particular skills he had; he’d read philosophy at Oxford. He wasn’t a mathematician. But apparently he could read a monalphabetic code just by looking at it. I think he was part of the group in Bedfordshire, an RAF intercept unit. Or Cheadle. A nice boy, a sort of ‘glory boy.’ Alexandra was besotted with him.” Oliver shook his head, sighing.
“No, there’s nothing Simon told me about feeling he was in danger. But then-” he looked at Jury “-I’m not sure he would have, anyway. You’re suggesting it might be someone in the family who killed Simon, and I doubt Simon would have told me if he suspected such a person had a grudge against him. Could be he thought he shouldn’t spring any bad news on me. Simon would have wanted me to die in peace, with my illusions intact. He’d have been surprised at how few I have.” Tynedale smiled at Jury. “He was a good man. I’ll miss him.”
His voice had grown thin and distant, rain in the wind. Jury changed the subject to one he thought would be a happier one. “I’d like to know more about Gemma Trimm.”
Oliver perked up. “Ah! Now there’s someone to be reckoned with! I take it you’ve met her?”
“I have indeed. I agree with you about the reckoning. What I’ve been wondering is, why doesn’t anyone speak of her? I had fairly long talks with your son, with Marie-France Muir and with your granddaughter. No one mentioned her. I came upon Gemma by accident.”
Oliver gave Jury a whack on the knee. “Just the way I did! By accident! It was about three years ago. I’d had lunch with Simon in the City, a place in Cheapside, then wandered around. I like to do that in that area. Things just spring out at you for some reason. Well, one thing that sprang was this little girl standing in the middle of the pavement, in Bread Street. She was completely alone, except for that doll she still carries everywhere. It didn’t have any clothes on, just a naked doll. She wasn’t crying. She looked serious and abstracted. I asked her if she’d lost someone-her mother, maybe? She shook her head. I told her we should go together to someplace where they could find out where she lived. I took her hand-she didn’t resist at all. It was as if she’d been waiting for someone to come along. It was the strangest thing that ever happened to me. Anyway, I walked her to the Snow Hill station, where the police were very kind, but couldn’t get anything out of her except her name. ‘Gemma Trimm,’ she said, just like that. Just hammered it right out, as if she were hammering tin. But she didn’t know where she lived. Well, they got a doctor in and he suggested some sort of aphasia or amnesia. A social worker, naturally, got in on it, but I scotched that idea in a hurry. After I’d failed to find any relations or anyone for Gemma-and I looked for a long time-I made her my ward. And to this day, I have never found out one thing about Gemma.”
“There’s this belief of hers that someone tried to kill her.”
He nodded. “That shooting incident. Police didn’t know what to make of that, but it did happen. Gemma was out after dark in the greenhouse with a light switched on and someone took a shot at her. Scared the hell out of me, I can tell you.” He closed his eyes. “Someone must be damned jealous, that’s all I can figure out. Except Ian. I don’t think he forgets she’s there. Ian’s just got his head a little in the clouds, I think. As for the others, I expect they think I’m going to settle a walloping big chunk of the Tynedale Brewery money on Gemma.”
“Are you?”
“Of course. In any event, Mr. Jury, everyone in this family is already rich, really. I can’t imagine one of them killing for money. I simply can’t.”
Jury shook his head. “For some people, there can never be enough money. It’s an addiction.” He rose. “I really appreciate your talking to me, Mr. Tynedale. I think it’s been a big help.”
“I hope so.” Oliver put out his hand. “I hope you come back, too.”
“Thank you. I expect I will.”
“But since you’re going-”
Jury followed his line of vision.
“-take that goddamned cat with you.”
When Jury walked into the Members’ Room of Boring’s, he found Melrose Plant with whiskey in hand, sunk into his leather armchair as if he’d been dropped there by a crane.
“Good lord,” Jury said, “did you walk back?”
“Heh heh, very funny.” Melrose sat up a bit, took a drink of whiskey. “I’m exhausted.” The fire near his chair sparked once and then went back to doing little but licking hot coal as if in sympathy with Melrose’s state of mind and spirit. “Whiskey?” He held up his glass.
Jury took it.
“I didn’t mean mine.” Melrose retrieved his own drink, then lifted his hand to beckon Young Higgins.
Jury sat down. “Florence is supposed to energize rather than exhaust.” He set some books he’d been carrying on the little drum table by his chair.
“Then Florence never met Marshall Trueblood. If one can level a thing by mere looking, the Brancacci Chapel lies in ruins. Take off your coat. We can dine on my memory of tagliatelle alle noci.”
“Wow,” said Jury. “Chips on the side?”
Young Higgins had come so slowly he might have been doing the Stations of the Cross.
“Two whiskeys, Higgins, please.”
“And a hair shirt,” said Jury.
Higgins left without questioning either request.
“He’ll probably bring one, too. What’s it for? Haven’t you done your share of suffering today?” said Melrose.
“It’s for you. The martyrdom of St. Jerome can’t hold a candle.”
Melrose slid down in his chair. “My god, don’t tell me you’re a Masaccio fan.”
“Sunderland, actually.” Jury heaped his coat across the armchair nearest the fire and sat down again. “You’re planning on staying here at Boring’s for a while, then?”
“I’m too tired to go home. Anyway, I have to wait for Trueblood.”
“You know, you’re not really all that well traveled for one of your money and leisure.”
“I’ve been to Baltimore.”
“Are you telling me that you didn’t enjoy Florence?”
“Oh, I enjoyed it. One enjoys Florence, after all.”
“One hopes one does.”
Melrose continued. “And one can’t help but have tender feelings toward a place like San Gimignano and those spires. Or Siena, that looks as if some spellbinder put it to sleep and it’s only partially awoken. Everything is narrow there-streets, houses-everything echoes.” He sighed. “It was just this race Trueblood had me doing, running from one expert in Renaissance art to another-authorities on Masaccio. Imagine devoting your entire life to just one thing.”
“Given one or two of my cases, I probably can.”
Melrose lit up a cigarette, blew the smoke away from Jury and tilted his head to look at the books. “What are those?”
Jury looked at them. “Couple of books on gardening.”
“Well, I’ll be jiggered. Are you retiring to till your own pea patch?”
“Not I.”
Melrose picked up the larger book and riffled the pages. “A Fool and His Garden.” He smiled. “Now there’s a fresh approach to gardening.”
“It’s the acerbic approach. I thought it suited you better than Sweet Sue’s Sweetpeas, or Lazy Days with Lobelias.”
Melrose took the book and opened it. “I like the little drawings.” He turned the book, showing Jury an unhappy gardener trampling the petunia patch.
Young Higgins was back with the drinks, setting a glass at each man’s elbow, taking up Melrose’s old one.
“Bets are off with you,” Melrose said to Jury. “Higgins, what have we to dine on tonight?”
Holding his small silver tray to his chest and coughing gently into one fisted hand, Young Higgins said, “We’ve steak and kidney pudding and roast pork. Both quite delicious.”
“No Portobello mushrooms?”
Young Higgins gave him a blank look. “Sir?”
“Never mind. Thanks, Higgins.” When the ancient porter had crept off, Melrose sniggered. “See why I come here? What more could one ask of a place that’s never heard of Portobello mushrooms?”
“It hasn’t heard of much of anything since the Great War, has it?”
“Let’s hope they keep it that way.” Melrose returned to A Fool and His Garden. “Listen to this.” He laughed. “‘There is something homicidal about he who would prick and prune and plunder thick hedges into the abysmal shape of swan and urn, a man so dangerous he needs stabbing with a sharp-pointed trowel.’ Indeed, I like that.” He set aside the larger book and picked up the smaller: Gardening Primer.
“That one’s more or less a grounding in gardening skills.”
“Pretty basic, isn’t it?” He turned it so that Jury could see the climbing rose. “Maybe I should try my hand at soil tilling. Enter big turnips in the annual Sidbury garden show. Wait a minute: you said these books were ‘for you,’ meaning me. Why are these books for me?”
Jury shrugged. “Thought they might be helpful.” Jury took a drink of whiskey. God, it was good here; they must keep the stuff in a vault. He ignored Melrose’s squint. “So, what did you and Trueblood do?”
“What’d we do? I just told you. We ran all over looking up experts. Count me the leading expert in Renaissance art in Long Piddleton-no, correction-in the Long Pidd area-which takes in Sidbury, Watermeadows and the Blue Parrot. Everything up to Northampton. Perhaps even Northampton!”
“What was the result of all of this expert consultation? Did they agree that the painting could be an authentic-what’s his name?”
“Masaccio. No, they didn’t. Just a bunch of wall-sitters, all of them.”
They sat at Melrose’s favorite table, a small one in the middle of the room and next to one of the oak pillars. When they’d polished off their artichokes with lemon, Jury asked, “You were saying you were expert. On what?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? Masaccio and Renaissance art. I want another drink-oh, I’ll just order a bottle of wine.” He gestured to the sommelier, who came to take Melrose’s order.
“So, go on.” Jury watched with sad longing as two old geezers lit up cigars. He had never smoked cigars, but that made no difference. After all this time without a smoke he would have lit up a cat. He would have dropped a match on Young Higgins, coming now with their steak and kidney pudding, negotiating his way through space and time, unimpeded, but as if he had chosen to cross Piccadilly Circus blindfolded.
Melrose continued, back on Masaccio, “I have quietly extended my knowledge of the twenties-” The sommelier brought the wine for Melrose’s inspection, uncorked it and poured.
The scent of steak and kidney pudding wafting around them, Jury said, “Prohibition in the States, I seem to recall. Ah, thanks,” he added to Higgins.
“Not the 1920s in New York, the 1420s in Florence.” To Young Higgins, he said, “Looks marvelous.” He went on. “I also know something of Masolino, Donatello and Brunelleschi. The perspectival illusion.”
“Sounds like a magic act.” Jury cut off a big forkful of steak and kidney pudding.
“It was an invention of Giotto, or at least he discovered it. Perspective can’t really be invented, can it? Brunelleschi and Donatello extended it to architecture. Perspective in a painting. You know what that is, of course.
The art of making an object appear as three dimensional. It’s not an easy thing to do, actually, applying mathematics to space. Like the barrel vaulting in the Trinity. The ribs diminish in mathematical foreshortening.” Melrose held out his arms and brought the tips of his fingers together, whoosh whoosh. “The art of the vanishing point. The centric point, the vanishing point, this is the point at which all lines meet in the distance. Where it all comes together, where the pattern’s exposed.”
“It sounds like the solution to one of my cases. The only thing is, by the time you get to it, the vanishing point, it’s gone.”
“Yes, I expect it is.”
“There’s a paradox for you.”
Melrose nodded. “Anyway, Trueblood just stopped listening when the subject veered away from Masaccio and his own painting. I could tell; his eyes filmed over. As are yours, right now.”
“They are not. I’m extremely interested.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Who’d be interested except someone nutty about Italian art?”
Jury smiled. “Actually, I do know such a nut.”
Melrose stopped in the act of eating and looked at Jury for a long moment and then resumed. After concentrating on his glass of wine, he said, “You’re fitting me up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on. First it’s the gardening stuff, then you’ve had me going on about fifteenth-century Florentine art-”
“How the devil could I do that? I didn’t even know Florentine art was in the fifteenth century. I didn’t even know it was Florentine, for that matter.”
“Very funny.” Melrose sighed and put down his fork. “Let me tell you something-” He leaned toward Jury as if he meant to grab his tie. “If you’ve got some notion I can impersonate some leading expert in the field of Italian Renaissance art, forget it. I know next to nothing.” Finished, Melrose sat back and took out his cigarettes, having no mercy on Jury at all.
“What are you talking about? You’ve just held forth for a half hour on the art of Florence.”
“Oh, come on. That was a Diane Demorney half hour. The only difference being that Diane takes a half minute to get across her single nugget of knowledge about anything on earth. What you’ve just heard me say is it; it’s all I know.” He flicked his temperamental old Zippo, lit his cigarette and dropped the lighter in his pocket.
“You know a lot more than you think you know.” Jury watched the thin ribbon of smoke stream upward.
“I know a lot less than I think I know. Get Trueblood to do it.”
“He’s too volatile.” Jury sipped his wine. “Take that painting along, then. That would be plausible as a reason for paying a visit. You want Ian Tynedale to look at it.”
“Ian Tynedale? Is he your authority?”
“Yes. He’s Tynedale’s son, and Italian Renaissance art’s his particular love.”
“Richard, I’d never be able to wrench that painting away from Trueblood.”
Jury drank his wine and thought for a moment. “Okay, then we’ll go to Plan B.”
“Yes, Plan A was such a hit, I can hardly wait. So tell me.”
Jury told him.
“No,” said Melrose. “I’d look stupid.”
“Well, yes, but when has that ever bothered you?”
Melrose blew smoke in his face. Jury laughed.
A meal with Plant was one of the few things that could penetrate the ozone layer that Jury sometimes felt masked his ability to think clearly.
He thought about this as he walked along the Victoria Embankment, delaying his homeward journey. He could get the Northern Line at Charing Cross. Or he could keep on walking. It was a good way to order his thoughts. Sometimes he would pretend that he was seeing the problem for the first time, had come upon it suddenly, by accident, and heard the story anew. Rarely did this approach to a case turn up fresh ideas, but it occasionally did work. He liked that paradox of the vanishing point. You find the answer, but the answer dissolves before-what?
In the case of the Tynedales, fresh ideas weren’t surfacing now. He did wonder about Kitty Riordin’s husband. Had he been more or less expunged from her consciousness? All of her energies were directed toward Maisie Tynedale… or Erin Riordin, whichever she was. That smile of Kitty’s, that infernal little smile. He couldn’t let go of it.
Even this short distance from the Strand, traffic noise dwindled to near nothing and there was a strange stillness. He had passed behind Charing Cross station and Somerset House, and now stopped to look down at the Thames, dark and unmoving, or at least it gave the illusion of being motionless. Yet the middle of this river moved at an incredible speed, he had heard.
Down below he could see the brief spurt of flame, someone lighting a cigarette. A muffled shout, laughter, disembodied. An undercurrent of voices and sounds curling upward like river mist. He knew Waterloo Bridge was a favorite haunt of the homeless, even with the Thames police at the bridge only a stone’s throw away. But they tolerated it, the police, turned a blind eye as long as everything was cleared out by morning. What a life, thought Jury, to have to take down a shelter every morning and run it up again every night.
Jury stopped and leaned against the railing to look at Waterloo Bridge and the South Bank brimming over with lights. It would not have looked that way to Myra before she jumped. It would not have looked that way to Roy either, as he stood in fog thick as fleece and lit a cigarette (Jury was sure of that), and smiled that bittersweet smile, and thought about Myra in her cold Thames grave…
He thought of Alexandra Tynedale, that benighted young mother, and Liza Haggerty, another benighted mother. Liza had been a very, very good detective. She could read in a crime scene signs and portents that baffled others as if they were hieroglyphics carved on cave walls. Probably, she had known before Mickey that something was wrong. But, then, he guessed most wives had such instincts about husbands. You didn’t need to be a scene of crimes expert to know that.
Really, he should call her, ask her out for a meal or a drink. It might be a sort of relief to her to talk to somebody on the Job. She was bearing up wonderfully, but what must it cost her to know that she’d be left alone with four kids?
He would do that.
Mickey Haggerty leaned against the filing cabinet overflowing with folders and documents. It was the next morning. They were continuing their discussion of Kitty Riordin, begun in the Liberty Bounds.
“I didn’t get any sense of loyalty toward the Tynedales, which, really, I thought she’d make an effort to project,” said Jury.
“She’s obsessive. The only subject she’s interested in is Erin Riordin, a.k.a. Maisie Tynedale.” He slammed the drawer he’d been searching through shut and went back to his chair, in which he sat down heavily.
Jury said, “How long did your dad know Francis Croft?”
Mickey tilted back in his swivel chair and ran his hands through his hair. “A long time, long as I can remember.” He looked off into space. “Croft was a really good man. So is Oliver Tynedale. Both of them would do anything for a friend, no matter how tough. When I was a kid, Mum was in Scotland once, driving from Ballantrae to Stranraer. She meant to catch the ferry across to Belfast. Just as she was taking the car onto the ferry, she passed out. They got her to a hospital and into the CCU. Dad couldn’t be reached, he was out on some case. But Oliver Tynedale’s name was in her address book, so police got in touch with him. He sent a car for me right away to take me to the Tynedale Brewery airstrip, dragged his pilot out of bed and flew me to Stranraer. If he hadn’t done this, I’d never have seen her alive again. He didn’t leave either; he stayed with me. Oliver knew how to talk to kids. I always thought he should’ve been a teacher or something like that. There’s this way he has-a manner, a tone of voice-that calms you down straightaway. It’s not a quality you see very often. After she died-” Mickey looked down, scraped at his tie. To avoid looking across at Jury. When Mickey finally did, tears stood in his eyes.
“I can understand your not wanting Kitty Riordin getting away with this, if Tynedale is a man like that,” said Jury. “What else did you find out about her?”
Mickey pulled the top folder from the pile on his desk, slapped back the cover. “Not much, and not easily. I guess fifty years can do that to a case.” He managed a grin. “Katherine-always been known as Kitty-Shea. When she was eighteen she married Aiden Riordin. He had trouble getting work in Ireland-where it was worse than the North-and came here. I get the impression he was to send for her, but then the war happened. Aiden Riordin got caught up-this part’s interesting-in the British Union of Fascists.”
“The Blackshirts.”
“That’s right. Pretty hard to take them seriously.”
“Hmm. I don’t think I’d rush to judgment there. East London got pretty worked up when Mosley was released. But go on.”
“There’s not a lot about Kitty Riordin to be going on with. She left Ireland, came here, but not, I think, to find her husband. I think she hoped opportunity was more likely to come her way here than in Killarney. It did.”
“It did indeed.” Jury paused.
Disturbed, Mickey rose, tossed down the pencil he’d been fiddling with. “Croft’s murder was an inside job meant to look like an outside job, some unknown intruder. By ‘inside’ I mean either a family member or someone else with access-staff, acquaintances. I mean that it wasn’t some stranger and the motive wasn’t robbery.” Mickey tented his hands, spoke over the tops. “I told you that: Simon Croft thought someone wanted him dead.”
“You did. ‘Out to get him’ was what you said. Why?”
“He didn’t know, did he? He wanted me around as some sort of protection.”
“He didn’t even hazard a guess?”
“I’m sorry to say I didn’t pay a hell of a lot of attention. I honestly couldn’t take it seriously. Look: Croft was sixty-three. He had too much money and too much leisure. Apart from this book he was writing, he had little to do.”
“Yet he was a broker, a very good one, you told me. He probably still had clients. I would imagine that kept him pretty busy. This book he was writing on the war. He used to read bits of it to Oliver Tynedale.”
Mickey beat a short tattoo with two pencils on the edge of his desk. “He talked about it once or twice. British Fascism was some of it. Sir Oswald Mosley-how did he get to be a sir?-and his followers. Did you know that in 1940 police rounded up German nationals-all the men between sixteen and sixty? As if no female and no man over sixty could possibly be a spy?” Mickey laughed.
“She dismissed Aiden as a fool.”
“Yeah, well, our Kitty certainly wouldn’t’ve shot Croft to preserve the honor of the Riordin clan. Who would care if Aiden Riordin was goose-stepping all over Hyde Park?” Mickey winced.
“Anything wrong? Do you need something?” Jury was already out of his chair.
Mickey waved a shaky finger in the direction of the water cooler by the door. “Cup o’ that.” He took a vial of pills out of his desk drawer, shook a couple into his hand.
Jury handed him the paper cup. “I wish they’d fill the damned things with whiskey.” He sat down again as Mickey washed down the pills. Jury wanted to ask him about the pain, but thought such a question would be tasteless or morbid, much like the gathering of people around a smashed car. So he kept the question back.
Mickey tossed the pills back in the drawer, slammed it shut, letting off a mild amount of steam in the act. He went back to the subject of the manuscript. “But I agree: if somebody went to the trouble of taking the PC, the diskettes, the hard copy-there’s something in it someone doesn’t want broadcast.”
Mickey had risen again to go to the window. Jury wondered if the getting up and down helped to relieve the pain. The phone rang and he scooped up the receiver. “Haggerty. Yeah… Then do it.” He hung up. “No, I guess not everybody would say ‘publish and be damned.’ ” Mickey frowned.
“There’s someone you haven’t paid much attention to.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Ralph Herrick. Alexandra’s husband.” Jury sat forward. “Simon could have brought something up in his book connected to him, Herrick. I don’t mean necessarily about him, just something going on. Oliver Tynedale mentioned Bletchley Park. The decoding that was done there. Very hush-hush stuff.”
“Hmm. I remember Herrick was RAF. Decorated, too. Quite the hero. The Victoria Cross.”
Jury nodded. “Right. He also was quite brilliant in the reading of codes. He could take one look at a code and see the pattern immediately.”
“Christ. Most of the time I can’t even look at the alphabet and see a pattern. Now, I do seem to recall that Herrick was one of the Bletchley Park people.”
Jury nodded, grew thoughtful. “I wish to hell I could see that manuscript.”
Mickey ran his hand down over his face and said, tiredly, “Maybe this whole case is being looked at wrong. Everything’s there, and the answer with it, but our perspective’s just wrong.”
“Like a painting.” Jury smiled. “A friend of mine just got back from Florence. He was talking about fifteenth-century Florentine art. An architect named Brunelleschi. ‘Perspective illusion’ was the quality that was revolutionary.”
“Don’t know the chap. I should spend more time at the Tate.”
Jury looked at Mickey for a moment and then looked away. “Ian Tynedale is passionate about the art of the Renaissance.”
“Yeah, I know.” Mickey squeaked back in his swivel chair. “It’s one reason I know the motive for this murder wasn’t robbery. What thief would have left the paintings on the walls? Especially the one near the desk? According to Tynedale, who got it for him, it’s worth a cool quarter of a million.”
Jury smiled and got up. “Maybe whoever did it wasn’t much of a critic.”
Angus Murphy looked up, suspicious. “Ya got t’ much education fer this job, is wha’ I think.” The gardener wiped his face with a bleached blue handkerchief that made his blue eyes look even more faded. “Why, there I’d go breakin’ ya in and off ya’d go the minute ya saw somthin’ ya’d be more ac-clim-ated to.”
Angus Murphy was short, wiry, ageless and (Melrose thought) loved impressive words. He had been dropping them in whenever he could with no real care for aptness. His slate blue eyes seemed to be permanently narrowed, as if the eyelids had been loosely stitched.
“-an’ ya’d be off like a bird, off like greased lightning, off like-” he paused.
“-a bat out of hell?” Melrose prompted. Angus Murphy was a man who liked his metaphor, no matter how worn. “But actually, Mr. Murphy, it would be very unlikely that would happen, as I’ve reached some détente-” (Melrose spoke this carefully) “-between my brain’s needs and my body’s. I don’t deny I’m well educated. But I’ve reached this point, you see, where the only thing that will satisfy me is getting down on my knees and grubbing around in the soil.”
The eyes narrowed even more. “What was that ya said? ‘Daysomethin’?”
“Détente?” Melrose was pleased he’d been right about the impressive words.
“That’s it. What’s that mean, then?”
“It means things at war with one another have reached some point of relaxation.”
“Ah!” said Murphy, nodding sagely, and then working it around in his mouth for a moment.
They were standing by an ornamental pond in the rear garden of Tynedale Lodge, following Melrose’s interview with the butler, Mr. Barkins. Melrose found it hard to keep from dropping the “mister” and calling him “Barkins.” He had had the foresight to bring a flat cap so that he could turn it around in his hands, occasionally squashing it, to make himself appear humble. He thought it was pretty rum that this oaf of a Barkins should have the privilege of hiring and firing staff. But Barkins clearly loved it, loved exerting what small measure of power he had in the household. As far as the new gardener, Ambrose Plant, was concerned, Barkins only thought he had the power. Oliver Tynedale was the one who had it after Jury had called him to explain what he wanted.
In the big, slightly chilly kitchen, Melrose had finally been invited to sit down and have a cup of coffee-elevenses, a brief respite from toil Melrose knew about only through the incessant visits of Agatha to Ardry End. Otherwise, he couldn’t tell a respite of toil from a tenner, nor, really, could his “staff,” a generalization he hesitated to use since, except for Martha, his cook, the only others were his butler, Ruthven, and his groundskeeper, Mr. Momaday. Ruthven did indeed work, but he didn’t toil. He carried out his duties as smoothly as an Olympic skater. On the other hand, Momaday was completely hopeless, walking all over the land with a shotgun broken over his arm, looking for something to shoot.
Melrose had thought about all of this in preparation for his morning interview with Ian Tynedale, which he thought was far more congenial than the one with Barkins. He’d be the first to admit he was lazy, but he didn’t care. Right now he was having his coffee at the long table where he supposed meals were taken by staff and he’d be one of them.
Sitting at the bottom of the table as Barkins was grilling the candidate for undergardener was a beautiful child with midnight black hair and skin so translucent one could almost see through it. She was eating a piece of bread and butter and keeping a close watch on Melrose. He wondered if this was the little girl named Gemma Trimm. No one had bothered telling him.
Barkins wondered how it was that if Mr. Plant had had as much experience as he’d said, he’d never been head gardener. Because, Mr. Plant had responded, he didn’t like administrative work. Barkins thought that an odd answer, but went to the phone and called the numbers given him, the recommendations Melrose had supplied. After a few minutes he was back, saying both of the previous employers had been most satisfied with his work. They were, of course, Marshall Trueblood and Diane Demorney.
“They were indeed effusive, Mr. Plant.”
Then Barkins asked him the usual boring questions as to why Mr. Plant had left these two satisfied employers. Mr. Plant had wanted to move to London, et cetera, et cetera.
The little girl had finished sizing him up (reaching her conclusions far faster than the butler) and had gathered up her strange doll and gone outside.
Barkins thought he would do with having a trial run for a week or two. Melrose had reacted with proper humility.
Which is why he was standing by the pond, at either end of which he had pointed out the gardener’s still-thriving hakonechloa and Rubrum grasses, the Rubrum’s sprays of delicate flowers still going strong in December. Then there was that New Zealand grass with its drooping flowerheads at the far end, over there. Melrose made much of these grasses, they being about the only thing he knew. “Hakonechloa” he had learned-as he had a few other gardening nuggets of wisdom-from Diane Demorney.
“Point out,” Diane had told him in the Jack and Hammer, “that hakonechloa is a must-have for every snob around who knows nothing at all about gardening-I certainly don’t, nor do I want to-point out that the name is simply on everybody’s lips.”
“But… what is it?”
“Some sort of grassy thing.”
“Well, but what does it look like?”
“Melrose, don’t be simple. How should I know? If it’s a grass, I expect it’s green. Tallish.” Her hand measured off air. “Look: when you don’t know a damned thing about a subject, you rattle off one or two esoteric bits that hardly anyone knows-”
“Well, hakonechloa won’t do, then. You said it was on everybody’s lips.”
“But people don’t know it’s on everybody’s lips, do they? One or two bits and then learn the Latin-I think it’s Latin-names for this or that and toss them in occasionally.”
“You mean even if I’ve got the names wrong?”
Diane looked over her shoulder to the bar where Dick Scroggs stood reading the paper. She gave him the queen’s wave, meaning two more drinks. To Melrose she said, “I expect it will be wrong, but who cares, as long as it’s Latin.”
“But a gardener might know.”
Diane sighed deeply. “Even if he does, you just finesse whatever you’re looking at for something that doesn’t grow around there-a palm tree or something.”
“Diane, how could I mistake a plant or a flower for a palm tree?”
“Then say something that grows around a palm tree-at the base of it. He won’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’ll make two of us.” But Melrose had to admit he was enamored of the Demorney grasp of one-upmanship. “Okay-” He read from one of the three-by-five cards on which he was taking notes.
(“Notes! Lord,” Diane had said with a shiver.)
At first, Melrose had done what he thought to be the sensible thing, and gone to the little library, where he’d pulled down a book, slogged through it for a while and realized facts without color, without conversation, without nuance, were boring and hard to absorb. He had only two days before he returned to London, and knew what he needed was a crash course. He needed the gestalt of gardening-watching someone do it, hearing someone speak of it. To this end he had gone in search of Alice Broadstairs, who, along with Lavinia Vine, competed at the annual Sidbury Flower Show. The trouble with this approach, Melrose should have known, was that Miss Broadstairs was such a gardening enthusiast, she rattled on and on about her roses and orchids, covering entirely too much ground (literal and metaphoric), so that Melrose was bombarded by facts he couldn’t assimilate, and, more important, that would probably do him no good. He took notes, though, for among all of this fall of blossom was the odd bit that would help: a rose called Midsummer Beauty that was still brilliant in December; the Mahonia japonica, that he could remember because it rhymed; and Diane’s hakonechloa. He came, in other words, to realize that knowledge was style: it’s not what you know, it’s how you know it. Diane was the person for this, and she would be having lunch (the two olives) at the Jack and Hammer.
She had said, “Do something with mistletoe. Christmas is just around the corner, unfortunately.” Diane could only make it through the holiday season with a breakfast of eggnog.
“ ‘Do something’? I’m not decorating the garden.”
“I mean, look up one or two kinds of mistletoe and trot them out if you’re looking at a bush.”
“Doesn’t mistletoe grow on trees?”
Diane tapped her stirrer with its marinated olive gently on the rim of her glass. “I have no idea. Find out what kind, then.”
Melrose made a note on his card. “What if this house doesn’t have the kind mistletoe grows on?”
Diane rolled her eyes and ate her olive, after which she said, “Then you ask him why this kind of tree isn’t in the garden.” Languidly, she fixed a cigarette into her black holder. “You’re usually inventive. One must be able to turn things to one’s advantage. How was Florence?”
“Magnificent, absolutely magnificent.” Somehow, this galloping trip that had irritated him to death (except, of course, at the end) had turned in his mind to something gorgeous and fragile. “My favorite place was San Gimignano.” Not only did Melrose pronounce this correctly, but he managed to sound like a native when he blended that second “i” with the “y.” He had practiced a lot.
“Say that again.”
“San Gim-i’yan-o.”
“How fascinating. I love Italian names. ‘San Gimignano.’ Hmm.”
It annoyed Melrose that she pronounced it exactly right without any practice at all. For some reason, Diane was good at things like that.
“San Gimignano (he liked saying it) is about twenty miles outside of Florence. It’s like suddenly finding yourself back in the Middle Ages. The town’s famous for its towers. Once there were hundreds of them, so many you could walk across town on the rooftops.”
“I can hardly walk across town on the pavements.”
“I imagine this ‘tower’ business was a kind of ego thing. Oh, the towers permitted fortification-you know, pouring boiling oil down on your enemy-but I bet the whole idea got out of hand and everyone tried building a tower taller than his neighbor’s, so they just kept building taller towers.”
Diane tapped her cigarette free of ash. “Sounds like Las Vegas. Now, tossing things like that name into conversation, well, it would stop everyone but the mayor of San Gimignano dead in his tracks.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning people don’t give much of a damn what you say. It’s the way you say it. Knowledge is presentation.”
Exactly. Melrose smiled.
Angus Murphy’s voice drew him back from the Jack and Hammer, saying, “Ya do seem t’ know y’r grasses, ah’ll say that. Come wi’ me.”
Melrose followed him to a bed of largish, flat-headed white perennials. “Achillea, this lot is. Hardy flower.” He looked even more narrowly at Melrose. “But you must know that, ah expect.”
He could not believe his luck! He was first out of the gate on this one. He knew only this species because he liked its common name. “This white one has always interested me: ptarmica, sneezewort, I believe it’s called.”
“That’s it, aye. Surprised you’d know that one-”
(So was Melrose.)
“-not got much to recommend it.”
“Now I’m rather partial to the A. millefolium Heidi (only because it was described as ‘fading beautifully’), but I don’t seem to see any in your garden…”
Murphy grunted. “Can’t get everything in, can ah? What’d ya do about fertilizing this lot?” They had moved to another bed of purple flowers Melrose couldn’t identify for the life of him. “Ya can see they’ve got pretty straggly.”
Melrose sighed and shook his head. “Yes, it’s quite sad when an entire bed falls into a state of desuetude.”
Murphy blinked. “State o’ wha’?”
“Desuetude. But, look, you can’t be everywhere, Mr. Murphy!” Melrose rang out cheerfully while flinging his arm out toward the sneezewort.
“Now, how d’ ya spell that?”
“Spell what?”
“That word begins with ‘des.’ ”
“Oh. ‘Desuetude’?”
Murphy was handing him a pencil stub and an empty seed packet. “Write it down there.”
Melrose managed to crowd the word onto the border. Then, for good measure, wrote détente on the other narrow border. The picture on the packet displayed a bright grouping of Michaelmas daisies. He handed the packet and pencil back with a smile. “You know, with Christmas coming in just a few days, I wonder you don’t have some mistletoe about.”
Murphy was practicing desuetude and not attending. Finally, he put away the seed packet and led Melrose into the greenhouse. “Got a rose ah’m foolin’ with ah want ya t’ see.”
The world of roses had managed to bar its doors against Melrose. He had not attempted to learn the hundreds of different kinds; he felt it could take a lifetime for any serious researcher to master the subject. Roses. Between Alice Broadstairs and Lavinia Vine, he had heard all he ever wanted to, as they were always cross-breeding, inbreeding, mutating to come up with a new species and beat each other out of the first prize at the Sidbury Flower Show. Roses ignited them.
“This here ’un. What d’ya think o’ this?”
The rose in question was an exquisite golden, peachy color. “Breathtaking,” said Melrose. It was, too. He just didn’t know its name.
“Nearly took the blue ribbon at the Chelsea Flower Show, this did.”
“What I’d like to see is the rose that beat it.”
Murphy chortled. “Tha’s a good’un. Now, what won, d’ ya guess? Come on, now,” he added when he saw Melrose hesitate.
Melrose simpered a bit as he said, “Probably one of those revisionist roses that Gertrude Jekyll and that lot were always coming up with. The Sissinghurst syndrome. You remember that, don’t you?”
It was clear Murphy not only didn’t remember, far more important, he didn’t know how to say it. His eyelids were stitched even closer as his fingers went to his pocket to draw out his stub of pencil and the seed packet. Thinking even harder, he drew out two. Melrose took them as Murphy said, “Both o’ them words.”
“ ‘Revisionist’? ‘Syndrome’?”
Murphy flicked his finger at the packets, a nod that told Melrose to get on with it.
Then, being thoroughly satisfied that Melrose had the collective wisdom of ten gardeners, Murphy went in to his lunch, Melrose declining the invitation in favor of a walk around the garden where he might pick up clues from the furrowed rows and seed packets that would give him future ammunition if he was grilled again.
Hunkered down over a flowerbed, where a seed packet picturing a bouquet of bluebells was stuck to a marker, Melrose heard a voice:
“Those aren’t bluebells in there.”
Quickly, he turned. It was the little girl who’d been sitting at the kitchen table. Here she was sitting on a board that had been squeezed between the sturdy branches of a beech tree. “No? This seed packet says bluebell.”
“I changed the seed packet with those ones.” She pointed toward another flowerbed.
“Why did you do that?”
Moving her doll (dressed in an impossibly long frock) to her other side, she said, “Because I’d rather have bluebells in there than the other stuff. Benny switched the packets for me.”
“Oh. I thought bluebells were wildflowers, anyway.”
She considered that. “Not around here, they aren’t.”
This all seemed perfectly logical. “And who is this garden marauder, Benny?”
“My friend. He makes deliveries for Mr. Gyp, who’s really nasty. I’m not eating meat anymore. Benny brings books, too, from the Moonraker, Mr. Tynedale likes me to read books to him. I mean I read parts of books. Little bits. Right now we’re reading a book about a man named Gatsby. I really like the big eye. Do you want to sit down? I’ll move Richard.”
Melrose had always considered he had a quick mind, but he was having trouble processing all of this information. Yet she appeared to think it was all in a day’s talk. “Thank you, I think I probably need to sit down.” When he’d hoisted himself up beside her-there was just barely room if she held the doll on her lap-he decided to take her information from the top. “If you can read The Great Gatsby, you must be an excellent reader.”
The eyes she turned on him were killingly honest. “Parts, I said. Little bits.”
“Well, the little bit about the eye. I don’t remember that.”
“It was on a sign of a doctor who makes eyeglasses. Mr. Tynedale says it’s like the eye of God. But I don’t think so.” She leaned backward into empty air, so that her black hair nearly touched the tree roots. She went on, from her almost-upside down position: “It’s probably Cyclops.”
Melrose was even more surprised. “Are you referring to The Odyssey?”
“It’s by Homer. I don’t know his last name. It’s a really good story.”
“It is indeed. Did you read it in translation or just stick to the original Greek?”
When she did not bother answering, Melrose said, “Mr. Tynedale must be an excellent man if he has you doing all this reading of books that even adults don’t often tackle.”
“He is. He’s very excellent. You can help baptize him.”
Melrose had a startled moment before he realized she was now speaking of her doll and not the excellent Mr. Tynedale. Then, of course, he still had to stumble over the “him.” “Him?” He regarded the doll. “I assumed your doll was a ‘her.’ ”
“No, he’s not. See?” She pulled back the long gown and pointed toward the torso, the joined legs and undisclosed sex. “It’s smooth, see. Nothing’s there.”
“You don’t happen to know the Crippses, do you?”
“No.”
He was surprised at her rather sophisticated acceptance of this sexual ambiguity. “Well, but it could be a girl, couldn’t it? On the evidence we’ve got?”
“It could be a girl, but I don’t want him to be. His name’s Richard.
When I thought he was a girl I was going to name her Rhonda. I was on the Rs. I was waiting for Benny to come, but you’d do just as good.”
So attendance at the baptism was not an honor conferred but a need for assistance. “Were you going to do it now?”
“We might as well since we’re not doing anything else.”
“Excuse me, you might not be, but I have that load of dirt-” he pointed to a wheelbarrow full and waiting “-to take around to the bedding area out front. I’m your new undergardener.”
She scratched her ear and looked at him, not entirely unlike the way Angus Murphy had looked at him. It was that sizing him up, waiting to catch him out look. He gave in. “Okay.”
“Come on!” She shoved herself off the board, and so did he, glad to leave it. Off she ran between the hedge and the sneezewort to the pond where Melrose and Angus Murphy had stood and considered grasses. She turned and ran backward with a shout to him to hurry.
Before the pond with its sinister goldfish, she jumped from one foot to another as if she had to pee. When he arrived by her side, she thrust the doll (in its too-much-handled frock) toward Melrose.
“Me? Just a moment, why are you giving this job to me?”
“You look more like a vicar than me and I don’t want to get wet.”
“What are you talking about? Why should anyone get wet?” He held the doll away from him.
“Because you have to be in there to dunk him.” She nodded toward the pond.
“I’m not going in that water!” He did not add, with those goldfish!
“But someone has to!”
“All you need to do is dip your fingers in the pond and make a cross on his forehead. I’ve been to a lot of baptisms (he had been to none) and that’s how it’s done.”
“No it isn’t. I mean, it isn’t always. Benny told me, and so did the vicar, there were people who went into the water up to their chins. The vicar would shove their heads all the way in. I guess they had to hold their breath. Benny says it doesn’t take unless you’re all the way in.”
Melrose snorted. “Well, if this Benny is such an authority I’d think you’d rather wait for him. Besides he knows Richard-” Richard? “-a lot better than I do.”
He knew that hands-on-hips posture. Every child he’d ever had any dealings with resorted to it. Resolute. Determined. Implacable. A swell recommendation if you were running for a seat in Commons, but dire when it came to someone’s being baptized.
“I’ve been mistaken for a lot of things in my life, but never for a vicar” was his weak rejoinder to the hands-on-hips.
“You’re only wasting time arguing.”
Melrose raised the gown up and inspected the back. Its head and jointed limbs were hard plastic, its torso firmly stuffed and covered with a smooth, flesh-colored fabric, seamed down the back. A few threads were loosening, and a bit of stuffing was about to work its way out. Smugly, he said, “You know what will happen to this doll if you dunk him all the way into the pond?”
Her hands came away from her hips and she looked unsure. “Nothing will. He’ll just be wet.”
“Not only wet but waterlogged,” he said, cunningly. “You see this little seam here? Water will get in and Richard will squish for the rest of his life.” He shook the doll. “Or maybe even come apart.”
Truly uncertain now, she shook her head. “No, he won’t.”
Melrose gave a great sigh and a shrug and said, “Okay, if you’re so sure-” He removed one shoe and started on the other preparatory (it looked like) to his dive into the pond.
“No, wait!” She grabbed the doll back and chewed her lip. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“And I have to take that load of dirt to the bedding-out area.”
“I’ll go with you.”
She seemed relieved not to have to debate the baptism any longer.
“All right.” Melrose could not recall if he had ever had a wheelbarrow in his hands. He took hold of the handles and shoved it along while she trod by his side, looking up into his face to see whatever it was she wanted to see. He didn’t know. Trundling the barrow between the white columns and the line of cedars, he said, “What does he want all of this dirt for?”
“It’s fertilizer, not dirt.”
Was he to be saddled with a child who would contest his every word? (Didn’t they all?) “ ‘It’s fertilizer, not dirt,’ ” he mimed in a high, squeaky voice. “What’s the difference, then?”
“It says on the bag: ‘fertilizer.’ ”
“Well, you don’t expect them to put ‘dirt’ on it, do you?”
For a moment she was skeptical. On both sides of the large bedding area in front were white stone benches. She lay down on one as if the stone were a bed. She set Richard on her chest and moved his arms back and forth. “He could be a detective.”
Melrose had stopped the barrow by the edge of the bed and was reaching for the shovel. “Detective? Who are you talking about?”
“Richard. I’m only saying he could be. We’re not sure.”
Melrose dug in with the shovel. “Well, let me know when you are.”
As he shoveled and she watched, a silence descended. He doubted it had anything to do with their mutual respect for work. Around the far corner of the house, a white cat ran and after it a small dog, a terrier of some sort, with a white coat that looked springy, like lamb’s wool.
“Sparky!” Gemma called, and the dog left off chasing the cat and came to sit beside the flowerbed.
Melrose raised himself up, feeling the small of his back. Arthritis was no doubt setting in. He looked down at the dog who slapped his tail on the ground. “ ‘What fresh hell is this’?”
“It’s Benny’s dog, Sparky.” The dog bounded over to her and did some more tail pumping. She ruffed up his neck and made some of those irritating childish sounds one makes over babies.
“And where’s Benny, then? I mean to enlist him for the baptism immediately.”
“Sometimes Sparky comes by himself. He’s really smart. Benny says he goes out at night and walks all around till dawn. He remembers everything.”
“If he’s that smart, let him do the baptizing.”
Sparky trotted off; the cat had disappeared down the drive to a little cottage. Gemma said, “See down there?” She was pointing to that cottage inside the gates. “That’s where Mrs. Riordin lives. She’s lived there for years. I can get into it. She always goes into the shops on Wednesdays. Then I go in. You can, too, if you want to look.”
Had Jury deputized this child? “Why on earth would I want to do that?” When she shrugged, he went on. “And what are you doing it for? They’ll have you up on a B and E one of these days.”
“What’s a B and E?”
“The only police jargon I know. It means ‘breaking and entering.’ In case you didn’t know, it’s illegal.” Plop went another shovelful of fertilizer onto the bed. He hoped he was doing it right.
“If I take anything I only keep it a little while and then I always put it back,” Gemma informed him, from her prone position, the B &E jungle holding no terrors for her.
Melrose stabbed the tip of the shovel into the soft earth. “You shouldn’t be taking it in the first place.” He saw her draw something out of the pocket of her plaid skirt.
“Here’s an earring.” She held it out for him to see.
It was a nondescript gold earring, certainly not worth stealing. “Did you just take one?”
She nodded. “I don’t want to wear it. I just like holding something in my hand that belongs to somebody else. I always put things back in case you think I’m a robber.” This was pointed out in a fairly indignant tone. “You can go inside if you want. We can get inside; there’s a window round back that doesn’t shut properly.”
“Don’t pretend you’re going to rope me into your life of crime.” He stopped his work to look down toward the cottage. “Which window?”
Having made a note of the window but taken a raincheck on the B &E, Melrose pushed the roots of another shrub in the ground as if he were burying a time capsule. He’d been on his knees for forty-five minutes now, probably more than he had during his entire childhood of churchgoing. If the Buddha had spent a half hour planting shrubs, he might not have been all that enamored of the full lotus position. God, the back! The recalcitrant back! He was tamping down earth when he was treated to the sight of a pair of paws and some shaggy breathing.
Melrose sighed. He really wasn’t in the mood for that boulevardier Sparky and his wanderings, but here he was, probably eager to debate planting in December. “I agree,” said Melrose, taking out his cigarettes and old Zippo. “But if Murphy says do it, I do it.” The Zippo rasped but did not fire. “You wouldn’t happen to have a light on you, would you?”
Sparky was standing there flinging his stubby tail from side to side. Did he want Melrose to go someplace? He was making those small, backing up movements that, had he been a puma, would have been worrying.
Melrose deposited his unlit cigarette behind his ear and sat back on the cold ground. “That does it for now. Where’s your companion boy?” He heard a hiss, looked behind him and saw the thug-cat Snowball, its face looking as if it were mashed up against a pane of glass. He was glooming away, sitting between Sparky and Snowball and wondering what his attraction was to these animals when he heard his name called.
“Mr. Plant!”
When he couldn’t immediately make out the direction from which it had come, the voice called “Ambrose!” as if being staff, he could only recognize his given name. He turned and saw Ian Tynedale standing in the open doorway that led to the patio. He motioned Melrose toward him. “I’ve something I want to show you.”
“Certainly, sir.” Melrose would have tugged at his forelock, except he couldn’t find it.
He followed Tynedale into the library, the same place where Ian had interviewed him. The interview had quickly veered off into art and Melrose had disclosed he was a great fan of the Italian Renaissance. Melrose had balked at doing this, but Jury had thought it a good idea, even if a little out of character for a gardener.
“Just tell him your mum was Italian. An Italian countess or something.”
“You sound like Diane Demorney.”
How was it, Melrose wondered, the Tynedales managed to hold on to their looks? Genes, most likely. Old age sank into most people over sixty like Dracula’s teeth. He only hoped that when he got to the geriatric stage he’d look half as good as Ian Tynedale. And as far as he could see, the Tynedales had all sorts of bad habits-drinking, smoking, eating rich food (an impression formed seeing the crème brûleé the cook had prepared)-that made no inroad on them. How refreshing. Tynedale drew a cigar out of a black humidor and sat back in his leather swivel chair. Melrose wondered: Did Ian Tynedale suspect he wasn’t who he said he was? No, Melrose doubted he suspected anything. All he wanted was to have someone as an audience for his acquisitions. It was the art enthusiast in him; he’d have had Snowball and Sparky in here if they’d shown the least inclination toward Italian Renaissance art.
That was what Ian was now talking about and Melrose said, “Isn’t that redundant, sir?”
Ian raised his eyebrows. “How so?”
“Italian Renaissance art. The Italians owned the Renaissance, didn’t they?” Melrose thought maybe all of this was a bit thick, coming from an undergardener, even an overeducated one. He decided he was a show-off and told himself to stop it. “What I mean is, I, uh, read that somewhere.”
Ian seemed pleased that here was a person who read. “Good point! Of course, you’re right. Sit down, sit down, man.” He waved Melrose into the chair opposite.
Melrose sat. Why wasn’t Tynedale suspicious? Probably because he wanted only to have someone to talk to about Florentine art and Florence. I’m your man! thought Melrose.
Ian pulled a heavy paper out from between two thin boards and held it up for Melrose to look at. “What do you think?” Ian tapped the paper.
It wasn’t a painting; it was a sketch. Melrose chewed his lip. It looked like a study of perspective, two flat surfaces, one probably a mirror, held opposite one another, lines intersecting. Melrose cast his mind back to Di Bada talking about Brunelleschi. It could have been done by a number of artists but Melrose thought Brunelleschi a safe bet since the drawing wasn’t an original, anyway. “Well… I’d say Brunelleschi. Uh… maybe.”
“I think this is Giotto. He rediscovered perspective, didn’t he? The Greeks would have known about it. Indeed, Plato called perspective ‘deceit. ’ ”
“Plato called everything deceit.”
Ian laughed. “It’s plain to see you haven’t always been a gardener.”
“Undergardener,” Melrose corrected him. “But this sketch, you’re not saying it’s an original.”
“Oh, don’t I wish!” Ian laughed again and pulled out another sketch, this one of the Duomo. “I don’t remember how I came by this one. The dome of Santa Maria Novella. I have no idea who the artist is. But it’s quite beautiful.”
“Well, if that sketch was by Brunelleschi, it’d be worth the contents of the London silver vaults.”
His eyes still on the paper, Ian rubbed the back of his neck. “Of course, it isn’t about money.”
A sentiment generally favored by the rich, Melrose had found. While Ian brooded over this picture, Melrose took the opportunity of looking around the walls on which were hung priceless paintings. The collection reminded him of what Jury had said about Simon Croft’s collection. He wished he could steer the conversation around to that.
He didn’t have to.
Leaning back in his chair and holding the drawing up at arm’s length, Ian said, “A very good friend of mine died a week ago. He’d have appreciated this.” He sighed and placed the paper back between the protective boards. “He was murdered.”
“How awful. How did it happen?”
“Someone broke into the house-a place on the Thames-”
Melrose interrupted. “But that was in all the papers. His name was-” Melrose paused, in an effort of remembrance.
“Simon Croft. Our families were very close.” Ian picked up the other drawing, the one of the Duomo. “A marvel of engineering. I wish I’d been there.”
“Up on the scaffolding drinking watered wine?”
Ian laughed. “No. Down on the piazza, drinking Tynedale beer.” He picked up the neglected cigar. “Imagine the company we’d have: Brunelleschi, Leonardo, Masaccio…” He shook his head slowly in wonder.
“You know, I read somewhere that Masaccio was so worried someone might steal his work, he wouldn’t let anyone in his rooms except his grocer.”
Ian laughed. “Sounds like Simon.”
“Does it?”
Ian seemed contrite at having mentioned Simon’s name in this facetious context. He changed the subject. “How are you getting on with Murphy?”
“Fine.”
Ian smiled. “He’s an irascible fellow. The last person quit without notice. Just stopped coming. Well, she was young. One makes allowances. Maybe she was scared off by the shooting incident. I expect Murphy told you.”
“Told me what?”
“Back in October, someone fired into the greenhouse. At first the Southwark police put it down to another in a rash of attempted robberies around Southwark and Greenwich. Lewisham, too, I seem to recall.”
“Was anything stolen here?”
“No, thank God.” Ian glanced around the walls.
Melrose tried not to seem any more inquisitive than any curious person would have been. “You said, ‘at first.’ What did the police finally put it down to?”
“Kids running around with a gun. Will Southwark soon be Miami?”
“Would we really mind, considering the weather? Tell me something: this house is surrounded by a high wall. If you were a kid bent on shooting things up for no particular purpose, would you go to the bother of trying to scale the wall just for a target that meant nothing to you?”
“No, now you mention it. You think the police were wrong?”
“Don’t you?”
Ian thought for a moment. “Oliver-Dad-doesn’t exactly have the chief constable in his pocket, but he does have clout. The commissioner’s a good friend. I don’t think they’d blow off an investigation. Gemma-the little girl-is sure the shooter was shooting at her because she was in the greenhouse. Gemma’s imagination works overtime.”
“But you say she was in the greenhouse when this happened.”
Ian shook his head. “Police didn’t think she had anything to do with it-I mean, that she was the target.”
“Generally speaking, a person standing in the path of a bullet usually is the target.”
“I see what you mean, only-well, why would anyone want to hurt Gemma? She’s only nine years old. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes as much sense as some boy with a gun climbing over your wall.”
He had left the Lodge after his “tea” (which he made sure to keep to the drink itself) and had gone to the main street where he could hail a taxi on some unobtrusive corner and return to Boring’s. That was when he saw the butcher’s shop open, the one Gemma had mentioned.
GYP THE BUTCHER was scrolled in shiny black letters over the doorway of a half-timbered shop behind whose big glass window sat meat displays surrounded by parsley, looking more like precious stones than chops and rashers. He peered through the glass and saw the tall thin proprietor. Melrose could hear him talking. He stood by the door and lit up a cigarette.
“… mind you. Yes, I know it’s your time to go home, but these here orders only just now come in and they’re wanted tonight. Business ain’t always at your convenience.”
“But it’s my friend’s birthday, Mr. Gyp, like I told you. If it wasn’t for that, I’d be glad-”
“Oh, that’s as may be, but I’m sure the Lodge don’t mean to wait on any birthdays, so you best hop it…”
The voice trailed off, but not, Melrose imagined, from lack of malice. Melrose knew a tormentor when he heard one. Children were especially desirable as objects for such people because they were relatively helpless and (it was assumed) weak. But they weren’t weak, at least not the ones who had been left to rely on themselves.
The voice droned on: “You best look elsewhere if you can’t take the odd late hour. It ain’t as though there’s no one else’d like the job.”
All the while Gyp was delivering himself of his stored-up acrimony, the boy, who looked anything but stupid (which also went for the dog, Sparky), kept trying to wedge a word in, but found no chink in the wall of talk. The little dog, however, growled softly, its dog patience stretched to the limit.
Gyp recoiled and said, “We’ll have none o’ that dog o’ yours, young Bernard. You control that animal or-”
“It’s only Sparky! You know he never bit anybody-”
“Always a first time. That animal ought to be on a lead-”
“He never has and don’t call him ‘that animal.’ His name’s Sparky, as you well know.”
Melrose liked the boy already. He wouldn’t defend himself, but he leaped to the defense of his dog.
Gyp droned on. “Now, here’s the chops for the Lodge. The beef silverside and rashers, they go to the Roots. Rashers is a bit fat, but if he complains you just tell him that’s good bacon, that is.”
Melrose decided this was as good a time as any to go in, so he pitched his cap a little forward and stuck his fingers in the small pockets of his jeans and entered.
“Evenin’,” he said, bringing two fingers to the bill of his cap in a deferential salute. “This the butcher wot supplies the Lodge up there?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “And you be Mr. Gyp?” Barely waiting for the butcher to accede to this, Melrose went on. “I just come from there and as I’m goin’ back, I can take the parcel for you and save the lad a trip. Couldn’t ’elp over’earin’ what you said.”
Before Gyp could object (as he was certainly about to), Melrose hurried on. “ ‘Not a butcher in all London can touch ’im’ is what that Mr. Barkins said. ‘Ain’t one of ’em can do a crown roast’ ”-Melrose’s eyes flicked to the board where lay pork chops fanned out in perfect symmetry like a chorus line-“ ‘or cut chops the artful way does Mr. Gyp. Almost too pretty to eat, them chops. No, that Mr. Gyp’s a marvel, and an upright, honest man with it. I’ve never ’ad a doubt Gyp gives honest weight. We’re lucky to have our Mr. Gyp.’ That last was said by cook and it’s somethin’ to get her praise.” Melrose halted, not for lack of other fanciful compliments, but because he felt like a vicar delivering a good-bye over the body of the lately dead. Gyp, he saw, had grown increasingly pleased as all of these compliments showered down on him. The boy and his dog stared at Melrose with eyes like full moons, disbelieving that anyone would find Gyp praiseworthy. Only an idiot (Melrose was sure Benny was thinking) could have listened to this lot spoken in as poor a North London accent as this toff was doing: a dropped h, an eclipsed t was about all Melrose could manage. (Just because he was undergardener didn’t mean he could talk like one. Jury never seemed to learn that.)
Melrose leaned down to give Sparky a pat and the dog pumped his tail.
In a silky tone and a wipe of his hands on his blood-streaked apron, Gyp asked, “An’ who might you be, sir?”
Melrose stuck out his hand to shake Gyp’s (which he found cold as death) and said, “New gardener up to the Lodge. Ambrose Plant’s the name. A pleasure to step into such a well-kept shop as this one.”
Gyp clearly thought in Melrose he’d found a mate and would probably be wanting to nip along to the Scurvy Ferret for a pint. “Well, ain’t it nice to have a new face to look at, and one that doesn’t mind working outside his set hours. I was just trying to advise young Bernard here on the importance of bein’ flexible.”
“Ah, you’re right there, Mr. Gyp, indeed you are.”
Benny squinted up at Melrose in utter disbelief. Even Sparky managed a disbelieving cock of the head. Here was a boy and his dog story worth hearing.
“And o’course,” continued Melrose, “I’d be ’appy to deliver that other l’il package too on my way.”
“Now, that’s most kind of you, Mr. Plant, on’y the Elys, they’re a bit peculiar about strangers comin’ to their door-”
Benny objected: “No, they’re not-”
Gyp stamped on whatever Benny was going to say. “The old lady, she’s the suspicious type.”
Benny looked from the one to the other of these men as if they were both mad. Had they been dogs, Sparky would have done the same.
“Ely? Did you say Ely, Mr. Gyp? Could that be… what was his name…?”
“Brian Ely. Lives with his old mum over in Mickelwhite Street.”
Melrose clapped his head. “Brian, of course! And the old lady! Well, ain’t that a turnup for the books! It’s been ten years since Brian and yours truly lifted a pint at the Scurvy Ferret.” Since Melrose knew the only reason Gyp didn’t want him making the Ely delivery was to force Benny here to do it and thus delay the boy’s departure, he said, “This lad can show me the way.”
Gyp thoroughly approved this scheme and stood washing his hands and grinning a sort of death’s head grin.
But poor Benny, who’d seen deliverance only a moment ago, now saw his hopes dashed once again, or at least partly dashed. Melrose collected the packets and with false bonhomie told Gyp that he’d see him again soon. Then man and boy and dog departed.
Outside, Melrose gave Benny’s shoulder a little shake. “Look, I’m not really who that Gyp thinks I am.”
“Yeah? You’re not who I think you are, neither.”
“Oh? Oh? And who do you think I am?”
“You ain’t someone what lives within the sound of Bow Bells, if you take my meaning. More some toff puttin’ on an accent. It’s really bad, I guess you know.”
“This is the thanks I get for helping you with deliveries?”
“No, mister. That’s really swell of you. Only now, I’ll still never get to my friend’s birthday in time with the cake.” He held up the white box he’d been hanging on to.
Melrose looked up and down the dark street for a cab. He saw two, but they already carried passengers. “All we need do is take a cab, first to the Lodge and then the Elys.”
As if cabs were as far beyond his reach as stars, Benny halted beside Melrose. “A taxicab?”
“Of course. Here comes one now.”
“That’s a mini-cab, that is.”
Melrose sighed as he sliced his arm up and down. “So it’s a mini-cab. So the driver talks to us in Portuguese. It has wheels, so hop it.”
The white car lurched to a stop and the driver stuck his head out and called something incomprehensible. Melrose and Benny ducked into the back and Benny gave the address. The car lurched off as it had lurched in.
The driver pulled to a stop at the Lodge, where Benny directed him.
He then disappeared through a garden gate while Sparky waited in the car, anxiously flapping his tail. The boy was back inside of two minutes. He told the driver the Elys’ address and after much incomprehensible talk from the driver, the cab swerved around and shot down the road.
The Elys’ house was in a stingy little street behind one of many churches attributed to Wren. Here Benny told the driver to keep the engine running, he’d be back in a tic, as if the cab were a getaway car. In syllables that still baffled Melrose, the driver went on about something-the gold standard? The Palestinian crisis? Standing on hind legs, paws against the window, Sparky watched Benny go.
Mr. Ely, if that’s who it was, appeared in silhouette against the backdrop of a lighted hallway and, after a moment of hello and good-bye, closed the door. Benny rushed back, clambered in and told the driver to go to Waterloo Bridge, the other side, the Embankment side.
“And then where?” asked Melrose.
“Nowhere. I’ll just get out there.” Benny held the cake on his lap and watched the night slip by.
Melrose frowned. “But your birthday party-?”
“It’s around there.”
With Sparky up on the seat beside him now, Melrose pondered. It was pretty clear Benny didn’t wish to discuss the matter and Melrose would never force it. “How long have you been working for this Gyp person?”
“Over a year. But it ain’t-it’s not-just him. I make deliveries for Delphinium and Mr. Siptick, too. He’s the newsagent. And the Moonraker. Miss Penforwarden is really nice.” He started humming.
“How about school, though?” Melrose then congratulated himself for asking the most detestable question man ever put to child: How about school?
But Benny didn’t mind. “Oh, my mum takes care of that. I mean, she teaches me at home. See, I’m chesty-” Here he released several labored coughs for Melrose’s edification. It was the first time Melrose had heard the boy cough. Apparently feeling called upon to demonstrate his reason for skipping school, Benny kept hacking away.
“Okay, you can stop that now. It’s none of my business, anyway.”
“You’re the first person ever said that.”
Crossing Waterloo Bridge, Melrose looked up and down the river, to Blackfriars, to London Bridge, to Tower Bridge, to this whole panoply of bridges lighted all along their length. He thought the scene was gorgeous. He supposed this was how a New Yorker must feel crossing over a bridge to Manhattan. He remembered seeing the backdrop of Manhattan when he’d been watching a news presentation. The skyscrapers’ tops had been lit with colored lights, pink and yellow and green, surreal colors that seemed to float behind the news presenter.
When the mini-cab stopped and set Benny down near the Embankment, Melrose felt a pang. He told the boy to wait a minute as he wrote down Boring’s number on the back of one of his old calling cards.
“Just ring me if you need another ride. Or anything.”
“This here says you’re an earl.” Speculatively, Benny looked from the card to Melrose.
“Not I. A friend of mine.” Melrose carried the card for emergencies.
Benny nodded and put it in his pocket and did not move. He was waiting for the car to leave, Melrose guessed, so as not to give away his own movement.
Melrose told the driver, “Mayfair. Boring’s.”
Jury was in the St. James pub leaning against a post when Liza walked in. She was carrying an Oxford Street shopping bag that bristled with ribbon-wrapped boxes. She was wearing an unfashionable black coat and a scarf over her hair, but she still turned heads. Up and down the bar, men swiveled around to get another look. Liza would be married again within a year, he bet, four kids or not. Probably she would have to remarry, no matter how much she still loved Mickey. On her own, merely providing for four kids would be a huge problem; keeping them happy and out of harm’s way with no one to help would be even worse.
“Hello, Richard.” She kissed his cheek; he could have done with more.
“Hello. Let’s go upstairs. There’s nowhere to sit down here. Better yet, you go upstairs while I get you a drink. Lager? Gin and tonic?”
“What I’d really like is a brandy. I’m beat.”
“It’s yours.”
Jury collected the drinks at the bar and made his way upstairs. At the top of the staircase, looking over at her, he thought how much she reminded him of a small girl inside a coat too big for her. She had deposited the shopping bag on one of the chairs. He set down their drinks, a double brandy for her, a pint for himself.
“Thanks. And thanks for asking me here. It was really nice of you.”
He smiled. “Hardly a sacrifice on my part. All I had to do was cross the street.” He gestured behind him in the direction of New Scotland Yard.
“You know what I mean. You see, there are very few people I can talk to-or Mickey himself when it comes to that-because very few know about his cancer. He must really need your help for him to tell you about it.”
“I suppose so. I’m helping as much as I can, Liza.”
“I know.” She had not removed the coat. It was as if every transaction now were so fleeting, it would be useless to settle in to any encounter. She put her hand on the shopping bag. “Buying presents. It’s difficult trying to celebrate. It’s damned difficult looking at all those carefree faces.”
“But they’re not, not really. Look at the suicide rate around Christmas.”
“Then why do we waste all of this energy pretending it’s such a happy time?”
“Is it wasted? I guess I’m of the old ‘assume-a-virtue-if-you-have-it-not’ school.”
She smiled. “Who said that? Shakespeare?”
“Hamlet, I imagine.”
“Why not? He said everything else.” She laughed and sipped her brandy. “I feel better. I expect this is what I needed.”
Jury was quiet, waiting for her to go on. That she needed to talk was painfully obvious. It must be like a punishment, the tragedy you couldn’t talk about.
Liza leaned closer and said, “I’m worried about him, Richard. That must sound ridiculous-of course I’d be worried-but I mean the toll this is taking on him emotionally.”
“But, of course-”
She raised her hand, palm out, as if to push away some easy comfort. “I know what you’re going to say: it’s natural he’d be having emotional swings, but he’s become so involved with this case-it wasn’t even a case when it started, just identifying old bones. And then the murder of this Croft and now it is a case.” Her hand went up to her mouth, to cover it, to try to keep from crying. She took a deep breath and went on. “The thing is, Mickey can’t seem to focus on anything else. What is it about this damned case, Richard? Now, of course, it’s in the City, and the City means Mickey.
It’s devastating to find him mentally elsewhere all of the time, all of the time elsewhere, knowing that in a little while he won’t be anywhere. When I think of a world without Mickey in it-” She stopped. Her fisted hand was over her mouth, denial shaking her head from side to side, sending the tears flying instead of falling.
“Liza, listen. I think I can answer your question. This case, he needs it; he needs to be engulfed by it; he needs something larger than life. It isn’t just this case. It could have been any case. When I talked to him in his office he needed a case that would make him think because he didn’t want to think about himself.”
“He’s taking the case so personally, though.”
“His father was a good friend of Francis Croft. In that way, it is personal.”
“God, what the hell difference does it make if this woman is or isn’t who she says she is? He’s probably wrong anyway.”
“I don’t think so.”
Liza looked surprised. “You mean you think the woman isn’t this man’s daughter?”
“Granddaughter. I don’t think she is, no.”
She sat back, drank the brandy. “It’s just so consuming…” Her voice trailed off.
“So is the disease. Maybe he needs something outside of himself to match it.” It was what he’d said before, different words. He wasn’t convincing Liza, that was plain. He wasn’t convincing himself.
To the frustration of the mini-cab driver, Boring’s, in its narrow Mayfair street, was identifiable only by its number and an old street lamp at the bottom of the steps. Its members apparently felt that if you didn’t know where Boring’s was, you probably shouldn’t be going to it.
Melrose paid the driver a monstrous sum for carting them all over the West End searching for the club and added a monstrous tip because he, Melrose, did not speak Senegalese; he had been quite obliging, at least, from what Melrose could make out.
It was by now a little after seven o’clock. He had his room on the first floor and took the stairs two at a time, feeling quite youthfully athletic after his afternoon in the open air. While he was slamming drawers around looking for his silver cufflinks, he reminded himself the afternoon hadn’t been entirely given over to exercise. There were the intervals around the pond and the beech tree.
In the Members’ Room, several elderly men sat in various stages of predinner expectancy, with their predinner whiskeys or gins. Melrose spotted Colonel Neame in his usual chair by the fire. The feet jutting out from the other wing chair undoubtedly belonged to Major Champs, Colonel Neame’s lifelong friend. He had met both of them last year at about this time; it had been in November. They were fixtures. But then all of the members were pretty much fixtures. A thin blade of fear creased Melrose’s heart as he wondered if he too would become one.
The old men were gazing dreamily into the blazing fire when Melrose walked up and said, “Colonel Neame,” and smiled down at the white-haired man with the rubicund face. “Major Champs,” he said to the other.
Both of them started and began their slow acceleration into speech: “Um… uh… wha… well… um… um. My boy!”
Colonel Neame, his monocle falling from his eye and suspended by its black cord, was the first to utter actual words: “I say-will you look who’s here, Champs! Delighted, delighted!”
Both of them rose to insist Melrose join them. Melrose, on his part, insisted on buying the drinks. This was met with happy-sounding umphs, ums, lovely. Melrose beckoned the young porter over, young by Boring’s standards, all of whose staff were fairly over the hill. His name was Barney and he had bright ginger hair.
Melrose took the club chair on the other side of Major Champs as Barney went off to fetch the drinks. While they waited, they settled down to talk about something or nothing as to health and well-being; it mattered little just as long as drinks were on their way and pipes and cigars were to hand and lighted. Then the drinks came and approval rose from the chairs like smoke signals. Thought need not play much of a role in all of this, but Melrose was about to do it when a familiar voice sounded at his back.
“Good evening, Colonel Neame, Major Champs, Lord Ardry.”
“Ah! Superintendent Jury!” Neame rose and Champs almost did, stopped in midrise by a laborious wheeze.
Neame went on. “We’re relieved it’s only dinner that brings you here tonight and not police business.”
“My presence reminds you of Mr. Pitt, I expect. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, don’t apologize, Superintendent. Everything reminds me.”
“Must you go through that ‘Lord Ardry’ business?”
Jury drank the wine Plant had ordered, a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet which was open and breathing on their table when they walked in. “That’s how those two know you. You’re the one introduced yourself as Lord Ardry. You don’t want to disillusion them, do you?”
Young Higgins tacked their way with a tray of soup.
“Oxblood.”
“No surprise.”
And they didn’t discuss the case until their bowls were empty, Jury ladling up his in less than a minute.
“I’m starving,” he said, then looked at Melrose, who was rummaging in his pockets. “You’re not going to smoke, are you?” His tone was vexed as a teacher’s on having discovered graffiti on her blackboard.
“No-o,” Melrose said, acerbically. “One doesn’t smoke between courses. It’s bad manners. But you always said somebody else smoking didn’t bother you.”
Jury frowned. “Well, it does. For some reason.” He was quite gloomy tonight.
“It’s your friend.”
“What?”
“Your friend, in the City police, this DCI Haggerty. You’re thinking about his smoking and his cancer, even if it is isn’t specifically lung cancer.”
Jury was silent, looking at Melrose. “You’re right. Why didn’t I work that out?”
“Because he’s your friend.” They both took a swallow of wine. “Boring’s wine cellar is up to snuff, I’ll say that.”
Young Higgins was back with their dinners, which he set before them. Roast chicken, peas, potatoes, cauliflower, the vegetables in a silver serving dish. They thanked him appreciatively.
Jury said, “I just had a drink with Liza-that’s his wife. She’s in a bad way.”
“Because of him.”
“Because of him, yes. Not just the cancer itself, but his emotional balance. She says it’s changed.”
“I expect mine would change too if I knew I was going to die in a few months.”
“That’s what I told her.” Jury swallowed the rest of his wine and set the glass down. “I don’t think it’s even going to be a ‘few’ months. I don’t think it’ll be that long.”
Melrose looked at him. “That’s-I’m sorry.”
Jury took a deep breath. “How did you get on at the Lodge?”
“Lovely. Spent a lot of my time with Gemma Trimm. She’s clearly taken with you. As usual.” Melrose sighed.
Jury laughed. “What the hell does that mean? ‘As usual’?”
“Nothing. Listen, little Gemma told me how she could get into the cottage-you know, Kitty Riordin’s-whenever our Kitty comes to Oxford Street for a spot of shopping. She offered to get me in there.”
“I hope you took her up on it.”
Melrose made a face. “No, not right then, at least.”
“You’re a poor candidate for a B and E.”
Smugly, Melrose said, “That’s just what I told her.”
“I see you started out on the right foot with a child. As usual.”
“What’s that mean? ‘As usual’?”
Jury smiled. “Nothing.”
Melrose speared a new potato. “Do you think it’s remotely possible that she could be related? I’m thinking of-”
“Great-granddaughter?” Jury sat back. “The thing is, Oliver Tynedale’s not the sort of man who’d hide the fact this little girl is his great-granddaughter. Whatever the reason for her abandonment-that she was illegitimate, or whatever-it wouldn’t bother him; he’d tell the world.”
“He couldn’t tell the world if he didn’t know it himself.”
“You mean someone maneuvered Gemma into the household?”
“To surprise him in the end; to make him so grateful for this belated piece of knowledge he’d change his will. Remember Kitty Riordin.”
“And now another little child comes along, Gemma Trimm, and the scenario’s basically the same? I just think it unlikely there would be two cases of hidden identity in that house. And in the case of Gemma, Tynedale wouldn’t have to be kept in the dark in order for the interested party to rake in a lot of money. He’d leave it to her in any event.”
“But if there’s truth in this, what if Simon Croft knew it? Wouldn’t that be a reason to get him out of the way?”
“Could be, yes.”
“Speaking of children, did you meet Benny?”
Jury laughed. “I did, yes.”
“And did you speak with his nemesis, the butcher, Gyp? Horrible person.” Melrose told him the story of the birthday cake. “He enjoys making young Benny’s life a misery.”
“Real sadist, it sounds like. I must remember to pay him a visit.”
Melrose surveyed the table. “You’ve eaten everything, even the butter.”
“I was hungry. Maybe I’ll have some more.” Jury craned his neck, looking for Young Higgins.
“Are you putting on weight?”
Jury shrugged. “How would I know? I can’t see myself.”
“There are mirrors.”
“I don’t look in them. Anyway, if I’m getting fat, you-know-who would let me know tout de suite.”
“I don’t know you-know-who.”
“Take my word for it. What’s for dessert?”
When Jury returned to his flat, you-know-who was cooking a fry-up in his kitchen. The mingled scents of sausage, fried bread and Samsura made the air on the first floor landing positively seductive.
Carole-anne was frying away and humming a tune Jury thought he had heard. He tossed his keys in the large glass ashtray that had served him well and was now starved for ashes. He looked at the Christmas tree over in the corner, also starved, but for decorations, and assumed these metaphors were inspired by the action in his kitchen.
“Hey, Super! I’m out here!” called Carole-anne, as if the kitchen hovered somewhere between Islington and the moon. “My cooker quit working again.”
This happened periodically. The landlord, Mr. Moshegiian, had promised her a new cooker, but it hadn’t materialized. Jury assumed there was an honest difficulty here, as Mr. Mosh did not make empty promises to Carole-anne. Few did.
The kitchen swam in the mingled scents of sausage and perfume. He leaned against the doorjamb and said, “It’s nearly eleven; isn’t that kind of late for one of your fry-ups?”
“I was hungry. I’ve been dancing.” She went on humming.
“At the Nine-One-Nine? Stan Keeler doesn’t play dance music.”
“He does sometimes.” She sang a few bars of what she’d been humming. “ ‘My baby don’t care for furs and laces-’ ”
A little hip action here.
“ ‘My baby don’t care for high-toned plaaa-ces!’ ”
Some more hip action.
“That might be danceable coming from U-2, but not from Stan Keeler.” Dancing to Stan’s music would be like trying to glide over shards of glass. He wished she’d sing another couple of lines, though, with a little more hip action.
Carole-anne sighed. “You shouldn’t always be talking about things you don’t know about.”
Always? “And just what else do I not know about besides ‘My baby don’t care for sausage fry-ups’?”
Ignoring him, her humming became a sort of whispered singing as she flipped eggs-four, Jury noticed-“ ‘My baby don’t care for rings… da da de da da da daaaah.’ ”
The fry-up, he had to admit, was beautiful-sausages succulent, fried bread crisp and golden, eggs smooth as silk. It was sort of the taste equivalent of Carole-anne’s looks. Tonight she wore a turquoise blue tank top the color of her eyes and a sequined peachy miniskirt close to the color of her hair. This outfit on another woman would have clashed; on Carole-anne it merely melted like a Caribbean sunset.
She was dividing the contents of the skillet onto two plates.
“I ate dinner. I don’t want any of that artery-clogging meal.” Actually, he did; he was hungry again. It was hard for Carole-anne to look woebegone, given her dramatic coloring, but if she tried really hard, she could. On the spatula lay a beautifully fried egg. “Well, maybe just a little,” he said.
She smiled and slid the egg onto his plate, removing one of the two sausages from his plate to hers.
“No, no. Put that sausage back. I can manage two. Just.” He adored sausages.
Plates loaded, they went into his living room and sat down, Carole-anne at the end of the sofa near the starved tree. “That tree wants trimming, Super. You got some little blue and white lights somewhere, don’t you? Mrs. W has hers all done up with snow and tinsel over the lights and a silver star on top. It’s lovely.” When he just went on eating a sausage, she shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to do it as you’re not in a very Christmasy mood, are you?”
“I was the one who went and got the trees, remember?” He’d bought a large one for Mrs. Wasserman, a small one for himself, a smaller one yet for Carole-anne, since she had a studio on the top floor and little room.
Still, she looked sad at its unencumbered state. It was a bit shabby, Jury thought, a secondhand tree. He had waited too long and the shapely ones were gone.
“It needs lights, it needs color.”
“Go stand by it.”
She frowned over a wedge of fried bread. “Is that a compliment? I can never tell.”
Jury sniggered over his bread.
“Anyway, there’s a surprise present Mrs. W wants. Oh, and me, I want one, too. I said I’d tell you what it was.”
“If you tell me, then where’s the surprise?”
“Right now, before I tell you. What we want is that you take us to see The Mousetrap.”
He just looked at her.
“You know. That Agatha Christie play that’s been here for years and years.”
Dashing her hopes, Jury said, “I’ve seen it.” He did not add that it was so long ago he couldn’t remember it.
Carole-anne was the only woman he’d ever seen make a significant gesture out of hands-on-hips sitting down. “You could see it again.”
“I didn’t know you liked mysteries. You’re even reading an Agatha Christie.” He nodded toward the book on the coffee table. Books were not Carole-anne’s raison d’être.
She picked up the book, tossed it down. “That’s just to study up on before we see the play.”
Study up on Agatha Christie before one sees her? Well, one might read Dante before going to Florence or T. S. Eliot before visiting Burnt Norton. “I don’t like mysteries, love; there’s already too much mystery in my own life.”
“Life? Mysteries don’t have anything to do with life! They’re completely unlife; they’re nonlife. There’s no relation to reality at all.”
Jury felt as if he should defend this sorry genre. “Some of them do, don’t they?”
“No. So if that’s why you don’t like them, well, you can stop now.”
How was it her argument was so inherently refutable, yet he could think of no refutation?
“I called and they had tickets for the week between Christmas and New Year’s?” It was put as a question; her look implored.
Jury was surprised she’d resisted buying them.
“You will, won’t you, Super?”
Of course, he’d take them. To tell the truth, he sometimes thought they were all in the same boat, whatever that might be. “I’ll think about it.” Her expression implored, but he refused to capitulate to that deep turquoise look, at least not immediately.
Carole-anne speared a sausage bite and continued. “We decided we’d have Christmas dinner at Mrs. W’s instead of here.”
By “here” she meant Jury’s own flat. Looking around his small living room and the round table covered with a runner that would seat one comfortably, he said, “Can’t imagine why. But why not go out to someplace where the furniture is actually geared to people sitting down and eating?”
She looked blank.
“A restaurant.”
Nearly tilting a rasher of bacon and fried bread from her plate when she sat up, shocked, she said, “On Christmas Day? You must be daft.”
“Well, there must be a whole host of the daft out there because a lot of people eat out. Saves cooking, washing up, talking to people you have nothing to say to, et cetera, et cetera.”
“I should certainly hope you don’t mean our Mrs. W.”
That he might mean Carole-anne was beyond all reason. He smiled. “Of course not. I love talking to both of you.”
She resumed her eating.
He spiked a bite of sausage with his fork. “I’d better stop eating so much. I’m getting fat.” He glanced at her to see how she’d take this.
“You? Fat. Oh, don’t be daft. If you were getting fat I’d be the first one to tell you.”
He smiled. “Wasn’t there one more sausage?”
The next morning, Jury stopped by Mrs. Wasserman’s garden flat. It was “garden” only by virtue of its being lower ground floor and its promise of opening out onto great vistas in the rear of the house. But that remained only a promise, much like the one for the new cooker. The flat could have been as easily (and more honestly) called “basement.”
Mrs. Wasserman opened the door-or rather “undid” it-as there was much unbolting and sliding of locks and chains before it opened.
“Mr. Jury!” She clasped the collar of her chenille robe together. Her hair was still rolled and under wraps-didn’t that bonnet she was wearing used to be called a mob cloth? She said, “Pardon me for looking so-deshabillé. Is that the word?”
It was, but Mrs. Wasserman wasn’t it. Carole-anne was it, a lot of the time. Jury smiled. “You look exactly like you should a little after eight A.M.” He regarded the flowered cap.
She followed his glance and explained. “Carole-anne thought my hair would look nicer with just a bit of color. She thought it would give me more of the demi-monde look.”
Where was Carole-anne picking up these words? Hanging around Tony and Guy’s salon in her off hours? The thing that amused him was that they were archaic.
“As far as I’m concerned, you don’t need a new look. I like the old one, especially your hair.” She had lovely hair-not gray, not white. Platinum. “But then I expect we all get bored with the way we look.”
“Come in, come in, Mr. Jury. I’m leaving you standing in the cold.” With a strong gesturing of her arm, as if she would encompass all of him, she waved him into the flat. “I wanted you to see my tree, anyway. I just put the kettle on; I hope you’ll have a cup of tea.”
“Thanks, I’d like that.” He watched her go off to the kitchen and turned to look at the tree. Mrs. Wasserman had always been as much Christian as Jew; he remembered years ago her discomfort at this, as if she were doing something neither Christian nor Jew would ever countenance. Jury had the impression that her mother had not been a Jew, but this had not saved either of them from the concentration camps.
The tree was as beautiful as Carole-anne had said. White lights winked behind shimmering tinsel, patches of cotton looked amazingly real and a big silver star glittered in the reflected light. Beneath the tree were several presents, wrapped in a paper he wasn’t used to seeing anymore, figures of skaters on ponds, of families joining hands around the Christmas tree, of people singing carols. The colors were dull reds, browns and greens. Nothing glittered, nothing shone. In among the faded packages sat a small crèche, and he crouched down to get a closer look. The little wooden figures he could almost hold in the palm of his hand, including the three Wise Men and the camel. The lamb, the goat and the dog stood as he supposed they always would.
He was suddenly drawn back to that pub near Durham called Jerusalem Inn, and the little girl-Chrissie? Was that her name? Her doll had been enlisted to play the role of the Christ child. Chrissie had not liked that, and had kept taking the doll away. Scenes came to him in a rush-that Christmas at Old Hall, Helen Minton and that long expanse of sea and beach in Sunderland. He was flooded with memories; he could barely breathe for the sudden sharp pain. It was ridiculous, absurd. He tried to laugh but had no breath for it and the effort only made the pain get worse. This is not the way it’s supposed to happen. Wondering if the weight of memory was killing him, he took shallow breaths. Breath that barely touched the diaphragm. God, but he felt woozy: was he going to faint? He didn’t move. The pain stopped just as suddenly as it had started.
He forced his eyes open and looked at the crèche and waited for his head to come round, his thoughts to clear. The pain, he thought, was too sudden and swift to be serious. He was still crouched down, looking at the crèche. Chrissie made him think of Gemma, Gemma out in the greenhouse in the dark, the greenhouse itself lighted, the light pooling below the windows, shadows looming like closet monsters.
“Here’s tea, Mr. Jury. I used my Fortnum and Mason Christmas tea.” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “But are you all right, Mr. Jury?” She put a delicate hand on his shoulder as he crouched there.
He rose tentatively to his feet. “I’m fine, Mrs. Wasserman; I was just admiring your crèche.” He accepted the cup of tea she held out to him.
“You know, I’ve had it forever, since I was a girl. Yes, I know it sounds impossible I could have kept it through all that happened. How I kept it in the camp was to hide the pieces on me-down my front, Mary under my scarf, the Wise Men in my socks and shoes. It’s a miracle they never found them. I only lost one camel.”
Jury smiled. “One camel. I guess I could live with that.”
Looking at him, she said with all the mildness in the world, “But you never had to, Mr. Jury.”
He knew it was not a reproach; she would never reproach him. It was a simple statement of fact, but he felt it nonetheless, what separated them, an unbridgeable gulf.
He raised his teacup. “Land of hope and glory, Mrs. Wasserman.”
“Happy Christmas, Mr. Jury.”
“Get your skates on, Wiggins, we’re going to Southwark. I need your fine-tuning.”
Wiggins had just set down the telephone receiver and picked up a glass of gummy-looking pink liquid. “Fine-tuning, sir?”
Jury was at his desk now, sorting through a sheaf of papers from Fraud and routed through Chief Superintendent Racer to Jury. Thinking aloud, Jury said, “What the hell’s he trying to fit up Danny Wu for now?” Danny, he bet, was running something on the side, but it wasn’t arms, opium or hookers.
Wiggins tried again. “Fine-tuning you said?”
“Huh?” Jury skimmed several papers off the top of the pile and shoved the others in a file drawer. “That’s right, Wiggins. Have they still got you shackled to that Greenwich case?”
Wiggins smiled. “Still shackled, sir, but nothing’s stirring at the moment.”
“Good. Southwark is where we’re going as soon as Racer disses me for whatever’s on the menu today. What I need is your well-nuanced, closely calibrated method of interviewing.”
“Well, thank you, but when it comes to questioning witnesses, there’s nobody better than you, and I mean that.”
“Wrong, Wiggins. You are.” Jury flashed him a smile and left the office.
“Two more murders in Limehouse.” Racer seethed. “Obviously gang related and you’re resting on the laurels of that Brixton shoot-out. Since when did you start carrying a gun, Jury?”
“Since the assistant commissioner’s last decree.”
“You carrying now?”
“Of course not.”
“Too bad. You could’ve put a bullet in that cat. He’s in here, somewhere. I can smell him.” Then Racer went on about Brixton and Limehouse while Jury’s eyes scanned the room.
A new piece of furniture had been delivered and occupied a space near the library shelves, behind whose bottom doors Racer kept his supply of whiskey. It was locked up as tight as a crowd of Millwall supporters at a match. This had not been done to keep out people, but to keep out the cat Cyril.
Jury would have been delighted to give Cyril a home-so would Fiona, so would Wiggins-but removing him from these offices would so seriously curtail Cyril’s activities, it would be cruel. Racer had tried every way imaginable of getting rid of Cyril-poisoning, trapping, electrocuting. The bowl of milk on the floor with the live wires running into it hadn’t worked either, surprise, surprise.
The doors of the secretary were open, revealing a line-up of little cubbyholes, much like the ones behind a hotel desk into which mail and keys are slotted. Behind the cubbyholes was empty space. Jury knew this well, remembering a similar piece of furniture in Trueblood’s antiques; that one had housed a dead body. The cubbyholes were no doubt intended to house little writerly items such as quills, wax, ink or cat’s eye. This is what Jury saw peering from behind a cubbyhole. The eye looked at him and then moved on to another hole. Jury smiled.
(Not for long.) “Jury!”
Jury flinched. “Sir!”
“I can do without your damned sarcasm today. You’ve been working on that murder in the City that’s none of our business-”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but it is our business now as the City police asked us for help.” Well, me, at least.
“They don’t need our help. They’ve got their own little fiefdom there.”
Jury scratched down a number, tore it from his notebook and handed it across the desk. “Call DCI Michael Haggerty and he’ll tell you.”
“Then why in hell didn’t this go through me?”
“An oversight, I expect.”
“You’re doing nothing about this Dan Wu business. Except eating for free at his restaurant.”
“His restaurant is where he is nearly all the time.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got to stuff yourself with spring rolls and Jeweled Duck just to talk to him.”
“You’ve been there yourself, I see.”
Racer flapped a dismissive hand. “I want you working more closely with Limehouse police on this.”
“To coin a phrase, they don’t need our help.”
“Oh, yes they do.” Racer was getting up and into his black vicuña coat. “Get over there. See if there’s anything new-I’m late!” He looked at his watch and stormed toward the door.
“Christmas shopping, sir?”
Racer was through the outer office and slamming the door behind him.
Jury moved over to the secretaire, knocked twice on the loose top and said, “All clear.”
He was talking to Fiona Clingmore, who was busy with an overhaul of her face-green eyeshadow, blush, mascara-when Cyril ambled in, looking as if he headed a royal procession, looking as if his brilliant copper fur were a robe of state.
Fiona said to the cat, “You’ve been in that desk again, haven’t you? Don’t look for sympathy here if he catches you.” She clicked her compact shut.
Cyril yawned. He sat with his tail lapped about his legs and gave Jury and Fiona slow blinks. He was sitting in a patch of sunlight and when the sun wavered, he sparked. Why would he bother with live wires, being one himself?
“Have you ever had a heart attack, Wiggins?”
They were driving across Southwark Bridge, Jury looking out over the gray and wind-troubled Thames.
“Me? Heart attack? My god, no. Why?”
“I thought I might be having one this morning. I mean even before I went to Racer’s office.”
“What kind of pain? A squeezing one?”
“No. Sharp. Just very sharp. It hurt to breathe. It didn’t last longer than a minute, probably not even that.”
“That sounds like heartburn, indigestion. Or a panic attack.”
“Why would I be having a panic attack?”
“Don’t know. Too much on your plate, maybe.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
They were silent for a moment, then Wiggins gave a little bark of laughter. “If I was having a heart attack, believe me, you’d have heard about it.”
Jury smiled. And heard. And heard.
Barkins opened the door, clearly displeased to see policemen again. Jury told him he wished to see Maisie Tynedale. The butler sighed. Any time, night or day, you people call. Scotland Yard simply doesn’t care. You run rough shod over everyone. “Nothing,” said Barkins, in his most disapproving tone, “must stand in the way of a police investigation.”
“Good of you to recognize that. Most people aren’t so obliging,” said Wiggins, unwinding his endless black wool scarf.
Barkins looked as if he’d choke, and Jury wondered if Wiggins was making a rare foray into irony. “Thanks,” he said, “I’ll keep it.” Jury was referring to his coat, which Barkins had made no move to take.
“If you’ll just wait, sir, I shall see if she’s available.” Barkins swanned off toward the double door to their right, knocked and entered. He was back in a tic, telling them Miss Tynedale would see them.
“Just me,” said Jury. “Sergeant Wiggins will go with you to the kitchen, where he’ll have questions for the staff.”
Barkins stiffened even more and informed them that Mrs. MacLeish was extremely busy with all of the Christmas preparations.
Wiggins drew out his notebook and flapped it a couple of times in front of Barkins.
Heaving a great sigh, Barkins said, “Oh, very well.” To Jury he said. “I’ll just show you in-”
“Never mind; I can find my own way.”
“Superintendent Jury.”
“Miss Tynedale. How are you?”
“I’m all right.” Her hand gestured to a chair, which Jury took. She sat behind the desk in the window embrasure, as she had before. Through the window Jury could see the brittle winter garden-sacking covering the more delicate plants, flowerbeds mulched down, roses and rhododendron cut back, hanging matting over the climbing vines on the garden wall. It should have looked bleak, but it didn’t, not to Jury. The colonnade, the white arbor, the weak sunlight to him looked romantic.
“You said you weren’t surprised that Mrs. Riordin didn’t marry again.” Jury wondered if her eyes grew wary, or if it was simply his imagination. She flicked a lighter before he came up with the folder of matches he carried about for old time’s sake.
Maisie frowned. “Her husband walked out on her.”
Jury thought that rather an oblique answer. “Are you suggesting that because of the way her husband treated her, she couldn’t trust any man?”
“It’s possible.” With a degree of impatience, she pushed her chair back. “I don’t see what Kitty’s marrying or not has to do with Simon’s murder.”
“I don’t either. But I think it does have to do with Mrs. Riordin’s devotion to the Tynedale family. You’d hardly disagree that she is devoted to all of you.”
“I’d say it was an exceptionally nice position. I told you before: Grandfather was so grateful I was alive, he’d have given her almost anything. Look, you have no idea what the loss of my mother meant to him.”
“I think I do.” Jury paused. “I want to talk some more about Gemma Trimm. What about these alleged attempts on her life?”
Maisie laughed. “Gemma has an overactive imagination.”
“She’d better, since she’s all by herself. A bullet shattering the glass of the greenhouse isn’t really explained by imagination, now is it?”
She hesitated. “Police thought it might just be a stray bullet-”
“Someone hunting the queen’s deer in Southwark, you mean?”
Maisie gave Jury a look and a strained smile. “The police said it was probably ‘some kid got hold of his dad’s gun.’ Those were his words. But then there was that night when she swore somebody was trying to smother her and then somebody was trying to poison her. Why would anyone try to kill that child?”
Jury didn’t answer.
“And why do you need to know all of this in relation to Simon’s murder, though?”
“It’s family history. Family history might be helpful. You’ve employed a new gardener, have you?” Jury nodded toward the window. Melrose Plant was passing by carrying a bucket in each hand.
“What?” She turned. “Oh, him. Yes. Ian just hired him. I don’t know how he’d heard I wanted one; he simply came here and applied. Our main gardener thinks he’s quite good, if a little overeducated.” Her short laugh was edgy. “You certainly do switch the conversation around.”
“It isn’t conversation.” Jury drew a notebook from his inside pocket. “He replaced another gardener-a Jenny Gessup?” He flipped the notebook shut. “I’d like to talk to Miss Gessup.”
Maisie sat down again. “Why?”
“Did she give notice? Or did you sack her?”
She flinched. “Neither. She just didn’t turn up for work one day.”
“When was this?”
“Back in October”
“How long did she work here?”
“Six months, perhaps. You can ask Angus Murphy, he’d be more exact as to times. He’d remember where she lived, too. She wasn’t much good, you know.”
“Meaning?”
“She wasn’t really interested. She was careless and somewhat lazy, although she did stay sometimes until after dark. The thing is, she’d sometimes be out in the greenhouse late, just as an excuse to stay after dark and I believe she’d come into the house and, well, go through things, papers, that sort of thing, not that she ever took anything; at least I never missed anything. She was a bit of a flirt, too.”
“With whom?”
“Ian, for one. I know, I know he’s far too old for the likes of Jenny Gessup to be flirting with. But he looks much younger than he is, and with some women, age makes no difference.”
“It would make a lot if she could interest him. He’s a wealthy man.”
“That’s just ridiculous. For a man like Ian-” She made a dismissive gesture. “And she kept flirting with Archie, kept him from his work. Archie Milbank, he’s employed to do a little of everything. Maintenance things.”
She turned and Jury saw her profile outlined in pale gold light. Her dark hair was webbed with it. She looked much younger than she was, too; they all did. With some people, the older they grew, the more elusive time became. To a young person, fifty would seem antique. If only the young knew how quickly they’d come to it.
Jury said, “Simon Croft’s sister Emily. She lived here, with you, at least for a while” When all he got was a nod of the head, he went on. “She’s living in an assisted-living facility in Brighton?” Jury loved the euphemism.
“Emily. Yes, she is.”
“Why? You could afford in-house care, if that’s what was needed.”
Her arms folded, she turned to him. “I can’t explain that very easily. Of course, we could afford home care. Emily has a steadily worsening heart condition, but it doesn’t require constant monitoring, at least not yet. Her doctor wanted someone around, though, in case of emergency. She refused to have anyone in her flat, so we asked her to come here. Occasionally, she returns to the flat, but not for long.”
“You’re right, that doesn’t explain it.”
Maisie sighed, played with the curtain’s tassel. “Emily and Kitty just didn’t get along.”
Jury waited, assuming there must be more. When there wasn’t he said, “Mrs. Riordin is staff. Instead of turning out a member of the staff, you’d turn out a woman who is, for all intents and purposes, family?”
She flushed. By way of defense, she went on about the “facility.” “The place is quite lovely. She has her own rooms, so she’s really independent.”
Jury hated this sort of rationalizing. “I don’t see how, if her living has to be assisted.”
“Yes. Well. St. Andrew’s Hall, it’s called.”
“I know. I’ve been there.”
Maisie was astonished. “Been there? Then you’ve already talked to Emily. I’m sure she told you about her condition. Why are you asking me these questions?”
“Police do that sort of thing.” His smile was chilly.
“Granddad wouldn’t hear of Kitty’s leaving. I’ve told you how attached he was to her.”
This didn’t sound like the Oliver Tynedale Jury had met. He would never have allowed one of the Crofts to leave because Kitty Riordin didn’t like her. “Did he know?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did your grandfather know the reason for Emily Croft’s leaving?”
“No.”
There was a silence while, Jury imagined, she examined this cold-blooded removal of a woman who was probably surrogate aunt to her. More than that he wondered at the influence over the family Kitty Riordin had achieved.
“It’s really quite a nice place, St. Andrew’s Hall. It overlooks the sea. I’ve always thought the sea a sort of balm to the soul.”
Jury rose. “So did Virginia Woolf. For a while.”
Small deposits of the recent snow had been driven between the colonnade’s white pillars and clung to the cypresses that lined the path across the way. From one of the closely packed branches an icicle dropped silently to the leaf-packed ground.
Gemma was sitting on the same bench she and Jury had shared two days ago, the one closed in on two sides by lattice. This bench and the seat in the beech tree seemed to be her favorite places. She sat with her doll, dressed up this time in trousers and shirt much too big and a scrap of red material as a neckerchief.
“Hello, Gemma. Remember me?”
“Yes. You’re the policeman.”
“That’s right. Richard Jury.”
With some gravity she said, lifting up the doll, “His name’s Richard, too. You can sit down if you want.”
“Thanks.” Jury sat down and picked up the doll from where she had lain it. He looked at it for some time.
“Does he look okay?” said Gemma. “I know his pants are way too big.”
She sounded anxious about the doll’s transformation from supposed female to supposed male. “Oh, yes, he’s fine. I was just thinking-”
Gemma’s eyes, wide and dark, seemed to implore him not to think about the doll, or at least not too much.
“-thinking how nice it must be to be a doll.”
Her expression changed to simple curiosity. “Why?”
“Well, you can be pretty much anything you want to be.”
Curiosity changed to doubt. “No, he can’t. Not if I don’t want him to be.”
Jury made no comment. This apparently made her more anxious still and she edged closer to him. He said, “That’s true, in a way, but remember: you don’t know everything about him. Only some things.”
This giving the doll a life of its own didn’t sit well with her. Her frown was deep as she lay her hand on the doll’s chest, very near Jury’s fingers.
“Remember how you thought this doll was a girl?”
Gemma rushed in to say, “He can be either.”
“Yes, but you didn’t really know that then.”
Her mouth worked with possible answers to this charge, but she came up with nothing.
“All I’m saying is, you might want Richard here to have some sort of identification.” Jury took out his and showed her. “Like this.”
The thought seemed to fill her with wonder. “You mean Richard’s a policeman?”
“Could be, but I’m only guessing. Plain clothes, of course. A detective, more likely.”
Full of this idea, especially since she’d already thought of it, Gemma studied Jury’s ID. “How can he get one?”
“I expect I could fit him up with one from Scotland Yard.”
Gemma looked thoroughly bowled over by this. She took the doll Richard back and looked him over carefully to see if there might be any flaws in his detective persona.
“Of course,” Jury went on, “he might want to ask you questions.”
“Like what?” She looked sharply at Jury.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged.
There was a period of silence while Gemma looked off in the distance, thinking. “I bet he wants to know about when I was in the greenhouse and somebody shot at me. They missed.”
“Yes, I remember you told me that. It must have been frightening.”
“It was. I’m still scared about it because that’s not all!”
There was a silence. Gemma studied the doll. Finally she whispered to Jury, “Isn’t he going to ask me what else?”
“I think he did. You just didn’t hear him.”
“Oh. Well, the rest is someone came in my bedroom and tried to smother me!”
There was another silence.
She said, “He’s not a very good detective.”
“He hasn’t been at it very long.”
“Well, he should ask me if I was asleep when it happened.”
Jury held the doll to his ear and nodded. “That’s what he’s asking.” Then Jury made a point of looking around at the lattice work, at the beech tree and at Melrose Plant, down at the other end with Angus Murphy, both of them dumping buckets of something onto the ground. “Richard has to keep his voice low because you don’t know who might hear. Look down there.” Jury nodded in the direction of the two gardeners.
“That’s only Ambrose. He’s okay. He’s the new gardener,” said Gemma, her voice low. “He’s pretty nice but he argues a lot. His eyes are really green.”
Ambrose? “Hmm. You’re sure they’re not just green contact lenses? He could be in disguise.”
Gemma’s mouth crimped up like an old lady’s at a particularly juicy piece of gossip. “I thought there was something funny about him when he wouldn’t baptize Richard.”
Jury made a sound meant to dismiss the gardener’s expertise. Then he said, “But about your being asleep-”
“It woke me up! Would it wake you up if somebody was choking you?”
“Fast.”
She dropped Richard (who Jury moved quickly enough to catch) and turned her hands so that she could encircle her neck. She stuck her tongue out and made choking noises.
“Terrible!” said Jury. “I wonder you could get the hands off you.”
Gemma missed a beat or two and said, “Oh, they just went away.”
“But then how about being smothered?”
Suddenly recalling this important detail, she said, “That’s right, the hands came back and picked up a pillow and smothered me. I only just managed to bump the pillow off.”
“Thank God. You must be strong.”
Uninterested in her strength and the subject of smothering, she gave a shrug and said, “I guess.”
There came another silence which she broke finally by saying in a fluting voice, “Well? Well? Isn’t Richard going to ask?”
Jury scratched his ear and looked at Richard (who looked supremely indifferent). He was thoughtful while Gemma started jumping as if she could hardly wait to tell the rest of her story. “You mean, what happened next?”
“Yes!” She took Richard from Jury’s hands and looked at him gravely. “I was almost poisoned.”
“I remember that. And the cook very nearly quit.”
“Benny told me about the way this family in Italy used to poison each other. The Medicines. They’d keep poison in all sorts of places, like in a ring. And when the victim was about to drink, they’d click open the ring and dump the poison in. That’s what happened.”
“To you?” When she nodded, Jury said, “The poison was in a ring someone was wearing?”
Emphatically, Gemma nodded.
“But you don’t know who?”
This time she shook her head, just as emphatically, sending her hair swinging like leaves in the wind. She had finished and was now rearranging Richard’s neckerchief.
“That’s really some story.” Jury brought out his small notebook and the stub of a pencil he kept telling himself to throw away. “Here.”
She frowned. “What’s that for?”
“For your statement. That’s what it’s called, a statement. What you do now is write down whatever happened. Didn’t Richard tell you about this?”
Her mouth gaped. “No!”
“Then he’s very lax. Witnesses always have to write their stories down, make their statements.”
“But I’ve already stated!”
“Yes, to me. But it has to be written down, if that’s what actually happened.”
Gemma looked horrified. “It’ll take days to write it. Months! I don’t write very good.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Scotland Yard sees all sorts of writing.”
Gemma gave Richard a sharp rap against the lattice. “Nobody ever told me, not those police who came, they never told me.”
Jury sighed. “That’s too bad; they should’ve taken your statement.”
She was clearly angry with Richard and gave him back to Jury. She stood there, arms folded, looking at the notebook Jury held, and the pencil. “You said, ‘whatever happened.’ ”
“That’s right. We’d hardly need a statement of what didn’t happen.”
Gemma scratched her elbows. “Well, maybe some of it didn’t. Some of it could’ve been-you know-like a bad dream. Like the choking part. It did wake me up, I mean I thought it did, but maybe I was dreaming it all and got mixed up.”
“Hmm.” Jury grew thoughtful again. “That’s certainly possible.”
“And the smothering part, too. It was as if it’d happened. It felt real.”
“If it was a dream, well, of course, you wouldn’t need to put it in a statement.”
With her hands on his knees for support, she jigged on one leg, then the other, kicking her feet back.
“What about the poison, then? Could you have dreamed that, too?”
She shook her head. Dark leaves swirled as she bounced from one foot to another. “I was… just… thinking about what Benny told me… so much… I must’ve… thought it… happened.”
“Well, yes, I can see that.”
She stopped, a sober look on her face. “But the shooting really did happen.”
“Yes, there’s proof of that. You said you went to the greenhouse. Tell me, did Jenny Gessup ever go out there?”
“Sometimes she did, but she’s gone.” Hence, scarcely worth the breath to talk about.
“Was Richard with you in the greenhouse?” Jury gave the doll a pat.
“Yes, except he wasn’t Richard yet. He was-Ruth or Rebecca or Rachael or Rose or Rhonda…” She shrugged.
Richard’s tenure on earth as a girl still gave Gemma trouble. Jury was glad the litany of names ended.
She said, “If it’d been Richard, then he could have caught whoever did it.”
“That’s right. You turned the light on when you went in?”
Clasping Richard to her chest, she said, “I had to see, didn’t I? I only turned one on, anyway.”
“What happened then?”
“I heard a kind of crack, then the window broke and glass scattered everywhere. Then it was like a mosquito whrr’d past me. I got down.”
“That was smart.”
The corners of her mouth stretched down, indicating exasperation at being questioned yet again. “I guess I have to write a statement about being shot at.”
Jury was looking off across the garden, where Melrose was dumping another bucket into the flowerbed. Mulch, maybe. “You know what? If you tell this to-what’s your new gardener’s name?”
“Ambrose.” Looking in the same direction, she squinted.
“Tell Ambrose and he can write it down. As soon as he’s finished his garden chores, of course.”
Although this arrangement was preferable to writing herself, there were still reservations. “He’ll just argue about every little thing.”
“He can’t. He wasn’t here, after all. He didn’t witness it.”
“He’ll still say I saw it the wrong way round.”
Jury didn’t know what to make of this little conundrum. “I’ll tell him just to write down what you say and not argue about it.”
Gemma murmured, “He won’t pay any attention.”
“If you think I’m going to carry buckets until you sort all this, well-”
They were standing near the greenhouse. “You’re doing the job so well I’d say you were a natural-ow!”
Melrose had just dropped a bucket of fertilizer on Jury’s foot. “Oh, sorry about that.”
Jury rubbed at his ankle. “Sure. Now, what did Angus Murphy have to say about this Jenny Gessup?”
“Unreliable, useless, uninterested, or, as he put it, in a state of desuetude.”
“Funny word to be using.”
“Isn’t it? He says she didn’t have the strength for some of the jobs, such as carrying buckets for hours on end. This-” Melrose said of the bucket on the ground “-must be the dozenth today.”
“What’s in it?”
“Who cares? Fertilizer, I expect.”
“Listen: I want you to write down the account of the shooting Gemma’s going to tell you.”
“What? What? That would be one of the labors of Hercules, I suppose you know. And if she’s told you already, why-”
“Because sometimes details turn up with repetition. You know that. She might mention something left out of what she told me.”
Melrose frowned. “What about the poisoning and the choking?”
“That didn’t happen. I suspected that. The shooting clearly did. Being shot at gave her bad dreams, and the choking, smothering business was only that. A dream. The poisoning didn’t happen either; it was the result of someone’s talking about poisoning in general.”
“But that still leaves the question, why shoot her?”
“No, it doesn’t, not if that was the only attempt made.”
“Sorry, I don’t follow.”
“Gemma might not have been the target. People assumed she was because of these other two fictionalized attempts. If they hadn’t occurred, police would have brought up the other possibility: it wasn’t Gemma.”
“Then… who and why?”
“One of two things might have happened: it could have been a prearranged meeting in the greenhouse between the shooter and his or her target-just to get the person out of the house probably. Or the shooter saw someone in the greenhouse, thought the person was the target, took the opportunity and got a gun. An impulse. As I said, those are just possibilities. But it wasn’t necessarily Gemma the shooter was after.”
“Good lord, you’re not suggesting it was old Angus Murphy?”
“No. He’s still around after several months. Had it been Murphy he’d most likely be dead by now. My guess is Jenny Gessup, who I’m going to see as soon as I can gather up Wiggins.”
Melrose bent, cursing, to pick up the bucket. “The antiques appraiser was chicken feed to this.”
“With that attitude, you’ll never make first base at the Chelsea Flower Show.” Jury turned to leave. “And don’t forget to take down that statement.”
Melrose called to Jury’s swift departure, “All she’ll do is argue.”
Jury smiled. Full circle.
In the kitchen, a tea party appeared to be in progress, with Sergeant Wiggins at the center of things. Around the table also sat an elderly but robust-looking woman who must be the cook, two young ones who were probably maids and a thin, acne-scarred lad who would have been a groom, if there’d been horses. Leaving that occupation, Jury imagined he was Archie Milbank, who did odd jobs under the gimlet eye of Barkins, who was not present at the table.
The kitchen was wonderfully massive and cozy at the same time, partly owing to an inglenook fireplace blazing away as if initiating the Great Fire of London. It was flanked by a large industrial-size Aga and a modern column which housed a microwave oven and what looked like a rotisserie. The cook was not hurting for modern conveniences.
When Jury walked in, Wiggins rose and the others looked at Jury with simple delight, as if he were one of the Wise Men come with a bucket of frankincense. (Jury had trouble getting that image of Melrose Plant out of his mind.)
Jury’s smile only increased the general air of beneficence as Wiggins introduced him around the table. Here was Mrs. MacLeish, cook; Rachael Brown, maid; Clara Mount, cook’s helper; Archie Milbank, “maintenance.”
Jury thanked Mrs. MacLeish for the mug of tea she was pressing into his hand and asked if he could have a word with her. Of course, of course. They went to Barkins’s little sitting room.
“First,” said Jury, “I’m awfully sorry about Mr. Croft. You knew him from childhood, didn’t you?”
Her eyes grew glassy with tears, against which she drew a handkerchief from her apron. “I did that, yes. Mr. Simon was a lovely man, just lovely. Like the rest of the family, scarcely ever a cross word.”
“It’s been suggested he was afraid of someone or something. Did you get that impression?”
She frowned. “He did seem not to want to see people, or at least some people. I thought it was because of that book he was writing. Spending all his time on that, he was. Of course, I never did see him much as I went to the house only twice a week to do the cooking. Mr. Simon wasn’t big on cooking for himself. Sometimes he got Partridge’s to cater. I do know he got that policeman-a friend of the family, he was-to stop in every once in a while. So I expect he could’ve been afraid, couldn’t he? Maybe it was for some of those valuable paintings and things?”
“Possibly, yes.”
Jury thanked her and rose.
They were in the car with Wiggins thumbing through his notes. As always, they were copious. “According to Mrs. MacLeish, who went to Simon Croft’s house to prepare meals for him, the only people who got inside the house were the grocer and your DCI Michael Haggerty. Maisie Tynedale called. But Croft did not want her inside and told Mrs. MacLeish to say he was busy with work that couldn’t be interrupted. He had taken to doing this several weeks before.”
“This is the paranoia we’ve been hearing about?”
“Yes. She says the policeman-meaning DCI Haggerty-had a cup of tea with her in the kitchen when he came round, and so did the grocer, a Mr. Smith. Anyway, they had tea-”
“Occupational hazard.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
“-had their tea and a good chat.”
“About what?”
“Oh, the new millennium dome. I was telling you-”
“Yes, yes.” The last thing Jury wanted was for Wiggins to get stuck on that. He wondered if he’d last until the millennium.
“What it looks like is Simon Croft could have been suspicious of any of them, anyone in the family.”
“Good thinking on his part. So am I. You know, I don’t get this: here’s Croft with money enough to be catered for by Partridge’s or Fortnum and Mason. Why would he be using Mrs. MacLeish to cook his meals?”
Wiggins gave a smart little nod and said, with authority, “I can answer that, sir, I believe. Mrs. MacLeish has cooked for the Tynedales and the Crofts for decades, ever since the older men were young ones. Simon Croft has always depended on her and wouldn’t give it up, not for love nor money. He was spoiled. They’re all spoiled, if I’m any judge. They get used to how things were done a long time ago and they’re not about to change that.”
“It sounds almost incestuous. That’s the trouble with closely knit families; they don’t know when the hell to stop.”
Dulwich always surprised Jury. It was a real village within the Greater London area, home of Dulwich College and one of the best picture galleries in the country.
The house Jenny Gessup lived in was a small, attractive, yellow painted-brick one, with front garden given over to winter despoilment: hedges straggly, earth stone hard, flowers gone, probably some time ago.
Jury raised the brass dolphin-shaped door knocker several times. Finally, a young woman opened the door. She was short, with a trim build and delicate cheekbones. She did not appear to be one to handle wheelbarrows and buckets, but apparently had, as Angus Murphy hadn’t complained about her lack of ability, only her laziness. Her hair was a hybrid grayishbrown the color of tree trunks. She did not appear best pleased to find two strangers on her doorstep.
“Miss Gessup?”
“It’s with a hard G like “guess,” not like “Jesus.”
Jury could tell she was delighted at being able immediately to take them to task. He smiled. “I’m Richard Jury with a J. Exactly like ‘Jesus.’ ” He showed her his identification.
Jenny Gessup’s face was red. “You’re public servants; you ought not to get smart with those who pay your salary.” She flung the door wide and marched herself into her sitting room, leaving the two of them to find their way by following their noses. They did.
Jury made himself comfortable on a small sofa slipcovered in lavender linen. The color on walls and woodwork was a pastel, a faded peach; chairs were covered in stronger garden colors: delphinium blue, daffodil yellow. It was as if summer had retreated here, having lost its brief campaign with the winter outside, and here was its last ditch stand.
“Miss Gessup, you worked at Tynedale Lodge.” She pulled back and, Jury thought, became wary.
“You could say.”
Jury smiled. “I do say. But you weren’t there long, were you?”
Defensively, her voice raised a notch or two. “I only took the job as a lark, anyway.”
“According to Miss Tynedale, you stopped coming.”
Jenny gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Oh, her. She acts like the lady of the manor.”
“She is. Why don’t you like her?” Jury could almost see a door close in her mind. All she did was shrug and study her bitten fingernails. “Why did you quit, then?”
“I told you. I wasn’t serious about that job.”
“Then why did you take it on in the first place?”
“Extra money, of course. I’m saving up to buy a car.”
“Are you working now?”
She shook her head.
“Have you since you left the Lodge?”
“Can’t find anything that suits.”
The illogic of that answer, given she signed on as a gardener, which didn’t suit either, Jury did not explore. She had quickly reached that point where her answers would be static or lies.
“You remember Gemma Trimm?”
“Gemma?” Jenny brightened a bit. “Yes, of course. We were kind of friends. I liked Gemma, but no one else paid much attention to her. Sad.” Her voice was wistful. “There was that shooting up at the Lodge. Southwark police said it was robbers first off and then said it was some boys acting up. Well, Gemma thought it was someone trying to kill her. That’s daft.”
“What if the shooting wasn’t random? What if the shooter was after someone else?”
Her fine brown eyebrows drew together in puzzlement.
“I mean, is it possible the killer thought it was you in the greenhouse?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, that’s ridiculous.” Not meeting his eyes, she picked at a bit of skin around her fingernail.
Jury left the idea on the table. He said nothing.
“Anyway,” she went on, “if they were trying to shoot somebody besides Gemma, why not Angus Murphy? He was in the greenhouse a lot more than me.”
“Too big. No one would have mistaken him for you.”
“If you know something that might make you a danger to someone else,” said Wiggins, “you’d better say.”
Just then a woman appeared, holding branches of greenery of the sort one collects to make wreaths. Holly, perhaps. She stood in the doorway to a courtyard, smiling.
Jury and Wiggins both rose. Jenny stayed put on the sofa. “It’s my aunt Mary.”
The aunt put the holly on a table by the door and held out her hand, saying, “Mary Gessup.” She pronounced it with a J sound.
Jury returned the smile and introduced himself and Wiggins. He brought out his ID again.
“Good lord.” She looked from them to her niece. “What’s going on?”
Jenny said, “They’re just asking about what happened at the Lodge. You know, about that shooting.”
“But that was over two months ago.”
“We’re looking into the death of Simon Croft. He had a close association to the Tynedale family.”
“Croft. Yes, I read about that. He had something to do with finance in the City.”
“There may be a connection. We’re simply trying to sort the details.”
“Do please sit down. Would you like some tea?” Before Jury could say no, they’d just had some, she went on: “Jenny, do go and make some, will you?”
Truculently, Jenny rose and walked out. Her aunt watched her go, then said, “I thought you might want to talk without Jenny around. There must be more to this than Jenny’s working at the Lodge.”
“There is. We told your niece that whoever fired on the greenhouse might have actually had in mind to shoot your niece.”
Mary Gessup stared at him. “Jenny? But why-?”
“That’s what we want to find out. Mind you, I could be dead wrong.”
“I know. She was scared, she said, which was understandable. But wasn’t that a robbery attempt?”
Jury did not answer directly. “Has she been in trouble before?”
Mary Gessup hesitated. “Yes, but not seriously.”
“What was ‘not serious,’ then?”
“Well… she was working for an old woman in the village and was discovered going through her things. I don’t know what it is in Jenny that causes her to do that. She didn’t take anything. The woman didn’t press charges.”
“Is it compulsive?”
Mary looked a question.
“Compulsive behavior?”
Mary was standing by the fireplace. “It could be, yes.”
“Because that could be serious; that could be deadly. Even if she didn’t take anything. I get the impression she isn’t steady.”
“ ‘Steady’?”
“You know-dependable.”
Mary nodded. “She’s scattered; she can’t keep her mind on a thing for very long. More so than most girls.”
“She could have stumbled onto something at the Lodge and not known it.”
Mary Gessup looked beleaguered. She shook her head, not in denial, but as if to clear it. “Of course, that’s possible, Superintendent-”
“I’m only saying that if she found out something she shouldn’t have, it would be in her best interests to tell us. That’s all.”
Jenny was back with the tea tray and seeming in better temper. Restoring, the prospect of tea was, thought Jury. No one knew that better than Wiggins, for whom this would make the fourth or fifth cup. Jury himself declined.
Jury said to Jenny, “You didn’t much care for Miss Tynedale; what about her grandfather, Oliver?”
Immediately, her face brightened. She was holding the teapot in air as she said, “Oh, yes. Do you know what he said when I first met him?”
They did not.
“It was a poem. ‘Jenny kissed me when we met,/Jumping from the chair she sat in…’ I don’t remember the rest. But wasn’t that lovely?”
Wiggins put down his cup, and said,
“Say I’m weary, say I’m sad
Say that health and wealth have missed me.
Say I’m growing old, but add
Jenny kissed me.”
They all gazed at Wiggins, astonished, none more than Jury. He had never known his sergeant to quote poetry. “That’s beautiful.” Then to Jenny, he said, “No wonder you liked him.”
“He was Gemma’s and my favorite.”
And it occurred to Jury, and saddened him, that Jenny seemed to be putting herself in a category with Gemma Trimm. They were friends, Jenny had said, as if they were of an age together. Maybe that’s what characterized Jenny Gessup: she seemed like a little girl.
When the others had drunk their tea, largely in silence, Jury thanked them and rose. “You’ve been very helpful. I hope we can clear things up.”
“Where to, sir?” Wiggins had started the car.
“The village. I’d like a few words with the trustworthy grocer and the florists.” After a few moments of driving, Jury said, “Rather remarkable you knowing that poem. Written by-” Jury snapped his fingers “-one of those poets with three names.”
“Sir? Walter Savage Landor.”
“Ah. Anyway, it’s not the best known poem. How do you come to know it?”
“Jenny was my sister’s name.”
Again, he surprised Jury. “But I didn’t know you had two sisters. I’ve heard you speak of only one, the one in Manchester.”
“I don’t have the other anymore. She died.”
Never had an announcement of death been uttered with such restraint. “I’m sorry, Wiggins, really.” He felt the inadequacy of such a statement. “Awhile back, was this?”
“Twenty-two years. This Christmas.”
Jury felt doubly inadequate. “She died on Christmas Day?”
“Yes, sir. We were all in the parlor, around the tree, opening our presents, when Jenny said she felt sick and went upstairs to lie down. Mum went up with her and then Mum came down, saying she had a high temperature. You can imagine how eager a doctor would be to come out on Christmas Day. One did, though. It was meningitis and she died at midnight.”
“My God, Wiggins. How awful. Was she younger than you?”
Wiggins nodded. He said nothing else.
“That’s the shop, right up there.”
When they pulled up, Mr. Smith was weighing potatoes for a customer, a tall woman with shrapnel eyes which she kept trained on the scales. Jury wondered if any shopkeeper had ever got away with giving her bad weight. The grocer spun the brown sack around to close it and exchanged the potatoes for coin. The woman took herself off, casting suspicious glances at Jury and Wiggins.
“Mr. Smith?” Jury took out his identification.
“Oh, my! Scotland Yard. My, my.” He wasn’t displeased. “This must be about Mr. Croft. I had City police with me just yesterday. My. Well, just who owns this case, anyway, you might ask.”
“Technically, the City police. That’s where the victim lived-and died. But there was a lot of spillover-” Jury left the explanation hanging. “Could we have a word with you, Mr. Smith?”
“Of course, of course. I’ll just have my girl down to keep an eye on the place. Come along.”
The three of them went inside where the grocer opened a door at the bottom of some steps and yelled upward for “Pru” to come on down. “Make it snappy now, girl!”
Pru, a stout, sullen girl in carpet slippers, could no more make it snappy than fly to the moon. Slap slap the slippers sounded on the stair. When Pru finally emerged from the staircase and saw Jury, she lightened up a bit. One hand went to her hair and the other to the bottom of her rust-colored jumper, arranging both more satisfactorily.
“ ’Lo” was all she said, tongue wetting her lips, but it was clear she wanted to speak volumes of clever repartee. Her eyes slid off Wiggins like water over stone and wended their way back to Jury.
Her father told her, “You take care of customers here while I talk to these detectives.”
Pru’s skin pinked up beneath a plump face full of freckles. “Wha’s it about, then? You done somethin’ you oughtn’t, Dad?” Even her smile was pudgy.
“Never you mind.”
Like a manservant escorting his visitors to an audience with royalty, Mr. Smith extended his arm and briefly bowed. “This way, gentlemen, back to my office.”
The office consisted of a desk and four chairs, old black leatherette with aluminum arms and legs. There was a strong smell of cabbage and damp wood.
Mr. Smith pulled two chairs around. Not until he himself was seated behind his desk did he ask, “Now, gentlemen, what can I do for you?”
“I don’t want to waste your time (meaning mine, Jury thought), so I’ll tell you what I understand. You continued to deliver groceries to Simon Croft even after he took up residence across the river. That’s quite a lot of trouble to go to for a pound of potatoes.”
Even as Jury spoke, Mr. Smith was shutting his eyes against the thickheadedness of Scotland Yard. With a superior little smile playing about his lips, he said, “That’s how much you know, Superintendent, as to the ways of Mr. Croft-or any of the clans, the Crofts and the Tynedales.”
“Well, then, enlighten me.”
Mr. Smith was glad to do so. He sat forward. “Mr. Simon Croft was one of the people who hate changing anything at all. Even where he gets his groceries. Why, he even laughed about it. ‘You’d think I’d grow up, wouldn’t you, Mr. Smith?’ See, he even had the Tynedale Lodge cook come twice a week and do for him. Mrs. MacLeish, she is. She’d cook up several days’ dinners at once. He was that attached to the Lodge.”
“Then why did he move?” asked Wiggins, who had his notebook out and was frowning to beat the band. “Why did he leave Tynedale Lodge?”
“He wanted to be nearer the City. That’s what he told Mrs. MacLeish. It’s where he worked.”
Not satisfied with this reason, Wiggins wrote it down, nonetheless.
Jury asked, “How often did you make these deliveries, Mr. Smith?”
“Once a week, dependable as clockwork. And other times if he needed more for dinner guests or drink parties, though I’m sure there weren’t many of those. And he’d get Partridges to cater for him, too.”
“Mrs. MacLeish must have talked about him to you.”
“Mrs. Mac’s never been one to gossip about her employers, and I admire that.”
“So do I,” said Jury, smiling wryly, “but it’s not much help to us now. Both of you must have remarked on Mr. Croft’s life-as they say-‘style.’ ” He did not want to put ideas in the grocer’s mind, nor words in his mouth.
Mr. Smith’s chin was resting in his hand, his elbow on the desk. Narrowly, he regarded Jury, as if gauging his trustworthiness. “I recall being there in the kitchen with Mrs. Mac when she had to go to the front door and tell that Maisie Tynedale that Mr. Croft couldn’t see her as he wasn’t feeling well, but it wasn’t so, for he was in his library working away.”
Mr. Smith set about recalling. “It must’ve been back the end of October-no, hold on a minute, beginning of November, that’s it, for I recall talking about Guy Fawkes and fireworks and wondering if we’d see them along the river there. Around the time that somebody was shootin’ away up at the Lodge. Well, it was all over the manor, wasn’t it? Nasty, these kids are today, some of ’em. Everyone was talkin’ about it, the Daffs was all over it.”
“Daffs?”
“The toy boys, the daffodils, the two that own that flower shop across the street. You talked with them?”
“Briefly, yes.”
“Well, Mr. Croft got his flowers from them to the day he died-pardon that, it’s just the expression. Very particular he was about his flowers.”
“Mr. Peake and Mr. Rice?”
“Aye, that’s them. Now they might be able to tell you somethin’ I don’t know.” From his expression it was fairly clear Mr. Smith didn’t think this even remotely possible. Then he stretched back in his chair and ran his hands over his bald pate in quick succession. “As I recall now the Daffs made a delivery just before the man was murdered.” He smiled and waited for the next question.
“You’ve been most helpful, Mr. Smith.” Jury rose and Wiggins stowed his notebook in his inside coat pocket and rose also.
Mr. Smith, however, remained seated, apparently prepared to stop there and answer questions through eternity.
“Mr. Smith?” Jury gently brought him back to his greengrocer business.
“Huh? Oh, sorry. Yes, I’ll just see you out.”
Pru seemed as reluctant to see them go as did her father.
Outside, Wiggins said, “A person might be suspicious of someone being that willing to answer questions.”
“Why so cynical?” asked Jury, intent on jaywalking and looking for an opening between a removal van barreling down the road and two Volvos coming from different directions. “There are still a few people who find this an opportunity for a good gossip and couldn’t care less if you’re police or the Queen Mother. Come on-” They made a dive toward the opposite pavement.
The shop DELPHINIUM was as colorful outside as in. The sign that stretched along one side of the building was decorated with flowers, mushrooms and little green people Jury took for wood sprites or aliens.
Inside, the smell was simply heavenly, the mingled scents of lavender, jasmine and roses. Odysseus could not have fared better among the lotus eaters. Jugs and tall aluminum flower holders sat on the floor and they had to negotiate down an aisle lined with camellia plants to reach the back of the shop. Tommy Peake and Basil Rice were well-dressed men who could have been nearly any age at all. They were arranging roses and oriental lilies in what looked like a cut-glass crystal vase and another of plain crystal, clear but for a ribbon of amethyst that wound vinelike around it.
“Mr. Peake, Mr. Rice, you may remember I stopped in a couple of days ago?” Jury introduced Sergeant Wiggins. One florist tucked a pale strand of hair behind his ear and the other tried to find seating for the two detectives. Both were rather thrilled. Jury told them not to bother, that they wouldn’t mind standing at all, that they would probably swoon anyway from the delicious scents in here.
“I wanted to talk to you about Simon Croft.”
Basil slapped his hand to his forehead.
Jury pegged him as the more histrionic of the two. “You made fairly regular deliveries to Mr. Croft in the City.”
“We can guess,” said Peake, “who told you that. That old gossip, Smith-” He nodded toward the greengrocer’s shop.
Basil showed more sympathy for the victim. “That poor, poor man. What a dreadful thing to have happen.”
Tommy Peake said, astutely, “But you’re from New Scotland Yard. Why would you be investigating this?”
“The City police have jurisdiction, of course. My part in this is a bit complicated.”
Basil asked if he might be allowed to continue arranging flowers as “Miss Bosley wants this tout de suite, and you know what she’s like!”
Jury smiled and said he didn’t, really. It occurred to him that Basil lived in a world where everybody knew everybody else. Basil flipped his hand and waved away police ignorance as if the Bosleys had often roamed the corridors of Scotland Yard and meeting up with Miss Bosley was merely a matter of time.
“What’s interesting is Mr. Croft continued to use your services even though there are plenty of florists on the other side of the river. He lived not far from Covent Garden.”
“We are quite good at this business,” said Basil.
Tommy shook his head. “Oh, we’re good, but that isn’t the reason. Simon was one of those people who hate change.”
Sententiously, Wiggins said, “But we all have to resign ourselves to it, don’t we?”
Tommy looked at Wiggins. “You’re talking about age and infirmity. Death. Yes, but there are things you can control. Such as where you get your bloody bouquets.” His smile, Jury thought, shimmered.
“Did Simon Croft have a standing order with you?”
Tommy nodded. “There were also times he wanted something particular. Otherwise, his instruction was to make up whatever we thought looked good and just take it along. But there were times he just hankered for a particular flower, you know?”
Jury could not remember the last time he’d even seen a bouquet, much less hankered for one. “When was the last time you made a delivery?”
Tommy pursed his lips and remembered. “That was just the week before he was shot.” He shivered slightly. “Got as far as the front door with ’em. That cook-the one who works at the Lodge and, I guess, went to Simon’s house, too-she’s the one took the flowers in.”
He seemed disgruntled; they both did. “Ordinarily he had you in?”
“Well, of course!” said Basil. “Usually made a real fuss over them. Right, Tommy?”
Wiggins said, “So you knew Simon Croft quite well?”
Basil backpedaled “Not all that well, no.”
“You were on a first-name basis with him?”
“Oh, we’re on a first-name basis with everybody.”
“Not with us, you aren’t,” said Wiggins. “Sir?”
Jury hid a smile. “I think that’ll be all, for now.”
As they started toward the door, Jury said, “You’re on a roll, Wiggins.” He stopped and turned. “Do you deliver to Islington, Mr. Peake?”
“We can do.”
Retracing his steps, Jury walked back to the counter. He looked at the cut glass, at the crystal with its ribbon of amethyst. “I’m afraid my policeman’s moiety doesn’t run to this.” He tapped the crystal vase.
“These-? Oh, good lord, Superintendent, don’t think we furnish vases like these. No, they belong to customers who bring them in each time for an arrangement. Particular, they are. What we usually do is furnish a glass vase and we can also do a very nice arrangement tied with twine. Or a box, of course. What sort of flowers have you in mind?”
Jury scratched his neck and looked at the cold behind the glass doors. “One is an elderly woman-”
“Lavender,” said Tommy and looked at Basil.
“And heather. And perhaps two of those roses-” He pointed to roses of an exquisite shade of lavender. “That’ll do for her, trust me. Perfect.”
“Okay. The other’s a young lady-”
Both assumed their thinking positions, leaning over the counter. “Hmm.” Basil said, “What’s her coloring?”
“Hers? Oh. Hair kind of fiery, eyes this color-” He touched the ribbon of glass winding around the vase.
“Ah!” Basil stood up and plucked a colored pencil from a cup of them and drew it across the pad. Then he did the same with another. “What colors does she like?”
“Emerald green, hot pink, lapis lazuli-”
“God,” said Tommy, with a wink, “she’s lucky to have someone who notices and remembers. Can’t ask a husband those questions; he wouldn’t have a clue.”
Jury watched Basil with yet another colored pencil. He turned the notebook around so Jury could see it, and said, “This might look an odd combination, but believe me, she’ll go for it.”
Jury was astonished that with so few strokes in so little time, Basil had drawn a complete arrangement of flowers.
“We’ve got the bells of Shannon, and we can get iris-can we, Tommy?”
“Absolutely.”
“And these coppery roses, they’d be perfect.”
Jury slowly shook his head. “No wonder Simon Croft didn’t want to give you up.”
“I don’t get it, Wiggins. Why the grocer but not the florists? Why would Croft admit Smith and not those two?”
They were waiting for two lorries and a Morris to pass in front of them. “You’re assuming who he saw and who he didn’t is significant. Maybe he just didn’t feel like diving into the pool with those two on that day.”
Jury laughed. “Of course, that could easily be it.”
“Or maybe Simon found them a shade too you-know?”
They were crossing the street now. “Wiggins, they’ve been ‘you-know’ for as long as he knew them.” Jury looked up the street. “There’s the butcher’s; I want a word with him. Come on.”
Gyp was just pulling down the grill in front of his window, preparatory to closing. Jury found him to be wiry and angular, his chin sharp, his nose pointed, his shoulder blades as thin and spiny as sharks’ fins. He could tell that Gyp was cutting-edge mean. The bloody apron he wore did nothing to soften the portrait. Even his voice was reedy and ragged and without resonance.
“Sorry, gentlemen, but it’s closing time. All work and no play makes Gyp a dull boy.” His laugh was more of a giggle.
“Prepare to bore us then, Mr. Gyp.” Jury flashed his identification. “And lead the way inside.”
Gyp was one of those people whose reaction to a policeman on the pavement was to run. All the little meannesses, the little tricks and swindles he had contrived to work on his fellows would leak from the corners of his mind and lubricate memory. Jury could see it in his black and oily eyes. And this was not to mention the fate of the benighted animals that fell under his cleaver. There was one in the window right now, a suckling pig scored with slices of orange and studded with cloves. If Gyp kept a cat it would only be to kill mice. Admittedly, Jury disliked butchers. He had seen their plump and smiling faces looking out from the pages of magazines, rosy and self-satisfied, as if they were choking on rubies.
“It’s my closing time. Like I said. It’s half-five-”
“That’s good; we won’t be disturbed. Come on.”
Muttering, Gyp led the way.
Several chairs lined the aisle between counter and wall and Gyp sat but Jury and Wiggins remained standing. More intimidating.
Gyp said, anxiety clotting his voice, “It’s about that lad, ain’t it? Benny? I knew I should’ve reported him not goin’ to school.”
Jury said nothing. Let the man babble. He went on about Benny, school and “that mutt o’ his” and the “thieving” that went on in the shop. “It ain’t only school; it’s where that boy lives, and with who. Headed for Borstal, he is, probably been there already.”
“Scotland Yard,” said Wiggins, “isn’t here to track down truants.”
Jury said, “We’re looking into the death of Simon Croft.”
“Croft?” Gyp’s tallow-colored skin drew up in furrows. “That one from the Lodge? He moved to the City. Why’d you be asking me about Simon Croft?”
“You did know him.”
“So did everybody. But you think he’d come in and ask for a pound o’ mince? Well, he didn’t. People at the Lodge don’t deal with the likes o’ Gyp.” He hooked his thumb toward his chest. “Too high ’n’ mighty for that.”
“How long did you know Mr. Croft?”
“Didn’t I just say I hardly did?”
“Then how long did you hardly know him?” Jury itched to hit this man.
“Long as I had me shop here. That’d be, oh, twenty years about.” With long fingers he stroked a sunken cheek.
“He didn’t like you, right?” Jury supposed this was a safe bet.
“I’m too busy to care who likes me and who don’t.”
“Well, I’m not too busy, Mr. Gyp.” Jury moved to the chair, reached down and twisted the neck of the collarless shirt tightly enough it raised the butcher from the seat; he did this slowly, which made it even more threatening. “Now you listen to me, Gyp. If anything happens to Benny Keegan or his dog-or his dog-”
“You’re choking me! I’m choking!” he declared in a strangled voice.
“-I’ll be back, so you better work hard at keeping them healthy and out of traffic.” Jury suddenly released his hand and Gyp fell back against the wall. Jury nodded to Wiggins and they started toward the door.
Behind them, Gyp called out, “I’m reportin’ this, don’t think I won’t!”
Jury took out his small cache of cards and flipped one in Gyp’s direction. “Just in case you forget my name.”
Jury liked the musty air of the Moonraker Bookshop, the slightly acidic smell of ink, the thought of brittle old paper crumbling like memory. Dust, poor light and nostalgia, these were his notions of places like the Moonraker. Or perhaps this was just his romantic notion; God only knew Water-stone’s didn’t fit the image. He liked the wooden sign above the steps that led down to “garden” level, too. MOONRAKER BOOKSHOP, S. PENFORWARDEN, PROP.
“He was very interested in the war,” said Sybil Penforwarden, speaking of Simon Croft. “Prodigiously interested. I must’ve ordered a dozen books for him. The last ones were-” She stopped and considered. “Fourteen Days, that was one, and Solemn December-an unfortunate try at assonance, don’t you think? At any rate, Simon had a high regard for both. The December one, of course, is the one set in 1940. We talked about the war, we talked about it quite a lot. We’d both been children then, seven or eight, I believe I was. He’d have been a bit older, and we both had memories which we tried to pin down.” She took a sip of tea. She had kindly invited Jury and Wiggins to join her for tea. “I always have my tea around five o’clock and I’ve just baked a seed cake.”
Which Jury was tucking into with his second slice, as was Wiggins. A longcase clock ticked somewhere at the end of an aisle of shelves; except for that the room was deathly quiet. Had some customer been reading back there in the shelves, one would have heard the pages turn.
Jury eased down a little farther in his slipcovered chair, careful not to lean his head against it for fear of dozing off, and feeling for the first time that day completely comfortable, and hungry and thirsty, too. He slid his cup toward the pot and Miss Penforwarden poured out tea, adding a measure of milk.
“Croft’s interest wasn’t just historical, then. It was personal.”
“Oh, yes. Very.” She held the pot aloft, signaling Sergeant Wiggins, who, of course, wanted a refill. “You see, his father, Francis Croft, owned a pub named the Blue Last. It was in the City. It was demolished during the London blitz. That would have been-” She closed her eyes and calculated.
Jury did it for her: “December 29, 1940.”
Miss Penforwarden was astonished. “You’re certainly a student of history.”
Jury smiled. “Not really. I was told about the Blue Last.”
“Of course. There was that item in the paper about its being the last London bomb site. Some developer had bought it up and in the course of digging they unearthed bones. Well, they could have been anybody, couldn’t they?”
Jury ignored this. “This book Mr. Croft was writing. His interest was personal, you agree; did he ever discuss the particulars?”
Sybil Penforwarden sat back with her cup that trembled ever so slightly in its saucer. She thought. “Now, that’s a very perspicacious question, Superintendent-”
(Jury would’ve enjoyed hearing her talk to Angus Murphy.)
“-very. ‘A family thing,’ I recall he said. It’s coming back to me in bits and pieces. I’ll just toss them out as I recall, shall I?”
“Absolutely.”
Wiggins retrieved his notebook from the little end table where he’d deposited it when the tea and cake had arrived.
She went on. “Now, I recall that he talked about Oswald Mosley-you know, the dreadful Fascist? Simon was interested in him because he’d discovered that Mrs. Riordin’s husband-she lives at the Lodge, you know-was one of Mosley’s followers. He said to me that many people took Mosley to be a cartoon character, a laughingstock, but, he said, ‘the man was dangerous, extremely dangerous. People have forgotten that.’ Simon wondered why Riordin would desert his wife just to join up with that ‘rascal’-which is what he called Mosley. Simon could be old-fashioned in his choice of words.” Miss Penforwarden smiled.
Jury wondered how well she knew Simon Croft. “But he didn’t ask Katherine Riordin herself?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Could he have been upset or incensed by things that we come to take almost for granted anymore? Abortion, divorce, unmarried couples, homosexuality. Things that-whether rightly or wrongly-the public finds more acceptable now?”
“Yes, he was old-fashioned in that respect. But not sanctimonious or sermonizing, if you know what I mean. It’s just that he believed so fervently in-attachments.”
“Loyalty, for instance?”
“Absolutely. Yes.”
“To king and country?” Jury smiled.
“You might laugh, but-”
“I’m not laughing, Miss Penforwarden.”
“He was very fond of Alexandra’s husband, Ralph Herrick. Ralph was in the RAF. Simon himself was quite young and Ralph was his hero. Ralph Herrick really was a hero, too. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for valor. I don’t remember precisely what he did; Simon said he was a daredevil pilot.”
Jury thought for a moment, absently regarding Wiggins, who was faithfully taking notes. There was loyalty for you: sitting there with his third cup of tea (having poured himself another) and his notebook on his knee. Jury smiled. He knew how he’d feel if Wiggins was shot and killed. He’d get the bastard who did it. One could not, however, get the entire Luftwaffe.
“Simon talked about impostors,” said Miss Penforwarden.
“What?”
“You know, the enemy posing as someone else, the ridiculous notion that the Germans would pop up everywhere in England disguised. Such as the idea circulated about German parachutists-that they’d fall to earth disguised as nuns. That and the fifth column idea. Traitors out in their gardens signaling to the German planes with electric torches. Silly stuff. But once such an idea takes hold, he said, it’s very hard to disabuse one’s mind of it.”
“Yes. He would not like the idea of betrayal.”
Wiggins put in, “Would you, sir? Would any of us?”
Miss Penforwarden pursed her lips and returned her cup to its saucer. The tea was cold, anyway. “You know, I sometimes felt there was something other than the war that urged him on to do this research.”
“But he didn’t say what it was.”
“Outright? No.”
“You say you saw him two weeks ago. Did you notice a difference in his behavior?”
She looked puzzled. “No. He was the same as always. He’d talk about the forties, the devastation. Hitler would send over five hundred planes a night. Simon had a journal, or notebook he kept, and he’d tell me facts such as that. I wondered how he remembered them and he held up the journal that he always carried. ‘Never be without this,’ he said.”
“Some people seem to think he’d grown a little paranoid during the last weeks of his life. To the extent that he wouldn’t let family members come into his house. And the owners of the flower shop weren’t admitted when they brought flowers he’d ordered.”
“But how did they know, these people who were turned away?”
“How did they know?”
“That he’d changed; that he’d grown a little paranoid.”
“Perhaps because he wouldn’t see them. He appeared to be afraid.”
She was obviously doubtful. “I can only say he seemed the same to me.”
“Well, perhaps that’s because he felt far more comfortable around you than he did around others.”
She waved a self-deprecating hand. “I can’t imagine that’s so.”
“I can.” Jury rose and gathered up his coat. “I think we’ll be going. You’ve been extremely helpful, Miss Penforwarden. You ready, Wiggins?”
“Sir,” said Wiggins snappily.
A moment ago he’d looked rather dozy. Jury said as they ducked under the low lintel, “That’s what three cups of tea and three pieces of cake do to a person, Sergeant.”
“But it was worth it, wasn’t it?” They walked toward the car. “We got a different picture of Simon Croft.”
“So eating all that cake was a kind of martyrdom that paid off?”
“You could say that. I’m pretty full. Now where to?”
Jury shoved himself into the cramped seat, thinking he’d be just as comfortable riding in the trunk. “Drop me off at the Croft house.”
“What would you expect to find? The crime scene people did a thorough check-”
“Yes. But sometimes it helps to look at things on your own.”
Private residences on the Thames were rare, especially in the City, which had always been the financial and trading heart (if trade can have a heart) of London: the Bank of England, Mincing Lane, Lloyd’s. Now, such conversions were seeping into the City as had been going on for years in Docklands, and continued throughout the areas of Whitechapel, Limehouse and Wapham. These were the old buildings that sentimentalists would still have preferred to be left standing, memorials to London’s past, the docks, the stews. But what had been lost in the way of romance had been made up for in eye-catching livable space. The developers and builders were right for a change. The improvement really was an improvement, except to those sentimental souls who believed the past was inviolate and did not want change.
Jury knew he was one of those souls. So had Simon Croft been. This useless romance that Jury was caught up in did not profit his work, though for the most part he could set it aside. But then came a case that demanded one take a long look back.
Simon Croft’s house was not the result of a conversion. It was Georgian, not terribly interesting architecturally, but its gray stone bulk was imposing, partly because of its age. It was flat fronted, with long windows on the ground and first floors, smaller sash windows on the two upper floors. In front was a small forecourt large enough for five or six cars. The only one presently here was Croft’s own Mercedes.
When he had been here the night of Croft’s death, he had noticed the house was full of stunning antiques, a fortune in furniture. He was standing now in a large, nearly empty drawing room or reception room. Against one wall stood a credenza, probably seventeenth century, on whose door and sides were painted fading flowers in pink and green. The only other furniture sat near the center of the room: a fainting couch, covered in deep blue velvet, and a Chippendale elbow chair with a silvery green damask seat.
The same feeling of emptiness Jury had courted outside came back to him now. It was the sort of emptiness one associates with houses whose occupants have suddenly packed and fled. It reminded him of his first visit to Watermeadows, that beautiful Italianate house and gardens which had Ardry End as its neighbor, despite their grounds extending over a quarter mile before meeting. He shut his eyes and thought of Hannah Lean. Don’t go there, he told himself. But, of course, by the time you think of that, you’re already there. That room in Watermeadows had been even larger than this one, emptier, with scarcely any furniture-a sofa, a chair-giving rise to that same baffled feeling that the owners had made a quick departure, and, as in war, as in an enemy occupation, had taken whatever transportable belongings they could and vanished. He left the room.
He walked down the black and white marbled hall, bisected by a wide mahogany staircase, to the library where Mrs. MacLeish had discovered Simon Croft and called City police. It was quite a different room, crowded with chairs and tables and books. Jury switched on the desk lamp, an elaborate one with a brass elephant as its base. He looked over what the police hadn’t taken away in evidence bags. There was a chased silver inkpot, several Mont Blanc pens, a blotter and a stack of printer paper held down with a heavy glass weight, the printer itself on a small table in the window embrasure. There was a handsome rosewood piece that looked like a bureau but was really a filing cabinet. Chairs were the roomy sort, deeply cushioned and covered with linen or leather. Jury could almost feel the room embracing him.
Books were shelved floor to ceiling around three walls, two of them separated by narrow leaded windows. It was interesting to him that the killer had removed all trace of the book Simon Croft had been working on-manuscript, hard drive, diskettes-yet had forgotten intellectual content, or, given he or she had no time for inspecting the books, simply hoped that no one would think of searching Croft’s bookshelves.
It had to have been here somewhere, the reason for Simon Croft’s murder, and perhaps it still was. There was no sign even of the notes he must have made. No sign either of the pocket-size journal Miss Penforwarden had alluded to (“He always carried it. ‘Never be without this,’ he said.”) And no sign of this year’s diary, which he must have kept too, as there were diaries from the last fifteen years placed side by side on one of the shelves in such an orderly fashion the gap told of the absence of at least one, this year’s.
Jury imagined that the books Croft had consulted most would be together rather than parceled out according to subject, author or alphabet. He took out his notebook and read again the titles Miss Penforwarden had given him, then looked for those two books. They were, as he had supposed, together on a section of shelf nearest the leather chair. It was a chair that would have suited Boring’s. It was well worn, and Jury assumed it was Simon’s favorite. He sat down to look at the books purchased from the Moonraker. He leafed through them and saw numerous markings and marginalia.
Solemn December, although fairly recently acquired, was much read. There were scraps of paper and yellow Post-It notes on a number of pages. The subtitle of the book was Britain, 1940. As Miss Penforwarden had suggested, the book was unquestionably on his subject. A good third of it was composed of photographs, and the text itself dealt with the hardships and courage of the British people-the wardens, the volunteers, the shopkeepers and ordinary citizens. It was nostalgic, a hope and glory book. As such, Jury somehow imagined it was of limited textual value to Croft, not dense enough. The picture he had built up of Simon Croft was of a complex man. He was someone who could (and did) set great store by family and the past, but who would not, at the same time, be hoodwinked. “Hoodwinked” by what exactly Jury couldn’t say. Certainly the identity of Maisie Tynedale was in the running.
Again he wondered: If the purpose of taking Croft’s computer, journal, diary, notes and hard copy was to eradicate whatever knowledge Croft had stumbled on, why hadn’t these books been removed, too? This next one, titled Fourteen Days, was very heavily marked up. Notes, marginalia. A much-used book which appeared to be, unlike the other one, sinewy, full of material.
Jury had to begin with what he knew about motive in this murder, and the only one he had yet sorted was the alleged motive of Kitty Riordin and her daughter, Erin. That Croft had unearthed this imposture (“Simon talked about impostors”) and confronted Riordin with it would have been motive enough for her to kill him.
Another point was the supposed attempt to shoot the person in the greenhouse. But were these two shootings connected? Perhaps not, but Jury hated coincidence.
A cigarette box inlaid with mother-of-pearl (“I’m beautiful, Jury; have one.”) sat on the table beside his armchair. He got up and walked around the room trying to think his way into Simon Croft’s mind. Though he was loath to mix it into this brew because it widened the field so much, Jury knew he had to consider the likelihood that Croft’s murder was related to his work as a broker rather than his family or his past, as Plant had suggested. Perhaps he had caused a loss to one of his clients; perhaps there was fraud. Perhaps. Jury doubted it. Croft just didn’t sound the type. More than that, Croft’s behavior during his last visit with Miss Penforwarden did not sound like that of a desperate man who’d been caught with his hands in the till. No. But then Miss Penforwarden’s assessment of Croft’s state of mind had been different from Mrs. MacLeish’s, or Haggerty’s, or the grocer Smith’s or the Delphinium boys’. That was interesting.
Jury had made two circuits of the room, standing here and there, and now stopped before the rosewood filing cabinet. Bless the man for his orderliness. He removed a folder labeled “correspondence.” He guessed the order of the letters would be by date, the ones in front being the most recent, given Croft’s meticulous disposal of papers. Jury went through them and found the whole lot disappointing. There were letters of appreciation from satisfied clients, acknowledging the good job Simon had done with their brokerage accounts; a letter inviting him to a weekend in Invernessshire; a few letters from his solicitors regarding “minor” changes in the wording of his will. That would hardly constitute changing beneficiaries, thought Jury. That was about all. Letters might, of course, have been removed.
He went back to his chair, sat down and picked up Fourteen Days, which sounded almost like the title of a thriller. He read about the hammering East London and part of the City had taken on the nights of December 19 and 20. He was surprised to read that Hitler had for some time before the blitzkrieg been convinced that Britain would come to its senses and simply capitulate. And given the German successes, it was a wonder Britain didn’t. It was a blessing that his country had been totally unaware of the disasters suffered by the British Expeditionary Forces. France had been a disaster. Also, Germany had taken Holland, Brussels and, worst, had advanced to the English Channel.
There were a number of marginal notations, which was not surprising, considering how conscientious a note taker Croft was. In one margin was penned in RALPH (?). Not familiar with Herrick’s wartime maneuvers Jury couldn’t, of course, see the relationship between Ralph Herrick and the account in the book of the GAF daytime raids on aircraft fields in the southeast of England. The bombers were turned back or brought down by RAF fighter pilots. Then again, two pages later in the margin, RALPH (???). Here, again, several pages were devoted to accounts of Göring’s near success in wiping out the RAF airfields, which would have meant wiping out the RAF. In other words, winning the war in the air. Winning, period.
For some reason, those three question marks disturbed Jury. The single question mark on the page before might simply have indicated curiosity. But here the marks suggested a real need to know. Know what? This entry was also cross-referenced: (CF. P. 208, F.H.).
“F.H.” A title, perhaps? An author? He went back to the bookshelf and ran his finger along the spines of the books Croft seemed to have used most for research and found the title Finest Hours (a borrowing of one of Churchill’s titles). He thumbed up page 208 and read an account of German bombers over the Isle of Wight. In the margin was written “R”? What was Simon asking? Whether Ralph had participated in this particular battle? Or that Ralph had talked about it? What could Simon otherwise be alluding to? Jury went to the three other pages indicated in the margin, but the details of the combat meant little to him.
Except, of course, in his own private world, where they meant a great deal. Jury had not known his father except as the face in his mother’s photographs, and whatever he himself had contrived to imagine about his father, a litany to repeat again and again before he fell asleep. Definitely handsome, undoubtedly brave.
He thought of photographs. Croft would probably have an album; anyone this precise, this organized, this dedicated to preserving memories would have pictures, snapshots and so forth. The book itself, wouldn’t it contain photographs as studies of this kind so often did? He made a cursory examination of the shelves on which were kept the journals and diaries, but saw nothing.
Frustrated he went back to his chair and picked up Finest Hours again. What was Croft thinking about? Jury riffled the pages and stopped at more marginalia, this time a column of dates:
Jury skimmed the page in whose margin these dates appeared, in a neat row. There were no corresponding dates in the text of this page or the ones before or after. He went to every page where Simon had made marginal notes. No such dates appeared in the text, so there were obviously other sources he was using. But he could not find reference to them. How could he match up dates to events? How could he find the common denominator?
Was there one and was it Ralph? No one had talked very much about him, but, then, he’d been around so little that the family hadn’t really known him well. Simon and Ian had idolized Ralph; that did not constitute knowledge. The marriage to Alexandra was brief and wartime. What all knew and mentioned was that the young flier had been awarded the Victoria Cross.
On the last page of the book at the very bottom, Simon had written,
COVENTRY
ULTRA
CHICK. BED.
HATSTON
ENIGMA B.P.
– GOD I DON’T BELIEVE THIS.
“Enigma.” Jury frowned.
He sat thinking in the chair for some time. Then he crossed to the telephone and took out his small notebook. He rang Marie-France Muir.
After that, he rang Boring’s.
Marie-France Muir lived in Chapel Street. The house was not commodious, but knowing the value of square footage in Belgravia it didn’t have to be to mark the owner as well off. The furnishings would also have told the story. Against one wall sat a walnut kneehole desk flanked by an ornate pier glass and an exceptionally beautiful painting of woods, sheep and drifted snow that seemed to be lit from within. In an embrasure near the fireplace sat a walnut chest on chest of rich patination. The fireplace itself was an ornate green marble, guarded by an elaborate fire screen, decorated with birds and butterflies. A glass and rosewood paneled display piece holding fine china that Jury would have lumped under étagère was undoubtedly something else, something rarer. It was over six feet tall, nearly as tall as he was. Through the door into what must have been the dining room he glimpsed carved walnut chairs and the end of a dark dining-room table.
Yet what dominated the living room was not the furniture but the art, paintings largely of the French Impressionists and post-Impressionists. They hung one above the other in rococo gilt frames. It looked like a gallery. He wondered how many of them were originals; he wondered if all were originals.
The sofa and chairs were of humbler origins and more comfortable ones, slipcovered in a restful gray linen. “This is really a nice room,” Jury said, sitting back in the deep chair with the coffee Marie-France had had the foresight to make. He was almost hesitant to lift the paper-thin cup, which looked as if it would break if he blew on it.
“Thank you.” She looked around as if assessing everything anew, in light of his comment. “Much of the art was acquired by Ian. It’s his field, painting. A few pieces came from Simon’s house-” The fragile cup trembled in the saucer and she set it on the table beside her chair. She was silent for a while and so was Jury. He did not intrude upon such silences, the ones caused by grief. He did not intrude unless the other person made it clear there was something he could offer.
“It’s just made such a difference,” she said. “Simon and I didn’t see each other all that much, but you don’t have to, do you? To know the other person is there. The thing is, we were quite self-sufficient, and though we might give the impression of living in one another’s pockets, we really don’t, and didn’t. I mean all of us, including the Tynedales. I think his self-sufficiency might be the reason Ian never married, or, at least, one of the reasons.” She smiled. “Lord knows, he could have had his pick. It’s too bad in a way, none of us having children. I certainly wanted them and so did my husband.” She shrugged, almost by way of apology.
“Then you wouldn’t have-” Jury rephrased it. “How often had you seen your brother in the past two months?”
Marie-France considered. “Once at his house, once here. The last time was, oh, back in early November.”
“Did he seem in some way different?”
She frowned slightly. “No. All of us are always pretty much the same. Boring, but true.”
“A few people I’ve talked to got the impression he was afraid of something or someone. To the point, really, of paranoia.”
The smile she gave Jury could have charmed the gold butterflies right off the fire screen. “Mr. Jury, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
His smile matched hers. “Perhaps. But remember, you’d seen him only twice and the last time was over a month ago.”
“I’m not basing my opinion on seeing him; I’m basing it on knowing Simon. He was the easiest person I’ve ever known, the most composed. Simon and paranoia just don’t go together. Who’s said he was afraid and why?”
“He asked DCI Haggerty to come by the house when he could; your brother appeared to be afraid of someone. He wouldn’t admit tradespeople to the house or family members. Maisie Tynedale, for instance.”
“But he didn’t say what he was afraid of?”
Jury shook his head.
She sighed. “As for the tradespeople, I don’t particularly put out the red carpet for the butcher and baker, either. And as for Maisie-” She looked away and waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Simon never liked her.”
“Why not?”
“He thought she was pushy on the one hand and somewhat of a sycophant on the other. Probably a few other things in between.” She picked up the silver pot and poured Jury more coffee. No question, coffee tasted better coming from a silver pot and delicate china.
“How about you? Do you agree?”
“About Maisie? Yes. I find her very cold.”
“And her grandfather? How does he feel about her?”
“When it comes to Oliver, I can’t really say. Maisie’s not only Alexandra’s daughter, but the only grandchild. Those are two reasons for him to adore her.” She frowned. “But he doesn’t seem to. Adore her, I mean. Certainly, not in the way he does that little girl, Gemma. But of course she’s only eight or nine. Perhaps when Maisie was nine, Oliver felt the same way…” She shrugged. “The one person who seems to get on with Maisie is that Riordin woman. I don’t like her at all. There’s something almost, ah, creepy about her. When she was still a young woman she tied herself down to living at the Lodge. I find that odd.”
“She must think there’s something in it for her. I imagine she expects to come into at least part of Mr. Tynedale’s estate. Don’t you?”
“Yes, but, well, certainly there’ll be a bequest, but I shouldn’t think enough to warrant giving over one’s life to it.” She sighed and sipped her coffee.
Jury leaned forward. “Have you ever thought there might be more to it than that?”
“What do you mean?” She looked off toward the window as if a fresh aspect were to be found there. “My lord, are you suggesting they were lovers?”
Jury laughed. “That never entered my mind. Perhaps it should have.”
With an oblique look at Jury, she said, “No, it shouldn’t. I’m surprised it entered mine. Oliver is simply not-I don’t know how to say it. Anyway, he’s not, take my word for it. Then what did you mean?”
Given that Ian Tynedale and Marie-France disliked Maisie and Kitty Riordin, and also were such obviously intelligent people, he was surprised neither of them wondered about Maisie’s parentage. But they were also ingenuous; maybe they couldn’t comprehend something so monstrous as an imposture lasting more than half a century. “I don’t know. I’m fishing, I expect.”
“Well, you need some better bait, Superintendent.” This was accompanied by her immensely charming smile. “The rest of us manage to rub along with Kitty, but not Emily. Emily never did get along with her; Emily thinks she’s a fraud.”
“In what way?”
“Kitty took credit-no, that’s not exactly right-she was being credited with something she didn’t do: she didn’t save Maisie’s life. It was chance, pure chance. But Kitty began to believe she saved the baby’s life.”
Jury nodded. “There’s something I wonder, though: why would she have taken either child out during the blitz? That was savage bombing the Luftwaffe was doing.”
“Savage, but erratic. Simon talked about it often. He was moved to write this book, not surprisingly, because our father, Francis, had died in the blitz. Simon thought what a lot of people mistook as strategic bombing was simply systematic bombing. Göring’s last-ditch stand. He’d already lost in his attempt to destroy our air force by bombing the airfields.
“For us young ones, the whole thing was exciting-look at those ruins, that rubble we could investigate for treasure. It was rather like a film. Well, I’m trying to answer your questions. That sort of illusion wasn’t restricted to children. Grown-ups felt it too.”
Marie-France went on. “What I’m saying is that there were times we thought of it as a fairy tale. That sounds outrageous, I know, but that was the climate of opinion sometimes. Add to that that Kitty Riordin was a headstrong girl, and if she thought a baby needed some fresh air, I suppose she wasn’t going to hide in the Blue Last waiting for the war to blow over.”
“And Alexandra?”
“Alex was more sensible, more realistic.”
“Why would she allow her baby to be taken out, then?”
“It’s a good question. I can’t answer that. But you know we’re sitting here second-guessing what happened fifty-five years ago.”
Jury smiled. “I spend most of my life doing that.”
“I can see you’d have to.”
Jury put down his cup. “This book your brother was writing. Ralph Herrick apparently figured in it.”
This surprised her. “Ralph?” Bemused, she repeated the name as if it were some magical incantation. “Ralph. I don’t recall Simon mentioning him with regard to his book, though when we were children, I know Ralph seemed to us ever so glamorous. He was a hero; he was handsome; he was married to Alexandra. Simon and Ian both idolized him. They thought it wizard that he flew a Spitfire.”
“Do you remember Herrick as anything other than an icon?”
Marie-France thought for a moment, sipping her coffee. “You know, that’s well put, Superintendent. I think that’s just how we saw him. He represented something in the war that was noble and good. But as for knowing him, Ralph wasn’t really around much. He was rarely at home, even after he married Alex, and they were married only a little over a year when she was killed. And then…?” She paused, trying to remember. “I’m not sure what happened to him.”
“Herrick joined the people at Bletchley Park. You remember, the mathematicians like Turing who were working on Hitler’s Enigma machines.”
She looked at Jury with raised eyebrows. “Really? No, I don’t think I ever did know that. I would think Simon must’ve, though.” She was looking out of the window to where a shaft of sunlight was turning a vase of roses a deeper shade of pink. The small gilt clock on the mantel chimed seven.
“I’ve got to go. I really appreciate you talking to me.” Jury rose.
“You’re very welcome, Superintendent.” As she rose to see him out, she laughed. “I really can’t get over someone’s saying Simon was paranoid. If there was ever a person I can’t picture having enemies, it was Simon.”
Jury looked at her. “Then I’m afraid you’d be wrong.”
“I have my coat on and money,” said Gemma. From the coat pocket she drew a small, shiny-blue change purse with a zipper and decorated with a bright pink plastic flower. She was sitting with Benny on the wooden plank in the beech tree.
“I can’t take you to Piccadilly,” he said, feeling guilty. “I’m too-busy.” He was too young, he meant. Not for himself-he could go to Piccadilly and back ten times over. He was too young to take the responsibility of Gemma is what he meant. He’d never get permission. That made him laugh. He was too young to be doing most of the things he was doing. The thing was, Benny wanted to see the windows at Fortnum and Mason, too. “They’re really the best Christmas windows around, is what I’ve heard.” But it did worry him something might happen to her.
“I know. Don’t you want to see them?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“Then let’s.”
He sighed. “Gemma, they’d never let you go with me, even if we did take a cab there and back.” He’d seen she had a lot of money in that little purse. Enough for cabs, he bet.
“Then don’t ask.”
Benny sighed again. He’d been watching Sparky make his way over the ground, stopping at stalks and hedges, sniffing as if he’d never been in this garden before. Now he was going into the greenhouse. He never dug up around flowerbeds; he was very good that way, but sometimes you had to watch him. Mr. Murphy didn’t like dogs much, anyway.
“Christmas is in only three days.”
She was picking at a stitch on Richard’s blue trousers. She had cut off some of the excess material and sewn up the sides, which now fanned out and were still too big. Her needlework was not very good. “I sewed this. Do you like it?” She turned Richard slowly around so that his outfit could be viewed front to back.
“It’s a lot better than that old nightgown. But couldn’t you have used blue thread instead of white?”
Gemma looked doubtful. “Maybe.” She added, “But I couldn’t find any.” She hadn’t looked.
“It’s nice.”
“He needs new clothes for Christmas. He needs a mac.”
“Uh-huh.”
Gem went on picking at the thread. “Do you think about your mother?” Her voice seemed to shrink.
Benny was surprised. “Sometimes.”
She raised her eyes from the trousers and looked right at him.
It’s awful to have somebody know you’re lying, Benny thought. “Okay, like a lot of the time.” Now his own voice sounded strange; it sounded hollow.
“I would too if I could remember mine. I don’t know even what she looked like.”
Benny thought a moment. “Like you. Think of you, only older. You know who you look like? Like Maisie’s mother. Remember? You showed me her picture once.”
Gemma frowned. “That makes me look like Maisie. I don’t want to.”
Benny didn’t either. He shook his head. “No, no. Her mother. Mr. Tynedale’s daughter is who you look like. Maisie doesn’t really look like her even if she’s got that dark hair and stuff. Like her face isn’t the same shape. Maisie’s mother’s is heart shaped. So is yours. It’s like a little heart.”
Gemma put Richard down and felt her face all around. “I don’t think so.”
“Gem, you can’t feel heart shaped. Just look in a mirror.”
“Okay,” she said. She looked into Richard’s face for a moment and then said, “I don’t believe in Father Christmas anymore. Of course, I used to.”
This irritated Benny. “Well, how long ago was ‘used to’? I mean, it couldn’t be very, could it? You’re only nine.”
“I’m nearly ten. I’m as good as ten right now.”
“How long ago was it, then? When you believed in Father Christmas?”
“A long time. When I used to be five.”
This really irked Benny no end. He didn’t believe in him anymore but he was so much older than she. He’d been looking forward to talking to her about Father Christmas-the kinds of things he got up to and the dwarfs and all. Actually, he’d been looking forward to feeling superior. That was one of the nice things about little kids being around, the way you could feel superior to them. “That’s not much time for believing. I mean, you wouldn’t even have thought much about Father Christmas until you were four, say. So if you stopped at age five-well, it was hardly worth it, believing. You might as well just have gone ahead and disbelieved.” Benny did not know what this fuddled need for accuracy was. Was it because the subject of his mum had arisen and talking about her made him cold and anxious? Yet the need to talk about her was as strong as the fear of talking.
The way she had lived and died was to him courageous, but to another would be contemptible, which is how the ones under Waterloo Bridge were thought of by other people. Benny had gone out with his mother most days. When one day they had collected scarcely enough for Sparky’s dog food, Benny leaned against his mother and cried. “We got nothing, nothing, nothing.” And she had answered, “Neither does God.” And he had said, “But He doesn’t have a dog.” His mum laughed.
But that’s the way she always was, not hopeful that things would change, for she knew they wouldn’t, yet not seeming to care that much. He remembered a Selfridges bag walking past them (for they were sitting on the pavement) with three white boxes Benny could see over its rim. His mother said, “She’s just bought three new pairs of shoes. Those boxes are shoe boxes. Now you know what’ll happen to them? They’ll spend their lives in her closet. She’ll wear them a few times and then they’ll sit amongst the other shoes and she’ll buy more.”
She actually didn’t seem to mind having to beg. It made him furious to think of this, for she had deserved so much better, and in Dublin they’d had so much better.
“What’s wrong?” asked Gem in a worried way. “You look mad.”
“I’m not.” But he was. He turned to her and asked, “Do you mind not having anything?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
Benny swept his arm out to encircle the house and the grounds. “I mean all this of the Tynedales. Does it bother you none of this is yours? Not even a little bit is yours?”
Gem’s face, to his horror, began to crumple.
“I’m sorry, Gem. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
Gem wailed and clamped Richard to her chest.
Benny put his arm around her, genuinely remorseful that because he didn’t have anything, he didn’t want her to, either, nor did he understand any of this. “I’m really sorry.”
She went on wailing.
“Stop that.”
She stopped; she stopped as though she’d never started and went back to inspecting Richard’s trousers.
Now Benny was really irritated. “How’d you do that?” For her wailing had certainly been a convincing example of brokenheartedness.
“Do what?” She was humming now and wiping at Richard’s shirt from where she’d cried on it.
“You were just crying and yelling to beat the band.”
“I know I was. I was sad.”
“Well, obviously, but-” Exasperated, Benny thought, What’s the use?
Melrose considered the shrub.
Why Murphy couldn’t just leave it alone he didn’t know. The shrub looked okay to him, boxed as it was inside its yew hedge. There was a whole line of shrubs within hedges, a box parterre he believed it was called. So it was a trifle scraggly and needed a bit of shaping-like one of Polly Praed’s mysteries-still, the shrub presented itself to the world as fairly in line with the others.
“That shrub there,” Murphy had said, “that shrub’s got desuetude written all over it.” Melrose was glad that Murphy had gone for the day.
He heard a car rev up and looked behind him to see Kitty Riordin in her little VW making a turn in the gravel drive. She rolled down the window and called to him. “Ambrose! When you’ve finished here, would you just give my bit of garden a weeding? Thank you!” She threw up her arm in a wave good-bye and rolled off. It was her day for shopping in Oxford Street and Piccadilly.
Kitty Riordin was a person who ran to schedules, all of her appointments, rendezvous and pleasure hunting neatly written in on her calendar, boxed like the shrubs inside squares he was examining now for a cosmetic fix.
Melrose studied the ball of shrub and decided to have a cigarette as he looked off at the cottage.
Keeper’s Cottage sat about a hundred yards from the Lodge and had been, presumably, a caretaker’s lodge. It was sheltered from view by several large tulip trees and a magnificent larch. In front of the little cottage was a remnant of garden, one clearly not tended by Angus Murphy, nor would it be by Melrose. Now, in winter, it was a haven for cold stalks, brittle-looking stems and sodden leaves.
He went around to the back and tried the window Gemma had told him about. He raised it easily and dropped down into the kitchen. Nothing interesting here, so he went through to the living room. It was warm and with the signature English cottage ambiance of cretonne, exposed timbers, cuteness and cat. Snowball sat and stared at Melrose. He wondered why he had this effect on animals; they found him as entrancing as a box parterre. They stared; they washed.
He looked at the pictures on a round table by the window (cutely curtained in a print of flowers and butterflies). There were a number of framed photographs, mostly of the snapshot-by-the-sea variety, showing a younger Kitty Riordin with a younger Maisie Tynedale. At least the child looked like Maisie, here probably ten or twelve. There was also one of (presumably) Maisie as a baby. On the corner of the silver frame dangled a silver bracelet with an engraved heart: M. The bracelet adorned her tiny wrist in the photograph and, looking closely at the hand which lay against Kitty’s breast, he could make out the flaw in the tiny fingers, which would have been, he guessed, prior to the accident during the bombings. He was surprised, though, that the Tynedale fortune hadn’t been able to secure a surgeon to put the flawed little hand to rights.
He walked up très cute narrow stairs into a bedroom the same size as the room beneath it. Bathroom over the kitchen. Definitely a house for one person, but that said, it seemed comfortable and with the fringe benefit of meals taken at the Lodge.
Snowball had followed him into the room and regarded him with an expression usually reserved for bus conductors. Melrose told the cat to go away, an order which would have gone down equally well with a bus conductor.
Melrose wondered if Kitty Riordin would bother hiding incriminating evidence. Or was she confident that so much time had passed, no one would be searching her premises? There was a desk with pigeonholes and writing implements against the front wall between the two windows. The top held shelves for books behind two glass doors. He stood and looked, believing this to be better police procedure than immediately knocking about the room and busying his fingers with poking things about. Having looked without success, he busied his fingers poking through the cubbyholes and little drawers. Nothing. He looked through her bureau drawers. Very neat, nothing there either.
The cat, who had been creeping about and sniffing as if he had never been in the room before, made a bound to the bed where Melrose was now sitting and another bound to the night table, knocking over a picture. Finding nothing further to maul and hit, Snowball gave up trying to find anything remotely interesting and padded downstairs. Good riddance.
Melrose picked up the picture of Kitty and another baby and the little bracelet that had dangled (as had the one downstairs) on one corner of the frame. On this one the heart was engraved with the letter E. Melrose sat with this little bracelet and looked to the window where a narrow branch of the tulip tree tapped in the wind. There was nothing surprising in Kitty Riordin’s keeping this memento of babyhood, certainly not the bracelet worn by her own baby, Erin, and not Maisie’s either, although she could have handed it over to Maisie herself or even Oliver. But that was splitting hairs. Only…
… assuming the child brought back from the walk that night was actually Maisie, how had Kitty come by Erin’s bracelet? Could she have found it in the course of frantically sifting through the rubble of the Blue Last? Surely not. He held it up, swinging it on his finger. It struck him as bloody unlikely but he would have to allow it was possible. The question then was, why? Why would she search for it? Other than as a memento, what purpose would it serve? The bracelet downstairs with the M would indicate the baby was Maisie-not prove it, since anyone can switch a bracelet from one little wrist to another.
He went back to looking at the photograph. The baby had both of its hands on Kitty’s forearm. He could see the fingers separately and clearly. In some way the picture made Melrose think of Masaccio’s Madonna and Child in the Uffizi. He recalled that the hands of the baby Jesus curled on his mother’s arm, just as Erin’s did here. The plump little hands were perfect and unmarked. This was taken before that awful night, the final night of the Blue Last, when little Maisie’s arm and hand were hit by flying rubble.
Or was it Erin’s?
Melrose kept looking from the photograph to the bracelet to the tapping branch of the tulip tree outside. It was almost enough to make him believe that Kitty Riordin knew the pub would be bombed. But not even Kitty Riordin could control the skies.
He hoped.
Gloomy thoughts. But it wouldn’t be the first time a mother had done something like that.
And it had been, after all, for Erin’s own good.
Melrose was in his room at Boring’s trying to decide what to change into for dinnr. For God’s sake, he told himself (snippily), you have only six articles to choose from-two jackets, a black cashmere and a greenish wool-silk; two pairs of trousers, one of those being the new black jeans he had bought at the Army-Navy Store for gardening and the other a black wool; two shirts, one white, one a black turtleneck. Still he felt all the indecision of a teenager trying to decide what to wear to the dance.
He looked his wardrobe over. Black. Now that was an interesting idea. What, he wondered, would be the effect if he pulled on the black jeans-
(He did.)
Pulled down the black turtleneck.
(He did.)
Then yanking it from its hanger, pulled on the black cashmere jacket.
He did this too, then stepped back from the long mirror, whipped out a comb and snapped it through his gold-licked hair, cool as John Travolta. He caught the whole effect and smiled. He made a gun of his thumb and index finger, pow.
Back at you.
In the Members’ Room, Melrose waved hello to Major Champs and Colonel Neame, but sat down on the other side of the room, after procuring for himself a newspaper from the rack near the desk, one of the twenty or so different papers Boring’s supplied. Melrose could understand keeping Le Monde on the rack, but did anyone in here speak Arabic? Swahili? Cigarette in his mouth, he flicked his Zippo and lowered his face to bathe in shadows and fire. Unfortunately, there was no way to see just what the effect was, but he thought it fitted his black-clothed persona.
“Cool.”
Quickly, he turned, nearly dropping the lighter. “Polly!”
Polly Praed smiled as Melrose jumped up, mouth unhinged. He’d caught the cigarette as it fell.
Polly ran her eyes from his head to his toes and then back up again. “Way cool.” She plopped down in a leather chair, companion to his own. She said, “I may have to revise my opinion.”
“What the devil are you doing here in Boring’s?”
“Oh, don’t be such a stick, Melrose. These places let anybody in nowadays. Light?”
He lit the cigarette she was waggling in her mouth. She hadn’t changed a jot in these last couple of years. She still had the only amethyst eyes in the world, excepting Elizabeth Taylor’s.
“But how did you know I’d be here? Sit down, sit down.”
Polly sat in the wide leather chair opposite him and placed a brown paper parcel she’d been carrying between herself and the arm.
“Did you come here to see me or what?”
“To see my editor.”
Melrose looked around the room. “He’s here?”
“No-o. I mean I came to London to see him.”
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“It was really hard, like tracking down the Jackal. I called your house.” She blew smoke in his direction. “Ardry End,” she added, as if he might have forgotten.
“We haven’t seen each other in over two years. Last time was when I came to Littlebourne-”
“Looking for Jenny Kennington.”
More smoke. “I wasn’t looking for her for myself.” Was she jealous?
“Who, then, were you looking for her for?”
“J-” He caught himself before he said Jury and just in time to substitute “Jenny was wanted by the Shakespeare police.”
“The what?”
“Stratford-upon-Avon police.”
“Why did they want Jenny Kennington?”
“She was chief suspect in a murder-didn’t you read it in the paper?”
“Was she convicted?” She sat eagerly forward.
What shameful hope he saw in her amethyst eyes! “No. She didn’t do it.”
“Oh.” Hope sinking, she fell back in her chair.
“Polly!”
They both looked around to see Richard Jury. Polly’s expression changed immediately from the sardonic to the devotional. Oh, she could treat him, Melrose, all any-old-how, but when it came to Richard Jury, who she ranked with a total eclipse of the sun or a lunar meltdown (sun and moon coming in second and third)-well, that was quite another matter. Her eyes widened, her black curls shivered around as if they were being launched into space.
Melrose said, “I didn’t know you were coming. Did you leave a message here?”
“Nope. Didn’t come to see you, actually.” He turned and sketched a salute to Neame and Champs. “I came to have a chat with Colonel Neame, over there.”
Melrose frowned. “Really?”
Jury nodded and returned his attention to Polly, who gave every indication of not wanting it, looking here, there, everywhere except at Jury, who now sat down on the arm of her chair. “How’d you storm this bastion of male enterprise, Polly?”
Rubbing her thumb across her wrinkled forehead, she mumbled, “Oh, you know…”
“She’s in London for the day to see her editor.” Melrose helped her out. “She cleverly found out my whereabouts. Good detective, Polly.”
Polly once more sat back and rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Why do people think just because you write mysteries you’re Sam Spade?”
“No one would take you for Sam Spade, Polly,” said Jury. His proximity, there on the chair arm, would probably bring on a seizure at any minute. “Have you got a new book in the works?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you bring a manuscript along here for your friend to read?” He cocked his head at Melrose.
“Uh-huh.”
Melrose sat forward. Was that an “uh-huh” or a “nu-huh”? He hoped it was a nu-huh for he really was in no temper for Polly’s prose. Yet there was that brown paper-wrapped package squashed between her and the chair arm. Maybe if no one mentioned it, it would ooze down farther and under the seat… Oooze, Melrose prayed.
“This it?” Jury whisked it out.
Stupidly, she nodded. “Uh-huh.”
Jury smiled and excused himself. He saw Colonel Neame; he would be back. Dinner, perhaps?
“Uh-huh,” said Melrose.
“Bletchley Park, 1939. Yes, it was after I’d finished at Oxford and before I joined up. RAF, I think I told you. Some days those were! Bletchley. Crazy,” said Colonel Neame.
“What took you there, Colonel?”
“Oh, call me Joss, please do. What took me there was recruitment. You see, they needed many more people… Thank you, Higgins.”
Jury had ordered whiskey all around and Major Champs, upon receiving his, rose. “You two have business; I’ll just sit over there and read my paper.”
Jury invited him to stay, but he walked off, making little backward waves with his downturned hand and resettled himself on a sofa.
Neame sipped his whiskey. “Anyway, cracking a code as complex as the Enigma needed an odd combination of the artistic and the bookkeeping mind. Hard to find. They weren’t, you see, just after mathematicians. It took a different sort of mind altogether. You can imagine how much plodding had to be done in working through the range of possible matches-”
“How did it work? The Enigma code?”
“Codes, Superintendent. Different codes and different machines. To explain how the damned thing worked would take more time than I dare-say you have. The Poles broke it in the thirties. Didn’t help them much, poor devils. At that point the Germans were using a monalphabetic code-you know, the simpler kind. But they used a dozen different monos, so it was hardly simple. Now, when we graduated to the polyalphabetic ciphers, it became even harder.
“The machine was made up of rotors-wheels-so you had your wheels, your ring settings, your steckers. That was a plugboard on the machine that scrambled the identity of letters. Now all of that was difficult enough, but the Germans changed the settings every day to make matters worse. It would have been impossible to break the code by pure plodding; at some point, intuition, the ability to actually think irrationally was needed. Genius was needed, like Turing’s and a few others’. They could see the ghost behind the scrambled letters, if you understand what I mean. It’s impossible to obliterate language completely. There’s always a ghost of the original meaning, and if you’re good at it, you can see the ghost; you can see the pattern. I’m not doing the whole thing justice, the way I’m explaining it. It was infernally complicated, that Enigma stuff. Devilishly.” He tossed back the remainder of his whiskey. “You know the type of person who makes a good cryptanalyst? A paranoid.”
Jury was startled. “Why do you say that? I don’t see that thinking people are out to get you would do much by way of making you good at decoding.”
“No, no.” Impatiently, Colonel Neame shook his head. “You’re using only one definition of the word. “I mean ‘paranoid’ in the sense of being able to think irrationally. Being able to see something that no one else can see. That is ‘paranoid.’ You see something no one else does. In the way you used the word, which is the way most people use it, you mean you alone see danger and must therefore be imagining it. But that’s a dilution of the meaning of ‘paranoid.’ ”
“Did you ever know a young fellow named Ralph Herrick? RAF, also. And what’s more, awarded the Victoria Cross. As I believe you were?”
“My stint came later, but Ralph Herrick?” He gave the name the other pronunciation: Rafe. “Absolutely! Don’t forget, I was young once too, though a bit younger than Herrick. Ralph was at Oxford, also, though I hadn’t known him there. My goodness, yes, I remember him. He was in the Crib room, if memory serves me correctly. That’s what he had this incredible knack for. He was brilliant when it came to cribs-you know, the ‘educated guess’ sort of thing. You guess at some words and then see if those letters could be decoded into others. Ralph had an uncanny ability to do this. They sent him to Chicksands; that was the RAF intercept. Myself, I was in hut three. I was working on the Red key-the Luftwaffe.”
“Red key?”
“Yes. The keys were colors, a different color assigned to each branch of the service. Red, was the Luftwaffe. Green, army.”
Jury had pulled Simon Croft’s book from his pocket, and now opened it to one of the notations. “What about these dates in September of 1940?”
“Hmm. Well, I do remember in August and September of that year the Luftwaffe very nearly crippled the RAF with attacks on our airfields. If Göring had stuck to it, bombing the Isle of Wight-that was the Ventron station-radar, you know-I have no doubt they would have won the war in the air. But it was a strange thing about both of those men, Göring and Hitler; they had no patience; they expected to win quickly. I wonder if it’s the earmark of a megalomaniac that he thinks what he wants will happen quickly and painlessly. That it should happen that way and if it doesn’t, and he doesn’t get immediate results, he pulls out. I can tell you one thing, though: it’s a mistake Churchill never made. That man was tenacious; he believed in hanging on like a pit bull.”
Jury turned the book around so that Neame could read Simon Croft’s notations.
Which he did, after adjusting the monocle in his eye.
“Is that the place you mentioned, Chicksands? It’s abbreviated here.”
“Indeed. Yes. It’s in Bedfordshire.” Neame’s eye fell on the other abbreviated words in the list. “Cov. Coventry. Ah, yes. You know about Coventry. No, you wouldn’t have been born then.”
“I was born, believe me. But I have only a foggy notion.”
“Of Coventry. Terrible destruction. Bloody awful. We got word there was to be an attack, but not that Coventry was the target. London, Manchester, maybe Reading. Industrial cities. Never Coventry. Remember, one thing about breaking a code is, you obviously have to go to some pains not to let it be known you’ve broken it. Because of that, Churchill came in for a horrendous attack, being accused of having known ahead of time that Coventry was the mark and not doing anything about it because he didn’t want the Germans to know we’d broken the code. That’s rubbish. It’s vile. Churchill might have had his dirty little secrets, but Coventry wasn’t one of them. We didn’t get the right decrypt, that’s all. The Chicksands unit didn’t have as much experience, and all you have to do-”
“The decrypt came from Chicksands?”
“Far as I know, yes.”
“You said Ralph Herrick was assigned there.”
Furrowing his brow, Neame took another drink of whiskey. “Yes, but you know, I think Ralph had clearance for just about everywhere. He was able to go between the huts at Bletchley Park, one of the few who had that kind of clearance.” Still holding the book, Neame looked back down at the rest of Croft’s list. “What is this, then? Whose is it?”
Jury told him about Croft’s relationship to Herrick and about the account of the war Croft was writing.
Colonel Neame handed the book back to Jury; the monocle fell from his eye. “Hmm.” Neame studied his nearly empty glass. “What you need is someone who was in GC and CS-”
“Is that ‘Code and Cypher’?”
“Government Code and Cypher School, right. I’m trying to think who’s left who still-Ah! There’s Maples. At least he was alive a couple of years ago. His picture was in the paper. Got an OBE and also the George Cross for the work he did at Bletchley. Sir Oswald Maples. I expect he’d be easy enough to find.”
Jury smiled. “You were certainly a much-decorated bunch.” He rose and when Colonel Neame started up, Jury waved him back down. “Please don’t get up. You’ve been an enormous help, Colonel.”
“Seem to have left you with questions instead of answers.”
Jury smiled. “That might be what’s helpful.”
“What happened to Polly?” asked Jury, returning to Melrose’s chair. “Isn’t she having dinner?”
“Gone. We’re having breakfast tomorrow. She’s staying in Bloomsbury. I think she hopes the literary swank will rub off on her.” Melrose polished off his whiskey. “How about you? Ready for some more oxblood soup?”
“Any time.”
Having brought the wine, Young Higgins floated off like milkweed. The wine was a Bâtard-Montrachet, “the finest white wine,” Melrose had said, “in the world.” They raised their glasses and drank.
“What on earth were you into with Colonel Neame?”
“Bletchley Park. The Enigma code. Codes.” Jury smiled. “Neame isn’t just taking up space in Boring’s.”
“Did I say he was? He’s a nice old codger.”
“I expect that’s it; we tend to condescend to old guys like that.”
“What about Bletchley Park?”
Jury pulled Croft’s book from his pocket. “The book Croft was writing about the war. Since there was no manuscript, no laptop, no notes I could find, I had a look at a few of his books, presumably ones he used to research his subject. He wrote stuff in the margins-” Jury turned to the list on the last page, held it up for Melrose to see.
Melrose frowned.
“This is what I was talking to Colonel Neame about.” He told Melrose what Neame had said.
Melrose stared. “What are you making of this?”
“I’m not sure.” Jury picked up his wineglass, swirled the contents. “This might just be the best in the world.”
“It is.”
“How about Kitty Riordin, then?”
Melrose told him what he’d found in Keeper’s Cottage. “I think he’s right, your friend Haggerty.”
“I take your point about the bracelet. It’s unlikely she’d find it in the rubble.”
“She could have had another one engraved afterward. The only difference is the initial in the little heart. Links has them. I checked.”
“Links wasn’t around in 1940.”
“No. I simply mean such silver jewelry for babies is not hard to come by. She could easily have had the M engraved on the bracelet you saw, making it appear that’s what little Maisie had worn. I mean, she could’ve simply purchased a new bracelet. She didn’t have to dig it out of the rubble.”
“She didn’t really have to have it at all.”
“Well, its absence wouldn’t prove anything; its presence, though, suggests the baby really was Maisie.”
Jury nodded. “I see Mickey Haggerty’s point. All Kitty had to do was smash Erin’s hand. She thinks very quickly on her feet. I’d say she immediately sussed out the situation and in the noise and fright and confusion took little Erin somewhere and wham!-” Jury’s fist smashed down on the table, making the dishes and the remaining diners jump. His mind went back to that smile on Kitty Riordin’s face. “She’s cold-blooded enough.”
“There’s no way of proving any of this, though, short of finding the jeweler who engraved the bracelet and hope he’s still alive and has an elephantine memory. Pretty impossible.”
In silence, they finished off their dinners, bet on the dessert. Melrose said trifle, Jury said pudding. Young Higgins eventually produced Queen of Puddings, and Jury collected his fiver from Melrose.
“You always win.”
“I deserve it.”
They were silent, eating, until Jury looked up and said, “Why was she there?”
Melrose frowned. “Who? The Riordin woman?”
“No, Alexandra. Why was she at the Blue Last?”
Melrose shrugged. “Didn’t you tell me she and the baby visited there often?”
Jury folded his hands and rested his chin on his thumbs. Only his eyes were visible above the fingers. “Look, though: Why would she leave Tynedale Lodge to go sleep over in a pub, and haul the baby with her to boot? The blitz wasn’t a stroll through Green Park.”
“Those two families are addicted to each other. At least they were then.”
“I know. Which means Alexandra Tynedale Herrick and Francis Croft, they were too.”
Melrose set down his wineglass, dropped his spoon on his plate. “Are you suggesting-”
Jury nodded.
“Wait. You’re not saying little Maisie was Croft’s?”
“No, I’m not. Alexandra had an illegitimate child when she was- nineteen, I think. She took herself off somewhere. It was hushed up, not surprisingly; that sort of thing wasn’t all the fashion in the forties.”
“Money is, though. Money is always in fashion and Oliver Tynedale has enough to make anything go away. He could have taken care of a scandal in a dozen different ways. ”
“Oliver didn’t know,” said Jury.
“How in hell do you know that?”
“Because the baby was given up for adoption. His grandchild? Not in a million years. Tynedale wouldn’t give a damn for convention anyway. He’s the publish-and-be-damned type. Easier to be that way if you have money and, as you say, it’s always in fashion. My guess is Alexandra didn’t tell him because she was afraid Oliver would discover who the father was.”
“Thrash him within an inch of his life, you mean?”
“Wake up.” Jury snapped his fingers. “That Château-whatever is putting you under.”
Melrose looked at him. “Are you saying-”
“That Alexandra couldn’t have her father finding out Francis Croft was the father.”
Melrose sat back. “That’s pure speculation.”
“At least it’s pure.” Jury smiled. “Tynedale is a man who I think is very foregiving. But not in this case. In this case he’d have to be a fucking saint to forgive Croft. His best friend. His lifelong friend. A betrayal that would have ruined everything. Goddamn! It’s infuriating all of this had to happen a half century ago. But I’ll still have Wiggins go to Somerset House and do a record search.”
“And I still say it’s much too tenuous.”
“Tenuous is all I’ve got.”
They were back in the Members’ Room, Young Higgins having poured and deposited the French press pot on the table and Jury’s coat on the arm of the chair. Jury had asked him to bring it.
“My knowledge of the Second World War is shamefully small.”
“So’s mine. Except I do remember Dunkirk, the BEF being evacuated. I remember it mostly because it’s where my father’s plane went down.”
Melrose did not know whether to delve into this or not. “What was he flying?”
“A Hurricane. They were good planes. Except their engines weren’t fuel injected; they were carburetor driven. If they were forced into a dive, the engine quit. That’s what happened.” Jury looked away toward the part of Boring’s Christmas tree he could see, the tips of branches on one side. From one of them, a silvery angel hung precariously. “The RAF whacked the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk.”
They were silent for a while. Colonel Neame and Major Champs had gone upstairs. There was no one left in the Members’ Room save for them.
Melrose said, “Listen, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Come to Ardry End for Christmas.”
“That would be nice. But I really have to spend Christmas in Islington. You know.”
“Yes. Well, then come for dinner tomorrow night. Christmas Eve. You can spend the night and drive back to London the next morning. It’s not a long drive. Well, you know; you’ve done it often enough.”
Jury nodded. “Sounds good to me.” Then, “I like your new look.”
“What look?”
“The black clothes.”
Melrose looked down, seemingly surprised that he was he. “Oh.” He shrugged. “I just tossed on what was there. Didn’t have much to choose from.”
Jury shook his head. “Come on. That look’s assembled.”
Melrose was irritated at being found out about his clothes. Was his mind never to have any privacy? Did everybody know what went on in it? “Polly thought it was cool. ‘Way cool’ I believe is how she put it.”
“Oh, it’s way cool all right. A lot different from your usual get-ups.”
Get-ups? “What do you mean? That sounds like posturing?”
“No, no. Merely conservative. Expensive, of course-Michel Axel, Coveri, Ferre, Zegna, Cerruti-but conservative nonetheless.”
“Who are those people? Designers? If so, how do you happen to be acquainted with them?”
Jury laughed. “I’m not a total nincompoop when it comes to clothes. Although I expect you might not be able to tell from looking at me.”
“People look at you and they don’t even see your clothes. They see six-two and a smile. And of course your identity card. But you’re probably right; I guess I do look like I’m making a statement.”
“ ‘Fear wearing black.’ ”
“What?” Melrose laughed, briefly.
“It’s the definition of ‘cool.’ ‘Fear wearing black.’ Makes sense if you remember what ‘cool’ really meant before it got debased into meaning anything anyone approves of. ‘Keeping your cool’-the idea is that you don’t show any anxiety or fear. So there you are, as calm a dude as can be. And what’s icier than black?”
“ ‘Fear wearing black.’ I like that.”
“Thought you would.”
“I suppose you know Christmas is the day after tomorrow,” said Polly Praed.
She made it sound as though its propinquity were Melrose’s fault. They were having breakfast in a restaurant across the street from Polly’s Bloomsbury hotel. That the hotel was in Bloomsbury did not make it fashionable. It was called Rummage’s, not the happiest choice of names. Although he wouldn’t go so far as to call it a dump, it was far from being a hotel haunted by the cognoscenti.
Breakfast was included in the price of the room-not the breakfast they presently shared, but the Rummage breakfast, which they announced in their brochure (Melrose had read it waiting for Polly) as a “cooked breakfast.” Melrose guessed that the cooking was not done to order, but everything was cooked before the first frail traveler descended into the bowels of the “garden level” dining room. In other words, the basement.
To Polly’s statement that the hotel will cook your eggs any way you want, Melrose said they cook them one way only: “eggs overnight.”
Polly scoffed and said he was always criticizing, and Melrose answered, yes, he would always criticize Rummage’s, and would kick it if he ever saw it again, and that they could have breakfast at that nice little café across the street, faux Left Bank, which is where they now sat.
Or had been sitting. Melrose said he needed to get going soon because he had to get his Christmas shopping done before returning to Long Piddleton, but that they had time for another cappuccino if she liked.
“Do you really do it, Melrose?”
Melrose was making little waves in his cappuccino foam. “What? Do what?”
“Your own Christmas shopping.”
It seemed to be a genuine question. Had Polly landed that recently from the planet Uranus? “What are you talking about? Of course I do it.”
“Don’t get shirty. I just thought maybe you paid someone to do it for you. Or maybe your man Ruthven does it. Or someone.”
“Ye gods, Polly. What sort of life do you think I lead?”
She appeared to be thinking. “Well, the life of the idle rich, certainly. I just can’t picture you in Harrods mulling over the socks.”
“I can’t either, but that’s because I refuse to go into Harrods. It’d suck me right down. To go into Harrods means you must be prepared for quick-sand at every turning. Have you seen the number of people in Harrods?”
“Yes. But, of course, it’s for people. That’s why it’s there.”
“Wretchedly there. No, I prefer Fortnum’s. It’s crowded on the food floor but quite bracing on the floors above. Oxygen and plenty of it. No, Fortnum’s is the place. I can get everything I want in a minute.”
“It’s too late for hampers now; you’ll be disappointed.”
Melrose signaled the waiter for another round of cappuccino. “Polly, do you know you sound like my aunt Agatha sometimes, the way she’s always telling me how I’ll feel?”
Polly was not offended. This was because she liked taking her own line, and not paying that much attention to Melrose’s. Right now she put down the spoon with which she’d been eating Weetabix (Melrose had never known anyone to actually order Weetabix in a restaurant) and asked, “What are you and Richard Jury working on?”
“How do you know we are?”
“I know. You’re obvious.”
“Can’t discuss it. Sorry.”
Polly made little jumps in her chair, “Oh, come on, Melrose; you can tell me a little, can’t you?”
“Okay.” He told her about the murder of Simon Croft. “It was in the papers; maybe you read about it.”
She shook her head. “What else?”
“Nothing else.” Melrose had imbibed too much of Divisional Commander Macalvie’s philosophy: don’t.
Yet he felt moved to tell her about Gemma and the shooting.
“My God, Melrose! Whoever would murder a nine-year-old child?”
“Because it happens, doesn’t it? A child abducted, beaten, maimed, raped, held hostage. Murdered. I know someone to whom it’s happened.”
“Who?”
Melrose shrugged, sorry he’d brought it up. He was thinking of Brian Macalvie again. “You wouldn’t know him.”
“But in these circumstances? Her home, her family?”
The waiter set two fresh cups before them with a waiterly flourish and Melrose asked for the bill.
“In any event, Jury thinks it’s possible someone else was the target. A girl employed as undergardener who often went into the greenhouse.”
“Did she tell him that?”
“No.”
“Then how does he know?”
Melrose stopped his spoonful of foam on the way to his mouth. “What do you mean?”
“What makes you think this undergardener and not the nine-year-old was the target?”
“It seemed more-plausible. The girl often worked in the greenhouse after dark. Also, she quit right after the shooting.”
“So would I. Yet she wasn’t in the greenhouse and the little girl was. Unless the shooter was blind.”
“The undergardener is quite small. The greenhouse is shadowy, murky. The killer expected the girl to be there. Add that up and it’s possible.”
“It’s possible, but is it probable? You’re going to quite a bit of trouble twisting the facts to suit what you want to believe.” She sighed. “Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries, mysteries.” Her head wagged from side to side as if she were shaking water out of her ears or auditioning for the role in the next Exorcist film. “I’m getting to loathe mysteries, including my own. Maybe mostly my own.”
Melrose was relieved to get away from the Gemma affair. Was Polly smarter than they? “Good heavens, Polly, that’s terrible. But you do write other books.”
“I could have written À la recherche et cetera and they’d still have me swimming the genre gutter.”
“But I like your Inspector Guermantes. Of the Sûreté.” He’d like him better if Polly weren’t fishing names out of Proust.
“So do I, but that doesn’t mean I have to dance every dance with him. Only, if I don’t I’ll probably have to go back to being a wallflower.”
“That you will never be.” Melrose pushed back from the table and signed for the waiter, lurking back there in the shadows with two others. “I’ve got to go, Polly.”
Polly regarded her empty Weetabix bowl. “Yes, I guess I should, too.”
“Polly, when are you ever going to come visit me? I’ve asked you several times.”
“I’d like to.” She gathered her coat around her. It was one of Polly’s unflattering colors, a rust shade that really looked rusty. “But I’d undoubtedly be overwhelmed. By your house and your ritzy friends.”
“You’re no competition for Mrs. Withersby, that’s sure.” Tired of waiting for his bill, Melrose dumped money on the table, including a hefty tip.
“Who’s she?”
“One of my ritzy friends.”
Melrose’s first stop was in Regent Street, where he went into Hamley’s. Given that this was only two days before Christmas, he had not been mistaken about the crowd. The place was jammed, understandably, with children.
Ill-advisedly stopping to inspect this year’s toy rage-some sort of lunar space station manned by robotic personnel-he found himself surrounded by kiddies, one of whom got her sticky fingers on his black jeans and looked at him as if he were a ladder she was about to climb for a front-row seat. Her little look was so baleful, he sighed and picked her up and set her on his shoulders. Now she got her fingers into his hair, and he listened to the chattering, gasping children who coveted this toy. The place thronged and thrummed with pre-Christmas anticipation.
The parents of these children were all mucking about with apparently no care that their little darlings might be in the arms of the Regent Street Ripper. Tired of his hair being shredded, Melrose set the little girl down where she promptly began wailing to be taken up again, her little arms reaching pitifully upward. He patted her head and strong-armed his way through a crowd as thick as treacle. A haggard sales assistant pointed him in the right direction.
He searched the tables and walls but found nothing he wanted. He turned away when his eye lit on one article that just might do as it was very stretchy. He plucked it from the long hook on the wall and plowed through the field of wildflower children to the cash register.
Outside, he stopped on the pavement to think. People swam around him as if he were no more than an irritating rock in the middle of a stream. Then he walked the short distance to Liberty’s and into its stationery department. There he purchased a pad of paper and ventured down to the coffee shop where he got himself an espresso. He sat down with the pad and carefully drew a picture.
Following this he found a pay phone still working in Oxford Street and called Mr. Beaton. Melrose told him what he wanted and apologized for such dreadfully short notice.
After this, he took a cab to the Old Brompton Road.
Mr. Beaton, whose premises were above a sweet shop, was delighted to see him again after-what was it-three years?
“My lord,” said Mr. Beaton with but a marginal bow.
Melrose had never had the heart to tell Mr. Beaton that he’d given up his titles years before. Mr. Beaton would put it down to carelessness at best, slovenliness at worst. Mr. Beaton never changed: always the morning coat, always the tape measure. If Melrose had his way he would hang the George Cross on the ends of that tape measure.
Mr. Beaton’s apprentice-this one, tall and angular with a shock of ginger hair-copied the fractional bow.
“Now, if you brought your drawing, I’ll see what I can do.”
Melrose produced the picture he’d drawn in Liberty’s coffee shop. “I’m pretty certain it’s to size, Mr. Beaton. I’ve a good memory for things like this.” Had he?
Mr. Beaton instructed his apprentice to bring out certain bolts of cloth. The young man slipped into a room at the rear and was back in a few seconds, carrying the bolts of material.
“Just feel this, now, Lord Ardry.” Tenderly, the tailor held out several inches of material from one of the bolts.
Melrose always felt humbled in the presence of Mr. Beaton, for the old man’s attitude toward cloth was as reverent as a priest’s toward the chalice. Just then, providentially, sunlight filtered through the small panes, fretting the cloth. Melrose fingered the wool and sighed. Woven air, spun sunlight, Melrose had never felt anything as soft and weightless.
“It’s a silk worsted, quite fine. Would it do?”
“It’ll do wonderfully, Mr. Beaton.”
Pulling at his earlobe, the tailor studied Melrose’s sketch. “Quite a pleasant little challenge this will be. I’ve never done anything like it. Now: when would you be wanting this, Lord Ardry?”
Melrose blushed. “Well, I hate to ask it of you-I mean, given it’s Christmas and all-but, you see, I’ll be going back to Northamptonshire tonight-this is something I’d really like to deliver before I go-if it’s possible?”
“In other words, right away.”
“Could you possibly?”
Mr. Beaton removed his pocket watch from an honest-to-God pocket and said, “It’s getting on for three… Shall we say six? Or you can call me at five and see how I’m doing here.”
“Admirable. I can come back then. And, of course, don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Mr. Beaton raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”
The apprentice blinked once, hard. For even he had caught this graceless remark.
So Melrose slunk down the narrow stairs, feeling gauche and crude, and with an eye unalive to anything aesthetically pleasing.
When Mr. Beaton plied his scissors and thread, there was no such thing as “less than perfect.”
Melrose taxied back to Boring’s, where he fidgeted, packed and bit his nails, a childish habit he had never been able to shake; he seemed to bite them only when he was deep into something-really deep, and that seldom happened, only when he was reading Henry James or Proust or working on one of Jury’s cases. (Would Jury be complimented? Proust, after all, was no slouch.) He was certainly deep into this case. He lay on the bed thinking deeply. There was something neither of them had seen, and he thought it was something obvious. He could feel it as obvious. He gave up and stumbled downstairs with his single bag.
It was after five o’clock, and Melrose decided not to call, but simply to go back to Mr. Beaton’s. He had a whiskey as he waited for the boy who dealt with keys and cars, who drove them off to some mysterious parking arrangement (garage? rooftop?) only the boy knew about; then he drove them back to appear magically outside of Boring’s door.
Melrose tipped him handsomely, remarking to the lad that he probably had the most important job in London; people would probably die to have someone else park their cars. Then he got in, turned his face skyward in the deepening dark and thanked God for money.
When he got to the Old Brompton Road, he parked illegally (as there was no other option) and took the steps two at a time to Mr. Beaton’s rooms.
“Absolutely perfect, Mr. Beaton. You’re a wonder.” Melrose held up the garments, marveling. “I don’t suppose you’d have a box-”
The apprentice immediately went into the back again and returned with a small box, perfect for the clothes. “Is it a gift, sir? I rather thought it might be and found this silvery paper if you need it-? I could wrap it up.”
Melrose thanked him profusely. “That’s very kind and it would be a big help.” He turned to Mr. Beaton. “Mr. Beaton, I would be happy to pay you now, if-”
Eyes closed, Mr. Beaton shook his head. “Not at all, not at all. I’ll put it on your account, my lord. Happy to do it.”
After securing his package, Melrose thanked them again and raced down to his car.
Sir Oswald Maples lived alone in a cream-painted mews house off Cadogan Square. He lived by himself despite the fact that he needed two canes in order to get to the door in the wake of Jury’s ring.
He said, holding up one of the canes as if to shake Jury’s hand, “It’s not as bad as it looks. I don’t always need these, just when the knees start going underneath me. Come on in.” He used a cane to wave Jury into the living room.
Jury thanked him and removed his coat, which Sir Oswald told him to toss over the banister. Then-again with the cane-he pointed to an overstuffed armchair across from a sofa where he’d been sitting himself. He must be over eighty, yet brandished the canes in the high good humor of a boy. Watching him whip them around to lean against the arm of the sofa, Jury wondered if he thought they were playthings. Had there been a servant and a buzzer to call him hence, Jury was sure he would have used the tip of the cane to press the button.
“It’s rheumatoid arthritis, but the discomfort comes and goes. Would you like a drink, Superintendent?” He pointed to a tumbler beside him containing a finger of whiskey. “Or is it a bit early in the day for you?”
It wasn’t yet noon, but Jury felt a sadness descend on him whose source he couldn’t name-or perhaps he could. He felt as if he needed a drink, after all. Sure. Needing a drink was the first step. Or maybe it was the last. But he hated to see Maples drink alone… No. That was the last. “No thanks. I just drank a bucketful of coffee.”
Maples nodded and leaned back against the green love seat. “You wanted some information, you said on the telephone, about Ralph Herrick.”
“Yes. As I told you, it was Colonel Joss Neame who mentioned you as possibly remembering Herrick. You knew him.”
The older man nodded. “I did, yes.”
“You were with the code and cypher branch of intelligence?”
“Ah, yes. GC and CS.”
“I’m involved in a homicide investigation. A man named Simon Croft was shot. You might have read about it.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve seen that house on the Thames. Often wondered who lived there.”
“Simon Croft did. Alone. He was writing a book about certain years of the Second World War. Croft knew Ralph Herrick. Croft was only a boy, but he rather idolized the man. A fighter pilot, a hero. Not surprising, I suppose.”
“Indeed not. No, there was no question about Herrick’s heroism. His courage was almost-wanton.”
Jury smiled. “A strange way of putting it.”
“I know. But it was almost seductive, that courage, and he did throw it around. I don’t mean he bragged; that was the last thing he’d do. I mean-it was as if courage were an afterthought. God knows he had it, though. He took out, nearly single-handedly, four Junkers over Driffield, in Yorkshire. The bombers didn’t have a fighter escort; they realized finally they couldn’t send bombers without escort by Messerschmitts, but the 109s didn’t have the range to fly all the way from Norway.” He grew thoughtful. “Herrick commanded a squadron of Spitfires that intercepted the German bombers which were hammering one of the Chain Home radar stations. Absolutely critical. Herrick’s squadron downed all but one. No, there was no question about his courage, Superintendent.”
Jury thought for a moment. “His family-rather, the one he married into-talk about him as though he were, well, an idol. He was idolized by more than one member. But one person took exception to this picture. She said she found him much too ‘plausible… one of those smooth racketeers one sees in old American films.’ That was her description.”
Maples threw back his head in a soundless laugh. “That’s very good, that is. Let me tell you something about Herrick: a great deal of that courage he displayed was of the daredevil kind. I think it came from his not giving a bloody damn about much of anything. In some way I think he felt the whole war was a card game and he had an ace in the hole.”
Jury smiled. “Did he play it?”
Maples reached for the decanter he had placed on a table beside him, poured himself another drink and raised the decanter in question to Jury, who again declined. “Oh, I’m quite certain he played it. But the important thing was the game itself.”
Jury handed him the book, opened to the page on which Simon had listed the dates. “This book belongs to Simon Croft, Sir Oswald. Joss Neame helped identify some of this marginalia. He thought you’d be able to help.”
Maples took the book, took up his rimless spectacles and bent over it.
“And the last page, that list of words, I marked.”
Turning to the page, Maples read off the list. “ ‘Enigma’… God, I don’t believe this.’ ” Sir Oswald nodded. “Pretty obviously worried about it, wouldn’t you say? Ralph Herrick’s work with the Enigma codes is what I wondered about. It could be what this Croft fellow wondered about, too.” Maples put down his glasses, tented his hands and regarded Jury over the tips of his fingers. “We learned from certain decrypts-and also a POW-about an operation that was going down in the middle of November on the night of a full moon-thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth. It was to be a three-stage operation: code name ‘Moonlight Sonata’-a sonata, you see, being a three-part piece. So the note there-” he pointed to Jury’s book “-refers to that plan of attack.”
“This was the attack on Coventry? There was no advance warning?”
Maples seemed to be studying the pattern in the wallpaper behind Jury. “Not precisely true, although a lot of people think it is. We knew Coventry and Birmingham were possible targets, but an enciphered map showed the locations to be London and the Home Counties. I’m simplifying the code business here, but the map misled us; the decrypt was wrong. That wasn’t the only time I wondered,” Maples said, musingly. “Rather I didn’t wonder at the time or I’d have done something. I wondered when it did no particular good.”
Jury frowned. “You had reason to believe Herrick had something to do with the mistaken decrypt?”
“Oh, I’m fairly certain he did; it was through his hands the map passed. I mean, he did the final decrypt.”
“An honest mistake?”
“Could have been, yes. But the ‘honest mistakes’ were building. There was the Bismarck business.” Maples motioned with two fingers toward Jury’s notes. “That date you have there. May 24, 1941. That was the day of the attack on the Bismarck. We had one hell of a time with the naval Enigma. It was some time before we finally broke it.” Reflectively, Maples scratched the neck beneath his collar. “The biggest problem was not being able to read the code far enough in advance to take action.”
“But could someone have been working on both keys? The RAF and the Admiralty?”
“Good question. Ordinarily, no. But Ralph had clearance to go from one place to another. At Bletchley, the keys worked on were in different huts. Security was hard to maintain. It was too easy for things to slip out. And there were so many people involved. I expect it wasn’t until after Herrick had gone to the Orkneys that I seriously started wondering. Hatston, that’s where our Fleet Air arm base was. Also we had one of our satellite interception sections based there.”
“Herrick died there, I understand.”
“Hmm. You haven’t, I suppose, talked to anyone in military intelligence? MI5, MI6?”
Jury shook his head.
“I mention that because I think they were on to Herrick and posted him there, as a temporary measure. Or, indeed, intelligence outfits being the bastards we always were, sent him on a permanent basis. You see, he was murdered a few months later. Of course, it was made to look like an accident, a drowning. Very convenient, I think.” Sir Oswald puffed out his cheeks and sat forward fixing Jury with steely gray eyes. “Then there was ‘Julia.’ ”
“Julia? Who was she?”
Maples smiled. “She turned up in the GAF-German Air Force-traffic. We had been having great success with that particular traffic until ‘Julia’ appeared. This was a word that kept turning up in decrypts that we could never pin down. I’ll tell you it messed things up for quite a while. You see, it’s the main reason I know that Herrick was one of theirs. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he’d been a double agent. It would have suited his love of game playing. Anyway, just before the end, which I think he could see coming, he wrote me a note.” Maples pointed with one of the canes at the bookshelves behind Jury’s chair. “Would you just get me the large volume on the end of that bottom shelf?”
Jury rose and pulled out a thick and much-used book. He took it to the sofa.
Maples adjusted his glasses and opened the book to a page with a note for a marker. “This is quite famous. Listen:
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
There are at least a dozen poems, all written for Julia, not just that one. That one, though, is the best known. It’s that wonderful word ‘liquefaction’ that makes us remember it, I suppose.”
Sir Oswald paused and Jury prompted him: “And-?”
“Well, it’s the poet, isn’t it, Superintendent? Robert Herrick.”
There was a lengthy silence in which they regarded one another. Then Jury said, “It really was a game for Herrick, wasn’t it?”
Sir Oswald nodded. “It was, yes.” He removed the paper and unfolded it. Adjusting his glasses, he read: ‘I’m surprised at you, Ozzie, for never having worked out Julia. You, such a lover of seventeenth-century poetry.’ It’s signed, simply, ‘Ralph.’”
“What a bastard.”
Maples nodded again. “Exactly. Especially”-here he shut the book with a snap-“for calling me Ozzie.”