The police ambulance sans siren had just left the alley with its cargo and left the faces of the limo driver and a few of the roadies open-mouthed, staring after it. Security police were in their element, although they weren't too sure what the element was: they seemed disappointed that there wasn't a crowd to be cordoned off and held back, that there wasn't a mob of funky punk rock fans all jostling for a front-row view. Aside from the single stretcher borne by two orderlies in plain clothes and a youngish man held up by two more, it was the slickest exit made from a stage door they had seen, slicker than the exit of the stars themselves.
… who were still performing. Jury, Plant, Macalvie, and Wiggins were sitting in one of the equipment vans on amps and crates, being brought mugs of tea and stale sandwiches by Mary Lee, who was also in her element. When one of the roadies kept after her, grabbing her to tell him what was going on, she strong-armed him and told him and the limo driver, Get out of my face, as she sashayed back in the stage door with the tin tray that had held the food.
She stopped, however, for a photo session with a young man who claimed to be the photographer from Kregarrand and who was actually Jury's Scene-of-Crimes man, enjoying his double role.
When Jury saw the police pathologist come out of the stage door, he jumped down from the lorry.
Dr. Phyllis Nancy was, in Jury's mind, the creme de la creme of doctors, the one he had searched out not only because she could work with lightning speed, but because she had an imaginative grasp of a situation that was lacking in her colleagues.
Phyllis Nancy was, on the other hand, a conflicted personality; she pretended to disdain her femininity and looks by wearing harshly cut suits and little string ties. On the other hand, she went all out when she was off-duty.
As she walked-or strolled-toward Jury, it was clear that she was definitely off-duty. Beneath a fur coat she wore a long gown, green and slit up the front. The conflict also extended to her having been called away.
"From a performance of La Boheme, Superintendent, Pavarotti singing. Box seat, bottle of superior Chablis-"
"I know. About the seat, I mean, not the wine." He smiled.
Phyllis Nancy looked first to the right, then the left, then at the sky. Anywhere but at Jury, as she clutched the collar of her fur coat round her neck. In the other hand was her black bag. "The victim is in critical condition. One of what I would imagine to be at least four broken ribs penetrated the lung and started hemorrhaging, with blood coming out of both the ear and the mouth. The right wrist is broken, compound fracture, you can see the bone protruding. One side of the skull endured a blow with a blunt object, bits of the cheekbone adhering to the blood…"
Jury listened patiently as Dr. Nancy went on. Ordinarily, her reports were like her no-nonsense, crisp suits: brief, staccato, atonal. Dismembered bodily parts were inspected and collected like shells. But for some reason, she seemed to enjoy whatever Grand Guignol touches she could bring into play when she gave Jury her reports. She ended hers now by asking Jury just what the hell was going on; at the same time, she extracted from her pocket a cigarette case, removed a cigarette, and snapped the little lighter before Jury could produce a match. She did not seem to notice she was standing in a drizzling rain that was matting her fur coat and taking the wave out of what looked like a pricey hairdo.
Before Jury could answer her, she exhaled a thin stream of smoke and said, "That police photographer,"-she motioned to the young fellow at the stage door who was still taking photos of a couple of the road crew, who were enjoying it immensely-"was in the balcony popping his flashbulbs at the curious and telling them he was the photographer from Kregarrand."
Jury smiled: "A distraction, Phyllis. How's the member of the lighting crew? We found him in a storage room, tied up and out cold. Why he wasn't dead is beyond me."
"I brought him round. He said about twenty or twenty-five minutes before the show, a woman came up to him when he was adjusting the spotlight, said she was from the supply equipment company and that the spot was defective. He said it wasn't-"
"And showed her, I take it."
"His leather jacket gone, his cap gone, and she was gone. Well, we know where she was. She looked like she'd been set upon by a gang of punks. Those blows to the head weren't all caused by the spotlight falling-"
"Beer bottle, maybe?" asked Macalvie, who'd descended from the lorry.
Phyllis Nancy looked at him, mouth open, and when she didn't reply, he shrugged and offered, "Couple of beer bottles?"
She dropped her cigarette on the pavement, scrubbed at it with a green satin shoe. "Who are you?"
"Macalvie, Brian. Devon-Cornwall constabulary." He flicked out his ID. "I've been working on a case."
She looked at him, looked back at Jury, squinted into the shadows of the lorry. "Who else is in there?"
"You know how crazy fans get at these concerts," said Macalvie. "Anything can happen."
As if to augment that statement, Sergeant Wiggins came out of the stage door in a rush as if he were being blown thither by the swell of music and thunder of applause. "I got hold of Sanderson-"
Phyllis Nancy said, "Well, if it isn't Sergeant Wiggins, our karate expert."
"Kung fu," he corrected her. "And I'm not," he said modestly, "an expert."
"Just enough to break a wrist or arm, I expect. What are you all sitting in that lorry for? Is that the getaway car?"
"Waiting for autographs," said Jury. "I'll tell you all about it later."
"This should be one of the more interesting reports I've written up." She checked her tiny watch. "Well, I might be able to catch the final aria." She collected her black bag and started toward the police car.
"You should have come to the concert, Phyllis," called Jury after her. "Better than listening to 'O Sole Mio.' "
She stopped, called back: "I couldn't get tickets." Dr. Nancy slammed the door and the car lurched toward the Hammersmith Road.
"What did Sanderson say?"
Wiggins was blowing on his hands. "That he was sending someone from Wakefield headquarters. And that the coins from the call box matched the prints on the brandy decanter-Irene Citrine's. He added it didn't prove when the calls had been made."
"He's as hard to convince as Commander Macalvie," said Jury.
"Good for Sanderson. I take it this Citrine woman was one of Roger Healey's ladies?"
"It might have been pure greed and not love and greed. Rena's the poor Citrine. Everyone else in the family had money. Roger and Rena must have made a divine pair, both after his wife's money. They meant to kidnap Billy; Toby was there; they had two boys to deal with. Somehow Billy Healey got away. But they couldn't let Toby live to identify them later-"
"So Toby Holt goes into the grave," said Wiggins. "Dr. Dench was right about the age, then." Wiggins sounded almost disappointed.
Macalvie cut a look round at all of them. "No, he isn't."
"Why are you still arguing, Macalvie? The woman tried to kill him. You sound like Sanderson talking about the time the calls were made. That's a little after-the-fact, isn't it?"
"That is, but this isn't. So she tried to shoot someone-"
"You're worse than a pit bull."
Macalvie steamrolled on: "Psychologically, your theory won't wash, Jury. I told you. Instead of running home to his mum, which would be the natural thing, he disappears-"
"Can't we assume he was scared out of his mind?"
"Which is why he'd go running home. Or to some kind of sanctuary. Instead he goes off to Ireland. To Ireland?"
Jury sighed. "I'm not saying at twelve he-"
"Some sanctuary." Macalvie sat with arms binding his chest, the brim of his loose tweed cap shown over his eyes. "This twelve-year-old piano prodigy just dusts himself off, grabs the ferry for Larne, becomes a guitarist, and lets his beloved step-mum sweat it out for eight years thinking he's dead. You got any Fisherman's Friends, Wiggins? I think I'll choke myself." Back and forth, back and forth, Macalvie slowly shook his head. "Uh-uh." He got up, drained the cup of tea. "I'm supposed to be in Sidmouth. Let me know what happens when the music dies." He nodded toward Melrose. "Plant's really into this; he's reading Segue."
Melrose looked up. "Jimi Hendrix was left-handed."
"So?" Macalvie rose just as Mary Lee came out of the stage door again, moving between security police. She carried a tray with fresh cups and a plate of stale-looking sandwiches.
She shoved the tray onto the floor of the van: "Want another cuppa? And there's someone rung up to talk to-just a tic…" She pulled a scrap of paper from her shoe, which she seemed to regard as the only proper place for safekeeping, like a safety deposit box, and read, "-Chief Superintendent Macalver." She emphasized the second syllable.
"Mac-al-vie," he said. "What someone?"
"A woman. Said to call right away."
Muttering imprecations, Macalvie jumped down from the van, nearly upsetting the tray and definitely upsetting Mary Lee who said, "You? You said you was from Juke Blues."
"I do that part time because I can't make a living as a cop." He patted her cheek. "Don't worry; your picture will be all over the papers. Where's the nearest phone?"
With some show of hostility she said, "I expect you could use my office."
Macalvie turned to leave, turned back again and called to Jury, "If you're so sure, Jury, why aren't you on the phone to Wakefield headquarters? I imagine Mrs. Healey would like to know he's alive."
He went off through the driving rain.
The first to come out was Stan Keeler, followed by Stone. The drizzle had turned to a steady downpour and the cigarette turned soggy in his mouth. "That was some play, man." He dropped the cigarette on the ground. "Am I nuts or was that a bullet that spun Wes around? Is some crazy trying to make a statement they don't like Sirocco? What the hell was going on in there?" He didn't seem to expect any answers. "Your friend was very persuasive. So where's this new landlady he was telling me about?"
"Front of the theater. You can't miss her. Red hair, silver jacket, beautiful nose."
Stan grinned. "Aw-right." He turned to the black Labrador.
Stone was already halfway down the alley.
"The last number; they'll be out in a minute," said Wiggins in answer to Jury's question. "Got to keep your strength up, sir." The sergeant pushed the paper plate toward him. Wiggins was munching on one of Mary Lee's cheese sandwiches. The bread was curling up on the edges. Jury picked up a pale-looking round and then put it down.
He imagined himself sitting in the lounge of the Old Silent, staring down at his plate after the conversation with Sanderson. It wasn't, he realized now, anything Sanderson or he had said, it was the plate. The detail which then had tried to surface now did.
Wiggins was talking to him about the chap whose job it had been to monitor the spotlight. "He could identify her, sir. Why didn't she kill him if she was that desperate?"
Jury stared at his sergeant without answering. He had his own personal allergist sitting right there before him. "Wiggins, people can outgrow allergies, can't they?"
Wiggins looked perplexed by his superior's interest in a subject Jury generally considered as fascinating as one of Racer's preachments. He was, nonetheless, delighted to hold forth at some length about the various types of allergic reactions. "Billy Healey's?" Wiggins frowned. "Doubtful. His was very serious."
"Then I don't imagine he'd be eating a ploughman's." He looked from the sandwiches to his sergeant. "Lunch. Consisting mainly of cheese."
Wiggins stopped the cup of tea on the way to his mouth. "If you'd only told me what he had for lunch-"
"Duckworth's column," said Melrose, "mentions the eccentricities of some guitarists. Hendrix was left-handed and restrung right-handed guitars because he thought they were probably superior."
"What's the point? Charlie Raine's a right-handed guitarist."
"He taught himself to play by looking at instruction books and naively assumed the guitar had to be held that way. Mirror-image." He tossed Jury the magazine. "By now, he's ambidextrous. But he was born left-handed."
"Remind me to ring up Dr. Dench," said Wiggins, smugly.
The band came out.
Jury jumped down from the van and walked over to Wes Whelan. One arm of his red shirt was caked with blood. "You amaze me. You didn't even drop a beat. That was the most acrobatic turn I've ever seen." He shook his hand.
Grinning, he said, "You forgot? I grew up in Derry with the IRA." He looked at his shirt. "This is but a scratch. Nothing a tall a tall. It only grazed me."
"You all showed incredible presence of mind."
Jiminez laughed; it was very deep, very throaty. "Man, we were so into things I doubt we even knew what was goin' on until Stan Keeler came out on that stage. Don't give us no credit."
Jury smiled. "No, of course not. Where's Charlie?"
Swann motioned over his shoulder. "In there. Hates to leave the stage, Charlie does." He pushed back his golden hair and smiled.
"Don't wait for him," said Jury as they started piling into the limousine.
"If you're going to the Ritz," said Melrose, "may I hitch a ride?"