The question wasn't whether Divisional Commander Macalvie knew somethingbut whether he knew everything, a conviction that his Scene-of-Crimes expert assumed he held, and that she was in the process of challenging.
Since Gilly Thwaite was a woman, and Macalvie's lack of tolerance was legendary, none of her colleagues at the Devon headquarters had expected her to last five minutes in the bracing presence of Brian Macalvie.
But Macalvie's suffering others to live had nothing to do with sex, age, creed, species. He had no end of tolerance as long as nobody made a mistake in the job. And he was fond of saying that he understood and sympathized with the possibility of human error. If the monkey could really type Hamlet, he'd take the monkey on a case with him any day before ninety percent of his colleagues.
He couldn't understand (which is to say, he didn't give a bloody damn) why people found him difficult to work with. Occasionally, someone who'd actually got a transfer (requests for them had become routine) would burst into his office and tell him off. One had actually accepted a demotion to Kirkcudbright and told Macalvie Scotland was hardly far enough away from him; he'd asked for Mars. Macalvie was part Scot himself, and had just sat there, chewing his gum, warming his hands under his armpits, his copper hair glimmering in a slant of sun and the acetylene torches of his blue eyes turned down a bit from boredom, and replied that the sergeant was lucky it was Scotland because he'd forgot to do up his fly, and in Kirkcudbright maybe he could wear a kilt.
Not everyone on the force hated Macalvie; the police dogs loved him. They knew a cop with a good nose. The dogs belonged to the ten percent of the population Macalvie thought had it together. He only wished he could say the same for their trainers. And the fingerprint team. And forensics. And especially for the police doctors. At this point Macalvie had read so many books on pathology he could have earned a degree.
So ten percent-well, seven on an especially bad day- comprised that part of the population Macalvie thought might possibly know what they were doing. Gilly Thwaite was one, although one would be hard put to know why from the dialogue going on between them when Jury's call came through.
"You're not the pathologist, Chief Superintendent." Gilly Thwaite only tossed him a title, like a bone, when she was being sarcastic.
Actually, he didn't care what he was called, except when hewas being sarcastic. He said, "Thank God I'm not that one. The last time he opened his murder bag I thought I saw a hammer and a spanner. He'd make a better plumber." He shoved the diagram she'd slapped on his desk aside and went back to the same deep immersion in the newspaper she'd chortled about when she came in."You? Reading on the job?"
This he had ignored and he tried to ignore her now. Her argument was perfectly intelligent; it was just wrong. The item in the Telegraphwas sending up his blood pressure.
Still, she mashed her finger at the diagram, a drawing of the trajectory a bullet might have made from entrance to exit wound. "The entrance wound is here, see, here. The bullet couldn't possibly have lodged there-"
He regarded her over the edge of the paper. "The bullet could've glanced off one of the ribs."
"Macalvie, you can't go into court and say our own pathologistis wrong."
"Not going to. I'm going to say he's not a pathologist, he's a plumber."
Gilly Thwaite was shaking her head rapidly; her ordinarily tight brown curls had got longer because she hadn't had time to cut her hair.
"Your hair is turning to snakes, Medusa."
She pounded her fist on his desk so hard the telephone jumped as it rang and she squealed in frustration.
He snatched it up. Anything for a reprieve. "Macalvie," he said.
"My God, Macalvie, are you sticking a pig?"
"Hullo, Jury. No, just Gilly Thwaite. Get out, will you?"
"I just got here," said Jury.
"Her." Silence. "I shut my eyes. She's still here. Go get a haircut." Back to Jury. "I was just reading about it."
Although he was slightly startled by Macalvie's mind-reading, he didn't question it. "Roger Healey, you mean."
"Why else would you be calling, unless you too have some inane theory on the trajectory of a bullet through human organs. She's still here. I've been teaching her about ribs. How every body has them, and there's a heart, and lungs. I think she's ready for her first term of pre-med. I'm flattered. The case was in the less-than-expert hands of Superintendent Goodall of our Cornwall constabulary."
"The chief inspector Wiggins talked to said the case was closed; he said he couldn't remember much about it."
"Billy Healey was walking along a public footpath with his mum-correction, stepmum, which it seemed to make a big difference to some minds-walking along this footpath about four hundred yards below their house on the coast, an isolated house-"
Jury nodded to Wiggins quickly to pick up the extension. Wiggins did, very quietly, getting out his notebook at the same time.
"-near Polperro. That's about thirty, forty miles from Plymouth-Wiggins. How's January treating you?"
As if that were a cue, Wiggins sneezed and said hello, himself. "How'd you know I was here?" Wiggins smiled at this little magic act of the divisional commander's.
"Nobody breathes like you, Wiggins. It's an especially uplifting sound. Shall I start again?"
Said Jury, "I think I can remember those details. I'll try hard."
"Let's hope so. Anyway, it was around four, maybe a little after, and they were walking. Nell Healey-that's the stepmother-said that they'd been walking the path so that Billy could look for bird eggs. They usually did this in the afternoon, she said, even though they never found any, but it was a fantasy both of them seemed to get a kick out of. Anyway, Billy said he was going in to fix some sandwiches for him and Toby. Toby was indoors."
"The way his stepmother put it, Billy ran and walked by turns over the ground back to the house and would turn and wave every so often." He paused and Jury heard some rustling of papers and what sounded like the click of Macalvie's cigarette lighter.
Wiggins frowned. "Thought you'd given that up, Superintendent."
"I wish you'd join my forensics team, Wiggins. They can't see their own shoes much less through telephones."
"You know what your doctor-"
"Wiggins." Jury gave him a look.
"Oh, sorry, sir. Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Macalvie. He'd just gone back to the house for the sandwiches."
Macalvie continued. "He didn't come back."
There was a pause and an uncharacteristic clearing of his throat, as if something had lodged there. One might have thought the divisional commander was getting emotional.
Wiggins didn't take it this way: "How many packs a day are you up to by now?"
"Into thin air, you'd think. She waited and finally went back to the house. Thought he'd got caught up in some game with Toby, couldn't find either of them, and then thought maybe he was doing the hide-and-seek bit with her. So for a while she wasn't anxious. And, of course, it's not like losing sight of your kid in the middle of Oxford Street or Petticoat Lane. Then she looked outside, everywhere, and thenshe called the police. Do you want all this detail or just the highlights?"
"I'm amazed you remember all this detail. It wasn't even your case."
Another pause. "Well, let's say I took an interest. A kid being held for five million in ransom money-"
Wiggins whistled, went on writing.
"That's a case you can hardly avoid developing an interest in. And watching Goodall making a right cock-up of it. There was one botched attempt by his men to make contact with the kidnappers. I was detective sergeant then." The tone was a combination of wistfulness and wonder.
Even Macalvie had once been a constable. Even as a divisional commander, he didn't hesitate to do constable's duty. Jury had watched him write a traffic ticket once. Macalvie's net got tossed out and anything that came up he inspected closely. Anyone else in his position would throw back the little-fish cases. Macalvie would dissect minnows. "You assigned yourself to it, more or less?" asked Jury, smiling.
"I got myself assigned to it."
Even as a police sergeant, Macalvie was known to be better than most of the men on the force.
"You know the story about the actual investigation; you've obviously read the accounts-"
"I'd rather hear your version."
"I don't blame you. I got myself assigned to the Healey case because there is nothing, nothing as touch-and-go as an abduction. I'd sooner try to balance on razorblades than negotiate a kidnapping. You know the pressures that exist there and the chances of getting the person back. The need for rational thought. Well, it's pretty hard to be rational when it's your kid. And let me tell you the emotions churning round that house could have bulldozed half of Dockland."
" 'I've told you and told you not to come here alone,' Citrine-Nell Healey's father-kept saying. People love hindsight; we'd rather look back any day than forward. What a scene, what a scene. Blaming the kid's stepmother for not taking better care of him. Then there was the father, Healey, who was pretty much useless, ranting around and yelling at the mother-stepmother, excuse me-'How could you leave him alone, Nell? Didn't you ever stop to think Billy might be a target for kidnappers?' I ask you, Jury. 'Mummy, I'm going to make a sandwich,' and she's supposed to be sitting there wondering if he'll be kidnapped? Okay, I'm not a father-"
Jury smiled slightly.
"-but it seemed to me old Roger could have been offering comfort and succor to his wife instead of hurling insults. Citrine was at least level-headed enough to get down to business. He seemed pretty cool, though it was taking its toll on him, obviously."
Watching the tiny spider repairing its web, Jury asked, "How did she react? Nell Healey? What did she say to all this negligence bit?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" Jury frowned, looked over at Wiggins scratching away on his pad. He was better than a tape recorder.
At the other end of the telephone, Macalvie let out a sigh. "Nothing. She was sitting on a window seat, a kind of bay window, and looking out, as if to sea. I thought she was out of it, frankly. In shock, or something. All the while Goodall was talking. He had a very soothing voice, and he was trying to assure Citrine-all of them-that the police were doing everything in their power. He gave the Kidnapping Speech, or what I think of as the Kidnapping Speech: 'Mr. Healey, as we're dealing with a crime that can mean life imprisonment, it's always possible that the victim might be harmed in some way. Naturally, you need some assurance that the boy is still alive-' The Kidnapping Speech went on. How, if Citrine paid this ransom, it would be best to have a detective go with him, the usual crap. Argument over more police intervention further endangering the boys' lives. Argument over marked bills. Argument over police going along. Argument over publicity. Argument over Roger Healey insisting on paying, period. Charles Citrine talking to somebody from the bank-there was a V.I.P. there from Lloyd's. It went on."
"But Citrine finally refused to pay up."
There was another pause. "It wasn't Citrine, see."
"The ransom wasn't paid."
"Citrine was directing the Lloyd's person to get the money ready. I was sick of listening to the usual codswallop of junk about 'options' and 'alternatives.' So I said, 'You hand over that money and you're signing both those kids' death warrants.'"
Jury shook his head. "That's the 'negotiation'-type thing we're talking about?"
"Jury, you know and I know, and I'm sure Goodall knew the chances. Not just the chances but the game. You know the way people like that think-"
"I wish I did."
"Then I'm telling you: they say to themselves, Now I've got the money, what do I do with the evidence? Especially if it has eyes and ears? At least until they get the money, there's a chance they'll keep the victim alive."
"I'm not arguing with you, Macalvie. Tell me the story."
Another pause. It seemed to worry Macalvie if someone wasn't arguing with him. Some people were like that; they needed it just to sort things out. Macalvie wasn't asking for approval; he was asking for consultation. "Okay. The minute I said that, they all started rabbiting on, the biggest rabbit being Superintendent Goodall, who quickly told me to shut up. Actually, he went frostbitten with anger. Roger Healey shouted at me. It was the 'how-can-you-know?' routine. Citrine looked pretty ashen, but at least he was trying to keep his head. Finally, he said, 'You might be right. But then you might be wrong.' "
"That pretty much covers the ground." He could almost see Macalvie smile. "Then?"
"Then he said he'd pay any amount of money to get Billy back."
"But you changed his mind?"
Silences from Macalvie were unusual. There'd been at least three in this accounting, and now there was another. Jury could almost hear the air hum out there in Exeter. "No. It was Nell Healey's mind. She turned her head from that window she'd been staring through and gave me a look that could cut diamonds. I must admit it even pinned me to the wall. Well, you've met her-"
"Just go on, Brian."
"And she said, 'I think you're right; don't pay it.' And then she turned back to the window. Here I thought she wasn't taking in anything, that she was in shock, that-well, let me tell you, that got to me, that did. Apparently, she'd been taking it all in: Goodall's speech, the others' yelling, her old man's intentions-all of it. And hell broke loose. I thought Roger Healey would throttle her right then and there. It was the exact opposite scenario, wasn't it? You see all these films where the wife is wild, tearful, pleading for the rational husband to pay, pay, pay."
"But he didn't. I don't understand, if it was two against one."
"It could have been a dozen against one. She had the money."
Jury sat up suddenly. "I thought it was Roger Healey's or the father's money."
"No way. Those two had some, sure. Healey had a little, Charles Citrine quite a bit of his own. But not five million, not thatkind of money. It wasn't them the kidnappers were holding up; it was the stepmother. She had the money. Her mother Helen's money, apparently, a fortune. Some left to the husband-but he had his own, anyway-a bequest to the sister-in-law, the rest to her daughter."
It was true that the accounts said that the Citrine-Healey family had refused to pay the ransom. Not which one of them. Charles Citrine had been the spokesman; therefore, the assumption was that it was his considered opinion that the police were right; paying the money would do nothing to insure his grandson's safety. Indeed, it might jeopardize it.
Jury's head was in his hand; he was thinking of Nell Healey, remembering those hours during which he'd followed her.
"Eight years later," said Macalvie, "she kills her husband. Why?"
Rubbing his hand through his hair as if that might wake up his brain, Jury said, "I don't know, Macalvie."
Another silence. "That is one awesome lady, Jury."
Thus did Nell Healey join the ten percent of the population Divisional Commander Macalvie could live with