Absently, Sydney picked up a brush and started brushing Aggrieved. “But you knew,” she said. “Not precisely what, but that I felt guilty and you put that together with Mum.”
“You still talking to Aggrieved?”
She turned and looked at Vernon. “No. To you. You knew.”
Vernon threw up his hands. “I’m happy to have you think I can read your mind, but—”
“You can. You knew.”
Melrose looked at Vernon and thought about Nell. Sydney was right. He knew.
34
Having returned to the drawing room, Melrose heard the doorbell and once again, in the absence of Ruthven, got out of his wing chair and opened the door. There he was confronted by a stranger, a tallish man wearing sunglasses and a trilby hat. Melrose especially liked this getup this time of year.
“Mr. Plant?”
“Yes. May I help you?” This was to be, apparently, a red-hot day for visitors to Ardry End.
The man removed his glasses, held out his hand and said, “Jenks. George Jenks. How do you do?”
Melrose shook his hand, still wondering whose hand he shook. The name meant nothing to him.
Reading his mind, Jenks said, “Means nothing to you, I know, but I hear you have a great horse.”
Melrose took a surprised step back. “I do? You’ve an interest in my horse?”
George Jenks nodded. “I’m a trainer.” He repeated his name. “Jenks.”
“Oh? And do I need a trainer?”
Jenks was by now inside and Ruthven had returned, followed by Vernon and Sydney. Ruthven was taking Jenks’s coat.
Vernon’s eyes widened. “George Jenks?”
Everyone else in the world had apparently heard of George Jenks: Vernon, Sydney, and possibly Aggrieved himself.
“Mr. Jenks,” said Vernon, “is one of the country’s greatest trainers.” He extended his hand. “We’ve met, but you probably don’t remember. At Ryder Stables outside of Cambridge. How did you hear about Aggrieved?”
“A mutual friend—” he smiled at Melrose “—got in touch with me. Said your horse was a very good horse.”
Sydney said, “He is. A really good horse. But I didn’t know—” She turned to Melrose. “That you intended to race him.”
“Nor did I,” said Melrose.
George Jenks laughed. “Do you suppose I could see this horse?”
“Of course,” said Melrose, “but tell me about this mutual—”
“Come on with us,” said Sydney.
The three of them sailed off to the stable, leaving Melrose in the questionable company of the mutual friend.
Gerrard was out there now, giving Aggrieved a rubdown.
“Take him out of the stable,” said Sydney, “so Mr. Jenks can see him.”
Gerrard looked as if he might debate this choice, but shrugged and led Aggrieved out.
Jenks took a long look at his head, then ran his hand across the horse’s flank. Gently, he dug his fingers into the shoulder, then the hip, stood back and studied the horse from different angles. He said, “Good-looking horse.” But he said it much too matter-of-factly for Gerrard.
“‘Good-looking?’ That’s all? This here horse is beautiful.”
Jenks nodded. “You take good care of him, son.”
Taking issue with this, Sydney said, “Actually, I’m pretty much the caretaker.”
“And doing a fine job. Where can we ride? Is there a ring?”
Melrose, who’d come out to the barns, was pleased to announce that yes, there was. He hadn’t known it himself until Ruthven had enlightened him. Melrose’s father had put in a ring years before for a future of Melrose’s riding. He had never fulfilled that future, since he had not liked to ride, hadn’t even liked his pony. His father had said that of course one day he would have to ride to hounds. Whereupon his mother had said, “Why?” Melrose had always loved the way his beloved and sensible mother could cut his father off at the knees with no more than the simple question “Why?”
In no mood for trooping, still Melrose had followed the little party, trooping through the woods with Gerrard leading Aggrieved. No wonder he hadn’t known about the ring, buried as it was from view by oaks and chestnuts, and farther from the house than Melrose ever ventured, anyway. He was quite indifferent to his own property, property meaning little to him, whereas heritage meant a lot.
“Kind of stingy,” said Gerrard. “You should keep it up better, Mel.” He was positioning blanket and saddle on Aggrieved’s back.
“Indeed? Well, I didn’t know Mr. Jenks was coming, or I’d have had Blodgett out here with his rake and blower—and who delegated you to do the riding? What about Sydney?”
They quarreled over this for a while until George Jenks interrupted. “Do you mind if I have a go at it?”
They both, or rather the three of them, looked slightly astounded. “You?” said Melrose.
“Trainers do know how to ride, Mr. Plant. It’s necessary. Do you mind?”
“Oh. Of course not.”
Jenks did not heave himself into the saddle, nor fling himself in. The movement was more in the nature of being a takeoff, the sort that a small plane or a bird might make. But once up there, it was clear he belonged. He made small clicking sounds in his mouth, and Aggrieved reacted as if he’d been hearing those sounds since the day he was born and ventured into the ring and started walking, then went from a walk to a trot to a gallop. Then faster.
“Wow!” said Gerrard and Sydney, together.
After going once round the track, Jenks slowed the horse down, trotted it over to where the others stood, and dismounted. “Very nice horse,” he said, handing the reins back to Gerrard.
Who frowned. “Not very excitable, are you? That horse was going damned fast.”
Jenks smiled a little. “Not as fast as he could have done. I had to restrain him.”
“You did?” Gerrard was astonished. “What’s the fastest horse ever?”
George Jenks thought about this for a few moments. “Hard to decide on one. But probably Secretariat. A combination of his stride, his heart, his metabolism. They were not only great in and of themselves, they came together seamlessly. If you can think of the phrase in a positive sense, Secretariat was a perfect storm.”
35
Jenks having left, with a promise to return to talk about training, Melrose told Ruthven he was going out.
“Out” not being much of a destination in Long Piddleton, he wound up heading for the Jack and Hammer with Vivian, Joanna, Diane, Trueblood and the unwelcome Theo Wrenn Brown.
Diane was holding forth about drugs in horse racing. “He was up before the Horseracing Authority disciplinary board several times. A hypo found in his kit in the stables before the Oaks. It was Bork Sands’s own horse, something called Silver Sands, I think.”
“Diane,” said Melrose, “where do you get all of this horse-racing arcana? Who’s Bork Sands?”
At just that point the door of the Jack and Hammer’s saloon bar opened and to Melrose’s surprise George Jenks walked in. Walked in and walked over to their table, bent down and kissed Diane Demorney on her cheek.
If there is such a thing as a communal gasp, the other five occupants of the table gasped it.
“Hello, sweetheart,” said George to Diane.
Sweetheart?
“Hello, Georgie.”
Georgie? Sweetheart? A communal jaw-drop.
When George lay his arm across the back of Diane’s chair, had the others allowed themselves a rude response, they would have whipped out their phones and clicked a picture.
Mrs. Withersby, however, unconcerned about rudeness and having no camera, resorted to mop and mouth. “Bloody hell!” she said loudly as her mop dropped out of its two inches of water, which water spread over Theo Wrenn Brown’s shoe.
Diane introduced him: “George Jenks, my ex-husband.”
Communal crash of mugs and glasses on table.
George laughed. “But I’m only one
of them.”
“The others not being welcome,” said Diane, plugging a cigarette into her holder, which George then lit.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said to the table in general. Then, to Melrose, and looking at Diane, he said, “The mutual friend.”
“We were talking about horses and drugs. Did you ever hear of a trainer named Bork Sands?” said Diane.
“The Borkster?” said George with a laugh. “Sure, only he wasn’t a trainer. He was a vet.”
“A horse vet? What stables did he work for?”
“Different ones. Mainly the Summerston stables.” He turned to Diane. “You remember that horse Epiphany? Won the St. Leger? Won a lot of races for such a mediocre horse.” George smiled. “That horse couldn’t’ve made it out of the backstretch without a great jockey and God.”
“Are you saying,” said Joanna Lewes, “the horse won because he was drugged?”
“No, but you don’t hire Bork Sands just to get rid of stable cough.”
“Still,” said Trueblood, “the drugging could happen without the owner knowing, couldn’t it?”
George looked at Trueblood as if he were either crazy or five years old. “But why would it?”
“Then someone must have suspected.”
“Not necessarily. Look, I’m not claiming the horse was drugged. I’m only saying that Summerston would have known if the horse had been. It would have been a hell of a scandal if it got out.”
“Could it still be?”
Puzzled, they all looked at him. “What?”
“A scandal? Have you ever seen that gossip column in one of the tabloid rags called Comeback? It’s not about some entertainer’s fresh success, it’s old gossip—old stuff the columnist brings back from months or even years ago. Bits of things that were never resolved. A few days ago there was something about Summerston’s war record: he got the something-for-gallantry award. Well, someone claimed that he hadn’t really done the thing that earned it, something about grabbing up a machine gun and keeping a North Korean unit from shooting his men. This chap who’s disputing Summerston’s part says it was his own father who’d saved the men. He wants the Queen to revoke the award and give it to his father.”
“Can that be done? Would it be done?” said Vivian.
“Why not?” said Trueblood. “Awards have been rescinded all over the place. For all kinds of reasons: criminal conviction; unworthy conduct; men stripped of titles for scandals involving money, sex, et cetera. Certainly for misrepresentation of bravery in the service.”
“That’d play hell with a man’s reputation if it got out,” said Melrose, recalling Jury’s comment about Summerston needing a fixer.
PART VI
Black Swan
36
Macalvie had sent a car for them to Exeter Airport, and Jury and Plant were now walking into his office. Or rather pushing their way in, as Gilly Thwaite was rushing out of it, looking not at all pleased.
Tom Brownell was sitting in one of the chairs across from Macalvie’s desk. Macalvie was marking up pages in a folder that he tossed aside when Jury and Plant came in. Beside his desk sat a large stuffed giraffe.
“Who’s that?”
Macalvie looked at the giraffe as if he weren’t sure. “Oh, him? That’s Jerome. He’s the new head of SOCO. Gilly Thwaite just quit. As you might have noticed, she’s displeased with the replacement.”
“Hello, Tom,” said Melrose.
Tom nodded. “You’re going to Bryher? He’s yours to take along.”
“Why do I not feel in need of a giraffe?”
“Don’t know. But you’ll reduce the threat of police presence with it.”
“And why am I always to be some sort of corrective for ‘police presence’? Rather than merely being a distraction, it would be nice to be known for making a contribution.”
Macalvie pulled over another folder. “Yeah. So let us know when you make one. Tom here thinks you’ll get something out of Zillah about the night of the shooting if you can approach the subject with, ah—”
“Giraffe-speak?” said Jury.
Tom laughed. “Not only Zillah, but it’ll throw off Zoe, at least long enough that Zillah can say something about the woman on the beach. Maybe.”
“Well, then you ought to come, too, Tom.”
Tom shook his head. “Police presence, remember? Three of us would be entirely too many. Anyway, I’m going to visit Dr. Park.” He looked at Jury. “Howe Park. The doctor who wasn’t at the foundling hospital when we visited. But who was apparently in charge when I think Manon Vinet was there six years ago.”
“Right,” said Macalvie, “so why don’t you guys get your skates on? Incidentally, the medical records have come through on Moira.” He spoke to Tom. “You wanted to know if—”
“If she’d had an abortion.”
Macalvie raised his eyebrows. “Good guess. Yeah. She had.” When Tom made no comment, he went on: “Enlighten me later. Meanwhile, I’ll get someone to drive you to the airport.” He called out to Effie, who poked her head in, and he gave her that assignment. “No, I don’t mean you, Effie. Find someone who knows how to drive.”
The Skybus headed for St. Mary’s with the giraffe sitting on a jump seat.
As the three of them left the plane to board the ferry to Bryher, Jury said, “We look ridiculous.”
“We often do.”
“Correction: You often do. I manage to avoid it.”
“Not this time,” said Melrose.
Hilda Noyes, after a visit from “that nice Mr. Brownell—” was no longer put off by police presence in her home, even police accompanied by a giraffe.
Jury introduced Plant and asked if they could speak to the girls.
They were both there, almost magically, at that. Zoe held tight to Zillah’s hand. But Melrose could see Zillah’s mouth drop open and her eyes round out.
“Could we sit down, Mrs. Noyes?”
She motioned them into the chair and loveseat across from the sofa. Melrose took the loveseat and sat the giraffe beside him.
“And Zoe and Zillah, too?” said Jury.
“Well, I don’t know—”
But her not-knowing had no effect on the girls, especially Zillah, who took, in the movement toward seating, the opportunity to yank her hand from Zoe’s. She then displaced the giraffe beside Melrose and sat down herself and pulled the giraffe closer.
“Mrs. Noyes,” said Jury.
“Yes?”
“Zillah, as a baby, was brought to you by—?”
“A friend of her mother. Just a baby, Zillah would not remember her—”
“But I would,” exclaimed Zoe. “I was nearly eight.”
Jury turned to Zoe. “And was she the woman you saw on the beach?”
Zoe just shook and shook her head.
“Do you remember Mrs. Cooke, Zoe?” said Jury.
Zoe flinched. “She’s dead.”
“You told me about her,” said Zillah.
“Be quiet, Zillah!” Then to Jury, she said, “Yes, I remember her.”
“What about the woman from the beach. Do you remember her?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. You’re the one who got her to the beach.”
Zoe tossed her hair. “How’d I do that? I didn’t even know her.”
“But you knew who she was because I’ll bet you read the letter she’d written Mrs. Noyes in which she said she was coming to England, to Bryher. I think your aunt gave you a message to take to the Hell Bay just before Manon Vinet came. That note probably told Ms. Vinet that Hilda Noyes would come to the hotel at a certain time and they’d meet there.” Jury paused and glanced at Hilda Noyes, whose face looked to have turned hard as stone.
Zoe said nothing.
“Come on, Zoe. Your aunt is sitting right here. You simply typed up another note and signed Hilda Noyes’s name.”
Zoe still said nothing, but Zillah, clutching the giraffe, said, “You said sh
e was a witch, you said—”
“Shut up, Zillah! Next, you’ll be saying I shot her. Where would I ever have got a gun?”
“From Jack Couch, in exchange for your father’s SIG Sauer P226,” said Jury.
Zoe looked at Zillah and fairly screamed out the words: “It’s all your fault, you know that, don’t you? Now what’s going to happen—?”
Hilda Noyes was growing increasingly upset by this exchange between the girls. “Zoe, are you saying you two went to the beach looking for someone that night?“
“No, Aunt Hilda. Zillah’s making it all up.”
“I’m not! You were the one who told me the lady was some kind of witch!”
Zoe turned on Zillah eyes of ice and an expression so full of ire Jury felt his blood run cold. Had he been six years old, it would have scared him into speechlessness, too.
Zillah was nearly strangling the giraffe with the grip she had on it. Jury put his arms round both her and the giraffe. “It’s all right, Zillah. Nothing to be scared of. The lady you saw was just a lady; no witches, no ghosts. Don’t cry.”
She was weeping loudly, her body now pressed half against Jury, half against the giraffe. Jury looked up and signed to Plant, who kneeled down and took his place, while Jury rose and went to Zoe, who said, “She was going to take Zillah away.”
“I know,” said Jury. “She was Zillah’s mum. She’d waited years to come and get her.”
“But Zillah’s mine. She’s mine! I’ve been with her since after she was born! It’s not fair that someone can just take her away. Zillah spent her whole babyhood with me. I just wanted to tell that woman that she couldn’t have Zillah, but when we got there she was dead!”
Her whole babyhood. Jury thought it one of the saddest little descriptions he’d ever heard. And this child Zoe looked flattened, looked empty, as if all the breath had been drawn out of her.
37
“Inspector Brownell,” said Dr. Howe Park, “I don’t believe there’s anything I can tell you.”
The Old Success Page 15