“You there?”
Forget the Surgeon General. It was Macalvie.
“I figured you took the red-eye flight, so I let you sleep. You still asleep?”
“Talking in it.”
“Come on, Jury, it’s nearly noon.”
Jury lifted his watch close enough to see in the dim light. He might have landed by six a.m., but he hadn’t got to bed until nearly nine. “I do not call ten-thirty ‘nearly noon,’ Macalvie.”
“Whatever. You hear what I said? Nicotine poisoning. My girl—”
(Meaning Angela Hope)
“—died of nicotine poisoning. Nell Hawes, possibly. And your lady—”
(Meaning Frances Hamilton)
Jury said, “The three of them,” as if he were speaking out of a dream. And then he understood why his thoughts had been called back to Santa Fe, to Angela Hope’s workspace.
“That’s right, all three. Or, at least two. I’ve been trying to get a court order to exhume the body. You don’t kill yourself smoking, Jury. At least not that way. Did you know a cigar has anywhere from ten to forty milligrams of the stuff? I’m glad I don’t smoke cigars.”
“Like an alcoholic saying, ‘I’m glad I only drink beer.’ ”
Macalvie ignored this blow to his rationalizations. “Those snaps you took. I’m looking at one of them now. Angela was definitely a heavy smoker, judging from the scars, the burn marks on the work-table.”
Jury sat up. “That’s what they had in common. According to her nephew’s fiancée, Frances Hamilton couldn’t stop for love nor money, had to hide her heart condition to keep Lady Cray from bullying her. Nell Hawes—” Jury heard a muffled rap on his door. “Listen, there’s someone at the door. Can you hold on?”
“No.” Macalvie wouldn’t hold on for God. “When can you get here?”
“By late afternoon. I’ve got to collect Wiggins from hospital.”
Macalvie made a noise. “Hell, I forgot to send him flowers or something. Get him a present for me, will you? A respirator, something he’d enjoy? No one ever told me what he was in for.”
“Just a Wiggins complaint,” said Jury vaguely. “You know how he is.”
“Tell him he doesn’t want to lie around too much. It weakens you.”
“Is that a hint—?” But the divisional commander had hung up.
At the door stood Mrs. Wassermann, beaming over a covered bowl. “Porridge. I know how much you like it.”
Jury smiled and took the bowl; he’d never liked it, not even when he was a kid. He thanked her and told her he’d stop by and see her on his way out.
He set the bowl by the telephone and put in a call to Ardry End. No, Ruthven said, His Lordship was not there; he was in London.
Jury felt hopeful. “In London where, Ruthven?”
“I couldn’t really say, sir. I do know he intended to stop by the hospital. But I haven’t heard from since late yesterday.”
Hope fled. Jury thanked him and hung up.
She is Found! Where, damn it?
2
IF THERE were ever two entities that fit like a hand and a glove, they were Sergeant Wiggins and his wheelchair.
“It’s just hospital regulations,” Wiggins had said in a loud whisper when Jury had entered his hospital room. “I’m perfectly fine, right as rain. But they’re afraid somebody’ll have an accident and sue the hospital.”
Now he was introducing Jury to Nurse Lillywhite, who, he said, was as much responsible for his recuperation as anyone.
Lillywhite’s already shining face beamed all the more at Jury, partly from Wiggins’s praise, partly because of Jury himself. He was helping her load up the books—Lord, he had never known Wiggins was such a reader—and rearranging the bouquets so that they’d only have to carry three vases. Wiggins insisted on taking his flowers. And there were certainly a lot of flowers. Jury was chiding himself for not sending any, when Wiggins thanked him for the lilies and carnations. He had no idea what Wiggins was talking about, and thought perhaps the sergeant was giving him a gentle reminder that Jury, of all people, had forgotten. But then he decided, no, Wiggins used irony as often as he used gin. Never.
Then Jury thought he knew how Wiggins had come by all of these bouquets. For instance, Vivian Rivington’s roses. She didn’t even know Wiggins was in hospital. Marshall Trueblood, ditto. Neither of them knew Wiggins anyway, beyond a brief period more than ten years ago. And this elaborate arrangement of orchids and dahlias from Fiona was far too much for her mingy salary. A little African violet plant from the cat Cyril. Jury smiled. Nothing from Racer. But then Racer would as soon send poison parsley as a bunch of carnations.
They started down the corridor, Jury pushing the wheelchair, Wiggins with the sack of books perched on his lap, Lillywhite bringing up the rear with the vases of flowers and a sneezing fit. Probably allergic.
“I didn’t know you were such a vociferous reader, Sergeant.”
“Well, you see, most of these are in aid of the investigation. Mr. Plant brought me this one—” and he held up The Daughter of Time— “as the situation—it’s about a detective inspector flat on his back in hospital—applied to yours truly.”
“Did yours truly have any success?”
“As you may or may not know it was me pretty much ruled out that telephone number as a telephone—oh, goodbye, Mr. Innes—” here, a frail old person came to his door to bid the sergeant farewell—“which was, I daresay, a modicum of help.”
“Absolutely.” Though, as far as Jury knew, Macalvie hadn’t pinned that number down.
“Anyway, getting the facts through Mr. Plant allowed me to add my tuppence to the whole affair—goodbye, Mr. MacDougall. See you again, but hopefully not under these circumstances, ha ha—” Another hand was shaken, this one belonging to a grizzled Scot who looked as if he could whip the living daylights out of any disease God had on offer. “But, of course, this Josephine Tey had the advantage over me, didn’t she, seeing as how her perp was already dead—that’s Richard the Third, you know—and masses of stuff written about him; whereas, I only got my information as told me by Mr. Plant—goodbye, goodbye, Miss Grissip, Mrs. Nutting, see you again, I hope—”
And it was like this all down the corridor, patients popping out of their doorways, sad, even weeping to see Sergeant Wiggins being wheeled off. How the devil, Jury wondered, had all of these patients become so attached to Wiggins in five days’ time? Jury shook his head, listening to Wiggins rattle on about Indian curses, Hovenweep, the Navajo and Hopi Indians. They had come finally to the lifts, leaving behind them their own Trail of Tears, and Wiggins still at it. When Lillywhite sneezed again, Jury insisted on taking the flowers from her, leaving her to push the chair, which she’d probably rather do, anyway. He put two of the vases on Wiggins’s lap.
“—that the Hope woman, who was, if you remember, interested in archaeology or anthropology, just might have come across something truly valuable on one of those digs—one of those black-and-white pots the Anasazi were famous for—” The lift doors opened and then closed behind the three.
Jury said, “But how do you work the other two into it? Strikes me as a bit of a reach. At any rate, Divisional Commander Macalvie rang me this morning. Looks like nicotine poisoning, according to the lab at Exeter HQ.”
Wiggins nearly flew out of his chair in his excitement, as he was trundled out of the lift. “Good Lord, sir . . . ” and he rooted in the sack of books until he found the one he wanted. “Ed McBain! I only just finished reading this one last night.” Wiggins held up a paperback, waved it back and forth. “Kiss, this one is. That’s what Ed McBain uses. I keep telling you he’s a snappy writer. Nicotine is lethal in its pure form. One way is you can take the tobacco from cigarettes and extract the stuff, so it’s possible for anyone to do it. Another way is by turning it to liquid form and introducing it into the victim’s food or drink—”
As they passed through the automatic glass doors onto the pavement, Jury asked, “So how does M
r. McBain administer it?”
Nurse Lillywhite went off to fetch a cab from the rank.
“Well, I don’t think I should say. I mean, you might want to read it sometime.”
Jury shut his eyes, gritted his teeth, but said, “I’m not going to read it, Wiggins; I don’t much care for detective stories. So how—?”
“You ought to do more reading, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. Too much telly rots the brain.”
“I’m sure you have a cure for brain rot in this shaving kit.” As Wiggins had held up the book, Jury held up the kit, waved it around. “So how—?”
But Wiggins was adamant. “I don’t want to give it away.”
If he hadn’t been burdened with an entire arboretum of flowers, Jury thought, he just might hit him, wheelchair or no wheelchair.
Fortunately, the cab and Nurse Lillywhite returned. There was a tearful goodbye between the two and Jury went off to one side, making himself scarce during this re-enactment of A Farewell to Arms. He didn’t know which he wanted more: a cigarette, or a word from Plant about that infuriating message. If in London, where in London? As if the answer might be hidden in Wiggins’s shaving kit, he unzipped it. He had to admit a certain fascination with the sergeant’s nostrums. Never knew what you’d find. He’d smuggled in a couple of his own prescription medicines, and those vials were probably the most ordinary-looking of the lot. The others held odd-looking dusty bits of stuff that grew in some garden Jury never wanted to visit. He frowned over the prescription drugs, too. What the hell was . . . ?
And then he saw the number: 431455. Jury looked unseeingly towards the Fulham Road. What if it was a prescription number? What if—? He was pulled from these speculations by the voice of Nurse Lillywhite, who was waving him over to a cab.
Wiggins was in the cab, flowers and books and sundries stowed in the trunk. Jury got in and as the cab pulled away, Wiggins waving enthusiastically out of the back window to Lillywhite, growing smaller in the distance, a white blur.
Jury said, “No more wires and water, Wiggins. Okay?”
Wiggins turned to his passenger window and refused to answer.
FORTY-FOUR
It was astonishing how little an English village changed over the years. Except for Theo Wrenn Browne and his bookshop, or Mr. Jenks and his estate agency, Long Piddleton hadn’t changed by a hair in all of the years Melrose had lived there, all of his life, really.
Neither had Littlebourne, he was pleased to see as he stood smoking beside his Bentley, watching an early evening mist across Littlebourne Green rise, shift, and resettle. It was a different season from the one he had last seen here, and the green, around which the main street ran, was not green now, but patched with white that sparkled in the light of the black lamps lining the street and throwing arcs of pale gold light across the dark pavement. But he could see in the dark that the business establishments occupied the same spots he remembered—the garage, the post office, stores. And earlier, had that figure coming out of the post office actually been Miles Bodenheim, busy, as always, in unsettling village life? On this side of the green, the pub, a candy shop, an estate agency. He crossed the road and stopped to look at Polly Praed’s cottage. It sat near the granite cross that marked the intersection of the wider Hertford road. Its whitewashed stone walls were covered by a tracery of vines, the little garden in front as ill kept as always, tall grasses struggling with untrimmed hedges.
Melrose stopped in the middle of the green to relight his cigar before proceeding on his way. The windows of Polly Praed’s cottage were warm lozenges of light, and as he was repocketing his lighter, the lacy curtains separated in one of the ground-floor windows, and Polly appeared, hands cupping her face, as people do when the light is behind them and, for some godforsaken reason, seem to think they can’t be seen because of the dark beyond them. She looked to left and right, left and right, straining to see, and then disappeared, and the curtains came together again. Melrose was fascinated, and waited. Now, the same action was repeated at another of the ground-floor windows. Curtains parted, face appearing, looking right, left, and then vanishing behind the curtains again. Melrose stood leaning on his furled umbrella, waiting. Ah, there she was again, only this time at a window on the floor above, searching, searching.
Obviously for him. It was now fifteen minutes past seven. He had told her probably seven, but that he might be later, as he wasn’t sure of the roads. Looked like snow. But Polly would have stopped listening, not attending to any details, certainly not to probabilities. And would make no allowances. Melrose crossed the road on the other side of the green, went up her short walk, and raised the brass knocker. No answer. He knocked again. He watched the second hand of his backlit wristwatch sweep around a full minute. Still no answer. With his umbrella, he reached past the porch to tap on the windowpane.
Finally, the door opened and she looked out. “Oh, it’s you,” was her enthusiastic greeting.
“Well, hello, Polly.”
“Hello.” She manufactured a yawn. “Come on in.”
Even before Melrose was fully into the hall, she was turning her back, walking away, and he shot his umbrella straight out, managing to connect the curved handle into the neckline of her dress, and tug.
“What—?” She stumbled backwards, far enough that he could reach her, and he embraced her and—since her back was still turned—brought his mouth down on her neck.
Polly made a disapproving noise and rubbed at her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you a kiss. Haven’t seen you in four years.”
She walked right away from him and into her living room, straightening her dress as if he had done much more than kiss her on the cheek. “Well, don’t.”
Polly was quite attractive, but she didn’t know how to dress. She was wearing one of those colors that she seemed to favor. An entire vegetable-color spectrum would have to be invented for her. That pumpkin-brown jumper! That aubergine-green skirt! What a combination, if you wanted to make your skin look like candle tallow and your hair mud brown. Still, nothing could distract from her marvellous eyes that, depending on the light, ran the gamut from lavender to deep purple. Amethyst eyes.
Why was it, Melrose wondered, as he sat down in the vaguely offered chair, that women went into an alcoholic-like denial to let him know they didn’t care a fingersnap for him, and, at the same time, went to so much trouble to get him there in the first place? This did not happen to Richard Jury. Polly was tongue-tied around Richard Jury. But tongue-tiedness didn’t necessarily mean “love,” did it?
She was anything but tongue-tied around Melrose. Nor shy. Nor retiring. She frowned and demanded, “Where are you staying, anyway?” She looked round at him from the copper-inlaid sink which served as a drinks table.
“The Bold Blue Boy.” It was the only place he could stay, as she well knew.
She handed him a whisky and water, held out a plate of mouse-morsels of cheese, and sat down on the sofa across from him. “So what’s all this about Lady Kennington?”
“Richard Jury asked me to look for her.”
“He can’t find her himself? Has he got dim, or something?”
“It’s actually the Stratford police looking for her—”
Polly became breathlessly expectant. “My God! What’s she done?”
“Nothing, I’m sorry to have to tell you. Nothing except witness something.”
“ ‘Something’? What ‘something’?
“I don’t know the details. Jury’s off in the U.S. on some case and I simply got a message by way of his policeman friend in Stratford-upon-Avon.” Melrose would have been happy to make up a story about a mass murderer, but since he knew one of the principals, he thought that would be ill advised. “Really, Polly, I don’t know anything about it.” He switched the subject. “It’s wonderful to see you; it’s been a long time.”
“Do you think you could manage not to talk about time passing?” she asked crossly.
He laughed. “
Don’t worry; you have many, many writing years ahead of you.”
“Well, I don’t have many, many writing days before my absolutely final, penultimate deadline for my book.”
“Is that why you’re in such a bad mood?” Polly was a writer of many deadlines. There were the ignorable deadlines, the not-to-be-taken-too-seriously deadlines; the deadlines-before-the-deadlines deadlines, and finally, the no-kidding-around deadlines. She set these various dates, she’d told him, to fool herself. Melrose never remembered this working. “I’ve a friend in Baltimore who chains herself to her desk, if that’s any help.”
“But that’s wonderful!” That it was “she” meant nothing over against the “she” being a writer. Polly would happily forgo jealousy for the pleasure of talking about writing and writers. She leaned forward, careless of her drink. “But how does she do it? I mean, we all could chain ourselves to our desks, but the trouble there is, you could just unlock yourself and get out.” As usual, she took it quite seriously.
“She put the key where she couldn’t get at it.”
Polly frowned a frown of deep thought. “But—”
Melrose explained just what Ellen did.
“God!” Polly fell back against the sofa. “I expect I’m lucky compared to that!”
She didn’t ask whether Ellen Taylor’s work was any good. It was agony, not quality, that interested her. Polly loved to talk about writing. It occurred to Melrose that it was almost a sensual thing, and certainly passionate. It was a turn-on. So he told her he himself was writing a mystery.
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