The front door slammed back and the matriarch of the household yelled, “Petey, ya stop that this minute or I get yer dad!”
This was not much of a threat, considering Ash the Flash’s own quixotic behavior in the public toilets hereabout. It was this particular penchant of Ashley Cripps that had put Melrose onto him as a possible source of information about Roy Randall. Melrose had discovered the terraced house in Snide Street, only one street over from Catchcoach. Wembley-Knotts, that part of London in which all of this activity took place, was now almost wholly occupied by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, with a sprinkling of Taiwanese, Japanese, and an even thinner sprinkling of the original British settlers. On every street there was probably a token Brit whose pale face tended to get lost in the crowd of many-hued others.
From behind the tree, Melrose watched the action as White Ellie (short for Elephant, a tribute to her girth) kept up her threats and bawled at them to “stop pickin’ on Robespierre.” So Melrose had been right; the crying child in the center of the circle was the former baby in the pram.
But Robespierre, weeping like all get out, was getting precious little help from the adults on either side of the street. The kiddies were singing one of their original songs, as they danced about, jumping higher and higher in the air:
“Robespierre, Robespierre
Always keeps ’is bottom bare.
Robespierre, Robespierre,
Always got ’is prick in the air.”
The idea was, of course, to get the child in the center crying (which he had been and still was), and the more he cried, the higher they all jumped.
Melrose crossed the street.
When they saw him, they yelled and broke the circle and spewed around him like vomit. He heard among their whoops and hollers, “Candyman!, Candyman!” He was not sure he cared for that appellation in these times, but he still pulled from his pockets the white screws of lemon drops, sherbets, milk gums, fruit bonbons, and jelly beans. He also had one small box with a breathtaking assortment of colors and textures; this he gave to the tearful little Robespierre.
He also gave a rap on the fingers to the child who tried to grab it away and was surprised when this eight- or nine-year-old started bawling. Melrose told him to shut it. The boy was so surprised by this stranger’s command that he shut it.
The doorway now was filled—rather, stuffed—with the figures of White Ellie and Ash, who were hurling greetings at Melrose and waving him in. The kiddies, now mildly quiet as they shoved candy in their mouths, were told to come in for their tea.
When Melrose stepped into the living room, Ashley said, “ ’Ave a drink, ’ave a drink, Lord Ardry.”
The Crippses liked having a friend with a title so much that Melrose didn’t see the point of telling them he was now a commoner. “Thank you, Ash, I will.”
Ash, in a generous gesture, swept his arm over a card table holding bottles containing various substances that could as well have been crankcase oil as gin.
“A cup of tea would go down a treat,” said Melrose.
Ellie waved her own arm toward the kitchen. “Come on in whilst I fork up the kiddies’ tea!”
Melrose had avoided the kitchen after Sergeant Wiggins’s description of a frying pan with hardened lard in which were lines of tiny footprints. But here it was, the Crippses’ kitchen, with wallpaper on which gladioli had been transformed into phalluses; where grease-smeared dishes were piled in and out of the rust-stained sink; where open cupboards did little to protect dishes from those same creatures with tiny feet; and where the corners of the ceiling were festooned with cobwebs. A real lived-in look, all-round. The room was so crowded with stools and chairs and baby paraphernalia it would be easier for a roach to ride in a Nascar race than to cross this kitchen.
“I’ve wet the leaves already, so it should be good and strong. There you are.” Ellie handed him a chunky mug, and shoved a carton of milk and a box of sugar toward him.
“Thanks,” he said, shoveling in a couple of spoons of sugar and looking rather closely at the milk before he poured it.
What he liked about the Crippses was the assumption that Melrose was here simply because he wanted to be, and they didn’t waste time asking the reason for his visit. Ash and Ellie assumed they were as much a destination couple as were the queen and Prince Philip. There could be no purpose in his visit beyond his delight in seeing them.
“Ash,” he said, “do you happen to know a fellow over in Snide Street named Randall?”
“Roy Randall?” bellowed Ash. “Yeah, o’ course.” He leaned closer to Melrose. “ ’eard there was a bit of bother with the cops.”
Ellie put in, “Randy Roy, we call ’im. Been done a few times for flashin’.”
“Have you read the paper lately?”
Ellie barked, “Makes ya’ think Ashley can read?” She turned then and yelled to the urchins in the yard, “Yer mash’s up!” On six plates Ellie was spooning up globs of mashed potatoes. Alongside of that she put a forkful of boiled cabbage, and the kiddies came barging in.
Ash curled a hand round his ear. “What you sayin’, Lord A?”
Melrose loved the A. “There was a man found in Northamptonshire. Sidbury, near where I live. He was with his dog, walking behind some shops.”
The kids grabbed plates and bottles of ketchup and crowded onto chairs around the table where Ash and Melrose were sitting. Ash got up, saying, “Come on into the parlor. Can’t hear bugger all in this racket.”
Melrose followed him, saying, “I wondered if you knew any of Randall’s mates.”
“Mebbe. Yeah, I do.”
Melrose slipped one of the snapshots Theo Wrenn Brown had taken at the scene across the card table. “Could this be one of them?”
Ash took some time adjusting the wire earpieces of his glasses, picked up the picture, and said, with surprise, “Bugger if that don’t look like Zeke. What’s wrong with ’im?”
“He’s dead. Walking his dog down an alley. Shot dead.”
The cigarette Ash had lit and stuck between his lips stayed glued to the corner of his mouth when it dropped open. “Dead? Zeke’s dead? But I just saw ’im—when was it? Last week? Roy never tol’ me about this.”
“Maybe Roy doesn’t know. Who’s Zeke?”
“Friend of Roy’s lives over near the Park, Wembley Park. Elephant! Ellie, get in ’ere!”
White Ellie managed to loosen herself from the grip of the table and entered the living room.
“Looka ’ere, El—” Ash held out the picture.
She stared at it, squinted at it, brought it up to her eyes. “That’s Zeke!”
“He was shot,” said Melrose. “So his name is Zeke—what?”
“We just call him Zeke. Name’s Zachariah. Zachariah Syms. Oh, my God!” White Ellie had her plump hands on both sides of her face. “Poor fella.”
Ash looked at Melrose. “You said ’e was walkin’ a dog? What ’appened t’ the dog? Where’s Stanley?”
Boring’s
Thursday, 9:00 P.M.
53
* * *
They were into their dessert by the time Melrose reached that point in his narrative.
“Bloody hell,” said Jury, dropping his fork into his pie. “Zachariah Syms? Belle’s husband.”
“The same.” Melrose’s tone was a little smug. “Thought that would interest you.”
“Why was Zack Syms in Sidbury?”
“Looking for his wife. Looking for Belle. According to Ash, by way of Roy Randall, ‘Zeke,’ as he calls him, had been trying to get back together with Belle ever since they separated. They were still on friendly terms, even met up at the pub for a beer.”
Jury nodded. “Yes, Blanche Vesta said Zack was still crazy about Arabella. Blanche liked him.”
“But Belle wasn’t interested. When she told him she was going to Sid
bury, he assumed it was to visit Blanche, who he knew from Blanche Vesta’s visits to Wembley Park to see them. So he took off for Sidbury. He didn’t know where the aunt lived, though.”
“That’s why he was looking for the Old Post Road.”
“I expect so. He’d never been there before.”
“But he never got there, poor fellow.” Jury frowned. “What about Stanley?”
“Ah. Now, that’s very interesting. Stanley’s a bit of a personality in his own right, though Lord knows, we haven’t seen much evidence of it. Stanley’s not a Staffie; he’s a pit bull. One of your APBT dogs. Roy Randall breeds them—”
“That’s illegal,” said Jury.
“So? Since when have the Ashes and the Roys of this world worried over that detail?”
“But he’d have been reported by someone, surely. Breeding dogs in your back garden must create a bit of a ruckus. How many dogs are we talking about?”
“A dozen, maybe. And he doesn’t do this on his property. He has a small parcel of land in the Norfolk Broads, near Hinckley Broad, I think. He does keep a couple of dogs at a time at home—”
“Again, the neighbors would report the presence of a couple of pit bulls.”
“Let me quote Ash’s response when I made that point: ‘You think people round ’ere give a toss? You think we ain’t got better things t’do than finger some poor sod that’s got a dog the Filth don’t like?’ ” Melrose chortled. “White Ellie put in, ‘No love lost for your RSPCA, neither.’ ”
Melrose wanted to congratulate Ellie for citing this organization’s initials correctly.
“So how did Stanley end up at PetLoco?” asked Jury.
“I’m getting to that. Roy has sold these dogs of his to online pet adoption services, many to PetLoco, which I take to be the most questionable of the lot. They turn around and sell the dogs to dog men, who, in turn, fight them. When they’re either no good or used up, the dogmen turn right around and unload them to places like PetLoco. Or they just shoot them. Now, the thing about Stanley is that Zack Syms had developed a real fondness for him. There was a hell of a row on Snide Street when he found out Roy had sold the dog. He went on PetLoco’s Web site, found Stanley and paid the price, which for Zack was hard, as he had barely enough for rent and booze. And the thing is, Stanley really liked Zack. In a short time they were inseparable. Indeed, anyone who as much as looked at Zack cross-eyed had to deal with Stanley, who was happy to sink his teeth in them; and if Stanley didn’t get him first time, he remembered who the ignorant git was. One mugger will not be mugging anytime soon; one bloke outside of a pub tried to hustle Zack for money. Stanley soon routed him.
“Which might have been,” Melrose went on, “what happened outside of the Blue Parrot. We’ll never know, I guess; we can only infer.”
“Infer, perhaps, that the killer met up with them somehow in that vicinity and tried to shoot Zack?”
“By ‘killer’ I take it you’re talking about Belle Syms’s?”
Jury nodded. “But I don’t think just because he killed the wife, he was gunning for the husband.”
“But wouldn’t that make some kind of sense? Or are you still thinking the shooter was—”
“—after Stanley. Or both of them They both presented a danger, or he thought so.”
“Yes, the dog was certainly protective of Zack.”
Jury was shaking his head. “I think it was his memory. The killer had run into Stanley before and Stanley would remember him.”
Melrose knocked back some brandy. “Oh, come on! Not that old hoary device—furious animal recognizes killer?”
“I’m just nothing but clichés and hoary devices, aren’t I?”
“Syms didn’t have a gun, did he?”
“Not when his body was found.”
“How is it Stanley got separated from him?”
Jury shook his head. “Must have had something to do with the possible fracas.”
“And then there’s the matter of the Highboys woman and her dog.”
Jury thought for a moment. “It’s possible Stanley had already been delegated to Highboys and Zack Syms came along and offered more.”
“And PetLoco kept Highboys’s fee and told her the dog would be delivered?”
“That’s easy enough to check. That place will be out of business in two days when I tell Karl Mindt.”
“Who’s Karl Mindt?”
“RSPCA.”
“Does this get you any closer to Belle Syms’s killer? It certainly wasn’t her husband. He was sitting in Roy Randall’s parlor on Monday night. Do you have a prime suspect?”
“Oh, yes. Trouble is he has an alibi.”
“How inconvenient.”
“It’s not a perfect alibi, however. The thing is, he had an accomplice, I’m pretty certain. That explains Belle Syms’s appearance around Sidbury after ten P.M. Eight to ten P.M. is the time period when Kenneth Strachey was seen in London. So he could hardly have pitched the body off that tower then. And since he allegedly turned in—or so his housemate thought—he would also have been at home at midnight. That’s the squishy part of the alibi. His housemate didn’t actually see him at midnight.”
“This supposed accomplice: she doesn’t have an alibi. Would a woman be that stupid?”
“Yes. We’re talking about a grand passion, remember? Woman or man, anyone might supply a lover with an alibi even though it left him or her exposed.”
“This is the Vertigo girl.”
“ ‘Vertigo girl’—I like that. That’s what Wiggins calls her.”
“There’s something I just can’t understand. Why in God’s name would a killer go to all of the trouble of luring a woman to the top of that tower to kill her? Or, if she’s already dead, haul a body up there?”
“So we’d ask the question.”
“What?”
“So police would spend a lot of time trying to sort out the scene. As if it really were relevant.”
Melrose frowned. “Sorry, that’s too subtle for me.”
“It’s not subtle at all. This elaborate charade makes one think it must have been necessary for some reason. No. It was simply a distraction. Like the red dress, the spike-heeled shoes.”
Melrose waited. “I must be in my default mode: stupid.”
“The Vertigo girl. In the film, Kim Novak looked exactly like the wife. Exactly. In this case, the accomplice’s face only approximated the face of Belle Syms. Coloring was the same; hair was different, but a wig took care of that. Makeup, cleverly applied, could create the illusion of a likeness, but certainly not enough that if a person such as the Sun and Moon’s owner looked closely, he couldn’t tell the difference. So the point was to make people look not at the face but at what was beneath it, and that dress was sensationally good at that. Everybody mentioned it.”
Again, Melrose frowned. “How did she have the money to buy the outfit in the first place?”
“Well, she didn’t, did she? And he’d never have left the clothes up to her anyway. He bought it, I’m sure. He had to have something that was a standout and that would fit both women.”
“If there were two women.”
“There were. Another brandy?”
“Hell, yes. Where’s the unspeakable—ah, there.” Melrose raised his hand. “Let’s get out of the dining room, though.” When the “unspeakable” waiter arrived at the table, Melrose instructed him to bring more coffee and more brandy into the Members’ Room.
____
“So you’re saying this Strachey bloke killed Belle Syms before he took off for London and possibly got the body up to the tower at that time—”
“Yes. The accomplice who’d arrived at some point, perhaps met him there, I don’t know, would already have been made up and wigged and then donned the red dress. Strachey takes off for London; she returns to the Sun
and Moon, then appears a little later in the bar, and then makes her circuit of the town. Since Belle Syms hadn’t gone to those places herself—the club, the Sidbury Arms—this second woman wouldn’t have had to contend with recognition. When I said Strachey’s alibi wasn’t perfect, I meant that he would just barely have had time to leave London at ten, get to Sidbury at, say, half-eleven. That’s if he’s got a very fast car. There is no way he’d still have the time to murder Belle Syms and get her body up to that tower. No way. So if there was no accomplice, Strachey couldn’t have done it, not given the time-of-death window. But I’m sure it was him; so there must have been another woman.”
“Who was—”
“My guess is one of the other kids at the Williamson house that day: Veronica D’Sousa. She and Kenneth Strachey were seeing one another. She was clearly nuts about him, had been when they were kids, still is.”
“Well, but do you think this all has anything to do with the death of Tess Williamson?”
“I think it has everything to do with the death of Tess Williamson. Look: two of the kids at that party were killed. Although Hilda Palmer’s death was more of an accident, and certainly unpremeditated. Three of these kids were currently involved with one another: Kenneth, Arabella, and Veronica. The two women were in love with Strachey.“
“But you still haven’t mentioned a motive.”
“I think Belle knew something. Incidentally, Belle—Arabella was apparently a stalker. There was every sign she was stalking Strachey.”
“Is that relevant?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think she knew?”
“Who killed Tess Williamson.”
The Old Wine Shades
Friday, Noon
54
* * *
Jury sat at the bar of The Old Wine Shades, drinking a pint of Fuller’s on tap and incurring Trevor’s disdain. He had offered Jury a very fine Pinot Noir that he had just opened, and Jury turned it down in favor of beer.
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