Neame’s laugh was short, abrupt. “We didn’t have them, if that’s what you’re wondering. Short rations in that department.”
“Most of you would have had families. Did you have leave to visit your wives and children?”
“I myself hadn’t married yet. Good thing, too, as there was no shortage of good-looking women there. As to wives and so forth visiting, not in a blue moon.” He cocked his head and gave Jury a slightly disbelieving look. “Are you suspecting Maples was a skirt chaser or something?”
Jury laughed at the antiquated term. “That’s the furthest thing from my mind. No, I’m only wondering how much freedom there was to give to personal affairs.”
“Very little. And for Maples even less. He was too valuable. I don’t mean the man was under guard, only that he was indispensable.”
Jury thought for a moment. “Do you recall the evacuation of German children on what was called the Kindertransport? These children were transported, most of them to Britain, to keep them safe.”
“Hmm. When was this?”
“1939. There were several trips made.”
Colonel Neame shook his head. “Sounds familiar, but…Memory’s not what it used to be. But what’s that got to do with BP?”
“Nothing, directly. The children were taken in over here. All that was required was a fifty-pound note to defray expenses. I wondered how Bletchley Park would welcome its people taking these children in?”
“A German child? Hmm. I rather doubt it, but anything’s possible, isn’t it. Yet why in heaven’s name would Maples want to saddle himself with a child.”
“I think it was his wife who wanted this. And most of the country was extremely sympathetic to these kids.”
“Right. Understood. But most of the country wasn’t engaged in cracking the Enigma code.”
“Here you are,” said Melrose Plant, coming up behind Jury’s chair. “I see you’re checking what’s on the menu.” He sat down and said to Colonel Neame, “He’s been cheating all along, finding out from you what’s on the menu and then betting on the information you give him. He always wins, and no wonder.”
Colonel Neame laughed. “I like to bet occasionally myself. Roulette, that’s the ticket. You know we’ve a largish room back there”—he dipped his head—“that’s going to waste; no one uses it anymore. I’ve been trying to work up interest in a casinolike venue. We could have a few tables—blackjack, poker, and definitely roulette. Hire a croupier. And none of those hellish machines”—here he raised his arm and pulled his hand down on the arm of an imaginary slot machine—“they’re too noisy and cheap. I’m telling you, there’s a lot of interest around here in a casino.”
“There’s a lot of interest in it over in Vice, too.”
“Come on, come on,” said Melrose. “Let’s go to our portobello mushrooms.”
“Mushroom.”
They let the portobello mushrooms alone and ordered the Boring’s club sandwich.
Young Higgins appeared with their wine, poured a smidgen into their glasses, and stood there.
Melrose took a sip. “It’s woody, isn’t it, Higgins?” He set the glass down.
Higgins took a step back. Then he held the glass to his nose and whisked the bottle away.
Jury held on to the small drink in his glass. “Woody? What in hell’s that?”
“I just made it up. You can say anything about wine and it gets results.” Melrose set his glass down. “Quite good, actually. What were you talking to Colonel Neame about?”
“The Hitler Youth.”
“How unpleasant.”
“I was thinking about Kurt Brunner. He seems to have been a true friend. The way he talked about Billy. I mean, the way he remembered conversations from eight years ago. And in detail. Hell, I’d be hard put to remember details of a conversation I had with you eight minutes ago.”
“Thank you.”
“According to Malcolm, Billy especially liked the Imperial War Museum. You know, in Lambeth. There’s a huge display of World War Two memorabilia and weaponry.”
“And Billy was interested in this because?”
“Because of his grandfather, I imagine. It’s so hard to connect the dots in this case that I indulge myself in intuitive leaps. Those paintings: the Klimt and the Soutine. Angela Riffley’s tracking down the history of those paintings.”
“And what about Mrs. Ripley? She was in love with Billy Maples. The motive could have been love lost.”
“Yes. Another motive might be revenge.”
Melrose was taken aback. “For what? Against whom?”
“Possibly Oswald Maples. The murder of his grandson has been a terrible blow. He really loved Billy Maples.”
“So Billy could have been murdered by default—well, that’s a rather cold interpretation. You mean the worst punishment to mete out to Sir Oswald is not his own death, but his grandson’s. The trouble is none of these people has been eliminated as suspects. They don’t have alibis.”
“Oh, I think Sir Oswald has one. Not because he can prove where he was at the time of the murder, but because he’s plagued with arthritis; he needs two canes to make it to the door sometimes. No, I’d say he’s straight out of it.”
“What about the talented Mrs. Ripley?”
Jury laughed. “What about her?”
“I think I might just go and see her, present her with this conundrum, and see what she says. She’s done everything; she knows everything; she’s quite inventive.”
“Her inventiveness stops at her own doorsill.”
“I could go tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t deputize you.”
“Who’s asking you to? I’ll just be myself.”
Jury laughed briefly. “See how far that gets you.”
“Thanks. But if Billy threw her over, she’d certainly have motive.”
“Perhaps. Though I simply can’t imagine Angela Riffley’s being that passionate about anyone. It would take a lot of passion to walk in and shoot the man you love.”
Melrose sighed. “True. And what do we know about passion?”
“What do we know, right.” Jury smiled and drank his wine.
FORTY-SEVEN
When he got back to Islington, she was sitting on the steps, twirling her keys around her finger.
Jury had called the station, but she wasn’t there. He was about to ring her mobile when he saw her sitting there.
He got out of the car, locked it, walked over. “I was going to the station. This will save time.”
“I doubt it.” She got to her feet and brushed off her skirt.
On their way up to Jury’s door, she said, “An extremely pretty girl—no, more than pretty—passed me on the steps. Does she live here?”
Jury put his key in the door. “Upstairs. Top floor.”
He opened the door and she went in and whatever else she had to say about Jury’s pretty girl and whatever he had to tell her got lost in a kiss. Their lips touched, not just touched, not just kissed, but clung, as if, in the act of drowning, they were buoying each other up. Her arms locked around his neck. He marveled at the way clothes could fall away, as if they were blown off by the wind coming through the window.
Then they were on the bed, and whatever had seemed so urgent was forgotten.
“Why are you so solemn?” he said and brushed the dark strands of hair from her face.
“Am I?”
“You usually are, even in the midst of this—”
She smiled. “This what?”
He propped his head on his arm and looked down at her. “You never seem to be happy.”
“Is this the sort of thing that makes a person happy?” She rolled over on top of him. “It’s so hopeless to control. Like a fire that will burn us up. I hate to think of that.”
Jury was angry. He pushed her off, got up. “Okay, if this isn’t making us happy, then why in the hell do it? If it’s nothing but some malignant force?” He’d yanked on his shorts, was looking for his p
ants—how had they landed in the bathroom? “The hell with it. It’s dangerous. We’d be booted off the force in an eyeblink; it’s interfering with what we’re supposed to be doing—”
He stopped. She looked stricken. He sat on the bed, she inched over and lay her head on his back, snaked her arms around him, said she was sorry, sorry, she had thought he felt the same way.
Which he did; that’s what made him angry.
He put his hand on hers, knotted around his waist. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. Listen: get dressed. I’ve something to tell you.”
He went into the kitchen, pulled two beers from the fridge, and opened them. When he took them into the living room she was just stepping into her skirt. He told her about the paintings and said, “I don’t think it necessarily gets us any closer to our killer. What do you think?” Jury stuffed his shirt into his pants, took a pull on the beer. She didn’t answer; she seemed to be concentrating hard. “Lu?”
“She’s a sexy-looking woman, isn’t she?”
Jury frowned so he wouldn’t smile. “Who?”
Alone again, Jury assumed the tapping at his door was Mrs. Wasserman, come again to make another worried report about an intruder.
He pasted a smile on his face and opened the door.
“I understand,” said Carole-anne, poking her head in and giving the room a quick canvas, “there’s been a lot of noise coming from here and Mrs. Wasserman is scared to death.”
The head was followed by the rest of herself, a self no one could quarrel with, clad as it was in lemon and what looked like meringue frothing at her neckline. Her hot ginger hair brightened in the lamplight beside her when she sat down—flounced down, more like—on his sofa, her usual seat for discussing Jury’s life as it revolved around his Islington digs. Meaning around her or, throwing the net wider (but not much), around Mrs. Wasserman, Stan Keeler, Stone. His life was all of their businesses, especially Carole-anne’s.
“What noise? Oh, you mean that table falling over?” He pointed out the guilty party beneath the window on which sat magazines, papers, and an old green shaded pharmacy lamp.
“Then it must’ve kept on falling as the noise was repeated many times.” She regarded her nails as if she were about to get out the polish and give herself a manicure. She liked to do that sort of thing around Jury.
Jury had by now sat down across from her and crossed one leg over the other, cradling a knee. “Carole-anne, your being so great at interrogation, maybe you could solve my recent case for me?”
Right now she had dropped off her sandals and was looking at her toes. Pedicure? “I’d be happy to, after I find out what was making all that noise.” She leaned forward, planted an elbow on her knee, clamped her chin in her hand, and regarded him.
Jury threw up his arms. “All right, all right, I had a small party and we all got drunk as lords.”
“You having a party?” She hooted. “Tell me another! Anyway, if it was a party, I’d have been invited.” Her look at him was uncertain.
His at her was annoyed. In another moment he’d bloody well tell her. No, he wouldn’t. He didn’t think he could bear Carole-anne’s looking like she’d taken a hit by a lorry.
He frowned. “Look, you didn’t hear anything yourself. You’re getting all of this from Mrs. Wasserman and she always exaggerates, you know she does. She’s paranoid.” Jury tied a shoelace, having wedged his foot into the shoe.
“What’s paranoid got to do with it? If a piece of my ceiling fell on me, would you say I was being paranoid for saying so?”
“That question is completely illogical.”
“Well, don’t tell her that I told you she told me because you told her you didn’t want her to.”
Jury sat back, one foot over his knee, plucking at his shoelace. “In the time it would take me to work out what you just said, I could have my case locked and loaded.”
“What?”
“Let’s see: ‘don’t tell her I told you she told me,’ etcetera—”
“Well don’t. She’s upset enough without you complaining.”
“Complaining how? I’m not complaining.”
“In case you would complain about her complaining.”
Jury rose and widened his arms. “Am I caught in a swinging door with you?”
She got off and did a bored-to-tears stretch. “Don’t you wish.”
FORTY-EIGHT
There was a different desk clerk this time being treated to a look at Jury’s and Wiggins’s warrant cards.
She frowned. “There’s already another officer up there.” As if one detective at a time was the Zetter’s limit.
Jury smiled. “We’re from different worlds.”
They headed for the elevator.
“Another officer” turned out to be DI Aguilar, whom he’d just seen or not seen leaving his flat.
Jury wasn’t surprised. She was the sort of detective who believed that if you look often enough and long enough, something will give itself up. And she also believed that the more people looking often and long enough would double the chances of seeing it.
She was alone.
Jury wasn’t.
Thank God.
The crime scene tape was still in place, so they had to dodge beneath it. When they walked through the door, Lu Aguilar walked in from the patio. “What I don’t understand,” she began, as if they’d been having a conversation, “is the second tray, the coffee.” She looked down at the long ledge where the two trays had been sitting. “Why didn’t this person turn up?”
Wiggins, as if he, too, had been a part of the ongoing conversation, said, “He didn’t come. I mean, whoever it was didn’t show. Happens all the time.” He shrugged and rolled his latest miracle pill or sliver of digestive gum around in his mouth.
DI Aguilar looked at him. “Billy Maples shot himself?”
Jury wished she’d keep the vinegar out of her tone.
But Wiggins was unflappable. “Someone else. Someone Maples didn’t have an appointment with.” He chewed.
DI Aguilar actually looked abashed.
“We’re talking about a third person?” She thought about this. “Right now I’m assuming he was interrupted when he was eating, that he was shot and placed on the patio or perhaps they even went out there together.”
She walked slowly round the room as she had that night, fingers passing over surfaces like water.
“Occam’s razor.” Jury smiled. “That’s what your sergeant would say. The simplest explanation is probably the right one.”
She nodded. “Maybe. I’m going back to the station.”
“It’s late, Lu. Go to bed.”
She smiled. “I don’t have time.”
Very funny.
They’d parked the car in Farringdon Road, a couple of blocks away. They crossed over Clerkenwell Road, managing to stay clear of the four buses all arriving at the same time and belching to a stop. London Transport had conveniently deployed the buses so as to make everyone wait a goodish half hour, unless you were one of the lucky ones who’d just joined the queue. No, he recalled that Wiggins had a theory about this pileup of buses all together, but Jury didn’t want to know what it was.
In Cowcross Street, he saw a McDonald’s. “You peckish, Wiggins? I am.”
Jury was aware that stopping in a McDonald’s would prompt Wiggins to continue his harangue about the American scourge now spreading its tentacles along the A roads to squeeze out the Happy Eater chain. He was not disappointed: as they took their place in one of the four lines, Wiggins started in on Burger King.
“Yes, Wiggins, you apprised me of that dastardly plan on the way to Rye. But chin up, Burger King will serve up a British menu. Beans on toast and grilled tomato.”
They were next at the counter and Jury ordered a Big Mac, a small order of fries, and coffee. Wiggins studied the big menu signs behind the counter as if there might be a surprise in store. The girl at her station looked unbelievably bored.
“I’ll have�
�”
The girl brought her fingers to hover over the computer list of dishes and Jury felt like warning her: No, no, don’t ready yourself yet, he’s a way from the actual decision.
Silently, Wiggins scoured the menu again while the couple behind them, both in black leather and heavily studded, shifted from one foot to the other, waiting, one would have thought, with surprising patience, until Jury decided they were completely stoned, so not there.
“…Big Mac and a large chipped potatoes—”
(Refusing to give in to the American term “fries.”)
“…and a Diet Coke.”
Jury shook his head and went in search of a table. Wiggins, he knew, would stop at the counter with its array of condiments and sugar and milk.
Wiggins slid into the seat, and Jury said, “You got the same thing I did. But I only made one pass at the menu.” He reached over to Wiggins’s tray and picked up a couple of slippery little packets of mustard and ketchup.
Wiggins had unzipped two ketchup packets and was spurting them on his potatoes. “I never could stand the idea of tomato sauce on chips until I started eating these.”
Jury had just bitten into his Big Mac when Wiggins said this. He nearly choked and had to grab Wiggins’s Diet Coke to get the bite of his sandwich down.
Wiggins had stopped dead in ministering to his hamburger. “Sir, are you all right?”
“He didn’t eat it.” Jury stared at Wiggins.
“Pardon? Who?”
“Billy Maples didn’t eat that burger or those potatoes. The ketchup—tomato sauce as you call it—was on both. Billy would never have put that on the food. He hated tomatoes in any form, according to Mrs. Jessup. Somebody else was messing with that food.”
Wiggins frowned. “But why?”
“To make it look as if Billy had been eating.”
Wiggins’s frown deepened. “But why that? Is it a time thing? Something to do with an alibi?”
Jury fell back against the back of the booth. “To make it appear that someone had come and interrupted him.”
“But the order for coffee—we know that was for two people, we know that he expected someone.”
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