The Lamorna Wink

by Martha Grimes

  But Melrose remembered that it hadn’t been Macalvie alone who’d been interested in Molly.

  Jury had been looking over the silver-framed snapshots and now picked one up. “These are the children? What a tragedy. And what a puzzle. If Macalvie hasn’t solved it, who could? He can cut away everything extraneous to a situation. He’s like a laser.” Jury drank the last of his whisky. “I can’t do that. I get too muddied up by stuff. Anyway, he’s sent you a message.”

  Melrose did not tell him that Macalvie could get muddied up and overinvolved himself.

  Jury reached into the pocket of his shirt, under a heavy Aran sweater, and pulled out a folded paper. He spread this on the coffee table between them and smoothed it out. “It’s about Morris Bletchley and Tom Letts.” It was a diagram of the red drawing room. “Does this look accurate to you?”

  Melrose put on his glasses. “Yes, absolutely.”

  “What Macalvie says is that if he wanted a cleaner view of the target, he’d have picked windows two or three”-Jury pointed-“and not window number one.” Jury tapped the representation of the window through which the bullet had been fired. “There’s a lot of thick shrubbery around windows two and three; besides that, the ground is lower on that side. It’s possible for nearly anyone to see through one of those windows, but you’d have to be taller than we are to shoot through them.”

  Melrose frowned. “So the shooter picked that window.” Melrose indicated the same window Jury had. “Window number one.”

  “Right. But Macalvie’s point is this: How would you know this unless you reconnoitered? You can’t tell the ground’s lower unless you actually stand there, and if you do look through the other windows on this side, either one of them-”

  Melrose finished the sentence for him. “You’d see who was in the wheelchair.” He stared at the diagram. “Tom Letts really was the target.”

  “Looks that way,” said Jury.

  45

  On a heavy Empire table between the two chairs sat a Murano ashtray of deep blue and green, colors that shifted with the shifting firelight. In the bowl were small polished stones that Jury had used to mark the tragic events that had taken place in Bletchley and Lamorna. At the moment there were four stones forming the beginnings of a circle: the deaths of the two Bletchley children, the death of Ramona Friel, the murders of Sada Colthorp and Tom Letts.

  “Sada Colthorp.” Jury started to say something, then paused, searching his pocket for some item.

  Melrose said, “Ah, Sadie May, right. Both the ex-Mrs. Rodney Colthorp and Vicountess Mead. Vicountess Mead, redoutable star of blue movies. Funny old world. This Bolt fellow, producer of said films, turned up at the manor when she was still married to Colthorp. Dennis, the viscount’s son, threw him out. Not until after he’d valued Bolt’s Jaguar.”

  “Macalvie told me about Simon Bolt.”

  “In her younger days, Sada worked at the Woodbine, that’s the local tearoom owned by Chris Wells and Brenda Friel. They’re partners. Sada Colthorp reappeared four years ago in Bletchley for a visit.”

  Jury had found the item, a brown envelope, and sat tapping it against his thumb, thinking.

  Melrose wished he’d stop thinking and let him see whatever it was.

  “There it is again.” Jury leaned forward to look at the table, at the little semicircle of stones he’d made.

  “There what is again? And what’s in that envelope, the winning lottery ticket?”

  “Four years ago. When, four years ago?”

  “I’m not sure. Brenda Friel could tell you. She was the one who identified her. The people in Lamorna didn’t recognize the police photo.”

  “Perhaps her appearance had altered, having lived the life of a viscountess for all those years.” Jury put another little stone near the one representing the deaths of the children.

  “Some of those years, you mean. She was Viscountess Mead for less than two. Rodney Colthorp was clearly embarrassed about having married her. I put it down to the usual midlife crisis.”

  Jury had opened the packet and drawn a photo out-two photos, one being the familiar scene-of-crime picture of Sada Colthorp. He handed them to Melrose.

  “I see what you mean.” One photo was of Sada, or Sadie back then, during her years in Lamorna and Bletchley. The young woman in this earlier photo had quite pale hair, as opposed to the hard yellow of the more recent photo, the crime scene photo of her dead on the public footpath. The eyes were quite different too, but that would be owing to the generous application of cosmetics: eyeliner, shadow, mascara. But the most telling difference was that the rather plump face of the earlier photo had changed to one gaunt and angular, though not unattractive. The changes seemed to have been caused by something other than time.

  “They look different, don’t they? If you know it’s the same person, you can see the resemblance even with the change of hairstyle and color, even with the meltdown from drugs. Clubs and Vice picked her up a couple of times in Shepherd Market for soliciting. Then again she was picked up in Soho for dealing drugs, charge later dropped.”

  Melrose was shocked, not by Sada’s habits but by Jury’s knowing them. He’d been on this case for less than eight hours and he seemed to know more than Melrose himself. And now he was reading Melrose’s mind.

  “Macalvie only just got this report, which is why you haven’t heard about it.”

  Melrose decided to carp at police reporting. “It took all of this time? It took a week for police to send this?”

  Jury nodded. “Sometimes it happens. Bureaucratic slowdown or maybe it was hard to get stuff on her. Who knows? Anyway, Sada had a big drug habit she couldn’t support on her negligible salary as hostess in a club in Shepherd’s Bush, so she had to supplement it, and prostitution and dealing were the most profitable means. Her habit meant big money. My guess is that was what she was here for. Just a guess, mind.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “That, or to sell something.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?” Melrose got up and took their glasses to the dry sink. “The only person I know of around here with what you call ‘big money’ is Morris Bletchley.”

  “What about Daniel Bletchley, his son? Or his daughter-in-law-who would have access to it, even if she didn’t have a fortune of her own?”

  Karen. Melrose thought about this. “She was here in the area at the time of the shooting. She came to see me. Or see the house.”

  “Did she come back to Bletchley often? It must be painful.”

  “Often? Oh, no. This was the first time in-”

  Jury smiled. “Four years.”

  “True.” Melrose took another look at the stone circle. There was something he was overlooking.

  “Why Lamorna?”

  “What?” asked Melrose absently.

  “Why was she found in Lamorna?”

  Melrose shrugged. “You’ve got me.” He said this a trifle testily, since it probably hadn’t got Jury.

  “There’s a pub there?”

  “The Lamorna Wink is what it’s called.”

  “Come on.” Jury got up quickly.

  “Damn it! People are always going somewhere and wanting me to go with ’em.” But he was not displeased. “To Lamorna? At this hour?”

  “ ‘This hour’ is only nine-fifty. Come on.”

  “Can’t we solve the damned puzzle sitting here? Must we take steps?”

  “Well, I don’t have your little gray cells; all I can do is plod plod plod plod plod.” Jury reached down and pulled Melrose from the sofa.

  “You sound like Lear. I wonder how it would have sat with the audience if Cordelia’s death had him saying, ‘And she will come again, plod plod plod plod plod’ instead of ‘Never never never never never’?”

  Johnny brought the cab to a stop, saw several lights in the downstairs windows, and Melrose Plant’s car. He ran up the steps and banged the brass knocker as hard as he could and waited. In another thirty seconds, he banged it again. And waited again. I
f his car is here…?

  Johnny found a pack of Trevor’s cigarettes in the glove compartment and sat in the cab and smoked, something he very rarely did. Smoking helped to calm him, made his head clearer. He could understand why it was such a hard habit to kick.

  By a little after ten o’clock he’d stubbed out three cigarettes. He slid down in the front seat and tried to think, tried to work it out. But it was like hitting a brick wall.

  The trouble was, he was afraid. He was afraid to try anything alone. Backup, that’s what police called it. He needed backup. He thought about Charlie, but Charlie was in Penzance.

  For a few more minutes he sat in the cab before he gave up on Plant’s coming home. He was probably somewhere with that policeman, Commander Macalvie.

  One more cigarette and then he started the car, let out the clutch, backed up, and, venting some of his frustration and fear, jammed his foot on the gas and nearly ricocheted down the drive.

  Why were the cops always somewhere else when you needed them?

  46

  You’ll find them a close-mouthed crew,” said Melrose, crawling out of Jury’s hired Honda. “If you’re thinking of questioning them, that is.”

  There was a sea fret covering the path, encasing their lower legs in mist so that they appeared to be walking footless to the door of the Lamorna Wink.

  Melrose continued. “Macalvie says it’s blood out of stones.” He sighed. “I wish they had a takeaway window.”

  It looked to Melrose, once they were inside, as if these were exactly the same people he and Macalvie had encountered. And why not? Where else was there to go? They pulled up to the bar and sat down between an old man in an oilskin and a heavy woman drinking pale beer. Sediment at the bottom of her glass suggested it was one of the local brews.

  Perhaps it wasn’t fat that had her bulging over into Melrose’s allotted space; it might have been the layers of clothes she wore. Beneath a mustard-colored sweater was a plaid woolen shirt, its arms rolled up to show a grimy biscuit-colored flannel that might have been underclothing, but Melrose doubted it, for he saw something lumpy jut above the elbow, suggesting yet another garment beneath it.

  Melrose was deciding on what conversational approach to take-she hadn’t turned to give him so much as a glance-and found he was listening to the old man on Jury’s left, apparently in fulsome answer to some question of Jury’s, mapping out the watery course through Mounts Bay into the Atlantic that he apparently had once traveled as a fisherman.

  Or a smuggler, thought Melrose, though it was more likely that role would have fallen to his grand-father. Now, upon seeing the woman’s glass was empty, he asked the barmaid to refill it and to bring him an Old Peculiar. This done, he turned to his drinking companion, asking, “Are you a resident of Lamorna or just visiting?” This he decided was not the most brilliant conversational gambit.

  The woman, whom the barkeeper had called something that sounded like “pig trot,” obviously agreed with him as to the appropriateness of his question. “Me? No. I just got off one of them Princess cruise ships, me. Docked out there, it is.” She had turned to him a face that obviously did not know on which side its bread was buttered.

  Melrose pushed forward. “I’m Melrose Plant. Glad to meet you.” He thrust out his hand, but she ignored it.

  “Peg Trott, that’s me in a nutshell.”

  “Have you lived here long?” Another boffo question.

  “Aye.” She pulled a vile-looking cigarette from a pack on the bar. It was a brand Melrose hadn’t seen before and enough to induce anyone to quit smoking.

  Melrose hastened to light it. “Lamorna’s quite charming.”

  Peg Trott shrugged and inspected the coal end to see if he knew how to do it. Satisfied, she put the cigarette back in her mouth.

  “You must be pretty excited about what happened here last week. The shooting, I mean.”

  “Aye.”

  Apparently, the aforementioned nutshell was to be taken literally. There was no more here for him than her name. Except her glass, empty once more. She picked it up and looked at it as if appraising the glassblower’s skill.

  Melrose gestured once more to the woman behind the bar, who then came to fill the glass. Having no luck himself on the conversational front, Melrose turned to his right, where the old man in the oilskin was still going on in answer to Jury’s single question. And Jury wasn’t even buying beers. Someone out there yelled, “Shut it, Jimmy!” the dictate lost in the Greek chorus of conversational waves.

  While Melrose was girding up for another go at Peg Trott, he felt a hand on his shoulder, glanced in the mirror, and saw an artist named Mark Weist, one of several that lived here, looking less handsome than Weist was sure he was.

  “Getting any further along with your investigation?” He laughed at this, seeming to think the question was droll.

  “I’m not, but he is.” Melrose nodded toward Jury, who turned and was introduced to the painter.

  “New Scotland Yard!” crowed Weist. “Bringing out the big guns, are we?”

  Jury smiled patiently. “You’ve already met the big gun. Commander Macalvie.”

  “Ah, yes. Smart chap.” It was all so unbearably condescending. “As I told him-Commander Macalvie-we didn’t know the woman.”

  Melrose marveled at Weist’s range of the banal. He also seemed adept at making himself spokesman for Lamorna.

  “Some-a’ us did.” It was Peg Trott speaking. “Nasty bairn, nasty woman, ah don’t wonder.”

  “How so?” asked Jury.

  “Bairn use to show herself in public.”

  Thinking of the Cripps kiddies, Melrose thought, Don’t they all?

  “Ya know what ah mean? You, Tim.” She was leaning across Melrose to speak to the wiry little man beside Jury.

  “Oversexed, she were,” said Tim.

  “Whatever,” said Peg. “Found out t’ings, people’s private business, then used it against them.”

  “Blackmail, you mean?” said Jury.

  “Call it what ya will. One poor soul name of McPhee-dead now, McPhee-she found out he was up at Dartmoor for fifteen years, put there fer takin’ a breadknife t’ his wife. Sadie tells it all over. So ah dunno did she try to blackmail him or not. He must not of paid; he hung hisself.” She fell silent, holding up her empty glass yet again.

  If a few drinks were all it took to get her going, Melrose was willing to buy her the pub. The barmaid was right near them, listening. Indeed, a little crowd must have picked up on the ghoulish story and a half dozen had come to join them. The people within earshot were listening hard. A youngish couple, very London-looking, standing talking farther along the bar, became interested in this small drinking circle and came to join them. The woman had a spun-glass beauty, complexion fine to the point of transparence, eyes pewter-gray and clear as seawater, hair a limpid sort of white gold. She was wearing white silk. The man, equally good-looking, was dressed in tweeds and a black silk turtleneck shirt.

  It was hard to tell who lived in Lamorna and who didn’t. Melrose imagined it attracted people of high sophistication, the sort Mark Weist thought he was numbered among.

  Peg Trott picked up her narrative. “When Sadie were only ten she were makin’ indecent advances to men, puttin’ her hand in their pants pockets, feelin’ ’em up-you know what’s what, you bein’ a copper. She’d go creepin’ up to windows after dark an’ watch. Out at all hours, Sadie was. Turrible. Her mum was never no better’n she should be. Mum left, no one knew where to, and Sadie stayed on with her da. Raised a few eyebrows, know what I mean?”

  Although she was addressing her remarks to the ingratiating Jury (even though it was the uningratiating Plant who was paying for her drinks), the clutch of people gathered round all nodded sagely.

  Peg drank off her urine-colored beer and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Then she gets t’be fourteen, fifteen, and t’trouble really starts.”

  Weist, who felt he was being crowded out by recent com
ers, said, “The Lolita of Lamorna!” When Peg ignored this explication of her story, he said, “Lolita, Nabokov’s Lolita.”

  She glared at him. “I know who bleedin’ Lolita is.” She waited for Melrose to light her fresh cigarette and plowed on. “There come a man t’Lamorna, a London man name of Simon Bolt. Well, if our Sadie was bad news, this Bolt fella, he was worse. Ain’t surprising them two found each other real quick. He said he was a ‘fil-um producer.’ ” Here she drew squiggles in air to show her suspicion of Bolt.

  The woman in white silk raised her satiny eyebrows and asked, “Pornography?”

  Abruptly, Peg Trott nodded. “An’ worse.” She seemed a trifle annoyed that some good-looking city woman was getting a march on her story. “There’s some said devil chased ’em across Bodmin Moor.”

  Some always do say the devil in these parts, thought Melrose.

  “That’s hardly surprising in good old haunted Cornwall,” said Weist, not one to get out while the getting’s good. He tamped tobacco down in his briar pipe.

  “Tim here-”

  Tim nodded eagerly, though he didn’t know how he would feature in this tale. “Tim said he seen the piskies over in the bluebell woods, and Lydi Ruche-over there”-she pointed to a table where sat three men and one rather hard-looking dark-haired woman-“says she be drivin’ by the Merry Maidens an’ seen this specter-this specter.” Peg enunciated clearly here, seeming to like the sound of the word.

  “The Merry Maidens, that’s the stone circle,” said Weist, offering an explanation no one had asked for.

  Muscling Weist out with her voice, which she raised a decibel or two, Peg Trott went on. “Anyway, that ain’t my point. This Bolt fella made fil-ums, like I said. He was livin’ in the old Leary house that sits atop that cliff out there, and we heard from a woman used to char for him there was a room he kept just for runnin’ these fil-ums. Oh, she never fooled with ’em; she was takin’ her chances just to go in the room. But she said there was a projector and a stack of these tapes beside it.