“But you obviously didn’t.”
Her back was turned to him now and her head lowered. Jury was sure she was crying when he saw her hand swiftly go up to her face and drop away. She ran water in the sink and tossed it on her face and pulled down a kitchen towel. Then she turned back and went on. “The only one who was decent was the Colonel. He at least knew my name. And he was the only one who defended Mum when—” She stopped, looked off. “Dillys hated me, but he never knew that. The only reason we were so much together is that the Colonel liked us both. He always wanted a daughter, I think. And he’s not a snob, he’s not like the others were — Lady Margaret, Julian, Rolfe, too, though he was a bit more fun-loving, I guess. The Colonel used to take me looking for butterflies. It was beautiful then.” She turned and looked out of the little window where the weak and wintry sunlight was gilding the branches.
Was she seeing, Jury wondered, summer? That enormous house with its velvet lawns and behind it the purple carpet of the sea and before it the rising moorlands, thick with heather? Looking at her now, her profile feathered in light, he felt he could move inside her head, run through the grass, see the swishing of the net. “You said Colonel Crael was the only one who defended your mother. Defended her from what?”
Lily came to sit down across from him. She seemed very tired. “It was Lady Margaret. Some jewelry, some emeralds or diamonds — I don’t know — came up missing. She said it was Mum who took them. All of those years my mother worked there . . . She began as vegetable cook. And suddenly she’d take it into her mind to steal?” Then she turned away from Jury again, presenting only her profile, sitting on a high stool, legs crossed, hands cupping elbows. It was as though she had simply removed herself, like an astral body, leaving behind this marble pose.
“It doesn’t seem like much of a reason for suicide, though, does it?”
Slowly, she turned her head and Jury saw her amber eyes had clouded over, darkened to the color of cornelian, as they had in the firelight. Her voice was level but it was clear that she was very angry. “And do you know all the reasons for suicide, then?”
“No. But one has to be very, very depressed. To be unjustly accused — and you certainly seem sure she was — that would result more in self-righteous anger than in suicidal depression. Do you believe she’d have killed herself for such a reason?”
Evasively, she answered, “I was only eleven when she died.”
“Yes. But do you believe it?”
“I don’t know.” Her face, her voice were stony.
“What did you do then? After she died?”
“I went to my Aunt Hilda in Pitlochary. I hated it. She didn’t want me. But she liked to think of herself as a Godfearing Christian; well, it was her duty to take me in.”
“I’m rather surprised the Craels didn’t take you. He’s so fond of you.”
“Good God, Inspector. I was only a servant’s child. Fondness doesn’t extend quite that far. And even if he would, the others wouldn’t have stood for it. Julian, Olive Manning, Dillys. She had him wrapped round her finger, and she wasn’t even flesh and blood. But he did see to it that I got extra money, clothes, and made sure I went to school. He paid Aunt, I’m sure. I think she’d have had me out waitressing or something when I was working age if it hadn’t been for that.”
“This cousin, Gemma Temple, suddenly appearing. It would seem she might have been able to wrap Colonel Crael round her little finger, too.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?”
Jury was sure she was lying.
17
The Rackmoor lending library was a long, narrow room, the first floor of what had been a small terraced cottage that looked from the outside very like its neighbors. The downstairs had been converted, the walls removed so that now what had probably once been receiving room, dining room, parlor, and kitchen were all one. The counter at the front looked like it had been taken from an old pub. On it was a sign demanding SILENCE even before the book-borrower had got his bearings. The bookshelves of varying heights, the threadbare carpet, the little, mismatched lamps on the tables scattered about all contributed to the appearance that the room had been done from the leavings of a jumble sale.
There was something of the jumble-sale look about Miss Cavendish herself: an old brown skirt which nearly reached the ankles, sagging olive cardigan sweater, brown hair in a bun like a pincushion. She appeared to be remonstrating with some school-aged children when Jury walked in. When she saw Jury and moved off toward the front, the children bent their shining heads together once again and proceeded to giggle and whisper. Aside from them, there was one other person, a stout woman passing slowly along one of the shelves.
The library certainly seemed to be Miss Cavendish’s métier. Her eyes, regarding Jury over the tops of half-glasses attached to a narrow grosgrain ribbon, looked weak, as if she’d spent too many late nights reading. Her sallow complexion was marked by many moles like a foxed-page book. And when she moved, she seemed to whisper and creak as if her pages were loosening, though the sound was probably from a stiff petticoat.
Jury produced his I.D. “There were a few questions I wanted to ask you, Miss.”
“I rather suspected that’s who you might be.” She looked him up and down with a satisfied smack of unrouged lips. “But I don’t see how I can help. I live at the other end of the village from where she was . . . so brutally killed. I’ve told the other policeman that.”
“Yes, I know. Actually, it’s another matter I’ve come about.” Miss Cavendish raised her brows, astonished that there could be another matter. “It’s to do with Mrs. Makepiece, Bertie’s mother. We understand you’ve been looking in on Bertie.”
“Aye. Roberta — that’s Bertie’s mother — asked me to look in on the lad. Rose Honeybun and Laetitia Frother-Guy have been doing so, too. Look here, it’s not a police matter, now is it? I should certainly hope we’re not to be held accountable for his welfare.” Jury opened his mouth to reply, but she hurried on in her own defense. “It’s certainly nothing to do with us. Laetitia Frother-Guy contacted the social services people tout de suite and they came round to the Makepiece cottage, but everything seemed to be going along smoothly enough and, of course, Roberta’s taken herself off before, don’t think she hasn’t. Well, shocking, I call it. Absolutely shocking, sick relative or no, and, frankly, I even wonder about that. According to the boy she’s gone to Belfast, though that wasn’t what she told me. And it’s not the first time she’s asked me to have a look in when she’s just decided to have herself a little holiday; this must be the fourth or fifth time. You know what I mean, affaires d’amour more than sick grans, that’s my notion of what she’s getting up to. I will admit it’s the longest she’s ever been gone. Never should have had children, that’s what I told my confrère, Rose Honeybun. Her sort should be satisfied with a budgie if it’s company they want. That child’s had to take care of himself near all his born days, and does it better than ever she could. Do you know he’s done nearly all the washing up and cooking and shopping ever since he was in infant’s school? But of course he needs guidance, doesn’t he? Should be living en famille. But I’ve never seen a child so self-sufficient. I must admit I find his manner a bit off-putting, never know what’s going on in that little head, he’s a bit of an enfant terrible, I’d say, and that dog of his does do my nerves a turn. A bête noir, if ever there was one. You’d think it could read your mind, and the way it looks at one, well —”
“Where did Mrs. Makepiece tell you she was going?” Jury stemmed the flow.
“London. Yes, London, I’m quite sure. That’s why I was so surprised when the boy told me the gran — the sick one — lived in Belfast and she’d gone there. Of all places.” Visions of black-bereted Irish Nationalists no doubt assaulted her eye.
“Didn’t you wonder, then, why she said she was going to London?”
“Yes, I did. But as I said, Roberta Makepiece was always having her litt
le holiday. And quite shirty she’d get, too, if you so much as blinked at her over her little affaires de coeur. The husband died when he was rather young, you know, and I’m not sure but what living with Roberta hadn’t something—”
“So you did wonder that she went to Belfast?”
“I suppose I simply thought she’d got to go to London to get a train or whatever to get to the boat. Or to Heathrow.”
Jury thought for a moment. From Yorkshire that would certainly be a waste of both time and money. If she’d wanted to go to Northern Ireland she’d have gone up to Scotland and taken the ferry from Stranraer.
“Inspector, why are the police asking me these questions? I told you I was merely trying to help out.”
“I was merely concerned about him. He seems so young to be staying there alone.”
She seemed to take this as implicit criticism. “Don’t you think I know it? Shocking, for a mother to do such a thing. I was saying to Rose and Laetitia just the other day we should have the social services people do something. But they seemed satisfied nothing should be done at this time. Well, I ask you. It’s been upwards of three months now and that mother still not back? The boy should be placed in a home.”
Jury’s inward eye turned upon long, barren rooms, rows of iron cots. He tried to picture Bertie within those institutional walls. He could not.
Outside the library’s window a small dog with a ruff of fur round its neck was tied, an incongruous blue bow stuck in the neck fur. Probably waiting for the stout lady who was roving among the stacks to return and claim him.
“I don’t know that would be the best solution for Bertie,” Jury said. “Besides, whatever would happen to Arnold? They’re mates.”
“Well, I hardly consider a dog sufficient company for a child. Bête noir, as I said.” She sniffed.
Jury looked at the counter: the SILENCE sign must have killed Miss Cavendish. “Yes. Oh, well, delenda est Carthago. Good day, Miss Cavendish.”
She blinked and stared as he turned away.
Outside on Scroop Street he wondered why he had told her Carthage should be destroyed. Probably because it was the only thing he could dredge up at the moment. Jury loved Virgil.
• • •
He walked along Scroop Street and peered in at Bertie’s window, saw no sign of either him or Arnold and everything seemed quiet and dark within. The big apron hung from a peg by the kitchen counter. Bertie must be in school.
When he reached the Angel steps he decided to walk up to Psalter’s Lane and approach Old House by way of the path through the woods. At the top of the steps, just below the church, he turned and looked down. Even in dead winter Rackmoor was beautifully unreal. The whole village lay before him, carved into the cliffside, stairsteps of houses, winding streets, tiny blue and green boats the only bright spots on the monochromatic grays of stone, sky, and sea. But there were really two views, not just one: far off to his right Jury could see the beginnings of the North York Moors, miles and miles of unbroken reaches of snow.
He wished he could think of some excuse to walk across them.
18
Like a migrating bird, Sergeant Wiggins always managed to fly to the warmth; thus, Jury found him near the kitchen hearth with a pot of tea, seated across from Olive Manning.
She did not lend warmth to the setting, however. She presented to Jury a cool, dry hand and a cooler smile. She gave the impression of someone uncomfortable in her clothes, as if they were ill-made (which they certainly weren’t) or made for someone else. Sitting in her dark dress, from the belt of which hung a set of keys, Olive Manning seemed to be all angles: elbows, cheekbones, straight, sharp nose. Her voice was sharp, too, with the ring of metal in it. The obligatory smile vanished after she first greeted Jury, and her expression became as set and immobile as the face on a coin. Her eyes were a tarnished silver, her mouth thin. A haze of gray had settled over her once-dark hair like the bloom on stale chocolate.
Jury drew up a chair, declined the proffered cup of tea. “Mrs. Manning, I don’t want to make you go back over everything you’ve told Sergeant Wiggins, here. What I’m most interested in is whether you thought this young lady was Dillys March.”
Decidedly, she shook her head. “Definitely not.”
“How can you be so sure, when Sir Titus fully believes she was?” Jury had little doubt that Olive Manning was sure about everything she thought and felt.
She smiled slightly. “I’d say that was wishful thinking, Inspector Jury. You realize, of course, that Julian agrees with my view of the matter.” Jury nodded. “There is, certainly, a superficial resemblance —”
“Much more than superficial, surely. From the pictures I’ve seen of the March girl, I’d say Gemma Temple was a dead ringer.”
“That’s true. Only, those pictures of Dillys are fifteen years old, aren’t they? And it’s not merely the girl’s looks. There are other things. Gestures, speech —”
“Not quite to the manor born?”
“If you want to put it that way. I found her a bit vulgar. Breeding is breeding, after all.”
“Couldn’t some of it get roughed up a bit in fifteen years?” She didn’t answer. “Your son, Mrs. Manning, is, regrettably, in an institution, I believe?”
The steely eyes charged up with something, but all she said was, “Yes.”
“From what I hear, you hold Dillys March largely responsible for his breakdown.”
Her face, her posture were resolute. But she was twisting her beringed fingers as if she were trying to keep them from his throat. “Well, since you’ve heard all the gossip, there’s no need for me to embroider, is there, Chief Inspector?”
“There’s every reason, if that’s all it is — gossip. What happened between Dillys and your son?”
“All the while that Leo was here — it was a year, and he served as the Colonel’s chauffeur — the girl was after him.”
“Did she get him?”
There was a silence. “She led him a merry chase. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been the only one. He was one of many.”
“Was she so very attractive?”
Olive Manning smirked. “Really, Inspector. One doesn’t have to be attractive, one only has to—” She looked at Jury as if he should know. “And she very nearly got him discharged a month after he was here. And then there was that hideous police inquiry, everyone thinking that Leo had something to do . . . ” She stopped, grew very pale. The anger which she must have had the devil’s own time controlling seemed to surge up. “The poor boy couldn’t take the strain of it; he was genuinely in love with her.”
Jury put that down to a mother’s sentiment, although there seemed little enough of that in Olive Manning.
“You were the one who saw Dillys March leave that night, fifteen years ago, weren’t you? Tell me about it.”
“I don’t sleep well, I never have, and I was up. I don’t know what drew me to the window; perhaps the car door slamming. I looked out and saw her by the garage door, looking down, searching for her keys, I suppose. Then she got into that red car of hers and drove off. Tore down the drive. She always drove that way.”
“And that’s the last time you saw her?” She nodded. Jury changed the subject. “You just visited your sister in London, didn’t you, two weeks before Christmas?”
“Yes. I stay there when I go to visit Leo . . . that policeman, that Inspector Harkins or one of his men had to go talking to Leo. Really, it’s disgraceful. Can’t the poor boy be left alone? He’s perfectly innocent of anything. . . . ”
Jury was surprised to see her near tears, but thought that perhaps the son was the one thing that could arouse her feelings. “They talked to him, yes. I don’t think there was any way Leo could be much help to them. He remembered— little.” According to Harkins’s report, he remembered nothing at all. “It’s Colonel Crael who’s paying for that particular home where Leo is, isn’t it?”
She looked up sharply. “The Colonel has always been a respons
ible person. I think he realizes where the fault lay, there.”
“But it would be unfortunate, wouldn’t it, if Dillys March were to come back and maybe change his mind on that score?” Olive Manning glared at him, opened her mouth, shut it. “I’d like a word with your sister, Mrs. Manning. Perhaps you could give me her address?”
“Why? What does she have to do with it? Do you think I’m lying about that visit?”
“No. Not when all it would take to confirm it would be a telephone call. What’s her address, please?”
She was flustered. Her hands seemed to beat in air like small wings. “I can’t see why you need to talk to her. It’s Fanny Merchent. The Victor Merchents. They live in Ebury Street, number nineteen. It’s near Victoria.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Manning.” Jury got up and Wiggins rose with him. “I may need to talk with you again.”
Olive Manning did not reply, nor did she turn her head as they left the kitchen.
• • •
“Have you seen Mr. Plant this morning, Wood?”
“No, sir. He’s not been down, sir, at least not to my knowledge.”
“Would you tell him, when you see him, I’ve gone to London?” Jury smiled. “And also tell him not to be forever stopping a-bed.”
The butler’s tiny smile seemed one of complicity, as if they — Wood and Jury — were well acquainted with the ways of the gentry.
• • •
As they crossed the black-and-white marble of the hallway, Jury said to Wiggins, “While you round up a car, I’m going to see Tom Evelyn. I won’t be in London long —a day at the most. But I want to talk to some of these people.”
“Inspector Harkins might take that as meaning he’s been derelict in his duties, mightn’t he? As if it’s a kind of slur on him?” Wiggins smiled.
“It doesn’t matter. Anything I do he’d take that way. I’ll drop you in Pitlochary, though, and you can explain the matter to him.”
“That’s kind of you, sir,” said Wiggins, with a perfectly straight face, only partially obscured by his inhaler.
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