“Not necessarily. There are several explanations. One: this could be someone they might have known without knowing they knew her.”
“Oh, well, that’s clear enough.”
Jury ignored him. “Someone met for a short time at a race meeting, say, someone important for some reason, but forgotten. The identity is still unknown or at least was this morning when you were there. It could’ve been someone they knew of, but wouldn’t recognize.”
Melrose thought for a moment. “Daniel Ryder’s second wife. No one knows her because he never came back to England.”
Jury nodded. “There’s a possibility right there. I assume she wasn’t shot out of the saddle.”
“I doubt it; she wasn’t dressed for riding.”
“What caliber gun was it?”
“No one told me.”
“Never mind. Ballistics will turn up the range and angle and a dozen other things about the bullet.”
“Why would the shooter shoot her there?”
Jury said, “I expect she could have been dumped-well, there’s no use speculating when we don’t have any of the crime scene details. I’d like to know what happened to the person who made the call.”
Melrose sat back and studied the white ceiling. “Well, I’m stumped. Maybe Vernon Rice will illuminate the scene. I’m going to see him”-Melrose looked at his watch-“now.” Melrose got up.
“What about the girl, Nell? What did you find out?”
“Nothing new about her disappearance. I saw pictures of her. There’s something about her. It’s not often you run into a girl in her teens who makes you think you’ve been there before.”
Jury frowned. “Been where?”
“Wherever she’s been. She gives déjà vu a whole new meaning.”
TWENTY
Vernon. Rice had both the sort of charm that could Vernon Rice had both the sort of charm that could sell you time shares in Pompeii and, at the same time, some inbred faith that Pompeii was still a going concern. In other words, he could get you to buy, but it was an honest sell.
He spoke to Melrose as if he’d known him all his life, ushering him in with a wave of his arm and telling him that Arthur-whom Vernon called “Art”-had called to tell him Melrose was coming.
The room that Melrose stepped into was glass and angles, and sloping chairs with graceful legs that looked uncomfortable yet were anything but. The wide gray rug leveling off to white softened the contours of the furniture. The room was a throwback to some earlier period, despite its high-end German designer look. It didn’t surprise Melrose to hear Vernon Rice say he was “shaking up a bunch of Manhattans” in a silver-plated cocktail shaker. Melrose hadn’t seen one of those since his parents’ parties. The Ryders were no strangers to the midday drink, that was sure. He wondered if they were alcoholics. He wondered-more to the point-if he was.
Then he remembered that Vernon Rice was not a blood relation, although his looks suggested otherwise. He could have been Maurice’s father or Dan Ryder’s brother, for he looked as if he inherited the family’s striking good looks.
“Manhattan,” said Melrose. “That’s an old thirties favorite, isn’t it?” Melrose had seated himself in a burnt-orange chair with sloping arms and rounded back.
“Definitely is,” said Vernon. He had the shaker doing a little mamba in his hands, a little added flourish before pouring the drink into two stemmed glasses. The glasses held maraschino cherries speared by plastic swizzle sticks, each topped with a grass-skirted hula dancer. It was the best-tempered drink Melrose had ever had, he thought, a combination of shaker, whiskey, hula-hula girl and Vernon Rice.
“Don’t tell anyone,” said Vernon, “because it sounds macabre, but I’ve always wanted to live in the States in the thirties.”
“But that was the Depression. Did you also want to live in Spain during the Inquisition?”
Vernon laughed. “No. But imagine watching the market collapse like that.”
“Oh, fun. Somehow I don’t think the men poised on windowsills would share your enthusiasm.”
“I don’t mean to sound cold-blooded, and God only knows I’d’ve grabbed a few coattails before they’d flown out the window, but it just makes me wonder if I could have done something.”
“I doubt it, though I think you’d deserve a medal for trying. But the forces at work at that time, they were inexorable. God couldn’t have stopped it.”
Unconvinced, Vernon brought the shaker around. “Don’t be so sure. Is anything really ‘inexorable’?”
Vernon went on to detail causes and cures, cures he might have implemented, spoken of in an argot of finance that Melrose didn’t understand at all. He looked at his glass. Where had this second drink come from? Or third? While Vernon talked on, the detached part of Melrose’s mind marveled. Vernon was not a vain person; he probably didn’t have the time to admire himself and his dazzling notions. For Melrose realized they really were dazzling, even though he couldn’t understand most of what he was saying.
Vernon plunked down his glass. “Let’s have lunch. I know a terrific place.”
“Sniper’s? That’s a restaurant? Strange name.”
“I love the place. It’s all done up in camouflaging. Good time to go, too, because it’s always so bloody crowded during the lunch hour.”
Melrose had been astonished to find it was nearly three when they left the flat. The Depression stopped when Vernon realized he couldn’t make Melrose understand what he meant by short falls and zero floors. But Vernon had managed to chug through this Depression tunnel and come out into clean sunlit air, leaving Melrose to think there was nothing that Vernon Rice wouldn’t try.
They were walking on Thames Street, out in the cold, glassy air, when Melrose asked him, “Is there anything you wouldn’t take a whack at?”
Vernon stopped on the pavement, looking thoughtful.
Melrose laughed. “If you really have to think about it, the answer’s no. Given sufficient challenge, you’d try anything.”
Vernon smiled and they walked on down Thames Street.
Sniper’s would not be easy to find if you didn’t know exactly where it was down a dozen steps in a terraced building that bore no sign, charged with a sort of secrecy that would hardly pay off for a restaurant. Yet it certainly wasn’t hurting for business. The arrangement, if not the actual ambience, made him think of the Nine-One-Nine, the gig of Stan Keeler, Jury’s guitarist friend.
Sniper’s really was a bit like a jungle. Light was murky, the plant life enormous. On either side of the foyer was a big aquarium whose neon-bright and startled fish swam in quick jabs as if searching for a way out.
The hostess, not meant to be part of the decor as she was dressed in simple, businesslike black, smiled at Vernon in a way that suggested he was a welcome addition to the maneuvers. She led them along a path through the black-green equatorial room. The size of the plants and their position between tables gave the illusion of concealment. The webbed netting and vines on the ceiling contributed to this, and recessed lighting was so artfully placed among the plants it diffused light into a mellow glow around them. Yet something kept the decor from a cloying cuteness. It was relaxing despite its metaphorical implications.
“Great place for a murder, isn’t it?”
Melrose dropped back into the real world, delighted that Vernon had brought the matter up. “I seem to have dropped in on your stepfather at just the wrong time.”
“Or the right one.” Vernon smiled.
Melrose fumbled his silver around and wondered if Vernon Rice could read his mind and retreated momentarily behind the menu, filled with exotic-sounding dishes scattered among the ones he’d heard described as “soul food” and “comfort food” and very American: meat loaf and mashed potatoes, hot roast beef sandwiches. There were, of course, filets and fish, such as Dover sole, grilled, broiled, cooked however you wanted it. So why was he homesick for food he had never had at home? Once more forgetting murder-which at the moment struck him as q
uaintly dull or else an anachronism-he asked this question of Vernon.
“I mean, we never had meat loaf. It’s American food, anyway. Why would I be homesick for American food?”
“Maybe,” said Vernon, eyes still on his menu, “it’s not the food.”
“Well… but what about the place?”
“Maybe it’s not the place.”
Melrose protested. “But if it’s neither, why? I don’t get it.”
“Jung probably would. Collective unconscious or something.”
“Meat loaf in the collective unconscious? Why doesn’t that sound right?” Just then Melrose realized he was speaking in very personal terms. To how many people had he ever confessed homesickness?
Was this Rice’s secret? Was he himself so honest and so engaging he made you want to come clean? In this way he reminded Melrose of Richard Jury. It was the gift. He thought about this and thought he’d like to see them together, outcharming each other. For it was charm, a whole vat of it. He smiled, thinking of James Joyce.
“Why are you smiling?”
“James Joyce and Samuel Beckett could sit in a room and say nothing to each other for endless periods. I’ve always thought that was as good as companionship gets.”
“I agree.” Vernon frowned, considering. “Want to try it?”
Melrose laughed out loud. “Do I want to try it? Sit here for a half an hour saying nothing? If I’d walked in with a guillotine, would you want to try that, too? And don’t pretend to think about it.”
Vernon laughed as the waiter, dressed in an olive drab T-shirt and black jeans, came to take their order. Grilled sea bass. Meat loaf and mashed potatoes.
“Tell me about your plans for Aggrieved. He’s a wonderful horse, incidentally.”
Sorry that the talk of the murder had made a detour back to the horse, Melrose said, “He was talking about the business end, syndicating one or two of his horses.”
“Right. It’s the best thing he could do, but he doesn’t want to. He seems to look at that as filthy lucre, you know.”
“Well, he also told me the idea of selling ‘seasons,’ which he apparently does.”
Vemon nodded. “He does, but not enough. Says he doesn’t want his stallions overtaxed.”
“An interesting way of putting it. Anyway, I thought perhaps you could help me do this for Aggrieved. Sell seasons.”
“Why? You don’t strike me as in need of capital. Not with what you paid for that horse.”
Melrose didn’t comment on his need, rightly assessed by Rice. “Aggrieved has a very famous bloodline. I should think it would be easy.”
Vernon shook his head. “Not really, not if you don’t have a working stud farm. See, when an owner buys what we call seasons, in this instance for Aggrieved, and if something happens to the horse, he’d expect to be switched to another equally valuable horse or have his money back. I think you’d be better off waiting. If you did it now, not understanding what’s involved, you’d just be buying yourself a headache. Believe me. Ryder’s business is a tricky one. Worse than farming in its unpredictability. When you acquire other horses, it would be best to stable them with a reliable stud farm and a reliable trainer. That’s what most owners do.”
Melrose opened his mouth to argue, as if he really were serious about this horse business, realized he wasn’t and closed his mouth. One could be convinced at times one’s lies were the truth.
The waiter was setting down their plates and Melrose bathed his face in the fragrant steam rising from his meat loaf. “I’ll give it some thought.” Then, as if suddenly recalling it, he said, “I got there just as the woman’s body was loaded into the ambulance. Murder has a way of making other subjects irrelevant.”
“Well, this one’s as peculiar as hell. Cambridge police want me up there this evening to have a look at the body, see if I know her. From Arthur’s description, she doesn’t sound familiar. I admit I’m curious as hell.” He shrugged. “But my car’s in the shop. I’ll rent a car, I suppose.”
Melrose could hardly believe his luck! “Cambridge isn’t far. I could easily run you there.”
Vernon laughed. “You kidding? That’s damned nice of you.”
“Not at all, not at all.” Melrose refilled their glasses with a very good Brunello, saying, “And I confess, like you, I’m curious. I’ve never been on the spot when somebody’s been murdered and that she was found lying in the middle of the racecourse was really, well, weird; it couldn’t have been an accident.”
“Hardly. When Arthur called to tell me, before the words ‘body on the course’ were spoken, I froze. I thought it might be Nellie.” Vernon stopped eating and stared out over the tables and the plants, transfixed.
“The granddaughter?”
Vernon looked at Melrose absently, as if trying to place him, and said, “Nearly two years ago she was kidnapped or abducted, according to the police.” He turned his eyes on his plate, but didn’t raise his fork.
“My God, but your family is not the luckiest around. Mr. Ryder told me a little about that kidnapping; he said there was never a ransom demand.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s a very strange story.”
Vernon nodded. “They also took one of Arthur’s great Thoroughbreds, a horse named Aqueduct. We assume Nellie saw or heard them-she was in the stable herself, you see, looking after a sick horse-and they took her to keep her quiet.”
“Why take this particular horse, Aqueduct?”
“Aqueduct’s a valuable ’chaser. But they couldn’t have raced him under some fictitious name, unless they’d gone to a lot of trouble to make sure he wasn’t recognized. Even then, George Davison-the trainer-would have known. George could have told from the horse’s performance. He’s amazing that way. Aqueduct could have been stolen for breeding purposes. His progeny have certainly measured up, won a lot of top races. But this wouldn’t explain it because they couldn’t put down Aqueduct as the sire.”
Vernon had given up all pretense of eating now and was sitting back with his wineglass in his hand. He kept raising it and replacing it on the table, untouched. He seemed to have given up the pretense of drinking, too. “So-?”
Melrose took his last bite of meat loaf, sorry to see it go, and pushed his clean-as-a-whistle plate away. “To do something to the whole stable? To all of the Thoroughbreds? Or to do something to your stepfather? The only person who saw what happened was the granddaughter. Everything else is speculation, an attempt at reconstruction. For all anyone knows they could have come for completely different reasons than you think.”
“I suppose you’re right. But you have to start somewhere, and we started with what went missing. Aqueduct. Nellie.”
“That’s reasonable.”
For the first time that afternoon, Vernon looked defeated. “She’s not dead.”
“Even after twenty months?”
“Even so. She’s not dead.”
“You seem so sure.”
“I am.” He returned to his cold plate then and cut off a bit of his cold fish, chewed it, swallowed. “I hardly knew her.”
That, thought Melrose, was the first indication of self-deception. He had known her, all right, just as Melrose felt he himself knew her after nothing but seeing her picture.
Vernon cut off another bite and chewed it. He looked as if he were eating ashes.
TWENTY-ONE
He had been sitting in the Bentley for twenty minutes parked on a double-yellow line, wondering how he could get a look at the body and how he could get past the policeman in reception. Not being a relative or a witness himself, it would be impossible. He had been there, though, in the aftermath, when the stretcher had come out of the woods. And he had been seen to be there by the detectives.
Melrose got out of the car and leaned against it, quietly smoking. He looked around for a call box and didn’t see one. Jury might have some ideas about all of this if he could get him on the telephone. By now, Hannibal surely must have returned his te
lephone privileges. Why did Jury put up with it?
There was a pub down the street and of course they’d have a telephone. He searched his person and then his car for paper to write on. All he salvaged from the glove compartment was a theater program for Cats. Cats? When in God’s name had he ever seen Cats? He wouldn’t see Cats if someone threatened to swing him like one. Then why was he looking at this theater program as if he had? He frowned. What was he thinking?
Melrose slammed the car door, stood with his arms on top of the car and his head bent, hoping to come up with some clever approach to Cambridge police. When he stopped banging his head and looked over the top of the car, he saw two children standing on the pavement licking iced lollies and staring at him. What were they doing out after dark? They were apparently waiting for him to do his next number.
“Just look at yourselves. Are you auditioning for Cirque du Soleil?”
They neither spoke nor gave up their places on the pavement. They waited. The inherent pleasure of watching a grown-up being a total idiot seemingly had a stronger pull than running from that grown-up idiot. Melrose walked around to the pavement. “You haven’t seen Cats, have you? And then planted the evidence in my car?” He produced the program.
But they just went on looking and licking. What was it about him that made children look at him as if their dog had suddenly started talking? Melrose threw up his hands, turned away and started toward the pub down the street. The need to look back was too strong and he did. Now they were leaning, backs against his car, licking their ices and staring at the park.
The Cricketer’s Arms was the familiar world of smoke and beer. He told the bartender he’d have a pint of whatever was on tap and went to the telephone. He pinged coins into the slots, thinking he should probably get one of those cell phones, but he despised them. The whole earth had turned into a public call box.
Hannibal answered.
Melrose couldn’t believe she was actually screening Jury’s calls. He put on his best North London voice and said, “Is Mr. Joo-ry there, love?”
The Grave Maurice Page 12