The Winds of Change was located in the village of South Petherwin and, given the size of the car park, was set up for a brisk business. The lack of it was probably owing to the time of year or the time of day. At the car park’s far end, a large space was marked off for tour buses. Jury wondered what it was about the village that would attract tourists.
Brian Macalvie, who had driven there from Devon and Cornwall police headquarters, was sitting at the bar, drinking, smoking and watching the door. When Jury and Platt walked in, he waved them over as if picking them out over the heads of a crowd and as if he’d been sitting here for hours - days, even - waiting for the congenitally late.
Jury sat down and pulled out the menu. Cody ordered a club soda.
‘What took you so long?’ asked Macalvie.
Cody opened his mouth to answer, but Jury got there ahead of him. ‘Most people say a simple ‘Hello, how are you?’ when greeting old friends. Your standard greeting has always been ‘What took you so long?’’
Macalvie drank from his pint and stared at Jury, expressionless. Jury repeated it: ‘Every time it’s ‘what took you so long?’’ Macalvie wiped a trace of foam from his mouth. ‘What did?’
Cody’s snort of laughter got him club soda up the nose. Then he said, ‘My fault, boss; I let him go off.’
‘Me, the old pensioner leaning on his zimmer bar.’
To Cody, Macalvie said, ‘You were supposed to show him the place, not let him go wandering all over.’
Cody mumbled some half-baked apology and took his club soda into the room on the left with a billiard table.
Jury looked around for the barman. ‘I’m glad this is a pub. I’m starving.’
‘Lunch has gone off.’
‘Oh, terrific.’ When the barman came, Jury asked for a pint of Pride and tossed the menu aside, saying, ‘Let me get this straight. You discovered this dead woman is - was - an acquaintance of Scott’s wife, Mary, according to the husband?’
‘Declan Scott. The one I told you about. You’d wonder he could live there with so many memories.’ As if he knew the limit on memories, Macalvie looked away. ‘He wants to be where the memories are.’
‘Does anyone have a choice?’
There came a click of billiard balls from the room next door.
The barman set down Jury’s pint.
‘Probably not. But don’t some people feed on them?’ said Macalvie.
Jury thought Macalvie might be one of them. ‘Perhaps. And this is the man you want me to talk to?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Didn’t you say you didn’t like him for this murder?’
Macalvie shook his head. ‘I don’t. I don’t think he did it, but I can’t point to any hard evidence. He certainly doesn’t have an alibi. He was alone, asleep.’
‘But you think this case is connected to the disappearance of the little girl. Flora?’ Jury drank his beer, hoping it would fill him up.
Macalvie nodded, staring at the row of optics as if the name were so potent he had to find an antidote. When Macalvie didn’t go on, Jury had to prompt him. ‘She was four? Five?’
‘Four.’ Macalvie cleared his throat.
A brief answer, as if brevity could block out some part of this bleak scene. Again, Jury prompted him. ‘She was abducted from a point around this Crystal Grotto. Correct?’ Jury was trying to coax him into responsiveness. Seldom did he have to do that.
Macalvie’s eyes were now on the rings his glass was sweating onto the old bar. He pulled over a coaster advertising Johnnie Walker Black and slid it carefully beneath the pint. ‘Flora - ‘ Again, Macalvie cleared his throat. ‘Flora and her mother liked to walk there. On this particular day - well, it was no different from the rest - at one point Flora got a little way behind her mother on the walk. Mum had gone round to look at some New Zealand plants for a few moments and then realized Flora wasn’t right there. But she didn’t panic; the girl was quite familiar with the layout and she was used to Flora’s stopping along the way, just as she herself did. She called her name. No answer. She went on calling, retracing her steps and still no answer. Then she got anxious, then frightened. This had now been going on for a good ten minutes and of course those gardens are immense. She stopped people, asked them if they’d seen a little girl on her own, but no one had. Finally, she got hold of some of the staff and told them and they in turn got one of the administrators, who immediately called the local police. Before they came, the staff was searching, even some of the visitors were on the lookout. Cody can give you details about the search. This was three years ago. He was a DC then, detective constable.
‘There were a lot of tourists, which made the search that much harder. Anyone could have come in, seen her alone and snatched her.’
‘She would have resisted - yelled, screamed, something.’
‘‘Probably. But how many times have you seen a parent pulling a crying, screaming child along. Last time you were in a Safeway, maybe? Mum looking stony, or maybe a dad trying to cajole the kid, and he or she keeps on yelling? I see you don’t like that theory.’
Jury had been shaking his head. ‘There has to be something seriously different about those instances and this one. Flora would have been yelling for help. I’m not saying a snatch wasn’t possible, but it’s probably more likely she was drugged, chloroformed, maybe. And then something got thrown around her - a coat, a shawl. Then she could have just been carted out like a sleeping child, head over the perp’s shoulder.’
Macalvie stirred his coffee. ‘You’re good at this; maybe you should do it for a living.’
‘Thanks.’
‘There being no ransom demand finally made Mary Scott think it was the ex-husband, Viktor Baumann.’
‘I talked to him. I couldn’t come to any conclusion. I mean other than that he’s arrogant and a number of other things.’
‘Back then he looked like a dead cert. Another possibility was it was one of those snatches that happen when the perp, who’s nine times out of ten a woman, wants the baby, not the money. So there wasn’t much we could do. Hell, there wasn’t anything we could do because the trail stopped.
‘Mary Scott blamed herself for letting Flora out of her sight.
Parents always seem to do that, don’t they? I told her there’s no way you can watch your child twenty-four hours a day. No way. If someone was determined to take Flora they would have found a dozen ways to do it.’
Macalvie was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘The dead woman looked familiar to Scott himself and that’s when he remembered seeing her once with his wife in London. He and Mary had driven up for the day to do Christmas shopping. They booked a room at Brown’s. They returned the next day. Scott had been visiting the galleries, looking for a painting to give his wife. He found one, probably set him back a year’s salary - I mean, for you, not me –’
‘Very funny.’
‘- and when he walked into Brown’s, he saw Mary sitting in the lounge having tea with a woman he didn’t know. He didn’t want to intrude, and besides, he didn’t want her to see what he was carrying - obviously a painting, given the shape and size of the parcel - so he fixed it up with one of the porters to wrap it in some unrecognizable form and stash it in the trunk of their car, which they hadn’t been using anyway. When he finally went back to the lounge, they were gone. That was near five o’clock. Mary must have gone out again, for he didn’t see her until after six; she said she’d been at Fortnum’s and in Jermyn Street. She held up one of those little Links bags. He asked her who her friend was and she played dumb at first, as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. When he said he’d seen her in the lounge, having tea, well, then, she snapped her mental fingers and said, oh, yes. An old school chum she’d run into purely by accident. He asked her from where and she trotted out Roedean.’
‘What was her name?’
Macalvie shook his head. ‘Mary Scott didn’t say. And her husband didn’t ask. He said if she’d wanted to tell him she wo
uld have. Scott’s got a real feeling for others’ privacy.’
‘And the husband is the only one you’ve questioned who made any connection?’
Macalvie nodded. ‘The police photo didn’t register with anyone at Roedean; no one remembered the woman. Why would she lie about that, something we could so easily check up on?’
‘She didn’t think there would be any reason to check up. She didn’t know there would be a murder on her grounds.’
‘No, of course.’ Macalvie shrugged. ‘So where’s Wiggins?’
‘He’ll be here.’
Macalvie had always liked Sergeant Wiggins, to Jury’s great surprise.
Macalvie called to Cody and slapped down a tenner. While the bartender made change, he said, ‘Let’s see how I relate, then, to the next one. A Dora Stout. She was the Scotts’ cook for thirty years.’
Platt had moved rather languidly to the bar and said, ‘You really want me to come, boss? I mean, three people, that might intimidate her.’
‘I’m sure. No, I want you to call her.’
Cody nodded and pulled a cell phone from an inside pocket. From his own pocket, Macalvie drew a crumpled bit of paper, smoothed it a little and handed it to Cody. ‘Tell her we’ll be there in five minutes.’
As Cody moved away to make the call, Macalvie and Jury headed for the door. ‘I don’t like this case.’
‘I’ve never known you to like any case. I’ve never known me to like any case. This woman, this former cook, any particular reason you want to talk to her?’
‘Background noise,’ Macalvie said as they got into the car.
Tiny Meadows was a clutch of houses in South Petherwin along the Launceston road and only a short distance from the pub. They could easily have walked; Jury said so.
‘Does that set the right tone, Jury? Police arriving on foot?’
‘‘Since when did you ever care about setting a tone?’ said Jury as they got out of another police-issue blue Ford.
The house was small and trim. A dog barked when Macalvie tapped on the door with the brass dolphin knocker.
Dora Stout and her dog came to the door. Jury couldn’t decide which of them was more eager to see police, given the wide smile and the tail wagging. Dora, true to her name, was a chubby woman, her round midsection set on her wide hips. Her thinning gray hair was brushed up in a cloud rather like a whipped custard. She did indeed make one think of food.
Both Macalvie and Jury pulled out identification, but Dora wouldn’t fuss over trifles such as that; she waved them in merrily and directed them to easy chairs covered in a pattern of wildflower bouquets. On the back of the chairs were antimacassars. The dog, whom she called Horace, lay down in front of the little gas fire, but kept his eyes moving from Jury to Macalvie, back and forth.
‘It was my arthritis, see,’ she said in answer to Macalvie’s question, ‘made me give it up. I can’t get around as I used to and my hands some mornings ache something fierce.’ She held them up as testimony. ‘So when they don’t hurt so bad, I like to get my baking done. I’ve just popped some scones into the oven.’
‘I know,’ said Jury, ‘I can smell them; they smell wonderful.’
At this point, Horace’s dinner would have smelled wonderful. ‘I hope they’re done before we leave.’ In this hungry frame of mind, Jury could understand Wiggins’s yearning after every Happy Eater they passed.
Macalvie just looked at him, but Dora was delighted.
‘If you don’t arrest me, I’ll give you the lot.’ She laughed at her joke.
‘I’d guarantee, said jury, you’ll remain a free woman.
‘Jury,’ said Macalvie, ‘do you mind?’ He shifted to Dora Stout.
‘We’re trying to identify this woman, Mrs. Stout.’ He slid the police photo out of the envelope. ‘She was, apparently, a friend or an acquaintance of Mary Scott.’ He handed her the picture.
Dora shook her head and looked pityingly at the victim. ‘Poor thing. Awful. Yes, I read about it. Shocking thing. You want to know if that’s the woman who came that one day to see Mary Scott. Yes, this is her.’ Dora leaned back, holding the picture at arm’s length, her glasses perched on her nose. ‘Not much on looks, was she?’ Dora handed back the picture.
‘You might tell Superintendent Jury what you know about her.’
‘It was over two years ago, no, nearer three, some months before Mary’ - Dora took a handkerchief from some hidden place – ‘before she died. Right before then. The only reason I saw this person at all was because I thought it was Miss Owen - the new cook - who rang and I was just going along the hall to answer the door. But Mary Scott was there herself. I just got a glimpse of her’ - she pointed to the photo - ‘before they turned and went out.’
‘Did they leave? I mean, drive off?’
‘They could’ve done, but I paid no attention. Now I wish I had.’
Hearing possible tears in his mistress’s voice, the dog shifted his eyes to her and then abruptly back to Macalvie and Jury, looking as if he meant to fix the source of her trouble.
‘That family,’ she went on, ‘had more tragedy than it needed, it did indeed. And now this.’
‘Flora, you’re thinking of?’ said Macalvie.
‘The poor little girl. And them never to know why. That’s an awful thing.’
They were in the Winds of Change again, this time drinking coffee. Cody was once again in the billiards room. There was still no food, evening meals not being up yet. Jury was working on a bowl of pretzels. He was talking about the shooting in Hester Street and Johnny Blakeley’s ongoing investigation.
‘Shot in the back. A little kid. Christ.’
‘There seems to be a field day with little kids where this Baumann is concerned.’
‘Blakeley’s a good cop. He’s tenacious.’
Jury laughed. ‘That’s just what he said about you.’ Macalvie was eating the pretzels. ‘Leave some for me, damn it. I haven’t eaten all day.’
‘Get Scott’s housekeeper to rustle you up something. She’s a hell of a cook.’
‘Yes, sure.’ Jury drained his coffee. ‘Scott’s a sad man but a great host.’
‘This is hardly host - guest stuff we’re doing.’
‘Go talk to him.’ Macalvie looked at Jury. ‘I mean, as soon as you’re finished with that pretzel.’
8
Ten minutes later, Jury and Cody Platt were back on the A30. As they passed the Little Chef, he felt exactly as he imagined Wiggins must feel, taunted by the promise of cups of tea and beans on toast. Except for Wiggins, it was more of a soul hunger than an actual one. Jury wasn’t about to split hairs over this; he told Cody Platt to stop at the next Little Chef or even one of those caravans set up by the side of the road.
Twenty miles later, Cody pulled into the car park of a Little Chef.
Inside, with a plate of nearly everything on the menu in front of him, Jury asked Cody about the investigation into the disappearance of Flora Scott.
Cody was drinking tea and occasionally taking a bite of toast.
‘Times I thought it was.’
‘Was what?’
‘A disappearance. It was like she vanished into thin air. It was like a magic act.’ Cody had pushed his dark glasses up on his head. It was the first time Jury had actually seen his eyes. They were a disconcerting stone color, as if light had leached the color from them. Yet they were neither cold nor hard; it was as if the eyes felt this loss of color, as one might feel the loss of a person, and were saddened by it.
The waitress - Joanie, according to the name on the button on her collar - came with more tea and coffee. She smiled as if this were the greatest thing that had happened during her shift. Jury returned the smile. Walking away from the booth, she stumbled into a table.
Cody went on. ‘The Scott family must have had a lot of pull in the county. The grandmother, Alice Miers, lives in London, and she came straightaway. She was like a rock, you know, one of those people every family should have. I think Mary
would have flown into little bits if her mum hadn’t been there. Anyway, I’ve never seen so many police called to one scene. There must’ve been seventy-five, a hundred of us going over every inch of Heligan gardens and that grotto. We found sod-all, not a hair ribbon, not a kicked-off shoe lost in a struggle - there always seems to be a little shoe left behind in films, doesn’t there? Or a little blue purse the mother said she was carrying. Not even that turned up. I would’ve thought she’d’ve dropped something like that.’
‘Your abductor would have picked it up.’
‘I expect so.’ He shoved the plate of toast to one side and was leaning over the shiny surface of the table, hands folded, working his fingers, as if this account were told in deepest confidence. ‘I concentrated on the grotto, thinking that would be a good spot to grab someone because it’s not immediately visible. You remember three or four steps going down -’ Here he walked his fingers on the table, simulating the steps taken. ‘The grotto would have been the spot Mary Scott had just passed, maybe twenty, thirty feet behind her. I have my own theory about that, anyway.’
‘What?’ Jury was polishing off the last of his eggs.
‘Less than a couple of minutes had passed since Mary had been with Flora, had seen her, not more than that before she looked around, saw Flora wasn’t with her and retraced her steps. What she said was she remembered last seeing Flora on the other side of the grotto, so, of course, she hurried back that way. I think the villain was inside the grotto with Flora, Flora either being chloroformed or his hand over her mouth to shut her up.’
Jury frowned. ‘It’s not deep enough, is it, to hide a person? What’s Macalvie think about that?’
Codv sighed and sat back in the booth. ‘The boss would agree with you; he thinks they would’ve been seen. But not necessarily, I said to him, not if the mother was rushing by. It might have given this creep a better chance of disguising Flora, I mean, getting her into another coat, something different.’
Jury put his fork down. He was still hungry. He pushed back his plate and considered ordering more. His coffee cup was nearly full. All he lacked now was a cigarette. He had never experienced the advantages of not smoking. To hear the propaganda, the lungs would expand, the scent of roses and violets become denser, the taste of peppermint sharper, the air clearer, the rain more crystalline and the bloody fields more Elysian. The clouds, he supposed, fluffier. The only benefit that he could testify to was that he could say he was no longer killing himself with nicotine. Not that this wasn’t important; it was just abstract. And when, he wondered, had he become so obsessed with creaturely comforts?
The Winds of Change Page 5