Jury looked at his watch. It was nearly six, a good time for drinks before dinner. From whatever he did in the City, Simon Santos might just be relaxing over one. “No. Let’s surprise him.”
18
He answered the door with a drink in his hand, whiskey by the look of it, and in a cut-glass tumbler that cost a hundred pounds by the look of it. It was, after all, Pont Street, just steps away from Beauchamp Place and Harrods, high in the Knightsbridge heavens.
Simon Santos had his French cuffs rolled up, his silk jacket casually tossed over a rosewood banister, and his Italian leather shoes polished to mirror brightness.
Jury and Wiggins pulled out their IDs simultaneously, and Simon Santos regarded them, apparently unsurprised.
And, Jury noticed, apparently unresentful.
Holding the door open wider, Santos said, “I just got in.”
Not from work, surely, Jury thought. Nothing he could thus far see in this house looked as if it had done a day’s work in its life.
Santos invited them to sit down in a room that could serve as a template for any voguish magazine spread. A massive fireplace with all sorts of baronial brass fittings, above which hung a portrait of a truly beautiful woman dressed in green velvet with white skin against which her dark red hair burned. On the hearth lay two chocolate Labradors, their heads raised, and so alike that they could have been a pair of andirons. Well-mannered, too. After a brief scrutiny of the interlopers, they yawned and lowered their heads to their paws and resumed their snooze. Jury reached out his hand and ran it over the silky head of one, which made the dog sigh.
There was a lot of butter leather interspersed with damask furniture and a ton of dark green velvet dripping down the long windows and puddling on the floor. Jury and Wiggins sat in club chairs from which Jury wondered if they would ever rise. There was something to be said for money.
It was one of those rooms one could only describe in accents of taste: luscious, delectable, ambrosial, scrumptious. The room’s rich brown walls and creamy moldings made Jury feel as if he were sunk in a chocolate mousse.
“What can I do for you? Care for a drink?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Santos. We’re looking into the death of a young woman named Mariah Cox.”
Jury saw a muscle tighten in Santos’s handsome face, then relax when he heard the name, which Jury supposed meant nothing to him.
“I don’t know anyone of that name.”
“No, but you do—or did—know Stacy Storm. That was Mariah’s professional name, so to speak.”
Tightness returned and went to every muscle, not just the one in his face. He killed a little time by rising to get himself a fresh drink: a cube of ice plinked; a siphon hissed. He returned to the sofa.
Jury wondered if he’d be stupid enough to deny all knowledge of Stacy Storm.
No. Santos took a couple of swallows of his whiskey, then he returned to the sofa and said, “That was terrible. Awful. I was ...” He had been leaning forward, glass dangerously loose in his fingers (considering the plummage-swept rug beneath it), and now he sat back to consider what he was: “Devastated.”
Jury studied the man’s expression and what it told of devastation, but he couldn’t read it.
It was Wiggins who asked, “How well did you know her, sir?”
Santos’s smile was tight as he looked from Wiggins to Jury and back again. “I expect you know, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“No, actually, we don’t, other than that you, ah, engaged her on several occasions as a Valentine’s escort.”
“I did, yes.” The tone was bitter, and he looked away.
“What we’re interested in, though, is whether you saw her at other times; that is, as Ms. Storm’s flatmate put it: ‘off the books.’ Not as a Valentine’s escort.”
“Well, I expect she won’t get in trouble now with Valentine’s.”
“No, Stacy’s in as much trouble as she’ll ever be in again.”
Santos regarded him. “You say that, Superintendent, as if you sympathize.”
Jury said nothing, just went on looking at him.
“So, yes. We saw each other any number of times ‘off the books,’ as you say.”
Wiggins said, “What’s ‘any number’?”
“Every week in the last three months. She was only in London on weekends. Now I know why. I mean, if she was also, or really, another woman. Mariah?”
“Mariah Cox. So, getting down to it, Mr. Santos, you went to a party given by a couple named Rexroth last Saturday night, is that true?”
He nodded. “And you’re wondering, of course, how that’s connected to Stacy. She was to meet me there. I wanted to pick her up—wherever she was. You see, I didn’t know where the devil she was during the week. She’d never tell me—”
“You didn’t know she lived in Chesham?”
“No. She told me nothing.”
“When she was found, when Stacy Storm was found, she was wearing a dress bought at the Yves Saint Laurent shop on Sloane Street. And Jimmy Choo shoes, also Sloane Street. Did you buy her gifts like that?”
“Not gifts like that, but those very ones. That costume, those shoes. It was actually my idea. I wanted her to feel no woman in the room could touch her. Stacy was rather ... I don’t know ...”
Jury waited, but Santos still didn’t know.
“She was to meet you at the Rexroths’, was she? How did she come to be at the Black Cat?”
“Christ!” The dogs both looked up, disturbed, first glancing at Santos, then at the two strangers, as if they, the dogs, were making up their minds about them. They resettled themselves when Simon Santos spoke in a quieter tone. “Do you think I haven’t asked myself that a hundred times? I’ve no idea.”
“No idea?”
He shook his head. “The Black Cat must’ve been part of her other life ...” He shrugged. Then he sat forward, rolling the whiskey glass in his hands, forearms on knees. “I could never quite take her measure. There was something I didn’t get about her. What I thought was that there was somebody else, some other man. Which she denied.”
“What time did you leave the Rexroths’ party?”
“About ten, I think. When she didn’t come and still didn’t, I had no reason to stick around.”
“You came back to London? To here?”
Santos looked a mite surprised Jury would even wonder about this. “Yes, of course.”
“I only meant you might have stopped off someplace, to have a drink, get a bite to eat, somewhere along the way.”
Santos shook his head, looked at the dogs, sleeping soundly, looked up at Jury, puzzled. “I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”
Wiggins half-smiled. “Are you, sir? About what?”
“Well, for God’s sake, I’m a bloody suspect!”
Dogs awake again, looking worried.
Looking at the anxious dogs, he sat back and lowered his voice a little. “A suspect without an alibi. To answer your question: No, I didn’t stop off to eat or for any other reason. I came directly home, had a nightcap, and went upstairs to bed. No telephone calls, nothing. Just me alone.”
The way he said it, without self-pity, held an awful poignance.
Jury said, “Is it correct to assume Stacy meant a lot to you? Your meetings ... well, they were more than a casual arrangement.”
Santos glanced up at the portrait, then looked away. He nodded. “Much more. At least on my part. Stacy—as I said, Stacy was difficult to read. She was extremely kind, and I might have misinterpreted the kindness as love.” He paused, then said, “Mariah Cox, Stacy’s other self, what was she like?”
Jury told Simon Santos about Mariah’s rather circumscribed life, lacking glamour, lacking Saint Laurent, lacking those bejeweled shoes that lined the walls of Jimmy Choo. But he left out Bobby Devlin.
Then he rose, nodded to Wiggins. “We’ll be in touch, Mr. Santos. We’d appreciate it if you’d stay in London for a time.”
Simon Santos had risen too
as Jury said this and stood, hands in pockets, looking uncertain and rather bereft. He was directly beneath the portrait over the fireplace, and Jury could see the resemblance.
Santos followed his glance and turned to look back at the portrait. “My mother, Isabelle. Beautiful, wasn’t she?”
That needed no confirmation. “I see the resemblance between you,” said Jury. But one not nearly so strong as the resemblance between the woman in the portrait and Mariah Cox.
This must have been Simon Santos’s obsession.
Jury thought of Lu Aguilar; he knew about obsession.
“What do you think, sir? Here’s what I can’t understand: a man like that, got everything going for him and a ton of money besides. Must have women lined up on his doorstep. So why does a man like that go and hire an escort, a tart? Doesn’t make sense.”
She wasn’t a tart, Jury wanted to say yet knew he had no business saying. “You saw the photo of Stacy.”
“Yes—”
“You don’t see the resemblance to Isabelle Santos? Stacy Storm was solace.”
They were standing by the car in Pont Street. “You want me to drop you in Islington? Then I’ll take the car in.”
Jury shook his head. “I’m taking a cab. I want to go to the City.”
“It’s near seven. What for?”
“The Old Wine Shades.” Jury pulled the Rexroths’ guest list out of his pocket, smiling.
Wiggins snuffled up a laugh. “Harry Johnson.”
“Right. I can hardly wait to hear him on this.” Jury held up the list.
“Do you think you’ll ever get him in the frame?”
“Oh, I’ll get him, never you worry. In the frame and in the end.”
Wiggins had the car door open. “Let’s hope it’s not.”
“What?”
“The end.”
They said good night, and Jury hailed a cab.
19
Dickens, as history had it, drank here. But more important (at least to Jury right now), so did Harry Johnson; this was his favorite place. He was sitting in his usual bar chair, drinking some bloodred vintage and talking to Trevor, barman of the Old Wine Shades.
“Hello, Harry,” said Jury, sliding into the chair beside him. “How’ve you been keeping?” As if he cared.
“Well, for Lord’s sake, it’s the Filth. I haven’t seen you in a whole couple of weeks.” Harry had drawn out his silver cigarette case and was now lighting up.
What Jury had drawn out was the Rexroth guest list. He assumed a patently insincere smile and tapped the folded pages against Harry’s arm.
“Ah! You finally got a warrant, did you? High time, as it saves you looting my house illegally. But go ahead and search away.” Harry’s smile put in its own claim for a patent on insincerity.
That Jury had never been able to get a warrant because there was no probable cause—nada, nil, nothing, zip—really stuck in his craw. Harry had done that murder in Surrey, and Jury meant to prove it.
But at the moment he had this list of names. “Where were you last Saturday night, Harry?”
“In Chesham. At a party. As you know or you wouldn’t be asking. It’s your case, isn’t it?” Harry tried on the smile again, then a woeful look, just as insincere: “I’m sorry about the wretched girl—”
No, he wasn’t. He couldn’t care less.
“—lying in the cold outside of the Black Cat in nothing but Yves Saint Laurent.”
“How do you know that, Harry? That detail wasn’t in the paper.”
Harry looked at Jury with the sort of indulgence one reserved for little children. “Are you dim just one night a week and is this the night? The Rexroths, of course. The Rexroths were in a frenzy of excitement. They would have steeped themselves in the details. Not much happens in Chesham. I called them when I read about it.”
“How do you know the Rexroths?”
Harry sighed. “Is this what tonight’s conversation will be? A lot of ‘how do you know’ questions? I know Timothy, or Tip, as he’s called, because he comes in here for lunch.”
“Where did you go after you left the party?”
“Home. Would you care for a glass of wine? It’s a Cote de Nuits.” He pointed to the bottle that Trevor had rested in a wine bucket and that Harry now pulled out in invitation.
“How long were you at the Rexroths’?”
Harry thought. “Got there around nine, left around ten. I didn’t stay long because I had to allow enough time for meeting up with and murdering your victim.”
Jury managed to suppress his desire to throw Harry off his bar chair. It wasn’t easy.
Harry blew a perfect smoke ring. “It’s getting tiresome. Any woman murdered within thirty miles of London you think is down to me.”
Jury pulled over the bottle of Burgundy, looked hard at the label (as if he’d know). “Are there any witnesses to place you at any stop on your journey back to Belgravia?”
“No stops. I got home before eleven. That’s it.”
“You didn’t stop in at the Black Cat?”
Harry frowned. “In Chesham? No, of course not.”
“You’ve never been there?”
Harry sighed. “To save you the trouble of taking my picture so as to show it around—or stealing one from my house—I have been to the Black Cat. Back in ... March, or early April. I’ll say this—” His smile was gleeful. “The motive is going to be bloody hard to pin down—I don’t mean my motive, as I didn’t kill her, and consequently had no motive. No, you’ve got not one, but two victims, haven’t you? The glamour girl escort and the plain Jane librarian.”
“How do you know about the librarian?”
“Well, it just so happens I can read.” Neatly, Harry folded the tabloid at his elbow and slid it in front of Jury.
Who, irritated again, ignored it. Instead, he spoke to Trevor, who had come down the bar from the crowded far end. “Couple of fingers of something incredibly strong, Trev.”
“Right.” Trevor moved away.
Harry said, “This young woman—and this is all according to the Daily News, whose rigorous journalistic practices leave no doubt as to the truth of their reporting—”
“Shut up, Harry. Thanks,” he said to Trevor, who placed a glass of tar-dark whiskey before Jury.
Harry did not shut up; he smiled at the idea of it. “The paper showed pictures of her—beautiful woman, wouldn’t you say? And then today, of a picture of that lovely girl looking much plainer. But she was clearly not working as a librarian in that dress she was wearing.”
“You didn’t know her, then?”
“I didn’t know either of them.”
“Then who was your date?”
Harry looked puzzled. “My ‘date’? I didn’t have one.”
“I believe the Rexroths think you did,” Jury lied.
Harry studied the very devil out of his cigarette. “Am I to be responsible for everybody’s errant thinking? If they thought it, they were wrong.” He paused and blew another smoke ring.
Their perfection annoyed Jury no end.
Then Harry said, “We always think of disguise as elaboration, for some reason.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“No. I suppose you don’t, as you’ve been hopeless sorting my own case.”
“I can’t imagine why, given you’re a pathological liar. It’s hard to put two and two together when in your case they make three.”
“Trevor ...” Harry raised his voice but kept it under a shout. “Give me a bottle of the Musigny. You know the one.”
“I’ve a nice half-bottle of that,” said Trevor, coming nearer.
“Not a whole one?”
“Well, yes, I could dust one off if you want to spend the extra hundred quid.”
Harry swiped ash from his cigarette off the counter. “Nothing is too good for my friend here. So bring it on.”
Harry was heavily invested in wine.
“Don’t do it for me,” said Jury, raising his glass
of whiskey, of which only a shadow remained.
Harry was busy with another smoke ring. “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”
“You bet.”
“So, tell me. Have you sorted it?”
“What?”
“My God, but you have the attention span of a flea. Mungo would have worked it out by now.”
Jury looked around. “I know. Where is Mungo?”
“Home, being extremely busy about something. He gets like that.”
“Tell me, do you keep Mungo around because he’s so independent? Or is he independent because he’s stuck with you?”
“Both.”
“Do you have to hedge every bet? Can’t you just pick one or the other?”
“And you a detective superintendent. You can’t go much higher. What’s above you?”
“Chief superintendent.”
“What’s above him?”
“Divisional commander. London’s divided into areas. But you know that.”
“I don’t know nuffin’, mate. I do know the City of London has its own police force.”
“A friend of mine, Mickey Haggerty—” Jury stopped. He had no idea why he’d brought Mickey up. Jury had returned to that dock many times in dreams. In dreams he and Mickey would walk back from the dock, toward the lights of the City, arms flung around each other’s shoulders.
“Something wrong?”
“Sad end of a friendship. One of us died.”
“You sure it wasn’t both of you?”
Jury flinched. Harry could be nerve-racking at times in his prescience. He wondered if it was true, that part of him had really died on that dock on the Thames.
Trevor was back with the wine and the glasses. He poured a mite into Harry’s glass, and Harry raised, sniffed, and tasted. “It’s worth every penny, Trevor.” Trevor filled both glasses.
“Now, let’s get back to it. You’ve got a story—”
The Black Cat Page 9