‘Maybe they were made to. You said they put the crates underneath the window and crawled out. Or that’s what it looked like. Well, they would have left prints on or around the window. Couldn’t hardly help doing that.’
‘Not with gloves on,’ said Jury.
‘Depends what kind. A print might’ve gone through a glove, if the glove was thin enough. Find any latex gloves lying about?’
‘No. If I had, I’d’ve picked them up, wouldn’t I?’
‘Sorry, guv. Just you get us to go over that window frame, you’ll see.’
Yes, and I can also see immediate suspension—for me, for Sergeant Meek and also for you, if you care to join us with your kit—as we don’t have a rat’s ass worth of a warrant. He did not say this; he did say, ‘Nothing to be done about it. Thanks.’
So Harry had even considered that. He didn’t want them leaving prints anywhere, so he’d made them wear some kind of glove. He said this to Wiggins; they were in the office the next morning. But there’d be prints in the car. Jury doubted Harry had tied their hands in the car, for the same reason he’d removed the blindfolds: it would be too attention getting.
‘God, is there anything,’ said Wiggins, as he stirred his tea, ‘Harry didn’t think of?’ Wiggins, who had never met him, still felt on a first-name basis.
‘Yes.’ Jury hooked his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘There’s one thing.’
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jury stood in the doorway jingling change in his pocket. ‘Yet.’ He walked out.
58
It was her father who came from Manchester to collect the body.
Albert Bly’s face wore the permanent stamp of sorrow, deepened, Jury thought, by the death of his daughter.
‘Pastoni was her married name. She met some Italian bloke there and married him and divorced him. Rosie could never stick with anything for long.’ This was said not in a critical tone, but merely to convey information.
‘I’m truly sorrow for your loss, Mr. Bly.’
Albert Bly looked down at his cup of tea. ‘Nothing to be done about it, I expect.’ He sighed deeply, sitting in the cafe Jury had taken him to after the father had ID’d Rosa Paston’s body.
Finding the family had taken a bit of looking, as the police knew Rose Bly only as Rosa Paston.
‘It’s the wife it’ll be a bit hard on.’
A bit hard. Jury sometimes marveled at the British ability to understate. Yes, he could well imagine her daughter’s death would be ‘a bit hard.’
Albert Bly went on: ‘Even though Rosie hadn’t been to see us in more’n a year—no, two, more likely. You know how it is with kids.’
Rosa Paston—Rosie Bly—had stayed on in Italy, in Venice, after the divorce and got herself a job. ‘The place suited her, I don’t know why. All those canals, all that water, can’t even drive your car. You wouldn’t catch me in one of them boats—what’d’ya call ‘em?’
‘Gondolas.’ Jury smiled.
Mr. Bly made a face and drank his tea. ‘Nice caff, this is.’ After carefully returning his cup to its saucer, he said, ‘Have you got the bloke did this?’
‘Not yet. We’ve got a suspect, though.’
Albert Bly’s shoulders seemed to slump farther.
‘Mr. Bly, did Rosie keep in touch? I mean, did she write to you and her mother? Did she mention any man she’d met? One that she was fairly serious about?’
The wife might know more about that, but he doubted it. Rosie didn’t write much, and never did tell them much going on of a personal nature.
There had been a man. That information had come from Rosa’s flat mate. She’d told police Rosa ‘had a fellow’ and they were going to get married. She’d left Venice for London sometime around mid- June. Last year.
And had Rosa given her friend any clue as to who this ‘fellow’ was?
No. But he was handsome and rich.
Weren’t they all? thought Jury, sadly.
Venetian dreams.
They would, of course, talk to the mother. But Jury knew he knew more than either of the parents. Finally, they left the cafe and Jury went with Albert Bly to his small B&B. He took down the information they’d need for the eventual return of Rosa Paston’s remains.
‘We’ll get him, Mr. Bly. Make no mistake about that.’
It wasn’t much of a comfort.
Epilogue
It was 7:30 in the Old Wine Shades and Harry was sitting at the bar talking to Trevor. Or, rather, Trevor was the one talking, leaning over the bar as if he had many secrets to impart.
‘Hello, Harry,’ said Jury, pulling out a chair. It being the one Mungo was stationed under, the dog came out, looked at Jury— (‘Bemused,’ Jury would have said.)—and then slipped back under the chair.
‘Richard! I haven’t seen you in nearly two weeks. What’ve you been getting up to? Listen: you’ve got to try this.’ Harry tapped his glass. ‘Barolo Monprivato, this is.’
‘Your Italian is very good.’
‘Oh, no question. That was so hard to say.’
‘I bet you have no problem pronouncing the name of that Tuscan hill town—you know, the one near Florence.’
‘San Gimignano?’
‘Perfect.’ As Trevor set down a glass for him, Jury said, ‘I bet you even speak it. Italian, I mean.’
‘Not hellishly well.’
‘Enough to pick up girls and so forth.’
‘Probably.’ Harry snickered.
Trevor had poured and now Jury drank.
Harry said, ‘Don’t gulp it, for God’s sake! Trevor here will have a stroke.’
Trevor was leaning against the bar, happily waiting for Jury’s reaction.
It was as if their raison d’etre—the three of them—were lodged in the Old Wine Shades and this bottle of wine.
‘Great,’ said Jury. ‘Fat and full, as Trevor would say.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Trevor. ‘Fruity, sensual. It’s a Chateau Latour, this one is.’
‘He’ll make sommeliers of us yet,’ said Harry.
Us. That was nice. ‘You’re one already, Harry. I bet there’s enough in your cellar to open up a bar.’
‘My cellar? Richard, have you been snooping around?’
‘Wow!’ exclaimed Jury. ‘That’s one of those trick questions suspects ask to trap the dimwitted policeman! I’m assuming anyone who likes wine this much is going to have a wine cellar.’
Harry laughed. He took it all absolutely happily. What amazed Jury was that he apparently didn’t feel in any danger. The kids had fled, after all. They could be talking to police a mile a minute. Talking away. Identifying Harry. ‘Yes, he’s the bloke that had us prisoners.’ Pointing to a picture: ‘That’s him all right. We’d not forget him, not bloody likely.’
Jury’s fantasy. Except there was no picture, no identification. Was Harry one of those people—seldom seen, in Jury’s experience— who would stonewall until the bitter end, until the wall completely crumbled?
‘You’re just too bloody clever, Harry.’
‘I? I’m clever. No, I’d say the cleverness crown definitely goes to you. And that friend of yours. Niels Bohr, for God’s sake. Niels Bohr. I’ll say this for your friend. He had me going for a while. He had a grasp of the principle of complementarity almost as good as Hugh’s. He’s quite brilliant, your friend. We went back and forth, through a bottle of Bordeaux’—Harry tapped his glass again—’not this, but an excellent Chateau Margaux, right Trev?’
‘Right. That cost you,’ said Trevor, with a huge smile. Trevor was fascinated. He stood behind the bar polishing the glasses, which he would then hold up to the light to check for smears.
‘Anyway,’ Harry went on, ‘we went back and forth, back and forth. It was like a game of chess, really.’ He smiled, remembering. ‘Who got checkmated?’
‘Oh, we didn’t get to the end after I realized you’d just slipped away. Where did you go?’
‘I had a da
te. ‘ Jury leaned toward him, lowered his voice. ‘What were you going to do to them, Harry?’
‘Them who?’
‘Timmy and Tilda.’
Oh, lord, are we back to them again?’ He checked his watch.
‘Dinner?’
‘No, thanks. I’ve got to be some place.’ Jury got up, finished his glass of wine.
So did Harry finish off his. ‘Well, I’m starving. So I guess it’s to be just Mungo and me.’
Mungo came out, looking (Jury would have said) jaded (if that was possible for a dog), world-weary, dead tired, knackered. Jury reached down and gave his head a rub. Jury hadn’t taken off his coat, so he didn’t need to put it on.
After Harry got into his black cashmere and dropped some enormous sum of money on the bar, they walked out. Harry stopped outside to light up a cigarette.
‘Give me one of those, will you?’
‘What? A cigarette? You stopped smoking.’ Harry held out his cigarette case. ‘Well, I hate to be the cause of your starting up again.’
‘I bet you do. Harry, I’m going to dog your footsteps.’
Mungo looked sharply up.
‘Sorry.’
‘Think nothing of it.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you, Harry.’
Harry laughed. ‘Good, we can meet regularly right here for a progress report. Right now, I’m starving. Night.’ He walked off, whistling, turned around and waved.
Mungo turned around, too.
Jury was glad he couldn’t see his expression.
He put the cigarette in his mouth, patted his coat up and down frisking himself for matches, knowing he had none. But it was a pleasant reminder of what he used to do.
Jury smiled.
It wasn’t for the smoke.
That, he tossed in the gutter.
The Old Wine Shades Page 31