The Old Success

by Martha Grimes

  Forgetting to turn on the light, forgetting to lock the door, Tony sat in his room, still thinking about that phone call, knowing that she couldn’t come, yet comforted by her promise to come. An impossible promise, but she held it out nonetheless. This kept him from thinking about Sammy for tiny stretches of time—just knowing that someone could feel the loss as he himself felt it. But all the same, he really needed her now, and there was no way she could come. There were footsteps, a little talking outside his door, and he’d started to get up when the door opened. Because his room was in darkness, the light flooded in from the hall, outlining the dark figure standing in his doorway.

  “Tony.”

  “My God. You’ve come—” His head dropped in tears. “Sammy.” He choked.

  She fairly flew across the room and flung her arms around his neck.

  And so she came.

  PART III

  Soul of Kindness

  27

  He went home one night …

  Jury sat in his flat the next morning with his mug of cold tea thinking about last night’s conversation with Vincent Mori in the Grapes. How terrible, to come home and find your baby drowned in its bath and no one there. How could that happen? Flora Flood had said nothing about a child. Vincent had asked him, “For God’s sakes, Tony, why didn’t you call?” He said he had called somebody. Somebody came. “Who, Vincent?” “I don’t know. All Tony said was ‘somebody came.’”

  He was a nice guy … a bit on the side … If Daisy Brownell has your back … Fixer.

  Jury sat the cold mug on the floor, picked up his land line and called Brian Macalvie.

  When Jury walked into his office at New Scotland Yard an hour later, he found Sergeant Wiggins, not ordinarily a bookish man, hunched over a book that lay on his desk, his mug of tea apparently forgotten. His boss had certainly been, the way Wiggins squinted up at him as if a perfect stranger had barged in.

  Jury gave a brief laugh. “What are you reading, Wiggins? Looks like a page-turner.”

  Wiggins held it up. “It is, sir.” Brownell. Jury recognized the book Melrose had been reading.

  “Ah yes, our Tom Brownell.”

  “Well, yours, not mine. I haven’t been working with him. He sounds brilliant.”

  Jury smiled. “He is. Very smart, certainly. Very modest and unflashy. But getting to this case, what have you learned about the Bryher victim?”

  “Madeline—or Manon, which is a kind of nickname—Vinet,” said Sergeant Wiggins, “had a lot of different jobs: managed a restaurant once, worked as a nurse or nurse’s aide, was a partner in a book shop, Libre Albertin, then worked in a chocolate shop she finally bought in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Ran that for years with a friend or partner. Commander Macalvie thinks you should go to Paris and talk to this co-owner friend and see what you can find out.”

  “Commander Macalvie thinks I should go anywhere in the world he himself doesn’t want to. Why doesn’t he just ring her?”

  “He said he tried, but she wasn’t very responsive, and, anyway, you’re better at that sort of thing. He couldn’t get anything out of her.”

  Jury gave a dismissive laugh. “Better at it than he is? I can’t imagine him saying that. Did he say anything about the photo and Matthew Bewley?”

  Wiggins screwed up his face. “Maybe that’s what I didn’t understand. He said he’d ring you later about the ID. What’s he talking about?”

  “An identification.”

  Wiggins rolled his eyes. “That’s generally what ID means; identifying what?”

  “Tell you later. What about Gerald Summerston?”

  “He was in Korea, led a regiment, got in between a machine gun and his men. That’s what he got the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for. Ended up wounded in a hospital in Paris. I can get more by searching the War Office Registers, I expect.”

  “Get me George Martin over at MOD.”

  Wiggins looked surprised. “You can’t stand him, guv. He talks and talks and talks but rarely says anything you want.”

  “I know. But he’s got the information, if he can get round to it. So get him.”

  The phone rang and Wiggins picked it up, listened. “It’s Mr. Plant. Wants to talk to you.”

  Jury picked up. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “I’m on my way to Watermeadows. Flora Flood’s really in a bad way—”

  “I’d be too, in the circumstances.”

  “I wish you’d come to Ardry End.”

  “If you want me to, sure. But not until day after tomorrow. Maybe for breakfast.”

  “Breakfast’s good. Thanks.”

  Jury rang off, nodded to Wiggins, said, “George Martin?”

  Wiggins picked up the phone with a shrug that said “suit yourself” and made the call.

  When he was finally routed to Martin, Wiggins nodded to Jury.

  “George, my God! It’s been a long time—”

  This standard comment received a rattling reply through a receiver that Jury held away from his ear. When the rattle stopped, or at least abated, Jury said, “Listen, George, I wonder if you can give me something about an army second lieutenant named Gerald Summerston. Korean War. He got a medal for valor or something equally wonderful—No. No … Oh, come on, George, I’m not asking you to break open a sealed file …” Again, Jury held the phone away, while Wiggins looked at him with a smirk.

  “What?” he said, bringing it back to his ear. “Idle curiosity? Now why would I be sitting here, idling with curiosity? No, I haven’t read the Telegraph in weeks. Suing who for what? Who’s Ernie—?” Here Jury signaled for Wiggins to pick up and mimed note-taking.

  Reluctantly Wiggins dragged over his notebook.

  “How can he sue him? Gerald Summerston’s dead.” Another rattling answer revved up like a car engine desperately trying to get from zero to ninety in thirty seconds.

  Wiggins’s hand raced across his notepad as George Martin’s race with intelligibility continued. Jury put the receiver down again, raised it every so often and made a sound to let George know he was there before the receiver went down again. And again. Martin was like a man shoveling earth into a grave with lunatic speed as if afraid that corpse or coffin or information would suddenly rise up and announce itself. After two or three minutes of this outpouring, silence fell as did Wiggins’s head on his pad.

  Jury said, “Thanks so much, George. What? Green Park? Afraid I can’t … but, surely you’ve told me everything I need to know … You don’t want anyone else to hear? … Look, George, maybe next week we can get together.” As the rattle kept up, Jury kept inching the receiver towards the cradle and making noises of departure: “I’ve got to go, George. Thanks. Bye.” He locked the receiver down. At least he felt he was locking it. Never to be picked up again.

  “You got that, Wiggins?” Jury asked.

  “Unfortunately, yes. All I have to do is comb through it for highlights and make sense out of them.”

  “He wanted me to meet him in Green Park so that he could tell me the rest. Sometimes I wish Le Carré had never written The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. But well done, Wiggins. You deserve a reward: how about a meal at Ruika?”

  Wiggins sat up brightly.

  “I got nothing on my end from that call,” said Jury, “except there was a bit in some column of the Telegraph about a legal suit … no, I’m not sure it was legal … about Summerston being sued.”

  “His estate, sir. I’ll tell you at Ruika.”

  Information held hostage while they made their way to a car and the restaurant.

  Ruika was Wiggins’s favorite place, second only to the Starrdust in Covent Garden. He loved studying a menu from which he always ordered the same thing. He loved bypassing the long line of frustrated customers waiting for tables to empty and who regarded these two interlopers as breaking some ancient law of patronage.

  Their tea was brought. They ordered crispy fish and shrimp tempura.

  “OK, Wiggins, get out that notebook and tell me
if there’s anything of interest.”

  Wiggins’s eyes moved back and forth along the pages of his notebook. “Man named Ernest Temple. His father, Luther, was in Korea—this was in ’57 or ’58—in a platoon led by Summerston. It looks like …” Wiggins frowned over the notes. “In the Battle of the Imjin River Summerston went behind lines to take out machine-gunners, saving the lives of his men. It’s this the Temple guy is disputing. ‘That medal was rightfully me dad’s’ is what Martin says he said.”

  Jury set down his tiny tea cup without drinking. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  Wiggins shrugged.

  Jury nodded toward the notebook. “There must be something else in there to explain this.”

  Wiggins shook his head. “Something about challenging the Queen’s awards.”

  “Meaning this Ernest Temple.”

  Wiggins went on plowing up words.

  “Where’s George Martin getting this?”

  “I think he rang him up, sir. Temple.”

  Their fish and shrimp were set before them and the little server went off. She was probably Danny Wu’s aunt or great-aunt or cousin. The restaurant was definitely family run.

  Jury’s mobile did its Tweety Bird ringtone and he yanked it out. It was Macalvie.

  “Good shot, Jury. For once. Yep. You were right. Both Matthew Bewley and what’s-her-name—”

  “Josephine?”

  “Right. Both of them said the fellow in the photo was the one in the Hell Bay Hotel restaurant. This was years ago, though.”

  “I know.”

  “He’d sat down at a woman’s table, but their impression was that it was pure chance, that he hadn’t gone there to see this woman.”

  “Tony Servino was there to see another one. Yes, years ago,” Jury added sadly. Then he said, “Thanks, Macalvie.” Jury was about to ring off when he quickly brought the mobile back and said, “What do you mean, ‘for once’?”

  But Macalvie had already gone.

  Jury tapped his phone again, found it juiceless. “Wiggins, can you ring Tom Brownell? This is dead.” He held up his phone.

  Wiggins tapped a number, listened, then handed it to Jury. “Brownell.”

  “Tom, it’s Richard. Listen. Have you read the Telegraph lately?” Jury laughed. “Nor have I. But there was a column in the paper a couple of days ago.” Jury summarized Wiggins’s summary. “I think you should talk to this Temple.”

  “In what capacity? I have no Met standing.”

  “Just do the standard ‘I’m not here in any official capacity.’”

  “‘Official capacity’ might be the only way to get him to talk to me.”

  “Not you, Tom. You can get a response from a man in a coffin. No wonder you had a hundred percent clear-up rate.”

  “Don’t go there.”

  “Okay. Ninety-nine, then. I was thinking we might want to visit that foundling hospital that Summerston funded.”

  “Tomorrow morning? Around ten, eleven?”

  “That’s fine. Tomorrow afternoon I’m going to go to Paris.”

  “Paris?”

  “I want to see Manon Vinet’s partner, the woman who’s been working there for years. When I come back I’m going to Northants, to Ardry End. I want to talk to Flora Flood. Although, when I think about it, that had better be left to you. She likes you.”

  “In her position, she shouldn’t like anybody.”

  “You think she’s that vulnerable?”

  “I think she’s that guilty.” Tom rang off.

  28

  The Summerston Foundling Hospital was, strictly speaking, neither for foundlings nor a hospital. It was, however, making gestures in both directions by way of the rubbed bronze figurines that sat on either side of the massive gate, across whose center was positioned a bronze plaque with the single word SUMMERSTON. One figure was a hunched woman wrapped in scarves, face bent over a small child similarly wrapped. The figure on the other side stood much straighter, arms extended, perhaps intending to take what the hunched woman held. This figure was uniformed as, possibly, a nurse.

  To open the gate, the plaque with the name on it had to split in two, perhaps suggesting the Sisyphean nature of Summerston’s work.

  Jury had never seen such pretense fashioned as entryway.

  The woman who rose from the high-backed chair behind the uncluttered desk was the embodiment of “matron.” Tall, stout to her earlobes, dressed in navy blue garnished with unnecessary bits and bobs of gold—brooch and buttons—she wore an expression of recent upheaval that was probably her default look. Her name was Mrs. Maltings, according to the little metal plate on the desk.

  As she was saying she’d been told of their coming, a little girl strayed into their presence. She looked cute, curly-haired and human.

  “Marcia,” said Mrs. Maltings, “you should be having tea at Play-Time.” The woman made fluttery “go-away” motions with her fingers.

  But Marcia, seeing two new and good-looking men, was not so easily routed. She presented the much-handled cloth horse she was carrying to Tom, saying, “This is Sunny.”

  “Ah! And do you ride Sunny round the gardens out there?”

  Marcia clapped both her hands and Sunny up to her face. What? A grown-up man thinking a girl could ride a toy horse? What a wonderful break in grown-up experience!

  Part of which was coming round the desk to spoil it all. She was calling out to an as yet invisible party: “Sandra?”

  As if she’d been waiting in the wings, a young woman appeared and hurried over to them.

  “Sandra, you really must see better to your charges.”

  But upon seeing the two men, Sandra seemed no more interested in seeing to things than had Marcia.

  Nor was Tom, who crooked his finger at Marcia as he took a packet of gummy bears out of his coat pocket. “If I give you these, will you promise to share them with your friends in playtime? But only if they promise they won’t let the gummy bears ride Sunny around?”

  Sandra was as happy about the bears as was Marcia, for it gave them a way out without being ordered by Mrs. Maltings.

  “For a policeman, you have quite a way with children,” she said to Tom.

  “I have quite a way with murder suspects, too.”

  Not knowing quite what to do with this piece of unasked for (and undesired) information, Mrs. Maltings started showing them around. The hospital was small, with perhaps ten patient rooms, a delivery room, a café-like room, a children’s playroom populated that afternoon by a half-dozen little ones, a large waiting room. The hospital-sterility was considerably softened by warm, homelike touches, such as small-figured wallpaper in patient rooms, along with good linen and pretty coverlets and blankets on the wider-than-average hospital beds.

  “It’s a very pleasant look; I’d think those who got admitted here would find it a world apart from what they’re used to. Disease, drugs, hunger, want—”

  “Indeed. Many of the people who come here are simply malnourished and worn out from living in the streets.”

  “Or pregnant?”

  She nodded. “Those women are free to take their infants with them or to put them up for adoption or foster care. Most choose to do that if they haven’t acquired any way to take care of themselves whilst in here.”

  “It’s one woman in particular we’re interested in. Manon Vinet, a French woman who might have come here about six years ago.”

  Mrs. Maltings straightened as if with rigorous intent to protect the hospital’s information. “I can’t discuss individual patients, Inspector. For that you’d have to speak to the doctor who was in charge at the time.”

  “Who is—?”

  “Was. Dr. Park. Dr. Howe Park.”

  “So, may I speak to him?”

  “Dr. Park has retired. He lives in St. Just.”

  “In Cornwall?”

  “Yes.” Her mouth tightened as if even that disclosure made her unhappy.

  “Well, can you give me his address? His phone
number?”

  She seemed doubtful even as to that. “I believe I have that information in my office.”

  As they walked toward that office, Jury tried to loosen her up by commenting on Summerston’s and the designer’s superb taste as he looked again at the well-appointed rooms they passed.

  Tom said, “Gerald Summerston appears to have thought of everything.”

  Loosen up she did, almost glowing with approval. “Indeed he did. And so very generously supplied the funds to carry out these thoughts. The kindest person I think I’ve ever known.”

  “The soul of it,” said Jury.

  “Indeed.”

  29

  “You was to take me to the Mucky Duck later,” said Carole-anne Palutski on the following day. She was busy adding fake gems to her fingernails. There were tiny bits arranged on Jury’s coffee table.

  “Sorry. We’ll do that when I come back.” Jury was stuffing a few items into an overnight bag. “Shouldn’t you be at work at the Starrdust?”

  “Andrew gave me the afternoon off.” She studied the various fake bits on the table.

  “Why? So you could enamel your nails?” He tossed in his shaving kit.

  She ignored that and went on with her own line: “I don’t see why you have to go to Paris. You could just ring this person and ask your questions over the phone.”

  “Because I’d be far more likely to get answers if I’m there in person.”

  “Why? Because of your looks and charm?”

  The furthest thing from Jury’s mind. He’d been thinking of human nature. But he went along with Carole-anne. “Of course.”

  “Well, you don’t have them.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Or that much of them.” She corrected herself and her little fingernail, on which she repositioned some bit of ruby. “So you’d just as well pick up the phone and ask your questions that way.” She held out her hand to inspect the installation. “It makes Mrs. W. nervous when you’re gone for overnight.”