The Knowledge: A Richard Jury Mystery (Richard Jury Mysteries)

by Martha Grimes

  32

  Sergeant Wiggins walked into the office after one of his cleansing lunches—farro and alkaline water—and stopped dead.

  His “murder board” had been appropriated: photos taken down, pictures of the Artemis Club driveway gone. In their stead were his boss’s highly questionable colored circles, headed by the names of the places to which they referred—or, rather, to which the string of names written inside each referred.

  Only now there was something else hanging on the other wall. His boss had obviously hung this up—him, that had never so much as tacked a family picture to a bulletin board—the superintendent had actually got a hammer and nail and hung up this circle of glass. It was filled with something like sand. Blue sand. Moving sand. Wiggins quickly took a step back. Then he squinted and stepped closer to the circle. The container itself—that is, the glass—was moving, but the movement was so incremental that it was almost impossible to see; it had to be, since the sand was dispersing itself into little hills and hollows, especially around the perimeter. It was shifting spookily, falling away in tiny drifts, beginning at the top, moving, stopping, as if micro-movements of ghostly hands were rotating the glass. Well, at least it was another circle, thought Wiggins, aiming for consistency of purpose in Jury’s new approach to crime.

  It was, in some strange way, hypnotic, so that Wiggins hadn’t noticed the door open until the cat Cyril walked in and jumped up on Jury’s desk, sitting motionless to stare at the sand.

  “Interesting, right?”

  Wiggins was almost afraid it was Cyril who’d spoken, until Jury hooked his coat on the wooden tree at his back. “Cyril certainly likes it. Fiona helped me hang it up.” DCS Racer’s long-suffering secretary.

  As if that explained things. Wiggins tried to pretend noninvolvement by moving around his desk and plugging in the kettle. “It’s another circle.”

  “But isn’t everything circular?” Jury came to lean against the sergeant’s desk. “Is that all you see in it?”

  “It’s blue sand.”

  “Right. It helps me think.”

  “Think? I assume you’re talking about this case, and I don’t see how blue sand is connected.”

  “I’m trying to connect in different ways.”

  “With what? Dodgem cars and Ferris wheels?” Wiggins swept his arm out in a gesture meant to take in the new office. “It’s all like a fair, isn’t it? Kids’ games. Why don’t we set up a little bowling alley and name each pin and see how they fall?” Wiggins sniffed and set out the tea mugs.

  “Not a bad idea at all. What I meant was I’m trying to make connections in different ways. The point is, once you get your mind running along the same old lines and your thoughts in the same old trenches, it’s hard to shake them loose. Think of the word ‘left.’ If asked to name an opposing word, practically everyone would say ‘right.’ How many would say ‘taken’?”

  “That’s hardly got anything to do with this case,” said Wiggins, dismissively, and ignoring the point. “It just seems logical to me that as we know who the shooter is, and where it happened, and—” (here Wiggins took himself over to the murder board) “and that the same person, Leonard Zane, was in charge of both casinos, here—” (he put a finger on Reno) “and here—” (another finger inside the London circle) “that there’s every likelihood he’s behind these shootings. Remembering, too, that he’s probably personally involved with the shooter.” Wiggins threw up his hands. “What more evidence do you need?”

  “A lot. You’re making the same old connections, Wiggins.” Jury nodded toward the whiteboard. “But how about this? The people inside those circles are all connected. All of them.”

  Wiggins frowned. “I don’t see any connection between, say, Danny Morrissey and David Moffit.”

  “I do. Leonard Zane, for one.”

  “We went all through that, sir. Gamblers. Crime. Shootings. Coincidence that Zane was connected with both casinos in Reno and London.”

  “That’s what Leonard Zane said. Uh-uh.”

  “You say they’re all connected. May I remind you you’re the one who filled in the names yourself. They didn’t just pop up inside those circles.”

  “They’re the principals.”

  “But you don’t know they’re the principals! There were probably a hundred other people in that casino in Reno. You’re just selecting these names; it’s completely arbitrary.” He pointed to the Reno circle. “Marguerite Banado, for instance.”

  “It’s not arbitrary. She was the assistant to Leonard Zane.”

  “Well, he had other people working for him.”

  “Not people who would have known as much as she did.”

  Wiggins opened his mouth as if trying to draw in air or perhaps reason. “What about the witnesses? The couple who saw Morrissey come out of the office? They’re not in the bloody circle.” He slapped Reno.

  “They’re not suspects. They’re not connected. They don’t turn up in either of the other two places.”

  “Neither does Danny Morrissey.” Wiggins thumped his fist on Danny. “Neither does Claire Howard.” She got a good thumping, too.

  Jury stood silently staring at the whiteboard. He muttered, “Masego Abasi …” Another silence, then, “Wiggins!”

  Wiggins jerked, nearly spilling his tea. “What?”

  Now Jury was at his desk, searching the top drawer. Then he remembered he’d given the snapshot of the unidentified gallery to Wiggins. “Hasn’t forensics done that blowup of the gallery yet? I want a copy to go to Chief Inspector Kione. Tell him to take it to Abasi for an ID.”

  Wiggins looked doubly mystified. “But Mr. Plant has already—”

  “Abasi looked more at the women than at the gallery itself. I want him to see the photo again.”

  “Check with them. It’s important.” Jury was at the whiteboard, his thin-line marker poised in the NAIROBI circle. He wrote in Claire Howard.

  “You mean it was her that went to his studio?”

  “It’s certainly possible. Abasi almost recognized Rebecca Moffit. You know how much alike they look.”

  “But … why?”

  “Haven’t worked that out yet.”

  Wiggins’s look was dismissive. “That’s a hell of a leap, just on the look-alike basis.”

  “Hell of a leap, you’re right. And I’m especially interested in that gallery.”

  “Could it be the Zane Gallery, then?”

  “No. That’s clear from the two other rooms you can see through the two doors. I’d like to know where it is and whose work it’s showing.”

  Cyril’s tail twitched. Jury watched as a hillock of sand fell gently. He said, “Read that report again from the Reno newspaper. I mean the bit about the shooting in Reno. Morrissey had his back turned—read that.” Jury leaned against his desk, next to Cyril.

  Wiggins gave a put-upon sigh. “He was in his room—number 2042, twentieth floor—at the Metropole. He said, ‘I was just standing at the window, looking at the night sky, when I heard this crack and felt the blow to my shoulder. It knocked me over. No, I have no idea who it was. The door wasn’t locked; someone had just opened it and walked in. But no harm done, thank God.’”

  “Danny Morrissey,” said Jury softly. Cyril’s tail twitched again. Another hill of sand shifted. “The night sky …” He got up, went to Wiggins’s jar of colored pencils, took one to the whiteboard, drew a blue line through the name.

  “What? Why’d you cross him out?”

  Jury turned. “I’ll bet my next check there is no Danny Morrissey.” Jury turned back again and drew another blue line in an arc up to David Moffit.

  Wiggins looked only a shade short of scandalized by this sudden leap of unreason. “Pardon me, but that’s preposterous—”

  “But it isn’t. Wiggins, why does all of this—” Jury gestured from the whiteboard to the blue sand. “—make you so angry?”

  “Angry? It doesn’t! It’s just that it’s all a massive waste of time. Because cases proc
eed along lines of evidence, straightforwardly, as we discover more and more evidence.”

  “Oh, come on. We’ve never had a case that was straightforward.”

  “That’s not true at all.”

  “Name one.”

  Wiggins dropped a fresh tea bag into his mug and pursed his lips in thought. He brightened. “Yorkshire. The Old Silent. That case strikes me very much like this one—where Nell Healey shot her husband in the chest right there in the pub. Right out in public. Just took a twenty-two out of her bag and—wham!” Wiggins made a sign with index finger and thumb.

  “Straightforward? Chain of evidence? That case was a miasma of misinterpretations and misconceptions, and mostly because our thought patterns were so ingrained. Take the Lincolnshire murder. Do you remember the Red Last? How Pete Apted cracked that case in Lincolnshire by pointing out that ‘last’ had more than one meaning. That ‘listen’ could mean two different things?”

  “Well, it’s a long way from the Red Last to circles on a murder board and blue sand that keeps shifting around.” Wiggins was miffed.

  “No, it isn’t.” Jury faced the wall against which his desk stood and studied the shifting sand. “I’m just trying to see the blue deer see.”

  “Wot?” Wiggins was on the fringe of outrage that seemed to heighten his northern accent.

  “Deer can see a blue we can’t.” After Trueblood’s opaque remark, Jury had searched the Internet for an explanation. “It has something to do with their having more rods in their eyes and short-wavelength vision.” He plunked Cyril from his desk to the floor and was rewarded with a look of outrage that exceeded even Wiggins’s.

  Wiggins looked from the murder board to the circle of sand on the wall. “Well, pardon me, but it’s my opinion that people just don’t think like this!” Miffed beyond measure, he dumped himself back in his chair.

  “Oh, but they do. I can name several: Sherlock Holmes, Sigmund Freud, Kierkegaard—”

  Unmiffed, but astonished, Wiggins shot up again. “Sherlock Holmes! You can’t be serious!”

  “—and David Moffit.”

  London, Heathrow Airport

  Nov. 8, Friday evening

  33

  “Where’re we going?”

  “Oh, it’s still we, is it?” said Melrose. “I thought we was an African experience.”

  “It is. We’re still having it.” She looked behind them and then adjusted her backpack. “You know what I think?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.” They were headed with the other passengers toward baggage claim.

  “You shouldn’t pick up your suitcase. We should avoid baggage because he’ll be looking for us there.”

  Melrose sighed. “Patty, no one’s following us. And even if they were, the person wouldn’t know I have baggage to collect.”

  “Unless he’s stupid. Sure he does. You’re not carrying anything, so unless you went to Kenya in the clothes you’re standing up in, you must have baggage. And you definitely are not a clothes-you-stand-up-in person.”

  Melrose stopped. “No? How do you know that apart from the fact you saw my suitcase?”

  “Because look at your suit. I bet it’s bespoke and cost a thousand quid. You’re rich. Let’s just get out of here and go to the Dorchester.”

  They resumed walking. “Why not the Ritz?”

  “Too flashy.”

  “Oh, dear. Well, you in your rhinestone glasses would know.”

  She had donned another disguise in her first-class cabin: a chromium-blond pixie wig and a bright pink top.

  “But tell me, Mistress of Illusion, how does your disguise help if you’re still with me? And if he’s tailing us, he can do it to the Dorchester.”

  “A good cab driver could lose him in a minute and I know a lot of good cab drivers.”

  They were nearing the exit. Melrose had jettisoned his suitcase for the time being. She was probably right. “But then a good cab driver could follow another good cab driver,” he said smugly, as he fished out his mobile. “What we need is a police escort.”

  “Don’t be daft. That would only call attention to us.”

  “How much more attention could be called?” Melrose pulled up his screen of six names. “Nor do I want to be at the mercy of Kenyan police.”

  “Tanzanian.”

  “Oh, well, that’s all right, then. No place in London is safe—Damn.” Jury wasn’t answering his mobile. The call didn’t even go to voicemail. Melrose tried New Scotland Yard, his sixth address. “May I speak to Superintendent Richard Jury, please … No? Well, then Sergeant Alfred Wiggins, is he there?” Long pause. “No? Thank you.” He switched off the mobile.

  “Who’re they?”

  “New Scotland Yard.”

  “That friend of yours? Wait!” Patty grabbed his arm.

  “Do I look like I’m going anywhere?”

  “I know!” She took out her own mobile, tapped a number. “It’s Patty. I’m back. Yes. Listen, who’s at Heathrow? We need a cab, and a really good one, and …”

  She had turned away and Melrose couldn’t hear what else they’d need.

  She turned back. “Come on.”

  “To where?”

  “Taxi.”

  He looked at the line for the black taxi rank. “We’re not waiting in that!”

  She was looking across the road. Melrose saw headlights winking.

  She grabbed his arm. “Come on!”

  They crossed the road at a run; she yanked open the door of a taxi, clearly not in the rank, and pulled him in. The driver opened the glass divider between front and back. “Hey, Patty.”

  She returned the “Hey” and he closed the window and drove off, not “Heying” Melrose.

  The cab took the M4 into Hammersmith, and then on to South Kensington and the Brompton Road, where it stopped in front of the Victoria and Albert Museum in a line of waiting black cabs.

  Here, Patty threw open the door on her side, turned and said, “Get out!”

  “What—?” But Melrose, noting the urgency in her voice, climbed out and followed her lead into one of the standing cabs.

  Melrose was about to question this maneuver when, as before, the glass partition slid open and the driver turned.

  “Okay, Patty?”

  “Yes, thanks, Jonah.”

  “I think maybe Victoria.”

  “Good as any,” said Patty.

  What, wondered Melrose, was this coded conversation?

  The driver looked in various mirrors, slid out of the line and into the flow of traffic on the Brompton Road. After passing Harrod’s, he turned into Sloane Street. When they got to Victoria, he joined the fleet of black cabs inching along under the arch, then stopped.

  Again, Patty got out, pulling on Melrose’s sleeve, and again they piled into a cab two ahead of the one they’d just exited.

  “Hi, Billy,” she said when the panel slid open.

  “Patty.”

  Melrose said, “What are we doing?” The tone demanded an answer.

  He didn’t get one. There was a Billy–Patty exchange, and they pulled out of Victoria.

  This cab-switching maneuver was repeated twice more: in Lambeth and Southwark. It was while they were going through Southwark that Patty said to Melrose, “Close your eyes for a minute.”

  Fool that he was, he did, and in a flash a black cloth was pulled over his eyes and tied behind his head.

  A blindfold! “I’m being kidnapped! Believe me, you won’t get any ransom! Nobody will pay it!”

  The blindfold remained there for some time before Patty removed it. Melrose blinked his eyes, looked out of the window upon a complex of wretched little streets that could have been London or could have been Mars. There were no street signs.

  “Why are they going to so much trouble for us?”

  “It’s not us they care about, it’s the Knowledge.”

  “The what?”

  The cab had stopped in front of some mean little buildings, the middle one o
f which had a light showing, and a sign unreadable.

  “The Knowledge. It’s the only place in London guaranteed we won’t be found.”

  New Scotland Yard, London

  Nov. 8, Friday night

  34

  “Don’t be so cagey—What’s all that noise? I can barely hear you,” said Jury. “You? You’re at the Knowledge? You? Don’t make me larf; nobody knows … Okay, where is it, then?” Jury looked up at Wiggins, who was standing by the door, mouth agape. He had just handed Jury the snapshot from Claire’s album and the forensic blowup of the snapshot.

  Jury was half-studying it as he continued to talk to Melrose. “Sworn to secrecy? Oh, for God’s sake, Plant … What? Following … who? … Jury pulled over a piece of paper, wrote, Look up anything the Yard has on the Knowledge, and held it out to Wiggins.

  Wiggins turned the paper over and wrote.

  Jury said to the phone, “I’ve got to talk to you about Kenya. Have you forgotten I’ve a double murder—” He looked up to see Wiggins displaying the bit of paper: Nothing. Jury would have slammed down the phone, except it was a mobile. “Good-bye!” Shoving the mobile into his pocket and bringing the forensic result up closer, he said, “This is certainly an Abasi painting, I’d say.”

  “More than that, sir. Didn’t you notice?”

  “Notice what?”

  Wiggins brought the tip of his pen down on one part of the picture. “This blowup shows the paintings in the other rooms, see? Through the doors. They’re not absolutely clear but Sammy over in forensic photography says they look to be by the same artist.”

  Jury scrutinized the picture even more keenly. “And that would mean—”

  “It’s an Abasi show, right?”

  “That couldn’t possibly be taking place anywhere but in Africa and probably nowhere but Nairobi.” Jury pocketed the snapshot and got up. “Come on!”

  “Where to, sir?”

  “We’re going to find this goddamned pub.” He was up and yanking his coat from the coat tree.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s underground.”

  Wiggins, staunch, said, “No, it isn’t. We’ve had men walking Tube lines, men down the public toilets—nothing.”