The Knowledge

by Martha Grimes

  She was sitting with a nest of chips in front of her, most of them black. There must have been several hundred pounds showing there. Would Trueblood take the chance of letting her win? Zane would know every trick in the book.

  Five minutes later, Diane raked in another high-stakes pot.

  It was 10:30, time for Trueblood’s break and Zane’s late supper. The same dealer who’d taken Trueblood’s place before stepped up to the table. So did Leo Zane, who said something to Diane, and she smiled and rose, accepting a wire basket from Trueblood and shoving all of the chips into it. There were a lot, most green and black.

  As Zane walked Diane forward toward the door and the dining room, Marshall Trueblood moved to the bar and ignored Jury, who thought it interesting to watch the two paths cross and veer in different directions.

  He was sitting half facing the room, his back to the bar stool beside him. Trueblood ordered a whisky. When Zane was well away, he said, “She just picked up nine hundred and change. Let’s call it a thousand. He’s stopping in his office to exchange the chips for the money. Then the dining room for supper. Frankly, I think he wants to pick her brain. I’m going to down this and then mosey along to the gallery.”

  Jury said, “I’ll be here.”

  Trueblood left the bar.

  * * *

  Trueblood paused to look into the dining room, where he saw Leo Zane and Diane at a table in the big bay window. He knew that Diane could be depended upon to keep Zane unoperational, as she would put it, for a half hour or so.

  He would have to be quick. Never tempt luck; it would almost always be the bad kind.

  At this latish hour, Zane didn’t guard the gallery door, merely kept it locked. But the lock was barely a nod to security. It was so simple, he could have nudged it open. Why bother at all? But Zane probably reasoned that any serious safecracker would hardly be put off by a locked door. The lock was there just to keep the curious out.

  The desk was slightly more problematic. But dealing in antiques had acquainted him with lockable desks. Of course, locks had improved since the eighteenth century, so he had already reacquainted himself with locking drawers by visiting a number of locksmiths and office furniture shops. He did not expect to get a match with Zane’s desk, but he found several desks of various vintages that showed him what he’d need.

  He drew on a pair of skin-thin Italian leather gloves and unlocked the center drawer. If the side drawers were locked at all, it was inside the center drawer that the device could be found to unlock them. No one wanted to go to the trouble of unlocking every drawer, which was, Trueblood thought, why security didn’t work: no one wanted to go to the trouble.

  He pulled open the bottom drawer, ordinarily a file drawer, and observed the obstruction of fragmented glass. Very funny, Mr. Zane.

  He worked his way into the middle from the four sides. All of his movements were very slow, very deliberate. As he ran his hands down the left and right sides of the drawer, bits of glass snagged on the gloves, but didn’t cut. Any stone as large as this one would soon be discernible in a space this small. He had got all of the information he needed about tanzanite from the Geological Museum, which was now part of the Natural History Museum.

  He checked his watch. Less than ten minutes all told. He’d allow another ten. And in another two he touched a hard substance. This was it. He moved his thumb around toward his index finger so that he could grasp the stone. He pulled it to the side and allowed it to shear its way upward through the glass fragments. He realized of course that having excavated the tanzanite he would have to bury it again, but it would not have to be returned to exactly the same place, since he doubted Zane’s fingers went exploring in here very often.

  He had the stone out and positioned on the desk. It was a cushion-cut of the most highly saturated blue he’d ever seen. He had read in some arcane tome on wildlife that deer, although they had poor color vision in general, could see blue better than humans could. That, he’d thought, was an odd fact. How could one see color “better than” anything? But the blue deer saw was far bluer.

  Trueblood pulled the miniature camera from his jacket pocket, snapped several pictures, then pushed the tanzanite back into the drawer. Much easier to get it in than out. He untaped his sleeves, locked the desk and made for the door.

  In the promised ten minutes he was back at the bar and ordering another whisky. As he took a sip, he dropped the camera into Jury’s pocket. “The screen is too small to show you. You can download this onto your PC. It’s quite a stone.”

  “I’m betting the supply will be exhausted in another couple of decades or even sooner. So I think Zane is getting his hands on all that he can and will sell it at a big profit.” Jury glanced at Trueblood. “It’s a deep blue, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the blue deer see.” Trueblood checked his watch. “I’m on.”

  Jury watched him go back to his table. The blue deer see? Puzzled, he felt for the camera and left the club.

  Mbosi Camp, Nairobi

  Nov. 8, Friday morning

  30

  “Patty Haigh!” called Little Mitchell.

  Patty regarded him with distaste.

  “Somebody looking for you. Uniform. I’d say police. Whatcha been up to?”

  “Minding my own business.”

  As she walked off, Little Mitchell called after her, “You better watch out. This guy looked mean. Big, black and mean.”

  Patty hesitated but refused to stop. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know she’d heard and was scared by it.

  She went looking for Melrose.

  “He didn’t see you,” said Melrose, when she’d tracked him down in his favorite place on the veranda. “You were lost in that huge chair in Kione’s office. That police inspector didn’t know anyone was there with Kione except for me, and he didn’t even look at me. And he certainly didn’t see you in Longido.” Reassuring words that Melrose believed to be true; nevertheless, he was worried. What if Banerjee had later on asked Kione about the stranger in his office and Kione had told him there’d been two strangers in his office, and hadn’t Banerjee seen the little girl? Or what if he’d been looking before they had seen him standing in the door of the Longido station?

  A description would have been asked for. And a description would have been furnished.

  And how many little girls of that description might be concerned with police business?

  Only one: Patty Haigh.

  It would be simple for a Tanzanian inspector to discover where Patty Haigh might be staying.

  Melrose went into the living room, where Trish Van der Moot was plumping up cushions. “I’ve only just found out my aunt is extremely ill. We’ll have to be leaving. Can you get me information about flights to London?”

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Lord Ardry. Yes, of course. When you say ‘we’ do you mean Patty will be leaving too? But what about her parents?”

  He’d forgotten Patty didn’t belong to him. Or to his sick aunt. “We’ll be meeting them at the airport. They’ve finally managed to sort things with the embassy.”

  “My goodness. What a trial. I’ll find out about flights.”

  A few minutes later, Melrose returned to the porch and said to Patty, “Pack. There’s an Emirates flight in three hours.”

  For once she took the direction without argument or even comment.

  Back in the tent, soundlessly, she went to her part of the room and dragged out her backpack.

  In another half hour, the Range Rover was taking them to Jomo Kenyatta Airport.

  The airport was jittery with people. And police, Melrose noticed. But there was probably always a large police presence here given the spiraling crime rate in this city. Wallets nicked, passports stolen left and right.

  When he had phoned earlier he had purchased two first-class seats, but of course they still had to pick the tickets up.

  There was a restroom nearby. “Go in there,” Melrose said, “while I get the ticke
ts.” She had already handed over her passport to him.

  Patty went into the ladies’ room with her backpack and he strolled to the Emirates counter. He stood in the “Premium”-class line that held only himself, and then went to the resplendently uniformed lady behind the counter. He supplied her with the two passports and his credit card.

  With a smile that more than matched his own, she looked from him to his passport, then from Patty’s passport to nothing. She looked over the counter, saw no small person.

  Melrose said, “Oh, sorry, she had to go to the ladies’ room. Poor little thing, not feeling tiptop, absolutely hating to leave Kenya.”

  The Emirates attendant smiled understandingly

  Melrose drummed his fingers, shrugging Patty’s absence away.

  The Emirates lady said not to worry and returned both passports and boarding passes.

  “Thank you.” It was wonderful the unquestioning faith people had in those who spent great wads of cash.

  But if the police were looking for Patty Haigh, Melrose was surprised they didn’t have a cop stationed at both ends of the ticket counters.

  He did not know until she’d walked right past him who she was: flaming red curls, beaded glasses, polka-dot jacket.

  “You didn’t recognize me. Neither will they.” She nodded toward a policeman.

  “Neither will Emirates. What are you doing in that getup? Come on.”

  She hurried to keep up. “It’s one of my disguises. How do you think I ever got all the way here, following B.B. and stealing boarding passes and not being caught? Slow down.”

  “We’re in a hurry, remember? And since I forgot my beard and mustache, somebody might recognize me.”

  “Oh, you look like everybody else.”

  Melrose contested this, stopping to sweep an arm round. A lot of beads and turbans, coffee-colored and honey-colored faces.

  The backpack rode confidently along the black belt in security, sailed beneath the microscopic lens of the equipment and out the other side. Attention was diverted by Patty doing jumping jacks inside the security pod, explaining, when a guard yanked her out, that she was only going by the diagram inside.

  They all thought Patty Haigh was a hoot.

  “How much do you think it’s worth?”

  “Your life, Patty Haigh. But given you have nine of them, not to worry. Come on.”

  Melrose had to admit the first-class accommodation on Emirates was the best he’d ever seen. From the private room to the assortment of spirits to the spa, it was quite an experience. And would have been more of one had Patty Haigh not knocked on his door every ten minutes to ask him what he was going to order for the meal, or how he liked the shower, or what they were going to do when they got to London.

  But the latest interruption was different. He took off his headphones when she said, “I think we’re being followed.”

  “Don’t be dramatic. In the little bit of time between when you came to the tent and when we left in the car, no one could have found us out.”

  “Little Mitchell could. He was there when B.B. came to the camp.”

  “That disgusting child? How did he know it was B.B.?”

  “Well, he didn’t. He just said it looked like police and he was black.”

  “This is Kenya. There are many black people, in case you haven’t noticed. Anyway, how would Little Mitchell know enough to have you thinking somebody’s following us?”

  “He’s always hanging around the lodge. He listens in on phone conversations. He could have heard Mrs. Van der Moot telling you about the flight to London and getting the car to drive us.”

  Melrose was doubtful. “Surely, though, he wouldn’t have called the police.”

  “Surelyhewould.” She said this onewordwise.

  Melrose was suspicious. “Incidentally, what did you do with that lump of uncut tanzanite? You’d better not have it stuffed in your backpack.”

  “What?” Her expression and voice changed utterly. “Oh, you mean my Cracker Jack ring?” She held up her hand, displaying the now smaller piece of uncut tanzanite, glued to the little pronged opening of the cheap metal band that had once held the fake gem of the “prize” ring.

  “Good Lord, where’d you get that? I mean how did you get that into the ring in the box?”

  “Lumbai did it. He managed to file away some of the graphite or whatever. And glued this into the metal ring.”

  “Do you really think you could make that story stick?”

  “Yes. I brought the Cracker Jack box too, just to show where I got the ring.”

  He snorted.

  “What are we arguing about? And we’re not being followed because of my ring!”

  “We’re not being followed, period.”

  “He was trying to get to the business-class bar. But they beat him back.”

  “You just saw some drunk. You’re fantasizing, Patty.”

  “Am not!” she declared with childish insistence.

  “You are too,” he said, irritated that she had him doubling down on childishness, as he replaced the headphones.

  THE BLUE DEER SEE

  South Kensington, London

  Nov. 8, Friday morning

  31

  Jury had visited several small galleries by way of determining if Masego Abasi’s contract was being honored by the artist and by dealers.

  One was in Bond Street, one in Regent Street; two were in South Ken. Three of the dealers were familiar with the name, one was with the paintings, all were with the Zane Gallery, of which they had a high opinion, although some questioned the taste of combining it with a casino. Rather tawdry, said the Bond Street dealer.

  For some reason, Jury felt moved to defend Leonard Zane. “But what a marketing idea!”

  It was clear the dealers who found the casino of questionable taste were jealous, because of their own lack of custom. In Bond and Regent Streets, no one at all came in while Jury was speaking to the dealers; in South Kensington, one or two people stepped in every so often, but it was hardly a steady flow. Given their proximity to the Victoria and Albert Museun, Jury would have expected that the V&A’s own collection might have inspired at least a trickle of people to stop into the nearby galleries.

  The marketability of Zane’s gallery was clearly not lost on the South Kensington dealers, who certainly had no high rollers stopping by, indeed no rollers at all. Their rooms were largely empty except for the presence of New Scotland Yard.

  In the last gallery in South Ken, where the manager, Mr. Gibbons, was acquainted with Abasi’s work, Jury spent more time talking—or, rather, listening. There were intermittent interruptions, caused by potential customers, and the manager quite naturally attended to them tout de suite.

  During these little breaks, Jury studied a few of the paintings, sculptures and other artifacts. He saw an object hanging on one of the walls that at first confounded him, then intrigued him, then enthralled him. It was a circular piece of glass that contained something that looked like blue sand, hanging between a Jackson Pollock–type piece of art and a sentimental rendering of farm animals in a meadow. When, he wondered, would a pig be chomping grass? The price of this pig was seven thousand pounds. The price of the fake Pollock (a painter he kept trying to connect with and not doing so) was one hundred and fifty thousand. My God. Since the price of the blue sand was a mere two and a half, he thought it a bargain.

  He was so fascinated by this blue sand that he hadn’t noticed Mr. Gibbons come up to him until the man said, “Unusual, isn’t it?”

  Jury nodded. “Tell me, do you ever give discounts to Scotland Yard?”

  Mr. Gibbons laughed. “The subject has never arisen, as Scotland Yard pretty much steers clear of the place.”

  Jury liked that turn of phrase and laughed himself. “Okay. This is a first, then, and the question still stands.”

  Holding an arm across his front, Mr. Gibbons buried his small chin in his small hand and looked thoughtfully at the objet d’art. “Hmm. Let me j
ust ring the owner. Back in a tick.” He took himself off toward a landline on the desk at the opposite side of the room.

  Jury kept telling himself that his savings were earmarked for a place in the sun following his retirement from the Met. This internal harangue continued for another few minutes as he stood there, hypnotized by the circle.

  “Superintendent,” said Mr. Gibbons, breaking into Jury’s mental picture of the Côte d’Azur, “Mr. Tallow—he’s the owner—has agreed that a discount is in order, saying we should support the Metropolitan Police.” Mr. Gibbons smiled broadly, or as broadly as his narrow face permitted.

  “Great!” said Jury.

  “Would a reduction of, say, five hundred pounds be of interest?”

  Since Jury hadn’t expected nearly that much, he also smiled broadly. “It certainly would, Mr. Gibbons. I’ll take it.”

  While Mr. Gibbons had been having his chin-wag with the owner, Jury had kept looking at the circle of sand. Of course he could not afford it, even discounted. He had the money, as he had for years had virtually no expenses: dirt-cheap rent for his flat, considering what was going up now; he spent little on clothes, cars or pricey electronics. Most of his expenses involved taking Carole-anne to the Mucky Duck, or taking Phyllis Nancy to dinner in more expensive venues, but this was a rarer experience than he would have liked, anyway. Consequently, he spent a mere fraction of his Met check. And for God’s sake, he chided himself, when were you ever interested in a place in the sun? You loathe places in the sun.

  Thus he could afford it, or at least rationalize its purchase. He could indulge himself and, as an added bonus, probably drive Sergeant Wiggins—already half crazy from Jury’s colored circle drawings—into full-time craziness.

  New Scotland Yard, London

  Nov. 8, Friday afternoon

  32

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