Macalvie grunted. He slipped twenty pence from the little hill of change he’d dumped on the table. He got up and hung over the jukebox for a moment, running his thumb across his forehead, apparently deep in thought as to what record to play, then slid the coin in. When nothing happened immediately, he kicked the jukebox. Then he sat down. As the voice of Patsy Cline filled the room with another helping of “Walkin’ After Midnight,” Macalvie asked, “What about other tourists? Did she mention anyone she met over there?”
“No one in particular, no.”
“How about unparticular. Anyone at all? Any of her own countrymen, for example?”
“Americans, she said. Not surprising,” he said dryly, shooting Macalvie a slightly insolent look. “But no one I remember—oh, except she said she had dinner with a family from New York, and, yes, there was a woman ‘teamed up’ with her for a few days. Saw the sights.”
Macalvie had taken out his tiny spiral notebook, uncapped his pen. “What about this woman?”
Jimmy frowned, trying to remember, then shook his head.
“Did she mention places she stayed? People who come back from trips are always raving on about the high price of food and hotels.”
Jimmy thought for a moment, took a pull on his bottle of ale. “She didn’t, though, I mean she didn’t name any particular place. Did talk about how pricey everything was, especially in Santa Fe. ‘Even that little B and B,’ she said. Because it was so near the center of town. But that’s all.”
“Easy enough to check.” Macalvie made a note, then asked, “Did she mention a place called Coyote Village or the Silver Heron?”
“No . . . Canyon Road,” said Jimmy, suddenly. “I remember that because I liked the name. That’s where she ran into her, this woman.” He shook his head again. “Maybe I’ll remember more.”
Patsy Cline walked her heart out as the three of them sat in silence for a few moments.
“Was it you?” asked Jury of Macalvie. “Playing Patsy Cline?”
“She helps me think. Okay, Jimmy. We have your mother’s address but not yours. I understand you don’t live with her?” Macalvie managed to invest this comment with as much reproach as he could.
Almost absently, Jimmy gave him the address; he was frowning at the pen poised over the notebook. “That was it; I remember, now.”
“That was what?”
“The notebook. Or address book, rather. It was when we were driving to Sainsbury’s on the Monday, and Nell was looking for something in her purse, tossing stuff out, you know, the way women will do. And she came across this little address book. She said, ‘Drat, I forgot to send this off to her.’ I asked, Who? It was the woman she’d got on so well with on the trip. It seems this woman—what did she call her?” Jimmy rubbed at his temple as if to dislodge this bit of information. “Frances, that was it. It seems she’d handed Nell her address book to write down her address and number and something had happened right then so that Nell forgot to give it back. She meant to post it, she said.”
Macalvie had pulled out the address book in its sleeve of polythene and put it on the table. “That it?”
“Why, yes. Where’d you get it?”
“Amongst her things.”
Jury asked: “That’s what she called her? Frances?” When Jimmy nodded, Jury said, “They were all Americans that she met, you said.” Jimmy nodded again. “Could one of them, this Frances, have been living in London?”
Jimmy frowned. “Well, she could have done, of course. But Nell didn’t say that.”
“Okay. Time to go home, Jimmy. But make yourself available, will you?”
Jimmy brought the bottle down on the table, totally perplexed. “Home?”
“Yeah, it’s the place halfway up the steps with the door and the windows. You’ll be wanting to say goodnight to your mother, I imagine.”
Jimmy laughed uncertainly. “I still got some drinking to do. Hardly had a chance to talk to my mates, me sitting here cracking with you two.” He was sounding tough again, but not too.
“Oh. Too bad, because this place is closing.” Macalvie drank off his pint of bitter.
Jimmy was totally surprised. “It’s not even half-nine yet. What’re you talking about?” He looked around as if to assure himself people weren’t bolting.
“Call it early closing.” Macalvie was up and pocketing his cigarettes, his change. “Time to go home. Unless you’d like to come along to the station with us?”
“What in hell is this?” Jimmy was back to his former line of questioning. But he had finished his ale and was standing up.
“It’s a choice. A nice cup of tea with your mum or along to headquarters.” Macalvie shrugged as if to say, No problem.
Patsy’s voice walked them out the door into the cold night air.
• • •
“I DON’T THINK I can handle it.” Jimmy’s words were all but inaudible.
There was a silence during which Macalvie made a movement toward the boy and Jury thought he was going to relent and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. The hand went to the shoulder all right, but it didn’t look comforting—more like the grip of a bird of prey. “Poor. Fucking. You,” Macalvie said.
Suddenly, Jimmy exploded. “Where the hell do you get off, telling people how to live their lives? You come in here like Judgment Day when you don’t know anything about it; you don’t know me, you know nothing about me; you don’t know me and my mum!”
He sounded in his near-to-weeping rage as Jury remembered himself sounding that day long ago in the park with Amy. And he knew why he’d told Jimmy about her.
Macalvie was taking all of Jimmy’s verbal abuse in much the same way he did when he waited for one of his own men—or women, like Gilly Thwaite—to come back down the ladder of near-hysteria, Macalvie having frustrated them to within an inch of their lives. When Jimmy finally came down a few rungs to nothing more than a sputter, Macalvie said, “Goodnight, then. We’ll just watch you up the stairs to see you don’t get mugged.”
Jimmy stomped furiously upwards, turning once in the middle to hurl one remaining insult at Macalvie: “Fuck YOU, Commander!” Then he continued up the stair.
Jury loved that “Commander,” as if this particular “fuck you” weighed in with a lot of rank.
“He has a point, Macalvie.” Jury had his hand on the other’s arm and was trying to turn him toward the quay.
Macalvie was looking upward. “Is he inside the house yet or just skulking around in the dark waiting to make a run for it?”
“Will you come on? You’re not his bloody minder!” Jury pulled him toward the quay and the river.
“We find out the dates when your lady—Fanny Hamilton—was in the Southwest, where she stayed. Easy enough.”
Jury sighed. “This is an extremely tenuous connection you’re making.”
His face still turned upward, Macalvie said, “Nell Hawes and Angela Hope both in Santa Fe. Fanny—or Frances—Hamilton, ditto.” His sigh was awfully theatrical. “If I could take a holiday, I’d go. Too much on my platter at the moment.”
“There’s always too much on your platter. Me, hell, I have nothing better to do than take off for the American Southwest.”
“Looks like it.” Macalvie craned his neck upward, squinted.
“No.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Angela Hope was found in Wiltshire. Nell Hawes died here in Devon. Fanny Hamilton, London. The American embassy and the American cops will not be interested in the last two. Ditto, Wiltshire Constabulary.”
Calmly, Macalvie answered, “Obviously. That’s why we ought to go there.”
“ ‘We’ seems to have a trickle effect. Down to me. I do have a life over here, you seem to forget.” Jury was thinking of Jenny and not being able to contact her. It was frustrating.
“Not much of a one.”
Jury turned his face upward, too. It’s true, he thought sadly. The black matte of the sky was crowded, more than usual, with stars, as if
a star gun had sprayed it with star bullets. Then, unaccountably, he smiled, for the image made him think of Covent Garden and the Starrdust. A few moments passed in total silence and he found himself irritated by Macalvie’s upward staring. “What the hell are you looking at?”
“Dark matter.”
Jury winced. He was sorry he’d asked.
“You’ve read about dark matter, haven’t you?”
“No, that’s just one of the many things I haven’t read about. Come on, I’m tired.” Jury yanked Macalvie’s sleeve.
Macalvie, however, wasn’t going anywhere. “It’s got something to do with gravitational pull. The first mass they found they calculated to be trillions of miles long. That’s trillions, Jury. This is matter so huge it’s unimaginable. That’s what gets me. It’s unimaginable, but it’s calculable.”
“Is this going to be another ‘deep time’ lecture?”
Macalvie turned his squint on Jury. “I’m not talking about deep time; I’m talking about dark matter. Can’t a person even look at the universe without being persecuted by you?”
“A person, yes. You’re not a person. Come on. I don’t feel like standing here in the middle of the night talking about the universe.”
Macalvie now squinted at his watch. “It’s only ten bloody o’clock. That’s the middle of the night to you?”
“How can anyone who’s so damned literal stand around talking about deep time and dark matter? What’s wrong with you? Usually you can only see what’s at the end of a gun or a torch or a microscope. What’s all this philosophizing about?”
As if the question weren’t clearly rhetorical, Macalvie answered, face turned skyward once again, “Dark matter. I told you.”
“What? Am I hearing correctly? Are you saying you think there’s such a thing as an unsolvable crime?”
“That’s right. Stop to think about it: They have enough facts, the scientists. The physicists, the chemists, the astronomers. They have enough facts with which to calculate. With which, I expect, to actually prove it. But that ‘prove’ is in quotes. Because how can you prove something you can’t imagine?”
Jury had started pacing back and forth, there on the cold quay. “Macalvie, cut it out. You know and I know there are only two reasons for not solving a case. You either don’t have enough information or you do have the information but just can’t put it together. That’s it. Fini.”
Macalvie shrugged, dug his hands in his trouser pockets.
“Oh, come on, Macalvie. You have to agree with that. If we can’t come up with a connection between Fanny Hamilton, Nell Hawes, and Angela Hope, it’s either lack of information or inability to think straight.” When Macalvie didn’t answer, Jury added, “There are plenty of cases I haven’t solved. God, there might even be a case you haven’t solved. Lack of information. Bad thinking. For you, of course, it could only be lack of information. There’s nothing metaphysical about it.”
But Macalvie merely shook his head. “Maybe not. Because it’s—unfathomable.”
“That’s ridiculous. Impossible. And are you saying this one is that sort of crime?”
Macalvie snorted. “How could I be saying that, for Christ’s sake, when we don’t have all the available information.” Macalvie yawned. “What point does he have?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Jury’s mind was still working at metaphysics.
“Jimmy. You said he had a point.”
That was Macalvie. He never forgot anything, no matter how insignificant. “Let me tell you something you probably won’t like—”
“How thrilling.”
“For such a good cop, for someone with such a subtle mind, you sure as hell see things sometimes in simple terms. You don’t seem to be able to imagine the possibility that life can be extremely complex—”
“No? What was I just talking about, then?”
“—or that people are slaves to ambivalence. His point was, you can’t tell people how to live.”
“The hell I can’t. Well, come on. Let’s go.”
Jury sighed. “You’re just like he is.”
Macalvie stopped. “Like Jimmy Landis? Me?” He clapped his hands to his chest. “Moi?”
“Yeah, toi.”
“And how do you work that out?”
“You’re both so scared somebody might die you can’t even take your coats off.”
They walked in silence for some minutes.
What Jury was thinking about was the girl, the little sister. How old? Twelve, thirteen. Angela Hope had, apparently, been her family. Now her family was gone. He said, “Two or three days. Four, tops.” Jury looked out over the river. “Because I want the information and I know you’re wrong.”
Macalvie was lighting a cigar. When he had sucked in to his satisfaction, he flicked the match toward the river and asked, “Can you leave tomorrow?”
“No.”
The next day, Jury left.
SEVENTEEN
To any casual passerby in the rain who glanced through the windows of Ardry End, Melrose was sure he and his aunt must present the very picture of warmth and conviviality, snug as could be before the fireplace, drinking tea and sherry, the old dog at their feet.
But why would anyone casually pass by in the middle of a dark downpour? He realized he’d been thinking of Miss Fludd for the hundredth time. And would have started in on a hundred-and-one, had his manservant, Ruthven, not been standing over him at the moment, telephone receiver extended, drawing him from dreams of Paris and Miss Fludd. It was a fantasy he’d had a good deal of trouble supporting, even before the telephone’s interruption, given that Agatha was beached on the sofa opposite, the tide of the pouring rain not powerful enough to suck her out through the door, despite its having floated her in.
These watery images, however, had led him from Paris and Miss Fludd to Baltimore’s National Aquarium and thence to the writer Ellen Taylor. Her book Windows lay on the arm of his chair. He had put it down, inspired to pick up his own. Until Agatha’s early morning intrusion, Melrose had been having a lovely time, drinking a coffee and writing the next installment of Gin Lane and the adventures of Detective Chief Inspector Smithson and his wife, Norma. Smithson and Norma were also seated before a fire, theirs at Gravely Manor; they too were drinking coffee (and Norma, champagne, as always). It pleased Melrose how these two partook of his own pleasures and pastimes.
“So you see, darling,” said Norma, “that alibi is . . . ”
What? What about the alibi? Melrose scanned the page before to find out. Couldn’t he even keep straight which alibi belonged to which character? Well, he hadn’t, after all, picked up Gin Lane since he’d gone to Baltimore. He frowned a little, his mind only partly taking in Agatha’s deployment of the fairy cakes, the rest of it on the telephone receiver Ruthven was forcing on him.
“It’s Superintendent Jury, my lord.” Ruthven sounded self-satisfied, even smirky. He knew that Agatha’s presence meant any conversation with Mr. Jury would be conducted in code. Ruthven was very fond of Richard Jury, whom he referred to as “a gentleman of the old school,” and who, despite being titleless, somehow (in Ruthven’s estimation) made up for Melrose’s having given up his earldom, his duchy, his marquessry.
Melrose listened for a few moments; then he said, “Again? Good Lord, but we just got back. . . . Hospital? Wiggins is in hospital? . . . What sort of accident? . . . Nothing serious? For Sergeant Wiggins, everything’s serious. . . . Oh, all right, if you won’t tell. . . . Yes, I’ll stop in and see him. . . . I was going to London anyway. . . . Uh-huh. . . . Merchant—wait a moment, let me get a bit of paper—” He looked about the end table, when Agatha, in one of her rare moments of helpfulness, handed him a small silver notebook, the cover adorned with a crest. It looked familiar, somehow. “Go on. . . . ” Melrose wrote as Jury talked. “Gabriel Merchant. . . . The Crippses? You’re joking. . . . I remember. Ah! Lady Cray. I should be glad to see her again. . . . Slocum, Beatrice . . . the couple in the Tate, right?
But if you’ve already talked to them . . . How could there be any relation between . . . No, I don’t have a facsimile machine—why would I have one of those? I can barely manage dialing a telephone. . . . All right, send it express. I’ll get it before I leave. What do the telephone numbers have to . . . Commander Macalvie . . . Well, isn’t he always?” Melrose laughed, then stopped laughing when he realized sheer surprise had him repeating what Jury was saying while Agatha was sitting there, all ears and fairy cakes. Lord, wouldn’t he ever learn to take calls outside when she was in the room? So he sat there for the few moments remaining, stony-faced while Jury told him why he was nipping off to the States. Again. And they’d been back for only a week. Finally, they said their goodbyes.
“What was all that about?”
He was saved from answering at all while she trod on her own question. “And you didn’t tell me you were going to London!”
“It’s my annual visit to Mr. Beaton.”
“Who on earth is he? I’ve never heard of him.” Which fairly well settled Mr. Beaton’s existence.
“My tailor. Was my father’s tailor. And this—” Melrose held up the silver notebook—“I believe was my mother’s.”
Wide-eyed, Agatha asked, “Whose?”
“M-U-M’s. Lady Marjorie’s. You do remember Lady Marjorie, the Countess of Caverness?”
Agatha settled for telling him not to be silly; she certainly wasn’t settling for the truth.
He sat there brooding for some moments over Jury’s call, until pulled from his reflections by his aunt’s voice, together with the sudden appearance, at the long window, of Mr. Momaday, emblazoned in a flash of lightning. Mr. Momaday was the new groundskeeper; he stood outside now like a skeleton in a Barbour jacket, drenched.
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