Vertigo 42

by Martha Grimes

“Low-heeled, squarish, but a woman’s shoe. The shoe would have fit the victim. The ground was hard, so we had to bring it up with ultraviolet.”

  “No man’s shoe?”

  “Old ones. Made by the owner and a few others. Possibly curious passers-by, tourists?”

  Jury thanked him, and after assurances he would let Brierly know if he found out anything, Jury said good-bye and again was about to hang up when Brierly said, “Oh, yes. About the Staffie. No, Belle didn’t have a dog with her. She didn’t care much for animals, though her husband did.”

  “Right. Thanks.” To Melrose Jury said, “I’m stopping in there on my way back to London.”

  “At the Sun and Moon? But you haven’t said anything about your trip to Devon. How’s Macalvie?”

  “As always. It turns out that Macalvie knew Tess Williamson.”

  “Outside of the investigation, you mean? What are you going to tell me next?”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything next. Get that look off your face. Macalvie met Tess Williamson purely by chance in a coffee house near the cathedral. They met there several times afterward—”

  “Not by accident.”

  Jury ignored the implication, especially since he’d implied much the same thing. “He found her intelligent, nice, empathetic.”

  “So what does he think happened?”

  “As in the death of Tess Williamson? Or the Palmer girl, Hilda?”

  “Either. Both.”

  “I think he’s uncertain about Hilda Palmer’s death. The coroner’s ruling at the inquest was an open verdict. Macalvie certainly didn’t think there was enough evidence to indict Tess Williamson. Then the case was dismissed.

  “As to her own death, Macalvie didn’t go along with the ‘accident’ theory. Tess Williamson did have vertigo, which might argue the ‘accidental’ nature of it, but such a fall wouldn’t take the person all the way to the bottom of the steps. Supposedly, her head hit a hunk of stone at the base of the statue at the bottom of the marble stair. To all appearances. Yet, I’m still wondering, and I know her husband is, if someone might have caused that head injury.”

  “But if it was a person who’d given her a brutal head injury, there’d have been a lot of blood thrown about on the way down the stair, surely.”

  “You’d think so.”

  “I’d think so? For God’s sakes, is that the way your forensic experts put things?” Melrose changed his voice: “ ‘ ’ey Alf, ’ave a look at this tennis racket. See ’ere where the cat gut’s been ripped out. The victim was lying on the court garroted with a stringlike substance, right? . . . Could this be it, then?’ Alf shrugs. ‘Well, you’d think so.’ ”

  Jury laughed. “The forensic team was a little hostile toward this newcomer proposing a theory that didn’t match their findings.”

  “Macalvie a newcomer? Hard for me to believe he was ever that. I doubt he was a newcomer the day he was born.”

  Just then the dog Joey raced in.

  “Joey!” Jury exclaimed and gave the dog a good rubbing.

  “I wish you’d stop calling Aggro ‘Joey.’ It’s grown into an obsession with you.”

  Jury tugged at Joey’s collar. “The original owner apparently shared the obsession.” He pointed to the small nameplate. Jury had suggested Joey because he liked Joelly’s name. She was the person he’d dealt with at True Friends Animal Shelter. “You want to talk about obsession? The way you lot sit around in the Jack and Hammer naming animals, insisting every name begin with Ag—Aggrieved, Aghast, Aggro—that, old chap, is obsession!”

  Sun and Moon Hotel

  Wednesday, 9:00 P.M.

  13

  * * *

  It was a mock-Tudor wayside inn, whitewashed and black-beamed, the beams rough hewn. The Sun and Moon Hotel probably didn’t live up to either part of its name.

  Jury pulled in under a sign that depicted a sun shining on one side, and a moon floating on the other, neither realistically presented, just as he imagined the word Hotel was more fantasy than reality. Beneath the gold and the silver was carved A. WHORLEY, PROP.

  He got out of the car and crossed the gravel to the front door, which sported a small carved sign SUN AND MOON HOTEL. Jury went through to find the area around RECEPTION empty. A door on his left was signed SALOON BAR. He heard voices and the clinking noises of glasses and bottles. He pushed in through the door and found two tables occupied, one by a single man, the other by three women.

  Jury went up to the barman, said, “Mr. Whorley?”

  “That’s me, right. What can I do for you?”

  Whorley was a small, wiry man with intelligent brown eyes.

  “I’m Superintendent Richard Jury, New Scotland Yard.” Jury produced his warrant card, noting that Whorley was neither suspicious nor alarmed.

  “Bloody hell,” said Whorley, but without emphasis. “This bad business is bringing in the top guns, ain’t it?”

  Jury smiled. “Me, I’m just helping out Northants police. What can you tell me about this Mr. and Mrs. Soames?”

  “No more’n I told them.” Whorley paused to extract a pint glass from a rack and place it beneath the Guinness tap. “Care for one?”

  “No, thanks, driving to London.”

  Whorley filled his own pint.

  “The Soameses. They checked in on the Monday, correct?”

  Nodding, Whorley placed his pint before him. “She comes in by herself, four-ish. Goes out again, comes back in an hour, maybe hour and a half, and him, he gets here a bit later. Round about half-six, it was. I wondered what they had in mind to do ’round here, dressed to the nines, they were. ’Specially her. Well, you saw what she was wearing: that red silk and sequins dress with glitter all round the neck.” Whorley whistled. “Dishy. He had on a blazer, brass buttons. Goin’ out on the town, he says; I says, ‘What town’ and he laughs fit to kill.”

  “Where had they come from?”

  “London. ‘Guy’ was the first name. Guy Soames. Mr. and Mrs. Anyway, they go back up to their room; an hour later he comes down, coat on, says he’s been called back to London and would I see to helping his wife find a nice restaurant for a meal, as he doesn’t know when he can get back.” Then off he goes in his little car, one of them Italian things.”

  “Leaving her stranded?”

  Whorley merely shrugged. “She come in her own car. Old Morris, I think. Still there till the coppers shanghai’d it.”

  Jury nodded. “Go on.”

  “Awhile after he leaves, she comes down and asks for a gin and sits here at the bar and drinks it. In a right temper, she was.”

  “And did she tell you what took him back to London?”

  “Business, she says. Furious, you could tell. No wonder. So I tells her about a restaurant in Sidbury supposed to be decent. She said she’d go there and left.”

  “Did you see her again, after she left for dinner?”

  “When she came back and had to drag me to the door because she’d forgot her key, yeah. That was around ten, ten-thirty, I think.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Whorley. Do you think I could see her room?”

  “Yeah, sure. So’d the others.” He called out to Jimmy. “Jimmy can take you up.”

  Jimmy came from somewhere in the back, a tall lad, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, with the usual fifteen-year-old surliness. Whorley told him to show Jury to the room.

  The Sun and Moon was one of those places Americans had such a liking for, trading threadbare and dry rot for a shot of antiquity they couldn’t get at home. Which, Jury thought, was sweet of them. He liked Americans. They were less ironic, less cynical than a lot of Brits.

  Jimmy led Jury up a staircase that was in need of propping up. Through the thin runner he could almost feel the wood wanting to give up. He followed Jimmy along a hall only marginally wider than the staircase, up three more crooked
steps to a room on the right, whose ceiling sloped on the far side, above the little gabled windows. The ceiling was whitewashed and beamed, the walls papered with a rosebud and vine design on a malt-covered background. The wallpaper looked as old as the beams. On the left a door led to a tiny bathroom where a few toiletries had been arranged on a shelf above the sink. A hand towel had been used and replaced on the rack. He looked at the bathtub, which had one of those handheld shower attachments that he personally couldn’t stand. He got down on one knee and ran his hand along the inside, looked at the drain.

  The bed was still made up and was rumpled a bit, though unslept in. “The maid hasn’t been in here?”

  “No. Coppers said not to mess nuffin’ about.”

  Jury opened the door of an old wardrobe that was serving as a clothes cupboard and looked at the contents. Nothing but an extra blanket, ironing board.

  He moved to the dresser, opened a drawer. Empty. Another and another, both empty. Finally, there was one with a garment. Panties, forgotten. A tiny Marks & Spencer tag dangled from a bit of thread.

  “Into the lady’s intimates. Wait’ll I tell the commiss’ner.” Jimmy stuck thumb and little finger over his ear to mimic a phone.

  Jury handed the silky underwear to him. “Go ahead, have a look.”

  Jimmy did. He saw the sales tag. “Yeah, new.” He squirreled his brows together.

  “What does that suggest, Jimmy, detective manqué?”

  “You callin’ me a monkey?”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “Well, it tells me nuffin’.”

  “It ought to tell you sumffin’ if you think about it.” He put the underwear back in the drawer, closed it, and handed Jimmy one of his cards. “Call me if you remember anything.”

  Jimmy was gazing at the card. “Scotland Yard.”

  “Tell me, did you talk to her at all?”

  “Only when she asks for some crisps. Sits there on her own until Sonny—that’s Mr. Whorley—comes back. I don’t think she’s used to sitting around in pubs on her own, I mean, the way she looked. Some rags she was wearin’!”

  “Hm. Well, sorry old chap, but I’ve got to get back to London.” Jury was about to leave when he remembered Stanley. “What about a dog? Did they have one?”

  “What dog?”

  Knightsbridge

  Thursday, 11:00 A.M.

  14

  * * *

  He knew the kind of place Tom Williamson would live in: not ostentatious, but rich in detail. Velvet, silk, down, somewhere a sofa soft enough for one’s whole self to sink into. Gauzy curtains for added light, or Roman shades for the same purpose. Depending on which way the sun slanted, and when.

  Tom Williamson answered the door with a mug in his hand on which were worn-down letters spelling, or only half-spelling: BURNHAM, the other word which might have been OVERY was hard to see. He had spoken of meeting Tess on the Norfolk coast, Jury recalled. Burnham. The mug was a seaside souvenir that amused him, as it seemed out of place in these refined surroundings. Maybe everybody had a cupboardful of seaside stuff.

  Tom was wearing slacks and a gray cardigan and an expression that was a little less bereft than when Jury had last seen him.

  “Superintendent! Come on in.” He flung the door wider and Jury stepped into a long, narrow living room that looked rather remarkably as he’d imagined it, as if he’d been here before. Not déjà vu, but something similar.

  “Come on through to the kitchen. I’m drinking tea. I’m out of whiskey, though I expect it’s a little early for that.” He turned, held up his mug, an invitation.

  “Tea’s fine.” Jury was getting out of his coat.

  “Just toss the coat anywhere.”

  Jury put his coat over the back of a counter stool. The counter was white granite; the rest of the kitchen also white—tiles, paint, cupboards. Glossy but chilly. Tom Williamson was neither, and nor, Jury imagined, had his wife, Tess, been.

  Tom got down a thick white mug with another seaside inscription, this one in sunset orange: A PRESENT FROM EASTBOURNE. “I like the mugs,” said Jury. “They don’t match.”

  “Neither do the places,” said Tom, over his shoulder, as he added milk to Jury’s tea. “I forgot to ask. You do take milk in it? Sugar?”

  “Both.”

  Tom added a rounded teaspoonful of sugar, stirred, and set the mug on the counter. “You know what I’ve always got a kick out of? The public places, train stations, caffs, museums—that already have the tea made up with milk and sugar. Yet, it always seems to be the right amount. Are we all that much alike?”

  “Probably.”

  Tom laughed. “Let’s go back to the living room.”

  As they walked back, they passed a long polished table toward the rear of the room. It seemed to be a catchall, as it was layered with gloves, scarves, a hat, the morning’s post, magazines. At its center, Jury saw one of the ships-in-bottles he’d seen at Laburnum. Jury stopped. “Is this one of yours? I saw these ships at Laburnum.” Jury picked up the bottle from the table, looked at it carefully. “Isn’t this the Victory?”

  Tom smiled. “Nelson’s ship, yes.”

  “The detail is marvelous.”

  The sofa that Jury sank into was down, as were the companion armchairs opposite it, one of which Tom Williamson took. The walls were covered in a dark green fabric, damask, perhaps; the graceful banister of the staircase against the right-hand wall was mahogany. The fireplace mantel was a gray granite that reminded Jury of the stone steps of that house. The photograph of Tess Williamson that sat upon it reminded him even more.

  Tom saw the direction of Jury’s look and said, “That’s the original of the photo I showed you.” He sipped his tea and settled the mug, careless of its leaving a mark on the fabric, on the arm of his chair. “You went to the house?”

  “I did. Tell me about Tess and that house, if you don’t mind.”

  Tom smiled. “No, I don’t mind at all. What would you like to know?”

  “Anything.”

  Tom slid down in his chair a bit, leaned back, as if he were settling into a more comfortable time and place. “She really loved Laburnum. I think part of it was because it was near Dorchester, where she was born. Tess liked that Hardy country, even though she lived in London most of her life. Unfortunately, Laburnum is a little too far from London to make it viable for a weekend place, which was the only time I could get away.”

  “She didn’t like being there on her own?”

  “It wasn’t that; she never minded being on her own. But she seemed to feel that it wasn’t fair to leave me on my own. Even though I told her again and again it was all right.” He looked at Jury. “She was a very considerate woman, Superintendent.”

  Jury nodded. “Commander Macalvie certainly thought so.”

  Tom looked surprised. “Commander Macalvie?”

  “He’d met her in Exeter, purely by chance.”

  Tom was thoughtful for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers and said, “Of course. She told me she’d met up with a Devon policeman. That’s so strange that it turned out to be him.”

  “She really impressed him. And believe me, he’s not easily impressed.”

  “Tess was impressive.” Tom looked at the photograph. “At the house, how did the whole thing strike you?”

  “I must say, pretty much as it struck you—ambiguously. The point you made about her position, Macalvie thinks it wouldn’t have happened that way. The coroner’s report, the reconstruction of the fall—”

  Tom nodded. “It wasn’t much of an idea, I expect. It only occurred to me just recently, looking at that photograph.”

  “On the contrary, it’s quite a good idea.” Jury thought for a moment. “What did she do when she was there on her own? Was she a gardener?”

  Tom laughed. “God, no. Tess always said she was too
damned lazy for that. No. The old fellow, Sturgiss, who more or less came with the place, he did what was absolutely necessary, though I’m not sure what that was. His wife came in to do a bit of cleaning now and again, still does. I don’t want the place to go completely to seed, you know. But Tess seemed to like everything about the house just the way it was.” Tom picked up his mug, set it down again. “She used to wander about that desolate garden, waiting—she said”—here Tom smiled—“for something frightful to happen.” Tom’s smile was abrupt, as if he’d suddenly remembered that something had.

  “What did she mean?”

  “Tess was a kind of fatalist.” He smiled slightly.

  “A fatalist?”

  “With a capital F.” Tom drew a stroke in air and crossed it twice. “Always had been. I told you she loved Hardy. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure. Dorchester was Hardy’s home. She loved all of that fatalistic stuff.”

  He sounded, Jury thought, almost resentful of Tess’s fatalism, as if it had steered her toward that unlucky house. “And you don’t?”

  “No. Chance, that’s what I believe in, if one can call it a belief.”

  Jury frowned. “But isn’t that what Thomas Hardy believed? Wasn’t it chance that ruined his characters’ lives?”

  Tom frowned, looked into his mug. “Was it? Do you suppose they’re two sides of the same coin?“

  “Shouldn’t they be opposites?”

  “Perhaps. But I think that whole fatalistic belief might have helped Tess through that damnable inquisition. She would have said it was meant to happen. No escape, no accident—in the larger sense, I mean.”

  “And in the smaller, you believe it was.”

  “Hilda Palmer’s death? An accident? All I know is, Tess didn’t hurt the girl.”

  Jury nodded.

  Tom went on. “Tess was fanciful. That was one of the reasons she got on so well with children. She could make things up; she could invent games; she could concoct scenarios. They loved it.”