Vertigo 42

by Martha Grimes

  “You can tell us how this operation works, can’t you?”

  “Oh, sure.” She sighed, back on safe ground. “People look at our Web site, see a dog or cat they like and contact us—”

  “Where do you get these animals?”

  “Well, people get in touch with us if, like, their dog’s had a litter and they can’t find someone to take the puppies; or people bring in strays or homeless dogs. Then there’s hoarding. You know about that?” She looked from Jury to Wiggins, hoping to educate them and regain some of the popularity she thought she’d lost. “Some of them are in awful shape, poor things.”

  “Then you must have a vet on call.”

  Pause. “We do have someone who takes care of that sort of thing.”

  “Not a licensed veterinarian, right?”

  She just shrugged. “Digby covers that, seeing the dogs have places to live.”

  “Where are the dogs housed?”

  “Different places around London. Then there’s this farm in Kent where they go, some of them. See?” She turned the framed photograph around so that they could see it. There was a farmhouse off to one side and farm animals dotting the far, green fields. Closer in, there were dogs who appeared to be playing.

  Wiggins had been taking notes. He said, “Where exactly is this farm in Kent?”

  Bebe’s eyebrows stitched together. “I’m not sure. Digby has that information.”

  “You mean it’s not in your database?” When she shrugged again, he asked, “What about the London addresses?”

  Again, the head shake. Jury left it at that, went back to the operation. “After a person contacts you, then what?”

  “Usually, they say they’ll think about it. Then perhaps the next day or day after, I hear from them again saying they’d like the particular dog or cat. Not cats so much, they’re not as popular. I have them either give their credit card details or, if they want, post me a check. Then it’s turned over to Digby.”

  “Mr. Horne? And he takes care of getting the dog to a handler and having it delivered. It’s pricey though, that, isn’t it?”

  “A little. All of our fees are posted on the Web site.”

  “So your customers don’t see the dogs before they actually buy one?”

  “Well, you can see, we’re not set up for meets and greets, so to speak.” Her little laugh went nowhere as she looked about the room.

  Jury looked with her. The drab walls, the cracks in the ceiling. Not exactly what you’d call a shelter.

  “You don’t do a background check?”

  “Of the dogs?”

  “The people.”

  “Not exactly. But we tell whoever’s making the delivery that if anything looks, you know, iffy, they’re to stay right away from it and bring the dog back.”

  “Do you have a number of people who make these deliveries?”

  She seemed to be weighing the price of giving out this information. “Yes. The people who do the deliveries seem to like it; the pay is good. Depending on the location, they could get anywhere between thirty and a hundred quid. Plus expenses, of course.”

  “This is added to the customer’s tab.”

  “Of course.”

  “So it would cost at the very least eighty or ninety pounds. Depending on how much the adoption costs in the first place.”

  “That’s right. But it’s almost always more. The more desirable dogs are in the hundred-pound range. Then plus delivery . . .”

  “How much is your overhead?”

  “Oh, now, I can’t give out that information. I can say, though, that it’s not much. There’s rent and our salaries. And the equipment. Electric, phone, all of that. But Digby’s had this place for years as a private residence. It’s only the last five or six he decided to run PetLoco out of it. So the rent, it comes under regulated tenancy.”

  Dirt cheap, then. Jury got up. “Thanks very much for your time, Bebe. You’ve been a big help.”

  As she rose with them, her expression said she wasn’t sure whether that was good news or not.

  Jury nodded toward the blowup picture behind her of the dogs. “Are those the dogs you have now for adoption?”

  “That’s right. Well it might be a wee bit out-of-date, as we get twenty to thirty clients per week.”

  “You get that many adoptions?” Jury was still looking at the picture; there were probably thirty dogs listed.

  “Oh, yes. Digby works very hard at this.”

  “We’ll try and reach him.”

  “You won’t be back tomorrow with a warrant?” She sounded hopeful.

  Jury shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  ____

  “Sounds a bit dodgy to me, sir,” said Wiggins as they walked the few feet to the car. “You think she was being truthful?”

  “Truth as Bebe knows it, Wiggins. The person to talk to is this Digby Horne. Speaking of dodgy.” They got in the car, Wiggins driving, and pulled out into the road. Traffic was heavy. “When we get back I want to ring DI Brierly about this. He’s in charge.”

  Wiggins guffawed. “But you don’t yet know what ‘this’ is.”

  “Some of it I do. Careful!”

  Trying to enter a circle, Wiggins nearly closed daylight between their Ford and the fender of a vintage Rolls.

  “That was close.”

  “That? Missed him by a mile, sir. Never fear.”

  Jury always feared.

  It was Wiggins’s mobile that rang this time. “Wiggins. Yeah. Good, I’ll tell him.” He put the mobile beside him on the seat. “That was Fiona, sir. Andrew Cleary returned a call, said he was in London and could meet you this afternoon. He’s staying at Number Eleven Cadogan Gardens.”

  “Good. She has his number?” When Wiggins nodded, Jury said, “Call her back and tell her I’ll be at his hotel at four o’clock.”

  Wiggins made the call, then tossed the mobile into the well between the seats.

  Jury said, “Did you notice her reaction when I mentioned Stanley? Bebe, I mean.”

  “I did. She went pale.”

  “No wonder. To know Stanley gets her a little too close to murder.”

  “How’d’you figure that?”

  “Because Stanley was one of their dogs. They should update their poster, Wiggins.”

  New Scotland Yard

  Sunday, 1:30 P.M.

  33

  * * *

  His name was Roy Randall,” said DCI Ian Brierly. Jury had called him from the office. “Lived in Wembley-Knotts. There was a torn envelope with that information on it in—you’ll never guess—his shoe. Folded and refolded and stuffed into the toe. That’s why we missed it at the scene. What’s written on the back of it looks like instructions or directions, more—‘M1 . . . X Nth . . . SB’ . . . might as well be in code, right? ‘TL . . . TR . . OPR . . .’ et cetera.”

  “Possibly Motorway? Exit Northampton? And SB could stand for Sidbury, couldn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But why would any driver who had any acquaintance with the U.K.’s motorways have to remind himself of motorway one? Or Northampton, for that matter? I mean, if I said to you, ‘Take the M1 to Northampton,’ would you have to write it down?”

  “No, but I’m a detective. Scotland Yard.” After Brierly laughed, Jury went on. “Mr. Randall might have suffered from anterograde amnesia.”

  “You’re kidding?” Brierly paused. “Oh, you mean that turning up again at the pub—the Blue Parrot? Forgetting he was there before? I’ll be damned. So he was writing notes to himself?”

  “Probably.”

  “But why stick the thing in his shoe? It makes no sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense if you might forget you wrote the note. Maybe he put it in his shoe so he wouldn’t have to depend on his faulty memory. Every step he took would let him know there w
as something there.”

  “Good lord.” Brierly sighed. “Anyway, when we put his name in the system, what turns up is he lost his job and went on the dole six months ago; he got laid off from his job at a BP station. Also, he had form: petty thieving, exposing himself in public lavatories Half-dozen citations. Looked a lot scruffier too. Long hair, facial hair—”

  Jury was surprised. The dead man hadn’t looked the part.

  Brierly went on. “Not married, lived alone. House was empty. The neighbors said Roy had gone off on a short holiday. According to them, he did have dogs. Sometimes, more than one.”

  “I can help you out there: the dog appears to be one of PetLoco’s animals.”

  “That Internet service that the Tallboys woman was using?”

  “Yes. A service of questionable provenance. The owner is a guy named Digby Horne.” Jury gave Brierly the details of his address and number. “You’ll want to talk to him, I think.” Jury told him what had gone on in the PetLoco offices.

  “Thanks. I’ve got somebody in London right now. I’ll tell him to look up Horne. Where does he get these dogs, then?”

  “According to the girl who handles the adoptions, they come from various sources. People who want to get rid of their animals, maybe a litter of puppies; strays. My guess is the dogs are discards, maybe from gangs who use them as weapons, maybe dogfights. Some may be genuine rescues, and by that I mean nothing altruistic, just opportunistic. Lost dog, Digby collars it, stows it, sells it. The man’s charging as much as a hundred quid; he’s got a hundred percent profit, since he doesn’t have to buy the dogs in the first place. They get twenty or thirty a week adopted on average. At up to two hundred per dog, that could be four or five thousand per week. The overhead is minimal.”

  “I’m looking at the site now. Most of these dogs appear to be Staffies or some form of pit bull, APBTs. In all likelihood. Where’s this farm they’re touting as a place for a wonderful romp in the sun?”

  “I doubt very much the dogs you see running around there belong to PetLoco. I doubt he’d go to the expense and the trouble. He’d have to drive to Kent—or have one of his handlers do it,” said Jury. “But going back to Roy Randall. Was there anything at all to connect him to the Tallboys woman?”

  “Not a scrap. Not the name, not the address, nothing.”

  “He was looking for the Old Post Road, Ian, so he had some destination in mind. No connection with Belle Syms either, I take it? Two apparently unconnected killings five days apart in a little place like Sidbury.” Jury paused. “What about the Blue Parrot? Trevor Sly said he heard a shot. Did you find evidence of that?”

  “Bullet casing? No. But that publican, Sly, was adamant that he’d heard one.”

  “Why the alley? Could this Randall have been in one of those shops?”

  “Not according to the owners. They were all in a muck sweat about that, I’ll tell you, afraid that it would link them to the shooting. Only Mr. Enderby didn’t seem disturbed by that, I mean, that his doorstep was the one the poor fellow went down on. He was of course very disturbed this fellow had been shot. He’s a nice old guy.”

  “Couldn’t Blanche Vesta give you any more information about her niece?”

  “No more than she told you. It’s been a year, she said, since she’d seen Belle.”

  “Why did the niece see her now? I can’t understand that.”

  “And nor can Blanche Vesta. There seemed to be no bloody reason for it.”

  “It might have been simply to show off that dress and those shoes. To make her aunt think she was successful.”

  “I guess that didn’t turn out very well for her, did it?”

  Bloomsbury

  Sunday, 2:00 P.M.

  34

  * * *

  Mr. Strachey,” said Jury to the young man who was holding a bundle of clothes to his chest. “My name is Richard Jury, New Scotland Yard.” He had his warrant card out. “You spoke to my sergeant, DS Wiggins?”

  “Sergeant Wiggins! Good detective. Make a good cook too.”

  Jury didn’t want to visit that point for any length of time, so he merely smiled. “I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday. May I come in?”

  “Absolutely. Don’t apologize. That’s what Sundays are for. People popping in. Otherwise, they’re boring. I was just on my way to the dry cleaners with this lot, but it can wait.” He deposited the clothes on a nearby chair. Among the browns and grays of jackets and trousers Jury saw a strip of black jacquard with what appeared to be a deep pink lining. A smoking jacket? Yes, Strachey seemed to be the type.

  “You know a dry cleaner who’s open on Sunday?” asked Jury.

  “Just until three P.M.,” said Kenneth, ushering Jury into a large living room and depositing the bundle of clothes on a footstool.

  From a cream-slipcovered sofa with its back to them, a strand of smoke was spiraling upward in magazine-advert fashion. The smoke was followed by a head wearing an enormous hat that reminded Jury of a bird of prey with its feathers and beads; shoulders dressed in lace and satin followed the hat, both rising over the sofa’s back. “Police! Marve!” exclaimed the young man who wore this Edwardian ensemble with seemingly great enthusiasm.

  “This is Austin,” said Kenneth, last names apparently unnecessary. “We were just doing a scene from Earnest. Austin’s into costume design and makes a wonderful Lady Bracknell.”

  Austin half-rose in a mass of pinkish brown ruffles, a high collar, and puffed sleeves in an elaborate tapestrylike material of pinks and browns. “Not quite as good as Kenneth’s,” he said.

  “Austin,” said Kenneth, “was hugely disappointed that he missed out on the police experience the other day. He was so looking forward to being grilled on where he was and what he was doing at such-and-such a time on such-and-such a day.”

  Austin smiled. So did Jury, who said to him, “I’m awfully afraid you’re going to be hugely disappointed again, unless you happened to have been at a house in Cornwall called Laburnum twenty-two years ago.”

  “Bugger all,” said Austin. “How completely unfair.” He levered the rest of himself off the sofa, sighed, and removed his bird-of-prey hat, into which he stuck a couple of hat pins. He was of medium height, thin, almost starved-looking in a Romantic way. Wiggins had been right; both of these young men were delicately handsome.

  “I’ll just go out in the garden, then. But if you’re serving the crème fraîche tarts for tea, expect me back.” Austin took himself off through a French door in what Jury thought was an overabundance of swishness, part of which was caused by the many petticoats.

  Kenneth called after him: “Take off Lady Bracknell and I’ll take it to the cleaners with the rest of the stuff.”

  “Oh, all right,” said the put-upon Austin, returning and crossing over to another room.

  Jury said, “It looks like it weighs a ton.”

  Kenneth laughed. “I’m used to it. Let me have your coat and do sit down, Superintendent.” Strachey directed Jury to a furniture grouping near the French door, a love seat and two dark wicker chairs covered in a pale, zigzag pattern of linen. The walls were white, the floors very dark.

  “Thanks.” Jury took one of the chairs as Strachey stowed his coat in a small cupboard near the front door. “You’re a descendent of Lytton Strachey, I understand.”

  “Not I, Superintendent. Pop seems to forget that Strachey had no children. Any relationship with Lytton is very watered down. I mean, with his ten siblings, you’re going to wind up with countless cousins, cousins who had countless children, of whom Pop claims to be one. But frankly, I don’t think he’s got the family tree down to its last leaf. He must read Eminent Victorians once a year.”

  Kenneth went on. “My father says Lytton’s father was viceroy of India, which appeals to Pop no end; he’s still living in the British Empire. Well, I shouldn’t admit it, but I rather like
the whole idea of the British Raj.”

  Looking around the room, Jury thought, it would seem so. There was the colonial style of dark wood and light walls. But besides the wood and walls, a large palm sat next to the fireplace; in a sunny corner sat an even larger fern. Yet, with all of this colonialism, there were Mies van der Rohe cantilevered cane chairs with chrome frames.

  On a coffee table sat a glass vase with an inch or two of sand, a large shell, and several gold coins, one snapped in two, as if the halves were to be handed out to a couple of secret agents. It made Jury smile. It was the most studied arrangement he’d ever seen in a home, but not overbearing, as the table on which it sat was itself an eye-catcher of carved mahogany.

  The French door through which Austin had made his theatrical exit and reentry opened on the promise of a rose garden of which Jury could see only a fraction: part of a stone wall with climbing roses and a willow tree. Stationed by the door was the figure of a black servant boy in a white jacket and fez. Between the two wicker chairs was a table whose base was in the form of an elephant topped with a smooth marble surface, and above the fireplace was a dramatic painting of a parrot. One wall was papered with a pattern of palm fronds and bamboo, and there were stalks of bamboo in a tall vase on the other side of the French door.

  Jury thought of E. M. Forster. The elephant table, the fez-hatted servant holding a tray; the wicker and mahogany and bamboo. All he could think of was British colonialism.

  “Superintendent, you look bemused.” Strachey smiled broadly.

  “To tell the truth, Mr. Strachey,” and Jury knew he wouldn’t, “I haven’t any authority here; I mean, the events at Laburnum have nothing to do with any investigation of mine.” That, of course, had nothing to do with Jury’s “bemusement.” He was bemused by Kenneth Strachey and all of this British Raj stuff; he was bemused by E. M. Forster and A Passage to India and the young female teacher’s betrayal of the Indian doctor. He did not know why this had grabbed his imagination.