Roderick laughed. “And one or two others, Sergeant, if I remember rightly.”
Jury thought about Rasputin’s hold over Czarina Alexandra. “He taught in a public school?”
“One of the international schools that are everywhere, it seems. He’d dropped the teaching even before he started working for Billy. I think he has very little life of his own.”
Not a social life, thought Jury. But there was an interior life that could make up for it.
Jury said, “You’re suspicious of Kurt Brunner, Mrs. Maples. What would have been his motive for killing Billy?”
“Billy’s fortune. It was considerable.”
“But they met by accident.”
“For heaven’s sakes! One can meet by accident and carry on by design.”
“True.” Jury smiled. “But why would your stepson leave the fortune to Brunner?”
“Well, there really aren’t many candidates,” said Roderick. “Anyway, this is all beside the point since Billy left no will.”
“He died intestate, then.”
Roderick nodded. “A shame really.”
“The boy outside, is he your nephew?”
“Olivia’s actually.” He seemed happy to wipe Malcolm off his own slate. “He’s the son of Olivia’s sister, Julia Mott, who dumped him on us and went on to pursue her own interests: drugs, sex, and gambling. We’ve not seen her since.”
Jury said, “Not terribly happy, is he? He doesn’t bother to make himself liked.”
Olivia laughed. “He’s wretched. But Billy got on with him. I think Billy was Malcolm’s hero, if the child had one. Billy had him up to London several times. Took him places.”
“But,” said Jury, “that was very kind of your son.”
“It was that other side of Billy. He could be a very caring boy.” Roderick quickly rose and went to the window overlooking the front of the house.
“I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Roderick brushed his handkerchief across his face, returned it to his pocket, turned around. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Sergeant Chilten and I went to your son’s flat in Chelsea. We were looking for some clue as to what was going on in his life. There was nothing definitive. But I wonder, did he have a religious bent?”
They both looked surprised. “Heavens, no. We could never manage to get him to church with us,” said Olivia.
“Not that we go that often,” said Roderick.
“Did he ever bring his girlfriend—or fiancée—here?”
Olivia laughed. “Fiancée? Well, that’s probably wishful thinking on the poor girl’s part. Billy enjoyed playing the field.”
“But when it came to it,” said Roderick, “he didn’t stick, no, he managed to get himself out of it. Too damned satisfied with his bachelor ways.”
Jury thought about this. He thought about Kurt Brunner, about Angela Riffley, about the supposed assignation at the Zetter, which was hardly two minutes’ walk from Dust. Dust, with its glowing lights, its reckless music, its old brick walls and dark corners. Dust would have encouraged an assignation.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll have a word with Malcolm.”
“Oh? Well, if you want. He’ll be outside somewhere, probably the back garden,” said Olivia.
As he rose to go, still thinking of that supposed meeting at the Zetter, he asked, “Was Billy gay?”
Both of them froze. Could people still look out in horror at the suggestion? Olivia and Roderick both did.
Then Olivia laughed, uncertainly. “Superintendent, we’ve just been talking about his girlfriends. You should have seen the trail of broken hearts Billy left in his wake! Gay?”
“That’ll do it,” Jury said.
TWENTY-SIX
“Who wants to know?” Malcolm Mott said when Jury asked him if he and Billy were friends.
“Same person who wanted to know before. Me.” They were standing near the brick wall at the rear of the gardens, which were quite extensive.
“Well.” Malcolm’s tone was uncertain.
“Why are you tying your dog up that way?”
By Malcolm’s feet, the little terrier sat, looking less than pleased. Jury could only have called it a scowl.
“His name’s Waldo. We’re going rappelling.”
“Waldo doesn’t look much like he wants to rappel.”
“He’s done it before.”
“He probably didn’t want to before, either.”
Malcolm stopped pulling the rope around the dog and looked up at Jury. “You’d do better to mind your own business.”
“It is my business.” Jury gave Malcolm another look at his ID. “Everything’s my business.”
With as much sarcasm as he could muster, Malcolm said, “Who’re you, then, God?”
“The next best thing. Scotland Yard.”
Malcolm stopped tying the rope around Waldo’s midsection. “If you came to ask questions about Billy, well, don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because. That’s why not.”
“I wonder why, though.”
“Wonder away. Us, we’re going over that wall.” He picked up Waldo, who barked, but seemed to be doing it more at Jury than the wall.
“I’ve got a better idea.”
Malcolm made a derisive sound, but he turned to hear it. “What?”
“I’ll take Waldo’s place.”
That stopped Malcolm right in his tracks. “You? Don’t make me laugh!”
“Of course, I can understand you wouldn’t want to, as I’d get over it quicker than you. I mean if there was to be a contest, I’d win. Hands down.”
Frowning deeply, Malcolm set Waldo down. The dog went round in circles, involving himself even more in the rope. Hands on hips, Malcolm looked at Jury. “You must be daft. You’d never beat me. You’d never even get over it. You’re too big. Me, I’m light as a feather.”
Jury shrugged. “That’s what you say.”
Malcolm started fake laughing.
“I guess,” said Jury. “You’re not used to competing for things.” Jury actually guessed just the opposite.
Malcolm stopped the laughing and glared. “That’s stupid. Not even Billy could—” He clamped his mouth shut, clearly upset over relaying this smidgen of information.
“Billy climbed with you, did he?”
“Yeah, if you have to know.”
Waldo, unused to all of this talk and dangling his rope, looked interested.
“I want to.” Jury reached down to rub the dog’s head. “You mean Billy never beat you? He must not’ve been as good as me, then.”
That reeled him in. “Oh, yes he was! He was better’n you! Better’n you’ll ever be!”
“Now just how would you know that? You’ve never seen me rappel.”
Malcolm’s face was a cloud of uncertainty. He sputtered, “Okay, okay, we’ll just see. Hold on, Waldo.” He started untwining the length of rope Waldo hadn’t managed to get free of. When he’d freed the dog, he said to it, “Don’t you go off anyplace, Waldo.”
Waldo quickly went off someplace.
“You gotta put this round your waist and under your arms.” He held out the rope.
Jury doffed his coat and ran the rope around himself in poor imitation of what an experienced climber would do. “Isn’t it supposed to go over your shoulder?”
Malcolm heaved a sigh. “You’re already trying to change the rules.”
“No, I just think the rope’s supposed to go under and over.” Jury slid it beneath his thigh and over his shoulder. “That’s how a real mountain climber would do it.”
“Look—” Malcolm had a really hard time staring Jury down, as he had to look up so far. “It’s not mountain climbing anyway. It’s rappelling.”
“That’s coming down, rappelling.”
“No, it is not. But go ahead, put the rope anywhere. I won’t care when you fall down and break your head.”
“Okay. Which part of the wall?”
M
alcolm pointed. “There.”
An old garden wall, red brick perhaps fifteen feet high. The faded brick seemed almost soft to the touch. There were possible finger-or toeholds, places where the stone had crumbled away.
“Okay, let’s go,” said Jury.
Malcolm began squirming up the wall. He was moving fast. As Jury was so much taller, he gave the boy a head start. It took only two or three lurches and Jury was at the top.
Malcolm, of course, won. He sat on the wall beaming. Light gathered in his face.
“You win, I guess,” said Jury, hitching himself around to sit down.
“Sure,” said Malcolm.
The view from the top of the wall was pretty impressive. They could see beyond the front of the house north to what might have been Kent; there was a line of oasthouses along the horizon. Behind them was the weal and Romney Marsh. In the late afternoon sun, the marsh almost glowed.
“Some view,” Jury said.
“Yeah. I sit up here a lot. With Waldo.”
“Does Waldo know where the toeholds are?”
That got him a look. “Don’t be daft. I pull him up. You saw.”
Jury wished he had a cigarette, which was also daft.
“You can see to London,” said Malcolm.
You couldn’t, but Jury squinted as if he could and agreed that the tiny spire in the distance might be Westminster or the Houses of Parliament.
“I’m going there to live.” Malcolm stopped and dropped his head. “I mean I was going there.”
There are times you prompt and times you don’t.
“Billy said I could when I got out of school, that I could live with him. But now, I can’t.”
Jury considered. “You still can go and live in his flat. It would be something like having him around, with all of his things there. I was there before. It’s a nice flat. A lot of books and things.”
Malcolm showed he was interested in this possible development. But he concluded, “Nah. They’d never let me.”
“Well, maybe they won’t have a say in it. If you were good friends—”
“We were! We were best friends! He didn’t much like coming here. He never got on with Aunt Olivia. She’s his stepmother, not his real one.”
“Why didn’t he like her?”
“She’s always nattering on about something. He said she made it hard to breathe.”
Jury thought this over. “Did you visit Billy in London?”
“A lot of times.”
“Did you go round to see stuff? The Tower and Madame Tussaud’s?”
A wind had come up and Malcolm scraped his straight brown hair back from his forehead. “We went to museums. We went to the Natural History and the Victoria and Albert. And the War Museum.”
“The Imperial War Museum in Lambeth?”
“Uh-huh. Billy was really interested in the war. I mean the world war when his granddad did all of that secret stuff. That was cool. Codes and stuff. Anyway, Billy was fascinated by it. He really liked his granddad. He said he was about the only person worth talking to. I mean, besides me.”
Jury smiled and made a mental note to tell Sir Oswald what Malcolm said.
“We went to art galleries sometimes. Mostly to that Tate one.”
“The Tate Modern?”
“No, the other one, the real one.”
“The Tate Britain.” The real one; Jury liked that.
“Yeah. Billy liked looking at certain paintings there.”
“Which ones?”
“That painter with a lot of initials in his name that liked a lot of light in his stuff.”
Jury thought about this. “J.M.W. Turner?”
“Yeah.” Malcolm looked at him with a new respect. “Then others like the paintings in the house—” He stopped and continued again. “Billy told me stuff that I wasn’t to tell anyone.” He paused and gave Jury an assessing look.
“Did he? You know, there are times when I think I’d rather not know a secret. Secrets can be a burden.”
“Yeah. Only now, he’s dead. It makes me wonder.”
“About what?”
Malcolm was running his hand over the brick, which must have felt comfortingly abrasive, as if he were trying to shed something. Dead skin, secrets. “What I wonder is if what he knew had to do with it—you know, him getting shot. If maybe I should have told somebody—” He looked away.
Jury put a hand on his shoulder, which Malcolm predictably tried to shrug off, but Jury kept it there. “You did exactly the right thing, kept a secret. There was no way of knowing what would happen. Anyway, what he told you probably had nothing to do with his death.”
“Maybe not, but you don’t know what he told me.” Malcolm gave Jury another look, up and down, as if measuring him for a suit. “It’s about those paintings, the big one in the entryway and the little one by the fireplace. Ones that weren’t there when I came. Over a year ago. I mean they’re probably not family heirlooms, or anything.”
“I saw those, yes. They’re quite astonishing reproductions.”
“But see, this is what Billy told me: they’re not copies. That’s what they tell people, but it’s a lie. They’re the actual paintings.”
Jury looked at him, truly amazed. “But why?”
Malcolm seemed happy with this one-up on a Scotland Yard detective. “That’s what I said. Billy said he wasn’t sure; he was tracking their provence.”
“Provenence. Their history, their ownership.”
“Well, I said maybe it’s because if people knew they were real, somebody’d try to steal them.”
“That’s a good guess, Malcolm. What did Billy say to that?”
“That there was another reason. But he wasn’t sure about it.”
“How did Billy know the paintings were originals?”
“Well, one day he came here with this lady. She knew a lot about art. She knows the difference between a real painting and a copy. She told him. I heard them talking about her later, saying she was his girlfriend, but I don’t see how she could be because she was old. Like forty or more. Billy was only thirty-two, so I don’t think so.”
“When was this, Malcolm, when the lady came with Billy?”
“Last year. Maybe this time last year.”
“Are we quite ready to go, sir?”
Wiggins’s voice, down below, was accusatory. Jury looked across the garden. Wiggins must have come from the kitchen. He stood, hands on hips, looking much like Malcolm had looked before.
Jury said to Malcolm, “My sergeant. I expect we’d better rappel down.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
They were stuffed into a smallish booth at a Happy Eater, whose bright carrot colors were enough to make the blind see. Wiggins had complained that they had not had lunch, and that tea had not really fortified him for the rest of the afternoon.
“You,” said Wiggins, shoveling down his beans on toast, “were out there for a goodish half an hour.”
“And you were in the kitchen for the same amount of time. I hope you used it wisely.” Jury ate his eggs.
“I did. The cook was quite nice, gave me more tea and a slice of her apple cake.”
This would be, for Wiggins, using the time wisely.
He went on: “Apparently, Roderick is pleasant enough, but the lady of the house is a right harridan. Margaret—that’s the maid—got a real dressing-down the other day for using her duster on the frames of the paintings.”
Jury frowned. “Why would that merit a dressing-down?”
“‘They’s to be touched by no one but me and my husband.’” Wiggins fluted, mimicking the little maid.
Jury thought about this. “Billy was very much interested in art, to the tune of subsidizing it. There are two paintings in that house Malcolm says weren’t always there, that were acquired perhaps a year ago. That strikes me as strange.”
“Why?” Wiggins sipped what was probably his hundredth cup for the day. “You could go out and buy two paintings at the same time if you wanted.”
“It’s not exactly like bed linen, sets of sheets. You wouldn’t be trying to match up two walls, now, would you? They might have come from the same source.”
Wiggins shrugged again.
“Billy was tracing their provenance, so something struck him as strange, too. Find out about them and where they were acquired, if possible.”
“Yes, boss.” He sounded doubtful. “But if they’re reproductions, well, there wouldn’t really be anything, would there?”
“That’s the point. Malcolm says Billy told him they weren’t; they’re the genuine article.”
“A Klimt? But that’s worth pots of money, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Then Wiggins returned to bemoaning the fate of the Happy Eater chain, which was to be shut down and turned into Burger Kings and more Little Chefs. He had nothing against Little Chefs as such, but nothing could drag him into a Burger King.
Jury had been forced to follow the Happy Eaters’ demise because Wiggins talked about it whenever they got on the road. “Well, they’re all owned, these motorway rest stops and A-road cafés, by Trust House Forte, aren’t they?”
“Probably, but can you imagine a Burger King in place of this?” Wiggins swept his arm outward and very nearly knocked over the young waitress with her tray who’d come with fresh coffee. Wiggins apologized; she only smiled and poured.
As she padded away on rubber-soled trainers, Wiggins continued: “They’re closing them down because, they say, Happy Eaters attract the gray-haired lot. They’re after a different demographic.”
“Please don’t talk like a television presenter. ‘Gray-haired lot’? That surprises me because I thought there was never anyone over six in Happy Eaters except for you and me.” He looked at the children’s play area, which was quite crowded even at this off-hour of three. The kiddies were having a marvelous time.
“Well, it’s nice for the kiddies. Parents, too.”
“Grandparents. The gray-haired lot.”
Wiggins regarded him glumly. “So I guess you’d be just as happy at a Burger King.”
“Wiggins, I’d be just as happy under the table. I know the demise of the Happy Eater is a historical event no less important than the Battle of Hastings, but would you stop going on about it for a minute and tell me what you found out after I left the living room.”
Dust Page 15
