Brunner picked up his pint and took a drink and set it down. “You’ve already asked that. I’ve already answered.” Brunner added, “Why would you think Billy was gay, anyway? He had a woman, after all. I’m sure you’ve talked to her.”
Jury nodded. “You mean Angela Riffley.”
Brunner studied the coal end of his cigarette. “Yes. She’s really something.”
Jury nodded, smiling. “It’s hard to know what’s really going on with her. How much is she hiding or is she hiding anything? Am I too stupid to see through her or is there anything to see?”
Kurt laughed. “That’s Angela. Her talent is to obfuscate.”
“Has she really done all of the things she says she’s done?”
“I doubt it, but there again, how can you know?”
“She’s extremely attractive, but somehow I can’t imagine taking her seriously. You know, in the long run, I mean.”
“That’s because you’ve got good sense.”
Jury wanted to laugh.
“Billy hadn’t; Billy wanted someone with a mind to spar with, to trade theories with. Billy had about as much understanding of what marriage is all about as a radish.”
Kurt turned the lighter over and over, edge tapping the table at each revolution. Nervous.
At least that’s what Jury thought. “How long had they been together?”
“Something over a year, I think.”
“And did he propose marriage?”
Kurt stopped turning the lighter over. “I honestly don’t know. I doubt it. Does she say he did?”
“Not…exactly.”
They both laughed at that.
Jury said, “I can’t imagine Angela Riffley telling one anything directly.”
Kurt nodded. “And yet I think one might also underestimate her. She’s pretty sharp.” Looking into his nearly empty glass, he said, “Billy needed someone to shake some sense into him occasionally.” He smiled. “I’m good at that.” He paused, then said, “Billy lived his life at fever pitch: crisis was always just around the corner. Armageddon, that was up the road.” Kurt drank off his beer.
Jury asked, “What did running things entail?”
“For Billy? Oh, records, engagements, money, charities, upkeep. There’s an astonishing amount of record keeping, even in the simplest lives, and Billy’s wasn’t simple.” He picked up his pint glass, empty long enough that traces of foam had dried along the ridges. “We need another.” Brunner stood.
Jury went to stop him. “Wait. My turn.”
Kurt was up and holding both glasses. “Do we really care?” He walked off toward the bar.
Jury sat there wondering. Did he? Did he care about the simple ritual of getting the drinks. Maybe. Maybe rituals like buying drinks were worth caring about.
The fresh pint appeared before him, and Kurt sat down with his own.
Jury said, “Did you like this arrangement with Billy?”
Kurt took a drink, set down his pint before he answered. “Absolutely. I don’t mind that sort of paperwork; I’m used to it, to keeping records, sorting things, you know. And the rest of it—well, that was hardly work.”
In his voice was a note that made Jury want to pursue it, but he didn’t. “Billy didn’t leave a will.”
“Apparently.” Kurt drank his beer.
“That doesn’t make any difference to you?”
“He’s dead. That’s the only difference.”
“He apparently had quite a fortune. You don’t care?”
“You’ve tried in six different ways to get an answer from me that would satisfy you.” He smiled. “The answer’s still no. Sorry, you’ll just have to stand it.” He scraped some coins off the table into his hand.
“I’ve got to collect my sergeant and get back to London.” Jury glanced at his watch. “My God. It’s nearly eight—” Desperate, he pulled out his mobile phone to call Phyllis Nancy, then found that it had run out of power. “Do you have a mobile?”
“Here.” Kurt handed his over.
Jury called Phyllis, who didn’t answer, and left a message of apology and excuse: the case he was working on had kept him in Rye. He would call her, or better, see her in the morning. He clapped the phone shut and handed it back to Kurt.
“Missed date?” Kurt held the door and they passed through it to the street.
“I don’t know how I could have forgotten. Damn it.”
“Perhaps the thought of slapping the cuffs on me.”
“That would do it.”
“Or simply the devilishly fascinating conversation.”
Jury smiled. He realized he seemed to have moved off from the position of regarding Kurt Brunner as prime suspect.
Either Brunner was a talented actor or Jury was dead wrong.
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” said Harry Johnson, raising his glass.
It was half-eleven in the Old Wine Shades.
“Very funny, Harry. You always were a card. But when it comes to you I’m not wrong.” He didn’t raise his glass.
He hadn’t been able to get hold of Phyllis. His mobile phone was now charged and on. As soon as he clapped it shut it rang. It must be her.
Harry raised an eyebrow. “‘Three Blind Mice’?”
“That’s right. All we need is one more.” He pressed the phone to his ear. “Jury.”
There was a silence. He hoped it wasn’t an angry one. “Phyllis?”
“It’s not Phyllis,” said Lu Aguilar. “I don’t know where she is, sorry. But I’m at Dust.” The phone died before Jury could say anything.
Not that that would have made any difference. He snapped the phone shut. His head began to throb. He rubbed his temple.
“Something wrong?”
He shook his head. He felt the stare. It wasn’t Harry; Harry had turned away and was looking at the row of wine bottles, smoking happily away.
Jury looked down. Mungo was out from under the bar chair. Mungo’s eyes were boring into Jury.
“Well? If you’ve something to say, say it. Not you,” Jury said when Harry turned.
Harry looked down at Mungo and snorted. “He’s giving you his double-down stare. That’s how he looks at me when I’m at the blackjack table.” Studying Jury’s expression, he added, “He’s usually right, too.”
“Thanks.”
“You don’t waste words, if that call is any proof.”
Words, thought Jury, between Lu Aguilar and him, what good would they do?
“I’ll guess from your response it was the kidnapper with his ransom demand.”
Jury half smiled. “No, Harry. I’d say that’s more up your street, kidnapping. And murder, of course, let’s not forget that.”
“Let’s do. You always work your way around to that tired subject.” He swapped his cigarette for a small cigar and lit it.
Everyone in the bloody world smoked except him, chain-smoked even. He wouldn’t be surprised to see Mungo light up.
“It must be frustrating as hell not having a lick of evidence.” Harry held up his hand and gestured to Trevor, who slapped his bar towel over his shoulder and came down the bar. “I’d like a Chevalier-Montrachet, Trev. I don’t much care for this stuff.” He held up his glass. “Not corky, is it?”
Trevor fixed Harry with such a dire stare, Jury laughed. As if he, Trevor, could possibly serve a wine in less than perfect condition. “I’ll just ignore that, Mr. Johnson.”
“But you won’t forget it, will you?” said Jury.
“Oh, no. It’s my reputation’s at stake.”
Harry smiled. Trevor tried not to and went in search of Harry’s wine.
Jury said, “You see, it’s just that sort of thing that’ll sink you in the end, Harry. You shouldn’t be taking chances with Trevor; you’ll wind up with cyanide in your Chevalier-Montrachet.”
“Don’t sound so hopeful.”
“Oh, I’m very hopeful. All I need is a search
warrant.”
“That’s what you needed over two weeks ago and you didn’t get one.” Harry smiled. “So I see no reason you would now. Indeed, you were directed not to get within a hundred yards of my house, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, watch your step or I’ll tell. I knew you’d been nosing around there the moment I got home that night. That’s the reason you wanted your pal to distract me. Very clever, I have to say.”
Jury snickered. “What pal?”
“You know, the Niels Bohr chap.”
“Oh, him. Just some nutcase. Why? Do you want to have another chat with him?” Jury checked his watch. “Got to go.” He slid out of the bar chair. “You know the villains that get caught first? The clever ones.”
Actually, those were the ones who got caught last.
THIRTY-NINE
He told himself not to do this, that he could still walk away, knowing he would and he couldn’t.
Jury parked where he had parked before, in St. James’s Green. He got out and locked the car. Then he unlocked it and tossed his mobile phone on the seat and locked the car again.
She was sitting alone at the bar, not chatting up the barman this time. The barman at the moment was nowhere in evidence. A glass holding a finger of whiskey sat before her. She was smoking a cigarette and looking straight ahead, at the bottles on the glass shelves or the mirror, as Harry had been doing at the wine bar twenty minutes earlier. She didn’t see him until he was there pulling out the stool beside her.
She smiled what for Lu was a bounteous smile, since she seldom smiled at all. He would like to know why she took things so seriously. She stubbed out her cigarette and fanned away whatever smoke was hanging between them.
“You went to Rye.”
It wasn’t conjecture; it was Lu getting down to business, although business was not the reason she’d called. “You talked to the Maples family.” Nor was this a question. She assumed he was doing his job.
“Yes. I was redrawing the parameters of what’s yours and what’s mine.”
She turned on the stool, and he could get her full face. “It’s all both of ours.” Her look was level. “We’re not competing. I told you that.”
“We aren’t? Where’s Ty or anyone who has ten minutes to devote to the customers in here?”
Lu pushed her glass toward him. “Here.”
Jury didn’t pick it up. “Did you call me here to compare notes about Roderick and Olivia Maples?”
“No.” She made a sound in her throat—annoyance, or just clearing it. “You know why I called you. But in the meantime, we can talk.”
“In the meantime before what time?”
Lu rolled her eyes. “Has anyone ever told you you can be awfully childish?”
“Yes. What were you saying?” He reached over and moved a strand of flyaway hair from her cheek, pushed it back with his finger.
“Maples. I thought little of Olivia except that she’s grasping, and I find it hard to believe Billy Maples would find her very lovable.”
“Who said he did?”
“She did. To hear her tell it, he had a hard time keeping his hands off her,” said Lu.
“I doubt that. You went to see Rose Ames, but you haven’t talked to Billy’s grandfather, have you?”
She shook her head and drank the remaining whiskey. There wasn’t much. “You knew him before. I wanted you to do it.” She put her fingers on Jury’s wrist, his hand lying on the bar. “Is it important, what he told you?”
“Absolutely. The most important of all.”
“Tell me.” She leaned toward him.
“Sir Oswald Maples was a significant figure at Bletchley Park during the war.”
“Codes.”
Jury nodded. “Roderick’s not his son by birth. He’s the son of a high-ranking Nazi SS officer—”
“What?” She was half off her stool, eyes wide.
He told her.
“Jesus. But are you sure it was Brunner’s brother?”
“Sir Oswald is quite sure and he’s extremely thorough when it comes to gathering evidence.”
Her dark eyes seemed to swim with the knowledge of this. He tried turning away from the eyes, as he told her the rest of it, but he was soon back in their dark depths.
They did not seem to be exchanging information anymore; they were exchanging something else. Jury stopped in the middle of this recitation and said, “What are we doing?”
“Going.” Lu was sliding the strap of her bag over her shoulder. She started to get up, but Jury put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Lu—”
“Look, Richard, we can, if you like, sit here until the club closes and then go. It doesn’t matter; we’d end up in the same place either way.” She rose again. “You’re scared, and it’s not about the job, the case, the professionalism or lack of it, or our working together. Come on.” She took a step and, seeing he still sat there, stopped and put a hand on his shoulder. “Richard, I know all that because it’s the way I feel. There’s nothing I can do about it. There was nothing I could do about it from the moment I walked into that room at the Zetter. There’s nothing you can do about it, either. If I believed in fate, I’d say that’s what it is.”
“But you don’t believe it’s fate.”
“I believe there’s nothing we can do. Choice has sod-all to do with it.”
He got up, threw some money on the bar, still with no one around to collect it, and walked out with her.
They walked from Dust to St. James’s Green in silence. When they reached the car, Lu put her arms around him and gave him a huge hug. “That’s better.”
“Uh-huh. Only this time, can we keep the noise down? My neighbor downstairs told me it sounded as if the furniture removal men kept dropping things.”
Her face pressed against his shoulder, she said, “You’re the one knocked over the coffee table and the lamp.”
“Like hell I did.” He kissed her for a long time.
The living room furniture remained intact and untouched, except for the initial impact when they first came into the room, with Jury pressing her against the back of the sofa, almost tipping the two of them over.
After that it was strictly the bedroom and the broken nightstand, the broken lamp, the torn blind, the spilled wastebasket, the car keys, change, and comb sliding from the bureau, to say nothing of the bunched bed clothes, the sheets twisted and rising up in the middle of the bed as if they’d been shot from a geyser. The storm.
When they finally fell down on the bed again, they were exhausted.
Jury fell asleep.
Again, he did not hear her leave. Again, the trail of her clothes had been collected, item by item.
He felt, sadly, without that trail, he might never track her down.
FORTY
The long sad face of Father Martin regarded Jury ruefully the following morning as they stood near the altar. “I’m glad to see you again, Superintendent, but nothing’s changed.”
The priest stood in his vestments, just having completed the baptism of an infant girl. From the shadows at the rear of the church, Jury had watched as the baby wailed at the touch of the water sluiced over her head. The mother had quickly received the infant back into her arms and bounced it up and down. The father had looked on, neutral and uninvolved.
“I’m still curious, Father, about that night when you bumped into my friend and me.”
“I thought we’d settled about that.”
“Settled? I don’t think so. Had you been coming not from Dust but from the Zetter? They’re very near each other.” Jury could tell Martin was trying to assemble his answers, one after another, like shards of a splintered mirror. He knew he couldn’t fix it. The best he could do with this one was, “I expect that’s right.”
“You’re not sure?”
Irritated, Father Martin said, “No, of course I’m sure. I imagine I’d just got times mixed up. I was having dinner at the Zetter. It�
�s quite well known for its food.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes. It’s rather pricey. I don’t eat there often.”
“This was just before we passed in Jerusalem Passage?”
The priest nodded.
“But that would have been almost eleven. The dining room was still open?”
“Not for people to be seated, no. But there were a few diners sitting having coffee and after-dinner drinks.”
“And you rushed out.”
“Not right then. I’d already left the restaurant when I remembered I was supposed to be back at the house for a telephone call. And before you ask, I’m sorry I cannot tell you who the call was from or the nature of the call. It’s information given me in confidence.”
“Which means of course that I can’t check up on it?” He smiled. “Meaning, it’s like the confessional, isn’t it? I don’t think that’ll fly, Father. We can subpoena telephone records. Too bad we can’t do the same with confessions.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“No, I don’t.”
Father Martin rose, and Jury after him. “I can say no more about it, Superintendent. But perhaps you can share with me what I was doing, since you don’t think I was having dinner.” He drew off the stole and the cassock.
“I don’t know. I only know what I’m pretty sure you weren’t doing and that was moving that fast in order to take a phone call. You were running from something, and as there’d just been a murder in the Zetter, I’d guess you were running from that.
“Whether you were supposed to meet Billy Maples there or whether you went there of your own accord, I don’t know. You walked in, didn’t see the body. The room service waiter didn’t either because it was out on the terrace. You went out there and that’s when you saw him. Dead at your feet. I can imagine your fright. You got out fast. But there’s another account of your actions that is less attractive: you shot him yourself. Billy had been waiting for someone to join him. Was it you?”
Father Martin smiled. It was an unnerving smile that appeared to say Jury was so dead wrong it was just short of laughter. “You really think I could have murdered Billy?”
Dust Page 22
