Dust

by Martha Grimes

  “That’s much weaker. It was never served.” Jury leaned his forehead into the palm of his hand, as if he might, in this way, force some memory.

  “Don’t try private detective work when you retire,” said Harry Johnson.

  “You think I’m that dumb, do you?”

  “Yes. You’re, let’s say, ‘detective dumb’ whereas, the rest of you is quite bright.”

  Jury held up two fingers, appealing to Trevor down the bar, either for a quick saving or another glass of wine, this evening’s being a Première Côtes de Bordeaux, no, a St.-Emilion Figeac—no, a Médoc—but which one? There were so many.

  “Let’s say,” Harry embellished upon an earlier point, “you have a photo and negative. Two separate things and yet the same. You, my friendly detective, can’t get them to match up. You’re always a tiny fraction off, which is as good as a mile. Though it’s the same picture, same subject, same everything—”

  “Wait, wait, wait a minute. I have a feeling Schrödinger’s cat is coming into this.”

  “No, for God’s sakes. The cat’s dead, the cat’s alive—those are polar opposites—those two states are different. Your two states are the same. You’ve got the victim, the dinner, the waiter, the coffee, and the second waiter. But you’ve also got this other player—rather like a chess piece; which one is it? Rook? Knight, which can move freely about the board? Then there’s the supper not eaten by the victim. Someone else ate it. That’s certain. The someone else is pretty obviously, the killer…”

  The voices grew fainter and fainter, something like the dazzling bright spot on the telly fading when you turn it off.

  Jury switched it on again: “And you know who it is.”

  Harry Johnson looked at him. “Only an idiot wouldn’t at this point.”

  “Fuck off, Harry.”

  Jury switched his brain off, rolled over in bed, and tried to sleep.

  FORTY-NINE

  I’ll just be myself. Well, not exactly myself, thought Melrose as he pushed the button on the white pillar of the house in Mayfair. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Angela Riffley answered the door wearing spangled green and sunny yellow and, upon seeing Melrose, looked back quickly over her shoulder as if someone were following her.

  Danger lurking? Melrose wanted to laugh. “Mrs. Riffley? Angela Riffley?”

  Her eyebrows went up a fraction in surprise that anyone she hadn’t given it to would know her name.

  “It’s about a friend of yours, Billy Maples.”

  She went from surprise to suspicion, a deep sensuality underlying all reactions. The artist in James’s “The Real Thing” could make a fortune off her face; he could really go to town. Not only was she not the real thing, she was, he bet, never the same thing.

  “My name is Digby Plant. I’m a private investigator and I understand you knew Billy Maples better than anybody.”

  She liked that (as he knew she would) and stepped back and waved him in.

  What he saw in the entryway was an eclectic mix of what appeared, at first glance, to be junk. He supposed it would appear at second and third glances still junk to the uninitiated—and given the dark icons in the wall niches, he imagined initiation had a lot to do with Mrs. Riffley. At the very least one would imagine the person who put everything together to be well traveled and worldly, and would not question (for example) the purpose of the owl, flightless in a stunted tree, or the cheetah skin rug hanging on the wall next to a poster for the old film The Blue Angel. He did not think Marlene Dietrich had owned a cheetah in that film.

  He followed her into an interesting study or library or den, where two zebra-striped love seats faced off. Between them was a coffee table of some kind of gnarled wood, glass-topped, and on which rested another small piece of gnarled wood whose purpose he couldn’t discern.

  Beneath the glass were several pages of what looked like an ancient, flaking manuscript written in Arabic or Hindi or Sanskrit—who knew? He thought the squiggles were extremely dense and black for a document several thousand years old—as she would no doubt claim. The visitor here would certainly not lack for ways to start a conversation.

  “Care for one?” She was drinking something green, ground grass, no doubt, and offering the same to him. No thanks. “I would absolutely love a glass of water.” The talented Mrs. Ripley, he thought, would be able to garner something from that modest request that would make her appear water-worldly.

  “Tap? Well? Spring? I’ve some excellent Zandinski I get from Saint Petersburg. Of course, it’s improved by a shot of vodka.”

  He returned her smile. “If you have any San Pellegrino, that would be fine.”

  “Of course I have it.”

  Anyone who wouldn’t could hardly hold her head up, could she?

  She set her green concoction on the table and rose. Then she fluttered away. She was wearing harem trousers. They were yellow and the fancy sequined top was the color of her drink.

  While she was gone Melrose looked around the room. Particularly intriguing were the small black objects hanging on the wall between various animal heads. He debated what they might be without going any closer to them. There were photographs studding the walls, of course. One was a shot of mountains, or a mountain, in front of which stood a small group of people who were either setting out to climb it, or had returned, or were just considering it. Where was it? The Swiss Alps? Annapurna? Kilimanjaro? The hill behind the roundabout just coming into Northampton?

  Then she was back with his Pellegrino, which she set on the table. “It’s almost impossible to get staff anymore, especially if one wants a maid without an accent. Really, every little shop is managed by foreigners. Thank God for Fortnum’s! I confess to getting many of my meals from their food section.”

  “I rather like Harrods Food Hall” (into which he had never ventured), he said, wanting to show that he too was in the habit of pick-up meals.

  “Oh, absolutely. My cook of twenty years got married and moved to Haworth, poor thing.”

  “Ah, Haworth. I was there just a few years ago.” What he remembered of Haworth was not the Brontë house, which he had neglected, but the visitors’ information center and that beastly boy.

  “Billy was very lucky in that cook of his.”

  “Mrs. Jessup?” It was out before he could call it back. How could he know Mrs. Jessup?

  She was surprised. “You’re acquainted with Mrs. Jessup? How extraordinary. Well, in your line of work, I expect you talk to everyone.”

  He silently blessed her for supplying the reason, even if she did make detective work out to be only a step above shopkeeping. “In the line of investigating, I naturally question everyone in the house. I’ve found that one’s servants often know more about one than the wife or husband knows.”

  Laughing, she said, “Yes. It’s one of the reasons I was against marrying Billy.”

  Melrose frowned. “Mrs. Jessup? His cook?”

  “No, no. The man who worked for him. Kurt Brunner. One would think he was a bodyguard. I wondered, really, just what he was! Billy would say only that he kept things in order.”

  “What did you think?” Melrose’s smile was sly.

  Angela Riffley’s was slyer. “I naturally tried to shut it out, but it was all so ambiguous.”

  Melrose waited for something to make sense.

  “Kurt had too much influence.” She lit a cigarette with the brown stump on the table.

  “Influence in what way?”

  She exhaled a plume of smoke that looked as fancy as her clothes. “Over what Billy did.”

  “Did Billy Maples need direction?”

  “Of course not. He was perfectly capable—” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve.

  Lord knew what else she had up it. Apparently she had suddenly remembered how close she and Billy had been, and now he was dead and she deeply felt the loss. “It’s awful, just awful. He should have stayed—”

  Again, Melrose waited, but she stopped. “Should
have stayed?”

  The handkerchief waved that away, but Melrose persisted: “You mean stayed in London? Or in Rye? Have you been there, then?”

  She shook her head. “No. He wanted me to come, but—”

  Again, she didn’t finish. Melrose inclined his head toward the photograph beside the fireplace mantel. “Would that be you there with that group?”

  “Oh, lord, yes. Monte Bianco. Yes, there’s always been a dispute as to which country its summit falls in. Hell to climb, isn’t it? It was nearly the finish of me.”

  “Indeed?” Melrose blinked and blinked and thought of no reply at all to this.

  “It was one of my first attempts, and I was quite unseasoned. I very nearly fell into a crevasse.” She shuddered pleasantly. “Well, one with little experience shouldn’t attempt to climb Mont Blanc, obviously.”

  Giving it back to the French for the moment. Melrose sighed. “Now,” she said, “you say you’d heard I knew Billy well? Who might have told you that?”

  “I can’t really tell you; you know, protecting one’s sources and all that.”

  “Ah. I think I know who it might have been.” She smiled. “Yes, I probably knew Billy better than anybody.”

  “And why was that?” Melrose sipped his Pellegrino.

  “I think because when he was around me he could be himself.”

  Melrose could imagine a lot of things happening around Mrs. Ripley, but selfhood wasn’t one of them.

  She said, “I don’t think many people knew how introspective Billy was. How very serious. I think it’s why he was so moody.”

  “Was he?”

  “Yes. I could tell you in confidence—” the offer apparently included her moving from her side of the coffee table to his “—but I expect I shouldn’t.”

  “That’s too bad. Have you talked to police about all this?”

  “Yes, certainly. But there are a few things I’ve held back.”

  “Don’t,” he said, leaning into her space, “hold back on my account.” He smiled suggestively.

  She laughed suggestively. “I think perhaps you’re a dangerous man, Mr. Plant.”

  “Not a bit, not a bit.” Something she’d said had snagged on a mental rock. Oh, yes. The cook, Mrs. Jessup. “I thought you said you’d never been to Lamb House. How did you come to see Mrs. Jessup?”

  “Billy’s cook? When she was here. I mean in the Sloane Street flat. She’d do that, you know—come to cook for him. Them.”

  Melrose wondered. “All the way from Rye? She must have been quite devoted to him.”

  “Actually, I didn’t get the impression she liked Billy very much. Well, approved of him, I should say. How is it we get off approving or disapproving? She came up to London occasionally. I believe her family lives in Lambeth. Horrors.”

  “Yes, horrors.” Sharing a joke. “When was this?”

  “I’m not sure, really.” She cocked her head. “For a private investigator, you don’t seem to know much—if you’ll pardon me.”

  “And for one who isn’t, you seem to know a great deal.”

  “I? Oh, I know nothing.”

  He pretended to reflect. “Still, you must have an opinion as to what happened?”

  “It won’t, I expect, be the same as yours.”

  “I’m only collecting information. Details.”

  “Have you spoken to Rose Ames?”

  Rose Ames. “His grandmother?”

  “He was fond of her. Of both his grandparents, the two still living.”

  “Mrs. Ames. I believe she was the cook’s bête noire.”

  “Ah. She’s an odd little woman.”

  “Mrs. Ames?”

  “No. Mrs. Jessup. I can’t quite make her out.”

  “Is their any reason to? Her dislike of Mrs. Ames does seem excessive.”

  “So you do know a lot. I don’t imagine she’d look kindly at a Lambeth background.”

  Melrose frowned. “Mrs. Jessup?”

  “No. Mrs. Ames. Rose would hardly be from Lambeth, would she? You have talked to her?”

  Melrose got a wicked little smile for his troubles.

  “Of course. We do seem to be talking at cross-purposes a bit.”

  “That, or you’re confused. The cook lives, or lived, in Lambeth with her brother.” She rose and collected the two glasses.

  Here he was on firm ground: “Ah, yes. Bertie.”

  He had outmaneuvered her in the details department.

  “Bertie? Oh, yes. Gilbert.”

  Her parting shot.

  Too bad she didn’t know it was a bull’s-eye.

  He stared. “Wait!”

  She turned, tilted her head, looked at him with her wide blue eyes. “What? Did I say something?” She smiled and added, “At last?”

  That was a good one, he thought, as she returned to the sofa and sat down, empty glasses on the table now.

  “Gilbert. Is his name by any chance Gilbert Snow? Her brother?”

  She had no idea why this was a point, but she’d take whatever points she could get. “Yes, that’s right.”

  Since she had been moving in his direction ever since he’d walked in, she wouldn’t mind. He reached behind her, clamped his hand on her neck, and pulled her over. After a long and appreciative kiss, Melrose whispered in her ear: “The talented Mrs. Ripley.”

  She sat and stared, for once unable to recover speech.

  He said good-bye, walked out of the study and to the front door and through it.

  He pressed the mobile, as good as a kiss, against his ear.

  FIFTY

  “Where’s DI Aguilar?” Jury asked, receiver crushed between shoulder and chin, one hand around a mug of tea and the other stuffing his shirt into his pants. It was after nine and he’d overslept. He was in a hurry. “I’ve been trying her mobile, but there’s no answer.”

  “I don’t know,” said Chilten. “She was at the station all night.”

  “No, she wasn’t. I tried to call her.”

  “Does she have a life? I don’t know if she has a life.”

  Jury said nothing except “Meet me at the Zetter.” He paused. “No, wait. Just bring in Gilbert Snow for questioning. Take him to the station and I’ll meet you there.

  Chilten was silent, then said doubtfully, “You said Gilbert Snow. The waiter?”

  “That’s right. He shot Billy Maples.” Jury drank some tea and listened to the silence. “Ron? You there?”

  Ron Chilten cleared his throat. “Snow shot him? For Christ’s sakes, why?”

  “Well, if I knew that, and if I had some hard evidence, I’d say arrest him.” He thought some more. “DI Aguilar had that dinner bagged, right?” She’s brilliant. He smiled.

  “Ye-ah.” Ron brought it out in two syllables, as if the prospect were lethal.

  “Then get it to the lab for DNA testing.”

  “Billy Maples—”

  “I’m not talking about Billy. I’m talking about who ate it.”

  Jury took the silence to mean understanding, repeated his request for Ron to go to the Zetter, and hung up.

  He gulped his tea and thought of Lu’s having that dinner bagged.

  “Why?”

  “Why not? You never know.”

  Indeed you don’t.

  Jury had his coat on and was out the door.

  They put Gilbert Snow in a bleak little room at the Islington station. It was the smallest of them. Jury preferred it for its claustrophobic ambiance. They sat across from Snow at a scratched-up table.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Gilbert in a perfectly equable tone, as if shooting Billy Maples were not only beyond his ken but should have been beyond anybody’s. He even gave a little harrumphing laugh.

  “Yes, you do, Gil,” Jury said. “Let’s go through it. Who took Maples’s so-called dinner order? Who said he ordered coffee for two? Who made a point of telling us Maples was very particular about that? You did; you said so yourself. There was no one to verify that the
re really had been an order, either for the food or for the coffee. What you needed was a reason to go to his room and make it appear that he was expecting a visitor. That he was expecting someone was important. We would certainly be trying to track down Billy’s guest for he would, presumably, be Billy’s killer.”

  Jury was up and walking slowly about. “Then the murder weapon turns up at the Sloane Street flat. Throwing yet more suspicion upon Kurt Brunner. How did you manage that? What’s your relationship with Brunner?”

  Gilbert Snow sat quite still, following Jury’s circuit of the room with a blank look. The question regarding Brunner brought a cold smile to his now expressionless face.

  Jury leaned against the wall. “What’s your connection with Brunner?” he asked again.

  Sullenly, Gilbert Snow looked at him. “I haven’t one. I never met the man. I want my brief.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve not got to answer any questions without a solicitor.”

  “Why’s that, Gil?” asked Ron Chilten. “Are you in trouble here?”

  Gilbert gave another guttural laugh, dismissing Chilten’s question, and leaned back in his chair and looked at them with hooded eyes.

  He reminded Jury of a tortoise: slow, plodding, but certain of where he was going.

  No one spoke.

  Into this silence stepped Detective Inspector Aguilar.

  As if he’d been found smoking weed in the toilet by his third-form teacher, Jury pulled away from the wall.

  Lu Aguilar stood in the doorway, pointing her chin at Jury and tilting her head back: out here.

  Jury left the room, after telling the tape he was doing so.

  Aguilar snapped out a question: “What in the fuck are you doing, Superintendent?”

  Back to dirty words and titles.

  “You arrested this man Snow without any evidence. No murder weapon, no motive.”

  “You’ll certainly grant me it screams opportunity.”

  She took this in. “Yes, all right, that’s true. But the murder weapon was found in Brunner’s desk, and Brunner has a motive. This man”—she hooked her thumb around toward the door behind which sat Gilbert Snow—“has neither. What happened to Occam’s razor? Are you going to bring in Benny Keegan tomorrow? It’d make about as much sense.”