Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent

by Martha Grimes

  "The reason I'm 'back,' as you put it, is that I hoped you might tell me why you killed your husband."

  She opened her mouth as if to reply. He waited for something; there was nothing. Somewhere, he heard the soft thunk of a pinecone. Her profile was to him; her arms folded across her breast, hands resting in the crooks of her elbows.

  This fixated pose and refusal to talk did not strike Jury as obduracy. She was not being stubborn. Indeed, she once again opened her mouth as if she meant to answer, then closed it as before.

  "Your father says it must have been revenge."

  After a few moments, she said only, "Does he?" and pulled her sweater closer. Her voice broke between the two syllables.

  Did she sense that she was not smooth enough, not plausible enough to go along with that lie?

  "But that doesn't surprise you; that must be the line your solicitors are taking—that and temporary insanity."

  A feverish color rose from her neck to her face, mottling the cool skin. But her reaction seemed to stem from something other than embarrassment. The corners of her mouth twitched.

  Jury wanted to shake her out of this nunlike placidity and calm acceptance of her fate. And he wondered that she didn't appear angry, or, at least, unnerved, by his appearance. She did not seem even to question it. He went on: "After eight years, that'd be a hell of a difficult case to make —even for someone as clever as Sir Michael."

  After a few moments, all she said was, "I expect so."

  It was such a flat-out statement and carried such a note of conviction that she mightn't have cared at all what happened to her. Her hands were locked behind her; her eyes fixed fast on the end of the path. Jury looked toward the gate, the clair-voyee, and beyond it. There was a bitter little orchard of pollarded trees with shrunken trunks, pencil-thin branches, bony limbs jutting out. In summer, though, it would be different, the trees inviting a child to climb them for the fruit.

  "Did your son play there?""

  "Yes." It took her some time to add: "With Toby."

  It was odd, how she gave only the first name, as if she had an implicit knowledge he'd know Toby.

  "Toby Holt."

  Nell drew the sweater more closely together and nodded. "They were good friends, which is strange given Billy was twelve and Toby was nearly sixteen. At fifteen, well . . ." She didn't finish. "I actually think he admired Billy. Of course, Billy seemed older, probably because of his music. He was a wizard, he could play anything, really. Poor Toby. No matter how he tried he could hardly make music with a comb. And Abby, they both actually put up with Abby. She was only three. How is she? And the Holts. Have you talked with the Holts? I wonder how they're getting on without him."

  Shaking her head, she looked at the ground. Looked and kept shaking her head as if all of this were a puzzle, a mystery beyond her poor powers to comprehend. And strange her wondering how the Holts "were taking it," as if his death had occurred only last week.

  There was no question, apparently, that he would see Abby, would see the Holts. He was sure that at that moment she did not even register his presence as a policeman, or perhaps not at all. She was talking, he thought, to herself. At least, she was talking.

  Jury was certain that she could see the ghost of Billy Healey beyond the broken walls, climbing a tree. And when he looked round at her again, she seemed to have taken on the aspects of the orchard; she seemed to have shrunken, grown thinner, turned in upon herself. Her clear complexion, even, had developed tiny lines, like crazed porcelain. She had brought a small book of poetry out from her pocket, and her fingers, skeletal-looking to his eye now, turned it round and round.

  "It looks"—here she nodded toward the rows of smallish trees—"as if it were freezing to death. But it's only resting. What would be dangerous and deadly is a rush of unseasonable warmth." She paused. "I only know that because of a poem about someone's looking at his orchard and saying to it, 'Good-bye and keep cold.' "

  - "You seem to find that comforting." A chilly wind sprang up, making a few leaves skitter about with a tinny sound, blowing her hair loose from the mooring of its tortoiseshell comb and whipping a few strands across her face. She pulled them back, like a veil, from her mouth and chin and re-pinned the hair.

  "Do you like poetry?" asked Jury.

  "Yes." His eyes were on the hands combing back the hair, repinning it. She looked extremely young. "I do because you can trust the language of it. I hate talking."

  Jury smiled. "That's abundantly clear. It's the only clear thing about you." If he was expecting this to draw her out, he was wrong. She took her own line.

  "Words are like gauze. Semitransparent, easily torn, always frayed." It was a delicate smile, as if it had to be tested. She seemed pleased that she'd said what she meant.

  "You're probably right, but it's all we've got, and not many of us are poets. I guarantee Queen's Counsel won't be at all poetic when he gets you in the dock." He moved round in front of her to force her to look at him. "Look, don't you think this silence of yours, this not liking to talk, is a conceit you have that there's some buried truth you might dig up if you could find the perfect words to do it? That the world is deaf and dumb, so there's no sense trying to get through to it?"

  He knew the minute the words were out of his mouth he'd said exactly the wrong thing, yet he couldn't help himself. She made him angry. When she turned her face to the path again, he said, "I'm sorry. I have no business talking to you at all, much less . . . chastising you." He smiled a little; he must have fallen into the trap of trying to find the right word and he'd picked one that sounded strange and tasted strange, like sea water. "I'm just sure that there's more to it. Perhaps you've told your solicitors; perhaps the last thing you'd do is talk to me. But I don't think you told them any more than you're telling me. I know there's some other reason you shot your husband."

  The silence lengthened like the shadows across the walk. It had grown nearly dark while they were standing here. The purple sky was bisected by a dim band of gold. Drawing her arms up against her breasts, she made a little bridge of her interlaced fingers and rested her chin on them. She had only a small repertoire of movements; they were close and parsimonious, like her words. Since Jury had been talking to her she had moved no farther than the length of his arm. "Why?" was all she said.

  He hesitated. He said something else: "You appeared too self-contained for a woman bent on revenge."

  She brought her arms down, the hands still interlaced before her. She frowned. "You must be able to see a lot in a few seconds."

  "It wasn't just those few seconds. In the dining room, remember, we were both there at the same time."

  Slowly, she shook her head. "I was reading a book, that's all."

  "Some book. I always leaf through Camus when I want cheering up." ?

  She did not reply to that, but looked up at the purple-black sky and watched two curlews wheeling and making their odd, mulish noise.

  "And earlier, in the Bronte museum."

  Frowning, she said, "I didn't see you."

  "I know. You were much too absorbed, and not in the old manuscripts and ledgers. I also saw you in the toy museum."

  The frown deepened as she looked away and then back. "You were following me." Jury nodded. "Why?"

  "I don't know."

  She seemed more amused by this than annoyed as she shook her head again, very slowly. "But you said nothing."

  And he said nothing now, partly because he was breaking his own code and ashamed of that; partly because the more she talked, the less he did. It was as though there was a small allotment of words, not enough for two people at once. It was his turn to look away, toward the gate and the trees beyond.

  "I don't understand." It was as if she didn't much care whether she did or not.

  Finally, he said what he hadn't said before, what he knew he shouldn't say, unless he said it to Queen's Counsel. It would then remove any hope—remote as hope was—of Nell Healey's acquittal. "I know you're lying.
You and your father. So was your husband."

  This brought her head round sharply, a look of honest wonder on her face, eyes wide. In the faded light, the glimmer of different colors could not be seen. The irises seemed to have melded into a goldish-green. "Lying about what?"

  "About your motive. Even if you haven't said it, you haven't unsaid it. Revenge because Roger Healey, or both of them, took the advice of the Cornwall constabulary and refused to pay the ransom for Billy. And what about your father? Do you intend to kill him, too, out of revenge?" Jury said it mildly.

  No response; she became even stiller.

  "Your husband didn't have that kind of money. You did. Although the others acted as if it were their money, you were the one who had to sign the check, so to speak. And you didn't; you wouldn't."

  Her folded hands came up again to her mouth and her eyes were squeezed shut, as if in this posture she might hold back whatever threatened to come out: tears, words, feelings. Finally, her body went slack again and she asked dully, "How do you know this? The superintendent—" Quickly she stopped, probably aware she was confessing.

  "Goodall promised Charles Citrine that the report would be slightly altered? It would make no difference to police which one of you decided, after all."

  "The sergeant—" she said, looking at him again with astonishment. "It was the sergeant who told you." Pulling her sweater closer—it was much too cold now for just a sweater, but Jury doubted she noticed it that much—she said, "I remember him very clearly. His name was Mac-something. ..."

  "Macalvie. He's not a sergeant any longer. He's very high up, a divisional commander. Same as a chief superintendent."

  "Then you're high up, too."

  Jury smiled. "Not like Macalvie. God isn't higher up than Macalvie."

  It amazed Jury that she was actually smiling. Not only because she hadn't before, except for a tentative one, but that she could smile over Brian Macalvie. "You don't hate him? For giving that advice so bluntly."

  That she might be expected to hate him seemed to puzzle her. "Why should I? I didn't have to take it. And the advice was pretty much what police had been giving all along; the other officer was saying the same thing in a most unconvincing way. The sergeant had a great deal of force and intensity; he was probably placing himself at risk, too. I got the feeling he was absolutely sure he was right."

  Jury smiled. "He'd be the first to agree."

  "He didn't seem conceited."

  "Oh, conceit has nothing to do with it. He's just very much in touch with his own talents—and they're considerable, believe me. That you didn't get Billy back doesn't mean he was wrong. But you must have thought sometimes that if you'd paid that ransom ..."

  She moved away from him and seemed to be concentrating on the black bark of an oak. "It's all over. But it was over before; I haven't much of a case, as you said."

  Jury walked to the tree, leaned his hand against it. "I don't think our knowing will make any difference."

  She frowned up at him. "He'll be subpoenaed, and you're—"

  "The official police report said the 'family' refused to pay the ransom. The point is: Macalvie—and I—might be more interested in justice being served. But you—" Jury shrugged. "—I'm not sure you're interested in it that much. You give me the impression of someone who's carried out a very difficult task, at last, and damn the consequences."

  Since he had moved into her line of vision there and was big enough and close enough to eclipse her view, she had to look at him. She stared at his sweater, his raincoat, and avoided his eyes. "You think I'm cold-blooded." Her expression was sad.

  "No. 'Remote' isn't 'cold-blooded.'"

  She stood looking at the twisted trees, saying nothing, drawing the silence round her as she did her cardigan.

  "Good-bye, Mrs. Healey."

  "Good-bye."

  He had taken a few steps down the path when he heard her say, "And keep cold."

  12

  The woman at reception at the White Lion Hotel wore an expression that suggested she must take full responsibility— was "most terribly sorry"—for the hotel's not being able to accommodate him. When she returned from an inner office, "just to make sure there's been no cancellation," repeated her apology twice, and dabbed at her raw, red nose, Melrose was concerned that his sudden appearance at the White Lion and his subsequent leave-taking had caused some gust of tears, some upheaval on the part of the hotel staff over the discomfiture of prospective guests. But the chilblained nose and smudged eyes were not owing to an emotional onslaught at Melrose's being turned out into the cold. She had caught a chill and was feverish. She made suggestions: the Black Bush across the street? No, he'd been there already. Stupid of him not to book a room in advance.

  "Whatever for? Haworth in January, the rooms generally go begging." She seemed fearful that he would take upon himself the charge of stupidity when his outcast condition was already a great deal for him (and her) to bear.

  Beginning to feel like the dying cast of Les Misirables, Melrose tried to raise her spirits with assurances that the tourist information center next door would find something for him. The clerk looked despairing, and as Melrose smiled and smiled and then left, he wondered if the people of Haworth had been more infected by Bronte gloom than by virus or murder.

  While the attendant at the information center was helping a middle-aged woman, Melrose roved the small room and plucked up pamphlets, a guide or two, and a few gloomy monochromes of the surrounding moors and the village. One of these, the scene of Haworth parsonage and graveyard, he thought he would send to Vivian just to let her know the sorts of places he was hanging about in since their last meeting. In his reconnoitering of the racks he was followed by a pie-faced boy of perhaps ten or twelve, who was carrying a large bag of crisps and licking a purple lolly enclosing a band of bilious green that went round and round in an hypnotic circle, probably the unwholesome child of the woman at the counter. The boy had expressionless eyes, blank as coins, and, having nothing to do, meant to occupy himself by getting this sticky sweet closer and closer to Mel-rose's cashmere coat.

  "Branwell Bronte?" asked Melrose, as if the lad had questioned him. He then read, as loudly as he could, Branwell's commentary on the Lord Nelson, which was appended to a photograph of that famous pub. " 'I would rather give my hand than undergo again the malignant yet cold debauchery which too often marked my conduct there.'" Melrose paused, looked down at the ill-mannered lad, and, in a measured, distinct tone, said, "Well, I don't know where he got his drugs, do I?"

  The woman in the turquoise get-up, whose long, sallow face was further elongated by the height of the black turban-like thing she wore, turned quickly and said, "Malcolm!" in a deep, almost basso voice. She gave Melrose a hooded look and clutched Malcolm to her side, a grip from which Malcolm broke with alacrity, Melrose was more his style.

  On the wall above the counter was a huge blowup of a photograph of the ruins of the old farmhouse Emily Bronte was said to have used for her Wuthering Heights. The other woman, round-faced and with a yellow bubble of hair and a tiny voice, was asking how good the road was to this site.

  When the patient woman behind the counter told her that there was no road, that she'd have to walk the moor for perhaps a quarter of a mile, she turned to Melrose, as if for reassurance and said, in her whispery voice, "I can just look at the picture for a bit, then, can't I?"

  "Absolutely, madam. That is precisely the way I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. With my camp at its base, a large map, and some drawing pins I went straight to the top. Read Hemingway for atmosphere. After all, why have the reality when you can settle for its appearance? Why substance when you can walk in its shadow? Why, for pity's sake, waste time? It is all we have."

  The cherub-faced lady looked moonily at him. "I never . . ."

  Melrose was sure she hadn't. He walked to another turnstile of postcards, followed both by Malcolm and the smoldering, suspicious eyes of the Beastly Boy's mother.

  "We're not goi
ng to that dump"—Malcolm nodded to the photograph of Top Withins—"we're going to Hadrian's Wall, we are."

  Melrose turned the stile and said, "Well, you'd better hop it then. That particular dump's in Northumberland."

  "Mum knows 'im."

  Melrose turned from the picture of Haworth's cobbled street. "What? Who?"

  "Hadrian. The Emperor Hadrian." He mashed a handful of crisps into his mouth and waited to see how the mountain-climber would take this.

  Melrose walked away.

  The Beastly Boy followed. "See, she sees things. She can read cards and she sees ghosts. She's got like second sight."

  Obviously not, or Malcolm wouldn't be here. Melrose stared. "Go away."

  The Beastly Boy stuck out his tongue, a purple and green surprise, and was dragged off by his mum at the same time the beehive blonde collected her maps and charts and smiled brightly at Melrose in a good-bye look.

  Melrose finally had his turn at the counter.

  There were several places that she could suggest, all B & B's, though. "There's Mrs. Buzzthorpe; she does a lovely full breakfast; there's only the one room there and it would be quiet. If anything is quiet round here now." She ran her hand across her unquiet brow. "I expect you know—"

  "I was really looking for something like an hotel or inn. There's the Old Silent, I understand." At least, that's where Jury said he was staying.

  The poor woman clutched her sweater about her and said, "Ah, but that's where that grisly murder'' (she made a meal of the word) "happened." Her voice had dropped to a hissing whisper as she leaned across the counter. "Two days ago, it was. A man murdered there. I expect that's why it's hard to get accommodation." She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Thrill-seekers."

  "But is it booked?" asked Melrose, himself lowering his voice to a whisper.

  " 'Twas closed by Keighley police for a bit. I can ring up." She did and had to report that its few rooms were taken. She went down her list again. "Weavers Hall. That's very pleasant." Doubtfully, she looked at his clothes, the silver-knobbed walking stick, and out the window at the Bentley. Hopelessly, she smiled. "I'm not sure it's quite your line, though."