The Blue Last

by Martha Grimes

  Cyril squirmed out from beneath the desk, and, from a sitting position, made another four-point landing atop the desk. He moved over to the can of sardines.

  Lunch?

  Jury walked through the door of his own office, laughing.

  “Sir-” Wiggins began.

  “You missed it, Wiggins, too bad.”

  “Sir, you just got a call-”

  Wiping a few tears of laughter away, he said, “A call about what?”

  “A shooting. It was from that DCI Haggerty you went to see.” Wiggins looked at his tablet. “The name will be familiar to you, he said. A Simon Croft. He’s been shot; he’s dead.”

  A cold breeze fought its way past the shuddering windowpanes and touched Jury’s face. He felt thrust into the midst of events he could not control. What the source of this feeling was he didn’t know.

  “You know him, sir? I mean this Croft person, the victim?”

  Jury nodded. It was easier than explaining. “Where did he call from?”

  “Croft’s house. It’s in the City, big house on the Thames. Here.” Wiggins ripped the page from his notebook. “He said he’d like you to come if you possibly can.”

  Jury looked at the notes. “There’s a problem I’m helping him with. I’ll go. You have the number so that you can reach me?”

  Wiggins nodded. Jury left.

  Ten

  A few people were still hanging about, wide-eyed and thrilled, on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape, watching the police van slide out of the forecourt of the Croft house and make its way, signals flashing, along the Embankment.

  Jury thought Simon Croft must have had quite a bit of money to live in this large house backing onto the Thames. Behind the house was a short pier jutting out over the river; fifty or sixty feet beyond it was a boat, anchored. How had the owner ever got the London Port Authority to permit a private boat to anchor there? The Thames was still a working river, after all. The boat looked as if it were drifting there in a gray mist.

  Mickey Haggerty waited in what Jury supposed was the library, considering the books and the dark wood paneling. Bookshelves lined the walls, except for the wall behind the table, in which a bow window looked out over the river. Jury could see the boat through this window. There was a large walnut writing table inset with dark-green leather. Simon Croft’s body had fallen forward across this green leather. Blood had pooled on the desk, dripped down onto the floor beside his chair. His left arm was reaching out and beside his hand lay a 9mm automatic.

  “It was the cook who found Croft when she came this morning-” Mickey had come up beside him and was flipping over a page in his notebook “-at ten A.M. I’ll tell you…”

  But whatever it was remained untold; Mickey just shook his head. Jury said, “You look tired out, Mickey.”

  “It’s the bloody medication.”

  Jury put his hand on Mickey’s shoulder; he looked pale and exhausted.

  Mickey shoved the handkerchief he’d used to wipe his forehead back in his pocket. “I got the call an hour ago. His cook rang the station. Mrs. MacLeish.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “At the station, answering some questions. She wanted to get away from here. She’s really the Tynedale cook, but comes over here to cook for Croft a couple of days each week.”

  “Croft lived here alone?”

  Mickey nodded. “He was a broker, very successful. Had his own small-what’s called boutique-firm. One of the few that didn’t get swallowed up by the banks in the eighties. Croft stayed independent. Smart man. He was writing a book about the Second World War. I think he was using the Blue Last as a symbol for the loss of the real Britain, which ‘real’ I think he equated with ale and beer. A slow erosion of the British spirit.”

  Jury smiled. “That’s always been the sentimental view.”

  “How cynical. Listen, I want a word with the doctor.”

  This person had been talking to one of the crime scene officers. Mickey asked him how soon he could do the autopsy.

  “Late this afternoon or tomorrow morning, early.”

  “Early? I’d appreciate that.”

  The doctor smiled fractionally. What Jury remembered about the way Mickey worked was that he never pushed people already pushed to the limit for favors. He often got favors as a consequence.

  “It’s pretty straightforward,” said the doctor. “He died somewhere between midnight and four or five A.M.; the rigor’s fairly well established. Body temp and room temp don’t suggest anything delayed or sped up the decomposition. Still, you know how hard it is to fix the time of death. I’ll know better when I do the autopsy. And of course you know it’s no suicide. Whoever tried to make it look like one knows sod all about ballistics.”

  “I figured. Thanks.” He nodded to the doctor. Then he said to Jury, “According to this Mrs. MacLeish, Croft was working on a book. He had a laptop and a manuscript and also a card index, notes for the book, which she said was always sitting on the desk. The manuscript sat on that table by the printer.” He paused. “Don’t printers have memory? Anyway, someone, presumably the shooter, nicked all that stuff. At the moment, that’s all I know that was taken.”

  “You said before you knew him a little.”

  “That’s right-I’ve got to sit down for a minute.” They moved to an armchair in front of an elaborate stereo system. “Not well,” Mickey repeated, again taking out his handkerchief and wiping what looked like cold perspiration from his forehead. “Croft knew me because-you remember? I told you his father, Francis, and my dad were such good friends. Simon there-” Mickey nodded toward the body of Simon Croft “-knew I was in the Job, so asked me if I’d just come by once in a while because he thought someone was trying to get at him. That’s how he put it, ‘get at me.’ But he couldn’t or wouldn’t say who or why. To tell the truth, he struck me as more than a little paranoid. Anyway, I did it; I’ve come by here maybe five or six times.” Mickey shook his head. “Obviously, I was wrong. Someone was trying to get at him. Someone did. It makes me feel bad, Rich, really bad. I should’ve taken it more seriously.” He shook his head. “Look over here.”

  Mickey rose and Jury moved with him to the raised window behind the desk where Mickey pointed out chipped paint along the sill and obvious gashes on the outside that looked made by a knife. “Whoever did this is a real amateur. We’re supposed to think it was a break-in. But look at the way the marks go. It was done from inside, not out. Like I said, a real amateur.” Mickey moved to talk to the police photographer, and Jury looked at the CDs spread out across the table on which the stereo sat. Without touching them, he let his eyes stray over them. Simon Croft was not so careful about their arrangement as he was about his books. There must have been a dozen or more CDs out of their cases. Jury smiled. Vera Lynn, Jo Stafford, Tommy Dorsey’s band. All of the music was popular in the Second World War. “We’ll Meet Again,” “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” He’d been too little to take them in when they first came out, but later, yes, he remembered. “Yesterday,” yes, he certainly recalled that. But wasn’t that song much later? In his mind’s eye he saw again Elicia Deauville dancing by herself in her white nightgown. She was eight years old. Eight or nine? Given all the activity behind him in the room, it surprised him how well he could mute the sounds to an incomprehensible cloud of talk, and hear “Yesterday.” And see Elicia Deauville through that hole in the wall. It was her hair that was so astonishing. It was tawny, but several shades of it-taffy to gold to copper, amazing hair. He thought she had lived next door to them on the Fulham Road, but now he wasn’t so sure.

  Had it happened? Was he there?

  Mickey was beside him. “It’s meant to look like a robbery-” Mickey shoved at the glass slivers with the toe of his shoe “-yet the only thing of any value missing is a Sony laptop. The watch he was wearing was worth more than that. Not a Rolex, that other one that costs as much as a small car. You know?”

  “Piaget?”

  �
�That’s the guy. See those pictures?” Mickey pointed out a small painting propped against the books on one shelf. “Bonnard. That one-” he indicated another on the top shelf, ultramarine water, yellow so heavy it looked like the weight of the sun “-Hopper, no not Hopper-the other one-Hockney, that’s it. David Hockney. Those two paintings are easily transported. Who in hell would rob the room and leave those behind?”

  “Did they take anything besides the computer? Computer-related stuff? Diskettes?”

  Mickey called to one of the crime scene officers. “Johnny? Did you find any computer diskettes?”

  “No,” said Johnny. “Not used, but there were some new ones, that’s all, sealed.”

  Jury scanned the desk, the shelves. “No manuscript? No notes? Didn’t you say he was writing a book about the Second World War?”

  “You think he turned up something someone didn’t want turned up?”

  “Don’t you? Everything associated with the writing of it appears to be gone. And that’s all that’s gone. The man must have had hard copy, some, at least. A historical event calls for research; research calls for notes. You saw him-when? A couple of weeks ago?”

  “The computer was on; I didn’t pay much attention to whether he was writing from notes.” Mickey looked around the room as if either determined or desperate. “Maybe when they go over the house-”

  “The killer could have done that, easily, at his leisure. Assuming this was someone who knew Simon Croft lived here alone, no staff except for the Tynedale cook, who didn’t, in any case, live here. The last time you saw him, you said-are you okay? Mickey?”

  Haggerty had grown very pale. He swayed slightly. “Let me just sit for a minute.” As he sat in one of the wing chairs, he took out his handkerchief, damp by now, and wiped his forehead, beaded with cold perspiration. “I’ve got to go over to talk to the family.” He said that and folded the handkerchief.

  “Uh-uh,” said Jury. “You go the hell home. Leave the family to me.”

  “I can’t-”

  “The hell you can’t. I’ll get the initial stuff out of the way; you can talk to them later.”

  Sotto voce, Mickey said, “Look, keep this under your hat, Rich, will you? I mean, me being sick.”

  Jury said, “Of course, I will. You know I will. Does the family know about Simon Croft yet?”

  Mickey nodded. “Two of my people went over there, sergeant and WPC. They told them I’d be talking to them this morning.” Mickey checked his watch, shook his wrist. “Damn thing.”

  “Get yourself a Piaget. Give me the details and I’ll go over there now.”

  Mickey did so.

  Eleven

  Ian Tynedale was an intelligent, good-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties. At least Jury assumed that age, given he was a young child when his sister Alexandra was killed. He sat forward on the dining-room chair, elbows on knees. His eyes were red rimmed.

  “It wasn’t suicide, if that’s what the gun being there implies,” Ian said. Pulling himself together, he sat back and took out a cigar case and dragged a pewter ashtray closer.

  “You’re sure of that?” said Jury.

  “Never been surer. Not Simon.” He thought for a moment. “Was it robbery? Were any of the paintings missing?”

  “I don’t think so, but of course we couldn’t be sure. You’re familiar with his paintings?”

  “Yes, I got a few of them for him at auction. Art’s my life. Italian Renaissance art, to be specific. I’m pretty passionate about that. There was one painting worth a quarter of a million on the wall behind the desk.”

  “I think I recall seeing that.” Jury paused. “Mr. Croft was actually no relation, was he?”

  “No. The two families have always been exceptionally close. Simon’s father, Francis, and mine knew each other from a very early age. They were boyhood friends, then they were business partners. They were quite remarkable, really. They were every bit as close as blood brothers. Maybe you could say the same for Simon and me. It’s a very close family. Living out of each other’s pockets, you could say.”

  “Francis Croft owned a pub in the forties called the Blue Last?”

  That surprised Ian. “Yes. How’d you know that?”

  Jury smiled. “I’m a policeman.”

  “Funny old thing to bring up, though. That pub’s been gone for more than half a century. Bombed during the war. Maisie-that’s Alexandra’s daughter-was a baby then. They were at the Blue Last when it happened. Rather, Alex was; Maisie, fortunately for her, was out with the au pair, Katherine Riordin. Kitty, we call her. She survived because Kitty had taken her out in a stroller. Not the best time for a stroll, you might say, but there were long, long lulls between the bombings and it was pretty safe for the most part. The bombings, of course, were mostly at night. You can’t keep yourself cooped up all of the time, can you? It was a pity, and perhaps ironic that Kitty’s own baby was killed in the blast that took out the Blue Last.”

  “I understand she lives here with the family.”

  Ian motioned with his head. “That’s right. In the gatehouse. Keeper’s Cottage we call it. You passed it in the drive. ‘Gatehouse’ seems a bit pretentious.”

  “And she’s lived here ever since that time?” If Ian was curious about this interest in Kitty Riordin, he didn’t show it.

  Ian nodded. “You can imagine how grateful my father was that the baby was all right. Her own baby-Kitty’s-was in the pub at the time. The wrong time. So was Alex.” Turning his cigar around and around as if it aided thought, he said, “That was a terrible loss, you know.”

  “Your sister, you mean?”

  He nodded. “Alex was… there was something about her…” He paused, as if searching for the right word and sighed, as if he couldn’t find it. “She was young when she married a chap in the RAF named Ralph Herrick. She was only twenty or twenty-one, I think, when Maisie was born.”

  Jury changed the subject. “Was Simon Croft wealthy? He was a banker, wasn’t he?”

  “Broker. There’s a difference. He was very well off. He inherited a great deal of money when his father died.”

  “He himself had done well?”

  “Absolutely. He was a brilliant broker. Thing is, though, the whole climate of banking and brokering changed in the eighties. Until fifteen years ago, the City was run on-you could say-gentlemanly standards. I don’t mean more honest, more scrupulous, or nicer, I mean clubbier-you know, much like a gentlemen’s club. They simply weren’t up to American and international methods of management. It was as if the City was run by Old Etonians. So when things changed, most of these people were left out in the smoke. Not Simon, though. He was one of those with a boutique sort of business and he saw it coming. He stayed independent and afterward was heavily courted by the big banks-God, why am I going on about money? He’s dead. I can’t really take it in.”

  “Who will inherit this money?”

  “Inherit? Oh, all of us, probably. More, of course, to Emily and Marie-France. They’re Simon’s sisters. Emily lives in Brighton in one of those ‘assisted-living’ homes. She has a bit of heart trouble, I think. Simon was married years ago but it lasted only a few years. No children, sad to say. Haven’t seen her in twenty years. I think she went off to Australia or Africa with a new husband.” He tapped ash from his cigar into the ashtray and looked up at Jury as he did it, smiling slightly. “You think one of us did it, is that it? For the swag?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind. That’s the way it so often plays out. For the record, where were you in the early hours of the morning?”

  “Asleep in bed. Alone, no one to vouch for me.” Ian smiled as if the notion of his shooting Simon Croft were so unlikely it hardly bore discussing.

  “Mr. Croft had no enemies you know of? Any fellow brokers? Bankers? Businessmen? Anyone holding a grudge?”

  Ian shook his head. “Nary a one, Superintendent, not to my knowledge. Christ…” Turning in the dining-room chair, he looked away.


  “Yes?” Jury prompted him.

  Ian shook his head. “Nothing, nothing. It’s still sinking in.” He put the heels of his palms against his eyes and pressed.

  Jury said nothing for a few moments, and then decided on something that might not be so volatile a subject. “Apparently, Mr. Croft was writing a book. What do you know about that?”

  Ian turned to face Jury, looking a little surprised. “That’s important?”

  “Given that all traces of it seem to have vanished, yes, I expect it is important. His computer was taken along with the manuscript and ostensibly any notes he’d made. That’s why we’re wondering about it.”

  Ian frowned, looked at the cigar turned to ash that he’d left in the ashtray. “He didn’t say much about it. Might have talked to Dad about it, though. Dad’s been keeping to his bed lately. He’s taking this very hard, Superintendent. Simon was like a son to him. Trite sounding, but it’s true. I hope you don’t have to question him today.”

  “Not if you think I shouldn’t. I can come back.”

  “I appreciate that; it’s so tough for him-” He knocked the worm of ash into the tray.

  Marie-France Muir, Simon’s sister, sat at the head of the table in the chair Ian Tynedale had just vacated. Jury was on her right. The romance of her name was almost borne out by the melancholy air, the pale, nearly translucent complexion, the fine, forlorn gray eyes.

  For Marie-France, the appearance, he was fairly sure, was the reality. That what one saw was what one got. So, looked at that way-her unmade-up face, her literal answers-it might be honesty at its most banal, but honesty nonetheless. He should at least be as direct in his questions.

  “Have you any idea why this happened to your brother?”

  She was silent, as if she were trying to formulate a difficult answer. “No.”