She had often wondered on this subject, but never knew whom to ask. Turning away a little, she lifted the doll’s christening dress and looked. Then she turned it so Jury could see. But said nothing.
Jury said, “Oh, you’re in luck. It could be either a boy or girl, you have your choice. Not many people do. You’ve got the evidence right there in case anyone disputes it.”
Gemma thought this wondrous.
“Speaking of names, you haven’t told me yours.”
“Gemma Trimm.”
“You live here, Gemma?”
“I’m Mr. Tynedale’s ward. A ward is different from being adopted. I’m not related to anybody; I’m kind of left over. Mr. Tynedale’s sick, and he likes me to read to him. I do that every day, nearly. I read The Old Curiosity Shop and I’m a lot like Little Nell, he says. But I don’t think so. She’s kind of sappy.”
“You’re young to be reading complicated books like that. Even adults sometimes find it hard to read Charles Dickens.”
“I’m nine.” She seemed pleased with herself, being able to read what adults couldn’t. “I skip the hard parts, but it doesn’t hurt because he wrote so many pages about everything.”
“He did, that’s true.” After a few moments’ contemplation of Gemma and Dickens, Jury said, “I’m here because of Simon Croft. Did you hear what happened to him?”
“Yes. He’s dead. He got shot.” She pulled the bonnet down over the doll’s head, hiding the eyes. “What did he do? It must’ve been bad to make somebody shoot him.”
“We don’t know yet. I’m a detective, incidentally, and I intend to find out.”
Her look was one of utter astonishment. “You are? Did Benny send you?”
“Benny? No, he didn’t. Is he a friend?”
“My best one. He argues a lot, though. If you’re a detective, you should work out who’s trying to kill me.”
“Kill you? Why do you think that?”
“Because they already tried a bunch of times. Once was in the greenhouse.” She pointed to it. “They tried to shoot me when I was thinking about planting something in a pot. Mr. Murphy takes care of the garden.
Next time when I was asleep in my room somebody tried to choke me and smother me. Next time it was trying to poison me and Mrs. MacLeish nearly quit because she was afraid they blamed her cooking.”
Jury did not shock easily. But this compendium of crime, delivered by such a small person, in such a matter-of-fact tone, shocked him, although he doubted it had all happened. He could appreciate the melodrama in all of this. Take a child with apparently no family and put her down in the midst of one who wasn’t hers and perhaps indifferent (except for the elderly Oliver), and it would not be surprising that she might concoct this story of these attempts on her life. Still… “Tell me more about these incidents, Gemma. I mean, give me more details.”
“I was in the greenhouse, like I said. I was looking at the cuttings Mr. Murphy had in there. I was wondering when he’d plant the snowdrop bulbs. Those over there.” She pointed at the drift of snowdrops he’d noticed before, white petals with a green spot positioned with such regularity in each petal they looked painted. “They’re called Tryms. Like my name, only it’s spelled different. They’re very unusual. I planted one in a pot and looked around for the Day-Gro. I was holding my doll in my other hand, that’s when I heard the glass shatter and felt something whiz by me. I thought maybe somebody threw a rock. That’s that time.
“The second time I was in bed asleep so I can’t tell you more than I did. Something woke me up; I guess it was because I couldn’t breathe. I yanked open a window and stuck my head out. They got a doctor and they called the police again. I saw a film with a murderer in it who used to put pillows over his victims’ faces.” Gemma stopped to move her doll to a sitting position and then went on for a fascinated Jury.
“The third time I was eating spotted Dick that Mrs. MacLeish made with custard sauce. I got really sick and the doctor had to come again and said I was lucky I threw up and got rid of it. I said it was poisoned, but he didn’t think it was. That’s all.” She sat back and picked up the doll again.
Jury was winded, as if he’d been doing all the talking. “That must have been terribly frightening.”
Her silence as she looked at him suggested any fool could see that.
“The police came, did they?”
She nodded energetically.
“And did they find any bullet casings?”
“I guess that’s what you call it. It was outside on the ground. Or maybe stuck in a tree.”
“Are you sure the shooter was aiming at you, though?”
“You mean maybe they were trying to shoot the Trym bulbs?” This was said with more acidity than a nine-year-old could usually muster.
“No. I mean, what about the gardener?”
“He wasn’t there. Anyway, why would anybody want to kill him?”
“Why would anybody want to kill you?”
Thirteen
“ I just don’t know, Mickey,” Jury said. “I certainly think it’s possible.”
They were in Mickey’s office and Mickey wanted to get out of it. He was up and pulling on his coat. “Pub?”
“Liberty Bounds?”
“Nah. Too far. Let’s walk, then, find a coffee.”
Jury said, “I know the perfect place. I’ve got kind of a crush on a waitress there.” It would give him more material to irritate Carole-anne with, too.
Mickey smiled. “Okay, we’re out of here.”
The cappuccino-bar-restaurant was barely three blocks from headquarters. There were more customers this morning than there had been at the weekend, but the place was large and still two-thirds empty.
The pretty waitress had taken their order, lattè for Jury, house coffee and a fruit Danish for Mickey; she had been sincerely glad to see Jury again, almost as if she’d worried about his getting safely home on Saturday.
Mickey watched her walk away and smiled. “You’ve got good taste, Richie; if I weren’t a happily married man-” He held his hands out, palm upward. Then he said, “When I felt better yesterday afternoon I sent Johnny and a uniform over to pick up Kitty Riordin. Just for some friendly questioning. I didn’t want to go to Tynedale Lodge; I thought the two of us might be too much ‘police presence,’ if you know what I mean.”
“You’ve talked to her before, haven’t you?”
“Oh, yeah. Anyway, she didn’t overdo it as far as Simon Croft was concerned. She found it ‘regrettable.’ She’d known him for a long time, ever since he was a kid, but at the same time felt she didn’t really know him. ‘He was never terribly outgoing. He had his secrets.’ ”
Jury told Mickey what he’d learned yesterday from his talk with family members. “Marie-France Muir and her memories of the Blue Last-she seems to feel it was home. She loved the place. I got the feeling she thought of that pub as a living, breathing organism. But I suppose you can never attach too much importance to a place. It filled you up when you had it, left you empty when it was gone. We’re all orphans when it comes to that.” He thought of Gemma. Left over.
“We’re all orphans anyway. You are, I am, so’s Liza.” Mickey mused. “I was lucky when it came to foster parents. It’s hard to remember they weren’t my own flesh and blood. Liza was lucky, too.” He looked at Jury. “You weren’t.” He sighed. “Had a good time, though, the three of us, didn’t we?”
“We did indeed.” Jury had forgotten that-that all of them were orphans. He wondered if that was one thing they had in common.
Mickey raised his coffee cup, half in salute and half to summon the waitress.
“Did anyone mention Gemma Trimm?”
“I don’t remember anyone named Trimm,” said Mickey, puzzled.
“I guess that’s the point, Mickey. No one said a word about her. She’s old Oliver Tynedale’s ward. She’s nine. I found her walking in the garden.” Jury told Mickey Gemma’s story.
“She was making it up, I h
ope.”
“Not all of it, anyway. Police found a bullet casing after it had gone through the greenhouse.”
“Thanks,” Mickey said to the waitress who refilled his cup and set down his pastry. She asked Jury if he’d like another lattè.
“Just pour me some of that, thanks.”
She did, and smiled at him, and walked away.
“I’d say she’s the one that’s got the crush,” Mickey said, absently. He leaned across the table, over his folded arms. “We can’t clutter this case up with threats that don’t exist, Rich.”
“Every case is cluttered until you sort it. And stuff like this girl has to be sorted. You’re much too meticulous a cop to ignore Gemma’s story.”
Mickey took a bite of the pastry and said, around a mouthful of crumbs, “Okay, okay. I guess I’m just in a hurry. What could the motive be for killing this little girl? Who is she? She’s a ward, which keeps the Social at just beyond breathing distance. What’s her history?”
“I don’t know because I haven’t talked to Oliver Tynedale. I expect he might be the only one who does.”
Mickey frowned over his cup. “You don’t think she’s actually related to Oliver Tynedale, do you?”
“I thought about that. She could be. Her resemblance to Alexandra Tynedale is marked.”
“But not to Maisie. It couldn’t be.”
Jury laughed. “You’re pretty certain of that. But I tend to agree. There’s something about Maisie-”
“Hell, yeah, there’s something about her. Like not being Alexandra and Ralph Herrick’s daughter. That’s something.”
“Odd, how she’s got the black hair, the dark eyes… and yet. She doesn’t look like Vivien Leigh. Gemma does, in miniature.”
“Like Liza.”
“What?”
“Don’t you remember you used to tell her that. People think she looks like Vivien Leigh or else Claire Bloom.”
Jury frowned. “Vivien Leigh and Claire Bloom don’t look anything alike. Our waitress looks like Vivien Leigh, in case you didn’t notice.”
Mickey turned around and looked at her. From across the room, she smiled at him. Or them. “She looks like Claire Bloom.”
“Hell, she does.”
This bickering went on.
Finally, Mickey asked, “When will you talk to dear old nanny Kitty? A.k.a. Maisie’s real mother?”
“Today. You talked to her. How did she strike you?”
“As the mother of an impostor.”
“That was your objective assessment, was it?”
Mickey’s hand squeezed Jury’s shoulder. “That’s what you’re here for-objectivity.” He removed his hand and shrugged. “You’ll see.”
A laugh caught in Jury’s throat. “I’ll see? You mean I’ll agree that Maisie is really Erin Riordin and that Kitty Riordin is her mother? Mickey, all you’ve got to go on are those old snapshots-”
“And instinct. You said yourself my instincts are good.”
“I did? I’ll bet the instinct here is just a by-product of those pictures. Mickey, what if I don’t agree with you? What if I find out Maisie Tynedale really is who she says she is?”
“Then I’ll drop it.”
Jury flinched, surprised. It was true he wanted Mickey to be open to this possibility, but he wasn’t sure he wanted Mickey to put so much faith in his, Jury’s, ability.
“Look, Rich, you’re the best cop I know. You’re certainly the best with witnesses. Look at how much you got out of these people that I didn’t. I didn’t know this little Gemma Trimm even existed, for Christ’s sake.”
“I only found her by chance, by luck. I was outside, walking.”
“Still…” Mickey sighed.
“How is Liza?” She was Mickey’s wife when Jury met her. Liza had been with the Met herself, detective sergeant, and a very good one. She’d gotten pregnant and given up the Job.
“Wonderful. Liza knows what it is, what it’s like. She knows. It’s almost like she can read my mind; her intuition is almost magical. She knows what this is like, too.” Mickey fisted his hand and made light hammering blows against his chest. “And she doesn’t go on about my smoking. People do, my mates do, as if stopping the fags would save my life. They’ve given me a new painkiller which is an improvement on the other.”
Jury would have thought the doctors at least could eliminate pain, if nothing else. “Do you get a lot of pain?”
“Some.” Mickey swirled the dregs of his coffee.
Some, of course, meant a lot. As if, as if.
“Nothing’s gonna stop this. It’s everywhere now, in blood and bone.”
“I’m sorry, Mickey. I really am.” Jury felt it, too. What a loss it was going to be. What on earth would Liza and the children do without him? “How are the kids with all this?”
“They’re great. I’m proud of them, too.”
One of Mickey’s children was grown and married and gone to another country. Then there were the twins, a boy and a girl who’d lived after a car crash had killed both their parents, Mickey and Liza’s daughter and son-in-law. That had happened two years ago. Jury supposed the twins were no more than six or seven now. In addition, there were two others, one in her late teens, a boy readying himself for university. Mickey had too many responsibilities.
“Peter is going to Oxford next year. I’m really happy about that.”
Although you couldn’t easily tell it, Mickey had read literature there. He loved poetry, was always pulling out a line here and there.
“Beth, she’s already talking about London University. Clara and Toby-the twins-are in public school.” He moved his gaze from whatever lay outside the window to Jury. “Liza will probably go back to the Met; well, she’ll have to do something because my bloody pension sure won’t do it. Not as far as Oxford goes, that’s certain. I don’t like being forced to think about all this, know what I mean? Of course, I’d think about it anyway, but in the abstract, kind of. I’d think but I wouldn’t have to feel everything ending.” He pushed his cup away. “I really need a drink.” He barked out a laugh. “Well, at least I can stop worrying about whether I have a drinking problem. ‘Drinking problem.’ I love that euphemism. That last round I did with the chemo they thought might have stopped it. I went into remission for a while. I thought I might even have it licked. I didn’t.
“There’s a chilling side effect to this cancer. People don’t want to be around it; they feel they should do something but don’t know what the something is. They steer clear; they cross the street, metaphorically, and maybe even literally. It amazes me that my mates, my colleagues, who’ve seen every form of violent death, who walk with it every day-they can’t take this.”
“Because it’s a lot closer to home, Mickey. Because they’re your mates, your friends.”
Mickey looked at him, smiling. “You’re my friend, too, Rich, but you’re here. I love this fragment:
The world and his mother go reeling and jiggling forever
In answer to something that troubles the blood and the bone.
Written on the wall of an Irish pub, that was. The three of us should’ve been there together.”
The expression in Mickey’s eyes when he said this was so utterly confident of Jury’s friendship, Jury knew he would do whatever it took to help him.
Fourteen
Keeper’s Cottage was small but comfortable. Jury was standing in the living room beyond which he saw a kitchen; upstairs (he guessed) would be one large bedroom and a bath, not en suite.
Kitty Riordin invited him to sit down and offered to get him tea. He thanked her but declined.
A table at Jury’s elbow held several silver-framed pictures, together with a few pieces of milky blue glass. The pictures were of the Tynedale family, the largest of Maisie herself.
“You’re here about Simon Croft.” It wasn’t a question. Her expression went from soft to sober. “I was… I couldn’t quite take it in.” Her hand clenched and pressed against her breast in a g
esture that was very much like Mickey’s had been. As if she were in mourning, she was dressed in black; around the collar of the dress was a bit of ocher ruffle, which softened the effect. The dress was old-fashioned, as was she herself, a cameo of a person.
She said, “It’s unbelievable that anyone could have murdered him.”
“Then you know of no one he’d had a falling out with?”
With an impatient gesture, she waved this away. “I’ve been with the family for over fifty years, Superintendent. Of course, I don’t know everything about their private lives-well, obviously I don’t.”
“How often did you see Simon Croft?”
“Not often. When he came here, sometimes.”
“And did he come regularly?”
“Hm. He’s very fond of Oliver Tynedale.”
“Who would inherit Mr. Croft’s money?”
Almost before the words were out, she laughed. “Oh, good lord, Superintendent. I hope you’re not looking for the murderer there?”
Jury smiled. “I often do. Nothing speaks louder than money, certainly not conscience.”
“In this case, you’d be wasting your time. Everyone in the family has money.”
“What about Maisie?”
Somehow she hadn’t expected this, Jury thought. She flinched. “Maisie has money from her mother. She inherited also from Francis Croft.”
“Does it work that way with these two families? The Tynedales and the Crofts bequeath money not only to the immediate family, but to the other family, too?”
“Yes. After all, they don’t think of themselves as ‘other.’ ”
“Then Simon Croft would have left Maisie and Ian money?”
Exasperated with his seeming obtuseness, she shook her head. “Francis Croft left Alexandra a small fortune, which of course went to Maisie upon her mother’s death. He was as fond of Alexandra as her own father was. I expect my point is, again, that if Simon Croft were murdered for money, it wouldn’t be a member of the family who did it.”
“But upon the death of Oliver Tynedale, Maisie will be a wealthy woman-”
The Blue Last Page 8
