He sent her the message Don’t be daft. I’m not doing anything. She stared at him round-eyed, refusing to return a message, probably feeling it beneath her.
So into this voiceless habitation came Jasper Seines. “Well, well, well, wot’s all this, then?” doing his imitation of some beat copper. Then suddenly, like a magician grabbing an object out of the air, he yanked up one of the kittens by its tail. The little thing screeched, and this earned Jasper Seines an attack from both sides: Schrödinger clawing his leg and Mungo sinking his teeth into the boy’s ankle.
“You little fuckers! Get offa me!”
The kitten dropped back into the drawer, and Jasper Seines yelled and, unable to shake off Mungo, yelled some more. Finally released, he ran crying to Mrs. Tobias; tears went flying from his doughy face as if even they wanted to get as far away from Master Seines as they could.
Neither Schrödinger nor Mungo subscribed to that old saw about my enemy’s enemy. Nonetheless, Mungo thought, if they worked together (for once), they might be able to get rid of Jasper Seines.
Schrödinger jumped into the drawer to see that no other devilment befell her brood; Mungo left the music room and went clicking across the gorgeously polished hardwood floor to sit near the kitchen and take in what was going on.
Tearily, Jasper Seines was denying any action on his part. “No, I never done nuttin’....”
“My patience is wearing thin, my lad.”
Mungo sighed. Mrs. Tobias was nobody’s fool.
“Aw right, I’d as soon go home! I don’t like it here!”
What a nasty nephew. But what a promising bit of conversation. Now all Mungo had to do was give this beastly child a little nudge out the front door.
Afternoon was drawing in and Mungo had his eye on his favorite spot, underneath a small wrought-iron bench in the rear garden. There was a doghouse, too, but he wouldn’t bother himself.
Trotting toward the bench, he could already feel the cool grass against his stomach, the feathery shade made by the thin and delicate fronds of a willow, moving in the breeze.
That’s why he was brought up smartly by finding his spot occupied by a black cat calmly snoozing there, not bothered by the traffic blaring its way along Upper Sloane Street. The cat lay with its front paws hooked around its chest, in that deft way of cats. It looked like a loaf of pumpernickel.
Carefully, Mungo crept closer to the bench and sat down far enough away that the cat would miss him if he woke suddenly and took a swipe at Mungo. The cat slept on, sensing nothing. For one crazy moment, he thought it might be Schrödinger. It was just as black, certainly, and looked just like her, except for the bright blue collar round the stranger’s neck.
Mungo pulled a pebble from beneath a tree and aimed it toward the cat. The pebble rolled against a paw, but the cat only twitched its nose before it resettled itself even more deeply into pumpernickel posture. This was irritating. If someone hit him, Mungo, with a pebble, he’d be off the ground and flailing. He jumped onto the bench, from which position he could watch the cat through the wrought-iron interstices of the seat. There were large openings in the fussy scroll-work through which he could reach his paw, but he couldn’t reach the cat.
He could bark to wake the cat up, but he didn’t like to bark; barking was a last-ditch effort. Mungo hopped down from the bench and moved around to where he was before. He lay down, his head on his paws, his gaze level with the cat’s closed eyes. When the cat woke, he would be startled; it would be fun.
The cat’s eyes opened so slowly, they seemed not to move. Mungo raised himself to a sitting position, leaned on one paw, then the other, back and forth as if getting ready to make a dash.
The cat yawned.
That annoyed him. Mungo was, after all, a dog. He pricked up his ears: the cat was sending him a message:
I hope I’m not dead and you’re not heaven.
Mungo took a startled step back. He wasn’t at all sure that message was complimentary. He sent a message back: No, it’s not heaven; it’s Belgravia, though some here would argue there’s a difference. Who are you?
Morris.
The cat shoveled its rear end back and assumed one of those sloping Zen-like stretches that cats were so good at. Even Schrödinger looked agile in that butt-to-sky pose.
Do you live around here? asked Mungo. I mean in one of these other houses? Because this is my garden.
Morris lay back down in the paws-to-chest position that Mungo envied.
No, I live off somewhere.
That’s not going to get you far. You don’t even know the name of the place?
Never thought I’d have to know. I never thought I’d be kidnapped before. The slow-blinking eyes blinked again.
Kidnapped! Wow! That was supposed to have happened to Mungo once, but it hadn’t. That story was Harry’s invention. If there was one thing Harry was good at, it was making up stories and otherwise lying.
You mean honest-to-God kidnapping? Or do you know Harry?
Harry who?
Never mind. (Less said the better.) You don’t know where you were kidnapped from? Or to?
It’ll come back to me. I know it’s a pub. One minute I was on my table in the pub gardens, having a kip. There I lay until someone jerked me up and started roughing me around. Then I was in a car. Then I don’t remember.
What pub is it?
I think it’s called the Black Cat. Once in a while a customer would remark on me being the pub’s cat and wasn’t that clever? Clever. I ask you. Anyway, I’m not. My owner’s name is Dora.
Go on.
Well, I’m wandering about outside looking for field mice, and I come across a person lying on the patio where the tables are.
Mungo sat straight up, big-eyed.
It didn’t move, this person. I sniffed all around and smelled something like blood, I think.
Blood! Mungo could feel the small stiff hairs rise along his spine. He would like to be a bloodhound.
It must’ve been a dead body.
I expect so. Then I saw an old woman coming along with a fat dog and ran back inside the pub. Do you have anything to eat? I’m really hungry. A nice piece of fish would go down a treat. Of course, I’d take anything.
Mungo was thinking furiously. I’m going in for a bit.
Back to the house? Will you come back?
Yes. I’ll bring some food. You stay here. I won’t be long.
The rear door was open, as it often was off the latch in good weather. Mungo hated the dog door because he was afraid of getting stuck in it. All he needed to do here was get a paw in between door and doorjamb and pull.
Mrs. Tobias was busy arranging thin cucumber slices on a cold salmon. “Mungo! Where have you been?”
Mrs. Tobias always sounded surprised to see Mungo was still living here. “This is for your master’s dinner. Doesn’t it look nice?”
My what? Was she kidding?
“He does like his bit of salmon.”
I’d like my bit, too.
Mrs. Tobias went twittering on about cooking this and that and sounded settled in forever with the cucumber decoration. She was opening ajar of pimiento when the telephone rang from somewhere deep in the house.
The blessed telephone! That should keep her busy, she was such a talker.
He raced out to the dining room, knowing exactly where that Corgi car had fallen when Mrs. Tobias had flung it. He picked it up in his teeth and made his way back to the kitchen. From the hallway came the sound of Mrs. Tobias on the phone: talk, talk, talk, talk.
Back to the kitchen he went. He was up to the chair, then to the stool, and then to the kitchen counter. Mrs. Tobias’s cold salmon lay on a long china plate on the counter. Its eye was a circle of black olive; its scales, the overlapped cucumber slices.
He deposited the little silver car with its nose to the pepper grinder, then knocked over the grinder for good measure. Delicately, he put his teeth around the lower part of the salmon with its cucumber garnish. Carefully
, he slid down to the floor and carefully held his head high so as to keep the salmon intact. Then, just as carefully, he was out the back door.
He dropped the salmon and a cucumber slice in front of Morris. They were in a little clearing within the bushes defined by a box hedge. Morris had been eyeing two wrens having a clamorous talk. When Morris saw the fish, she nearly fell on it, eating as if she were inhaling it. Including the cucumber.
Mrs. Tobias had, of course, returned to the kitchen and half a salmon and was yelling for Jasper, calling out, “This is it, my lad! You go in the morning!”
Who’s Jasper? asked Morris between bites.
A thing of the past, answered Mungo. He was mightily pleased. Hello, Morris. Good-bye, Jasper.
When she’d finished the salmon, Morris thanked Mungo with great enthusiasm and began washing her face. He wanted to hear the rest of the story, which was the best he’d heard since Harry tried to convince the Spotter—Oh, but that was for another time.
Now, tell me the rest. You stopped when this old woman came along. Mungo settled in to listen. He tried to fold his paws into his chest and couldn’t. So he just stretched his legs out.
Morris lay down, easily curving her paws. Well, she didn’t scream, exactly, but she made some kind of noise. Her dog was yapping; it was enough to wake the dead. Then she put a leaf against her ear and—
A leaf? What do you mean?
Everybody has them. You’ve seen people with leaves; they’re always talking to them. People just can’t let leaves alone. Sometimes I’d be on my window seat, napping, when customers would sit down and right away pull out a leaf and talk, talk, talk—
I get the idea.
—talk, talk, talk. Do you think there’s anybody on the other end?
I think maybe it doesn’t make any difference to them. Mungo stretched out, feeling quite philosophical. Back to the pub: what did the old woman say to the leaf?
She said for someone to come quick. There was a body.
Was she talking to the Spotters? You know, the ones who go nosing around whenever there’s a dead body. Some of them are Uniforms and some of them are something else. I call them Spotters.
I guess that’s who came, finally. There was a big commotion around the body. They took a lot of pictures. Why anyone would want pictures of a dead body, I don’t know.
Then what happened?
Nothing until the cars came. People messed about.
How did you get here, then?
In a car, I guess, but that was days later. I think I was gassed.
Mungo would have said it was the strangest tale he’d ever heard, except for what had happened to him, or at least what was supposed to have.
Now, the only person who really notices Schrödinger is Mrs. Tobias. Harry is too bogged down in his own mind to pay any attention. So there’s no reason why you couldn’t live here and pretend you’re Shoe. After all, one black cat looks pretty much like another.
Morris wasn’t sure she liked that. But what if we appear together at the same time? And I have this collar, too. Does your cat wear one?
No. We’ll be on the lookout, won’t we? Anyway, Mrs. Tobias is old and she’d just think she was seeing double. You can make anyone think they’re bonkers except for the ones who really are.
Morris sat up, paws placed neatly on the grass. Mungo sat up too and tried to get his paws that way, but he couldn’t. Come on.
But Morris didn’t move except to pick up a paw and set it down, pick up the other one and set it down, in the way Mungo himself had done if he didn’t know what to do.
I want to go home, said Morris.
Mungo felt sad, as homesickness seemed to fill the place that hunger had just left.
Really, said Morris.
Mungo didn’t know how to send a message back, with that.
15
Wasn’t it possible, Jury wondered, looking down at his telephone message pad on this late Thursday morning for Carole-anne Palutski to write in the King’s English? And hadn’t they pretty much exhausted this subject? Apparently not, for here was another one:
“S.W. c’ld t’ tell you the b.c. w’mn was i.d. by o’nr of ag’cy c’d ♥.”
A heart. Was something called “Heart”? No. Was Valentine’s Day coming up? No. It was May. “Sergeant Wiggins called to tell you—” That much was clear. Of course, what wasn’t clear was the point of what S.W. called to tell you, right?
Hell. Jury picked up the receiver and punched in his office number. No answer. He mashed the receiver into the cradle (he had a telephone left over from the Pleistocene age), collected his keys, and left the flat.
“ ‘Heart.’ That’s funny, guv.” Wiggins gave a spluttery laugh.
Jury stitched his lips shut to keep from yelling. “Then do you think you could enlighten me as to what ‘heart’ means here?”
“Sorry. What that refers to is Valentine. Valentine’s Escorts. Mariah wasn’t exactly soliciting the curb crawlers in Shepherd Market, see. She was with an escort service. A little more respectable, maybe, but still pros. Valentine’s has offices in Tottenham Court Road.”
At last. “Good for you, Wiggins. I forgive you the message.”
“Nothing wrong with the message. It’s the one who took it you should have a word with.” Wiggins said this self-righteously.
“I have had a word. A word does not penetrate. How did you work it out about this escort agency?”
“Well, I didn’t, did I? It was her flatmate called us—”
“Adele—I think Edna Cox said.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Wiggins whipped out his notepad. “Adele Astaire. There’s a name for you. Adele said she’d only just now seen the paper and that she was sure it must be Stacy.”
Jury waited. But Wiggins didn’t continue. “Stacy? Is there a surname to go with that?”
“What? Oh. Stacy Storm. There’s another name, right? That’s Mariah Cox, when she’s at home. I mean, literally. ‘When she’s at home.”’
Wiggins thought this extremely funny. Jury didn’t. “Look, can you just stick to it?”
“Sorry. I bet Adele Astaire’s not her real name, either. Maybe working for an escort service, they don’t want to give out their names.”
Jury didn’t comment. “Where’s Adele live? Mariah’s aunt said Parsons Green or Fulham.”
“Fulham. You want to go and see her?”
“Of course.” Jury extended his hand. “Give me that.” When Wiggins handed over the paper on which he’d written the address, Jury said, “You get onto this Valentine’s place. Take that list of names the Rexroths gave me with you. The person who runs Valentine’s—”
“That’s a Blanche Vann. But she’s going to scream client privilege and make me get a warrant.”
“Probably. Nevertheless, what you’ll want to do is match up names, the names of the men at the Rexroths’ party who came without women on their arms, against any such names on Valentine’s list.”
“Her clients would likely change their names, wouldn’t they?”
“Some would, yes. Assuming that Ms. Vann is helpful at all, if the full names don’t ring a bell, then try just the first names. A person might change the last name but leave the first in place.”
Wiggins had the list out and studied the names. He said, “Here’s a Simon; Simon’s a common name. She’s bound to have a few of those.”
“Depends how many clients she has. But if a surname is being disguised, it could be the person comes up with an absurdly common substitute, like ‘Jones.’ So ‘John Jones’ would be a red flag.” Jury was up and getting into his raincoat, which he liked. He liked rain, too. “Adele ... ,” he said in a musing way. “Doesn’t she know that was Fred’s sister?”
Wiggins was dropping a teabag in his mug as the electric kettle hissed and burbled. His lunch waited beside his tea mug. It was something peculiar-looking wrapped in what appeared to be a cabbage leaf and purchased at Good Earth, a tiny healthy-eats place nearby that Jury h
ad never patronized and never would. “Guv?” He frowned.
“Fred Astaire. His sister was his dancing partner for years.”
Wiggins poured steaming water into his mug. “We used to do the same thing.” He was sitting down, reflecting, stirring his tea like the old Wiggins.
“What?” What was he talking about?
“My sister. Me and my sister, B.J.—Brenda Jean’s her name. We used to dance a lot.”
Jury stood in the doorway, trying to get his mind around that. Or trying not to. “Wiggins, this is Fred Astaire we’re talking about.”
“Right. The tap dancer,” said Wiggins.
Jury chewed his lip to keep from talking. Then he was out the door.
16
“A dele Astaire?”
Over the key chain, she nodded. Or the half of her face he could see did. The half looked rather young to be employed by an escort service. “I’m Richard Jury, Scotland Yard CID.” He held out his ID.
She slid back the chain and opened the door and took the ID as if it were a calling card. She studied it, frowning, as though trying to memorize the fact of it before she handed it back.
Jury found the close scrutiny amusing. Rarely did people do more than glance at it.
“Well, you better come on in, then.” Her tone was more friendly than resentful of this detective on her doorstep.
Now he could see all of Adele Astaire—not her real name, as she was quick to tell him, apparently embarrassed by her made-up one—and she still looked a lot younger than she must be. She wore her brown hair in bunches, with an uneven fringe that she scraped this way and that on her forehead. Her cotton dress was pinaforelike, pink and white stripes that made it a little hard to discern the figure beneath it. He hadn’t seen anything like it in years; she must buy her clothes at some retro shop. On her feet were furry slippers.
Her flat was neat and furnished with worn chairs and a small cream-colored sofa. On the shelves of a built-in arched bookcase were some Beatrix Potter figurines—he recognized Benjamin Bunny, for he had had one as a child. On a small table by a chair stood a Paddington Bear lamp.
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