Mungo had slipped out from under the sofa to walk about, to pace almost. Back and forth, back and forth, as if this were all too much.
I tried to tell him, don’t say I didn’t try. Mungo skated on the slippery beechwood floor and was tempted to go across to the music room to calm down. Only Shöe was sitting in the bottom bureau drawers, keeping watch over Elf and the others.
Tom Dryer said, ‘Yes, I expect it would be difficult to swear to it that the dog with the woman was indeed your dog. Of course, there’s always DNA, isn’t there?’ He gave Harry a little purse-lipped smile.
But Harry only smiled back. ‘Yes, there is that, if you could collect any of it from your crime scene.’ Then he nodded toward the envelope. ‘Let me see those photographs again, will you?’
Dryer reached the envelope over an abyss of very dark rug. There were several of these, interesting colors and designs, lying on the floor, sometimes overlapping.
Harry took up his reading glasses and fitted the pliable stems around his ears and took out the police photos of the dead woman. What was he up to now?
Dryer said, with a seemingly casual interest in the whole thing. ‘Isn’t this another coincidence, though?’
Harry looked with raised eyebrows at Dryer.
‘I mean,’ said Dryer, ‘here is a lady going by the name of Glynnis Gault, the Mrs. Gault you do know. It’s a little hard to believe that the woman in those photos didn’t know any of you, that she wasn’t acting in some capacity for the Gaults—or you or—let me rephrase it: that she had no connection with any of you. Seems unlikely, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, it does seem unlikely. But that doesn’t mean I know her. Now, Hugh . . . ?’
‘Can you think of any reason why Mr. Gault would ask someone to parade around as his wife? Offhand, the only thing I can think of is that—and this is only a for instance—he needs an alibi, or needs to establish that his wife was indeed alive after he murdered her. But that doesn’t work because the murder came later, long after the impersonation, not before it. Can you think of another reason? I mean as long as we’re kicking possibilities around?’ Dryer pulled at his ear lobe, at ease, unhurried.
Jury was only too happy to let Dryer do this.
Mungo had gone to sit between Jury and Dryer and looked from one to the other.
Harry slid down in his seat, also at ease. He smiled slightly. ‘Only, what makes you think that it’s Hugh or his wife who instigated this masquerade? What about the dead woman herself?’
‘Without your knowing?’
‘Without any of our knowing.’
‘That’s possible, of course. Acting, you mean, on her own. A woman calling herself Glynnis Gault, and with a boy calling himself Robbie and a dog—Mungo—makes appointments through an agent at Forester’s in Lark Rise to view property. She makes an effort to be seen, to have people know that she’s there. And then— whoosh—’ Dryer made circles in the air with his hand—’she’s gone, vanished, together with boy and dog. Now, that’s very interesting, isn’t it? Why she wants it to be thought that she’s disappeared.’
‘It’s fascinating.’
‘Hm.’ Dryer looked up and around the room, as if trying to pin down a vagrant thought. ‘That might be the whole point—the fascination.’
Again, Harry smiled. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘Well, it’s a bit like sexual allure, isn’t it? I mean if a man is overtaken by a woman’s beauty or sensuality, he’s not really going to notice she hasn’t a damned thought in her head.’ Dryer smiled quickly, then called it back. ‘In other words, he isn’t going to try to make sense of her; he’s only going to try to get her in bed.’
Harry’s smile was brilliant. ‘That’s very good. Chief Inspector.’
‘Thank you.’ Dryer gave another quick little smile.
Jury said, ‘Smoke and mirrors, you mean?’
Dryer nodded. ‘Exactly.’
‘It’s all rather confusing, then, isn’t it?’ said Harry.
‘Extremely so, but, again . . . does she look familiar now, Mr. Johnson?’ asked Dryer. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
Either Harry didn’t pick up the sarcasm or didn’t care about it. He sat thinking.
(Another story, thought Jury.)
‘All right. Look,’ said Harry. ‘I won’t deny I haven’t been a hundred percent straight with you—’
Oh, really? thought Jury, simultaneously furious and fascinated. Having brought his story to what Jury concluded was a satisfactory end—for Harry, sitting there with one arm across the back of a love seat, continued to smoke and smile—Jury wondered what he was going to come up with.
Harry brought his arm down and leaned forward, all serious and solemn, and said, ‘I do recognize her. I said the woman in the photo, well, she wasn’t Glynnis, true, but I also said I’d never seen her before. That isn’t true. Mind you, the woman in Venice looked rather different in terms of the superficial things—hair, heavily outlined eyes, clothes—but cheekbones, nose were quite similar to your photo. Probably I didn’t think of this Venetian woman because a face in death rarely looks the same as in life. It lacks expression to enliven it.’
Jury knew the embarrassed shrug, the small boy smile were simply Harry’s fabricated responses.
Dryer said, ‘So, you did know her, Mr. Johnson?’
‘I did, yes. Her name is Rosa Paston. Actually, it’s Pastoni, but she shortened it. She preferred something a little less Italian. Her father was Italian, her mother English—’
‘Sounds exactly like Ben Torres,’ said Jury.
Harry ignored him and went on as he rose and moved over to his desk. ‘I met her in Venice—’
‘You’d never been there before you met Ben Torres,’ said Jury. ‘Where?’
‘Italy.’
Harry shut his eyes against such thickness of mind. ‘No, Superintendent. I said ‘there’ meaning Florence, not the whole of Italy. Of course I’d been to Venice. Hasn’t everyone? May I continue?’ With a half smile, Jury nodded. ‘Please do.’ He shook his head and looked down at the pattern in the carpet—intricate, ornate, but not nearly as much as Harry Johnson.
‘I met her in Venice, as I said.’
‘And this was when?’
‘A year ago. Last summer, late in June, I think it was.’
‘That would have been shortly before this Paston woman came to England.’
‘That’s right.’ Harry leaned against his desk, tapping ash from his cigarette into a silver ashtray.
Dryer said, ‘You were involved with her, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Oh, no. I’d never met her before. I was there—to negotiate.’ Jury pictured that scene at the Jack and Hammer, all of them talking about Henry James . . . and then the elderly con man walked in. ‘Like Lambert Strether.’
‘What’s that got—’ Dryer couldn’t keep the annoyance out of his look at Jury’s interruptions.
Harry just cocked his head and said, ‘Ah! A policeman who reads Henry James! No, not like Strether. He was quite deliberately American.’
Dryer said, ‘Negotiate what, Mr. Johnson?’
Harry studied the coal end of his cigarette, his expression beautifully reflecting a man tom between something and something. Jury waited for Harry to fill in those blanks—blanks probably as much to Harry as to his visitors—torn between nothing and nothing. Harry’s sigh was resigned, as if he, the lone keeper of the truth, now had to give it up.
Jury ached to hit him.
‘Negotiating with Rosa Paston. For Hugh.’
Bloody hell! thought Jury. He knew what was coming.
‘It wasn’t I, Chief Inspector, who was involved with her. It was Hugh. He had been seeing her for some time and he wanted to put paid to that. He felt incredibly guilty—’
‘Bollocks,’ said Jury.
Dryer raised his hand in a gesture meant to fend off interruption. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, I tri
ed, you see, to buy her off with a large sum of money. She laughed.’
‘I don’t blame her,’ said Jury. He was making himself more and more unpopular with Tom Dryer, who shot him a look.
‘She said she wanted Hugh, not money. That she had already made plans to go to England. And that she was pregnant.’
‘She clearly wasn’t pregnant when she died,’ said Dryer. ‘The baby would have been born by now—-just. So where’s the child?’
Harry shook his head, smiling, as if he couldn’t quite believe police would pose this question. ‘Chief Inspector, I don’t know. Probably, the woman was lying in the first place.’
‘The autopsy will tell us, Harry. I’m sure you know that,’ said Jury.
‘What? That she was lying?’ Harry’s eyebrows went up a fraction.
‘She claimed the child was Mr. Gault’s?’ asked Dryer.
‘Yes. On that point she was crystal clear. But what she meant to accomplish by this impersonation of Glynnis Gault, I can’t imagine.’
‘It’s all a bloody game, isn’t it, Harry?’ said Jury, teeth clamped.
Harry had just lit a fresh cigarette, and through a scrim of smoke, looked at Jury. ‘Apparently, to Rosa Paston, it was.’
Jury’s annoyance with Tom Dryer was growing. But then he remembered how plausible Harry Johnson sounded.
Dryer went on as if that brief exchange hadn’t occurred. ‘Why would she go house hunting as Mrs. Gault? Did she think Hugh Gault would drop his wife and set up house with her?’
‘I assume so!’ Harry shrugged.
Jury walked and Mungo followed him, clearly not liking being held responsible any more than Harry did. They walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases standing on either side of a high arched window. Jury listened to Harry Johnson and ran his eyes over the books. He pulled one out called Gravity Revisited. A physicist’s nod to E. M. Forster? The title, he imagined, was deceptive in its simplicity and its hipness. Hugh Gault was one of the three authors, the other two being a Charles Borman, an American, and a Sven Skagaared, a Swede. He gleaned this information from the short biographical account on the back flap. Hugh must be a heavy hitter, for his writing buddies had won the Nobel Prize. There was one book by Hugh alone, one by Skagaared and a compilation of articles on superstring theory, edited by Hugh.
Jury said, ‘Hugh’s written quite extensively on quantum theory.’
‘He’s the superstring theorist.’
‘Funny, but when I talked to him yesterday, he said he wasn’t coauthoring a book with you, Harry.’
Harry’s pause was brief and untroubled. ‘He’s probably forgotten.’
‘What? A man forgetting he was writing a book?’
‘It hadn’t got to the point of writing, Superintendent. We’d been kicking the idea around, taking notes, research, that sort of thing.’
‘I see. Hugh forgot he was kicking the idea around.’
Harry sighed. ‘Look, Hugh’s forgotten a lot. He’s in serious denial because of his son’s death and his marriage. It wasn’t holding up under the weight of Robbie’s death. Maybe it’s all right now. Anyway, writing a book with me would hardly be uppermost in his mind.’
‘If we could get back to this Rosa Paston,’ said Dryer. ‘Why didn’t you simply admit you knew who she was? And the circumstances under which you knew her? Did you think the police would suspect you?’
‘You could do, but that wasn’t the reason.’
‘What, then?’ asked Dryer.
‘Had I told you about this, I wouldn’t be your prime suspect in this murder. Glynnis Gault would. I was trying to shield Glynnis, that’s all.’ Harry smiled wonderfully.
Mungo crawled back under the sofa.
‘The man’s lying, Tom. He’s a pathological liar!’ They were walking down the steps to the pavement and the car.
‘Still. . . you’re sure you didn’t mistake him?’
Jury was appalled. ‘Don’t tell me you believe him.’
Dryer fixed Jury with an amused glance. ‘You did.’
44
‘Mungo!’ Melrose set down the knife he’d been using to butter his roll. ‘For heaven’s sake, hire him! Melrose shook his head and picked up his fork. ‘He could be one of your sniffers, or whatever those dogs are called.’
Jury smiled. ‘Mungo doesn’t sniff. He thinks. Vivian’s point was that if Stoddard did permit animals inside—witness the wolfhound—why didn’t we take Mungo in to see Hugh?’
‘Can I have Mungo after they put Harry away?’
‘No. And I’m not at all certain we will be putting Harry away.’ Jury’s tone was glum.
‘Harry’s own masquerade is over, in any event.’
‘For me, it is. I can’t answer for Chief Inspector Dryer.’
They were served their main course by Young Higgins. ‘Fish,’ said Jury. ‘I win again.’
‘Harry denies everything?’
‘Everything.’
‘How did your Surrey policeman react?’
‘DCI Dryer wonders if perhaps I misunderstood.’
Melrose put down his fork. ‘You’re joking?’
‘He’s not completely discounting that possibility. After all, that story is pretty unbelievable, isn’t it? This, of course, is what Harry intended. Here I am, emotionally unstrung, insecure in my job. Dryer wonders if I didn’t ‘mistake’ what Harry said. ‘The dog came back’—for God’s sake!’
‘Harry’s whole elaborate scheme was meant to give that impression.’
Jury nodded. ‘That’s the beauty of it: the elaboration. What fun for him.’ Jury speared a piece of halibut, ate it, then said, ‘Look: these people did indeed see a woman with a boy, but none of them had heard about a disappearance. Marjorie Bathous hadn’t, the Shoesmiths hadn’t and nor had Myra Easedale. One or more of them had heard that ‘Glynnis Gault’ hadn’t returned to the estate agency and that Mrs. Bathous was extremely puzzled not being able to get hold of her. But there wasn’t one person who had heard Harry’s story, except me. I appeared to be supplying the details myself.’ Jury shook his head. ‘Beautiful, just beautiful.’
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘I’m not.’
Melrose didn’t contradict him. He said, ‘You think he murdered her?’
‘I know he murdered her. All of this has led up to that event. Remember? You yourself suggested that this might have been planned in view of some future event. Something in the future. And that wild story’s meant to discount it.’ Jury speared some more halibut. ‘I mean look at it: I insist that Harry murdered this Rosa Paston but why would anybody take me completely seriously? Me, with my vivid imagination and me, emotionally unstrung, telling this wild story? Think about it: What did Marjorie Bathous actually say? That Glynnis hadn’t brought the key back. And how strange it was that she, Marjorie, couldn’t get in touch with her. She didn’t actually say what Harry had said she did. She didn’t refer to a police investigation, nor did anyone else. Because there’d never been one.’
‘Why go to all this trouble, though? Why not simply shoot this Paston woman as she’s hanging out the wash, or in a dark alley, or toss her in the Grand Canal?’
‘I just explained that,’ said Jury, a bit cantankerous now. ‘And maybe because there might be too direct a link between Harry and her. When Rosa Paston is investigated, I’m sure it will turn up a lover, but I bet it won’t be named Harry Johnson. He’s too much on guard. She was probably his lover. In any event, she was close enough to him to carry out her part. It fascinates me that a few of the story’s components were true: the property search, the agent, the Shoesmiths, the woman who saw this alleged Glynnis standing by her car. Harry had instructed her to make herself seen. I’ll bet, because he had to connect Glynnis Gault with Winterhaus. And Ben Torres. Harry did go to see him.’
‘Ben Torres. I don’t know why it didn’t click when I talked to him: it was what he left out; it wasn’t what he did say but what he didn’t. Harry couldn’t tell Torres
this elaborate story because if he had, well, then Harry couldn’t deny it, could he? What Harry wanted to do was convince you. And now it appears there’s another story, or another chapter: Hugh Gault’s alleged mistress. This fellow really gets off on yarns.’ Melrose studied his wineglass. ‘Widening the list of suspects. It couldn’t be Hugh as he’s at the clinic. But his wife? She wouldn’t have been pleased to find out about the mistress.’
‘No. If she believed Harry’s story. They certainly found it hard to believe that Harry had told me what he did. Both of them, Glynnis and Hugh, found it laughable.’
‘So this Rosa Paston—Harry might have got the idea for the whole thing when he met her in Venice.’
‘What was his motive?’ Jury thought for a moment and speared a new potato. ‘I’m not sure there is one.’
‘You mean Harry did it because he could?’
‘Possibly. He’s so bloody vain, I wouldn’t put it past him. Make up a wild story to fool the police. Except there’s a dead body at the end of the road. That’s not fiction.’
‘What if he wanted to hurt Hugh Gault?’
‘To do that he’d have had to abduct the real Glynnis, not her stand-in. But since there was never any abduction—’
‘He had this story concocted a year ahead of time. But I don’t see how this could have hurt Glynnis.’
‘If she’s indicted for murder. I’d say that’s plenty hurtful.’ They ate for a minute in silence.
Melrose said, ‘Also, don’t forget, there’s you.’
‘Me?’ Jury shoved his plate away and said, ‘What do you fancy for the pud?’
Melrose immediately switched gears and said, ‘Gooseberry Fool.’
‘I say fruit and custard. Now, what about me?’
‘That he searched you out.’
Jury frowned as Young Higgins shuffled over to take their plates and shuffled off again. ‘But he had no idea who I was and anyway I’d never been to the Old Wine Shades before. He could hardly have expected to find me there.’
‘You really believe it was an accident?’
Jury saw Melrose taking out his cigarette case. ‘You’re not going to smoke?’
The Old Wine Shades Page 24
