‘Is there anyone else who might have?’
It was then Mr. Purdy appeared. ‘Madam, something’s bad, something’s wrong—’
‘Mr. Purdy, can’t you see I’m busy here? This is the police.’ About time, Mr. Purdy thought. ‘You remember that woman come for Timmy last year?’
Hermione Copley-Sutton knew, she had suspected at the time, that day last year—knew this would come back to haunt her. She worked her mouth in nervous silence, delaying. ‘Let me think, now . . .’
‘We believe she was interested in one of the children here. One of the boys,’ said Jury.
Mrs. Copley-Sutton frowned. There was no reason not to tell the truth, was there? She hadn’t committed any crime. ‘But she looked so utterly different then. Yes, you’re quite right—she came here to collect one of the boys. I believe she was his aunt . . . ?’ She believed nothing of the sort. There had been a donation to the school. She was wearing part of it, the Sonia Rykiel dress, purchased at one of those shops on Upper Sloane Street and still smart after a year. That was the thing about really good clothes, they simply didn’t wear out their welcome.
‘What was the boy’s name?’
‘Oh. Timmy. Timmy Radcliffe.’
‘She took Timmy out, did she?’
‘Why, yes. He was gone most of the day I think.’
‘Excuse me, madam, but I was lookin’ out t’window. Timmy and that dog, you recall that dog—’
Timmy had liked that dog. She said this, and the policeman seemed to stiffen.
‘What dog?’
‘Same one as was here before. Timmy went with him.’
‘Where are they?’
Mr. Purdy shook his head. ‘All I know is, Timmy was playing with that dog’—he pointed toward the back of the building—’and next I looked, they was gone.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Bout twenty minutes, I’d guess.’
Such a short time. Jury was furious, more with himself for spending those twenty or so minutes in the pub than at her for allowing her charges to be checked out like coats.
In another moment, knowing words would simply waste time, he thanked her and walked out. He got into the car, slammed the door and let the engine idle. Where would he take the lad? Winterhaus? London? Anywhere. Anywhere he damned well wanted to.
While he maneuvered the car along the drive, the mobile phone Dryer had given him in one hand together with the scrap of paper with the numbers of the station and the house Dryer was going to. He tried the station. Dryer was back. Jury told him what he’d found.
‘Buggered off to London, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Dryer.
Jury said he was going to Winterhaus first.
‘When I get done here with some work . . . ring me if you find them at that house.’
Jury said he would and flipped the phone shut.
It took another twenty minutes to drive to Winterhaus.
The empty house filled Jury with a kind of dread. It seemed for a moment bent with the sadness of recent vacancy, as if it had seen its occupants leave for the last time.
When he’d seen no car in front of the house, he assumed that Harry must have gone to London. Or had he been here and gone? Just now?
He went out to the patio and looked down the lawn. No sign of Tilda. He walked to the Wendy house. Nor here. Jury was looking, fruitlessly, he knew, for some telltale sign of their having stopped here. Why he wasted minutes doing this, he didn’t know.
Harry, he was sure, would include Tilda as part of his cleanup, for Tilda might have seen him, might even have been in the house when he and Rosa Paston had been here. And Tilda, unlike Timmy, could talk up a storm.
What little girl?
That had been the only fault line Jury had seen in Harry Johnson’s defenses—if he believed there was even a small chance that Tilda had seen him, well . . .
He thumbed through his small notebook, found Brenda Hastings’s number, called. He listened to the telephone ring in the empty house. Then he called Surrey police again and asked Dryer if someone there could check with Brenda Hastings to see if Tilda was home.
Jury climbed into the car once more, drove fast down the drive and headed for London.
51
Three hours later, Harry came to the door of his Belgravia house and smiled upon seeing Jury. ‘Richard! Or should I say ‘Superintendent,’ as we appear to be at odds these days?’
Jury forced a smile. ‘Harry.’
‘Come in, come in.’
Did the son of a bitch have to be so expansive? Jury walked into the drawing room and sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘We finally tracked down the lad, the one masquerading as Rosa Paston’s nephewr Timmy Radcliffe.’
‘Oh?’
‘So did you, Harry.’
‘So did I what?’
‘Track him down.’
Harry looked puzzled. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about the Lark Rise Special School, the boy you took away from there just a few hours ago.’
As if light had honestly dawned, Harry’s eyes glittered. ‘What boy?’
It echoed so closely Harry’s earlier question. What story?, that Jury could hardly sit there, outwardly calm, inwardly seething. ‘You know what your trouble is, Harry?’
‘No, but I bet you’re going to tell me.’ Harry grinned. There was just enough of the sly child in it to turn the smile to a grin. ‘Care for a drink?’ He rose and went to the cabinet where he kept the liquor.
Jury sighed. ‘No, I don’t want a drink, Harry. Where are Tim and Tilda?’
Harry turned from the bottle and glass. ‘Tilda? Who the devil is Tilda? Are you going to hold me responsible for every missing child in Surrey?’
Jury looked at him. ‘I didn’t say child; I didn’t say missing; I didn’t say Surrey.’
‘Wow!’ Harry whirled dround in mock wonder. ‘That was one of your trick questions-that police try out on suspects! Please, Richard. If this Tilda is mentioned in the same breath as Timmy, she’s clearly all three.’
Harry’s logic was, as usual, both flagrant and flawless. Damn. It was hard to think anyone who was as quick as he was could at the same time pretend to the extent that he could. Or maybe it was all imagination or madness.
Harry went on: ‘I’m disappointed in you to think I’d fall for something like that. Sure you won’t have that drink?’ He held up his own finger or two of whiskey in a squat tumbler.
‘Yes, I’m sure. Mind if I have a look round?’
‘My house? Don’t be absurd; of course I mind.’ Harry lowered himself into the deep cushions of an armchair.
‘I can get a warrant.’
‘To search the house? I don’t think so, otherwise you’d have come with one.’
‘What have you got to hide?’
‘It has nothing to do with hiding. It has a lot to do with my civil liberties.’
‘Hell, yes. We certainly want to protect those. Two kids aged eight and nine—what about their rights?’ Jury knew this was stupid talk. You didn’t argue with the Harry Johnsons of this world. You didn’t lock horns with sociopaths. You either walked in and took what you wanted or you didn’t go in at all. There were some expert safecrackers who believed that, too.
‘You know, I recalled something you said about Mungo in the pub. Something to the effect that he’d ‘always been like that.’ Had always hated your cat. It was a comment no one but an animal’s owner would make. I should have seen that.’ Jury shook his head.
Mungo could not go down into the basement. The door was locked and bolted. So he lay down outside the door and thought about the situation.
They couldn’t yell for help because their mouths were pulled shut by that tape. They couldn’t use their hands, either, as they were tied together behind their backs.
And here they were, down there, with the Spotter actually sitting in the living room, sitting almost over them, talking.
Life just wasn’t fair.
This was not something Mungo had just discovered.
According to Chief Inspector Dryer, there had been no report to Surrey police about a missing person—-or persons—and dog. That’s what really gave the police a chuckle, one of the things that would keep anyone from believing there’d been a kidnapping. ‘You kept a lot of plates in the air, didn’t you, Harry? I must say the juggling was first rate.’
Harry drank his whiskey. ‘No.’
‘Oh, come on, Harry. You’re not going to tell me that none of this happened? None of that story you told me over those evenings in the Old Wine Shades?’
Harry looked as if he were truly considering this story. ‘Well, some of it must have happened, I expect, since a woman was indeed murdered in that house, but none of it has anything to do with me.’ Harry flashed Jury a smile.
‘Rosa Paston. You did know the victim.’
‘Of course. I simply mean that I have no idea what this woman was doing in that house. Or why she pretended to be Glynnis Gault.’
It was with an effort that Jury rose. ‘I’ll be off then.’
‘But you just got here. I’m enjoying your company.’
You would, wouldn’t you?
Harry said, ‘I’ll be going over to the Shades tonight, if you care to join me.’ Harry smiled. ‘Around ninish. You know.’ Harry took a swig of his drink.
Sitting there with the most sublime confidence Jury had ever seen. Not a care in the world, have you, Harry? Jury supposed he’d just have to keep trying. Harry would keep on smiling, but he might let something slip. ‘I might just do that.’
Jury looked at him while Harry finished off his whiskey and, even though he knew there was nothing personal in what Harry was doing, felt oddly betrayed.
‘Good-bye, Harry.’
52
Jury left Belgravia and went to see Johnny Blakeley at West End Central. Johnny headed up the pedophile unit, here where he spent a good three fourths of his time. He was the most dedicated detective Jury had ever known, except for Brian Macalvie, in Devon. Johnny had been suspended once and very nearly twice. He had broken into a run-down house in Earl’s Court where some kids, just teenagers, were using a camcorder to shoot dirty films. It was what they knew, wasn’t it? Their ‘stars’ were three kids between three and seven. No warrant. Johnny had nothing by way of probable cause; he knew he couldn’t make a charge stick, but—what the hell?—he tried charging them with kidnapping and reckless endangerment all the same. Still, Johnny had gotten the little kids to what he hoped was a safe place.
The solicitor for the oldest boy, who had been operating the camcorder, laughed the charges right out the door, along with his client.
The client hadn’t been laughing, though, not in Earl’s Court, not after Johnny smashed the camcorder and started wiping the floor with him. Johnny could scare these amateurs to death. Professionals, too, if he could get them alone long enough.
After Jury told him the story, Johnny looked at him, half smiling. ‘What would I do? Rich, if there’s one person you don’t need advice from it’s me. But you’re right; there’s no way you’ve got probable cause. This is even worse than the Hester Street business, when it comes to getting a warrant. You won’t get one.’
‘Well, it won’t hurt to try. I’m still going to try.’
Johnny was thinking. Then he said, ‘Can you get this man Johnson out of the house? If he lives alone—’ Johnny shrugged.
‘Oh, I can get him out of the house. He’s out of the house this evening. Invited me to have a drink with him, which I’m going to. He’s going to give something away sometime. Me, I’m just going to keep after him. No, the problem is keeping him out of the house to give me time to have a look round.’
‘Because if you could, and those kids are there, who’s to know? What’s to prove you were there?’ Again, Johnny shrugged.
‘Harry is anything but stupid. As long as he’s got me in the pub, he knows where I am.’
‘What’s to keep him from disposing of these kids right now?’
‘I don’t think killing them is what he has in mind. I don’t think he’d do that. Otherwise, why bring them to London? If that’s what he intended to do, he could have killed them right there in Surrey. No, I think he wants to scare them into silence. Well, Timmy Radcliffe is silent, anyway. He’s autistic.’
‘Then why bother kidnapping him at all? Unless, of course, the Radcliffe kid might have other means of communicating—’
‘I’ve got a man watching his house.’
Johnny leaned forward, said, as if in confidence, ‘Look, you get him out of the house and I—’
‘No.’ Jury was emphatic. ‘Absolutely not, Johnny. You can’t touch it.’
Johnny sat back.
‘But thanks. Thanks a lot for the offer. I’ll think of something.’ Like what?
‘Listen, on a more cheerful note, Linda—she’s Social Services—told me that the two you especially wanted to stay together have been placed in the same home.’
‘Rosie and Pansy?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’ Johnny dived a hand into his desk drawer and came out with a list of sorts. ‘Yep, they’re in the same place.’
‘Where?’
Johnny was copying off the information onto a page of his notebook. ‘You know I can’t divulge that information.’ He tore off the page where he’d written the address and handed it to Jury. ‘Here.’
Jury took it, smiled. ‘Thanks, Johnny. You’re the salt of the earth.’
Johnny nodded toward the page, saying, ‘The thing is, though, if you turn up at that house, they’re going to know someone leaked the information and maybe complain. Remember, I don’t want to get in bad with Social Services. They trim a lot of corners for me, especially Linda.’
‘That was nice of you and Linda. Tell her I appreciate it.’
Johnny looked back at the paper again. ‘Rosie’s even going to infants’ school.’
‘My lord, that was fast.’
‘Well, it’s a public school, so it’s easier to bend the rules.’ Johnny took back Jury’s notebook page and wrote on it. ‘I think Linda said it was right round the corner from where the family lives, in Chelsea.’
The Piccadilly and Green Park tube stations were equidistant from Hatchards bookshop and Fortnum & Mason. He took the Jubilee Line to Green Park, only one stop but he didn’t feel like walking or taking a car; driving around Piccadilly was merely frustrating. You could troop off to the Outer Hebrides in the time it takes to get around Piccadilly Circus in a car.
Jury had always felt something akin to affection for Fortnum’s, though he couldn’t say why. It was not a venue in which he ordinarily shopped; it was too expensive for a CID man’s pay. But its window decorations employed more imagination and its arrangement of tins and fruit and sweets were given to more artful staging than a West End theater. Look at those pears and plums in their catastrophically expensive produce section! Or on the other side of the floor the fowl and fish, a smoked salmon sliced so thin it fell away in folds, like the skirt of a pink silk gown, transparent slices of cucumber neatly tucked into the folds. And that perfect hell for dieters, the pastry counters. You could eye those little meringue swans filled with strawberry chiffon, or that devilish chocolate mousse dusted with cocoa and frills of more chocolate and make your salivary glands weep. It looked rich enough for a lifetime of desserts. There was a rum cake that leaked its liquor onto the plate, a coconut cake adorned with thin shavings of white chocolate, a lemon tart that glowed as if lit from within.
He had never seen food so hypnotic in his life. He could taste every single thing in those glass cases. From a little whippet of a salesperson, Jury bought one of the meringue swans and a more pedestrian cream doughnut.
As he walked back through Fortnum’s out to the street, he doubted if there was a better pastry shop in Vienna or Paris or heaven. He stopped to eat his cream doughnut and look in Fortnum’s windows, where the mannequins looked electrified either by his lo
oking at them or by their handsome outfits. The designer dresses they’d been clothed in won.
Next he went to Hatchards, a bookshop that leaked learning the way that rum cake had leaked rum. No matter how many customers there were, this bookshop always had a sort of hush to it, as if the air were padded with cotton or clouds. He held this cloud fancy in his mind as he walked down the circular stair to the children’s section. There he looked up the Maurice Sendak books, pulling out Outside over There and the one he particularly wanted, Really Rosie. He leafed through it . . . well, more read it standing there. Then he put Rosie under his arm and read again about the ice baby in Outside over There.
Did anyone understand children better than Maurice Sendak? Psychologist? Teacher? Social worker? He sincerely doubted it.
Chelsea was about as far from Hester Street in spirit as it was in distance. In place of seediness and drabness, here was a sort of eloquence, a paean to upper-middle-class values. Snobbish, too, it could be, but he didn’t think that would influence Rosie or Pansy. They’d seen too much awfulness to be impressed by the pretensions of society.
The address Johnny had given him was one of the mews cottages which he stood now regarding. Artfully arranged little dwellings that so pleased foreigners. It was an old stable block: it was funny, really, how there was such cachet in living in a stall that once had housed a horse. But it was so lovely that Rosie and Pansy were living in a dollhouse: ivy, climbing roses, pots of bright zinnias. All of the doors were painted in pastels.
The school, Johnny had said, was near—around the comer— and he came to it in less than five minutes. It was a building of old brick and wide marble stairs. Gathered at the bottom of the stairs were a number of women, parents, probably. Others were getting out of BMWs, Mercedeses and fancy smaller cars. He wondered if Rosie’s new foster mum was among them. The women all looked sleek, whether they were wearing Liberty linen or old jeans.
He looked through the fence at the little playground where the children were now lined up and ready to move, double file, into the school and then out again to their mothers. He looked hard for Rosie among them, but couldn’t find her. With their blue and gray uniforms, the children all bore a curious resemblance to one another. A few had apples and one tiny girl a pear, which she was mashing all over her face, trying to eat it.
The Old Wine Shades Page 28
