Lady St. Leger threaded another needle and said, “Where did Superintendent Jury take him this morning? All I could get out of Tom was something about routine police business. And are we permitted to leave? I mean with police everywhere —”
Not exactly true. There were only two constables outside still going over the snow around the chapel. He was glad she’d asked the second question so that he could avoid the first. “We’re not under house arrest, Lady St. Leger. I’m sure we’re free to leave. So long as we don’t leave the country, I guess.” He had moved again behind Agatha to watch her progress on the unrecognizable unicorn.
“Durham?” said Agatha. “Why do you want to go there?”
Safe in the knowledge that Agatha would much rather sit here cozily with her great friend than visit a great cathedral, Melrose said, “Because it’s beautiful. I want to see the cathedral.”
“Very well,” she said, as if he needed her permission. “I shall sit here and work on this. It’s taking a great deal of time.” He was expected no doubt to thank her for the time she would spend in place of the money she wouldn’t. He didn’t, and she went on. “If you must know, I’m doing the Caverness coat-of-arms.”
He blinked. “Christmas is tomorrow, dear Aunt. You expect to have an entire coat-of-arms finished by then?”
“Given the difficulty, I should think you wouldn’t mind waiting. ‘Two lions ermine, one unicorn armed and unglued.’ ”
Elizabeth St. Leger bit her lip.
“ ‘Unguled,’ Agatha.”
• • •
He then went off to the music room to tell Tommy Whittaker that he could stop playing the Whittaker rendition of what used to be Chopin, get his togs on and start playing the real thing.
Tommy nearly broke his bridge hand, slamming down the cover over the keys. “Jerusalem Inn? You’re kidding. Aunt Betsy —”
“This afternoon Jerusalem Inn is Durham Cathedral.”
TWENTY-THREE
1
A CHRISTIAN mustering courage before the Romans opened the gates could not have looked with firmer resolve at the slavering lions as did Detective Sergeant Wiggins look at the Newcastle station before he detrained. It was no worse, though certainly no better (only smaller), than Victoria, King’s Cross, St. Pancras. Interesting architecturally, it still hadn’t the allure (although Sergeant Wiggins would scarcely have used the word) of St. Pancras, perhaps the headiest of all stations.
The Newcastle station had the usual consortium of tracks, tramps, smoke, and sausage rolls, the last served up in a seedy-sad-looking railway cafe. It had always been Wiggins’s feeling that train stations were one giant dustbin, something to be avoided. That went double for the London Underground, which was, unfortunately, unavoidable as it was the quickest way from his flat in Lambeth to New Scotland Yard. Jury recalled how relieved Wiggins had been to discover, over a year ago, that a specially equipped car prowled the tunnels, systematically cleaning them. He had to take the Bakerloo Line and Wiggins always contended that the Bakerloo and Northern were the dirtiest. Jury (his sergeant had often reminded him) was stuck with the Northern.
But Wiggins had little resistance to anything without his afternoon cuppa, and thus agreed to having it on a crisp-bag-littered table in the cafe. He cleaned the table first, of course, with paper napkins.
It was only after certain rituals had been performed in obeisance to the Allergy God, that Wiggins could be enjoined to give out. And Jury never hurried him in this direction as it only unnerved the sergeant who was, taken all in all, a storehouse of information with a skill at note-taking that surpassed Boswell. He crammed in details so small (and often useless) a high-powered telescope couldn’t have picked them out of a night sky thronged with stars. But certain facts were invaluable, and Jury had learned to pluck them from the Milky Way of Wiggins’s conversation.
Right now, Wiggins had his notebook open beside his unappetizing slice of soggy-crusted apple pie. “Annie Brown,” he read. “Born Brixton, 1925 — a long time before the riots, of course, but still a right run down old place.” There followed a thorough account of the old Brown abode and Brixton itself. “Schooling slim — took her O-levels but never went any further.” Jury was treated to as thorough a going-over of Annie’s schoolwork as any headmistress might have undertaken. Fortunately, the rest was dished up more rapidly. “Got an assistant’s post at a comprehensive; moved to Dartmouth and started out with first formers in a girls’ school called Beedle — more brawn than brains there. Finally ended up at Laburnum School.” Wiggins wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “According to the headmistress, she was ‘satisfactory,’ but I got the impression only just. Then she trots along one fine day and resigns, saying she’s got a better post.”
“We’ll just trot along ourselves and get the rest of it from her. You did a great job Wiggins, digging out that information with the dread sea air to contend with.” Jury looked at the awful pie. “Hope you live to tell Maureen about it.”
2
THEY were admitted to the Bonaventure School by the same rawboned girl, one of whose duties it must have been to greet visitors. Though Jury could find little of what might be called “greeting” in the whole visit.
This certainly extended to the posture of Miss Hargreaves-Brown, sitting at her desk with that injured look of Time Wasted. She did, however, rise as Jury introduced Detective Sergeant Wiggins. Wiggins was greeted with no more enthusiasm than Jury had been two days before.
She wore the same heavy wool dress, the dab of white handkerchief showing at the wrist, dark hose and blunt-nosed shoes. Her eyes were hard and flat like well-rubbed pennies.
But underneath her cool detachment, Jury thought he noticed a certain tension. That there were now two policemen instead of one might have suggested to her they were getting down to business.
Jury did: “It’s about Helen Minton, Miss Brown, and your relationship with her. It is just plain Annie Brown, isn’t it?”
Her hands tightened their clasp, but she said nothing, only looked off to her left, toward the high wide window on the open court. There were no sounds of children’s voices.
“The children,” said Jury, “I suppose are at their lessons. What children there are.” Slowly, she turned her head, the dull look replaced by a feverish one. “You would have liked to turn this into another Laburnum School, I imagine. But up here —” Jury shrugged. Still she said nothing. Jury took out his packet of cigarettes, lit one, and motioned to Wiggins.
Sergeant Wiggins, his notebook open, read off, with his usual lack of expression, the information he had given Jury in the cafe, the name, the dates. “ . . . and you left Laburnum the same time Miss Helen Minton did, to the day. Parmenger’s solicitors, with a bit of prodding by police” — Wiggins smiled his thin smile — “indicated that a yearly bequest of some thousand pounds had been made to Bonaventure School. Not much for a big place like this. Heat alone must cost you something fierce.” As if this called up visions of viruses, Wiggins took from his pocket-chemist supply a box of licorice cough drops and unzipped the tiny plastic strip.
Jury continued for him: “Edward Parmenger found you this post. Or bought it for you. My guess is there was a good deal of money changed hands to do something with the school. But more to keep you quiet.”
She tried to muster the old Hargreaves-Brown manner, but the starch had gone out of both her and her name. “I’ve done nothing illegal,” was all she said.
“Depends, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I was thinking of Robin Lyte.”
“Robin? What about him?” Her face was like a Greek mask, expressionless.
“My guess is he’s Helen Minton’s son. You were the teacher Helen told, worse luck. I assume you told Edward Parmenger. And Parmenger was a Puritan and protective of his son. It would have been bad enough in any circumstances to have his ward get herself pregnant. But pregnant by her own cousin —”
There was a convu
lsive sound. Annie Brown was laughing.
• • •
“Cousins!” she said. “It was rather more incestuous than that, Superintendent. They were half brother and sister.” That she had tripped up Scotland Yard seemed to please her immensely. “I see you don’t know everything, then.”
“We’d be happy if you’d tell us.”
With elaborate calm, she studied her nails. “You are quite right about the money, the school, and the confidence. That is, the confidence that both Helen and her father placed in me —”
Feeling perhaps the confidence misplaced, Jury asked: “When you say ‘her father,’ I assume you mean Edward Parmenger.”
“Of course. Neither Helen nor the boy — Frederick? — knew of the liaison between Edward Parmenger and his sister-in-law. But, good heavens, I imagine you can see why he’d be in a state.”
“Parmenger told you this? But why?”
“Mr. Jury, I am not a fool —”
“I don’t doubt that for a moment,” said Jury.
But she either didn’t notice the ice in his voice or didn’t care, now she was so thoroughly sure of her advantage. “When I notified him about Helen —”
“You ‘notified’ him.”
“Why, yes, of course. The girl could hardly stay at Laburnum School, could she? The family had to know.”
“Shouldn’t that have been the job of the headmistress, though, rather than one of her staff?”
She seemed to be turning this over. “Naturally, I considered that. But in the end, well, one wants to save a young girl any possible embarrassment —”
“One wants,” said Jury, “to get on in the world.” He forestalled the obvious objection she might make about this assessment of her motives by asking, “And Edward Parmenger told you about Helen’s and Frederick’s true relationship? I’m surprised.”
Annie Brown merely shrugged. “He was — caught off balance, perhaps. And I am the sort of person in whom one confides. Helen did.”
Apparently, Helen had. Jury could only assume that Miss Brown was protean; if it suited her purposes, she could fawn. “My impression of Mr. Parmenger was that he only wanted to be rid of the problem. I did not get the impression of a man of great strength of character. He went into quite a rage, really. I’ve a feeling it was his son who had the character, in a way. I mean the determination to get what he wanted.” She sat back in her old, creaking chair. “You see how well he’s done.”
“I do indeed, Miss Hargreaves-Brown,” said Jury diplomatically. “But it’s not going to do you a damned bit of good if you’re thinking of putting the bite on Frederick Parmenger. He’s the publish-and-be-damned type”
Her eyes hardened again. “I beg your pardon?”
“Go on about Helen.”
“Well . . . I had always wanted the post of head of a school. All I was asked to do was keep Helen here until — the child was born, see that the baby was adopted, and send Helen back.”
Like a rejected parcel, thought Jury. “No wonder she came here.”
“I was most distressed, I can tell you. The understanding was that she would stay away. Right afterwards, Mr. Parmenger sent her on a world tour.”
“The world can look like a nutshell if you’re miserable.”
Miss Hargreaves-Brown shrugged. “She was a stupid girl. Ought to have married and settled down and had children.”
“She had one already. You wouldn’t tell her anything, I take it?”
“No. You think me some sort of monster for my involvement in all of this. Would it have been a kindness — no matter the ethics — to let her know her child was, well, backward? There was some sort of genetic damage. With that close blood-tie —”
“An old wives’ tale.”
“Old wives’ tales are sometimes true,” she snapped.
“What about Danielle Lyte?”
She started. Jury felt he had regained some advantage. “A young woman — and her husband, who was a drunk, I discovered too late — who was willing to take Robin. Again, for a — fee.”
“That’s where she got the money the husband scarpered with? And you took him back when Danielle died. Kids certainly get passed around up here, don’t they?”
She rested her chin on her folded hands and smiled slightly. “As I told you, I’m not without feeling. Of course, the school took him. Who else would? When he was old enough to get by on his own, we could no longer keep him. Sixteen is our limit, unless the circumstances are extraordinary.”
“Funny, I’d think that boy’s circumstances just that.”
She rose. “I’m really very busy. Is there anything else?”
“Not at the moment,” said Jury.
• • •
“Let’s have a drink at the Cross Keys,” said Jury, as they approached the iron gate. “I need one myself to take the chill off.”
There was a buzz and the gate opened when, from behind, came a light rustle of branches.
“Good-bye,” said the Tree. “And God bless.”
“What’s that?” asked Wiggins, looking everywhere.
“The trees up here aren’t like the ones in London. They talk.” From his pocket Jury took a small bag, screwed the top tightly, and called to the Tree. “Catch!”
Wiggins huddled down into his scarf and regarded his superior-gone-mad who watched the white bag disappear in the branches.
“Good-bye and God bless.”
• • •
Having all but bounced the two sallow-looking young women from the coziest table near the fire, Wiggins, his bunty sandwich and buttered beer before him, seemed happier. “I can’t think,” he said, “from what you’ve told me, anyone who’d have a better motive.”
“To keep Helen Minton from spreading the word? Well, I’ll tell you: Miss Brown is probably quite capable of murder if it would benefit her. But in this case, she might simply try on her look-what-you-owe me approach instead and put the bite on Helen. Blackmail, perhaps. But to keep the word from who?”
“This is a good sandwich,” said Wiggins. “Chips in a roll; whoever’d’ve thought? You don’t think it was Frederick Parmenger?”
Jury assumed he was talking about blackmail and not bunty sandwiches. “She might have tried; he wouldn’t have paid. I know she was lying about part of it; Danny Lyte didn’t just happen along. I’m going over to the Minton cottage and I want you to go back to the Northumbria station and check up on that woman. She worked for an Isobel Dunsany. Miss Dunsany said she was a good worker and had excellent references. I wonder if they came from Edward Parmenger.”
Wiggins took this down in his notebook and went back to his sandwich. “Aren’t you eating, sir? Some food’d do you good.”
“I only eat mushy peas,” said Jury, drinking off his pint.
TWENTY-FOUR
1
IT WAS turning dark and there was a dull light showing in the downstairs window of Helen Minton’s cottage. The door was standing open.
• • •
Frederick Parmenger, drink in hand, was looking at the picture of Washington Old Hall. When Jury spoke, Parmenger looked around at him as if he’d either been expecting him to come, or didn’t care, now that Jury was here. He nodded toward the space above the mantel, “She took my picture down.”
“Maybe she didn’t like looking at herself.”
Parmenger was silent for a moment. “What,” the man asked dully, taking in the room with a wave of his arm, “am I supposed to do with all this?”
Jury got another glass from the cabinet, sat down on the chair opposite him, and said, “Have another drink, I suppose.” He poured out a measure for each of them. But Parmenger was not the type to sit and make a boozy confession to police. The silence descended like winter dusk out in the blighted garden where cold had turned the dahlia stems to sticks, and thrown a membrane of frost across the field flowers. The old clock ticked for a minute while neither of them spoke. Parmenger’s silence was more draining than histrionics would have been: a
quick gesture of his hand suggesting he’d like to throw his glass at the substitute painting. In breaking the silence, Jury could almost hear the sound of breaking glass. His comment was deliberately mild: “You really liked her, didn’t you?”
“Liked her? Yes.” His tone was wooden. He drank half of his whiskey and fell silent again.
“But you didn’t make a point of seeing her often?”
“Helen was not terribly interested in seeing me.” He reached for the bottle and slopped out more. “Helen did not really like me.” Then he looked at Jury and smiled slightly. “You think I’m drunk — which I am, I often am — and that in my besotted state I am going to let all sorts of cats out of bags, tell you all the secrets I’ve kept buried for so long?” He slid down in his chair. “I will give you this: your technique is more soothing than Sergeant Cullen’s.”
Jury said nothing.
Parmenger fixed Jury with his still very clear artist’s eye.
“ ‘Patience on a monument,’ eh? You won’t sandbag me; you’ll just wait me out.” He took another drink.
“I would do, maybe. If I knew what I was waiting for.”
“We none of us know that, do we?” It was said rather simply, without rancor, and without Parmenger’s usual irony. “Amateurish work.” He nodded toward the picture of the Old Hall. “I could never make Helen out, not really. Although I was supposed to be the smart one. I am a genius.” He took another drink. Yet Parmenger seemed to be getting soberer, not drunker.
“You say that as if you didn’t care much one way or the other.”
“I say only what the critics say.” He looked at Jury, smiling slightly. “And if Seaingham doesn’t know who is and who isn’t, how the bloody hell should I know?” His tone changed as he added, “Nice chap, Charlie.”
“Helen Minton seemed to appreciate your painting.” Jury was looking at the abstract on the opposite wall. “It’s surprising that anyone who’s so good at portraiture would be appreciated mainly for his abstract —”
“You don’t know sod-all about painting, Superintendent,” said Parmenger, quite matter-of-factly. “Neither do most of the people I know, even some of my fellow-artists.”
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