Awakened by a sharp tug on consciousness, Melrose sat straight up in bed and looked wildly around.
“The grocer!” he said to himself. “My God, the grocer!”
He reached for the phone, realized he hadn’t the number, started to buzz Ruthven, changed his mind and, fueled by like amounts of fury and fright, ran downstairs to the library to the phone and his small phone book. He found the number and yanked up the receiver. Although Jury probably wouldn’t be there, he dialed and heard the phone ring in the Islingon flat. He listened to the repeated brr-brr and then an answering machine switched on. Thank God, at least there was a chance of getting a message to him. After Jury announced himself and told the caller to leave a message after the tone, Melrose waited. There was a series of clicks and then the tone, which went on and on. Who in hell was calling Jury? The cast of the Royal Shakespeare Company? The Bolshoi Ballet? The “tone” was not a tone; it was a total eclipse of all other sound bites. Melrose slammed down the receiver to call-where? New Scotland Yard? Jury wouldn’t be there, surely. Hadn’t Jury said he was going to have Christmas dinner with Carole-anne… last name? last name? and Mrs., Mrs., Mrs.-hell! How could he get their numbers if he didn’t know their last names. Zimmerman, Zinneman, Walterson… Hell!
I’ll have to get going. He was glad he’d fallen asleep fully dressed.
When he turned to the library door, Ruthven was there. “Can I do something for you, m’lord?”
“Absolutely. Get me some tea and the car keys. I’m going back to London.”
Ruthven frowned. “You’re going back, m’lord? But you only just returned two hours ago.”
Melrose had passed by him and was already taking the stairs two at a time. “That’s right.”
“Which car?” Ruthven called up the stairs.
“Batmobile.”
The three of them sat about, relaxed and drinking whiskey, beer and sherry, talking about old times they’d shared-pints at the Angel pub, that rock concert at the Hammersmith Odeon, all of those prospective tenants for the flat upstairs that Carole-anne had turned away… Until Stan Keeler came along, and voilà!
Primly, Carole-anne said, “It’s because he was most suitable, that’s all. I could tell Stan was a responsible, dependable person.”
“Oh, sure,” said Jury.
“Old times, old times,” said Mrs. Wasserman, still caught up in that cloud of nostalgia we all keep our heads in from time to time. And why not?
“Only the times can’t be that old, Mrs. Wasserman,” said Jury. “Carole-anne’s only fifteen.”
Carole-anne, the soberest of the three, picked a copy of The Lady from the coffee table and gave Jury a couple of thwacks with it. She was wearing a dress of some sort of glimmering material that shifted, in different lights, from violet to turquoise. Jury warded off the blows with his forearm.
Carole-anne stopped the magazine in midthwack and looked up at the ceiling. “That your phone, Super?” They fell deathly quiet in that way people do when trying to make out sound that vanishes just as one listens for it. Carole-anne shrugged and said, “If it is, your answering machine’ll pick it up. Aren’t you glad I got you one?”
“No. It never works right.” Jury yawned, completely full of the best turkey and stuffing he could ever recall eating, a dinner, on the whole, as good as the dinner at Ardry End, though in a different way.
“Yes, it does. It does for me, anyway. You’re one of those people machines don’t like is what I think. I’m surprised your watch runs right with you setting off negative vibes the way you do. Next, you need a cell phone. Like that call right then-” she looked up at the ceiling “-you wouldn’t’ve missed that call if you’d had your cell phone.”
“I’m glad I didn’t, then. You want a cell phone ringing during Christmas dinner? The world is a damned call box these days.”
“Never mind. I think it’s scandalous the department doesn’t issue cell phones. Scandalous!”
“You’re probably right, but I’d send out the same vibes over it, too.”
“It’s a disgrace, Mr. Jury,” said Mrs. Wasserman. “With the life you have to lead. Yes, Carole-anne is right.” She made her way out to the kitchen to start the next round of fat-fueling food. Dessert was to be Christmas pudding and trifle. She was weaving ever so slightly and turned to wag her finger at Carole-anne. “But don’t call him negative, Carole-anne. You should be ashamed, with all he’s done for you!” She went on to the kitchen, calling for Carole-anne to come and help her with the dessert.
Carole-anne followed, carrying her beer, and saying, “All I done for him, I’d say!”
Jury smiled up at the ceiling, wondering if that had been his telephone, and if he should check out the answering machine to see if it was working for once.
He had called Elizabeth Woburn, probably interrupted her Christmas dinner, but she had been quite civil nonetheless, and said he would be welcome, though not on Christmas Day, of course; if he could come Boxing Day or the day after? He really had to let Mickey know what had happened at Chewley Hill.
He called to Mrs. Wasserman that he was just going up to his flat for a few minutes and would be right back. Of course, she couldn’t hear him because Carole-anne was in there with her, talking a mile a minute.
Upstairs, Jury checked the answering machine, found nothing on it but that damned clicking sound and wondered into what answering machine graveyard the call had gone, assuming that it had been his telephone that rang. He dialed Haggerty’s number.
“Mickey,” said Jury, “I’ve got something that may be helpful, maybe not, but-”
“Hold it while whoever’s choking on a turkey bone coughs it up-quiet! for God’s sakes.”
There was the briefest lull while Mickey turned back to pick up the conversation and then the background noise erupted at even greater pitch, amplified by a host of giggles. Christmas was certainly giggling season. He was relieved that Mickey and his family were having what sounded like a genuinely good time. It might be the last good time.
“Sorry, Richie, you were saying-?”
“I found the people who adopted Alexandra Tynedale’s baby. It was a girl; she named it Olivia Croft.”
“What? Why would she do that, for God’s sakes? She wants to keep the birth a secret and then names the baby Croft. Why?”
“An acknowledgment is my guess. According to the woman who runs the place, giving up a child is the most painful thing a woman has to do. Alexandra said to Kitty that it was the worst thing that ever happened to her. Oh, of course, the adoptive parents would change the name, but at least the child would be a Croft to Alexandra until that happened. The couple themselves, named Woburn, are both dead now but an aunt is still alive and living in Chipping Camden. Her name’s Elizabeth Woburn. I’m seeing her tomorrow, noonish. Little Olivia was an only child and Elizabeth Woburn sounded extremely fond of her.”
“I’ll be damned. Well, good work, but my money’s still on Kitty or Erin.”
“Maybe.” Jury sat with one shoe off, an ankle across the other knee, trying to work a pebble or whatever it was out of his sock. Maybe, but Jury didn’t think so; he didn’t think Kitty Riordin had shot Simon Croft. Erin? Perhaps. Admittedly, this would come under the heading of “hunch.” “What about Maisie? Or, rather, Erin? What did she say?”
“Zilch, zero-nothing until her lawyer shows up. What? No, I told you”-Mickey had turned away from the phone-“come on, don’t ‘But, Dad’ me. Go ask your mother.” Mickey laughed, returned to Jury. “That’s discipline, right? ‘Ask your mother’?” Voices rose again in the background. “Listen: I stopped by the Croft house earlier and-” He was cut off again by a child’s screaming demands. “Rich, this place is an effing madhouse. I want to talk to you; I want to show you something at the Croft house. Whenever you’re done with whatever monster celebration you’ve got going, do you think you could meet me there?”
“It’s pretty much wound down, except for dessert, which I don’t think I could eat anyway. I could meet you there, sure. I could do it now, if you like.”
“Say, a half hour or forty-five minutes?”
“Right.” Jury hung up, checked the answering machine again and would happily have thrown it out of the window, except he’d never hear the end of it from Carole-anne.
Melrose sat in one of Boring’s soft leather armchairs as if he’d been painted there. His hand was not so much holding a glass of whiskey as it was wedded to it. He had hoped the drink would unstick his mind, but it didn’t seem to be helping.
Snow Hill! That was it; that was the name of DCI Haggerty’s station. The Snow Hill station. The telephone was sitting on a table at his elbow and he put in a call. He asked if Superintendent Jury happened to be there or if they knew where he was. Jury hadn’t been seen since that morning, the sergeant said and, no, DCI Haggerty was at home. It was Christmas, after all. Melrose wished people would stop saying that. He asked for Haggerty’s home phone and was refused it. Melrose inveighed against this refusal, insisting it was an emergency and the sergeant said, yes, sir, it always is.
Damn! He decided to try Jury again. What he got was the same sandblast tone that went on and on and-stopped! He was permitted now to leave a message at least. He got through the first bit of what he wanted to say and then click click click click. The damned machine cut him off. He dialed the number again and heard the endless tone.
Melrose slammed down the receiver. Even if Jury hadn’t the foggiest notion as to what the truncated message meant, he would at least know that Melrose was trying to get in touch with him and that it was important. Maybe he’d call Ardry End. Yes, he probably would. Ruthven could tell him-wait! Ruthven didn’t know he was at Boring’s. Melrose dialed again and when Ruthven answered (thank the lord a person on the other end), Melrose told him he was at Boring’s and that if Superintendent Jury called to tell him not to speak to anybody until Melrose had had a chance to talk to him.
There. Not much, but something was better than nothing. Catching Young Higgins’s eye, Melrose made a circle over the rim of his glass, signaling for a refill. Then he continued to think. Who else, who, who, who did he and Jury know in common? The Crippses. Not bloody likely Jury would be checking in there. Melrose ran the cold glass across his forehead, glad of the ice cube, even though it diluted (slightly) the effect of the whiskey, and slid down in his chair. He felt he should be actively finding Jury-
Keeler! Was he in town? Was it possible that club was open on Christmas Day? Melrose motioned Higgins to come over, which the old porter did, if slowly. “Higgins, would you please get a number for a club called the Nine-One-Nine, ring it and see if it’s open and ask if a Mr. Keeler is doing his gig there? Thanks.”
Young Higgins frowned. “Gig, sir?”
“Ah… never mind, Higgins, just ask if the club is open tonight.”
The old porter shuffled off, leaving Melrose to drum his fingers on the arm of his chair. Young Higgins was back in record time telling Melrose that yes, the club was open.
“Get me a cab, now!”
The Nine-One-Nine was a place he’d never have found unless he’d known exactly where it was, a half dozen steps down and bearing no identification except for its street number. He had been here years before, after that rock concert and just before seeing Vivian off on the Orient Express.
There was an air of smoke and languor about the club that put Melrose in mind of those 1930s prewar Berlin clubs that exist only in films and imagination. He stood at the bar and ordered another whiskey (his fourth tonight? fifth?). As he glanced at the other patrons, he thought he detected a few approving glances from the women and put this down to his black clothes. He was still wearing them.
When the group (what was its name?) broke, Melrose immediately pushed his way up to the small stage area and cut in front of the two girls hanging on Stan’s leather jacket and every word. “Mr. Keeler? You don’t remember me, but-”
“Hey! Your earlship, sure I remember. What’s up?”
“I’ve got to find Richard Jury and don’t even know his address and as you live in the same house-”
“Haven’t seen him today, but I know he was having Christms dinner with Carole-anne and Mrs. Wasserman.”
(Wasserman, of course!)
“What’s going on? Is something wrong?… Later,” he said to a girl with a helmet of slick black hair who was trying to engage his attention.
“I can’t get him on the phone.”
“That’s probably from Carole-anne messing with that answering machine. You got a car? I’d drive you, man, except I’m locked in here for another couple hours.” Stan was writing the address on a paper napkin. “Here.”
“Thanks.”
“Listen, come back and let me know if anything’s wrong. Please.” Stan looked worried.
For an icon, thought Melrose, he was way cool. Melrose sketched a salute and left.
Outside, Jury had stopped on his way to his car to thank Mrs. Wasserman again for the dinner, when he heard the phone ring, thought it was his again, but knew it would stop before he could get up there to answer. Let the answering machine do what it’s paid for, for once.
“I’ll come back for that in a while,” he said to Mrs. Wasserman, with a nod at the dessert.
She was holding a green glass plate on which was a portion of pudding. “I’ll keep it for you and when you come back-” Suddenly, she stopped, as if the words had stuck in her throat.
“Mrs. Wasserman?” Jury put his hands on her shoulders. “Mrs. Wasserman?” He tilted his head, trying to see her face. It was bent over the plate of pudding. Then she raised her face and her look was so sorrowful, Jury was alarmed. “What is it?”
“Nothing, nothing. It was just for a moment I had this-”
“Yes?” Jury’s tone was encouraging. When she didn’t go on, he said, “You look so awfully worried.”
“It was-” She shook her head. “Where are you going?”
Jury was so surprised by her questioning him he took a step back. Mrs. Wasserman never asked questions that might be construed as prying. So scrupulous was she and with so strong a sense of privacy that a question like this one would be considered an invasion of it.
He said, “Just to meet someone. The case we’re working on.”
She kept looking at him, hard, when upstairs a window flew up and Carole-anne leaned out of it. It was Jury’s window, not Carole-anne’s. “Super! There’s a message on your machine!” She seemed proud that the machine was functioning.
“Who?” The light in the flat behind her flooded her hair and made her dress glisten. What a sight.
“Well, I don’t know, do I? He never said his name. What I think was he got cut off in the middle of talking. It was a peculiar message anyway.”
Jury was looking up, waiting. Carole-anne seemed to be thinking, if one could judge thought from down here on the pavement. “What did he say?”
“It was something like, you could only trust your greengrocer. No, don’t trust your greengrocer. Something like that.”
Knowing Carole-anne’s penchant for messing up messages, Jury bet it was “something like that.” For a weird moment all he could think of was Mr. Steptoe. Jury told Mrs. Wasserman he was going back to his flat and for her not to worry. “It’s too cold for being out here without a coat. Go back inside and I’ll see you later.” He knew he sounded impossibly condescending, which he hated.
Shimmering, silver-dust fingernails on shimmering turquoise hip, Carole-anne punched the replay button. Melrose Plant’s voice, sounding surprisingly untaped, said, “Don’t trust your grocer, like Masaccio, and don’t-” End of message.
“He got cut off,” said Carole-anne, reproachfully. “It’s something wrong with the machine.”
Jury found the number for Ardry End and dialed. Carole-anne was looking so troubled, he winked at her, then said, “Ruthven, this is Richard Jury. Is Mr. Plant there?”
“No, sir. But he wanted me to give you a message-”
(Jury hoped it wasn’t the one about the grocer.)
“-that he’d be at his club and for you to ring him there. And you weren’t to talk to anyone until you’d talked to him. He was most emphatic on that point, sir.”
Jury frowned. “But-what’s he doing at Boring’s? I thought he drove back to Northamptonshire this morning.”
“He did, sir. But this afternoon he turned right around and returned to London. I should say that he did so in an enormous hurry and in a highly agitated state.”
Jury smiled fractionally. He wondered if he’d ever seen Melrose Plant in a “highly agitated state.” He rang off and saw that Carole-anne was herself looking agitated and put his arm around her shoulders. Then he thumbed his small telephone index and came up with Boring’s number. Carole-anne seemed to be settling in, head against his chest. Everyone was acting queerly tonight, including, he supposed, himself. When the porter answered (not Young Higgins, but the ginger-haired lad) Jury asked for Mr. Plant. After some asking around had been done, the young porter returned and said that Mr. Plant had just left.
“Not more’n five minutes ago, sir. Is there a message?”
The night seemed made of nothing but messages. “Just tell him Superintendent Jury called, will you?”
His arm still around Carole-anne, he frowned, wondering what was going on. Obviously, Plant knew something, or had come up with something, but… Masaccio’s grocer? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Super?”
“Huh?”
“What’s going on? And where are you off to?”
He looked down at her. “Just to meet someone. Another copper.”
“But it’s Christmas.”
“Yep. And we haven’t had our Christmas kiss.”
Intake of breath on her part. “What Christmas-?”
“This one.” He kissed her.
The kiss was not terribly long, or terribly hard. There have been longer, harder kisses in this world, but it was longer, perhaps, and harder than need be.
Carole-anne was knocked for a loop. “Super!” She staggered back to look at him, probably in much the same way Cinderella had looked at the coach and footmen. Then, rearranging a sleeve and a curl (which needed none), she said, “I’ll still be here New’s Year, in case you didn’t know.”
Jury laughed.
She went upstairs and he went down.
By now he was late and Mickey was probably already waiting for him at the Croft house, so he knew he shouldn’t be stopping at the bridge, but he did anyway. He wanted to check on Benny. He parked his car along the Embankment and went down the steps.
There was a small cluster of people there, warming themselves at a small stove.
“Benny around?” asked Jury.
“Wasn’t you ’ere before, mate?”
Jury recognized the man in the greatcoat. Tonight he was wearing an olive green soldier’s cap. “I was, yes. I’m a friend.”
The soldier snorted. “You’re the Filth’s, what I say.”
The woman called Mags, blanketed in sweaters and shawls, was there, too. “Benny’ll be back. He went off after Sparky. That dog o’ his. You want t’ leave a message?”
Jury smiled. A night of missed meetings and messages. “No, except you can tell him Happy Christmas for me.”
“Right-o. Who’s ‘me’?”
“The Filth.”
She chortled.
Before he got into his car, he looked over his shoulder at Waterloo Bridge. The old bridge had been a granite thing with columns and arches, wrought iron and black lamps. It had been so romantic-the black Thames, the night, the fog. Even the war was made out to be romantic. He imagined Vivien Leigh looking into the dark water. Robert Taylor with that hint of a smile playing around his lips, smoking a cigarette. Myra and Roy. What a lie.
As he entered the forecourt, the car caught Mickey in its headlights, making him look vulnerable and unprotected. He was standing out on the dock, smoking. Certainly, Mickey was vulnerable and unprotected. Jury wondered how he himself would take the verdict that he was going to die. Not well. Who would? “Mickey!” he called and walked through the forecourt out onto the pier.
Mickey took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it into the water. He said, “Always love doing that, Rich. Flick the butts away, watch them arc and fall.” He dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his overcoat.
Jury smiled. “You’re worse than I am, seeing cigarettes in such a romantic light. How was Christmas, Mickey?”
“Terrific. Exhausting.” He laughed a little.
That Mickey was exhausted was evident. “Sorry I’m late. I stopped at Waterloo Bridge to check on Benny.”
“He holes up there, doesn’t he? That kid. God.”
“He does. But I think somehow he’s making it.” Jury paused. “You look pretty tired.”
“Yeah. I am.” He nodded toward the boat farther out. “I was just looking at that boat, thinking about Gemma Trimm.” He smiled. “Some kids those two are.”
Jury nodded. “So are yours.”
“Don’t I know it. What gets to me more than anything is that they probably won’t have the opportunity to find that out.”
“But they will.”
Mickey shook his head. “Not without the right schools. Not without Oxford.”
“Come on, Mickey. Is this what you dragged me away from my Christmas dinner for?”
“Sorry. No, of course not. Waterloo Bridge.” Mickey sighed, as if the same nostalgia that had rushed Jury were rushing him, too. “I was sure you must’ve caught on at the Liberty Bounds that night.”
“ ‘Caught on’?” Jury frowned, started to say something else, but didn’t because he didn’t know what he was responding to. Then it came to him. “You know who killed Simon Croft.”
Mickey watched the water, nodded. “I did.”
Jury stepped back. Plant’s message hit him right between the eyes. The grocer. The one person Masaccio knew he could trust. Mickey was the person he had known he could trust. In another moment of standing there, staring at Mickey, Jury felt something leave him. It could have been courage; it could have been reason, or rationality, or sanity; it could have been faith. He didn’t think it was any of those things. He thought it was hope. And it was gone for good. If he lived, something that looked like it would come back: a poor imitation, a shadow, but not the real thing. He thought all of this in exactly three seconds.
And why wouldn’t he live?
Mickey took a few steps back from Jury. He had always been so fluid in his movements that Jury didn’t see the gun until it was in Mickey’s hand.
“What in hell are you doing, Mickey?”
“I’m really sorry, Rich. Sounds meaningless, but I really am.”
“For Christ’s sakes, you’re pointing that at me!” Jury took three furious steps toward Mickey. The shot spun him around, but it had only raked his shoulder. His other hand flew to the place. Blood, but not much. Mickey was one of the best shots in the City police. He hadn’t tried to kill him. That time. “What… Why?”
“Because you’d sort it, Rich. You’d work it out. I’m surprised you haven’t. But that’s only because you’re my friend.”
He said this in a tone of such demonic innocence, Jury wanted to weep. “Mickey, look-” When an answer comes, there is no orderly procession of facts-first this, then this caused this, then this… Jury thought it was more like one of those kaleidoscopes he remembered as a kid, where all the little bits of colored glass or plastic fly together in a pattern. The vanishing point. When you see it, it’s too late; it’s gone.
Mickey said, “You only had one more step to take, and you were about to. Elizabeth Woburn. They named her after the aunt.”
Liza, thought Jury. My God, Liza. We were all orphans…
He had said it aloud without realizing it. Mickey said, “When you started all of that stuff about the film-I mean, Waterloo Bridge-I was sure you knew. Myra and Roy. How much Alexandra looked like Vivien Leigh, and how much Liza did. I thought you were trying to warn me off. To do what, I don’t know-” Mickey shrugged, almost absently.
The waters of the Thames undulated as a speedboat rushed by. The dock swayed.
“Can you reason for a minute, Mickey? If I found out Liza was Tynedale’s granddaughter, what possible harm could it do? If I told Tynedale, the man would be ecstatic!”
“Oh, that’s why I got you on the case. I don’t know how long I’ve got; I needed you to carry on. It would be even more convincing coming from you. Except you worked out a little too much. If Tynedale discovered Francis Croft was the father, no, he wouldn’t be ecstatic. You know it. Do you really think he’d welcome Liza into the family knowing that? It would be the ultimate betrayal.”
“I don’t think so. Tynedale’s an unusual man. I don’t think he has a strong impulse toward revenge.”
“Could I take the chance? Liza will come into millions.”
“Does she know?”
“Of course not.” Mickey laughed. “But she will. I’ve left documents with our solicitor.”
“Simon Croft knew.”
Mickey nodded. “I had to take the laptop, the manuscript-”
“To make it look as if he were killed because of the book. Croft wasn’t paranoid.” Jury felt lightheaded; he was still bleeding, could feel the blood slick beneath his hand. “You made it look like an amateur trying to make it look like a robbery. That was very clever, very subtle. You’ll never get away with this, Mickey. Think.”
“Thinking is all I’ve been doing for six months. I’ll get away with it.”
The second shot slammed into Jury’s side as if he’d had a head-on collision with a train and drove him to his knees. The impact pushed him back, driving everything in its path, flesh bone tissue. It jerked him sideways, knocking him against the pilings, cutting his head. The third shot threw him back as if the train he’d just hit kept right on going. He saw his own blood for a second burst upward and fall like rain. More blood in a sea of it. The fourth shot hadn’t been aimed at him, wasn’t meant for him. He heard the thud, felt the dock shudder. He couldn’t see because he couldn’t raise himself.
Moments passed. He waited. For what?
Had somebody come? Here was hope in its cheap new clothes again. Jesus, he thought, we’re weak. We’ll hang on to whatever old lies we want to just as long as we can go on living. Why didn’t whoever had come speak? He felt himself being lifted a little way off the dock; it must be a stretcher they’d put him on. He felt something-a sheet? A blanket?-lowered to cover him. He kept his eyes closed because blood from a cut on his forehead trickled into them. He was glad he was on the stretcher under a cover, even if it was so thin he could barely feel it. Thin as air it was. Then he thought: no, it would take two people to carry the stretcher. His forehead no longer felt blood wet and so it was safe to open his eyes. Strange how the night sky was exactly as he’d left it. The stillness was implacable. He couldn’t even hear the water lapping against the pilings. He wondered how much blood he’d lost. The pain had lessened or become at least less acute, as if it had liquefied.
He was unyieldingly sleepy, but he must stay awake. Could be concussion, after all. It was taking the police a long time. Who would have called them to come? Mickey would have; Mickey wouldn’t, in the end, have left him to die here. No. Mickey was dead.
He heard a voice.
Mr. Jury, Mr. Jury!
“Benny?” Where was he? “Benny?”
And a clicking sound, nails tapping against the dock. Sparky?
But what had been close, the voice, the nails tapping, now receded into the indifferent distance. No one was near; no one had been. Death holds no surprises. Hold on to that notion, Superintendent.
A star fell. He thought about Stratford-upon-Avon and the little park near the church where Shakespeare was buried. There had been several of them, schoolchildren smoking in the darkness of a small, colonnaded building, their words flung into the night like the bright coal ends of their cigarettes.
My God. He wanted to laugh aloud. Bleeding his life away and he was thinking about a smoke. But then they had always been more than just cigarettes, hadn’t they? He remembered the schoolgirl flicking hers away into the darkness-(Always loved doing that, Rich… watch them arc and fall)-and the arc it made, sparking like a star shower. Brightness falls from the air. The things of this world, he thought. In the distance, through the frosty Christmas air, he heard a dog bark.
Sparky