Richard Jury: The Stargazey Part 33

"Sir." Possibly the last and certainly the best proponent of the his-not-to-reason-why school, Ruthven would not have shown surprise if Trueblood had asked for fifteen lumps of coal. He'd have measured it out. Finished with pouring both of these helpless creatures their cups of tea, Ruthven bowed again, turned on his heel, and sailed out.

"G.o.d, but if you ever want to reduce staff, give me him, will you? He's remarkable."

"Staff at Ardry End consists of three people, that's all. There's Ruthven and Martha and Wyatt Earp. You may have Momaday any time you want." Melrose yawned widely.

"Get your skates on, man. Don't you want to see what I've been up to for the last ten days?"

Melrose finished his tea and pulled his legs from the warm coverings. He did not think anything Trueblood could have been up to could match what he himself had been up to, but he didn't say so.

He checked to make sure the brown-wrapped painting was where he'd left it against the wall.

Shaved, dressed and full of toast and more tea, Melrose stood and surveyed the banner across the door of the Long Piddleton library: REST READ AND LATTE AT THE LIBRARY!

"b.l.o.o.d.y marvelous!" he said.

When they walked in, Una Twinny, the librarian, literally had her hands full. There were half a dozen customers waiting to have their books checked out and as many more wandering through the stacks. For this little library, that was a crowd.

"Come on," said Trueblood, leading him into the library's other room.

The new Latte at the Library coffee shop opened promptly at nine, with the library itself. "How in G.o.d's name did you get all of this done in ten days?"

"With a lot of help from Ada Crisp, for one. She donated all the chairs and three tables."

Ada Crisp thought Marshall Trueblood walked on water, ever since he had served as her defending solicitor in the infamous chamber-pot incident.

"We acquisitioned two more tables from the rectory, and Betty Ball supplied a fifth from the bakery, to say nothing of donating all these pastries." Trueblood swept an arm over the plates of scones, croissants, hot-cross buns, and a beautiful vanilla-iced gteau decorated with violets. "I found an espresso machine in London and brought back a crate of not-very-good china and that delftware. Which is good. The other pieces in here come from the shop, and the Sidbury Ladies' Club donated the checked tablecloths and napkins. Really, the place has quite a bit of tone. Several chaps from here gave their time to paint and redo the fireplace tiles. The florist in Sidbury insisted on donating those gorgeous flowers."

On a highly polished bureau (donated by Trueblood's Antiques) sat a large display of roses, larkspur, and snowdrops. In front of the electric logs a big dog slept. "Where'd you get the-wait a minute! What's my dog doing here?"

"Mindy? Oh, we're just borrowing her for a while. You know, until we're firmly established. Every shop needs a cat or a dog. All the pubs have them-"

"But that's my dog. Mindy!" Melrose called out, sharpish.

The dog didn't respond, beyond turning its face toward the warm logs, reminding Melrose of himself that morning. They sat down at the table near the dog, and Trueblood went to the counter for latte. He returned in a moment with cups br.i.m.m.i.n.g with foam. "Delicious," said Melrose, licking the foam from his upper lip. "I don't know some of these people in here. Has Mr. Browne's reputation traveled beyond Long Piddleton? Has his infamy reached Sidbury or even Northampton?"

"He is not, let's say, a popular player. And you can imagine how he likes the idea of this, can't you? All of the Piddletonians who have been renting their new books from Browne are taking their business elsewhere. In other words, here. Theo is threatening a lawsuit."

Melrose brightened. "Another legal battle?"

"He's making all sorts of claims. For one, he says we can't get a clearance certificate because of infestation. Says he saw three mice-"

"Were they blind?"

"-running through here. Well, I called Rent-to-Kill and they came straightaway. They said there was no problem. Then Browne claimed the bylaws say the library isn't zoned for retail business purposes."

"Zoned? Good lord, if there were zoning laws Mrs. Withersby wouldn't be living in one of those almshouses."

"If there were zoning laws, Withersby wouldn't be living anywhere."

It was speak-of-the-devil time, for Melrose looked around to see Mrs. Withersby, of Indolents Anonymous, coming through the door with a pail and mop, and a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.

"Ah, here's Withers, good girl."

"Good girl? What's that supposed to signify?"

"Why, that Withers has kindly donated her time to char for the coffee shop."

Melrose had just taken a drink of coffee and gasped and sputtered, sending a brief rain of droplets into the air. "Donating her time? That's like saying a Franciscan monk is donating his Lou Reed collection. Withersby doesn't do anything with her time. What she sees in the deal is free coffee and f.a.gs from anyone who's got them." At this, Melrose pulled out his cigarette case. "I'm counting to ten. . . . Six . . . seven . . . "

"Well, if it ain't the Cray brothers come to collect their protection money. Got an extry f.a.g there, Lord of the Manor?"

Melrose got up, all polite solicitation, and offered his case. Mrs. Withersby helped herself to five or six. Who was counting? "My pleasure." He reseated himself.

Mop and pail by her side, still with her old coat and flowered kerchief on, Mrs. Withersby got down to business. "I'll have an espresso, me."

"Absolutely," said Trueblood, all charm. He raised a hand to get the coffee tender's attention and pointed to Mrs. Withersby, who, having got f.a.gs and free coffee, left them. Trueblood went on. "People were almost begging to help. Little Sally McVittie's mum is the lady over there working the espresso machine. She's a first-rate cappuccino maker. I heard her uttering dire prognostications as to the fate of 'the moneylender and child abuser'-her way of referring to Mr. Browne."

"Oh, I know young Sally, all right." Melrose laughed. He looked across the room at a tall cherrywood bookcase, which housed some thirty or forty of the very newest books. "Where'd Miss Twinny get all those new books? Has the library system finally improved?"

"I brought them back from London. Just went into a bookstore and said I wanted several dozen new works of fiction and would they give me a discount? Those new ones are loaned out at five per day, at least seventy-five percent cheaper than Theo's. Of course the library drove his stupid book rentals out of business."

"Marvelous! Trueblood, what can I say?"

"You can say two more cappuccinos. A pound a cup, which is cheaper than the Emporium Espresso in Sidbury."

After Melrose had gone to get refills and spent a sunny few moments chatting with Sally's mum about Sally's and Bub's reading habits-Miss Twinny being far more accepting of Bub's spilling things on books than Theo Wrenn Browne ever was or would be-she told him, "My Sally, she thinks the world of you, Mr. Plant."

This pleased and ruffled him. He went through a series of protestations (oh, my, no . . . I didn't do all that . . . giving me too much credit) before he collected the cappuccino and two hot-cross buns and returned to their table.

Trueblood was smoking one of his crayon-colored cigarettes and fiddling with a small printed sign that said, SMOKING SECTION. "I put this there," he said, sheepishly. "Now, what's all this about an art restorer?"

"Do you know one? You must, in your line of work."

"Hmm. Several, as a matter of fact. There's a woman in Northampton, actually. But you still haven't told me for what. I'm all ears. What went on in London?"

Melrose told him about Simeon Pitt. "Stabbed, right there in clear view of several of the members."

"My lord. My lord," he said again. When Melrose didn't elaborate, Trueblood said, "Well, come on, old trout. Why? What's your theory?"

Melrose was silent for a moment. "D'you mind if we just wait before I tell you that? I'd rather have a specialist looking at it first. Right away, because-" because Seb or one of them might discover the missing painting, he didn't add. "So if you know someone as close as Northampton-"

"Good as done, old sweat. I'll call soon as I get back to the shop." There was a bright beep and everyone looked around, including Melrose. "It's just this." Trueblood had reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a pager. He checked the number, returned the thing to his pocket.

"You? You got a pager too? Diane has one of those."

"Right, old sweat. You should get one. It's loads of fun. Diane and I page each other all the time. Our office numbers, of course; that's where we're busiest."

"Busy? Diane Demorney, busy?"

"Well, it's that newspaper job."

"For G.o.d's sake, it's not like she's hauling a camera around in Algeria. I mean, how many Milky Way emergencies can there be? Here, give me your number. I've got hers." Melrose extracted his address book. "I'm going to call her up and drive her crazy."

"All you have to do, see, is call the number and then it shows up on the pager and she rings you back immediately . . . more or less. Diane doesn't do anything immediately."

"I know how it works."

"You should get one. Withersby has one."

"Withers has one? Oh, please." He looked across the room where Mrs. Withersby was leaning on her mop, talking with Sally's mum, drinking her espresso with her little finger hooked out. "You might as well give a pager to the Hunchback of Notre Dame."

Trueblood snorted a laugh. "You should get one."

Melrose snorted back to indicate his disdain of such frippery. "Over my dead body."

45.

Richard! I thought you were coming hours ago." There was no recrimination in Kate's tone, only concern and surprise.

"Got held up. I often do. The job, as we say, the job." He looked round the living room. "This room"-he turned to face her with a smile-"doesn't suit you."

Her look was puzzled. "You never criticized it before."

"I'm not criticizing it. I never really looked at it before."

Across the back of the sofa she had tossed the jacket of her gray suit, the one she had been wearing when she'd been "detained." He lifted it off, read the label: "Max Mara. Very handsome, very Upper Sloane Street." He replaced it. "Max Mara and this room don't go together."

Now she really seemed disturbed. "What on earth's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, tossing his coat across the sofa. "There's some good news, really." He looked at her for a long and sinking moment as if something within him were slowly falling away, descending to the riverbed, seeking bottom.

"Good news? Well, go on, tell me. Fulham police are not going to take me in again? That would be very good news."

"It's not that, no. I was just talking to an Inspector LeGrande in Paris. Despite the records having burned up, we've got a fresh lead on Sophie. But he's not really clear as to what she looked like. What did she look like?"

Kate sat back with an involuntary shake of the head. It was the silence, that fractional pause, that got to him even before the answer. "Oh." Kate shrugged. "She was blond. Like me."

As she rose from the sofa and started for a small bureau that held the whisky and sherry, Jury thought of Kitty, the stream of details about her kids. He did not think that "Oh, blond" and a shrug were part and parcel of a mother's lexicon.

"There are no pictures of her here. Is the memory too painful?" He turned on the sofa. "The entire story was a lie, wasn't it?"

Ice cubes tinkled into gla.s.ses. When she didn't answer, he went on. "It was a brilliant fabrication, but it lacked a couple of things. You never described her-how she looked, what she wore, what she was like-and yet you could go into the most minute detail about your surroundings: Fauchon's, the organ grinder, the animals. The second thing-which I had pointed out to me-was that a little kid wouldn't act the way Sophie was acting. I should have realized all of this when Charles Noailles said that Michael McBride had never mentioned a daughter. He was close to Noailles. It would be almost impossible not to say something about a daughter he was 'besotted with.' That's how you put it, wasn't it?"

"You're fantasizing. Why on earth would I make all of that up?" She walked over and put the gla.s.s of whisky in his hand.

But he did not turn to face her; he wished he would never have to again because she would have taken on the same hard lines as had the furniture, the silver, the china. He would be seeing someone else. "Very good reasons, I should think. Most important, I was the only one who could place you at the crime scene. Everybody else thought I was wrong, given the two of you look so much alike. It was to gain my sympathy, to make me want to believe you. Besides that, all of that convoluted story with its meetings and its queer directions to foreign places-well, in case you didn't get me to cave in, and you finally had to admit I was right, then you'd have a reason for going to Fulham Palace. It would have been one more weird meeting demanded by your persecutors. You even explained the absence of any record of Sophie's 'abduction' with a fire, a fire that really did happen. And if right now you showed me Kate McBride's pa.s.sport, I'd find she'd been to Zurich, Belgium, and St. Petersburg at just the times you said you were there. Even that eventuality you covered. The only slip was your calling it 'Peter.' Only someone intimate with the city would call it that."

Jury stood up as he said this, drank some more of the whisky that was bringing him no relief at all, and turned to face her. As he did so he heard a familiar metallic snick. The gun surprised him no more than he was surprised to see she looked like a different woman. It was a big handgun, a Walther, and she held it professionally, one hand propping the wrist, as if she knew how to use it, as indeed she had.

Many times, he imagined. "This is her flat, isn't it? Kate McBride's? The one in Mayfair, as I was about to say, suits you far better. Why did you kill her?"

Her smile was a mere movement of the lips, not a smile; it didn't touch the voice, the eyes. The laugh was short and breathless. "Why? For someone as clever as you, I should think it obvious."

"I'm not that clever, clearly."

"I wanted an ident.i.ty. Not one cooked up with phony pa.s.sports and licenses, but one that honestly existed. I happened on that pub by accident a few months ago. Someone there took me for Kate McBride. It was then I began to get the idea. I watched her for a long time, where she went, what she did, how she looked. I got into her flat, looked around, found her life in journals and letters. Everything I needed to know. I saw Mrs. Laidlaw once when I was locking the door. She thought I was Kate, too." She smiled again. The gun didn't waver. "That house in Wales. I would have loved to live there; I really would."

"How did you know about it?"

"The silly woman used the telephone in the pub. I was sitting right there. It's amazing how much information people give away without one's even asking for it. And that property is of course why I had to make her disappear right away. She was setting up an appointment. If she'd gone to the solicitor, I couldn't very well turn up and be Kate, could I? I'm tired; I've got enough money for several lifetimes; I want to stop, live in Great Britain, be just another Brit."

"You can hardly be that. You can never be just another anything. You're not even Nancy Pastis."

"That was my second reason for killing her. I wanted to get rid of Nancy. That's what made it a little complicated. I could, of course, have just left, after that little girl found the body. But since nothing happened and she showed no sign of doing anything, I simply followed my original plan and went back. Mrs. Laidlaw is a sweet old thing, but not very sharp."

"You wanted Nancy Pastis's body identified. Why didn't you leave the pa.s.sport with it?"

"Come on, Richard. Your police are smarter than that. It would have looked planted."

"Noailles," he said, puzzled. "You didn't even know him. How-"

"Of course I didn't know him. You were the one who brought him up, remember? You told me about him. I said that the information people give away is quite amazing."

"And you even managed to make me suspicious of him. That c.o.c.k-and-bull story about the Chteau Noailles. G.o.d, I'm stupid."

"Oh, there is a Chteau Noailles near Aix-en-Provence. I try to stay as close to the truth as I can. And you're far from stupid, Richard. I think your trouble is you look at gla.s.s and see diamonds. Too many facets, too many layers, too many possibilities. Too many to act. The Hamlet syndrome, maybe?"

"Nancy Pastis, I take it, was not just another Brit? Who are you?"

She shrugged. "What difference does it make?"

"Simeon Pitt was murdered two days after Fulham police let you go. My friend-" He stopped himself. The less said about Melrose Plant, the better. "What have you to do with the Fabricants?"

She said nothing; she had moved one hand to put on her Max Mara suit jacket, switched the gun to the other as she gathered up her coat. The gun had never left him, nor did it as she moved over to the desk, opened the top drawer, collected papers, and stuffed them in her deep coat pocket. A few more steps and she hitched her bag over her shoulder.

Jury felt a strange calm; he couldn't understand this. The adrenaline should be pumping like crazy. "You could answer the question."

"Was there one?"

"Simeon Pitt."