Rainbow's End (10 page)

“Uh. Not so much honey, then.” Jury looked down at the massed papers that had landed all-anyhow on his desk, wiped his hand over them as if this action might disclose one that was important, then shoved the whole lot aside. “What'd you find out about the Tate art lovers?”

“Beatrice and Gabriel? Nothing yet; I'm expecting a call from C Division. How much milk?” asked Wiggins, keeping his priorities straight.

“The usual.”

Wiggins poured a careless amount into the mug and set it before Jury. He then proceeded with the more serious matter of infusing his own tea with one or the other of the medications arranged in vials along the front of his desk. He picked up first one, then another little
brown bottle, studied it with a care Jury doubted even the pharmacist had expended on the prescription, pursed his lips, shook his head, picked up the next.

Jury was in a state of ungovernable suspense. As long as he'd known him, Sergeant Wiggins had been dispensing pills, syrups, herbs, potions, biscuits, capsules, anodynes, and amulets, everything short of a necklace of garlic cloves to ward off evil spirits. The spirit world held no terrors for Wiggins; he was afraid of what crept and crawled along planet Earth, not ill-defined and amorphous masses from either Hell or Heaven. Planet Earth had spawned enough corporeal diseases for Wiggins to tolerate or even contemplate; he wasn't the least interested in the soul's ills. Jury watched him fix his gaze on a clear glass vial that held some viscous greenish stuff.

“What the hell's that?” Jury asked in spite of his oft-broken promise to himself never to inquire into Wiggins's medications.

“This? Oh, this is for my chest.” Wiggins made a few experimental
rr-rrk
s and
ah
s, not a cough exactly, more of an aborted laugh. “Chesty, sir, I've been these last few days since you've been gone. It's all this weather we're getting.”

Jury sipped his too-sweet tea. “I've never known a day without it.”

“Sir?” Inquiring eyebrow lift.

“Weather. Same old February stuff, to me. Damp and drizzle. Unless you're talking about the ozone again.”

Wiggins had been making dark prognostications for some time now about the dramatic weather changes in Britain—and elsewhere, of course, but elsewhere could take care of itself, since he didn't live there—hot summers, worse winters. Such changes were ominous. “Next, it'll be hurricanes, tropical hurricanes,” he had said last summer.

Having inspected the row of vials, Wiggins now was eschewing them in favor of one of his favorite anodynes—the black biscuit. This was a disgusting-looking biscuit, a black-as-bile biscuit that was supposed to make the digestive system fully operational. Wiggins enjoyed one or two at teatime.

Having completed his ablutions, Wiggins asked Jury about the case. After Jury gave him a rundown of the conclusion Macalvie had drawn, Wiggins said, brushing away black crumbs, “Probably right.”

“Right? My God, I'd sooner bet blindfolded at Cheltenham races.” Jury was not at all convinced of this, though.

“Well, remember Dr. Dench, sir.”

Macalvie had locked horns with his friend Dennis Dench over a question of bone identification a few years back.

“Mr. Macalvie was right, then, too,” said Wiggins. “And Dench was the expert. And
he was wrong.
”

Jury shoved aside a stack of papers and clamped his feet on top of his desk. “He's talking funny, too.”

Wiggins frowned. “ ‘Funny'?”

“For Macalvie. He's turned philosophical, mumbling about abstract notions of time, and so forth.”

“Oh, he always was.” Wiggins said this with calm assurance.

Jury stared. “
Macalvie
? Macalvie was always one of the most straightforwardly pragmatic people I ever met. He loves cold, hard facts. He's not a philosopher.”

“He's not a forensic anthropologist, either. But he managed to be one when he had to.”

“Oh, for God's sake,” Jury muttered just as the telephone rang.

Wiggins picked it up, announced himself, listened, put his hand over the receiver, told Jury it was C Division about the Tate Gallery. Listened some more as he pulled over a pad and a pencil. “Slocum, that's her name? S-L-O-C-U-M. . . . Right. . . . Gabriel Merchant. . . . Uh-huh. . . . Bethnal Green, right. . . . Both of them? . . . Uh-huh. . . . ” Sergeant Wiggins's expression changed dramatically; he banged forward in his swivel chair. Finally, he choked out a “ta very much” to the caller and hung up.

Jury waited. Wiggins was silent.

“What the hell
is
it?” asked Jury. “What's wrong?”

“It's these two, this Bea Slocum and Gabriel Merchant.”

“Something's happened to them?” Jury was alert.

“No, nothing's happened. It's where he lives, sir. In East London.”

Jury frowned. “So? A hell of a lot of people live in East London.”

“Not on Catchcoach Street, they don't.”

It sounded vaguely familiar, obviously not vague at all to Wiggins. “Catchcoach Street?” Jury turned it over, smiled, laughed. “My Lord, Wiggins, you're not talking about—”

Looking as if the atmospheric ozone had just burst another hole, Wiggins nodded. His voice was ominous. “Crippses, sir. White Ellie. Ash. And those—
kiddies
 . . . ” An involuntary shudder ran through him. He opened his eyes, then looked imploring. “I'm still feeling
really chesty, sir. I was thinking of maybe going home early, having a quiet lie-down.”

Jury was already shrugging into his jacket. “No lie-down, Sergeant. Two men. You know how it is; Racer says we've got to follow proper procedure.” Jury beamed at him. “Just bring your black biscuits.”

All things change, all is transitory, and you never dip your hand in the same river twice. Or piss in the same birdbath.

Unless you were a Cripps.

In the front garden—a mere dusty patch of earth—of the house in Catchcoach Street, a boy of perhaps four years was taking aim at a white plastic birdbath that was planted amidst the earthly delights of plastic ducks and a hateful-looking troll.

Birds were visibly absent, having drunk once too often already, Jury thought as he and Sergeant Wiggins stood on the pavement watching, fascinated.

A window flew up; a slab of pale face above an obese body appeared, yelling, “Petey! Stop that infernal pissin' and come get yer tea!” SLAM down went the window, rattling the panes, shaking the baby buggy sitting on the step by the door. Without bothering to collect his short trousers, Petey hightailed it through the door, leaving it ajar.

“I expect we don't need to knock,” said Jury, peering in the carriage at the baby in its faded bunting. It was like turning back time for Jury, seeing that buggy. The first time he'd seen it was nearly ten years ago, when he and Wiggins had come to Catchcoach Street to dig up information about a suspect in a grisly murder case. They'd been more successful in digging the baby out from under the wash. The carriage was still doing double time as a laundry cart; Jury moved a towel and some flannels away from the baby's face and checked to make sure the tyke was breathing. Yes.

Wiggins shook himself loose of his own personal Cripps nightmare and mumbled, “Good Lord.” Then he, too, peeped into the carriage. “Surely, that can't be the same baby, sir, as last time?”

“Probably there's always a baby of one sort or another.” Jury gave the dented rattle a bit of a shake. The baby gurgled and drooled, its fingers clutching a flannel, either uncaring or unmindful of the dark fate that lay in wait for it, if not today, then tomorrow or the day after.

They entered what might dubiously be termed a “front parlor,” where Wiggins just missed stepping in a bowlful of water with wires running into it, sitting on the floor. From the kitchen came a terrible din, sounds of kettles and jangling crockery, curses and giggles, White Ellie's voice distinguishable above the others from sheer volume. Then Ellie appeared, wreathed in smiles.

“Well, if it ain't the Two Rons back again! Wait'll I tell Ash—” She lifted her eyes ceilingward, adding, “Never mind. Come on in and wet yerselves!” Without waiting for them to answer, she dashed—waddled, rather—back through the kitchen door.

Wiggins, for once, wasn't backing away from her offer of refreshment, for his attention was taken up by the bowl of water. “What's
this
lot, then? Look, those are live wires, sir. That's dangerous. Burn the house down with that.” Wiggins kept shaking his head.

“Probably,” said Jury, glancing at the colored images jerking around on the telly. Some kind of cartoon show—

“You're in the way, mate,” said a female voice from the other side of the room. The figure there was slouched, nearly buried in a dozen cushions scattered about the sofa. The red hair blazed as if the head itself were charged with electrical wires, like the dish on the floor.

Jury smiled. “Beatrice Slocum, isn't it? I'm from Scotland Yard CID.”

Bea Slocum tried to appear bored, her interest aroused only by the cartoon characters. She clapped her hand over her mouth, giggling. It was a little like talking to Carole-anne Palutski.

“I'm Richard Jury; this is Sergeant Wiggins, Scotland—”

“Well, that there's Ren and Stimpy, so move, will you?” Her hair was a wondrous bluish-blackish-reddish color that one sometimes sees in adverts, and certainly looked dyed, the color of eggplant. She had a pretty face, spoiled by rainbow shadings of eye shadow—there must have been half a dozen colors vying. The face was soft and petulant, the mouth downturned slightly, signal that the soft petulance might, in ten years' time, harden into cynicism. She was dressed in a kind of ugly green flak jacket and sawed-off jeans. Her feet were stuffed into
heavy, short boots. She was holding a remote in her hand and she raised the volume, and, apparently lured by the sounds of their favorite cartoon show, several Cripps kiddies burst from the kitchen into the living room, nearly bowling Wiggins over, then scattered like shot to distribute themselves across the floor, where they immediately started poking and pinching one another.

Said Jury above the TV noise, “If Ren and Stumpy—”

“
Stimpy
, sir,” Wiggins corrected him. “It's all the rage.”

With Wiggins, too, apparently, given the way he was so intently staring at the screen. “Don't sit on the floor, Sergeant.”

Ren (or Stimpy) looked like a pull of taffy with teeth. The other looked like something Picasso had tossed out. Their time appeared to be taken up in bloodthirsty yowlings or finding ways to destroy whatever they came in contact with, with all the elaborate machinations that cartoon characters are given to, screaming, shouting, pinwheeling about the premises. No one was paying any attention to Scotland Yard, not even its own detective sergeant.

Naturally, Ren and Stimpy were an inspiration to the Cripps kiddies. For when Ren (or Stimpy) strangled Stimpy (or Ren), the older boy with the spiky hair made to do just the same thing to his little sister, shaking her like a rag doll until Jury clamped hands on him and pulled him off. If there was one rule the Cripps lads hewed to, it was never to pick on someone your own size, age, or sex; that way, you weren't so likely to get hurt. That the children hadn't changed over the last ten was, of course, the illusion created by more Cripps kiddies coming along to replace the ones who had got larger. If that taller lad over there was Friendly, he had grown a lot, but still had the sly and foxy look he had already honed to perfection when he was seven or eight. Yes, it must be Friendly, thought Jury, judging from the way his hand crept toward his crotch. Or perhaps such a movement was locked into the Crippses' genes. Just look at his father.

“Hey, mister, give us ten p. Go on, mister!” One of the smaller girls was yanking on his sleeve with a hand that bore witness to a tea of mash and catsup. Her boldness encouraged demanding howls from the others.

“Shut yer trap, Alice!” Here was the voice, if not of authority, at least of White Ellie. She came stomping back into the room with two cracked mugs of tea. These she held out to Jury and Wiggins. “Wet yerselves.”

Jury's thanks were lost in the uproar created by Alice and Petey and the baby in the pram they'd managed to set wailing outside on the pavement. As for Sergeant Wiggins, well, it was the first time Jury had ever seen him look at a cup of tea with disrespect.

“ 'Ere now!” Wildly, she looked round the room. “Wherever's little Robespierre? Did ya go and leave 'im out again?” White Ellie went to the door and out to the pavement to rescue the baby. “Petey, you been pissin' in that birdbath?”

“No ma'am, no ma'am, no ma'am,” Petey answered in a singsong.

“Takes after his da, Petey do. Disgustin', I keep tellin' 'im, and he'll wind up like 'im, too, screamin' in the streets. Just last week the Liar was rantin' and ravin' that Ash give 'er one in Mervin's lockup garage, but I says, ‘Ha.' Wishful thinking, if you ask me. Well, you never did meet our Amy”—here she dragged a six-year-old out of the crowd and planted her before Jury. “Just a baby she was last time you was 'ere.” She managed to make it sound as if Jury and Wiggins were annual visitors. “And this here's Alice.”

Alice, a year or two younger than her sister, said hello by raising her cotton skirt so that the policemen could see she wasn't wearing knickers. Her grin was impoverished by several missing teeth.

White Ellie slapped the hand away and yanked the skirt down. Then she marched to the television and slapped it off, as if it too were up to salacious doings. “We got comp'ny!”

All the while, Bea's persimmon head had been bobbing here and there, first to one side, then to another, trying to regain her view of the telly. Defeated, she fell back against the faded cretonne of the sofa. Jury wasn't sure exiling Ren and Stimpy was such a hot idea, anyway. At least the cartoon had increased the attention span of the kids. Now, of course, they all had to amuse themselves again, and were bobbing around in a circle singing