The Grave Maurice (39 page)

 

Vernon opened his laptop, leaned back in his chair and thought about Nell. He always thought about Nell.

He looked at his screen and thought about Nell. He was thinking about taking SayWhen public. No, he was thinking about Nell.

Samantha put her head round the door and tapped on the doorframe. “I'm going to the caff for breakfast take-out. What do you want?”

“Oh. Pork pie with a ploughman's.” He thought about Nell.

“That's not breakfast, Vernon.”

“What?” He looked at her.

She shook her head. “That's lunch, not breakfast.”

“Oh.” He rubbed his head. Then he ordered an egg sandwich, bacon and coffee. And thought about Nell. He looked at Samantha. “Is that breakfast?”

“That's breakfast.” She tapped her knuckles against the door again, her silver ring rapping it.

 

“A blueprint,” said Bobby, when Vernon later went back to the room, “for success.” He turned his computer screen so that Vernon could see it. “This company's PR people must be first rate. You market Premarin, first by covertly selling menopause to American women as a disease, making them think they've just got to have hormone-replacement therapy; second, you assure everyone the horse farms are meeting ‘guidelines' ”—Bobby made squiggles in the air to indicate the quote marks—“not government guidelines but ones laid down by Wyeth itself and, of course, by employing its
own
inspectors to make sure the guidelines are met; third, you stomp all over any competition, especially any bunch that wants to make a generic. You've locked in your patent for half a century, of course. Now, by following this simple recipe you wind up as the
only
manufacturer of this drug, making a billion and a half a year. And think of this: it's not a drug taken intermittently because of illness; it's one the woman is taking for the long haul—in other words, forever.”

Daphne was chewing gum and staring at her screen. “I don't believe this; I mean, how could this corporation get away with this? They took out the patent in '42 and have had no competition. These poor horses—” She turned her screen toward Vernon so that he could see the picture of the mares in their stalls. “They're tied so they can't move or lie down. Even calves in crates aren't much worse off. These mares are
pregnant
for God's sake. And they can't move. Are we back in the Dark Ages?”

Vernon looked at the screen, at the condition of the horses, at the narrow, narrow stalls. He shook his head. “Maybe we never left it.”

“Where'd you get this literature?”

“From the girl who was in my office a few days ago; you met her. She got the folders from a stud farm in Cambridgeshire. It looks as if someone was apparently going to try to market this stuff in the UK.”

“Never,” said Daph, “they'd never get away with it. In the States, yes, you can get away with keeping seventy-five thousand horses in these deplorable conditions—”

Bobby sat back in his swivel chair. “You're saying Americans are more callous than we are?”

“No, Booby, I'm saying
America
is so much
bigger
than we are.” She balled up paper and threw it at him, then turned back to her screen, punched in some commands and said, “The Premarin Web site.” The page showed the face of a smiling woman. “Why's she smiling? Look at the side effects: possible nausea, increased risk of blood clots and uterine cancer . . .” She scrolled past a few pages. “Here it is—description: ‘material derived from pregnant mares' urine.' You can't say they never told us. Except this writing is as tiny as fairy tracks. Who could read it without a magnifying glass?”

Bobby didn't appear to be hearing her, lost in one of his own stock-option meditations. “We could try selling short.”

Daph looked at his screen. “Uh-uh. I don't like the downside potential.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “It's unlimited. Bobby likes it; I don't.”

“I wouldn't have expected anything less of both of you,” said Vernon, leaning down to look over Bobby's shoulder.

Bobby loved all things chancy; he was staring at the display of the drug company's stock options.

Daph had the same readout on her screen. She shook her head and clucked her tongue like a prissy schoolmistress. “It's too strong, Bobby. You can't short it.”

“Tell me something I
don't
know, for God's sake.” He looked round at Vernon. “I could post something on the Net. A rumor here, a rumor there.” He turned his thumb down, pushed it toward the floor. The stock would make the same trip, his look said.

Vernon's return look was like a knuckle in the eye.

Bobby shrugged. “Just a thought.”

“Corporate assassin,” said Daphne. Then to Vernon,

“He's going to land us all in the nick, Vernon, one of these days.” Then to Bobby. “You can't short it, Bobby.”

Daphne, Vemon knew, really liked this sort of fox chase.
“You'd sell your own gran for some dicey stock options,”
he'd told her once. Now, he looked at her screen. The stock was still climbing, fractionally, but definitely on an upswing. Then it held steady.

Bobby's fingers danced across his keyboard. He said, “Here's something interesting.”
Business World
, a dependable money magazine, reported that another hormone-replacement drug was about to enter the market.

Daphne asked, “How can it if this pharmaceutical company holds the patent?”

Bobby shrugged. “What they're really worried about is a generic. Look at this.” He scrolled down the page. “A synthetic alternative to estrogen is going on the market. Called Evista.”

Daphne had pulled up another article. “Listen. ‘One of its antidiabetics was causing almost universal dizziness, weakness, slurred speech and other symptoms and would almost certainly be up for review.' I'm quoting here. There's a report coming out on it.”

“When?” said Vernon.

“Couple of days, it looks like.”

“Get Hodges to go over it.” Dr. Hodges was a retired physician and more or less on Vernon's payroll as a consultant for anything health related. “Then get Mike West to get hold of the report the minute it comes out.” West was a lawyer in the States, also retained by Vernon's investment firm. “Also, see if you can turn up any studies on the other one—Evista?”

“Okay.”

“Keep watch, baby,” Vernon said, squeezing Bobby's shoulder. Daphne's mouth was hanging open, as it often was when she was watching the screen. “Babies, I mean,” said Vernon.

“Y
ou could just have called Cambridge police, couldn't you? There's no real need for you to go there.” Wiggins was driving.

“Watch the road, will you? We nearly cut that lorry off. Listen: ever since I got in the way of a bullet, you've been telling me what I need, what I should or shouldn't do, where I should or shouldn't go. I wish you'd stop it.”

Wiggins spoke carefully, as if he were trying to calm a bad-tempered child. “I'm only concerned for your health, that's all.”

He was negotiating a roundabout, and none too happily. In front of them was a Cortina that appeared to have no driver. No, Jury saw a blur of gray above the driver's seat.

“Why do they let people like that out on the roads? It's every bit as dangerous as speeding. Look—he can't be going more than twenty miles an hour.” Wiggins leaned on his horn and the old car lurched, nearly stopped, then sputtered on. “He must be driving in sixth gear.”

As this diatribe continued, Jury said, “It's Cambridge, Wiggins, not the tenth circle of hell.”

 

“It's not much use,” said DS Styles, “trying to question her. Her solicitor told her not to say a word without him being there.”

“I didn't think she would, Sergeant, certainly not anything that has to do with the charges against her. She might not answer, but I can still ask.”

“Suit yourself, but I say it's a waste of time.”

Jury knew what he was really saying was that detectives from the Yard had no business being here. But since Jury was a personal friend of the DCI in charge of the case, then they'd probably do what he wanted. “I'm not really trying to interfere with your investigation; the case is yours; I know that.” This suggestion of amelioration at least got Styles's hackles down. “I only want to talk to her for a few minutes.”

“Suit yourself,” DS Styles said again.

 

When Valerie Hobbs was led into the interview room, Jury was sitting at a table in one of the four institutional-looking gray metal chairs. Jury rose only a few inches from his chair and nodded at the WPC who brought her in and who then left. He judged Valerie Hobbs to be five two or three. He had not raised himself to his full height because he would have towered over her and he believed that might intimidate her.

He watched some response flicker in the light brown eyes. Her hair was not only bright, but silky, or rather the silkiness was what made it shine. She had a slightly cleft chin, a well-molded nose and a mouth that curved upward at the corners even when she wasn't smiling, which she certainly wasn't now. Still, some of the hardness left her face when she looked at Jury, who introduced himself.

She locked her arms across her chest. “What's Scotland Yard got to do with this? Is it because it's a kidnapping? Which I'm innocent of, incidentally. I'd like a cigarette, if you have some.”

He did. Although he'd stopped smoking—oh, baleful day!—he'd stopped in a newsagent's and got a pack of Silk Cuts. He put the pack on the table. “You can have the lot.” She inched one from the pack and he lit a match. As she inhaled and exhaled with closed eyes, he knew full well the rush one of those could give after you'd been deprived for any time at all.

She said it again: “I didn't abduct the girl.” Her voice hit the scale at some point between raspy and sexy. For a woman who'd refused to talk, Valerie Hobbs was doing a pretty fair job of it.

“But you know who did.”

She smoked in great long draws on her cigarette. “No, I don't.”

“But someone had to bring her to your place. You say you didn't, then—?” With a questioning but good-natured frown, he dipped his head to see her face, which was turned down.

“I wasn't there.”

This was such a weak rejoinder he wondered how she could offer it. Jury let that rest for a moment and said, “You came to know the girl, Nell, quite well.”

“Not so very.”

“She was at your farm for nearly two years.”

“With someone like that, it could've been twenty and you still wouldn't know her.” Her expression was one of self-satisfaction. It pleased her to frustrate his line of questioning.

But Jury wasn't bothered by the answer; he was only a little surprised she could have assessed Nell in this way. “Someone like that? How was she different?”

Valerie actually thought for a moment, as if it were important to get it right. “Determined, kind of aimed, I guess you'd say.”

Jury sat back. That was interesting. “ ‘Aimed'? I'm not sure what you mean.”

She took another long draw on the cigarette, slowly exhaled. “Like an arrow. Her attention would be on only one thing, say.” She shrugged.

Jury waited a beat. “Why do you think she didn't try to run away long before she did? Apparently, she had a fair amount of freedom.”

Valerie inspected a finger with chipped nail polish. “Those horses, I expect. I admit I did threaten to kill her own horse if she tried anything. Well, look at the bargain she drove after they brought me in: if I'd release the mares, then she'd testify on my behalf. I'll say this for her, she doesn't hold a grudge.”

Jury could hardly keep from laughing at that way of putting it. Twenty months of captivity turned simply to a grudge. “No, I can see she doesn't. Either that or her forced imprisonment didn't mean all that much to her.”

“That's kind of funny, right? She'd been abducted and didn't care? Oh, she did at first, hammering on her door and yelling to be let out. But then she just stopped, as if she knew it wasn't smart. That girl was
very
smart. I could appreciate that, I'll tell you.”

Jury's look was intense. “I'm surprised she was allowed to live, frankly. She was a constant threat to you, and as it happened, you were charged with conspiracy.” He leaned closer to her across the table. “Valerie, you know what's going to happen to you if you don't cut a deal with the prosecution.”

“No, I don't. She's not testifying against me. She said she wouldn't and I know that girl. You can't flip her.”

In fresh astonishment, Jury sat back. That Nell Ryder had convinced this woman who'd held her captive for twenty months that she, Nell, would defend Valerie Hobbs was a feat of persuasion that even Vernon Rice would marvel at. It was all the more marvelous in that Valerie Hobbs read Nell correctly.

“Her testimony will probably reduce the sentence, but you're still looking at prison, Valerie.”

She had fingered another cigarette from the pack and Jury cupped a match to light it. This time, as she leaned toward the flame, she touched his fingers, then looked at him through the smoke.

“The jury isn't going to look kindly on the treatment of those horses. The animal-rights people will have a field day. You won't be popular, to say the least.”

She kept shaking her head as he was saying this. “That won't come into it; my solicitor says it'd bias the jury against me and it's nothing to do with the abduction. Anyway, there's nothing illegal about keeping those mares and even if that did come into it, we can just flood the court-room with photographs of these huge horse farms in Manitoba that make mine look like nothing at all. Compared to what goes on in some of
them, mine
would be a stay at the Dorchester. Anyway, it's not down to me; I'm just paid to take care of them.”