The Winds of Change (29 page)

‘Oh, indeed it does, indeed it does.’ She looked away, out over the garden.

Melrose thought it might be better not to question her more about the Scotts unless he sounded a little curious. ‘Well, I’d better see to my work. Thanks for the tea and biscuits.’

‘Did Sergeant Wiggins hear someone say tea?’

It was Jury standing in the doorway, Wiggins behind him. ‘I wouldn’t say no to a cup myself.’

Rebecca rose, a bit flustered. ‘Oh my, yes. Of course.’ She felt the pot. ‘It’s still hot, but I can make a fresh–’

‘No, this will be fine.’

As if the day’s mission were none other than drinking tea at this table, Wiggins divested himself of his coat and sat down, all smiles.

‘I’m glad to see you’ve recovered, Sergeant,’ said Melrose. ‘You did look a bit peaked yesterday.’

‘Must’ve been one of those twenty-four-hour bugs. Three sugars, please, Miss Owen, if you don’t mind.’

She lifted out three lumps with the little tongs and plinked each into his cup. ‘And I expect you’d like a biscuit.’ Wiggins nodded as if sickness had never encroached upon his rather spindly frame. ‘I would, yes.’

In this onslaught of teaness, Jury was left to wield the little tongs for himself. He said as he sat down, ‘You’re carrying on, then, Mr. Plant?’

Melrose favored him with his most insincere smile and started to speak when Lulu suddenly appeared before them, dispersing herself around Jury like dew or dandelion filaments.

‘Hello, Lulu; how are you-loo?’

Melrose winced. You-loo? That was about as funny as a canker sore.

But Lulu liked it. She giggled, pleased as punch. ‘Here’s a present,’ she said to Jury. She held out a purple pansy, returned to its soil-filled container.

The nerve! ‘Just hold on!’ commanded Melrose. ‘That’s one of my pansies.’

‘It’s an extra one; you don’t need it.’ She returned her gaze to Jury.

Who said, ‘That makes sense, if it’s extra.’

‘Who says it’s extra? I mean besides Lulu? I had them counted out, measured and planted.’

Lulu said, ‘If you’d lined them up properly, you’d see it’s one too many.’

Roy barked once and Jury reached down and scratched his head. Roy’s tail went slapping away like a beaver’s.

‘You’re messing with my enameling.’ He rose in high dudgeon before he reminded himself he didn’t care a fig about his enameling.

Lulu was gripping Jury’s arm as if it were a rope thrown into quicksand.

He said, ‘Perhaps we should all go out and have a look, see if it’s okay. For you must realize, Lulu, that Mr. Plant here is an expert and you shouldn’t bother his project when he’s not around.’

‘Okay,’ she said, handing Melrose a smile like a penny to the homeless. He’d known smiles that didn’t reach the eyes. But a smile that hardly reached the lips? She was jumping up and down in her enthusiasm, her brave brown hair jumping, too. For some reason, that’s how she struck him, as brave.

‘Wiggins, you stay here and finish your tea.’

The earth that Melrose had tamped down so nicely had been disturbed. ‘You moved them, Lulu!’ The line of purple-blue pansies was straight.

‘Only a little. It looks better; it’s even.’

Jury disengaged the hand Lulu was hanging on with both of hers, again for what seemed dear life. He knelt. ‘Let’s see here.’ Oh, for God’s sakes, thought Melrose. As if Jury knew anything about it! Then again he reminded himself that he himself didn’t know anything about it.

‘I think,’ said Juryl ‘it’s meant to have the colors mixed. See, you’ve got all these purple ones together. You should put some white and yellow in there.’

He sounded just like Lulu. Melrose glared. ‘Since when do you know anything about the art of enameling?’

‘Well, I don’t, do I? But I’ve seen enameled jewelry.’ He tapped Trueblood’s book. ‘You’ve got this whole book here, for reasons known only to yourself, on enameled jewelry.’ Jury leafed through it. ‘The colors are mixed together.’

Oh, the triumph on Lulu’s face! ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ Now that Jury had taken up her argument, she was playing some sort of jumping around game with Roy. Her aunt came out on the path and called for her to come in.

‘Good-bye, good-bye,’ she called to them over her shoulder.

‘Good-bye,’ muttered Melrose.

Jury smiled and set off across the path that led to the cottage.

‘Come on, I have a few things to tell you.’

‘They better be good.’

Jury tossed his coat on one chair and sat down in a wicker rocker, adjusting the pillow behind him. ‘The reason we were having such a time identifying our victim was because she didn’t exist.’

‘Oh, well, nonexistence does rather put a crimp in recognition. What are you talking about?’ Melrose sat down and took out his cigarettes, then thought better of it and returned the pack to his pocket.

‘She was, in the first instance, Georgina Fox, Scott’s old girlfriend. Except Georgina didn’t exist, either. There was no Georgina.

The victim’s name was Lena Banks.’ Jury told him about his visit to the Culross.

‘Lena Banks,’ said Melrose, as if tasting the name. ‘Where does she fit in?’

‘By way of Viktor Baumann. Miss Banks is, or rather was, his longstanding mistress. She picked up with Declan Scott when he was in Paris after his wife died. Since Lena Banks is no longer speaking, except perhaps in eloquent silence, I can only speculate that she was getting information for Viktor Baumann.’ Melrose said, ‘They thought Declan Scott knew where Flora was, which means they didn’t know. Which further means the child was taken by somebody else.’

‘Right.’ Jury leaned back against the cushion and closed his eyes. ‘The Child Thief.’

‘Don’t you start that.’ Melrose decided this time in favor of a cigarette. A cigarette was a thinking prop.

‘I wasn’t actually trying to be funny.’

‘Flora was abducted three years ago.’

‘And six months after that Mary Scott dies. And a year after that, Declan Scott meets up with Lena Banks, aka Georgina Fox.’

‘What if he’s lying?’

‘Declan?’ Jury watched the thin smoke rise from his friend’s cigarette. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘But that’s a purely subjective judgment.’

‘Yes, well, I’m not in St. James’s, so I can be as subjective as I like.’ He flashed a smile, on-off, quick as a light switch.

‘You’re sure of this ID on the victim?’

‘Yes. We took it to Denny Dench. He’s one of Macalvie’s favorite experts. Bones. If Declan Scott didn’t recognize this woman as Georgina, probably nobody would, except for Dench. He looked at photos of the two women and said they were the same person. He used a piece of equipment that can compare images.’

‘Okay, so this Lena Banks is the victim. Now, with that all cleared up, who in hell killed her? Patricia Quint? Lord Warburton?’
 

Jury opened his eyes. ‘That name sounds familiar.’
 

‘Henry james. I just call him that for a laugh.’

‘Isn’t he the one who wanted to marry the heiress? Whats her name ?’

‘Isabel Archer. Everyone wanted to marry Isabel Archer.’

‘To choose a suspect from your list, what would Warburton’s motive be?’

‘I’ve no idea. Patricia Quint might have a motive if this is Georgina come back. I get the impression she wants Declan Scott for herself.’

‘Does she? I imagine any woman would.’

Melrose nodded.

‘But the murdered woman didn’t look like Georgina, so why would Patricia Quint kill her?’ Jury asked.

‘Perhaps she knew somehow who this woman was.’

‘That’s pretty weak, if Scott himself didn’t suspect anything.’ Melrose thought for a moment. ‘Could the Banks woman have been acting on her own?’

‘That’s possible, I guess. Macalvie suggested the same thing. But it would be dangerous.’

Stubbing out his cigarette, Melrose said, ‘There are too damned many people walking around with other people’s faces in this case.’

‘‘Nobody knows who anybody is.’ I think Melville said that-The Confidence Man. It’s a frightening thought. You can’t get a toehold and certainly not a finger hold, yet you’re expected to climb the mountain. All the labels are wrong and all the names missing.

We go on acting our roles.’

‘If that’s the case, you can never come up with a solution.’

‘No, probably not.’ Jury paused. ‘But I do think Viktor Baumann’s behind all of this.’

‘Then did he murder her?’

‘I doubt it; he’s far more likely to get someone else to do his work. One of the guys in what we used to call the Dirty Squad has been after Baumann for a long time.’

‘Really? What for?’

‘He’s got a little operation going that caters to pedophiles.’

‘My God. And he wanted custody of Flora Baumann?’ Jury nodded.

‘Then does this pedophile thing have to do with your child who was shot in North London?’

‘Yes, I think so. I’m going back tomorrow.’

‘You just left the place. You look tired.’

Jury shrugged.

Melrose said, ‘Who in the name of God would shoot a little child in the back? What kind of person could do such a thing?’

‘Another child?’

Jury was on his way to the police van when he saw Patricia Quint coming into the bottom of the garden through the iron angel door in the stone wall. She was wearing an old coat, hugging her arms around it as if she were cold.

‘Miss Quint,’ Jury said, nodding.

‘Oh, hello. Your work is never done, is it?’

‘It seems so. Could we sit down for a moment? There are one or two questions I’d like to ask you.’

‘Yes, certainly. Only not there, if you don’t mind.’ She nodded toward the stone bench.

‘No, of course not.’ The crime scene tape had been taken down. Perhaps she thought that was an open invitation to use it.

Instead they moved to one of the white iron benches.

‘Incidentally, what were you doing just now?’

‘Doing?’

‘I merely wondered why you’d be out here.’

‘Taking a walk.’

‘Around the grounds of Angel Gate ?’

‘Yes, why not? Did you think—do you think I should be put off by the murder?’

Jury smiled. ‘No, I wasn’t thinking that.’

Puzzled, she looked at him. ‘Then what?’

‘It’s just that you don’t, you know, live here.’

‘I’m an old friend of Declan’s.’ She looked at him in some astonishment. ‘I hardly think he’d mind.’

‘Oh, he wouldn’t mind.’ Jury left the emphasis hanging.

‘Superintendent, is this what you wanted to ask me?’

‘No.’ Jury paused. ‘How well did you know Mary Scott?’

‘Quite well.’

‘I’m not sure what that means. A good acquaintance? A confidante ?’

‘Well, I don’t know that she divulged any secrets to me, so, no, I guess she didn’t confide. People can be friends short of that, can’t they?’

‘You did consider her a friend, though?’

‘Of course. I knew Mary before. I mean before she married Declan. When she lived in London, when her name was Baumann.’ Jury was surprised now. ‘Then you must have known her husband.’

‘I did, yes. Actually, I knew him before he met Mary.’ Macalvie hadn’t said anything about this; perhaps he didn’t know. ‘What did you think of the marriage?’

She frowned, thinking. ‘Well, I got the impression he loved her. He was extremely attentive.’

‘That sort of behavior doesn’t always spring from love.’

‘Of what, then?’ She smiled. ‘Or is this just a rush of police cynicism?’

Jury smiled. ‘I’m not a cynic, Miss Quint.’

‘How could you help but be with what you must see on an almost daily basis? You’re a homicide detective, after all.’ She seemed to want some cynicism here.
 

Jury said, ‘True. But to answer your question about attentiveness, it could be that her first husband wanted to control her. Seeing to her comfort would also prevent anyone else from seeing to it. Often, the most seemingly devoted people are really suffocating the object of their devotion. Love means breathing room, and a lot of it.’

‘I see what you mean. But it’s hard to think of Viktor as suffocating Mary.’

‘She left him, didn’t she?’

Patricia Quint looked out over the gardens. ‘Yes. She did.’

‘What do you know about Viktor Baumann ?’

Her gaze returned to Jury. ‘Not much, really. He was a hard man to know.’

‘How was he with Flora?’

She thought for a moment. ‘You know I don’t ever recall seeing Viktor with Flora. Well, she was only a baby then. It’s hard to think of Viktor with a child.’

Jury looked the question at her.

‘He’s just not a bedtime-story, naptime, zoo-visiting sort of person.’

‘Yet he’d tried very hard to get custody of Flora before she disappeared.’