The Blue Last

Mr. Ely, if that’s who it was, appeared in silhouette against the backdrop of a lighted hallway and, after a moment of hello and good-bye, closed the door. Benny rushed back, clambered in and told the driver to go to Waterloo Bridge, the other side, the Embankment side.

“And then where?” asked Melrose.

“Nowhere. I’ll just get out there.” Benny held the cake on his lap and watched the night slip by.

Melrose frowned. “But your birthday party-?”

“It’s around there.”

With Sparky up on the seat beside him now, Melrose pondered. It was pretty clear Benny didn’t wish to discuss the matter and Melrose would never force it. “How long have you been working for this Gyp person?”

“Over a year. But it ain’t-it’s not-just him. I make deliveries for Delphinium and Mr. Siptick, too. He’s the newsagent. And the Moonraker. Miss Penforwarden is really nice.” He started humming.

“How about school, though?” Melrose then congratulated himself for asking the most detestable question man ever put to child: How about school?

But Benny didn’t mind. “Oh, my mum takes care of that. I mean, she teaches me at home. See, I’m chesty-” Here he released several labored coughs for Melrose’s edification. It was the first time Melrose had heard the boy cough. Apparently feeling called upon to demonstrate his reason for skipping school, Benny kept hacking away.

“Okay, you can stop that now. It’s none of my business, anyway.”

“You’re the first person ever said that.”

Crossing Waterloo Bridge, Melrose looked up and down the river, to Blackfriars, to London Bridge, to Tower Bridge, to this whole panoply of bridges lighted all along their length. He thought the scene was gorgeous. He supposed this was how a New Yorker must feel crossing over a bridge to Manhattan. He remembered seeing the backdrop of Manhattan when he’d been watching a news presentation. The skyscrapers’ tops had been lit with colored lights, pink and yellow and green, surreal colors that seemed to float behind the news presenter.

When the mini-cab stopped and set Benny down near the Embankment, Melrose felt a pang. He told the boy to wait a minute as he wrote down Boring’s number on the back of one of his old calling cards.

“Just ring me if you need another ride. Or anything.”

“This here says you’re an earl.” Speculatively, Benny looked from the card to Melrose.

“Not I. A friend of mine.” Melrose carried the card for emergencies.

Benny nodded and put it in his pocket and did not move. He was waiting for the car to leave, Melrose guessed, so as not to give away his own movement.

Melrose told the driver, “Mayfair. Boring’s.”

Thirty-four

Jury was in the St. James pub leaning against a post when Liza walked in. She was carrying an Oxford Street shopping bag that bristled with ribbon-wrapped boxes. She was wearing an unfashionable black coat and a scarf over her hair, but she still turned heads. Up and down the bar, men swiveled around to get another look. Liza would be married again within a year, he bet, four kids or not. Probably she would have to remarry, no matter how much she still loved Mickey. On her own, merely providing for four kids would be a huge problem; keeping them happy and out of harm’s way with no one to help would be even worse.

“Hello, Richard.” She kissed his cheek; he could have done with more.

“Hello. Let’s go upstairs. There’s nowhere to sit down here. Better yet, you go upstairs while I get you a drink. Lager? Gin and tonic?”

“What I’d really like is a brandy. I’m beat.”

“It’s yours.”

Jury collected the drinks at the bar and made his way upstairs. At the top of the staircase, looking over at her, he thought how much she reminded him of a small girl inside a coat too big for her. She had deposited the shopping bag on one of the chairs. He set down their drinks, a double brandy for her, a pint for himself.

“Thanks. And thanks for asking me here. It was really nice of you.”

He smiled. “Hardly a sacrifice on my part. All I had to do was cross the street.” He gestured behind him in the direction of New Scotland Yard.

“You know what I mean. You see, there are very few people I can talk to-or Mickey himself when it comes to that-because very few know about his cancer. He must really need your help for him to tell you about it.”

“I suppose so. I’m helping as much as I can, Liza.”

“I know.” She had not removed the coat. It was as if every transaction now were so fleeting, it would be useless to settle in to any encounter. She put her hand on the shopping bag. “Buying presents. It’s difficult trying to celebrate. It’s damned difficult looking at all those carefree faces.”

“But they’re not, not really. Look at the suicide rate around Christmas.”

“Then why do we waste all of this energy pretending it’s such a happy time?”

“Is it wasted? I guess I’m of the old ‘assume-a-virtue-if-you-have-it-not’ school.”

She smiled. “Who said that? Shakespeare?”

“Hamlet, I imagine.”

“Why not? He said everything else.” She laughed and sipped her brandy. “I feel better. I expect this is what I needed.”

Jury was quiet, waiting for her to go on. That she needed to talk was painfully obvious. It must be like a punishment, the tragedy you couldn’t talk about.

Liza leaned closer and said, “I’m worried about him, Richard. That must sound ridiculous-of course I’d be worried-but I mean the toll this is taking on him emotionally.”

“But, of course-”

She raised her hand, palm out, as if to push away some easy comfort. “I know what you’re going to say: it’s natural he’d be having emotional swings, but he’s become so involved with this case-it wasn’t even a case when it started, just identifying old bones. And then the murder of this Croft and now it is a case.” Her hand went up to her mouth, to cover it, to try to keep from crying. She took a deep breath and went on. “The thing is, Mickey can’t seem to focus on anything else. What is it about this damned case, Richard? Now, of course, it’s in the City, and the City means Mickey.

It’s devastating to find him mentally elsewhere all of the time, all of the time elsewhere, knowing that in a little while he won’t be anywhere. When I think of a world without Mickey in it-” She stopped. Her fisted hand was over her mouth, denial shaking her head from side to side, sending the tears flying instead of falling.

“Liza, listen. I think I can answer your question. This case, he needs it; he needs to be engulfed by it; he needs something larger than life. It isn’t just this case. It could have been any case. When I talked to him in his office he needed a case that would make him think because he didn’t want to think about himself.”

“He’s taking the case so personally, though.”

“His father was a good friend of Francis Croft. In that way, it is personal.”

“God, what the hell difference does it make if this woman is or isn’t who she says she is? He’s probably wrong anyway.”

“I don’t think so.”

Liza looked surprised. “You mean you think the woman isn’t this man’s daughter?”

“Granddaughter. I don’t think she is, no.”

She sat back, drank the brandy. “It’s just so consuming…” Her voice trailed off.

“So is the disease. Maybe he needs something outside of himself to match it.” It was what he’d said before, different words. He wasn’t convincing Liza, that was plain. He wasn’t convincing himself.

Thirty-five

To the frustration of the mini-cab driver, Boring’s, in its narrow Mayfair street, was