“The granddaughter?”
Vernon looked at Melrose absently, as if trying to place him, and said, “Nearly two years ago she was kidnapped or abducted, according to the police.” He turned his eyes on his plate, but didn’t raise his fork.
“My God, but your family is not the luckiest around. Mr. Ryder told me a little about that kidnapping; he said there was never a ransom demand.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s a very strange story.”
Vernon nodded. “They also took one of Arthur’s great Thoroughbreds, a horse named Aqueduct. We assume Nellie saw or heard them-she was in the stable herself, you see, looking after a sick horse-and they took her to keep her quiet.”
“Why take this particular horse, Aqueduct?”
“Aqueduct’s a valuable ’chaser. But they couldn’t have raced him under some fictitious name, unless they’d gone to a lot of trouble to make sure he wasn’t recognized. Even then, George Davison-the trainer-would have known. George could have told from the horse’s performance. He’s amazing that way. Aqueduct could have been stolen for breeding purposes. His progeny have certainly measured up, won a lot of top races. But this wouldn’t explain it because they couldn’t put down Aqueduct as the sire.”
Vernon had given up all pretense of eating now and was sitting back with his wineglass in his hand. He kept raising it and replacing it on the table, untouched. He seemed to have given up the pretense of drinking, too. “So-?”
Melrose took his last bite of meat loaf, sorry to see it go, and pushed his clean-as-a-whistle plate away. “To do something to the whole stable? To all of the Thoroughbreds? Or to do something to your stepfather? The only person who saw what happened was the granddaughter. Everything else is speculation, an attempt at reconstruction. For all anyone knows they could have come for completely different reasons than you think.”
“I suppose you’re right. But you have to start somewhere, and we started with what went missing. Aqueduct. Nellie.”
“That’s reasonable.”
For the first time that afternoon, Vernon looked defeated. “She’s not dead.”
“Even after twenty months?”
“Even so. She’s not dead.”
“You seem so sure.”
“I am.” He returned to his cold plate then and cut off a bit of his cold fish, chewed it, swallowed. “I hardly knew her.”
That, thought Melrose, was the first indication of self-deception. He had known her, all right, just as Melrose felt he himself knew her after nothing but seeing her picture.
Vernon cut off another bite and chewed it. He looked as if he were eating ashes.
TWENTY-ONE
He had been sitting in the Bentley for twenty minutes parked on a double-yellow line, wondering how he could get a look at the body and how he could get past the policeman in reception. Not being a relative or a witness himself, it would be impossible. He had been there, though, in the aftermath, when the stretcher had come out of the woods. And he had been seen to be there by the detectives.
Melrose got out of the car and leaned against it, quietly smoking. He looked around for a call box and didn’t see one. Jury might have some ideas about all of this if he could get him on the telephone. By now, Hannibal surely must have returned his telephone privileges. Why did Jury put up with it?
There was a pub down the street and of course they’d have a telephone. He searched his person and then his car for paper to write on. All he salvaged from the glove compartment was a theater program for
Melrose slammed the car door, stood with his arms on top of the car and his head bent, hoping to come up with some clever approach to Cambridge police. When he stopped banging his head and looked over the top of the car, he saw two children standing on the pavement licking iced lollies and staring at him. What were they doing out after dark? They were apparently waiting for him to do his next number.
“Just look at yourselves. Are you auditioning for Cirque du Soleil?”
They neither spoke nor gave up their places on the pavement. They waited. The inherent pleasure of watching a grown-up being a total idiot seemingly had a stronger pull than running from that grown-up idiot. Melrose walked around to the pavement. “You haven’t seen
But they just went on looking and licking. What was it about him that made children look at him as if their dog had suddenly started talking? Melrose threw up his hands, turned away and started toward the pub down the street. The need to look back was too strong and he did. Now they were leaning, backs against his car, licking their ices and staring at the park.
The Cricketer’s Arms was the familiar world of smoke and beer. He told the bartender he’d have a pint of whatever was on tap and went to the telephone. He pinged coins into the slots, thinking he should probably get one of those cell phones, but he despised them. The whole earth had turned into a public call box.
Hannibal answered.
Melrose couldn’t believe she was actually screening Jury’s calls. He put on his best North London voice and said, “Is Mr. Joo-ry there, love?”
When she said the superintendent wasn’t to be disturbed, Melrose raised his voice a disturbed notch. “It’s his auntie Agatha; I’m ever so worried since I found out about that ’orrible business. Can’t I just speak to ’im fer a moment?”
Melrose could hear Jury arguing with her in the background. Then finally his voice came over the line, “Aunt Agatha!”
“Has she gone?” Melrose asked on his end.
“No,” Jury answered.
“Well, can’t you get her out of your room?”
“You’re kidding. Aunt Agatha,” he quickly added.
Jury enjoyed this sort of thing, Melrose was sure; it must have been similar to the intractability of witnesses and to intractable circumstance. “Listen. I need you to do something. I’m in Cambridge. I’ve driven Vernon Rice here because the police wanted him to have a look at the body, see if he knows-or knew-her. I imagine they also wanted to ask him more questions since he’s still there and it’s been forty- five minutes. I want to see the body myself. Do you want me to?”
“Yes.”
“So how can I? I’m not family or friend or anything that would get me a ticket in.”
“Simple. I’ll just tell them you might have recognized her. Okay,
