fled in an instant along with his rational self. He felt enveloped by pure feeling. The sensation passed and he was sorry to see it go.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, no. Here, let me help you with that.”
She had stopped with the heavy silver tray carrying a sadly tarnished silver coffeepot and china cups. But before he reached her, she set it down on a side table. “That’s all right; it’s lighter than it looks.” She poured strong black coffee into a cup. “Cream? Sugar?” she asked.
“Neither.”
“Black is the only way to drink coffee, I think.”
“And strong,” he said, taking the cup she held out. He sat down again as she reclaimed her seat on the sofa.
She said, “I read about the death of that woman on the Ryder course. That is so strange. Arthur Ryder’s an unlucky man.”
“I doubt luck has much to do with it. Did you have any idea at all about that shooting?”
“I? Why, no. I told you I barely know the Ryders.”
Jury sat back with his cup. “But you know his stepson, Vernon Rice.”
Surprisingly, she smiled. “Ah, yes. I do know him, yes. He handled some investments for me.”
“You like him, to judge from your smile.”
She laughed. “It’s just that he was so utterly friendly. He was beguiling, really. And the investments paid off handsomely.”
“You trust Vernon Rice?”
She looked bewildered. “Yes, of course.”
Jury smiled. “That ‘of course’ implies that anyone would.”
“What are you saying? Vernon is some sort of con man?”
“No, not at all.”
They were silent for a moment, drinking their coffee, aware of each other’s presence. Then Jury said, “Dan Ryder was, as I understand it, quite a ladies’ man.” He felt the phrase to be old-fashioned and a little silly now.
She looked up from her coffee. “I don’t-” She stopped. “I don’t know if he was.”
“I understand he had a number of affairs and broke up more than one marriage.” Jury rose and moved again to the fireplace, where he picked up the snapshot of the winner’s circle at Newmarket races. “Very charismatic, from what I’ve heard. Do you think so?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“But you found him attractive?”
“I suppose so.”
“I’m just curious.” He laughed a little. “As a man, I mean. I wonder what exactly a woman finds attractive.” He looked at her, holding her glance, which he suspected wanted to run away. “I’ve seen photographs of him at the Ryder place and he doesn’t strike me as all that, well, alluring, you could say. What exactly did you respond to? Or perhaps it wasn’t his looks. His manner? His touch?”
She sat for a few moments, her face expressionless. Then she said, “But then, you’re a man, aren’t you?” Suddenly she rose, looking stricken and pale, as if she’d just received a report of a death. Picking up the silver cream pitcher, she said, “I think this cream has gone off. Excuse me.”
Jury watched her leave.
He took his cup and returned to the window and its view of the distant mountains.
When she returned with the cream, she had clearly collected herself. “I was about to go for a walk when you came. Would you mind? I mean, we could talk while walking, couldn’t we?”
As she stood there with the little cream jug that no one had needed, Jury felt her anxiety and would almost have taken back what he’d asked her. She was still in love with Danny Ryder and desperate to keep the attachment hidden.
They gathered up coats, he helping her on with hers, and left the house. A walk had not been her aim. Getting rid of him probably had been. If she’d lied about her involvement with Ryder, she might have lied about other things.
Still, he could feel her need not to drag him from whatever corner of her mind she’d banished him to. What surprised Jury was that she still harbored these feelings after several years. Then he thought, how banal. Feelings, he well knew, could last a lifetime. Anyone who thought time healed all wounds must have sustained only the most minor lacerations.
Their walk in the grounds led them around the dry pool, filled now with shriveled leaves. In the center was a stone figure, a woman pouring what perhaps in a warmer month would be water, a circle of fish with incongruous, open mouths below her.
“Like a lot of things here,” she said, “the fountain doesn’t work.” Her glance canvassed the desolate gardens. “I’m not truly neglectful; I get some boys in from the village to care for it in the spring.”
“I didn’t think you were-neglectful, I mean.”
She turned, her hand bunching the collar of her coat more closely around the neck. “Then what? What in the world do you think I am, for you obviously have reservations about me?”
“Amorous.”
Her hand dropped away from her collar. She laughed. “Whatever makes you say that?”
“That’s why you live here alone, isn’t it? In exile, you could say. Better that than a broken heart. Too much feeling, that’s what keeps you here.”
It was as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Her mouth opened, closed again.
“Much safer,” he added. “Much.” He looked into her brown eyes and a thread of green outlining the iris. Then at her soft mouth. He started walking again.
But she just stood.
He turned round and smiled. “Come on; it’s too cold for standing still.” He held out his hand, which was warm. She walked a few paces and put her own, which was cold, in his.
“Is this peculiar talk about my amorousness-is it to trick me into something? Some admission of guilt?”
“Of what?” He stopped and looked at her.
She laughed. “Oh, I see, no trickery involved in this discussion.”
“No.”
“You must be very good at getting suspects to confide in you.”
“Not particularly. How long have you lived here?”
She hesitated, wondering, probably, if the question was loaded. “Since my divorce four years ago.”
“It must have been painful then to drive you here.”
Again she stopped and looked up at him, slowly shaking her head. “You really are clever. You could just ask me why I divorced my husband. I found his temper impossible to take, eventually. The divorce was acrimonious, to say the least. He liked cars, to race fast cars. I always thought that was a little, I don’t know, adolescent.”
“That’s too bad. It’s too bad about the way things start out and the way
