The Grave Maurice

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.

FIFTY

“You 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