The Grave Maurice

Valerie Hobbs uttered a soundless laugh. “That is such a lie.”

“Perhaps, but-” He leaned forward again, fixing her with a look that one might say spoke volumes yet was being forever misread. “Has he really got such a hold over you that you refuse to give him up?”

Her cigarette stopped on its way to her mouth. “Has who?”

Jury shrugged. “There’s somebody you’re protecting.”

Again, that mirthless little laugh. “You’re bonkers, Superintendent.”

Jury pulled out another snapshot, pushed that one toward her, too. “Same woman, only this time-”

Valerie Hobbs picked it up, looked from the snapshot to Jury and back again. And laughed. “The man she’s with? Yes, I know him: Dan Ryder. Isn’t that who this is? He’s dead, for God’s sake. D-E-A-D. You really haven’t a clue, have you?”

It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected.

Perhaps she was right; perhaps he hadn’t a clue.

FIFTY-ONE

It was dark, the middle of the night, when Maurice took Aqueduct from his stall, saddled and cantered out to the far field and Hadrian’s walls. Maurice knew Aqueduct could do it, whether with Maurice up on him was another matter.

The air was like crystal, clear and sharp. Aqueduct was the sort of horse you could feel glued to, as if horse and rider were one inseparable entity. That was a good feeling; it was also a dangerous one. You could stop paying attention because you thought the horse would do it for you.

Maurice had found it hard concentrating on anything since Nell’s return. Like the crystal air, he felt he could be seen through; he felt he could break. What had been a massive relief when he’d first seen her was now a dead weight. Nell had almost vanished off the face of the earth. Maurice didn’t want to think about it anymore.

The ground-hard, icy and wet-was soon churned to muddy slickness. The first three walls had been taken easily enough. Now they were approaching the fourth wall, which was higher than both the fifth and the sixth, so that if he could get over it, it would mean he could probably get over all of them.

It was this wall, the fourth, that had stopped Criminal Type (but he wasn’t a jumper, anyway) and it seemed suddenly to rise up before him. He had lifted himself above the saddle, with his head nearly on the bridle, and then Aqueduct was flying, sailing through the sharp midnight air. That was, at least, the feeling as the horse surged over the top of the wall, but on the descent, Aqueduct’s hind leg got caught in a stone outcrop and they came down like a thunderclap.

In a flash, Maurice knew, as he was thrown at lightning-bolt velocity against the wall, Maurice knew he would not have to feel it any longer: the betrayer betrayed.

FIFTY-TWO

When Jury got back from Cambridge, Carole-anne was glittering around his flat in midthigh black sequins, doing several nursey things, or at least what she imagined nurses must do-plumping pillows, lining up shoes, making tea, a steaming cup of which was sitting on the small table beside Jury’s chair.

It did not disturb Jury that she was in his flat when he wasn’t there; sometimes he wished she’d be in it more when he was there. He marveled that the three of them (with Stan Keeler making an often-absent fourth) were still here together. Mrs. Wasserman, of course, couldn’t be pried free of her “garden” flat (basement, in other words) for love or money. But it did surprise him that Carole-anne had remained stationary for all of these years. He didn’t wonder about her love life-well, not often- because it struck him as intrusive even to think about-

Put a sock in it, man.

– it, although he certainly watched whenever she was in Stan’s presence.

“What?”

Carole-anne was in her hands-on-hips posture, a stance he really liked because it was very hippy and tonight had sequins on it. “Just wondering about the dress. Where’re you going? To another rally of the public-footpath people?” Jury was taking off his shoes, feeling his tired feet had been to the rally themselves.

Doubtfully, she smoothed her hands down over the short black dress. “What’s wrong with it, then? Stan likes it.”

“I’m sure Stone likes it, too, but that doesn’t mean you have to lead it around on a leash.”

Puzzlement. “What’s that mean?”

Jury had no idea. He just said it. “There’s nothing wrong with it, nothing, believe me. Oh-ho and mmmmmm nothing. If you walked down a public footpath in that there’d be no argument from Lord Stickywicket about whether the footpath was his or yours.”

Carole-anne gave him a look. “Super, why does it always take you forever to say something?”

Jury smiled. It was exactly what he’d said to Melrose Plant.

She merely flapped her hand at him, saying, “Oh, never mind.” She began rearranging magazines on the cherry coffee table.

“Carole-anne, those magazines are ten years old; they don’t care anymore.”

“I’m going to the Nine-One-Nine.” She sighed and shook her head. “Too bad you’re recuperating or you could come, too.”

In high-pitched mimicry, Jury repeated, “ ‘Too bad you’re recuperating or you could come, too.’ I’m perfectly capable of going to the Nine-One-Nine. It’s only”-he checked his watch-“ten o’clock.”

“You really are behaving peculiar. I don’t know what’s got into you lately.”

He smiled. “Just three bullets.” He lost no opportunity to play the bullet card. Shameful.

Carole-anne went properly remorseful, put her hand on his forehead to check his temperature (or possibly to feel for brains) and left. He then poured himself another cup of tea and reseated himself. It was not because he was tired or “recuperating” that he hadn’t gone with her, but because he wanted only to think. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back. His thoughts were a blur.

Valerie Hobbs. She was a stubborn woman. Stubborn and seriously misled. He hadn’t really hoped for more than he’d gotten. Valerie had her impulses under control, so that her laugh and her “you haven’t a clue” response to the picture of Dan Ryder told him that he was wrong about Valerie. But that didn’t mean he was wrong about Sara Hunt.

Sara Hunt. Sara did not have as much to lose. Both of them would clearly go to the mat for a man they loved. Did women like danger? Did they find it romantic?