The Grave Maurice

you about that? Or you read about her in the paper? You don’t seem visibly upset by it.”

The gun seemed to have become a prop that could be dispensed with. Danny set it down on the coffee table and said, “I hadn’t seen Simone in over a year. All that held us together really was the money. The insurance money. She was here to collect.”

“You shot her because she was in on the fraud.”

“I shot her?” His laugh was almost buoyant. “Why’d I do that? It makes no sense. She wasn’t the only one knew it wasn’t me took the fall in that race.” He hooked his thumb at Sara.

“By what sleight of hand did you manage that accident?”

“I can’t take all the credit for that; it was fate slapped the cards down there. Black Jack. They got us down wrong, me and a jockey named Delacroix, they mixed us up in the lineup. That horse, Up All Night? That was my ride, not Delacroix’s. He was supposed to be up on Bright Angel. It was dumb luck.”

“Not for Delacroix, it wasn’t. What about his own family-wife, Mum? Didn’t anyone wonder what happened to him? And didn’t anyone recognize you? In the UK your face was well known.”

“Not in France, it wasn’t. I never raced over there when I was working with Ryder Stud. All jockeys look the same in a race. You know the way they ride with their faces nearly mashed into their mount’s neck.” Danny gave a short, hard laugh. “It was bedlam, with Up All Night going down like he did. In all the aggravation, I couldn’t have found me own arse, much less somebody else’s. And who knows? Maybe there wasn’t any wife. But I do remember there was a bit in the paper that Delacroix hadn’t weighed in for the eighth race. But who was going to question who the body belonged to? My own wife identified me right on the spot. So if any of Delacroix’s relations or friends were there, why would they be upset? Nothing happened to him, as far as anyone knew, until his next race, like I said. Poor sod disappeared. Wouldn’t be the first time, right? What’d you think happened? You think I managed to engineer the whole thing? Listen, that horse’s leg was shattered, a triple fracture. Had to be put down then and there. You think I’d do that to a horse, boy-o?”

He actually cocked the gun that had been lying impotently on the table. It was as if he didn’t care sod-all if Jury landed him in the nick, but he certainly cared if Jury was saying he could do serious damage to a horse. It would be laughable except Jury knew he was perfectly serious.

“Sorry, Danny, if I have trouble believing in your equine devotion-not if you could stand by and watch those sixty mares tied up.”

“What,” asked Sara, “is he talking about?”

Danny looked utterly confused. “What in hell are you on about? That’s nothing to do with me.”

“Those mares were nothing to you? The jockey who could jump a horse over the moon without a whip? You’re fabled for your uncanny way with horses, Danny. I’m astonished that you’d put up with what was going on in those barns.”

“I don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about.”

Jury knew then he’d got half of this whole thing wrong. Still, he was fascinated. “You mean those horses Valerie Hobbs kept-that wasn’t your gig?” It was Dan Ryder’s Achilles’ heel, his feeling for horses. It was also the firing pin, apparently, the match to the fuse. Oddly, this might have been the key to Ryder’s fatal charm: he did have one very real passion-horses. The women he was involved with must have mistaken this intense feeling as meant for them. Whereas, Jury bet Danny didn’t give sod-all for any of them.

“Whatever Valerie Hobbs is up to, that’s got nothing to do with me.”

He wasn’t denying it because of Sara Hunt, that was certain. He was denying it because what he said was true.

“So now you think,” Danny said, “since I shot Simone, I’m going to knock off my girl Sara here because she also knows I’m alive?”

“Maybe not. But that wasn’t the only reason you might want your wife dead. There was, after all, the money. Maybe you wanted it all. You waited until you got it, or Simone got it-I expect that they choked on that double indemnity clause. She had to collect it, of course. You waited until she did and then shot her.” Jury paused. “Why the Ryder training track, though? Why’d you meet Simone there? Or had she perhaps decided to have a meeting with your father-?”

Danny was getting increasingly irritated. Not enough, though, to make him aim the gun. “Oh, sod off, mate. You haven’t a clue.”

The second person who’d told him that in the last twenty-four hours. He couldn’t help but smile. “Perhaps not, but if you didn’t do it, who did?”

“It could have been the whole fucking Jockey Club, for all I know. Simone wasn’t known for her discretion.”

“That was it? You knew she’d give you away at some point?”

Danny flapped his hand at Jury, slammed the beer bottle on the table and said to Sara, “Get me a real drink, love, will you?”

Sara rose and went to the drinks cabinet, but kept her eye on them as she was pouring, as if one or the other might make a break for it while she was fixing drinks.

Jury realized how wrong he’d been. What was, after all, the point of Dan’s killing Simone? The man was already risking identification with Sara Hunt. If Dan Ryder hadn’t killed the woman, who had?

Dan was talking about Nell, now. “Always had a thing for that girl. Ashamed to admit it, but there it is. Always had a thing for her.”

Sara put the drink on the table. She said, “Is there any female you don’t have a ‘thing’ for?”

My God, thought Jury, the man’s a liar, a swindler, possibly a killer, yet all she reacts to is mention of another woman. Ryder must be like a snake charmer: this one, at least, seemed to be mesmerized.

“She was only thirteen, fourteen last time I saw her-”

“Last time you saw her she was seventeen. She still is.”

Danny stopped the whiskey in midair. Slowly, he put it down. “What the bloody hell are you on about now?”

“I’m talking about taking Nell Ryder, Danny.”

“What? You think that’s me.” He laughed, sat back and reclaimed his glass. “Well, you been wrong twice now, so you might as well go for three times.”

“Then who?”

“You ought to get me a job with the Yard, me. And you a detective superintendent.”

“Maurice-” Jury stopped, looked sharply at Sara, who looked away. He didn’t want to tell him Maurice was dead; he’d leave that for Sara to do. Yet Danny had given the boy up, hadn’t he, with this charade? And it struck Jury that perhaps Danny had given everything up- especially his riding career, his horses.

“What about Maurice?”

“I’m sure it was Maurice who got Nell out to that stable by lying about Aqueduct. I can’t see his doing this for anyone but you, Dan.”

“Then he didn’t do it. Because I didn’t take her. Lord knows I never took Aqueduct.”

Jury had to smile. Taking Aqueduct, clearly, was even more unbelievable to Danny.

“But it was Maurice. It’s the thing that explains his behavior.”

“What behavior?”