The Grave Maurice

assigned exclusively to this operation. To actually grab some of the market we’d need thousands of horses, such as are on those farms in Canada. And I could hardly organize that in this country, could I? Not on my land, certainly. No place secluded enough.”

“Accountant, banker, lawyer. Sounds like paradise, take away the island,” said Barry Greene.

“What the hell are you holding over these people’s heads, Roy? What do you know about Valerie Hobbs to have made her implicate herself?”

Roy expelled a narrow stream of smoke. “Enough.”

Wiggins had been dispatched in the company of the crime-scene fingerprint expert to examine the room at the top of the stairs used by Nell Ryder.

“They covered all that pretty thoroughly,” said Wiggins, “when they took Valerie Hobbs into custody. Certainly went over it for prints.”

“I know,” said Jury. “I’ve seen the results. But I’m especially interested in the bed. They lifted prints from the bed frame and the head. But since it’s an old brass bed, it has metal bars. I don’t think they lifted any from the bars. It’s those I’m interested in, not just the single print, either; there should be an entire set”-Jury’s fingers moved as if they were locking around a bar-“and I think you’ll find them.”

That had been an hour ago.

Jury wished he had a cigarette; all he had was a pack of gum. He was standing with his back against the wall again (and recognizing the aptness of that metaphor), listening to Roy Diamond smoothly answering the questions of Barry Greene. Where was the man’s lawyer? Hadn’t Diamond said he wouldn’t answer any more questions without the solicitor’s being present? The man was so sure he could sidestep any trap that the police might set that he kept right on going.

“Billy Finn doesn’t know anything. He’s my best jockey. What has he allegedly done?”

“Allegedly,” said Greene, “abducted Nell Ryder twenty months ago and dropped her off at Hobbs stud.”

Diamond snorted. “That’s ridiculous.”

Jury excused himself.

Roy Diamond said again he would answer no more questions.

Detective Sergeant Styles, marginally less frosty toward Jury given the events of that afternoon, in response to Jury’s asking if he could speak to Billy Finn, turned up his hands and said, “If Greene says yes, be my guest. I’m getting sod-all from him. I’m going for a cuppa, me.” He left.

Jury had watched Billy Finn when they brought him in on the heels of Roy Diamond. He’d heard Billy being questioned. He did not himself think Billy had been the one to take Nell from the stable that May night.

Since he had no cigarettes, Jury offered Billy Finn a stick of gum. Billy took it.

“Look, Billy, no one in bloody hell could remember where he was on a night in May twenty months ago. I’m not setting any store by an alibi. The reason for pulling you in is that shirt, the silks, the colors of Diamond’s stables. Your silks being what Nell Ryder took a knife to.”

Billy half rose in protest. Jury waved him down. “I know-there are a half dozen jockeys who might have worn those colors over the time they rode for Diamond. It’s not necessarily the shirt itself. It’s the pattern, Billy. The diamond pattern that sent Nell ballistic. That must be what she remembered, what suddenly came into her mind. Now, there were two things she was sure of: that the person who took her was small and that he took her by way of those walls. You’re a flat racer, aren’t you, Billy?”

Billy nodded, intrigued in spite of himself, Jury’s manner having enough of a calming effect that he could forget why he was there long enough to be interested in the story.

“I think what we’re looking for is a jump jockey. Those walls aren’t easy; I don’t think a rider would choose those walls to get himself over unless he knew he was a damned good jumper.

“Strictly speaking, of course, the fellow doesn’t even have to be someone who rides for Diamond. It just seems more likely that it would be. To narrow it down even more, someone who is enough of a low-life to abduct a girl for pay, or someone who’s into Roy Diamond for a lot. Someone who owes him. You know what I mean.”

Billy nodded, chewing the gum furiously. “There’s a guy, a jockey, Trevor-what’s his last name? Trevor-bloody damn-he rode Dusty Answer in the Grand National last year. Trevor Gwyne, that’s it, Trevor Gwyne. Never did like him. He’s known for trying to unseat other riders; I think he was up before the Jockey Club a couple times and got suspended for a year. Anyway, I know Gwyne’s a gambler and I know Roy’s bailed him out a couple times. For big money. You may want to talk to him, right?”

Jury had been sitting on the table, close to Billy, and got up. “Absolutely. Thanks, Billy.”

“Listen, do I get to leave? Tonight, I mean?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I’ll have a word.”

At that, Billy almost relaxed.

Jury left the room and saw Wiggins coming down the hall. When he saw Jury, he waved whatever he was holding in his hand. “You were right.”

“In here, Wiggins.” They went into an empty room furnished like the others with table and folding chairs. Wiggins put down the fingerprint cards. “You were right; they hadn’t tried to lift prints from the metal bars. Here, these are Roy Diamond’s prints, and the configuration pretty obviously shows he grabbed on to the bar. Well, you can see here-” Wiggins pointed them out, though they needed no pointing, the prints of four fingers, the fourth, the pinky, slightly smudged. One under the other, clearly indicating the hand had been wrapped round the bar. The second shot was from a slightly different angle.

“They’re his, all right.”

There was no thumb print, but that was probably because the thumb would have overlapped the index finger when the hand wrapped the bar.

“This is good, Wiggins, very good.”

Barry Greene was coming out of the room where Roy Diamond still sat, telling the constable to go in. He then walked to where Jury stood. “Right bastard, that one is.”

Jury showed him the photos.

“Excellent. Of course you know what his solicitor will make of this lot.”

“Well, he’s not here yet and Diamond is so bloody sure of himself-it’s worth a try.”

They entered the room again and Greene told the PC he could leave. Then Greene spread the photos in front of Diamond. “It would appear, Roy, that you’d been getting up to something in this bed. Nell Ryder’s bed, I mean. But you remember, you must. In the throes of passion you grabbed on to the bars, apparently.”

Roy Diamond looked at the fingerprint cards and his complexion changed to mottled red, which slowly leaked out, leaving his face almost sheet white.

Gotcha! thought Jury.

Roy opened his mouth to say something just as the door seemed to spring open in its hurry to indulge the hand that pushed it.

A voice behind Jury said, “That’s all, folks. One more word and I’ll do my Woody Woodpecker impersonation.”

Roy Diamond’s solicitor came through the door looking as accommodating as razor wire.

Jury knew that voice. He turned to its source. It was Charly Moss.