The Grave Maurice

Danny looked off across the courtyard and up into the impossibly endless blue sky and shook his head. He brought two fingers to his forehead in a small salute. Then he left.

Maurice. That his death was completely accidental Jury believed less and less, especially after Barry Greene brought in Trevor Gwyne. Jury had thought the jockey would have had enough of a fright to go to ground after Roy Diamond had been gathered up by Cambridge police. But apparently, Greene found him in his London house sitting down to a meal.

When Greene had the tape running in the interrogation room, Jury was once again holding up the wall.

Trevor Gwyne, who had either more sense than most or none at all, decided that cooperation would get him further than proclaiming his innocence. This surprised Jury, as the only people who could testify to his guilt were Roy Diamond and Valerie Hobbs and it wasn’t bloody likely they’d be saying anything soon. So it must have been owing to the persuasive powers of Barry Greene that Trevor saw the light. A deal could probably be struck (“Trev”), Barry had said, with the prosecution if Trev helped them out with Roy Diamond.

“Because what I think, Trev,” said Greene, in the softest voice, “I think that the defense could show how Roy Diamond manipulated you because he was holding something over your head. He wasn’t paying you to do this; he blackmailed you into abducting Nell Ryder.”

Trevor said, “Well, but it wasn’t even a proper kidnapping, was it?”

Jury loved that.

“I mean, Roy told me he wanted to talk to her. Nothing else. He said to spray this stuff in her eyes so she wouldn’t see me. She was too surprised even to fight it. Well, she’d just woke up, hadn’t she? I expect I gave her a bit of a fright.”

To say the least. Jury pushed himself away from the wall. All he wanted to do was give this plonker a couple of whacks up the side of the head. But he didn’t. He was here at Greene’s pleasure. And Barry was good, very good.

Barry Greene gave Trevor a sour smile. “Do we have to abduct everyone we just ‘want to talk to’?” No answer. “You’re a jump jockey, aren’t you, Trev?”

Trevor nodded. “You talking about those walls that went across the fields? For me, they weren’t all that bad. I’ve seen worse at Cheltenham. But with that horse, that Aqueduct, those walls were nothing. It was that easy, it really was. He’s one hell of a horse.”

Greene went on. “Why did Valerie Hobbs agree to have Nell Ryder there? That puts the Hobbs woman squarely in the middle of a conspiracy.”

Trevor shrugged. “Don’t know, guv. But I’ll tell you what I think: it’s that Roy Diamond had something on her, just like he had on me. That’s how he works. I tol’ you.” Here Trevor’s hand crept toward Greene’s pack of Marlboros. Greene told him, sure, go ahead. Then he glanced over at Jury, raising his eyebrows in an invitation to ask questions.

Jury said, “Maurice, Trevor. Tell me what he had to do with all this.”

“Poor kid. I swear I’d hate to think-”

Trevor flushed with something Jury imagined was shame-as well he might. But for all of the man’s bad judgment, weakness, selfishness or whatever, that rush of blood to his face set him apart from Roy Diamond. Jury said to him, “Afraid you’ll have to think it, Trevor, hate to or not. I’m almost certain Maurice’s being the delivery boy, in a manner of speaking, had a lot to do with his death. It certainly had everything to do with his guilt. He loved Nell Ryder. He’d never have done anything to harm her. There’s only one person he’d have done something like this for-his father.”

Trevor nodded, took another deep drag of his cigarette. “You’re right there. I told the lad it’s his father that wanted to see Nell, but it couldn’t be there, not at his own place.”

“The thing is, no one knew Dan Ryder was still alive.”

“Roy knew it.”

Jury pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning forward, elbows on knees. “Go on.”

Trevor said, “Let me correct that: it was either Dan or his twin.”

“What was?”

“In the snapshot. An American friend of Roy’s sent him a couple dozen snapshots taken at a racecourse in the States. Florida, Hialeah Park it was. Three of them showed Dan standing at the fence, watching.”

Jury sat back. “A picture can be taken anytime.” “Yeah, right, except Danny’d never been to Florida. But that’s not it; the picture’s dated clear as a pane of glass.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was the race itself, see. You know what a walkover is?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

Trevor seemed by now to have forgotten the fix he was in and was enjoying educating these two cloth-eared coppers in the ways of the racing world. “A walkover is a one-horse race. It only happens when a horse is considered unbeatable by the trainers, so no other horses compete.” Trevor smiled broadly. “Now, how often do you bug-I mean, you police detectives-”

(Jury preferred “buggers.”)

“-think that happens? Not bloody often, I can tell you. But it did a little less than two years ago at Hialeah, with a horse called Affirmation. Probably wanted to make the punters think of Affirmed, and I guess it did. It must have been something to see.” Trevor’s eyes actually filmed over. “A real thrill, that would be. Better than a flying finish. To see a horse that good go round the track by itself with all of that crowd cheering. Anyway, that was the race. First walkover I heard of since Spectacular Bid, back in the eighties. That’s what dated the snapshot; that race was run three months after Danny was supposed to have died.”

“And Roy Diamond knew all of this, that’s what you’re saying? He knew about it for two years and did nothing?”

“What’s to do that would work to Roy’s benefit? Report it to you lot? Sooner tell it to me old gran. No, he had a bargaining point in those pictures.”

“You showed one to Maurice.”

“Two of them. Roy wouldn’t let all three out of his hands. It was just a few days before I took the girl. Early morning, Maurice is at the training track; he always had a gallop after dawn, Roy said. I showed up, watched for a while through my binoculars. He was up on that great horse Samarkand. I wish I’d been around to ride him a decade ago. When Maurice stopped and dismounted and came over to the fence, I told him his father needed to see Nell. Of course, he didn’t believe me, thought I was bonkers. He got pretty mad until I showed him the snapshots.”

“He believed you?”

“Well, he would’ve done, wouldn’t he? He wanted to believe me. There were the snapshots that showed the horse going round the Hialeah course and there was his dad, right by the fence.”

Yes, Jury thought, standing now in the stable, Maurice would have wanted to believe Trevor Gwyne. And when Nell disappeared that night, Maurice knew that something had gone horribly wrong and it could be down to him. The next few days must have been agonizing. For all he knew, Nell might be dead.

Jury remained standing by Criminal Type’s stall, stroking the black face. Blacker than black. Probably the way Maurice had felt. Was Maurice one of those people who feed on guilt, like some mythological prince forced to eat his own heart?

For some reason, Jury thought then of the boy on the train from Cardiff. The winter angel. Maurice’s polar opposite, who could wrap his music round his shoulders like a cloak.

Jury reached into his coat pocket where a few sugar cubes remained