“I can also see the coal end as you smoke it, so what’s the big deal? I could get you anytime you inhale.” Jury leaned his head against the back of the sofa. “Simon Bolt,” he said, exploring the name.
“Yes. Simon Bolt was taking a hell of a chance,” Melrose said, “appearing at Seabourne, even if it was at night. He could so easily have been seen.”
“If the Bletchleys had been there, but they were out. The only possible witness would be the aging housekeeper. Didn’t you say her room was on the other side of the house?”
“How would Bolt have known that?” asked Melrose.
“From the person who put Simon Bolt onto the kids in the first place.”
“You mean Sada Colthorp.”
“No. Sada was probably the middleman, is my guess. Whoever wanted these kids killed and thought of this way of doing it knows the habits of people in Bletchley. Possibly Bolt and Colthorp were the people in the woods. At any rate, the kids saw somebody.”
“Correction: Their mother
Jury said, “You think her story was fabricated.”
“I think Henry James wrote it.”
There was a long silence.
“You sure you don’t want a cigarette?”
“What? Jesus, some friend you are, encouraging me to go back to that foul habit.”
“Oh, don’t sound so much like a missionary selling Christianity to the natives. I just thought if we both had one we’d be at the same disadvantage.”
“Ye gods! I’m supposed to smoke just so you can shine that bloody light in my face?”
“Go on with what you were saying about Vivian, about her being-Good lord!” Melrose dropped his torch but quickly recovered it. “Vivian! I forgot to tell you. Vivian claims she’s going to marry Giopinno in a few weeks.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re just trying to catch me off guard.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I’ve completely forgotten about the torch.”
Jury moved on the sofa, sitting forward. “Are you telling me she’s really going to marry this creep?”
Melrose shook his head. “Who knows? With that weird relationship, anything could happen. Maybe Viv’s going to ditch him.”
“Ditch him? How can you ditch anyone after all these years? Kill him, maybe, but ditch him, no.”
“Well, anyway.” Melrose’s torch went on suddenly.
Jury switched his own on. “Oh, for God’s sake, you can’t put the torch somewhere else on the sofa. How childish!”
Melrose sniggered.
“
As if choreographed, both torches swung toward the living room door and caught Brian Macalvie in twin circles of light.
“This is how you carry out an assignment?”
“You didn’t give me one,” said Jury.
“How’d you know we were here?”
“I was in the Wink at closing time. Old dame in there told me you’d come up here. She didn’t want to tell me how to find you.”
“So you broke her jaw.”
“Obviously, I got the information, but you don’t need to know my methods. And I sure as hell don’t want to know yours. Get that damned light out of my face. Come on, let’s get our cars.”
The night deepened around them as they stood between Macalvie’s Ford and Jury’s Honda, dark green, dark blue, both cars looking black in the un-lighted clearing.
They were talking about Simon Bolt.
“Simon Bolt? We tried to nail him for possessing and distributing pornography. When I say we I mean Vice. I wasn’t on the case myself. He took photos, films too, I heard. But
It did not sound at all like a wounded ego; the self-abrading tone sounded more like dereliction of duty.
“You weren’t on that case years ago. How could you possibly have connected it with this one?”
“You got it out of a witness, Jury. I should’ve too.”
“Macalvie, it was dumb luck. I happened to ask a question that provoked Peg Trott to give up the information.”
Melrose said, “Let’s go back to Seabourne. We can at least have a fire and a drink. I can even do us an early breakfast.”
Climbing behind the Honda’s wheel, Jury said, “Just not soft-boiled eggs and soldiers. I refuse to eat toast cut into soldiers.”
Melrose eased into the passenger seat. “It was the bright spot in a ruined childhood. Soldiers.”
“How heartrending.” Jury gunned the engine and they sped away, as much as one could speed down such a narrow and rutted road, eating Macalvie’s dust.
48
Johnny parked the cab in front of his house and wondered if he was letting his imagination, overworked in the best of circumstances, run away with him. There might be another explanation.
Might be, but he doubted it, because what he believed had happened explained too much for him to be wrong. But it didn’t explain everything. It didn’t explain
He got out of the car, didn’t bother locking it-which was part of the point, wasn’t it? Who bothered locking up cars and houses around here-and walked the short distance to the Woodbine. Brenda was always up, usually baking till all hours, which had been a real comfort to him these days, in case he couldn’t sleep and wanted to talk.
The bell made its discordant little clatter when he opened the door to the tearoom, a room that always gave the impression of warmth, even in the dead of night with the heat turned down.
From the kitchen came the sounds and smells of baking. The rattle and click of pans, the swish of the big beater, the whir of the blender-it always sounded as if Brenda had an army of undercooks and sous chefs back there. He smelled ginger.
He could understand why customers came here, morning and afternoon, to be lulled into a sense of well-being, an illusion of ease, even if that was far away. He could see by moonlight or memory the heather design on the polished cotton curtains, the faded roses on the chair cushions, the burned wood and the bay windows’ mullioned panes through which the moonlight spilled silver. Everything in the place-the faded roses, the smell of ginger- blended like spices and milk and honey into a satiny dough of contentment. It was all overwhelmingly sensuous.
Like sex, Johnny thought.
He stood in the open door to the kitchen.
Brenda was pulling a cookie sheet full of gingerbread men from the oven and when she stood and turned, she smiled. “Sweetheart! Couldn’t you sleep?”
“No. Where is she, Brenda?”
49
Wiggins’s bleary-eyed greeting at the door of his room in the Drowned Man was only
