The Lamorna Wink

rest of it. Finally, suspects wanted to. They wanted someone else to know either how clever they’d been or how much they’d suffered. Finally, Brenda Friel wanted him to know.

She said, “If Chris were all of a sudden to leave the village at the same time there was a murder in Lamorna Cove, and if it was someone Chris had been known to hate-well, how else could police look at it except the way you did? The minute she set foot back in Bletchley, you’d have arrested her. My word against hers. Right?”

Her smile was like something engraved in acid. He wanted to slap it off her face. He asked, “But why? Why did you want Chris Wells out of the way?

“She knew, didn’t she? About the AIDS? She was the only one I told. She was no danger to me until I killed Tom Letts. I had to get her out of the way because she would have sorted it. It wouldn’t have taken long for Chris to do that, not her; she’s as clever as her nephew.”

“Why did you wait so long to kill Tom Letts? Four years.”

“Why? Because I didn’t know it was him. I only just discovered it a few weeks ago. Ramona never told me who the da was.”

They sat in silence for a few moments.

Then Macalvie said, “The Bletchleys had children, Chris had Johnny. Not only did she have Johnny, he was always there, in your face, the kind of kid every parent hopes his kid will be like.”

She didn’t reply to this, only looked off at the wall as if she could see through it.

For a couple of minutes they sat that way, Macalvie staring at her, she staring off into nothing.

“Where’s the fucking tape, Brenda?”

PART V. The Uninvited

63

Jury and Plant were standing on the pavement in front of the Drowned Man when a white Rolls hove into view and continued its glide down Bletchley’s main street. The late sun lapped about its bonnet and boot, dazzling pedestrians who, like Plant and Jury, stopped to watch.

“What in hell’s that?” asked Jury.

“Moby Dick. What are they doing here?”

Jury squinted as the car got closer. “Doesn’t look like a whale. I think it’s Marshall Trueblood driving.”

“Same thing. Ye gods.”

The car drew abreast of them and the passenger window whispered down. A white silk-sleeved arm was thrust out and a hand waved. The car glided to a stop. “Richard Jury! Oh, what a treat!” called out Diane Demorney. Melrose, the non-treat, got only a perfunctory “Hello.”

Like a cork from a champagne bottle, Marshall Trueblood popped from behind the wheel. Champagne was the color of his Armani suit; his shirt, pocket handkerchief, and tie were all done in watery Monet-garden pastels-pinks, blues, lemons-bringing to mind more a box of saltwater taffy than the gardens at Giverny. Still, he was, as usual, sartorial perfection.

Trueblood could barely contain himself. After opening the passenger-side door he extended a hand toward Diane, who took about the same amount of time as Cleopatra did getting off her barge.

Diane was dressed to match the Rolls: white, slick, and moneyed. But she made tracks from car to curb when it looked as if Trueblood was about to steal all the storytelling thunder. He said, “Wait until you hear about Viv!”

“Marshall!” Diane could really crack the whip when she wanted to. Indeed, this was Diane at her energetic best, talking without a martini to hand, but that lack was about to be filled.

Jury said, “There’s a nice little tearoom right behind you on the other side of the street.”

If a look could shrug, hers did. “There’s a nice little bar right in front of me on this side.” When it came to bars, Diane was a radar gun; she could pick them out faster than cops could target speeding cars.

As they filed into the Drowned Man, Jury asked, “But what about Vivian? What’s going on?”

“Viv-Viv’s going to-” Trueblood’s answer was cut short by the heel of Diane’s shoe grinding down on the instep of his Hugo Boss one.

“Can we get a room here?” asked Diane “Or is there a boardinghouse?”

“You can join Agatha in Lemming Cottage. It’s a B and B.”

Diane shuddered.

“Listen,” said Melrose, annoyed. “Is this related to all of that stuff you were gibbering about a couple of nights ago when you woke me up at two A.M.?”

“Never mind,” said Diane, homing to the bar.

When they were seated round a table and had been served by the unenthusiastic and underemployed Pfinn, Melrose said, “You should have taken the train from Paddington station instead of doing all that driving.”

Diane actually stopped the first martini on its way to her blood-red lips. “Taken what? ” She had never been one to explore alternative modes of travel.

“You made good time if you left Long Pidd this morning.”

“We didn’t. We left on Tuesday.”

“Tuesday? But that’s three days ago!”

Trueblood smiled stingily at Diane. “Despite the need for haste, Diane insisted on stopping at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons. You know, that restaurant where Raymond Blanc is the chef.”

Jury frowned. “But isn’t that place near Oxford? I was on a case once very near it.”

Trueblood pounded his drink on the table. “Here, here! A Scotland Yard man who’s a bon vivant. Yes, it is near Oxford.”

“Oxford’s north, Diane. Cornwall’s south,” said Melrose.

“Don’t I know it,” said Trueblood. “We stayed there two nights. Food’s a rave, I’ll give it that.”

This time it was Jury who pounded his pint on the table, uncharacteristically for him. “So, give. What’s this prodigious news you haven’t been telling us?”

Plugging a cigarette into her long ebony holder, Diane said, “Our Vivian’s going to marry the count.”

“Count Dracula,” offered Trueblood, in case Jury had forgotten.

Which he hadn’t. “Oh, for God’s sake. That’s news? She’s been going to marry him for-what? Eight years? Nine?” Complacent now, he drank his beer.

“No, old sweat, you don’t understand: Dracula’s here. The ship’s landed, the coffin’s ashore, and all over Northants there’s a shortage of crosses and garlic.”

“Oh, do bloody shut it,” said Diane, who occasionally reverted to her Manchester upbringing. She turned to Jury and Melrose. “He’s in Long Pidd. The wedding’s in two weeks’ time, and she’s in the process of sending out invitations. So we’ve come to collect you,” she said to Melrose. To Jury, she added, “You too, except you’re not so easily collected.” She sighed. “You work for a living.” She said this as if it had a strange and alien ring to it. “Naturally, I’ve been doing what I can, writing warnings into her horoscope. Things like ‘Beware any venture requiring new clothes.’ ”

“Oscar Wilde said that,” Melrose informed her.

“Oh, hell, I thought I did. Then ‘You are about to embark on the darkest journey of your life’ and ‘You will escalate fatuousness into a fatal fall.’ ”

“Sounds good,” said Melrose. “What does it mean?”

“Who cares as long as it sounds good? Anyway, none of this has had any effect, as far as I can tell.” Diane crooked a finger at Pfinn, who paid the table even less attention than Dick Scroggs would have done. Melrose got up and went to the bar, first en-joining Diane to say nothing more until he got back. He didn’t want to miss a word.

As if taking Melrose literally, there wasn’t a word spoken until Trueblood nodded toward the dimly lit doorway