The Old Silent

'Do you like poetry?' asked Jury.

'Yes.' His eyes were on the hands combing back the hair, repinning it. She looked extremely young. 'I do because you can trust the language of it. I hate talking.'

Jury smiled. 'That's abundantly clear. It's the only clear thing about you.' If he was expecting this to draw her out, he was wrong. She took her own line.

'Words are like gauze. Semitransparent, easily torn, always frayed.' It was a delicate smile, as if it had to be tested. She seemed pleased that she'd said what she meant.

'You're probably right, but it's all we've got, and not many of us are poets. I guarantee Queen's Counsel won't be at all poetic when he gets you in the dock.' He moved round in front of her to force her to look at him. 'Look, don't you think this silence of yours, this not liking to talk, is a conceit you have that there's some buried truth you might dig up if you could find the perfect words to do it? That the world is deaf and dumb, so there's no sense trying to get through to it?'

He knew the minute the words were out of his mouth he'd said exactly the wrong thing, yet he couldn't help himself. She made him angry. When she turned her face to the path again, he said, 'I'm sorry. I have no business talking to you at all, much less… chastising you.' He smiled a little; he must have fallen into the trap of trying to find the right word and he'd picked one that sounded strange and tasted strange, like sea water. 'I'm just sure that there's more to it. Perhaps you've told your solicitors; perhaps the last thing you'd do is talk to me. But I don't think you told them any more than you're telling me. I know there's some other reason you shot your husband.'

The silence lengthened like the shadows across the walk. It had grown nearly dark while they were standing here. The purple sky was bisected by a dim band of gold. Drawing her arms up against her breasts, she made a little bridge of her interlaced fingers and rested her chin on them. She had only a small repertoire of movements; they were close and parsimonious, like her words. Since Jury had been talking to her she had moved no farther than the length of his arm. 'Why?' was all she said.

He hesitated. He said something else: 'You appeared too self-contained for a woman bent on revenge.'

She brought her arms down, the hands still interlaced before her. She frowned. 'You must be able to see a lot in a few seconds.'

'It wasn't just those few seconds. In the dining room, remember, we were both there at the same time.'

Slowly, she shook her head. 'I was reading a book, that's all.'

'Some book. I always leaf through Camus when I want cheering up.'

She did not reply to that, but looked up at the purple-black sky and watched two curlews wheeling and making their odd, mulish noise.

'And earlier, in the Bronte museum.'

Frowning, she said, 'I didn't see you.'

'I know. You were much too absorbed, and not in the old manuscripts and ledgers. I also saw you in the toy museum.'

The frown deepened as she looked away and then back. 'You werefollowing me.' Jury nodded. 'Why?'

'I don't know.'

She seemed more amused by this than annoyed as she shook her head again, very slowly. 'But you said nothing.'

And he said nothing now, partly because he was breaking his own code and ashamed of that; partly because the more she talked, the less he did. It was as though there was a small allotment of words, not enough for two people at once. It was his turn to look away, toward the gate and the trees beyond.

'I don't understand.' It was as if she didn't much care whether she did or not.

Finally, he said what he hadn't said before, what he knew he shouldn't say, unless he said it to Queen's Counsel. It would then remove any hope-remote as hope was-of Nell Healey's acquittal. 'I know you're lying. You and your father. So was your husband.'

This brought her head round sharply, a look of honest wonder on her face, eyes wide. In the faded light, the glimmer of different colors could not be seen. The irises seemed to have melded into a goldish-green. 'Lying about what?'

'About your motive. Even if you haven't said it, you haven't unsaidit. Revenge because Roger Healey, or both of them, took the advice of the Cornwall constabulary and refused to pay the ransom for Billy. And what about your father? Do you intend to kill him, too, out of revenge?' Jury said it mildly.

No response; she became even stiller.

'Your husband didn't have that kind of money. You did. Although the others acted as if it were their money, you were the one who had to sign the check, so to speak. And you didn't; you wouldn't.'

Her folded hands came up again to her mouth and her eyes were squeezed shut, as if in this posture she might hold back whatever threatened to come out: tears, words, feelings. Finally, her body went slack again and she asked dully, 'How do you know this? The superintendent-' Quickly she stopped, probably aware she was confessing.

'Goodall promised Charles Citrine that the report would be slightly altered? It would make no difference to police which one of you decided, after all.'

'The sergeant-' she said, looking at him again with astonishment. 'It was the sergeant who told you.' Pulling her sweater closer-it was much too cold now for just a sweater, but Jury doubted she noticed it that much-she said, 'I remember him very clearly. His name was Mac-something…'

'Macalvie. He's not a sergeant any longer. He's very high up, a divisional commander. Same as a chief superintendent.'

'Then you're high up, too.'

Jury smiled. 'Not like Macalvie. God isn't higher up than Macalvie.'

It amazed Jury that she was actually smiling. Not only because she hadn't before, except for a tentative one, but that she could smile over Brian Macalvie. 'You don't hate him? For giving that advice so bluntly.'

That she might be expected to hate him seemed to puzzle her. 'Why should I? I didn't have to take it. And the advice was pretty much what police had been giving all along; the other officer was saying the same thing in a most unconvincing way. The sergeant had a great deal of force and intensity; he was probably placing himself at risk, too. I got the feeling he was absolutely sure he was right.'

Jury smiled. 'He'd be the first to agree.'

'He didn't seem conceited.'

'Oh, conceit has nothing to do with it. He's just very much in touch with his own talents-and they're considerable, believe me. That you didn't get Billy back doesn't mean he was wrong. But you must have thought sometimes that if you'd paid that ransom…'

She moved away from him and seemed to be concentrating on the black bark of an oak. 'It's all over. But it was over before; I haven't much of a case, as you said.'

Jury walked to the tree, leaned his hand against it. 'I don't think our knowing will make any difference.'

She frowned up at him. 'He'll be subpoenaed, and you're-'

'The official police report said the 'family' refused to pay the ransom. The point is: Macalvie-and I-might be more interested in justice being served. But you-' Jury shrugged. '-I'm not sure you're interested in it that much. You give me the impression of someone who's carried out a very difficult task, at last, and damn the consequences.'

Since he had moved into her line of vision there and was big enough and close enough to eclipse her view, she had to look at him. She stared at his sweater, his raincoat, and avoided his eyes. 'You think I'm cold-blooded.' Her expression was sad.

'No. 'Remote' isn't 'cold-blooded.''

She stood looking at the twisted trees, saying nothing, drawing the silence round her as she did her cardigan.

'Good-bye, Mrs. Healey.'

'Good-bye.'

He had taken a few steps down the path when he heard her say, 'And keep cold.'