could have been buried secretly in that time frame and so close to the Citrine house?'
Jury had had his eyes on the tiny skeleton of the dog under the boy's feet-for his mind had encased them in stone like the effigies he had so often seen in the churches and cathedrals-lord and lady, earl and countess-with a little dog, and sometimes two, cushioning their feet. And he remembered the position Dennis Dench had inferred; the bones of the dog had been lying atop the skeleton of the boy. While part of his mind stood aside and looked at the problem objectively, he himself could hardly breathe and his own eyes were no longer dazzled by the glare of the hanging light, the fluorescence, the almost screaming whiteness of the walls, the Formica. They had grown steadily dimmer, though his ears had taken in everything the others were saying. At the same time he watched the light fading like headlamps sweeping by in the fog and the then total darkness. He could hardly breathe. Which of them had used up the last of the oxygen? The child? The dog? He had had the dog, at least. The dog that Jury doubted had been sealed in the grave for companionship.
But who knew? Who could possibly tell what a mind so warped would do? 'I was wondering about Toby,' Jury finally said in answer to Macalvie.
'Toby? Toby's dead. You read the report.'
'He was fifteen.'
Dennis Dench laughed his short, brittle laugh. 'Convenient, that would have been for me.'
'It was certainly convenient as hell for the kidnapper.'
The only witness dies in an accident? Talk about coincidence.'
'Believe me, I did,' said Macalvie. 'According to your police there wasn't a single reason to tie that lorry driver to Toby. The lorry was actually stopped at a zebra crossing-I didn't know they did that-and the kid bolted across it when he started up. It was dark, raining, he swerved. Too late.'
'That's another thing. What in the hell would the boy be doing in London?'
'Running. Is there a better place to hide than in a crowd?'
'The natural thing for a kid to do is run home.'
Macalvie sighed. 'Not if there's somebody at 'home' who knows you're witness to a kidnapping.'
'That's your theory, Macalvie.'
'So what's yours?'
'I don't have one.'
Macalvie went over to stand beside Wiggins who was studying the photographic mockup. He unfolded an old newspaper clipping and laid it on the counter beside the partially reconstructed photograph. The picture in the paper wasn't a studio pose; it showed a young boy with a puzzled look, his hair covered by a woolen jacket hood like a monk cowl. He was squinting. Macalvie studied the picture for a moment and said to Dennis, 'I couldn't tell me old mum if her eyes were nothing but silver discs; mind if I change this?'
'Yes.' Dennis was covering the small skeleton.
Even while asking the question, Macalvie cut a piece from a scrap of paper, penciled something in while looking at the clipping, and put the tiny strip on the photograph. 'Give me your scarf, Wiggins.'
With some reluctance, Sergeant Wiggins unwrapped the brown scarf as carefully as a doctor removing bandages from a patient who'd just had an eye operation.
Macalvie arranged the scarf around the skull in the photo, simulating the newspaper picture. He put the rest of the scarf over the left-hand side of the face and what remained was a fuzzy, but reasonable facsimile of a face.
'If that isn't Billy Healey, I'll turn down the promotion to assistant constable.'
Dennis tucked the covering round the skeleton of boy and dog, as if, in the ordinary way of good nights, he were putting them to bed. 'Since the chief constable hasn't offered it, it's not much of a bet.'
Macalvie grinned. 'Thanks for letting us take up your time.'
They walked back through the dining room where the dishes still remained, together with the bottle of white wine. Dennis Dench took three glasses from a sideboard, set them on the table, and said, 'You've got to taste this. It's superb. Chablis Moutonne.'
Holding it up to the light, Macalvie rolled it in the glass as Dennis Dench rolled his eyes at Macalvie.
'He knows as much about wine as he does about bone fusion,' said Dench.
Macalvie sipped, rolled the wine in his mouth. 'Full and direct. Subtle bouquet, though a bit violent. Admirably dry -what do you think, Wiggins?'
Wiggins sipped it; his mouth puckered. 'Very dry, sir.'
'Bone dry,' said Jury.
2
'The guy's a genius,' said Macalvie, as the three of them stood near the car. The rain driven in from the estuary blew Wiggins's scarf back; he snatched at it, clearly not wanting to lose it twice in one evening. 'Too bad he's so stubborn,' added Macalvie, slamming the car door.
'How far is it to the Citrine place?' asked Wiggins, staring out into the cloud of rain.
Jury turned to answer. 'No farther than it'll take to hand out three or four tickets, probably.'
Jury, sitting in the back seat, wondered if the Devon-Cornwall constabulary fitted out all of its official cars with tape decks or whether Macalvie had managed one just to listen to Elvis.
After twenty miles, they were leaving 'Heartbreak Hotel' and entering into a memory of a bright summer's day, purely temporary; bright summer's days usually were.
Wiggins, sitting beside Macalvie in the front seat, had been going on about telephone kiosks for the last fifteen minutes or so, probably (Jury thought) in an attempt to lead Macalvie round to explaining Gilly Thwaite's own call box and Telecom's part in it.
'It's like the red double-deckers. Landmarks, those red call boxes are, and they're taking them all down. Only leaving up a few, for nostalgia's sake, probably. I'm surprised there're those in Exeter still standing. Like the one Miss Thwaite was talking about…'
No comment. Macalvie was singing along with Elvis about the empty chairs, the bare parlor.
'A crying shame,' said Wiggins.
'What is?' asked Macalvie, as the parlor and doorstep of 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' vanished like the flying landscape.
'That the kiosks are coming down. The government's only keeping about two hundred of the K2's-that's the regular one, like the one Miss Thwaite was talking about…' Wiggins paused. No response. He went on with a sigh. 'I always liked the Jubilee one. A bit fancier on top. Very valuable that would be now.' Wiggins's laugh was more of a giggle. 'Don't think you'd find Telecom trying to break one of those call boxes open.' There was no answering comment from the front seat. One would have thought those two never used the telephone. Wiggins's sigh was huge this time. 'If you wanted one, I mean one of those King George boxes, you could actually buy one. Cost you over a thousand quid, maybe two. There's a firm exports them. They refurbish them. Americans probably keep 'em in their halls. Cast iron, post-office red. I wonder how the American call boxes work. How they get the coins out-'
Jury turned and gave him a look. 'Bulldoze them.' Jury shook his head, turned back again.
Wiggins was undaunted. 'Antiques dealers are buying them up and selling them, too, if you can imagine.'
'I can imagine anything about antiques dealers.' Macalvie pushed the eject button and Elvis came out.
Jury was trying to think about Dench's bones as he watched what he could of the dark landscape Macalvie was fast leaving behind, and with it, one of the new eyesore-call boxes Wiggins so abhored, telephone encased in its acrylic surround. Suddenly, the car was rocking with heavy metal.
'My God, Macalvie. Turn that down.'
'Led Zep?' Macalvie half-twisted his head to the back. 'You don't even like Led Zep?'
'Beautiful voice, he has, that Robert Plant,' said Wiggins,
