The Old Silent

would have believed you, given your husband's near-unimpeachable reputation and your own 'highly susceptible nervous condition'? Obviously, not even your own father. And I wonder who put that idea in his head? You're the only one in that family whose nerves are about as strong as nerves can get. There was no way you could be absolutely certain it was Roger who was behind the kidnapping, but that suspicion together with Commander Macalvie's advice made up your mind.'

'You were fairly certain if you paid up, you'd never see Billy again. Or Toby. And you'd never be able to prove it,' Jury added. 'But if something went wrong, and Roger failed, Billy would be able to identify him. That must have occurred to you.'

'Roger never failed,' was her bleak response. 'If he wanted something.'

'Then why did you wait all of these years?'

She looked down at her hands. 'It might sound-frivolous. But one reason was that Billy and Toby had been declared 'officially' dead. In that, there was something dreadfully final.'

When she stopped, Jury prompted her. 'You said 'one reason.' Was there another?'

'Oh, yes. It's the reason I met Roger at the Old Silent. He wrote to me from London, said he wanted to talk about Billy, and he thought it would 'be pleasant' to have dinner at the Old Silent.' She raised her eyes. 'Absolutely nothing incriminating in such a letter; he phrased it carefully.'

'The letter that went into the fire?'

She nodded. 'Obviously, he did not want to have dinner. What he wanted was a million pounds.' She turned her head to look at the barred window. 'In return for information about Billy. He thought he knew, you see, what had happened.'

Jury frowned. 'But surely the man wasn't reckless enough to admit-'

'Oh, no.' With that she rose.

He looked at her for a long moment and said, 'You were never, then, one-hundred-percent sure.'

'Oh, no.' Folding her arms across her breast she half-smiled. 'But what would you do to a father who would extort money for information about the disappearance of his own son?'

They stood there with the pale sun throwing shadows of the bars across the table that separated them.

Jury didn't need to answer.

38

Marshall Trueblood was overjoyed.

He told Melrose over the telephone that all was well with Viv, that she'd forgiven them, that they were to consider themselves reinvited to the wedding. There were, oh, a few little stipulations… They were to promise they would not put into operation one or two of the plans that had apparently been hatching in 'those chicken coops you and Melrose call your 'minds.' ' That's the way she put it. She's merely polishing up a few ripostes for that epicene count she's intending to let drag her to an early grave….

What plan? What was she talking about? They had hatched so many between the two of them, Melrose couldn't remember them all.

Vivian had apparently overheard that whispered conversation about 'bricks' and 'wine cellar,' and, of course, since the wedding is during Carnivale, she put two and two together. I told her not to be silly, that I'd have to be a lunatic to try walling up Franco-'I rest my case.' That's what she said: 'Irest my case.'

… Dior, or Saint Laurent. The gown she's considering buying in London. I told her to wait until she got to Italy and go for an Utrillo. Now I, of course, shall have a right rave up in the Armani shop. You should get rid of those knobbly old tweeds and try Giorgio. Ah, his elegance, his understatement.

Understatement? Not when Trueblood got through with Giorgio.

Must they talk about clothes, for God's sakes? Melrose felt he'd been wardrobed to death this afternoon, listening to the Princess, who, with the Major (still spit-polishing his boots), was now waiting with her steamer trunk for the Haworth cab. Now how the devil was she to get that thing on the train in Leeds? She'd been trying all through breakfast to get Ellen into a perfectly divine frock that Ellen said would make her look as shapely as a tree trunk as she dropped Mrs. Gaskill's life of Charlotte Bronte on the table and pulled on her black leather jacket.

Melrose had helped a rosy-smiling Ruby take out the dishes and cutlery and had carefully arranged napkins round the two egg cups, dropped them in his pockets, and started toward the door. He stopped, pictured Jury's questioning look, and sighed. He went back to the table and wrapped Mrs. Gaskill in his handkerchief.

2

In the Old Silent there was a better-than-average lunch-time crowd in the dining room. Jury walked through the lounge and saloon bar and asked the proprietor for a pint of Abbott's, a cheese sandwich, and the use of the telephone.

Sitting near the fire were a young man and woman with a distinctly newlywed look about them paying no attention to Jury.

Jury was halfway through his drink, thinking again about that argument between Macalvie and Gilly Thwaite in the forensics lab. His call to Bradford station having gone through the hands and ears of three policemen, before Chief Superintendent Sanderson decided to pick up. 'What is it, Superintendent?' Sanderson asked edgily, making it clear he didn't want to know the answer.

The young waitress put Jury's sandwich before him-a slab of cheddar between slices of richly grained bread, the platter nicely done up with cress and tomato. He thanked her.

'For what?' asked Sanderson.

'Nothing. The waitress. I'm at the Old Silent having a sandwich.'

'Unfortunately I haven't time for lunch. We could sit here and have a meal together. Why're you calling, Mr. Jury?'

'About the telephone kiosk along the Oakworth Road. About a mile from the Grouse-'

Roughly, Sanderson cut in. 'I know where it is. And so do my forensics people. Next question?'

Jury smiled as he bit into the end of the sandwich. Very good, but he wasn't really hungry. Sanderson certainly didn't dawdle along with preliminaries. 'None. I wanted to apologize.'

The silence meant that he'd caught the superintendent slightly off-guard, as Jury hoped he would: not that an 'apology' meant a damned thing; it was that Sanderson was gearing up to stomp on Jury's next words. Now, of course, he had to refute the apology. Jury pushed the cress off the sandwich and took another mouthful that he didn't want.

'Mr. Jury, your apology is noted and means sod-all to me and my department. You happen to witness a crime in a jurisdiction you've nothing at all to do with and you persist in investigating same. All of this has, as I'm sure you know by now, been reported to your superiors. You've been getting in our way-'

Not mucking about in our manor. Jury wouldn't mind working for Sanderson.

'-so if I were you, I'd stop chewing in my ear.'

Again, Jury smiled. 'I was wondering.' Jury took a drink of his beer.

Another brief silence. 'Wondering what?'

'About that call box-'

Sanderson must have been leaning back in his chair, for the sudden thump sounded like something hitting the floor. He was probably furious with himself for having forgotten the original thread of this conversation. 'Listen to me: you know goddamned well that we're not rubes and that we don't need London to tell us how to lift fingerprints. That kiosk was gone over so thoroughly it'll probably need a paint job. We are routinely putting a trace on any prints we found.' He lowered his voice. 'But I doubt very much that a killer would forget to wipe the