The Old Silent

3

Far from giving the impression of a man who frequented pubs, Owen Holt stood just inside the door of the Old Silent, turning his cap in his hands and looking round him as if he'd wandered onto some foreign shore where he didn't speak the language. His slight smile when he saw Jury was uncertain, his expression baffled.

Jury led him to a chair in the lounge bar, saying, 'Thanks for coming so quickly.' The man merely nodded and waited. 'Sit down; let me get you a drink.'

'Half pint of Guinness'll do for me. Helps me sleep.'

Jury watched Owen Holt as he waited for the drinks. He was studying the room and its unfamiliar furnishings, looking about naively as if he seldom left his front parlor. For some reason, Holt put Jury in mind of a stodgy fairy- tale figure: the trusty woodsman, perhaps, or one of the kind but utterly unimaginative couple who had taken in some waif. Weren't children in fairy tales so often disenfranchised?

As he set down the drinks, Jury said, 'I hope your wife wasn't too annoyed by my dragging you away.'

'Dihn't tell her, did I? Just said I was going along to the Black Bush to see one of my mates.' He took a long, slow drink, wiped his hand across his mouth and leaned forward. 'I expect this is about the money.'

'Yes and no. What I wonder about is why you don't seem to be far more bitter toward the Citrines. Didn't you feel it was high-handed of them to make the decision about that ransom money considering it was your son, too, who was in danger?'

Holt sighed, raised his glass again, put it down. 'Police come to 't'house, told us what happened, told us it hardly ever did good to pay ransom money. Well, whistling down a well with us, anyway, weren't they? As if we had that kind of money.'

'A little over five weeks later you did have some, though,' Jury said, blandly. 'You must have wondered why Toby'd gone to London.'

'Aye.' Holt kept his hands clamped round the glass and didn't meet Jury's eyes.

Jury leaned forward. 'Mr. Holt, you must have wondered even more why Toby didn't try to get in touch with you for five whole weeks.' He waited. Holt sat there slowly drawing his hands away from his glass and dropping them in his lap. 'Were you absolutely sure that was Toby's body?'

'Well, you're right there: I couldn't see why Toby never tried to ring up, at least. Never a word. Never a word. Never a word.'

He ignored the last question and kept his eyes on his hands, kneading the knuckles as if the hands pained him.

Jury tried through sheer will to draw Holt's eyes up to meet his own. He wanted to see their expression. But the man's head was resolutely downcast. The silence went on for some moments. 'A lot of children go missing and they're never found. Most, probably. Every day, every hour that goes by reduces the chances they'll ever be found. Perhaps you thought Toby never would.'

Finally Owen Holt looked up and said, with a fleeting smile, 'You're right smart. 'Twarn't Toby. But if you think it were to get the money, you're wrong.'

'Then why, Mr. Holt?'

'Alice.' His gaze returned to his half pint, half full. 'The pore woman kept hopin' and hopin'. You'd not think she was that fond of the lad, but you'd be wrong there. Day after day she'd be cleaning the kitchen windows. Pretending she was cleaning, when what she was doing was watching the little path back there that Toby always came up. I sat there in 't'kitchen once and counted six times she washed off the same little pane.' He shook and shook his head. 'Eight years. I think it were the right thing I done.' He gave Jury a fleeting smile. 'At least now she just cleans to clean, not to hope.'

'I'm sorry.'

Owen Holt drew in breath and puffed out his cheeks as if he were the North Wind in the old story. 'What happens to me, now?'

'Nothing.'

Holt raised his eyebrows, surprised. 'Nothing?'

'Why should it?'

There was silence again. 'He's dead, I expect.'

The rising inflection made it a question, not a statement. Jury thought of Dennis Dench and that grave in Cornwall. He could think of nothing to say to the man as he watched Owen Holt turn his head toward the Old Silent's window where the panes were black.

39

The driver of Bronte Taxi, together with George Poges and Melrose Plant, was attempting to jostle the steamer trunk up onto the top of the car, since it could not, by any means, be maneuvered inside or strapped on the boot.

They all sweated as the Princess Rosetta Viacinni di Belamante stood about in her Chanel suit, living up to her name and delivering a wistful account to Ellen of a past symbolized by each of the faded stickers on the trunk, emblems of hers and the prince's travels (or 'escapades,' as she liked to call them), across several continents. Ah, Saigon, ah, Kenya, ah, Siena, ah, Orlando.

Ellen just looked at her: 'You mean Disneyworld and not Virginia Woolf, I guess.' Over Ellen's arm lay a darkish green gown, given her by the Princess, who said it was a very rare find, one of her own favorites, and that Ellen must have it; it suited her and she would see once she put it on. The Princess had purchased it on that Venetian street of fashion dreams, the Calle Regina. Designed by an Indian.

Probably, thought Melrose, with some irritation, by a Tibetan monk. He only wished the Princess would shut up about Venice.

Said George Poges, 'Why the devil can't you have ordinarycases like the rest of us?' Even in the crisp and icy air he was perspiring, wiping the back of his neck with a handkerchief.

'I do not advertise makers' wares: no scribbled names on my luggage and no swans on my arse, as it were. Can you imagine Madame Vionnet sticking a logo on a lapel? Vulgarity knows no bounds in this world. Believe me, that gown,' -here she touched her hand to the wilting, dark thing over Ellen's arm-'is worth half of Venice. But not on everyone.' The Princess put her arm round Ellen's shoulders and kissed her cheek, not kissing air (in that odious way that some highly sociable women do, Melrose thought) but firmly.

Major Poges, rather gruffly did the same.

Neither of them, however, felt the need of a physical display of adieuxwith the Braines, who had just come through the door.

Ellen sat, looking disconsolate, on one of the rocks in the courtyard, smoking.

'I don't see why you refuse to come to London with Richard Jury and me.'

Ignoring this she said, 'Charlotte Bronte said all of her books pained her.'

Melrose had been arguing with her at breakfast, before breakfast, at lunch, after lunch. 'She should have written about delicatessens.'

Ellen sat mournfully looking at the ground. 'That school near Kirksby Londale-it was probably the model for Lowood School. The discipline was fierce; Marie Bronte died of consumption when she was eleven and Eliza died when she was ten a month later.' The train of her thought became apparent to Melrose when she added, 'So what's going to happen to Abby?'

'She's certainly not going to die of consumption. She owns-'

Ellen ground out a cigarette. 'A bullet in the back, that's what. For fu-for Pete's sake! How can you sleazeballs leave her here alone?'

'She's not going to be alone! How many times do I have to tell you, Keighley police are protect--'

'Ah, ha! Ha! Ha!' She paused in her dismissal of the Yorkshire constabulary and asked, 'When do you see your