The Black Cat (2 page)

The Rexroths, Kit and Tip (and it was a challenge to remember which was he and which she), were an elderly British couple in tweeds and cashmere and sensible shoes. One could tell they were given to stout walks along public footpaths, their complexions telling they’d been up and out, meeting every dewy morning of their long lives.

“You wouldn’t think, would you, I mean to look at us, that we’re the hub of Chesham’s social scene?” Kit Rexroth’s eyes were glittery as sequins.

The Rexroths were old and reed thin. Flutes could have been made of their limbs. “I can imagine it. You seem to be as lively as people half your age.” Jury hoped that didn’t sound condescending; people fell into condescension so often with the old, but not always with the old and rich, as if it were quite remarkable to find them alive at all and they had to be dealt with gently.

He was struck by the way Tip and Kit seemed to operate in tandem, a couple of tap dancers: their feet in perfect step, hats tilted forward, canes gliding smoothly over fingers. Jury smiled; he’d never seen a couple so synchronized. If one of them thought murder a good idea, both would commit it.

“You’re here,” said Kit, raising her coffee cup as if to toast the fact, “about the murder.”

“Yes, I am. Oh, no, thanks-” This was addressed to Tip, who was holding the coffeepot aloft. Cummins, though, accepted a cup.

“I know you’ve talked to Detective Sergeant Cummins, but I’d just like to get the picture clearer in my own mind. This woman was wearing a dress by Saint Laurent, an apricot color. Her hair was almost that same color, a darkish ginger. She was about five feet eight. Quite beautiful. The crime scene pictures don’t really do her justice. Are you up for having a look?”

They nodded with a rather inappropriate enthusiasm.

Jury set out the least morbid of the photos.

Kit Rexroth looked at it, bending across the hands hugging her knees and bringing her face nearly level with the table. Jury wondered if she was shortsighted.

“You know, she does look a bit familiar… Does she to you, Tip?” She pushed the photo toward him.

Tip grunted, looked again, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Don’t think so… still…” He turned the photo this way and that, looked hard at it. Then he shook his head. “No.”

Jury picked up the photo and said, “Yours appeared to be the only party in town, at least of the formal sort.”

“How enthralling,” said Kit Rexroth. “You’re thinking she was here.” Kit was shaking her head. “A woman like that, well, I think someone would have paraded her, not stuck her out on the terrace with a gin and a promise.”

Jury said, “How many people were here?”

“Oh, eighty? Something like that,” said Kit. “Though we only invited half that crowd.” She sounded extraordinarily pleased.

That comment only made it even more likely that the dead woman had been headed here, invited or not, for neither of the Rexroths seemed to be sure of who was at the party.

“We have the sort of brawl where people end up spilling out of windows.”

They both laughed.

“That could get messy, Mr. Rexroth.”

Now they looked startled, then saw Jury was joking and laughed again.

“What about the neighbors?” said Cummins. “Don’t you get complaints?”

“We would do,” said Kit, “except the neighbors were here!”

There was another peal of laughter. Jury wondered if the Rexroths were entertaining themselves to death.

“I wonder if I could have a copy of your guest list-”

Cummins broke in: “We’ve got that, sir. Sorry, I should have given it to you.”

Kit waved her hand. “Oh, that’s no problem. Here, I copied it for you.” She handed over pages that had been on the coffee table.

It was a sheaf of paper, rather than a sheet, with names written in longhand.

“It’s divided. Our friends and Tip’s colleagues in the City. He works in Cannon Street. First, there are the people we actually extended invitations to; next, the guests our guests asked if they could bring; next, the guests who brought people they hadn’t asked if they could bring; then, the people who dropped in that one or the other of us might have invited but couldn’t remember, or meant to invite… well, you know what I mean-”

Jury didn’t.

“-and then Tip’s drinking friends at every pub in the City; then, the people we didn’t know were coming but that we sighted in the course of the evening-” Here she put her hand over her eyes as if she were actually standing on a ship’s bow, searching the horizon.

Jury leafed through the pages. Were there this many people in London? “If this woman was bound for your party, perhaps she was in the category of a date invited by one of your guests. Was anyone looking out for someone who never came?”

Kit and Tip both frowned in thought. “No, I don’t recall… there was Neal, wasn’t there?” said Kit, looking at her husband. “Wasn’t he asking about some girl?”

“Um. Yes, I believe you’re right.”

Cummins said, “That’d be the Neal Carver you mentioned before.”

The Rexroths looked at Cummins. “Did we?” said Kit. “Well, then I expect that’s right. And Rudy… Rudy-what’s his last name?”

Tip thought about it but came up empty. “Should be on the list.”

Cummins said, “I believe you told me it was Lands, Rudy Lands.”

“Oh?” said Tip, eyebrows raised, as if it were Cummins, not he, who had invited Rudy.

Jury smiled. The Rexroths were a bit too vague and suggestible for his tastes. He glanced at Cummins, nodded. They both rose. “Thanks very much. We’ll be in touch.”

In the car, Jury said, “What about this Neal Carver and Rudy Lands?”

“We talked to both. The Lands fellow said his girl turned out to have gotten sick; Carver was supposed to have collected his date at her flat in Chelsea. A Miss Helen Brown-Headly. A short brunette who forgot completely about the party, et cetera. She’s not our girl.

“Also, I rang Emily Devere, the woman who actually found the body, and she’s happy to see you.”

“Is she enjoying this as much as the Rexroths seem to be?”

Cummins laughed. “Oh, yes.”

It was getting on toward dinnertime, Emily Devere told him, but not to worry, that meant she could extend the cocktail hour, and would he like a drink? Her brown-and-white dog, like a box on legs, gave Jury a sour look that said he should refuse if he knew what was good for him.

Jury thanked her but declined. “Don’t let me stop you, though,” he added.

“As if you could.” Emily Devere poured herself a whiskey, plunked in an ice cube, and sat down across from him. Miss Devere had pointed out that this house was not in Amersham-on-the-Hill but in Amersham Old Town.

“I’m a snob, but still it’s a matter of history, you see. I prefer mine as old as possible. Like my whiskey.” She smiled and raised her glass. “Sometimes I feel like the boy with his finger in the dike. The modern world will come crashing through more and more.”

Emily Devere was closing in on her eighties, possessed a beautifully fine and roseate skin, and wore no-nonsense skirts and brown cardigans. Her graying hair was caught in a bun at the nape of her neck.

They sat in the front room of her small, cheery cottage off School Lane. The cottage was filled with flowery, chintz-covered chairs and sofa and hooked rugs and embroidered footrests. Her dog had folded himself on one of these and stared at Jury. The pulled-down face suggested he was part bulldog.

“One can’t stop progress, of course, but I’d really like to stick out my foot and trip it. The abominable mobile phones! The world is my call box.” One hand flew to her brow.

Jury smiled. Miss Devere was no stranger to drama.

But just as quickly she settled back into the matter-of-fact practical woman who’d recently found a dead body. “I’ve always been partial to that pub: I go there occasionally, though it’s a bit out of the way. I can’t say much for this woman who’s taken it over while the owners are on holiday. Sally someone. Looks a bit dodgy to me.” She drank her whiskey, pursed her lips. “But she’s only temporary, thank heavens. Anyway, I like to get out and take Drummond for a walk along that footpath near the farm. Drummond’s fond of it.”

Drummond, Jury thought to look at him, wasn’t about to be taken anywhere. Not against his will, anyway. “What did he do?”

“Pardon me?”

“Drummond. When he came upon this woman’s body.”

“Well… you know, I don’t know; I mean, I was so shocked by the whole thing, I wasn’t paying attention.” She leaned forward in her chair. “Do you think he knows something?”

Jury wanted to laugh. She sounded serious. “You’d never seen her before, Miss Devere?”

“No, of course not. I’d have said.” She cushioned her head on the small pillow that hung over the top of her chair and looked upward, puzzled, as if the ceiling were acting peculiarly.

“Is something bothering you?”

“Well, as I said, I don’t think I’d ever seen her, but it’s just that she looked familiar.”

Jury thought of the doctor’s comment “I’d swear I’d seen her before” and of Kit Rexroth’s similar impression.

“That dress,” she went on, “was crepe, a coppery color, with that swirly, leafy design. I bet it cost the earth. Quite beautiful.”

“You’re very observant, to take that in, in the circumstances.”

“When I was younger, I was fascinated by Upper Sloane Street. Harvey Nicks, the shops. You know.” A wry little smile.

“Police said you’d seen a black cat about. The pub’s cat, was it?”

“I expect so. It streaked off when it saw Drummond. One black cat looks rather like any other.”

Jury wondered. He got up. “Thank you, Miss Devere. I’ll be in touch.”

“I hope so. This is more fun than I’ve had in an age.”

It was getting dark as they pulled up to the High Wycombe train station. David Cummins said, “You could kip here overnight. Crown’s nice, or the King’s Arms. If we had room, I’d say stay with us. We’re on Lycrome Road, too, not far from the pub. You must meet Chris, my wife.”

“Thanks, but I’ve a few things to do in London. A friend in hospital to visit. Tonight, tomorrow morning.”

“Oh. Hope it’s not serious.”

“As serious as it gets. Thanks.” Outside, Jury tapped the top of the car in a good-bye gesture.

Jury liked trains, even this small kind that reminded him of Tinker-toys with its narrow seats, three across and barely demarcated and no armrests, but tonight he had the three narrow seats to himself. It was thirty or forty minutes to Marylebone, and God knew it beat scrabbling around on the M25. During peak hours these commuter trains were probably crowded, but the motorways were hell.

What he liked was one’s feeling of being in touch. They were all strangers, yes, but the looks-indifferent, sullen, distant, angry-at least they were the looks you chose, not the looks you were forced to trot out to negotiate social traffic. You could think your own thoughts and look what way you wanted, and all the rest could jolly well bugger off.

His mind should be on this young woman, richly gowned and shod, who’d come to meet someone, the wrong someone. He should have spoken to the driver of the cab at the station, but he could do that tomorrow. He thought she was a local, despite no one’s having come forth to identify her. Three people had said she looked familiar. There had been this spark of recognition, but nothing burning brightly enough to claim “Yes, that’s So-and-so. Known her all my life.”

And then, weirdly, London ’s iconic black cabs came to him, for now there was the occasional cab painted silver or blue. Any color other than black was the wrong one for a London cab. Thinking about this, he was led to wonder, had the dead woman been painted the wrong color? In a couple thousand quids’ worth of designer clothes?

He pulled out Kit Rexroth’s guest list, ran his eye down the first, the second page. There were six, no, seven pages, written in her large but precise hand. The invited, the uninvited (pages four, five, six); the sighted, the unsighted-well, no, the unsighted would be… unsighted. And Tip’s drinking friends at every pub in the City.

Jury thumbed back to the sixth page, thinking, surely, he must be wrong. No, he wasn’t. The name was there: Harry Johnson. Oh, but there must be dozens of Harry Johnsons in London. Jury smiled. Surely there was only one.

It was too short a ride for a tea trolley, which he missed, and surprised himself in that. The little clatter of its approach down the aisle was somehow consoling. It spoke of ritual. People needed that, we need grounding, he thought. We’re like tents that have to be pegged to keep from blowing off. Rituals, and the things that spoke of rituals. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be phasing out the double-deckers; it would soon be good-bye to the cranky conductors with their ticket rolls. Black cabs. It was okay to see the odd silver or blue or patchwork one, but not the lot, please. Not the lot of them. Instead of the absent tea trolley, he should be thinking about Lu in hospital-

Don’t go there.

He went.

St. Bart’s Hospital was in the City, near Smithfield Market and next to the beautiful St. Bartholomew’s Church. When he’d mentioned the hospital’s proximity to Smithfield Market to his upstairs neighbor, Carole-anne Palutski, she’d told him to stop in and get some decent sausages for a fry-up. Good, he’d said, I’ll back the truck in.

That made for about as much humor as he could muster.

The last time he’d seen Lu Aguilar, she’d told him that when she was released from hospital she was going back to Brazil. Her family, she said, were there, not here.

She said the same thing now she’d said then: “I don’t think you can use a detective in a wheelchair.”

Jury bent over the bed. “I’ll take the detective any way I can get her.” He was holding her hand, rubbing his thumb along the sheer bone that was left of her. Lu had lost weight she didn’t need to lose. Because of the damage the accident had done, she wouldn’t be walking again, not for a long time, and more likely never. It had been a simple traffic accident, two cars trying to make it through a yellow light, one straight on, one turning. The driver of the other car had died at the scene. In the short while since the crash on Upper Street-three weeks ago? four?-she must have lost twenty pounds, but none of her acerbity. To his compliment a moment ago, she said with a laugh, “Oh, no, you wouldn’t.”

Jury sat back. “Why? Do you think I’m so shallow?”

“Of course.”

He knew she didn’t think he was shallow; that was the easiest way of telling him he wasn’t being truthful.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “Police work has been done before from a wheelchair. We don’t prize you for your ability to hop in and out of zed-cars. It isn’t a cross-country race you’re doing; it’s investigation.”

“Oh, please.”

She turned away, and Jury felt as if she’d slapped him. At that moment, he hated her. But the feeling washed over him and washed away, a wave receding in a moment.

But not her hatred of her condition. The air crackled with it. Along with the weight, Lu had lost the edge that had made her such a dominant force. So much of Lu was presentation. She was, certainly, not your classic introvert.

The neurosurgeon who’d done the procedure had unquestionably saved Lu’s life. Phyllis Nancy had told him that. She herself had been the doctor at the scene of the accident. The imperturbable Phyllis Nancy. He wondered how she’d gotten through school with two first names. He could never think of Phyllis without smiling.

“What are you smiling about?”

Jury flinched. “What? Nothing.” He felt ashamed.

“That wasn’t a nothing smile and it wasn’t about me.”

“You’ve gotten a lot better at reading minds, Lu.” He smiled again, a reprehensible, lying smile.

“Oh, I could always do that. Especially yours.”

He felt her gaze.

“You’re off the hook, Richard.”

He wanted to feel that as another slap in the face, something he didn’t deserve. It made him a little sick to think that he did.

She caught the look, not able to read it precisely but seeing uncertainty and ambivalence. “Come on,” she said. “We didn‘t-we don’t-love each other, for Christ’s sake.” She tried to sit up, and it looked to him as if her fragile spine exploded in pain. “Jesus! Doesn’t anybody have a drink or at least a goddamned cigarette?”

Jury felt his walk down the white corridor must be almost as painful as hers, lying in that bed.

You’re off the hook.

He did not want to explore that rush of feeling, distinctly like relief. He had been on the hook all right. He realized now that the hook had been sexual. If she’d intended to stay here, maybe even go back to her job with the Islington CID, he honestly didn’t know what he’d have done. Marry her? Insist on taking care of her somehow? He couldn’t imagine Lu Aguilar accepting either of those proposals. She’d know that they were offered out of guilt or pity or obligation.

The long white corridor seemed endless, the bank of elevators, the bright red “Exit” sign never getting any closer.

The way out never did.