The Case Has Altered (43 page)

“Where's he going?” asked Charly.

“My guess would be to the train station.”

“He doesn't seem much relieved by all of this,” said Charly, her head turned over her shoulder, watching Jury.

“Oh, he's relieved all right, but I can't say I blame him for being disappointed.” Plant had his handkerchief out, mopping up a small puddle of
beer from Charly's sweating glass before it ran off into her lap. “You did a wonderful job. Both of you.” Charly said, “Thanks,” but he thought that was probably more about wiping off the table than the “wonderful job.” And she would turn every few seconds to watch the door Jury had left through, as if staring at it might bring him back. Melrose said, “I would have been glad to drive Jenny all the way home.”

Charly Moss looked at him now quite squarely. “I know I'm asking a personal question, but both of you seem to be very . . . well . . . attached to Jennifer Kennington. Is this a long-standing friendship, or—”

“Love, you mean?” Melrose hoped he sounded convincing, to himself as much as Charly, saying, “No, we're old friends. Speaking for myself,” he added.

“Speaking for Richard—?”

“Oh, I don't speak for
him!”

T
he station was deserted. He could not find the stationmaster, could not find whoever was manning the ticket window, and when Jury finally managed to find the schedules tacked up on the wall, he could not make any sense of them. Train schedules, with their arrows pointing in both directions, might as well have been timetables to Hell or Heaven, his arrival at either purely arbitrary. If he ever got one of those cases in which a train schedule was the biggest clue, it would go unsolved.

He could make out that there were no trains directly to Stratford-upon-Avon; that didn't surprise him. So where would a traveler make a connection? Lemington Spa, Coventry? Warwick? All of these? Probably. She'd first have to go to London or Birmingham and change two or three times, he imagined. The trip would take over four hours; it was ridiculous. Especially since Melrose Plant was returning to Northamptonshire this evening and Stratford (as had been made obvious by the testimony about the detour) was veritably on his doorstep.

But that was the question, wasn't it? Why had she left this way? He told himself that there was nothing he should be doing penance for, that he'd done everything he could for her.

Why had he behaved so badly in the pub back there? Between them, Pete Apted and Charly had pulled off a coup. Jury knew that his ill-humor in the pub over the dismissal was caused by Jenny's not being acquitted; it had left all sorts of questions unanswered.

He understood now why Apted had wanted both charges brought, because to tear down one was to tear down the other. And it had been so
simple, so obvious; oh, yes, that's always what people say once the trick has been exposed.

Jury slapped open the door to the train platform and stood in the gray evening looking up and down the platform. It was deserted too, save for a teenage boy down at the other end. Jury walked along the platform as if he were one more traveler impatient for his train. When he came to the end of the platform, he turned and walked back. Pacing, entertaining the notion of simply boarding the mystery train, the next train whose destination he didn't know.

What ingratitude on her part! With Melrose Plant footing the legal bills, my God, she could at least have said good-bye to him if not to Jury. He sighed. Indignation wasn't working.

The boy sat on the last bench, staring straight ahead, thumping his hands on the edge of the bench. His hair was sheared and dyed blue and purple; he was dressed in the usual teenage motley. Jury would have thought both haircut and clothes by now out of fashion. Beside him sat one of those boom boxes Jury was used to seeing in Oxford Street and Piccadilly. This kid had his earphones plugged in in an uncharacteristic gesture of consideration for those around him, but music still managed to leak out.

A wind blowing a gauzy rain in his face made Jury turn up his coat collar. He sat down on one of the fragile-looking benches and shoved his hands deep into his raincoat pockets, giving the impression of a man prepared to wait.
Determined
to wait, even though he knew she had probably already left. Inviting depression, as if he were doing penance.

As he reflected gloomily on Jenny's whereabouts, he became aware that the music in the background was actually a song being sung in French. He looked down the platform, toward what must have been the source of this music and saw the kid there had removed his earphones as if he meant to treat Jury to this
chanteuse
. It utterly surprised Jury that this kid with his wild clothes would be listening not only to such slow and mournful music but to mournful music in French.

Jury got up and walked slowly down the platform, confirmed that the music was coming from the kid's portable stereo. Beyond his phrase-book
French, Jury did not know the language. He listened to catch a word or phrase here and there:

“. . . à l'amour . . . ”

He could certainly understand that.

“. . . Que je suis perdue . . . ”

Lost
. Yes, he could make that out. Plant should be here to translate, rather than back in the pub drinking beer with Charly. But he didn't really want it translated; it was actually this lack of understanding that made the song so poignant. The boy on the end of the other bench turned his head toward Jury, nodded, went back to listening. He was leaning forward, elbows on knees, his head down. Perhaps he thought they had this song in common.

He rose and walked back into the waiting room. Deserted as before. The music followed him, diminished slightly—the plaintive piano, the weeping violins sounded as if they'd taken up residence in Jury's mind.

“Je t'aime . . . adieu.”

That was pretty clear. But the words in between might have been made on the moon. He stood staring at the pulled down blind of the ticket window, raised his fist to knock on the glass, then dropped it. What would he have asked, anyway?

“. . . Que j'ai fini.”

The end. The beautiful voice simply stopped, no longer offering whoever might be listening its protective warmth. Jury stood motionless in a moment of cold clarity. He knew the real source of the disappointment for both himself and Jenny: there had never been any declaration of innocence
from her, just as there had never been any assurance from him, spoken with fervor, that he knew she was innocent.

Because he didn't know she was innocent, and she knew he didn't know.

And he still didn't know.
Amour. Adieu. Fini
.

Jury left the station.

 • • • 

I
owe you an apology, Charly,” he said, back in the pub, which was less crowded now. They had found tall stools to park round the tall table.

Melrose Plant raised his glass. “I'll drink to that—”

Jury thought Plant did not seem to be focusing as well as usual.

“—and then we'll sing!”

Charly Moss giggled, coughed, aborted a sneeze all at the same time.

Melrose was trying out scales—“mi-mi-mi-mi-”—apparently tuning his voice.

“You're drunk,” said Jury, in near-total wonder. “The both of you are drunk.” He looked from one to the other. He had never seen Melrose Plant like this.

Charly made that sound through her nose again, as if Jury were the funniest thing in the world.

Jury shook his head, picked up his old glass, still with the dregs of ale in it, started for the bar, looked back and saw that the other two glasses were empty, and said, “Oh, what the hell,” and walked back and picked up those glasses too.

He stood at the bar watching the pleasant, pretty, slightly overweight proprietress refilling the glasses. Then he turned and watched a sallow young woman feed some coins into the jukebox. Almost immediately, as if he'd just been waiting in the wings, out stepped Frank Sinatra belting out “My Way.” Was there anyone more ego-affirming than Old Blue Eyes? Jury turned back to the bar, where the proprietress was topping up Charly's half-pint of Guinness. Drunker than a skunk that stuff would make her,
had
made her, he thought. As Jury was trying to get hold of the three glasses, Frank's voice was joined by others' that kept sliding in a beat
too late to the close of the lines. Suspiciously familiar those voices sounded, and Jury saw that, yes, Sinatra's chorus was sitting at the table Jury had just left. He sighed and started back. Still hours to closing and they'd just got started.

“. . . each and every byyyyyyy-waaaay

. . . dah dah dah
dahhh . . .
duh dah dah dahh . . .

I did it myyyyyy waaaay
.”

Frank was out of a job in the Lion and Snake. The two did not stop upon Jury's return, only looked at him as if they had no idea who this was (this purveyor of drinks, this sober judge) and kept on singing along.

“People are staring,” said Jury, drinking off a third of his glass and wondering how long it would take him to get to their level of drunk.

“I chewed it
up

And ssssspit it
out!”

They certainly did. Jury got out his handkerchief and wiped his jacket. Actually, he rather liked the fact that the two of them were drowning out all of the unctuous talk of torts and codicils, deals and plea bargains. He had already finished his beer and was feeling, if not drunk, at least a little carefree.

Charly, actually, had a very pretty voice, almost professional sounding. Melrose was the laggard, the one who didn't know all the words and just
la-di-da'd
to fill in. Except he did know the finale, and when Frank socked it out, Charly and Melrose were halfway off their stools to join him. They collapsed, laughing. It didn't look as if Melrose would be leaving tonight for Northants.

Jury was surprised by the tap on his shoulder. It was the manageress, or bartender, or whoever she was, telling him
sotto voce
that his “friends” were being just a wee bit too loud, customers were complaining. Jury took out his ID, showed it to her with a smile, and said, “Look, they're celebrating. They've both just been acquitted of a really heinous crime—”

“Like singing?” She walked away.

H
e got to Stratford-upon-Avon shortly before ten
P.M
. and to Ryland Street fifteen minutes later. The town's one-way street system was more difficult to negotiate than most; make a wrong turning and you were halfway to Warwick. He supposed the town fathers had to work out something to accommodate the flow of tourist traffic, and this system was the one they'd devised. At last, he did find a parking space near the church and not far from Jenny's house.

Through the sheer curtains of the front window, he could see Jenny moving between kitchen and dining table. Late for a meal, he thought, but perhaps she'd missed dinner on the train or perhaps she hadn't been home long. She was wearing an apron and holding a glass of wine; in the next moment she was picking up a plate from the table where they'd shared a meal not long ago. Watching her as she carried the plate to the kitchen, he thought it was a homey scene, its domesticity almost a cliché.

Jury's coming here had been purposeful, at least he thought it had, but now he hesitated at the door, fell back into the misgivings he'd felt standing on the platform of the train station. Certainly, he had qualms about his reception. After all, if she'd wanted to see him, she would not have left Lincoln so hastily. He knocked.

When she opened the door and saw him there, her “Richard!” seemed spoken with delight, not dismay, but, he thought, with too much genuine surprise. Why should she be surprised that he had followed her? Her almost perverse refusal to acknowledge his feelings made him angry, but he tried not to show it.

Tried, but failed. “Why in hell did you run off that way?”

They still stood in the doorway. She was removing her apron. “Come on in. Have you eaten?”

He hadn't, but he was damned if he'd let a meal distract him. “Yes. Smells good, though.” He felt the stiffness of his smile.

“Pot au feu,”
she said, smiling and closing the door behind him. “Give me your coat. My lord, did you drive all this way . . . ?” The question trailed off, as if she wanted to ask him something but could only fall back on the obvious. She insisted on getting him some coffee and brandy, as if he'd caught a sudden chill. Perhaps he had. His fingers felt like icicles. He sat beside the fire, opposite the chair she'd obviously been sitting in before she got up to tend to the kitchen. In a moment she was back with two cups of coffee and a decanter on a tray.

“I wish to God I had a cigarette,” Jury announced, taking his coffee and snifter. He sipped the brandy. Cognac, delicious. He might drink the entire bottle.

Jenny reached up to a shelf and took down a porcelain box. “You say it as if they'd stopped making them.” Smiling, she held out the cigarette box.

Jury looked stupidly at the cigarettes and warded the box off with the push of a hand. “No, but I've stopped smoking them, remember?” He felt irrationally angry.

“I'd forgotten.” She replaced the porcelain box. “Is that why you're so irritated?”

He nearly choked on the cognac.
Irritated!
When he'd recovered a particle of coolness, he said, “No, Jenny, that's not why. But I'm growing more ‘irritated'—as you put it—by the moment. How can you smile like that?” The smile vanished, and that only stoked his anger, as if she were a mannequin, something soulless or mindless who only had to be told to do another's bidding and she'd automatically respond. “Jenny, why in hell did you run off that way?” He asked it a second time.