The Grave Maurice (33 page)

She shook her head. “The farms are so far apart that unless you do business with one—” She shrugged and studied the rug again; it seemed to be the repository for their unspoken, perhaps unbidden, thoughts. “Being that close, all of this time . . .”

“But you still feel guilty.”

“Yes.” She looked up. “For the ones I left behind.”

Jury looked at her across this small sea of gray rug, at the pattern of barely distinguishable waves, by some illusion washing toward her, lapping at her feet. He felt a cold knot in his stomach, as if he had waded out into freezing water to reach her, but couldn't. “The ones you left,” he said. For some people there was always something more to do, something more to save. “Did you think you could get all of those mares out?”

She nodded. “Maybe, at first. If I was clever enough. Brave enough.” Her smile was weak, as if she should never have expected to be either.

Astonished, Jury just looked at her. What she had already done was not enough to show her that she was both brave and clever. He hardly knew what to say in the face of such self-abnegation. He reverted to practical questions.

“This fellow who abducted you—would you know him if you saw him again?”

“I don't think so, not to see him. Maybe if I felt him—”

She stopped so suddenly, Jury was suspicious. He thought of her former hesitation. “Nell, what else happened?” He knew the moment she looked at him and then didn't look at him. Rather, she looked everywhere in the room, except at him. “This fellow, the one who abducted you, did he do anything else?”

She bent her head as if she couldn't get it down far enough, far enough away from him. “It wasn't him.”

Jury waited.

“Another one. Another man, but I only saw his face once, and not well. That's because he came at night and made sure the room was always dark. He made me lie on my stomach and went at me that way. I never saw anything except his hands on either side of my face.” As if her listener might need this demonstrated, she put her own hands by her face, palms flat and turned inward. “Just his hands.” She seemed not to know what to do with them now.

Jury leaned over and took her hands in his. “This is part of the reason you feel you can't go back.”

She was crying as she nodded. She said, “I didn't fight it after the second time. To fight him off meant only that it would last longer.”

Jury moved to the sofa and put his arms around her. “None of this was your fault, Nell. None of it.”

“But you won't tell anyone. Please don't tell anyone. Vernon would kill him if he ever saw him.”

“No, I won't.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her where she still had her face buried in his chest. She reached out a hand, took it. Interesting she'd chosen Vernon, and not her father or grandfather, to kill the bastard. Jury thought:
And if
I
ever see him.
I'll
kill him.

She had apparently made herself presentable enough to sit back. “If Mum hadn't died—”

The
if
stayed unfinished. The
if
was always unfinished, wasn't it? And death was no excuse for abandonment. It never had been, never would be. Such is our complete unreason when it comes to loss.

Was it the shutout, Jury wondered, that had evoked in her this love of creatures that could communicate only through signs and gestures? Was it herself she saw in these helpless mares and because of that was determined to do what her mother never could? Nor, when it came to it, her father or even her grandfather, though they were far better than her mother. They had at least stuck.

Nell went on. “She was a terrific horsewoman, Mum. Maybe that's where I got the ability.”

That and a few other things, thought Jury, looking at the rug again. Loneliness, and an abiding rootlessness, an incurable homesickness. When Mum went, she took home with her.

“Mr. Jury.”

His head snapped up.

“What're you thinking? I mean, you look so sad.”

“Oh. I was just remembering my own childhood. My own mum. I didn't have a horse.”

“That's too bad. You should've.”

He smiled. It was as if humankind were divided between the horse owners and the horseless, as if horses could take the place of missing parents.

Her expression was completely serious and concerned. “You're going to Ryder Stud tomorrow?”

Her face clouded over a little. “Yes.” Then she surprised him by saying, “You could go with us. Would you?”

“Well . . . yes, if you want. I'd be glad to.”

They both turned at the sound of the door's opening. Vernon came in with a large carryall that clinked.

“Sorry it took so long.”

“That Oddbins chap must have been giving you a detailed account of the slopes of Burgundy and Muligny.”

“Nope. I just ran into a pal of mine and we had a drink.” He set the bag on the floor beside the drinks cabinet.

Jury didn't believe Vernon had met a pal. He had stayed away for this half hour to give Nell room to talk more freely.

“You both look like you could use a drink.” He held up a bottle of whiskey and one of red wine. “Okay? Interested?” They nodded and Vernon set about fixing the drinks.

“Tell me about the place,” said Jury.

“It was ordinary enough. Not as much land as we have.

The mares were kept in stalls some distance from the main building.” She described the barns, the narrow stalls, the way the urine was collected, the way the mares were tethered so they couldn't move more than a few inches. All of this as if limning a picture he'd better not forget. But she said little about the rest of the farm. Her room, the kitchen, the locked office. “It was where I found out about this operation.”

Handing her a drink that looked to Jury as if it were right down Wiggins's alley—a brightly colored club soda—Vernon asked: “That's where you got the stuff you showed me?”

“Yes. Once I had a chance to look through her books. There were stud books. But what I was mainly interested in was the mares. Wait a minute.” She rose and went down the hall to her bedroom.

Jury took the moments to tell Rice what she'd said about going to the farm the next day. “What do you think? Is it okay?”

“Absolutely. As a matter of fact, we could—”

Nell was back with one of the Premarin folders and the snapshots and handed them to Jury. “That's Valerie Hobbs, there.”

Jury looked at the two snapshots of the woman holding the reins of a horse and the third shot of what he presumed were the mares. He picked up the folder.

“It seems so benign, doesn't it, when you read about it in there?”

Jury read about the drug. “I notice they don't show you any horse farms, do they? What would women do if they knew about the way these mares are treated?”

Nell said, “Some would stop taking it—no, I imagine a
lot
of women would stop. Some would just go on. Like they go on wearing fur. I don't blame them, really, even though it's selfish and inhumane. There are so many things that make a person's life hellish. I expect it's hard to let go of any sort of comfort.”

“This is terrible,” he said, putting the folder on the table. “But you found nothing else?”

“I didn't know what to look for, specifically. There was the book in which she kept an accounting of the mares and the amount of urine they produced, and breeding of each one.”

Jury held up one of the snapshots of Valerie Hobbs. “Do you mind if I keep this for a while?”

Nell shook her head. “No, take it.”

He pocketed the photo, then said, “About that night and those walls—”

“Hadrian's walls is what we call them.” She seemed to like this and smiled in an almost sunny way.

Jury returned the smile. “What about the stable lads, the trainers? I'm just looking for whoever would be a good enough rider to jump those walls.”

“A jumper, a steeplechase jockey, could do it. He was small enough, I think, to be a jockey. With the right horse, maybe even Maurice could do it.”

“Maurice? I didn't know he excelled as a rider.”

“That's because he never talks about it. He always wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps and of course he's not that good. He was well over five feet when I—left; maybe he's grown since I saw him. Anyway, for Maurice, if he can't be as good as his father, well, he doesn't want to be anything. I've always tried to get him over that but I never could.”

Jury studied her for a while, then rose. “I should be getting back to my digs. What time are we leaving?”

Nell waited for Vernon. He said, “Ten o'clock all right for you?”

“Couldn't be better.” He turned to Nell. “Thanks for talking to me.” He turned to go and Vernon said, “I'll see you to the door.”

Outside the flat, Vernon said, “You know what I think?

I think it'd go down much better for Arthur and Roger if they didn't know Nell had sought me out first. So couldn't we just say we found her?”

Jury thought for a moment. “Say
you
found her. I agree with you. Make something up, and tell her what you're going to say.” Looking at Vernon, he smiled. “You know for someone who spends his time shoving money around, you're a sensitive chap. But why she wants me along, God only knows.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Vernon smiled.

As if God knew.

I
t was Arthur Ryder who opened the door, surprised to see the two of them there in tandem. “Vernon!” He kept his face straight. “Have you got a warrant?”

“Ask him,” said Vernon. “He's the Filth, not me.” Arthur shook Jury's hand. “I expect you know already about the woman who was shot? Simone Ryder?”

Jury nodded. “I heard, yes.”

Arthur Ryder shook his head. “I don't know if that makes the whole thing less or more mystifying.” He looked from one to the other. “It makes me anxious just to ask, but—have you got news?” They were still standing by the open door and as he said this, he was looking past them at Vernon's silver BMW. “One of your people, Superintendent? Doesn't he get to come in from the cold?”

“No,” said Vernon. “Look, Arthur, we do have news—”

“Christ!”
The single syllable nearly broke in two, sounding both anxious and sorrowful. “She's dead, isn't she?”

This reaction interested Jury. Vernon Rice would never have thought that. He'd always believed Nell was alive. He'd always
known
it.

“No, Arthur. She's not dead. She's alive.”

“You mean you've
seen
her? What—?” Then he was off the sofa and almost throwing himself across the room as if he meant to reach the door by the shortest way possible. He flung it open.

“Art!” called Vernon.

When Nell saw him, she sprang from the car and ran around it, ran toward him. When they met in the center of the courtyard she jumped up and tried to wind herself around him.

Vernon watched and sighed. “She bloody well didn't do that when she met up with me again.”

Jury couldn't help himself; he cuffed him one up the side of the head, laughing.

“What?
What?
”

Arthur and Nell, both laughing, both crying, reached the door.

“I just can't believe it,” he said, releasing her from the grip of his arm. “Where'd you find her?
How
did you find her?” This was directed at Jury, naturally assuming it was police work.

“Don't give me any credit for it. It was Vernon.”

“Pure luck. I was coming back from Cambridge, Art, and some instinct took me down that old road that leads to the compound you don't use anymore. The horse barn, the exercise ring—”

“
That's
where you were?” he said to Nell.

“Not for the last two years, Granddad, no. Only a few—days.”

Jury thought Vernon was right in not letting Arthur know Nell had sought him out in London. Vernon, being Vernon, didn't take this as Nell's
preference
for him, but just that he was the one who could be of the most help. And
why
he failed to conclude that the person who can help is the
preferred
person, Jury damned well couldn't work out.

Arthur still held her hand, as if reluctant to lose physical contact, as if she might disappear if he didn't hold on. “I've got to call Roger. Or have you?” he asked Vernon. “Have you seen Roger?”

Vernon shook his head. “This is the first place we came. Where's Maurice? We need to tell him, too.”

“Don't know,” said Arthur, absently. “Outside, probably the stable.”

“I'll look for him,” said Jury. He wanted to talk to Maurice alone.

 

Outside, Jury found one of the stable lads, who pointed him off in the direction of the training track. He found it on the other side of a stand of oaks and elms, the path running through the trees. When he got to the track he saw that the crime-scene tape was down, but whether removed by Cambridge police or Maurice himself, Jury didn't know.

Out there, blowing into the straight on the other side were Maurice and a horse Jury recognized as Samarkand. If that horse was running at this breakneck speed at his age Jury would love to have seen him as a three-year-old. He must not have touched the ground; he must have been wind.

And Maurice himself, bent in half over the horse's neck, would have made one hell of a jockey. Continuing to grow as he had must have been bitterly disappointing to him. Jury wondered if Maurice hated his body. He filed that question away for future consideration.