The Grave Maurice (37 page)

At the station's newsstand he had bought a
Telegraph
and
The Sporting Life.
Jury had read a racing form about as often as he'd read
Ulysses
and thought Joyce's density no match for the racing form.

It was something that Sara had said. It bothered him, but for the life of him he couldn't think what it was, except that it had to do with racing. Cheltenham, Newmarket, Doncaster were places she'd gone to following Dan Ryder around. He didn't doubt that she'd done this, for what man or woman would confess to such an obsession unless they were sociopaths? That kid who stalked Jodie Foster, the nutcase who shot John Lennon. Obsession was often not benign and harmless. But what was it, that detail that made him, right now, uncomfortable?

It looked like the same attendant who'd been on the train before, and who now came clattering through the car, shoving the food and drink trolley. As he'd done before, Jury bought a cheese salad sandwich and tea in a plastic cup. He hadn't eaten the other sandwich, and wouldn't eat this one; there were so few people in the car that he felt it must be discouraging not to sell your wares. He'd give the sandwich to Carole-anne; he now remembered that she loved cheese salad. He'd tossed the first one in the dustbin at the station.

Jury had called Plant to let him know he'd be spending the night in his Islington digs and would try to get to Ardry End tomorrow. The nice thing about Plant was that he didn't ask questions beyond “Are you all right?”

He took a few sips of the tea. He was getting to be as bad as Wiggins, who would have drunk the lot so as not to have the fellow think his tea wasn't any good. Wiggins watched flight attendants going through safety precautions, too. The tea was the same tea that he'd had on the other trips. Why did train tea always have that bit of whitish foam on top, as if its ingredients couldn't coalesce?

He returned to his meditation on Sara Hunt. He opened the print-condensed pages of
The Sporting Life
and ran his eye over the various kinds of races—claim, handicap, stakes—and the horses entered in them. Nothing jarred his memory for whatever it was, or perhaps it wasn't. It might have been something or someone else—

Davison.
George Davison, Ryder's trainer. That afternoon they had been standing with Wiggins and Neil Epp in front of Criminal Type's stall. The Derby, at Epsom—that was what Sara had said. The last time she'd seen Dan Ryder race before his defection to France a few weeks later was in the Derby, up on Criminal Type. But Davison had made a point of that race.
“Only time I ever lost me temper at the board it was over that weight allowance. They said Criminal Type'd have to carry another twelve pounds. Bloody unfair. So I scratched 'im.
”

Davison had scratched the horse almost at the last minute. Criminal Type was taken out of the field, and the horse and its jockey didn't race.

Why had Sara told him she'd seen the race? It seemed such a pointless lie, as he wouldn't have thought one way or the other about that race, the only thing setting it apart being that George Davison had taken his horse out. It made no sense, what Sara had said. He slid down in his seat and closed his eyes.

She had been
with
Ryder that day? But in that case she would have known he wasn't racing at Epsom. She could fairly well assume that Jury wouldn't know that the Ryder horse was scratched. (Certainly, he'd pled ignorance of the racing world in general.) His head was hurting, probably in sympathetic response to his side, which throbbed. Dr. Ryder would thrash him if he knew Jury wasn't following instructions. So would Wiggins. So would Carole-anne. He'd be thrice thrashed, a pleasant little tongue-twister. He made sure the cheese salad sandwich was in his coat pocket. It might fend her off for a little while.

 

A very little while. Carole-anne, dressed in emerald green, had deposited the sandwich wrapper in the trash can and was now picking crumbs from her gorgeous green bosom.

“Are you saying you went
all
the way to Wales—?”

“And back. Twice, and lived to tell about it.”

The eyes that leveled on him would have been cold had they not been so goddamned turquoise. Flashing turquoise, to boot. There she went now, hands on hips:

“Super! You know you promised that doctor that you wouldn't exert yourself in any way, that you wouldn't go out pub-crawling, that you'd stay in bed as much as possible—”

“I lied.”

Well
that
flummoxed her. She was gathering up her argument, getting it into full gear, which of course demanded a fellow arguer, and Jury wasn't doing it. He smiled.

Carole-anne had to search around for another arguable topic.

Ah! The consideration card!

“It's just not very considerate, that's all, I mean to me and Mrs. W, as all we do is worry, wondering where you are and if you're okay. Not dead in a ditch somewhere. Like
Wales.
”

“But you thought I was in Northamptonshire with Melrose Plant.”

“Well, but you weren't! You were in Wales!”

That she saw no flaw in this argument was one of the things he loved about her. Jury rose, walked over and embraced her. “Sorry.”

Her words were muffled by her head's burrowing against his chest.

Jury thought of the rain-swept, snow-swept garden, of its oddly aromatic winter scent. Carole-anne gave off that scent somehow. He released her. She went back to the sofa, argument momentarily suspended. “Then why'd you
go
to Wales, anyway? Nobody I know goes there.” She uncapped her nail polish.

“Apparently nobody anybody knows goes there. Except me.”

“What's she look like, this person?”

“You asked me that before.”

“I know. I guess I just wasn't paying attention.”

Not bloody likely. Jury thought he would doll up the description and ran the faces of several film stars by his mind's eye, discarding each of them in turn as perhaps not beautiful enough to fan the fires of jealousy. Would Judi Dench or Helen Mirren capture her imagination? (They captured his.) No. Right now she was tapping her foot, which didn't register very high on the impatience scale since she hadn't any shoes on.

“Well, if it takes you
this
long to describe what she looks like,” she said, drawing her unpainted toenails back to rest on the edge of the table—“then she mustn't have made much of an impression.”

“Juliette Binoche,” he said, a woman so far from resembling Sara Hunt it began to worry even him.

“Oh, her.” Unmoved, Carole-anne dipped the tiny brush in the neon-bright pink polish and let it hover over her foot as if sizing it up for the glass slipper.

“Am I to understand you do
not
think Ms. Binoche has the most alluring complexion in the whole world? No—the whole universe? Her skin is absolutely luminous.” Though luminosity in another when he had Carole-anne right in front of him was definitely coals to Newcastle.

Carole-anne's chin was on her up-drawn knee, as she dabbed the nail polish on her little toe. “She's French.”

Jury had always taken a secret delight in Carole-anne's non sequiturs, but this one puzzled him. “She's French. That removes her completely from our purview, does it?”

“I guess it removes
you.
She lives in France.”

Ah! That was it. Juliette was inaccessible! And in Carole-anne's seamless accounting, Wales merely took off where Paris began. “Yes, she probably does live in France, but a man could easily have a lover there, what with the Chunnel making it so convenient.”

“You're claustrophobic.”

Was she splurging on non sequiturs tonight? “I am?” She nodded. “You wouldn't last five minutes in the Chunnel.” Down went that foot, up came the other.

“Oh, for God's sake, that's ridiculous. Whatever gave you that impression?”

“Suit yourself.” Her entire self rejected his argument as the work of a fool. Even her toes shrugged.

“I get on elevators; I get on planes.”

“I'm only talking about the Chunnel. You'd only be claustrophobic there. You don't have all-over claustrophobia.”

“Then I'll fly!”

“You can't afford it. Between here and Paris it costs a fortune.”

“So I have Chunnel claustrophobia. How interesting. All I can say is, either way, Juliette Binoche would be worth it.”

“If you want to chance it.”

By the time she was wriggling her toes to dry them, Jury was sure he was in love with Juliette Binoche.

Damn,
but did she have to live in Paris?

“A
rdry End has seen the last of him!” exclaimed Melrose, in answer to Jury's question about Mr.

Bramwell. “Let's drink to that!” Melrose raised his teacup.

“So you managed to fire him?” said Jury.

“Not exactly. It was more of a job transfer.”

“What's that?”

“He's gone to the Wrenn's Nest.”

“What?” Jury laughed. “How in hell did you foist him off on Theo Browne?”

“By making it known that Trueblood intended to hire Bramwell. You know that if Browne could take away anything Trueblood has—a basket of vipers, a dram of strychnine—he'd do it. Makes no difference that the result would be poisonous to Theo, at least it would be poison Trueblood couldn't have.”

“Who thought this up?”

“Trueblood.”

“That figures.” Jury laughed again, and finished his tea.

“I thought we might drop in at the pub before dinner. Pots of fun, it'll be. Tell me what happened in Wales with that woman.”

Omitting the end of it, Jury recounted his visit to Sara Hunt, ending with his doubts about her account of the Derby before Dan Ryder quit and went to France. “What I want to know is why she'd fabricate that.”

Melrose thought about this. He said, “The race wasn't being offered as an alibi.”

“No, probably not.”

“I'd say definitely not. It was just part of the whole story of this obsession with Dan Ryder.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“I am, yes. The lie about the Derby wasn't meant to go anywhere. It sounds like one of those lies told for the pleasure of lying. That it gives her a sense of power or control to lie to a Scotland Yard superintendent. I'd say the question isn't why did she lie about the Derby, but why did she lie about everything else to boot?”

Jury leaned forward to pour more tea. “I don't get it.”

“Oh, come on, Richard. Did she bewitch you—I see she did. Well. Have you told me everything, then?” Melrose smiled a little wickedly.

“Never mind. Why do you say the whole story's a lie?”

“I suppose to conceal a real obsession with a counterfeit one.”

Jury looked at him.

“Ha! This woman must have you turned completely around. Look, it's not as if I don't believe in obsession—maybe it's the only emotional experience worth having, I don't know—but I don't believe in the one she foisted on you. If Dan Ryder had had such a grip on her mind and heart, and she knew Arthur Ryder and Vernon Rice, why wouldn't she have put herself in Ryder's way by playing the family card? In other words, Sara Hunt is a relation; she didn't need to keep her distance; she could have got herself invited to dinner, so to speak.”

“But does obsession work along such rational lines?”

“I have no idea. The only thing I've ever been obsessed with is getting rid of Agatha.”

“That sounds as if Sara Hunt thinks it's a game.”

Melrose nodded. “Remember that suspect of yours who called herself Dana?”

Jury didn't answer. He didn't like this topic.

“Took you in completely.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” said Jury, glumly. “Are you saying this Derby story is the same thing?”

“Could be. It's not easy to throw you off the scent. You must have been getting close.”

“Close to what, though? That she used to sleep with Dan Ryder? So did a lot of women. But why the ruse? You say it's to cover up her real obsession. I still don't get it.”

“Neither do I, even though I said it.” Melrose drained his cup. “Come on, let's go to the pub.”

 

Vivian jumped up and kissed him; Diane set down her martini with barely a sip; Trueblood rose and pummeled Jury's shoulder.

“I was here only two days ago,” said Jury. “Not that I don't appreciate the boundless enthusiasm.”

“You've been running around when you should be relaxing,” said Vivian.

“When Uranus,” said Diane, expelling a stream of smoke, “is running neck and neck with Saturn.”

“But only half,” said Jury, putting his hand on hers.

“An odd racing analogy,” said Trueblood.

Melrose said to Vivian, “Jury wants to know the score on Giappino.”

Vivian said, in mock wonder, “You haven't heard that Franco simply dumped me? Then you're the only one who hasn't.” She favored all of them with a mirthless smile. Melrose and Trueblood found some other place to look.

Jury looked round the table. “So how did you lot manage to chase him off?”

Fiddling with a cigarette, Trueblood said, “Well, we might have given Count Dracula the wrong impression.”

Vivian said, “You did indeed. I didn't tell you, but I got a letter from him. He said that with his brothers all being alcoholics, he just wasn't ready to take on this problem in a wife; that he was sorry he hadn't the funds to help with the foreclosure on my house—or whatever they call it in Italy, probably beating someone with sticks—and he was so sorry about my mother's dementia, but he couldn't take the chance of my inheriting it and thus passing it along to ‘his' children. I loved the ‘his.' I marveled at you”—her glance swept the table—“managing to get in all of those things. He found it, clearly, a heady experience.”