The Grave Maurice (44 page)

“Um, um umm,
ummm
!” said Melrose, nodding and shaking his head simultaneously. “Wow,
wow!
When did I last taste wine this good?”

“It
is
good.”

Melrose rapped the bar. “You know what we should do? We should buy this place. God knows why some family with a couple of Labs and disgusting children hasn't snapped it up for a country home.”

“Because of its sinister past. People might like to
come
here for a drink, hoping the mystique rubs off, but I don't think they'd want to
live
here. What do you mean, buy it?”

“We should.”

“Maybe you should; all I've got is the clothes I stand up in. Don't be daft; do you know even half the difficulties of running a restaurant?”

“Can't be all that hard.” Melrose slid his glass toward the bottle for more.

Jury poured. “First, there's staff. Now, for someone who can't fire a hermit, I'd say this alone would make the venture hopeless.”

“You could do the firing. So that's one problem sorted.”

Jury braced his hands against the bar, preparatory to delivering his feelings about all this. “You are hopelessly naïve, do you know that? A restaurateur takes on fixed expenses, rent, equipment, maintenance—the linen alone would sink most so-called entrepreneurs—and has to deal with a volatile, transient, undertrained or overtrained, temperamental staff; a perishable inventory—my Lord, the list goes on and on. And do you know what percentage of these establishments succeed? Maybe thirty percent.”

“How is it you know so much about it?”

Jury took a drink of the rarefied wine. “Danny Wu.” “Who's he?”

“One of the restaurateurs of whom I speak. He owns a restaurant called Ruiyi in Soho. He also does other things as a sideline. At least Racer is convinced of that.”

“Is his place successful?”

“Incredibly. You almost have to be a copper to get in.”

“Well, there you are.”

“No, there I'm
not
and neither are you. I know you see yourself swanning round the dining room recommending a wine to accompany braised llama and acorn saute. You'd be out a fortune just after opening night.”

“There's always another fortune.”

“You know what your problem is? You've got too much money.”

“I do?”

Jury shook his head.

“Anyway, you were just doing the food part. What about the room part? That shouldn't be difficult.”

Jury clapped his hand to his forehead. “You have no idea how much work is involved in this venture.”

“Work? Good God, I don't intend to
work.
That's what we'd be paying all of those volatile undertrained people for.
Work?
” Melrose made a
pfffffff
-ing sound, indicating his total abjuration of work. He pulled over one of the yellowing cocktail napkins, which Jury had slapped down on the bar, and took out his pen. “First, these napkins would probably have to be replaced, don't you think?”

Jury just drank his wine and shut his eyes. The wine was even better when he didn't have to look at Melrose. He wished he had Door Jam and a headset. Then he took the envelope from his inside pocket and found a pencil stub in a cup underneath the counter. “Let's say the food for a month would cost a hundred thou.” Jury wrote it on the envelope. Underneath that he jotted in another hundred thou for pots and pans. As he turned the envelope for Melrose to see the absurdly fabricated sum, the snapshots fell out.

“What are these?”

“Our suspects.”

“This is definitely Simone Ryder,” said Melrose. “Or at least the dead woman I saw in the morgue. Who're the ones—?” Melrose stopped and pulled over the pictures of Valerie Hobbs and Sara Hunt. He looked at the one of Sara Hunt for some moments as he lit a cigarette. “You said you didn't have anything to connect this Sara Hunt to Simone Ryder?”

“Right. Not a shred of evidence.”

Melrose smiled. “Well, now you have.”

M
elrose. held up the snapshot. “The woman in the Melrose held up the snapshot. “The woman in the Grave Maurice. The other woman. The one Simone Ryder was talking to.” Jury took the picture out of Melrose's hand. “Sara Hunt. I'll be damned.”

“I wasn't paying any attention to her. She was, for the most part, the listener. Simone Ryder was the one telling the story.”

“And talking about her deceased husband?”

“I assume so. She was saying something about Roger's brother. Then ‘insurance' and then—well, she must have been referring to herself going to a warmer climate, like South America. Ironic, isn't it? The very woman she's talking to knows Dan Ryder is still alive.”

“But now,” said Jury, “Sara was becoming more and more convinced she'd be seeing the last of Dan Ryder. He'd be in South America with this woman in the pub. I wonder what Ryder told her about his wife.”

“But how in heaven's name did Sara Hunt and Simone wind up at Ryder Stud?”

“Simone might have been going there herself for some reason. Some unfinished business. But whatever it was, Simone and Arthur Ryder had never met, or that's what he said. But he
had
met Sara. Vernon drove her to the Ryder place. Beyond that I can't sort it.”

“Could Sara have followed her?”

“Could have gone with her, for all we know. Sara is a very determined woman, count on it.” Jury plugged the cork back in the bottle.

“Sacrilege to waste this wine.”

“Who's wasting? We're taking it with us. Come on; I need to call Cambridge.”

They pulled their coats on, Melrose settling the bottle in his oversized pocket. He patted it like a baby.

As they went through the door of the pub, shoving the piece of wood back under the door to brace it, Jury said, “You'll be needed as a witness, you know, if she's indicted.”

“I expect so. Only, is there evidence enough to make an arrest?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I'll let Barry Greene know—he's the DCI in Cambridge—and he can get in touch with the police in Cardiff. I honestly don't know. At least before we didn't have a blind chance of arresting Sara Hunt. Now we do.”

After Jury had made his call and they'd toasted progress with another glass of wine, they decided to go out again, and Melrose told Martha to hold dinner. This time the Jack and Hammer was the destination of choice. “As long,” said Melrose, “as you feel ready for vocal confusion.”

“I'm ready. And it occurs to me there might be a way of handling the Bramwell crisis.”

“No, he's not going with us.”

“I'm thinking we might pop in to see Theo Wrenn Browne.” Jury smiled thinly.

 

When it came to Richard Jury, Theo Wrenn Browne was, at best, ambivalent, at worst, wretchedly jealous. How he coveted the admiring glances slewed Jury's way! Yes, he was jealous of Jury in the same way he was jealous of Melrose Plant: both had everything Theo wanted. Although Jury didn't have a fortune to throw around (as did Plant), he easily made up for this in his job of detective superintendent at New Scotland Yard, and having all of that power over life and death. He could point a finger and nests of vipers would disappear. (This image sent a pleasant little shudder up and down his wiry body, the roots of which frisson Theo wasn't eager to investigate.)

“Mr. Jury, how nice to see you again! And is this visit business or pleasure?”

“Both. You have an employee here named Bramwell? Frederick Edward Bramwell?”

Theo was brought up short. “I did have such a person here, but no longer. He left. He hinted he was returning to Mr. Plant's place.” Theo tittered.

Or at least it sounded like a titter to Melrose, who had posted himself by the tiers of magazines where he could listen and pretend not to hear.

Mustering just the right amount of gravitas, Jury said, “That's a rum go.”

Rum go?
Melrose looked round. Had he mistakenly walked into an H. E. Bates novel?

Now Theo didn't know whether to cheer or weep. Then realizing he could do better than “left,” he said, “Well, I had to fire him, didn't I?”

“Damn! This would have been the perfect place.”

“Pardon?” Theo danced his eyebrows around, puzzled.

“Oh, sorry.” Jury sighed. “We've been trying to get the goods on Fast Eddie for years now.”

Get the goods on?
Had Jury been filling up on TV cop shows? And “Fast Eddie”—Melrose knew he'd heard that name. “Fast Eddie.” It was from some American film, wasn't it? They called people those kinds of names over there.

“Fast Eddie? I'm not following you, Superintendent.”

“We call him that. It's the initials, isn't it? Frederick Edward? His speciality is rare books, and I mean
very
rare. Like the Pleiades edition of
Ulysses.
Don't see many of those lying around, do you?”

Theo was overcome with ignorance. “The Pleiades edition? I don't think I'm familiar . . . I find all this hard to believe, Superintendent.”

You're not the only one.
Melrose turned a page of the Beano comic he was reading.

Theo went on. “You see, Mr. Bramwell didn't appear to know a
thing
about books.”

Jury guffawed. “That's his game, Mr. Browne. He presents himself as being quite unlettered, to say the least.”

“But why on
earth,
” Theo said, looking pained, “would such a person want with working in my bookshop?”

Jury leaned across the well-polished counter which separated Theo from the rest of humanity and said in a low voice, “Because he always makes his contacts through bookshops.”

Theo drew in a breath, sharply.

“If Mr. Plant can persuade the man to come back here, you would be doing me a huge favor. And, of course, the Yard. This man's got right up my nose over the last couple of years.”

Melrose sighed, wishing Jury would stop talking like a cop in a bad thriller.

Theo leaned closer to Jury so that now their noses were nearly touching. “Is he, well,
dangerous
at all?”

“Oh, I shouldn't think so, Mr. Browne. But of course”—Jury stepped back and put his palms up—“I certainly wouldn't ask you to do something you'd be uncomfortable with. After all, we can't
all
be heroes.” Jury flashed him a heroic smile.

Well, that did it for Theo. Any appeal to his heroism completely unnerved him—not that there had ever been such an appeal up to now. Yes, he would have Mr. Bramwell back if it meant helping the police.

 

“So all we have to do is talk Bramwell into returning to the Wrenn's Nest.”

Joanna Lewes, who was sitting next to Jury in the Jack and Hammer said, “Isn't that illegal or criminal or something to impersonate a police detective?”

“I
am
a police detective,” said Jury.

“I know; but you were pretending this was a real case.”

Jury laughed. “You're obviously unaware of all the ‘pretending' the police do.”

“Anyway,” said Melrose, “how do I get him to agree to go back?”

Trueblood said, “Tell him Theo's a bookie.”

“Oh, that's brilliant.”

Trueblood lit a pink cigarette. “You have no imagination, you know that?”

Vivian said to Jury, “You're supposed to be resting and yet you go gallivanting all over the country searching for”—she shrugged—“whatever. You'll land yourself right back in the hospital with that dreadful nurse.”

“Hannibal.” Jury smiled. “You could say Hannibal was really into death. Nothing gave her more pleasure it appeared than an unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate some poor sod flailing like a fish in the OR.”

“Consider my Doris and be grateful they didn't remove all of your organs.”

Jury laughed. “She was always—” He stopped, hearing Nurse Bell's whiny voice.
Dory. “Poor tike, poor little Dory . . . arrhythmia, and no one knew it . . .”

“Something wrong, old bean?” asked Trueblood.

“What? No. I just have to—” Jury rose suddenly and went to the bar where Dick Scroggs was reading the paper. “I need your phone, Dick.”

Dick fished it out from the shelf beneath the bar. “Here you are, sir.”

Jury passed behind some member of the Withersby clan, sullenly nursing a beer. He got out his address book and thumbed to what he wanted. Then he punched in the number of the hospital, called and asked for the surgical ward. A crisp voice answered, and he asked for Dr. Ryder. He was, of course, put on hold. A long silence, bleak as the Withersby face down the bar. (Why did they all look so alike? That cropped look of the face, the squarish jaw, stopped too soon?)

He waited. It would be forever, if the nurse came back at all. He hung up, redialed the hospital and asked again for the surgical ward. Only this time he asked for Nurse King. Christine. Was she on duty? On duty and right there, said the voice.

Chrissie King came on the line. Jury could almost hear the devotion throbbing at the other end. He asked her if she could locate Dr. Ryder, or at least find out where he was and get a message to him.

“But I know where he is, I mean, I know where he said he was going—to Cambridgeshire. It was late yesterday he left. He said something about a funeral.”

Dear God,
Jury thought, taking the receiver from his ear and resting it against his forehead as if to cut short the bad news. Maurice. How could he have forgotten?