The Lamorna Wink (7 page)

How had he gotten embroiled in this boy's life, a boy he had known for only a day?

As if time mattered. Melrose had always believed you could meet and fall in love with a woman in the time it took to put out your hand and say hello.

It disturbed him that he could reach that point immediately where Johnny had landed: abandoned and betrayed. Not that his aunt had abandoned the lad, of course not. No more had his own mother abandoned Melrose; of course she hadn't. Nor his father. But Melrose still loathed public schools and the British penchant for sending children away to them.

There was Harrow. What he remembered most about Harrow was the midnight vigil. He could never get to sleep before then. He'd lie in a narrow bed, crying soundlessly. He hadn't dared make any noise or he'd wake up his roommate—what had been his name? He could not understand this reaction to public school—or, rather, to leaving home. About as independent as a baby penguin, he'd been.

Harrow wasn't the first time, either. Before that, when he was eight, there'd been a boarding school in France. Why in God's name had they packed him off to the south of France? It still made him blush to remember how he held on to his mother that day in Paris—her hand, her skirt, cool skin, warm wool. And his father's embarrassment: “For heaven's sakes, lad, be a man! Get a grip on yourself! Soldier on, lad!” And despite the fact his father would say it, Melrose was trying to do just that: get a grip. So hard was he trying that the voice at his elbow gave him such a start he nearly fell off the stool.

“Plant!”

“Commander Macalvie! My lord, how are you?”

“Me? I'm fine. You don't look so hot, though. Where's your sidekick?”

He meant Richard Jury. “In Northern Ireland. Sidekicking.”

“Christ, how'd he wind up there?”

“I don't know. CID matter, some kind of inquiry connected with something in London.”

“Wiggins go with him? If he didn't, I could use him here.”

Macalvie's partiality for Wiggins had always mystified Melrose, as it mystified Richard Jury.

Pfinn came down the bar, drawn perhaps by Macalvie's static electricity, the copper hair, the cobalt-blue eyes. Pfinn asked him what he'd have. If anything.

Pfinn always managed to make it sound like an imposition.

Macalvie asked for lager. “So what's this emergency?”

“A woman's missing from here, from Bletchley.” Melrose told him the details. “It hasn't been your requisite twenty-four hours.”

As he'd been talking, the expression on Macalvie's face changed.

“What's she look like?”

“I don't—” It was only then that Melrose realized her looks had never come up, not around him at any rate. Brown hair? Possibly. No, he did recall Johnny saying she was around his age.

“I can never tell what your age
is,
Plant. You still won't eat your peas.”

“Very funny. I honestly don't remember Johnny's describing what she looked like, except to say she's pretty.” Melrose paused. “Why does that look on your face bother me? Why, incidentally, are you in Cornwall? I don't expect you're sightseeing.”

Macalvie cleared his throat. “Where is this boy?”

“Working one of his several jobs.” Melrose consulted his watch. “It's probably the cab at this hour . . . or else he'll be getting the dining room ready here.” Melrose called to Pfinn, asked him if Johnny had come yet. No, he hadn't. Not for another hour, most likely.

Melrose asked again. “So what are you doing in Cornwall?”

“Having a dekko at a body found not far from here. You know Lamorna Cove? It's about five miles away.”

“A body. Male or female?”

“Female. We haven't ID'd her yet.”

There was a silence before Melrose asked, “How long had she been dead?”

Macalvie took his lager, handed over some money, drank off a third, and said, “Not that long. No more than twelve, sixteen hours. Pathologist has to do a postmortem, of course.”

“Well.” Melrose's stomach turned over. That really was the sensation.

“The nephew must have a picture of her.”

“I'm sure he does.”

“Well, I'd rather see that before I show him mine.”

“Yours?” Melrose said, his tone anxious.

“Can you get hold of him?”

“I'll try his house, and if he's not there I'll call the cab dispatcher. There're all of three cars to dispatch.” He turned to Mr. Pfinn and asked for the telephone and Johnny's telephone number.

Giving out employees' telephone numbers was not something he did. The same telephone ceremony was repeated as had been that morning. It would cost him a pound.

“No, it won't,” said Macalvie, riveting the man with his eyes, then producing his identification. “And we'll have that number, thanks.”

J
ohnny heard the telephone as he was coming up the path to the cottage. He fairly flew through the door and snatched it up as the last ring echoed in air.

Hell! He slammed the receiver down. The phone had become Janus-faced; on the one hand it might be Chris; on the other hand, bad news
about
Chris.

He did not know, for all of his worry, how he'd been able to go about his daily routine of the caff, the cab, the pub in such a humor as to be—or at least make things appear to be—perfectly normal. To keep it down, the anxiety, the fear. “Deny” as Uncle Charlie was always saying. Deny, deny, deny. But this wasn't denial; if it had been he wouldn't be anxious or fearful.

He sank down into a chair at the gaming table and let his gaze wander around from the fireplace mantel, to the bookshelves, to Chris's favorite armchair covered in blue cotton with a design of white phlox. Rather, the background had once been blue. It had gone through so many washings and been exposed to sunlight long enough that it was hard to make out the flower pattern. He supposed you could drain the color from anything over time—the aquamarine from the ocean, the blue from the sky—

Shut it!
Johnny ordered himself. This was self-pity and it kept a person from thinking. He yanked one of the small drawers in the table open and got out his cards. He riffled them several times, liking the feel of the rush of the edges against his thumb. He cut the deck twice, pulled out a nine of diamonds, made it look as if he were putting it atop one of the thirds, when he wasn't. He stacked the three parts together, shuffled, shuffled again.
Voilà!
He pulled out the nine of diamonds.

A basic little trick anybody should be able to see. Surprising how little people did see.

He left the cards on the table and started an aimless circuit of the living room. Looked at the fire screen, the books, the basket full of magazines and another of embroidery which Chris scarcely touched, so busy was she. He stopped at a glass-fronted étagère full of cups and saucers (“A Present from Lyme,” “A Memory of Bexhill-on-Sea”) and bisque figurines and tiny animals and was taken by the number of places they'd been. Nothing elaborate—no Paris or Venice or anyplace—just little seaside resorts here in England. He stopped at the trunk in the window alcove and ran his hand across the top. Opened it, looked inside. He had to do a lot of work to perfect this illusion.

The rain still came down and made the day dark and the room darker. He had been in here in half shadow and hadn't turned on any lights. He stood looking out the window of this cottage that now seemed sorrowful, the objects in it wasted, as if Chris's absence had deprived them of purpose or usefulness.

He turned on a silk-fringed lamp, which cast its buttery glow on part of the room. He stopped at the fireplace mantel and looked at the snapshots and three larger photos framed there. One of Chris and Charlie, one of Chris and him, one of her and his mother. She looked like his mother and his mother had been beautiful. This was a photographer's posed shot, which was not as alive as the others; these formal posed shots never were. He studied the picture of the two of them, the two sisters. He knew he thought of Chris as a mother; he couldn't help it. So this was like losing his mother all over again.

Johnny rested his head on his arms for a moment, then marshaled what energy he had left and plucked up his beaked cap. He liked to wear it in the cab. Shirley had asked him to take an extra shift this evening because Sheldon was sick. “Read: Hangover,” she'd said.

“Read: I can't, Shirley. Sorry. But I'm going to Penzance.”

Shirley was all right about it; she knew something had happened to Chris.

He put the cap on, looked in the mirror over the mantel, softly sang:

But for once it didn't cheer him. He grabbed up his jacket and was out the door.

He was getting into the cab when the telephone rang again, but this time he didn't hear it.

W
ho else could ID her, then?” asked Macalvie, gulping at his beer as if it were the last one he expected to see for a long time.

“If it's Chris Wells, a number of people. Almost anyone in the village.” Seeing Macalvie about to move to question Pfinn, Melrose shook his head. “I shouldn't start with him. He'll set your feet on the wrong path if he can help it. If there's such a thing in your police lexicon as an antiwitness, it's him. Let's go across to the Woodbine. Chris Wells owns it, along with another woman, Brenda something. She could identify her partner.” Melrose looked again at the photo. Whoever she was, she was good-looking. He wished he'd listened more closely to Johnny's description of his aunt. No, he didn't; he didn't want to be the person who said, Yes, that's Chris Wells. He didn't want to be the despised messenger.

Macalvie drained the rest of his beer, set down the empty pint, and regarded it as intensely as he might've regarded a fresh clue. He did everything intensely. He had those blue eyes that turned their surroundings dull and drab and burned away any extraneous matter in Macalvie's line of vision. Melrose wouldn't relish being the suspect he interviewed. In the half minute since Melrose had spoken, Macalvie had leaned straight-armed against the bar, staring at whatever scene was unfolding in his mind. If Melrose had ever wondered what aspect of his job—if any—Brian Macalvie disliked, showing a police photo to the victim's friends or relations was clearly it. Melrose was relieved this particular relation was not around.

“Let's go,” said Macalvie, moving away from the bar and digging a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket. He still smoked an unfashionable pack and a half a day. Melrose took out his own case, glad he could share the sin.

 

Brenda Friel was such a sweet-tempered woman that not even the presence of the Devon and Cornwall police in her kitchen disturbed her. The two men took up whatever room was left over from an island of butcher-block table and her big Aga cooker. She was not concerned about the scones and cookies she'd just removed from the oven, only about Johnny Wells. Thinking that Chris was the reason police were here in the Woodbine, she said she was glad they had come straightaway.

Brenda pushed a lock of brown hair from her forehead with the back of her hand as Macalvie told her about the dead woman in Lamorna Cove. Her face grew very still, that petrified stillness one adopts when terrible news threatens to topple your world and any movement will bring it on.

As Macalvie produced the picture, she closed her eyes, then opened them and expelled a long breath. “No.” She all but whispered it. “No, that's not Chris.” Relief nearly overwhelmed her, and she staggered back and leaned against the table, upon which rested the scones and cookies, giving off a gingery aroma that, in its suggestion of the homey and ordinary, seemed to mock them, faced with possible tragedy.

Melrose let out his own breath, surprised he'd been holding it. Chris and Johnny Wells must call up powerful emotions in people. “That's another thing,” said Melrose, speaking his thoughts. “Where's her nephew? We've been trying to get in touch with him. He doesn't answer his phone. I know he works at various jobs, but—”

“I think he's gone to Penzance. A relation there just might know something. This is the first time Johnny's ever asked for time off. He's so dependable. Like a rock.” She tore a couple of small plastic bags off a roll; then, holding them, she said, “That woman, she doesn't look much like Lamorna Cove—” Brenda stopped, then, frowning, said, “Let me see that photo, will you, sweetheart?”

Macalvie assumed he was the sweetheart here and again produced the picture.

“I can tell you who it looks like: a woman that lived in Lamorna Cove as a girl. Her name was Sadie May. She worked here awhile. But she married since, anyway. Name's Sada Colthorp, her married name. Believe it or not, that girl married into the aristocracy. I think she married an earl or viscount or one of those.”

The smile she gave Melrose acknowledged him as “one of those.” Though the smile, he noted, was a trifle ambiguous.

“Did you ask round at the Wink? The pub there?

It's probably their one topic of conversation now.” When Macalvie nodded, she went on. “I expect they didn't recognize her grown up. Of course, that doesn't mean they'd talk to police about it. People can be so close-mouthed, can't they?”

“They can, yes,” said Macalvie. “How is it you yourself recognized her?”

“Because she came back.” She looked slightly surprised, as if police should have known this. “It was about four or five years ago she came to Bletchley. For old time's sake, perhaps. She worked for us once. Fifteen, twenty years, it must be. Ramona, my daughter, was just a little thing then.” Brenda smiled at the memory. “I never knew Sadie that well, but Chris did. None of us ever liked her that much.” Brenda shrugged.