The Old Wine Shades (14 page)

‘The Forester agent recommended that the woman stop here and see Lark Cottage. Indeed, Mrs. Bathous was quite enthusiastic. We were on the lookout for them, of course, and I would have tea ready, and when we saw the car out there parked along the road and her out and seeming to be using one of those mobile phones—’

‘I thought probably she was calling Forester—that estate agency—to see if she got the right place, so I got out there quick as I could,’ said Bob.

‘It says Lark Cottage clear as day; I don’t know how she could’ve missed it,’ said Maeve, helping herself to a Caedmon biscuit.

Bob went on. ‘Nice woman she was and her boy was ever so nice and quiet. Well-brought-up lad. Even that dog of theirs had good manners.’ Bob chuckled.

‘We showed her over the house and quite complimentary she was. I gave them a cup of tea. They lived in Chelsea, she said.’ Maeve passed the biscuit plate again.

‘How did she seem, Mrs. Shoesmith?’

‘Why, just pleasant, not tense or moody, not depressed or anything.’

‘How long were they here?’

‘Oh, about a half hour, I think.’

‘No, Maeve. More like an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, but no less,’ said Bob.

Jury observed Bob Shoesmith. He would probably make a good witness. Jury leaned back and looked upward, studying the ceiling.

As far as Melrose was concerned, both of the Shoesmiths had forgotten their visitors’ mission here. Make that three—Jury, freelance copper. He was going on again about Winterhaus, asking who the owner was.

‘Would we be knowin’ their name. Bob? Was it Spanish or sort of Italian? Toro? Was that it?’

Bob closed his eyes to help him think, snapped them open again. ‘Torres! That’s it. Torres.’

Maeve said, ‘What with livin’ a half mile away, we can’t really count Winterhaus our neighbor. It does get lonely out here. It’s why we’re movin’, see. But we can’t do much about that till we sell up. Would you be wantin’ more tea?’ She held the pot aloft.

‘Oh, no thanks. Then I guess you’ve never been inside?’ said Jury.

‘No.’ She poured herself a cup. ‘No, only from outside I’ve seen it.’ She colored a little and smiled. ‘Now, I must admit, since it’s been empty I’ve walked around there. Even peeked in a few windows. And walked out back. Only to see why it was empty, I mean if there was somethin’ could explain why, only that.’

Jury sat forward a little, smiling. ‘And did you find any reason it should be?’

Maeve Shoesmith was thinking. ‘It’s awful. . . desolate, I’d say. I mean, I guess Lark Cottage is out here in the back of beyond, but ours is different, so.’ She looked at Jury. ‘I can’t say more’n that. Only, such a pretty place, or was. Of course the gardens are mostly gone now and it looks a bit rough. Then there’s the woods, and the woods look awful cold to me.’ She rubbed her arm as if she’d felt a sudden chill.

Jury would have asked more except he didn’t want it to appear this was the real reason they’d come to this place. He would have liked to get her to talk more; Maeve Shoesmith, unlike her husband, who was into details, she was into mood.

‘And I’m thinkin,’ said Maeve, ‘only would it not be too big for your aunt? Would it be too much to have the care of?’

‘My aunt,’ said Melrose, ‘is peculiar in that regard; she likes big houses; she likes to roam.’

‘Isn’t she going to look the property over herself?’

‘She needn’t. She trusts my judgment. I see this is an unusually wooded area. She doesn’t really like trees.’

The Shoesmiths looked blank. So did Jury.

‘Doesn’t like trees?’ said Boh.

Melrose nodded. ‘Well, this has been most delightful!’ He made signs of pushing off—slapping his thighs, rising, resettling his jacket. He looked at Jury, who appeared to have forgotten who he came in with. ‘We’d best be going,’ he said pointedly.
Remember? You’re with me.

Coming to his senses, Jury rose. ‘Thank you for your information about Winterhaus. It will come in useful, I’m sure.’

Maeve rose, but Bob seemed still to have entered a little world of his own. He sat frowning, pulling at one of his thick eyebrows. Then he came back to the land of the living and with Maeve walked their two visitors to the door.

Said Maeve, ‘Well, in case your aunt would like to see Lark Cottage, we’d be most pleased to show her around, we would.’

‘Thanks so much, both of you.’ They shook hands.

‘Good-bye, so.’ Maeve watched them walk to the old Bentley. She waved.

‘Trees?’ said Jury, dragging on the seat belt.

Melrose accelerated and backed up. ‘I was just trying to segue to the woods, for heaven’s sake. Aren’t the woods supposed to be sinister, or something?’

‘Yes, but the segue turned out to be more interesting than the woods. I mean, what does one say about a person who doesn’t like trees? It’s a total conversation stopper. It’s like saying she doesn’t like flowers. Or grass or leaves or air. It brought everything to a full stop.’

Put upon, Melrose sighed heavily. ‘Only trying to help is all. It was the first thing that popped into my mind.’

A tattered field went by on the left. On the right was a low dry stone wall. ‘Really? It would be the
last
thing to pop into anyone else’s. Indeed it would never pop at all.’ Jury raised his hand in greeting to a little boy with a burro. The boy did not return the greeting.

‘I think you’re diving right into this weird story as if you were a part of it. As if you were one of the elements reinventing itself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. Sounds rather good, though, doesn’t it?’

‘No.’

Melrose liked the sound of it anyway. ‘Consider Alice-in- Wonderland.’

Jury made a strangling sound and slid down in his seat.

‘Alice walking through that looking glass, finding herself in a world where none of the natural laws applied—’

‘What about the first law?’

‘What?’ Melrose was annoyed at this interruption of his newly forming philosophical position.

‘Alice is in the so-called real world at the moment before she steps in. So how does that work?’

Melrose sighed. ‘It’s going
through
it that counts!’

‘But to do that she has to go into it from reality’s side. And on reality’s side it’s a natural law you can’t do that—wait a minute.’ Jury was leaning forward, peering through the windscreen. ‘Isn’t that the Swan up there?’

Melrose saw the sign. ‘Damn. We missed the house. We’ve gone too far.’

‘My fault. I was supposed to be lookout. Anyway, we both could do with a pint; we can go back after.’

‘I didn’t see one single thing. And it’s a big house.’

‘We were talking. When you’re talking about walking through mirrors and not liking trees, you tend to miss things.’

Melrose pulled into the Swan’s small car park, parked and braked. There were several cars, a half dozen. ‘This place is to hell and gone and I can’t imagine that road is a motorway. There’s nothing around. Where do they get their custom?’

‘From hell and gone, I expect.’

They got out and walked up to the pub.

As at certain hours, the ones before Time is called, the denizens of any pub look more like part of the furniture than people, that was the case here; the some ten or twelve customers were stationed around as if it were a military installation, where the customers served as lookouts and suspicious-looking strangers were barred from entering. All pubs gave that impression at these slow times of day. Slow afternoons with nothing going for them but the drink and a line of chat.

When Melrose and Jury walked in, they were treated to an inspection that would have made a platoon proud.

‘Pint of Foster’s,’ said Jury.

‘Same of Old Peculier,’ said Melrose.

‘Ain’t got that on tap. Bottled, though.’

‘Fine,’ said Melrose.

Jury nodded to a man as thin as a splint leaning against the old copper bar several feet away. The man returned the nod, joined by two others holding up the bar down a little farther.

Jury said to the barman, as he showed his identity card, ‘This is an old case, but I wonder if you recall about a year ago a woman disappeared from around here.’

The barman nodded his head, looked thoughtful. ‘Ain’t enough happens round here we’d be likely to forget that, right, Robin?’ This was directed to the thin man who’d nodded to Jury.

‘Shouldn’t think so, Clive,’ said Robin. He gave a dry little cackle.

‘No, can’t say as I recall that.’

‘Police would have been round asking questions about her. You don’t recall that?’

The barman shook his head. ‘Why? Something happen? I mean, to get Scotland Yard in on it?’

By now, three or four others had drifted up to the bar, hoping to get an earful.

‘Any of you remember? She would have had a boy and a dog with her.’

Heads were slowly shaken up and down the bar.

‘Too bad Myra ain’t here,’ said Robin. ‘She was talking about seeing them on the road somewhere.’

‘What did she say exactly?’

Robin studied the air. ‘Now, let me think on that a minute.’

Jury ran his eyes over the others in mute question. They shook their collective heads.

‘All right. Where is Myra?’

There was a discussion about Myra’s whereabouts, but no one knew for sure. ‘Usually, she stops in round about now,’ said Clive.

Jury said, ‘What’s this Myra’s last name?’

The barman looked blank; the other one who’d been talking tilted his flat cap forward and scratched his neck. ‘Now, I don’t know I rightly ever heard her last name.’

‘Do you know where she lives?’ asked Melrose.

That drew another lot of blank faces. The one in the flat cap offered, ‘Roundabout here somewhere. Maybe in Lark Rise?’

Jury took another drink, motioned to Melrose, who gulped down his remaining beer.

‘Thanks, anyway. Let’s go.’

19

A mile or so later they saw that the stone wall on their right was higher and gated, though the gate was not only open hut listing, as if sinking into the hard surface of the drive. A brass sign was embedded in the wall and hard to read. Had they not been watching for the property, they wouldn’t have seen the inscription cut into the brass that said
WINTERHAUS.
They drove through the stone pillars and on up the rutted road to the house. It was Georgian, a gray façade, noncommital.

Melrose shrugged his overcoat farther up on his shoulders as they passed into a hall with a worn (but very good, Melrose pointed out) Persian carpet. The paneling in this hall was of a wood Melrose puzzled over. ‘It’s not one of our common hardwoods,’ he said, running his hand over the wall like a blind man exploring the contours of an unfamiliar face.

There was, as Jury had been told, no furniture, except for what was in the drawing room. No portraits, no plaster or bronze busts in the several alcoves or niches that might have housed them. Nothing.

While Melrose talked. Jury didn’t listen, but instead walked into a room to the right off the entrance hall. He stood looking at the windows—old leaded glass set in metal frames that looked too frail to hold the glass. They were casement windows and one was open, about a finger’s thickness, so it was obvious the house wasn’t at all secure. In his mind he suddenly saw another window, open not on a view of long lawns and dense pines and maples, but open to the sea—blue water, an intense blue, and a copper sun, heavy sunlight, hot sands. He did not recognize this landscape. Where had he seen

it? A rogue memory of sorts. What had it to do with him? Slowly he shook his head several times, hard.

‘What’s the matter? I hate to say it, believe me, but you look as if you’d seen a you-know-what.’

Jury half smiled. He pulled the window shut.

Melrose went on: ‘I’m surprised at you, messing up a secured crime scene. Fingerprints smeared, for instance.’

‘Oh? I didn’t know it was one.’