The Old Wine Shades (2 page)

‘I’ll drink to that.’ Jury held up his glass, and Trevor came down the bar. ‘Hugh went to Surrey?’ His curiosity deepened with everything Harry told him. He watched Trevor fill his glass.

‘Hugh? Not initially. I went for him. He got stuck on the idea that Glynnis and Robbie would be back and he wouldn’t be there to see them.’ Harry went on. ‘They might have been murdered, they might have been kidnapped, or–as was the popular theory at the outset–unhappy wife leaves husband and takes the child with her. That was so ridiculous I couldn’t understand how police held on to it.’

‘But it was a likely explanation. After all, the police didn’t know the wife as well as you do.’ Jury had been about to say It’s the one I would have gone for before he stopped himself. Instead he said, looking down at the dog, ‘So only Mungo knows.’

‘Whatever is known, right.’

‘You said at the outset you’d tell me the rest of it.’ Harry Johnson nodded. ‘It was last year, in the summer, in July, I think. That morning Glynn–that’s Glynnis–with Robbie and Mungo in tow, Glynnis set out for a look round the countryside in Surrey. She was viewing houses. They wanted a house outside of London.’

‘Second home? Weekend cottage sort of thing?’

‘Not exactly–I’ll get around to that later. Anyway, Glynn was to meet up with an estate agent who had a couple of listings she thought were worth seeing. They were about a half mile apart near a village called Lark Rise. She had appointments to see both houses, one still occupied and one empty. One she thought a complete toss, said it was too quaint and whimsical. She called the agent and told her what she thought and that she was then going to drive to the second house. The agent’s name is Marjorie Bathous, and she’s with a firm called Forester and Flynn. They’re located in Lark Rise.’

‘But Glynn didn’t call a second time. The agent calculated it would take only a few minutes to get to the second house, but was allowing time for Glynn to look around. That was a generous allowance, she said, since Glynnis was the type who knew what she liked immediately, at first glance. Well, when she hadn’t heard from her after an hour, she began to get concerned, thinking perhaps she’d lost her way, or was having car trouble or something. When she didn’t hear after an hour and a half, she really got anxious.’

‘Didn’t she try Glynnis’s mobile phone?’’

‘She hadn’t got the number. She said if there’d been trouble, well, Mrs. Gault would have called her. So then this Marjorie Bathous got in her car and drove to house number one. It took her about twenty minutes from Forester and Flynn. When she got to the first house, she called in. The couple there told the agent that yes, they’d been there, even had had a cup of tea, but had left some time ago. So the agent drove to the second house. What she thought she might find was that their car had broken down, but if there had been that kind of trouble, she thought Glynnis would have called her.

When she got to house number two there was no sign of anyone.

‘That house was listed as available on a long lease, not for sale. Anyway, there was no use asking at the door as the place was vacant. Still, she looked around the house and grounds for some clue but found nothing.’

‘All this Mrs. Bathous could assume at that point was that there’d been some emergency back in London; perhaps Mrs. Gault had some sudden onset of illness, or her Chelsea house caught on fire, then apologized for being so melodramatic, but none of that could measure up, for melodrama, to the disappearance of a man’s family. She hadn’t come to thinking in those terms because it was utterly impossible. People don’t disappear like–’

‘People disappear all the time,’ said Jury, ‘although not wife, child and dog all at once, I agree. Go on.’

‘The agent had been delaying a call to Hugh Gauh, but now she did call, thinking, as I said, there had been an emergency in London.

When she called him he was dumbfounded. Hugh called Surrey police. Can you imagine telling police your family has disappeared? Just suddenly gone up in smoke? They quite naturally took the position that the missus had done a runner, not that anything had befallen her and her boy.’

‘And Mungo.’

The dog came out from under Jury’s tall bar chair and raised his eyes to look from one to the other.

Harry smiled. ‘Right. I keep forgetting Mungo.’

Now the dog turned to Harry Johnson.

‘Never mind,’ said Harry, roughing up the top of his head.

Jury hoped he hadn’t really drunk up this last drink. Well, he forgave himself for this apparent alcoholic thirst; after all he’d just put one hell of a case behind him that had left him really knackered, among other things. He frankly didn’t know if he’d find the energy to get home. Take a cab, he’d have to. ‘Go on,’ he said to Harry.

‘The Surrey police came up empty, not surprisingly. But considering there was a nine-year-old child missing, they did make an effort. Their forensics found evidence of tire tracks that matched the brand of tire on Glynnis’s car, but that did no good since the agent knew Glynn had been at the house, the first house, anyway.’

‘What did they find at the second house?’

‘Nothing. The ground was so hard where the car might have pulled up that they couldn’t get an impression of any tires at all, not just Glynn’s. Hugh was beside himself, of course, and convinced it could only have been a kidnapping. I thought so too, except there was no ransom demand.’

Jury thought of the Flora Scott case, so recently resolved. ‘Is there some reason there might have been one? I mean, are the Gaults wealthy?’

‘Not wealthy, but very comfortable. She inherited a little when her mother died. Hugh’s a professor at London University. Physics.’

‘So your friend Hugh would not appear to have a motive?’

‘Of course not.’ Harry sounded irritated. ‘Anyway, he was in London; any number of people could testify to that.’

‘Yes, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop him paying someone to do it. And if so, you bet he’d have witnesses, a raft of witnesses.’

‘That’s exactly what the police said.’ Harry looked at Jury.

Jury laughed. ‘I’m a big fan of the Bill and–what’s that other one?–anyway, I watch them all the time on the telly.’

‘But you don’t know Hugh.’

‘You’re quite right. What happened then?’

‘Then came the private investigator.’

‘Who found nothing?’

Harry nodded. ‘And during this time, we drove to Lark Rise, to Forester and Flynn, where we picked up the keys to the empty house. They do that, these agents in the country, since the listings are some distance from each other. I’d say that’s just asking for trouble.’

For Glynnis Gauh, it had been, Jury didn’t say. ‘Then Mrs. Gauh did go in the house?’

‘The agent didn’t know. If she didn’t like the exterior, she probably didn’t bother with the inside.’

‘Then your Glynnis is one woman in a million.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Would any woman with a key to a strange house in her hand not use it? I’m sorry if that sounds patronizing. Perhaps I should say ‘anyone.’ It’s just that I’ve found houses and what they contain to be far more interesting to women than to men.’

‘You think she went inside?’

Jury nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘The rooms were large, with very high ceilings, and the drawing room or living room was furnished with what looked like quite valuable antiques. There was a Russian bureau inlaid with silver, a Turkish rug of huge proportions and deep reds and blues. There were tea things set out, a silver tea service and cups and saucers and so forth.’

‘You mean in the way of Miss Havisham in Dickens? Didn’t she keep everything regarding her near wedding exactly as it had been for years?’

Harry had lit a cigarette and was now exhaling. ‘No, I don’t mean that.’ He seemed mildly annoyed that Jury was using fictional metaphor. He went on:

‘The house sits about two hundred feet from the road. All of the front was overgrown–grass, hedgerow, shrubberies, very large trees front and back–a wood, actually at the edge of the gardens behind the house, all of it almost luxurious in its wildness. But it certainly wasn’t anyone’s idea of a country cottage. Hugh said he couldn’t understand why the agent had even had it on her list of possible properties for Glynnis to see or that Glynnis would even bother going inside. It was quite an imposing place, but much too large.’

‘Well, I imagine she’s not the first agent to show a client unsuitable property. Could it be someone was waiting for Mrs. Gault? What about the boy? And Mungo, here–’

They both looked down. Mungo looked up, again eying one and then the other. The look, thought Jury, did not appear to be yearning, but more bafflement or at least puzzlement.

‘Had he or she or they really planned on taking all three?’

‘Perhaps they had to; they could hardly let the boy go,’ said Harry.

‘But they did Mungo.’

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘I expect they thought Mungo wasn’t about to write up a report on what happened.’

‘But an abduction doesn’t seem very likely with whatever was going on in the house, anyway. So you don’t know that there’s any connection between the house and Glynnis and Robbie Gauh’s disappearance. It could be simply a coincidence.’

Harry studied his drink.

‘Who owns the house?’

‘A man named Ben Torres. Benjamin della Torres, actually.’

‘Sounds aristocratic.’

Harry shook his head, picked up his glass.

‘Also sounds Spanish.’

‘Italian. He lives near Florence.’

‘You know a lot about this.’

Harry nodded. ‘‘I had to, given everything that happened.’

‘Everything?’

‘What I’m telling you.’ Harry smiled and looked at his watch.

‘Look, it’s nearly nine. Would you like to get a meal? I know a terrific restaurant.’

Jury looked at his own watch, astonished that he’d been talking to Harry Johnson for upward of two hours. ‘Why not? It’s a good idea. What about Mungo?’

They both rose to put on their coats (Harry, cashmere; Jury, anything but). When Mungo saw this, he too got to his feet, tail wagging.

‘Oh, Mungo’s welcome to join us. I’ll just ring the place to tell them we’re coming.’ He pulled a cell phone from his coat pocket and turned away from Jury to make the call.

Jury knelt down and scratched around Mungo’s ears. He wondered what the poor dog had been through. He wondered how an animal could have such a sense of direction to make a trip from God knows where back home. He wondered if ‘home’ meant more to animals than it did to humans.

Harry flipped his cell phone closed. ‘Done. You’ll like this place.’ Then he smiled down at Mungo. ‘Incredible dog. I just don’t know what to make of him.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know what to make of any of this, actually.’

2

‘The house itself–it’s named Winterhaus, incidentally–I don’t know where that German bit came from. I wanted to know more about the house itself. It struck me as a place that would serve as a setting for something.’

They were seated now in one of those pleasant restaurants where the food and the service clearly took precedence over the packaging: no terribly modern blue Lucite or smoked-glass room dividers or etched wall sconces; no sumptuous, sinuous leather and bright white linens. Just a comfortable arrangement of tables far enough apart that you didn’t feel the people at the next table were elbowing in on your conversation. Harry Johnson was obviously a long-standing diner here for the maitre d’ knew him by name and treated him as a valued customer.

They had ordered, or, rather, Harry had suggested the waiter order for them, just as he had told the sommelier to choose the wine.

‘‘Something’?’

Harry shrugged. ‘I’m not sure what I mean. Melodramatic. An old man was passing in the road as we left the drive, a villager I supposed. We stopped to ask about the Swan, the nearby pub, and he told us it was down the road, then offered a bit of advice at the same time. His name was Jessup, he said, and he lived around there. He gave us a warning about ‘that house’ and said we should avoid the woods. If you can imagine.’ Harry laughed.

‘Did you find anything dire in the woods?’

‘No.’

‘What about the owner? What did he have to say?’

‘He lives in San Gimignano, one of those little hill towns in Tuscany, one of the casa torre. It’s full of towers.’

‘You’ve seen the town, then?’

‘Yes. Well, we were looking for any clue at all. Hugh clearly wasn’t up to it and so I undertook to go. The man wouldn’t come to England–why should he? He’d put the house in the hands of an agent, so let her dammed well deal with it.’

‘But couldn’t this have been handled by telephone? Going to Italy seems a little extreme.’

‘Is going to Italy ever really extreme? And I’d never been there.’

Jury laughed. ‘I see what you mean. Go on.’

‘The thing, the interesting thing is, regarding your point about the telephone is that he didn’t want to discuss it over the phone. If I wanted to come to him, I was welcome.’

The waiter was there with their salads, mostly new and trendy greens and Stilton cheese and walnuts in a citrusy dressing.