The Old Wine Shades (4 page)

There was more, Harry Johnson had said, to come.

Jury had to admit he was curious about the Gaults and Ben Torres and their exceedingly strange tales.

Right now, late as it was, he thought he’d walk down to Lower Thames Street and then along the Embankment as far as Waterloo Bridge. Jury wanted to see how Benny Keegan was keeping. It was well after ten o’clock, but Benny did not exactly keep regular hours.

His dog Sparky had probably saved Jury’s life because he had led the others to him.

Sparky. Now, if it had been Sparky sniffing round that house in Surrey, he’d have turned up something. But he shouldn’t be hard on Mungo; no, Mungo was far from dumb.

He watched the Thames and the glitter of lights reflected along its surface, cast by the National Theater and the South Bank.

Jury walked down the stone steps to the wide space under the bridge where several of the London homeless had set up house. Of course they had to take it all down in the morning and leave or the police would be all over them. But that didn’t cramp their style; Jury got the idea they considered themselves quite fortunate to have this area under the bridge for their own, nights.

‘Oh, Christ,’ said Mags (the first one he came to), ‘if it ain’t the Filth again. I calls it police harassment.’

Jury said, ‘Last time I was here was in January, Mags. Does that seem very harassing? It’s March now.’

‘The Ides of.’ Her tone was churlish. ‘That fookin’ Caesar ‘ad ‘is work cut out for ‘im, din’t ‘e?’

‘Well, I lay no claim to being Caesar.’

‘Good thing.’ Megs’s laugh came from some deep and abiding resource within her body. It was hard to make the body out, given layers of skirts and shawls. She had made a fire in a big tin canister and was stirring something in a pot.

‘So, it’s gonna be once every couple mumfs you come down ‘ere? I’ll go get me ‘air done next time.’

‘You were never lovelier. Where are Benny and Sparky?’

‘Up to no good, unlike the rest o’ us law-abidin’ cit’zens.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘‘Bout fifteen minutes ago. Said he was goin’ up t’ that McDonald’s near Charing Cross. He did good today wi’f his route.’
 

Jury looked around. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘Dunno.’

There were ordinarily at least a half dozen here with bedrolls and blankets, and upward of a dozen who came and went at one time or another. It was (Jury had said) an ‘accommodation address,’ the accommodation being supplied by police who turned a blind eye as long as they were out of here the next morning with their blankets and bedrolls and pots and pans.

‘Has Benny still got his same delivery jobs over in Southwark?’ He nodded toward the South Bank.

‘‘Course. That lad don’t know how lucky ‘e is ‘avin’ a steady job.’

‘Oh, I think he knows.’ Jury turned at the sound of a bark, cut off as if the dog had sucked it back into his throat. A dead white blur ran down the steps. Sparky. He was followed by Benny, the second half of the team who had saved Jury’s life.

‘Hey, Mr. Jury!’

‘Hi, Benny. How are you keeping?’

‘Same old, same old,’ said Benny, hooking his thumbs in his jeans pockets. Benny liked American banalities.

Jury smiled. Bernard Keegan, boy of the world. Well, the boy was, actually. Benny had been on his own and on the streets for years; even now he was only eleven or twelve. ‘You deliver for the same people, like Gyp?’

‘Tell the truth, old Gyp don’t, doesn’t, talk to me and Sparky like he used to do. He kinda keeps his distance. But he still gives out evil looks.’

‘You don’t have to work for him, you know.’

‘Yeah, well t’ way I see it, if you give up because someone’s mean to you, a person wouldn’t get very far, and always would be subservant.’

Jury knew Benny was especially pleased with ‘subservant.’ He liked new words (even if he didn’t get them right), long ones you could ‘really get your mouth around’ was the way he’d put it. It made a person sound more ‘edge-ecated.’

They were sitting side by side on one of the cold stone steps.

Sparky went around in circles.

‘Why does he do that?’

‘Oh, that’s just when he gets excited. It’s because you’re here. Sparky always liked you.’

Jury studied Sparky, who now had stopped circling and was sitting watching the two of them. ‘Tell me, Benny, when Sparky goes off on his own, do you think he takes in what he experiences?’

‘‘Takes in’?’

‘Understands, takes the meaning of?’

Benny looked at Jury as if the detective were loopy. ‘A course.’

‘Can he tell you?’

‘Depends what you mean by ‘tell,’ don’t it? He can bark, he can use his eyes, his tail, his whole self. Like that circlin’ he was doin’. And you oughta remember it was Sparky got me out to that dock. It’s a good thing I were lookin’ for him, weren’t it? lie did that by runnin’ back and forth on the dock and by barkin’. Sparky’s got different barks, see. Mad, happy, dangerous–all different.’

‘You think all dogs are the same?’

‘No. Just the smart ones.’

‘If Sparky’d been gone for a year, what would he do?’

‘I’d never hear the end of it, would I?’

Jury laughed. ‘No, I guess you wouldn’t.’ Jury got up. ‘I’ll be going now. How’s Gemma?’

‘She’s thinkin’ of changin’ that Richard doll’s name. You know, the one dressed all in black.’

‘Why?’

‘‘Cause you come to see me and not her, I expect.’

‘Tell her I’ll see her soon.’

‘Oh, I can tell her, but she won’t believe me.’ This was uttered in a sort of Best tell her yourself, mate, tone.

‘‘Bye, Benny.’

As he walked up the stairs, Mags’s voice followed. ‘Back in two murals, you’ll be.’

4

You are quite beyond me,’ said Lady Ardry, devouring yet another fairy cake as she sat across from Melrose Plant. Granted they were quite small (a staple of children’s birthday parties), but still, this was her fifth, small or not, iced with buttercream.

She went on: ‘You’ve got too many things here to do.’

‘Since I never do them, going up to London won’t make a difference, will it?’

‘You haven’t said why you’re going.’

Melrose turned another slippery page of his Country Life. ‘To buy a fresh pig, but not to worry; I’ll be home again jiggedy-jig.’ Agatha shut her eyes as if in pain. ‘There are times, Melrose, I honestly think you’ve never grown up.’

Melrose made no reply; he just raised his teacup–again wondering why Martha, his cook, used this scalloped china. There was hardly room enough in the flowery handle to blow smoke through. He turned another page of his magazine to see, in the myriad overpriced property listings, that he could buy a hovel in Little Widehips located somewhere in England–was that the Devon coast? Or perhaps Cornwall? Or the Scillys? Why was it that estate agents always assumed you knew where these places were, as if Beekeeper’s Cottage here in Little Widehips was located on the map in your mind? For all that, it could have been in Bermondsey or even Slough, which was probably the most depressing corner of England. Did anyone ever refer to ‘dear old Slough’? Melrose wouldn’t mind letting–or even buying, if he could get it no other way–Beekeeper’s Cottage, getting out of it after forty-eight hours, just so he could refer to ‘dear old Slough’ and feel his eyes mist over. Or was it his ears? Agatha had been sitting there jamming like the Grateful Dead, at least making as much noise, and he didn’t know what in hell she was talking about.

‘What were you saying about Boring’s?’ he asked.

‘I find it patently absurd that in this day and age a man would have membership in a men’s club.’

‘That’s what they’re there for–men.’ Melrose scratched his ear.

‘You know what I mean.’ She picked up one of the cream roses that Melrose knew were the very devil to make–all of that petal fluting. Meringue and strawberry cream. Why had Martha put one on the tray? Probably for him, forgetting that Agatha would vacuum up anything on the tray, yes, just as she was doing now.

‘What is this?’ She eyed the cream rose with suspicion. ‘It’s hard, like meringue.’

‘Rigor mortis.’

Quickly she set it down and Melrose snatched it up. He took a bite. ‘Um-um. Melts in one’s mouth.’ It did, too. He took another mouthful and set the rest on his little plate. ‘Martha goes to quite a lot of trouble for you, Agatha. You really don’t appreciate her.’

‘Of course I do. I’m often in the kitchen telling her how delicious things are.’

‘You’re often in the kitchen, I know.’ He flicked over another page to be met with the rather bulbous eyes of the Honorable Judith Pudelthwaite-Duehamps. Judi was girl of the week (and where was the honor in that?), chosen for her title, her beauty and her dalliance with Renaissanee painting, which she would pursue further at university. Only now she was in her gap year and intending to travel and visit the great museums of the world. Why didn’t Judi make a stop at Agatha’s cottage in Plague Alley? There were things that had been collecting there for at least as long as the Renaissance. That stuffed owl on the mantel, for example.

Oh, Judi, Judi, what you’re really going to do is chase after boys and marry another ‘Honorable’ and live on mummy and daddy’s money and go fox-hunting and have tailgate picnics at Newmarket and Wembley and do something or other with the Women’s Institute.

‘Melrose, what are you doing?’

‘Thinking.’

‘Well, you do entirely too much of it. You were aimlessly looking off. Now, are you going to see Inspector Jury while you’re in London?’

Melrose sighed in annoyance. ‘Agatha, you keep on demoting him. He’s a superintendent. He’s very high up the ladder.’

‘Well, he never corrects me.’

‘He doesn’t need to.’ He didn’t, except for the odd villain or two. It occurred to Melrose that Jury had fewer defenses in play than anyone he’d ever known.

‘I can tell you this: Ruthven and Martha won’t see much of me while you’re gone, not with that execrable hermit you’ve installed out there.’ She tilted her head in the direction of the wide, deep lawn to the side of the house, where there sat, at a distance, the hermitage, a very fashionable installation in the eighteenth century.

‘They’ll be heartbroken. Since the hermitage was empty I saw no reason not to install him; there’s one more upswing in our doddering economy.’

‘He creeps about.’

‘He’s a hermit. They creep.’

Agatha said, ‘Now that I think about it, I could do with a little trip to London. I need a few things from Harrods.’

Unfazed by her plan, since he had no intention of including himself in it, he said, ‘Nobody actually needs anything from Harrods. I go to Harrods for the thrill of needing nothing it has on offer. For the thrill of being crushed in a busload of people who also need nothing. You’ve got to understand that with Harrods you’re there because you’re there. It’s a destination place, you know, like Las Vegas or the La Brea Tar Pits. We’ve all known a Harrods moment. It’s a Zen thing.’ He turned the page.

‘You’re not making any sense, Melrose.’ From the cake stand, she selected this time a small, nut-filled confection.

Her seventh? He was looking forward to his week in London.

Right now he was looking out of the window to Agatha’s left at Mr. Blodgett, his hermit, leering (as he’d been told to do). ‘Ah, look, Agatha!’

She turned to the window and dropped her pastry. ‘It’s absolutely unbearable.’ She made a go-away, go-away gesture. But Mr. Blodgett stuck to his guns. He also stuck to Aghast (Melrose’s goat). Now he was doing a little jig. Melrose smiled. It was a bit of cabaret. He waved in friendly fashion.

Mr. Blodgett occupied the little stone structure on the Ardry End grounds. He was much better than the first hermit Melrose had hired, as that one was always down the pub. Unfortunately, although Mr. Blodgett could revolt Agatha, he didn’t keep her away.

Agatha also loathed the goat, and not even the two of them in tandem disgusted her enough to make her leave the fairy cakes.

Melrose considered other possibilities to try at Ardry End. What about a theme park? A nature perserve such as the Duke of Bedford’s at Woburn Abbey? Tigers? Lions? Chimpanzees? He mused. Perhaps he would come up with something sitting around in Boring’s, that London club out of some previous century.

Yes, Boring’s would definitely be on the list of Most Nostalgic Places in the country.

Ah, dear old Little Widehips!

Dear old Slough!

Dear old Boring’s!

5

I think it’s disgraceful, me, you being punished when it was the only way of getting those kiddies out of that house.’ At the moment Carole-anne was sitting on Jury’s sofa, applying nail art, little dibs and dabs of rhinestone and sequins.

‘Pete Apted argues exigent circumstances.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘A barrister. Quite brilliant.’

‘What’s ‘exigent circumstances’?’ She pressed another bit of rhinestone onto a nail.