The Stargazey (38 page)

While White Ellie rambled on, the thick-limbed baby-in-the-laundry had crawled into the kitchen and was paid no mind by Ellie, deep into her glutinous tale of Ash and Frankie. Considering the traps that awaited the child—de-limbings by that cleaver on the floor, scaldings by the kettle perched precariously on the hob, electrocutions by the several wires running into that dish of water (Ash Cripps's unpatented mousetrap), poisonings unlimited by the stuff in various containers easily grasped by little fingers and straightaway ingested—considering all this, Melrose was in awe of the child's having lived this long.

Ellie yelled—when the tot went for the lye—“Robespierre, get outa there!” The baby gurgled and headed for the cleaver.

Melrose commented on the wonder of Robespierre's having grown.

“Growin', ihn't 'e? 'E's nine, ten months. The spit o' Ashley, ain't ‘e?”

Robespierre was the spit of everyone in the Cripps clan—they all had those gin-pale and lashless eyes, that yeasty skin, that compact, stubby, fireplug build—except for White Ellie, whose own build had earned her the sobriquet of Elephant (Ellie merely the shortening of same, and not her real name. Melrose had no idea what that was). Yes, it was definitely a signature look, even more than an Armani or Ralph Lauren or Issey Miyake. Yes, one could have picked out “the Cripps look” walking down the runway faster than one could a Versace.

“Indeed,” said Melrose, “the very spit. But if you don't grab that knife away he won't have Ashley's nose.”

“ ‘Ey! 'Ere, ya li'l bleeder!” Ellie reached out and grabbed the knife Robespierre was trying to get his fat little fingers around. She tossed it
on the counter. “You want to see Beatrice, I expect. So we'll walk over to St. Iggy's. Be a nice stroll, it would. I'll just take off me strides, put on a skirt.” She was out of her chair, tea poured down the drain, and through the door before Melrose could finish saying, “What about Robespierre, here?”

She shouted back, “ 'E's got 'is stroller!”

As he waited, he regarded Robespierre, wondering how such a young tough, ten months old or not, could be contained in a stroller. He was presently chewing a crust of bread he must have wrestled from that adamantine-looking loaf. Melrose gazed round the kitchen, lit a cigarette, and enjoyed his afternoon. Unlike Sergeant Wiggins, for whom the ambience of the Cripps kitchen was surpassed only by Bosnia's, Melrose rather liked it, as he liked all things that were barely describable. He was a natural candidate for a guided tour of Woburn Abbey, surrounded by a dozen old ladies; for a week in Ibiza in a no-stars hotel; for one of those unmentionable holiday camps where you had to use tokens for money.

When she returned, Ellie was wearing a voluminous flowered frock, the flowers similar to the pattern on the wallpaper (whose flowers had been improved upon by the family Cripps, who had seen the similarity to genitalia), and a straw hat with bouncing wax berries. In her hand she held a small camera.

“If you wouldn't mind just droppin' Robbie into ‘is stroller. And put this ‘ere in your pocket.” She handed him the camera.

Melrose had also brought a camera. Clearly, Ellie and he were on the same wavelength. Now, he commandeered both cameras and the burly baby and set him in the candy-striped stroller. Robbie bounced and pounded and howled, not caring for his little canvas prison. Ellie just gave him a smack and he stopped and smiled.

Once out of the door and down the walk, Melrose was put in charge of the stroller and Ellie hooked her hand through his arm and pointed them all in the direction of St. Ignatius. A late afternoon sun washed the sidewalk, striking Robespierre's light hair and turning it to filaments like dandelion weed. It lit the berries on Ellie's hat. It polished the brown leather buttons of Melrose's cashmere coat, its pockets bulging with sweets bags and cameras.

They turned a corner, and White Ellie said, “It'd be ever so nice if you could 'ave a word with the kiddies, as you know 'ow much they respect you.”

Respect?
Respect?
Melrose lifted his chin, wreathed himself in smiles, and inhaled the bright, chill November air. White Ellie was hardly one of those mums who sentimentalized her brood, but every parent goes blind sometimes. The only things the Cripps kids respected was money up front and a kick from behind.

Lowering her voice to a whisper, looking anxiously at the terraced houses, as if they had eyes and ears and gave a tinker's damn what this trio was up to, White Ellie said, “An' I wish you could 'ave a wee talk wi' young Alice. It ain't good the way she lifts ‘er skirt up an' ‘er wi' no knickers on. Where'd she learn that, I ast ya?”

Where indeed, what with her father getting nicked on a regular basis for showing himself in the public toilets? Melrose assured White Ellie he'd do what he could, patted the arm hooked so sedately in his, and determined that someone had to take a picture of the three of them, before the camera got started on its life of pornography.

Ah, Alice!

 • • • 

The “social,” which was held every month, according to the big sign in the courtyard of St. Ignatius, was surprisingly well attended, and not only by the multinational sector (it looked like a meeting of the United Nations), their screaming kiddies wanting ice cream and cotton candy. There were some well-heeled types here, too, and Melrose wondered if word had really got around to the dealers. White Ellie waddled off to locate Ashley, leaving Melrose with the stroller and Robespierre.

There were “stalls,” in this case largely tables, some with an impromptu tentlike affair set around them. Melrose caught a glimpse of what really looked like his own Derbyware and was surprised upon closer examination to see that it was—not his, at least he hoped not, but the real thing. The old pensioner—or not, considering his prices—talked the stuff up, and when Melrose asked where he had acquired it, said, “Belonged to me old auntie. She left it to me, bless ‘er soul.” Melrose purchased a cup and saucer for an outrageous sum—though no more than Trueblood would have asked, he supposed—to replace the one
broken by his cook, Martha, who still shook her head over the gap in the dinner set. He put it in the carryall attached to the stroller, and Robespierre howled briefly.

The next little booth sold bits and bobs of jewelry, spoons, war medals, and other small items. Then came several stands of antiques: bureaus, clocks, chairs, marble statuary, paintings. The providers of these estimable pieces all talked like Ashley Cripps or racing touts. Finally, he found Ash's own “stall,” which he was running with another fellow who, Melrose assumed, must be Frankie. Ash was delighted to see him and wrung his hand nearly off the arm in his enthusiasm.

“See ya got little Robbie wit' ya. Ain't he a chip off, then?” Introducing “me friend, Mel” to Frankie, he gave Mel a clap across his back that nearly sent him over the stroller and into a stall of lace and linen.

Frankie struck Melrose as a rather surprising companion for Ashley Cripps, given his military bearing and his waxed mustache, waistcoat, and spats. Frankie apparently specialized in gemstones. Melrose assayed this lot of jewelry and decided that not all of it was of the costume variety, nor were all the stones semiprecious. His brief excursion into the value of antiques, a subject taught him remorselessly earlier in the year by Marshall Trueblood, had touched on old stones and things like Victorian lockets and rings sporting small locks of braided hair and cameo or jet brooches. There had also been a brief lecture on precious stones: diamonds and emeralds. It was the last two in the list that Melrose was curious about now: surely, that ring in the middle of the line was set with a diamond of at least one carat, possibly more. It was surrounded, however, by pieces of far less, if any, intrinsic value. Melrose picked up a rather heavy, ugly aquamarine.

“Superior quality, that,” said Frankie. “My elderly aunt, a woman of uncommonly fine taste, left it to me. I believe it was the dear lady's engagement ring. It's a pity I have to sell it at a mere fraction of its value.”

Ash said, “We're lettin' that lot go for twenty-five quid.”

Melrose gave him a look. It wasn't even worth five, and he said so.

Ash shrugged. “Seein' as how you're one o' me mates, ‘ow about ten? Can't do fairer'n that.”

“Oh, I believe you could.” Melrose returned the ring, this time plucking up the diamond. “Twenty-five for this? I'd pay twenty-five.”

Frankie adroitly plucked the ring from Melrose's fingers. “I fear that one is already spoken for.”

“Then this one, perhaps?” Melrose picked up the emerald.

Ash said, nervously. “That ‘un too, mate.”

“Then why are they on display?”

Ashley didn't answer. He looked off across the schoolyard and motioned to Frankie. “Damn rozzers won't leave a body be. Blind Ollie, it's ‘im, all right.”

Melrose gazed over the tops of heads to see a tallish policeman strolling amongst the stalls. He had just turned away from the Bring ‘n' Buy and appeared to be coming their way.

Frankie nudged Ash, and Ash, in turn, nudged Melrose into a sort of musketeerish mood, all for one and one for all.

“What you got to do,” said Ash, “is just stand ‘ere, like you was thinkin' a buyin' one o' these ‘ere.” Ash grabbed up the diamond and put it in Melrose's hand. In much fuller and fruitier tones, Ash and Frankie greeted their policeman—for Melrose had no doubt he'd been following their escapades so long that he had truly become “theirs.”

“Well, now, if it ain't our Constable Ryland. ‘Ow are ya, Ollie?”

The constable nodded, hands behind his back, looked for a moment at the black velvet—covered display without much interest, and said, “Been over to your house, Frank. Your missus let me have a look in that lockup you got.”

“You're welcome any time, Mr. Ryland. Any particular reason for this visit? Or is my garage merely your home-away-from-home?” Frankie ran a forefinger under his mustache, rather like an old-time villain might do.

“Another house was hit over in Highgate. Winnington. That's kinda your patch, right, Frank?”

“I've no idea what you're talking about, Constable. My patch, as you put it, hardly extends beyond my front garden.”

“Well, there was a lot of stuff went missing from the Highgate place. China, silver, jewelry, even a dinner jacket. Odd, that.” Ryland looked
from one to the other, not forgetting to take a dekko at Melrose. He nodded. “Friend of yours, boys?”

“Not a bit of it,” said Frankie. “A customer. And if you wouldn't mind, we'd like to go back to our business.”

Ryland grunted, looking extremely irritated that he couldn't slap the cuffs on them then and there (including, Melrose felt, on himself) and push them into a van. Instead, he walked away.

When he was out of sight and hearing distance, Ash and Frankie went about boxing each other (and Melrose) on the shoulder, laughing fit to kill. Ash had to wipe his eyes with his handkerchief. Then he took the diamond from Melrose's hand and amidst his weepy laughter said, “Dihn't I tell ya, best place to hide it, put it out. Like Frankie here says, ‘You want to hide a diamond, put it in a tiara.' ” Then he gave Melrose another smart clout on the shoulder.

 • • • 

Knowing the Cripps kids' desire for quick results in everything, Melrose had had the foresight to bring a Polaroid. First he had Frankie take one of White Ellie, Robespierre, and him, posed like a little family. Then several of the kids, with Alice refusing to mind her manners. Next, one of Bea and Melrose (Bea mugging for the camera); last, one of the whole lot of them. The results were immediate and charming. Melrose had never seen himself looking quite so blithe. Bea, seeing how silly she looked in the one with Melrose, made Ash take another, with her sitting on a low stone wall, showing plenty of leg, while Melrose leaned against it.

“Oh, ain't that luv'ly,” said White Ellie, as if they were all in a wedding party. “You do look sweet together.” She was looking at the freshly developed Polaroid shot of Melrose and Bea sitting on the wall.

To Melrose they didn't even look together. “Look, she's pulling the corners of her mouth back. You call that sweet?”

But Ellie would have none of that, said she would take it home straightaway and hang it up, “soon as my Ashley packs up his clobber.”

In his mind's eye, Melrose saw himself in Nancy Pastis's apartment, looking at that wall of paintings. It was then the penny dropped.

J
ury drank what was left in his pint and set it on the counter, with a wink at Kitty and a nod to refill both his and Kate's glasses.

He had called Melrose Plant on the Stargazey's phone to tell him he wouldn't be having dinner with him at Boring's and listened in turn to Plant saying he was going back to Northants to look for an art restorer. Jury asked him what he was talking about, but Plant didn't explain and instead began a brief argument about searching the Fabricant Gallery.

“You and your mates go into the gallery and have a look round, if that's what you euphemistically call it.”

“Can't do that. We don't have reasonable grounds.”

“What? One of them murdered Simeon Pitt!”

“Even if that's true—”

“Damn it, of course it's true! He guessed what they were up to.”

“Can you see one of them killing in that way? It would take a measure of flamboyance, at the least, to walk into that club and stick a knife in somebody while other people were in the room. All I can do at this point is go back and question them again. And don't forget the other murder.”

He must have forgotten; Plant's mind wasn't on Nancy Pastis. Jury replaced the receiver and collected the two glasses Kitty had filled.

She looked across the room to where Kate was seated at a bench and said, “I see you found her.”