Rainbow's End (20 page)

“If it were a bit larger, so would Mrs. Withersby's cottage.”

Outraged on behalf of Ardry End, on behalf of the late Earl of Caverness, Melrose's father; on behalf of the late countess, Melrose's mother; on behalf of the crystal and carpets, the diamonds and Derby, Agatha rose in indignation—but first not forgetting to wrap up in a napkin the scones that remained on the Derby cake stand—and announced: “I've done, finished, I wash my hands!” She gathered up Lady Marjorie's silver notebook and said, “You need a psychiatrist, Plant.”

“
But it's only to get information, darling,” said Norma.

Melrose's smile was sly. At least it would save
him
from seeing a psychiatrist. Writing, he decided, was wonderfully therapeutic.

He made it to Heathrow with over a glum hour before his flight, but, of course, the airlines always wanted you there with
three
to spare. Most of the time was taken up with depositing his hired car together with a hefty surcharge for not returning it to its original London source. He'd driven it from Exeter.

Bad boy
, the grizzle-haired and slightly matronly booking clerk seemed to be saying. Still, she settled for telling him how
fortunate
he was that her firm was one of the bigger car-hire companies, and thus could accommodate the vicissitudes of their customers. And
furthermore
, he hadn't notified them in advance—

(Here the stapler banged down on the tissuey order forms.)

—which was
always
the understanding, and even
more so
, you're fortunate it's our firm—

(Tissuey papers were being stuffed in an envelope.)

—because the others would never—

“Furthermore,” said Jury, breaking out his ID and shoving it up to her face, “the day I think Dame Fortune smiles upon me just because I'm using some particular bloody car-hire firm is the day I quit the Murder Squad.” He never used that term; there was no “Murder Squad.” Quickly, she stepped back, and then, with a diffident forefinger, pushed the envelope across the counter.

“Thank you,” said Jury, as he pocketed it and smiled, brilliantly, which reassured her.

Brightly, she said, “When you next need to hire a car, sir, remember—”

You wouldn't dare
, said his glance.

“I fancy DimeDrive,” she whispered. “Down there.” Elaborately, she pointed.

Rapport restored, they saluted each other in a comradely fashion.

 • • • 

SOMEONE STEPPED AWAY
from one of the pay phones just as Jury came up to the kiosks; for that, at least, he was grateful. Usually, you couldn't get near them.

No answer, still. He had about given up expecting one, paid little attention to the distant double note of Jenny's cradled telephone receiver.

He thought a moment, dialed Stratford police headquarters, got himself put through to Sammy Lasko. All right, Lasko shouldn't, as a detective inspector, be called upon to go looking for one's tearaway friends (the image of Jenny Kennington being a “tearaway” rather amused him). But his failure to find her over the last three days was making him more and more apprehensive.

“Lasko,” said Sammy, managing to sound tired, bored, and intrigued all at the same time.

Jury told him what he wanted; that Sam Lasko would send somebody around to check on a friend of his. “Her name's Jenny Kennington, Lady Kennington, and she lives in Ryland Street, one of those little cottages.”

There was a silence that managed to sound “troubled” on the other end of the phone. There was the sound of Sammy's breathing. Heavy. “Kennington?”

“Yes.” Everything in Jury's body tightened, not just his stomach. He felt an adrenaline rush that would help an Olympic runner off the starting line.

“Hold it just a tick, Richard.”

Oh, my God.
“Just a tick” was quite long enough for his mind to fill up with more lurid pictures of broken and mangled bodies lying by equally mangled automobiles along the Stratford-Warwick Road than Jury wanted.

“Richard.” Sammy was back and seemed to be rattling papers. “I just wanted to make sure. This is weird, one weird bloody coincidence.”

“Weird” he could stand; “weird” was okay, for, given Lasko's tone, “weird” definitely did not mean “dead.” Relief flooded him. “Meaning what?”

“I was telling you about that case in Lincolnshire. You weren't listening. CID up there in Lincoln wanted me keep an eye on a lady who's involved in a murder investigation—”

Jury was ahead of him. He gripped the phone. “You're not saying—”

“Jennifer Kennington. Listen, where in hell you calling from? Sounds like an airport.”

“It is. Are you telling me
Jenny's
one of their suspects?”

“Witness, witness. What I
am
telling you is, I've been looking for her too.” Pause, troubled. “You going somewhere?”

“The States. What do you mean you've been ‘looking'? Can't you find her?”

“No. Maybe she's scarpered, as we quaintly say over here; as they quaintly say in the U.S. of A., she's boogied. So where're you going? Which part?”

“Santa Fe. And that's ridiculous, Sammy; Jenny wouldn't ‘scarper.' ” How did Jury know it was ridiculous? The public-address system blasted. Calling his flight? He checked his watch. Time yet.

“Maybe,” said Sammy, equably. “Anyway, she's not at home. Santa Fe, huh? Why don't I ever get sent places like that? Hell, you just got back.”

Jury was rubbing his temple, as if this action might get through to his brain. The awful thing was, of course, that she had called
him
, and clearly for help. He had a sudden unreasoning rush of anger at Carole-anne. . . . No. It wasn't her fault. Jenny had made the one try, and he wasn't there, and that was it. “Sammy, do me a favor.” If anyone owed him a favor, it was Inspector Lasko, and Lasko knew it. “Remember Melrose Plant? If I give you his Northants number, will you get in touch with him?”

“Plant? Plant—oh, the duke. Sure, I remember him.”

“Earl. Or, rather, ex-earl. Don't call him ‘Lord Ardry.' He gave up his various titles some years back.”

“Why? Politics? Does he want to sit in the House of Commons or something?”

“Plant? Hell, no.” Jury remembered a little lecture Plant had given once on nobilary entitlement. But all he said was, “I don't know why. Ask him, don't ask me.”

Jury fumbled out his address book, recited the number, which Lasko repeated after him with the studied rote of a child. “I can try ringing him myself, but I think he's in London today. At any rate I'll leave word with someone there to tell Plant you'll be calling.”

“My pleasure. But why am I?”

“To find Jenny.” Again, his hand gripped the receiver. “She's not in any danger, is she?”

“Don't see why she would be. Maybe she's just staying with a friend; maybe
she's
gone to London.” Then he added, uncertainly. “Only I told them all to stay put in Stratford.”

Jury thanked him, rang off. Another flight call.

Jenny.

Scarpered.

Boogied.

Hell.

 • • • 

JURY LEANED
against the uninviting plastic surround of the phone and held a brief argument with himself. Jenny was a friend and she'd called him for help. He wouldn't go. But he'd promised Macalvie. He would go. It was a wild goose chase, damn it. He wouldn't go. It wasn't his case, dammit. He wouldn't go. He rubbed his head. No. Macalvie had never chased a wild goose in his life.

He found Plant's number and rang up Ardry End. Yes, Mr. Plant had indeed gone up to London, only a little before noon. Ruthven told him this, conveying extreme sadness and sympathy that the superintendent wanted to speak to Lord Ardry and Lord Ardry wasn't to be found in his usual place.

“If you're in London, sir, you might be able to find him at his tailor's. That would be in the Old Brompton. I can let you have the number. He has been known to spend a good deal of time with Mr. Beaton, they being old friends. Mr. Beaton was tailor to his late father—”

Jury interrupted. “If you could just give him a message for me, Ruthven. I have to catch my plane in another fifteen minutes or so. Simply tell him that Inspector Lasko, Stratford-upon-Avon CID, will
be ringing up about a matter I'd like him to take care of for me. It's rather important.”

Ruthven assured him he would convey the information immediately. Mr. Plant would probably be returning late that evening.

Stressed, Jury automatically went for the pocket where he usually kept his cigarettes, finding instead the packet of pills Wiggins had pressed on him during a recent flu epidemic. With directions. A small sheet of paper was inside the packet. Looked like some sort of colored code. He took it out, studied the damned thing, tossed it away. Bad enough a gift of pills without the additional suffering of decoding them.

He could have chewed up an entire pack of Players or Silk Cut at this point, and made for the magazine and newspaper kiosk. With what he felt was impressive self-control, he kept his eyes away from the counter, the case, the racks where Temptation Beckoned.

From the multitude of magazines—was there one for
every
subject?—he chose a couple and then found, amongst the rows and rows of paperbacks, one of Polly Praed's books. He was surprised that Polly was airport-popular, as she was always making it sound as if her books weren't selling, or they were being remaindered, or going out of print, or the object of book burners. Polly was an extremely pessimistic woman. The cover was lurid; he was sure the content was not.

Jury put his purchases in Temptation's way—he could not avoid the cigarette display, for it was directly behind the cashier and her computerized register. She looked over it somewhat sadly, shaking her dark blond hair away from her shoulders. Tobacco-brown, he thought, was the color. How ridiculous. And her eyes were merely light brown, not nicotine-stain-brown. Longingly, he looked at the colorful display of cigarettes as one might observe the skyline of some exotic land that grew the more enticing as it grew the less corporeal, balanced along a shoreline that receded in the watery dis—

Oh, shut up
! he screamed inwardly. Jenny's scarpered and you're thinking about a
smoke
? Is it absolutely necessary to get poetic about a killer habit? But then he stopped in the middle of this self-flagellation: Wait a moment, old son. The trouble was that, yes, one bloody well could wax poetic about tobacco. Wasn't that, indeed, the trouble? One
could
remember many, many times when a cigarette was an integral part of some pleasant, lovely experience. One could remember standing perhaps on a balcony overlooking a sea the color of jasper,
drink in one hand, cigarette in the other; or the comfort of a cigarette as you stood at the window watching someone walk away. It was a loss, and no matter how much you rationalized and turned your inner eye to the hideous X-rays of ruined lungs, there was still, superimposed over that deadly picture, the other: the balcony, the sea, the cigarette, the whisky, the sunset, the window, the smoke, the rain. It was a loss as exquisitely painful as the loss of love or beauty, because although viciously neither it had insidiously wedded itself to both.

You devils, he thought, glaring at the rows of glossy packets.

At least he thought he had merely thought it, until the cashier jumped. “What?”

Jury blushed, apologized. “Sorry. I wasn't meaning you, but them.”

She looked around, turned back to him with an uncertain smile. “You, too, then? I been trying to stop for ever so long. Haven't had one for a week; don't know how much longer I can hold out. Especially working in this place. I been thinking of joining one of them groups, you know, like Alcoholics Anonymous, only for smokers.”

“For me it's been two weeks. It's hell.” He slapped a packet of mints and one of chewing gum on the counter. “I hate mints. The gum's not so bad, but I never chewed gum before.”

“Me neither.” She rang up these items, slipped them into a bag. “I don't think I can last. All you need to do's look at me to see I'm going fast.”

This was said in a tone of such gravity that Jury had to laugh. And she laughed in response. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let's make a bet. Or a pact, say. I'll be gone maybe three or four days. When I get back to Heathrow we'll check up on one another. But we should get some sort of prize—” He looked across the top of this counter to one behind that held costume jewelry, perfume. “Anything there you'd like?”

All of this pact business made her excited, slightly breathless. “Well, I'll tell you the truth. I've had my eye on that bracelet—” She slipped from her stool and reached into the glass case and came out with a bracelet of small colored stones that didn't look to Jury as if it were worth holding your breath over. To each his own.

“All right, if you can hold out, I'll buy you this.”

She beamed with the novelty of this idea. “Now, what about yourself? I got to give you something.”

He doubted, looking at her, she had two pence to rub against each other. “You can give me a kiss.” He smiled at her indrawn breath,
her look of uncertainty. “I'm safe. I'm Scotland Yard CID. Here.” He showed her his ID.

Now she was completely hooked. She smiled. “That's all? Just a kiss?”

He nodded. “It's enough. What's your name?”

“Des.” She blushed and said, “It's really Desdemona, but I hate it, so I made it just Des.”

Jury touched his hair in a mock salute. “I'll see you in a few days, then, Des.”