Rainbow's End (44 page)

Melrose read; Macalvie thought.

“Coyote Village turns out to be part of the Anasazi ruins in—” Melrose looked at the notes again—“in Mesa Verde.”

Macalvie unbuttoned the single button of the corduroy jacket he was wearing beneath his mackintosh. His concession to settling in for a while. He said, “That makes it a dead cert that
one
of them—Frances Hamilton or Helen Hawes, or both—talked with Angela Hope.”

“Why so?”

“Because this particular ruin isn't on the must-see list. Its designation is really a number—no, not the number in the address book,” he added when Plant looked hopeful—“so for anyone to write it down, to make a note of it, well, the person would have to hear it from someone. The Hope sisters went there quite often. Why Nell Hawes would write it down—” Macalvie shrugged, upended his palms.

“Do you know Hawes was the one who wrote it in?”

“Handwriting analysis shows that the Coyote Village entry and the number were written by a different hand from the one that made the neat, pencilled entries. If it was Hamilton's address book, then it's probable she was the one to make those. It's a little more difficult to tell whether two different people wrote in the number and the name. It was Nell Hawes who brought it back here. So it's clear it was temporarily in her possession. So Hamilton might have handed it to her at some point to make at least one of those entries.”

“Does it make any difference, really, which of them wrote down the information?”

“I won't know that, I expect, until I know what the number means.”

“What about Angela Hope?”

Macalvie lifted his eyebrows in question.

“She might have written it, you know, the way people will if they're giving you an address, or directions, or pointing out something.”

“This is all rather tenuous.”

“You're just like your pal.”

Which pal was this, now?

“Jury kept using that same word when he was here. Tenuous.' The relationship between these three women is
pret-ty
ten-u-ous, Macalvie.' ”

Melrose smiled. Seldom had he known the divisional commander to waste time in self-congratulation, but right now he was looking smug.

But the expression was fleeting, gone in an instant, as Macalvie asked, “You find anything in London?”

“I haven't come up with much. Well, I haven't come up with anything, at least nothing definitive, except—” Melrose paused and frowned.

“I love the ‘except's. So go on.”

“Only impressions. Do you think Frances Hamilton might have died from a different cause than the other two women?” He waited for Macalvie to disagree. He didn't. “She might really have died of natural causes, I mean, not precipitated by any outside agency. When I was talking to Lady Cray, you know, the friend with whom the Hamilton woman lived, there was another picture that emerged, different from my original impression that Frances was a shallow, silly woman. Even Lady Cray claimed she'd done Fanny Hamilton an injustice by giving the superintendent this impression. I think Hamilton might have been a woman of very strong feelings and without an outlet for them, without a confidante. She had no family except for her nephew in America, and to him she was devoted. She really loved Philip Calvert. She went to the States, went to the cabin where he was killed, talked to the police there in Pennsylvania. Jury told me that in the police report there was, of course, a description and photos—that sort of thing of the body
in situ
—and though I imagine she'd never have been shown any photos, still she would have heard just how and where he'd died. If Fanny Hamilton wasn't strong, if she had a bad heart—” Melrose sighed—“I'd have thought it could have killed her. That painting of the boy Chatterton, stretched out on his narrow bed. How could that not have brought to mind the image of Philip, stretched out on his own in that cabin?

“On that day that she visited the Tate, she stayed for some time. Beatrice Slocum said she saw Ms. Hamilton after she—Beatrice—left the Clore Gallery: that's where they keep the Turners. Bea especially likes the Turners. It's the light. But I expect light is crucial for all paintings, isn't it?” Imprinted on Melrose's eyes was the spectral diffusion of that golden, misty light in Turner's paintings of Venice, so that when he transferred his gaze to the gray rectangle of office window, he almost expected to see it, that spectral gold. “Art,” he went on, “is not always balm for the soul. It can be, perhaps, like an overdose. Of poignance, not poison.”

Melrose was suddenly self-conscious. Macalvie hadn't moved, but had just sat there watching him through half-closed eyes. “You don't believe me?”

“I believe you all right. I just don't think you're talking about Frances Hamilton.”

Melrose said nothing and Macalvie just went on looking at him, so that finally, either unnerved or embarrassed, he returned his gaze to
the window at Macalvie's back and the sky that had changed in hue from pale gray to pewter. He sat there looking at this sky, wondering if even crimes, like problems, are solved (although “solved” was probably the wrong word) because they come within the compass of one's own individual life. Because ultimately there was nothing there that was unfamiliar or unknown. Perhaps that was what he had felt following, more or less, in Fanny Hamilton's footsteps, walking through the exhibits at the Tate. The Turners, the Pre-Raphaelites. Chatterton. He could not explain it though, to Macalvie, since he could not explain it to himself.

What surprised him, when he came out of this slight reverie of sky gazing, was that Macalvie was sitting in exactly the same position, and still looking at him. Macalvie was the most energetic of men (witness that unshed coat!) whose impatience was legendary. Yet, Melrose could hear Jury talking about him, about the way Macalvie could stand immobile, taking in a crime scene, so long that it drove his team to distraction, including Gilly Thwaite, who was actually the crime-scene expert. So “impatience” was not the right word either, or was appropriate only to describe him when he was dealing with incompetents and fools—too often for people's comfort, Melrose imagined. It made him smile.

The smile apparently released Macalvie too from whatever he himself had been observing and he was fanning out some nine or ten snapshots, turning them towards Melrose. “He sent these, too. Jury did. Snaps he took inside the Silver Heron, Angela Hope's shop.”

Melrose looked at each of them, carefully. Half of them were close-ups of silverwork—finished or partially finished pieces: bracelets, pendants—resting on what appeared to be her worktable; or close-ups of display cases which housed turquoise and silver. There were close-up shots of three pieces that looked much like Lady Cray's turquoise block. Hardly any doubt who had done that piece of work. Two more of shelves in the shop and one of two armchairs with a table between them that would have appeared inviting to custumers.

“No Rolodex on the customers, he says; apparently, Angela wasn't into keeping mailing lists to promote her wares. Well, we know approximately when they might have got together. But it would be nice to know precisely. It's pretty certain about Mrs. Hamilton and Angela Hope having met. I'd like to be certain about Nell Hawes, though. Look at this.”

Macalvie tossed Melrose several pages of a technical report that looked like the results of an electrocardiogram: jagged lines, lines of varying lengths running down the pages. Macalvie told him it was a chromograph of Angela Hope's blood.

“I managed to wrest it from the Wiltshire police report. Jury must have moved DCI Rush to take another look at the pathology reports. What this gives you is what turned up and how much. But not everything turns up; that's the trouble with poisons and drugs. Pathologist says what killed Angela could have been valvular heart disease. According to this cousin, Dolores Schell, she had rheumatic fever when she was a kid.”

Melrose studied the pages. “But you don't think it started up of its own volition.”

“No.” Macalvie took his feet from the desk, stood up. “Come on, let's drive over to the lab.”

 • • • 

WHITE ROOM
after white room debouching off a foam-green hallway was filled both with the detritus of crime and with the forensic experts examining it. Macalvie walked ahead of him, hesitating at one door after another, occasionally mumbling some phrase or tossing back a word—“serology,” “electrophoresis,” “spectrometry”—as if Melrose knew all about the forensic sciences. One room was crowded with what looked like thousands of color-coded files and even more thousands of microfiche films; another room appeared to be given over to analyses of paint, for nearly every surface was covered with charts, chips, samples, except for the windows, and Melrose had the feeling that if the technicians in there ran out of space, light would go too. All the surfaces—floors, walls, countertops—were brilliantly clean, and as his cook, Martha, was fond of saying, “You could of et off the floor.” The personnel in the rooms they passed were manning microscopes, computers, and what looked like meat grinders. Melrose had no names to put to the tools of their trade; he thought most of them could have found a home in either a Mercedes body shop or a Brillat-Savarin kitchen. They stopped at one door and he followed Macalvie inside.

Melrose looked around at the gleaming equipment, at a couple of technicians wearing what resembled goggles for a scuba dive, at several huge computer monitors, and at the expert with whom
Macalvie was conferring. He assumed he was expert since Macalvie was actually listening. Melrose heard only the odd phrase—“swabbing out the mouth,” “vomitus sample”—as he studied a collection of petri jars.

Macalvie walked over to Melrose, said, “Give Sloane another twenty-four hours, he'll know. He's already discounted God knows how many substances that fit the symptoms. At least what symptoms were noticed.”

Melrose listened to Dr. Sloane talk to Macalvie about serum and urine analysis and the impossibility of oral ingestion in this case, as the comprehensive analysis had eliminated at least a hundred possibilities, such as barbiturates, phenothiazines, tricyclics; and the gastric juices eliminated acute oral ingestion.

“So she didn't swallow lye.”

The weak joke didn't amuse Dr. Sloane. “It was all in my report. We knew this five days ago. We knew this within several hours of receiving the samples.”

“TL chromography isn't sensitive enough to detect certain drugs. Cocaine, for example. Drugs of abuse,” said Macalvie.

“This wasn't a question of drug abuse. More likely a therapeutic drug, but even there, we've turned up nothing. We didn't stop with that particular screening, at any rate. Gas chromatography, again, though, this is large-scale screening—Mr. Macalvie, did you read my report?”

“Every word.”

“Then why are you asking these questions?”

Macalvie scratched his neck, frowning. “Things go missing.”

“Well,
obviously
something's gone missing here. Precisely what agent killed the woman. Not necessarily a drug. There are also insecticides.” Dr. Sloane turned away. “Read the report.”

“Thanks,” said Macalvie.

They retraced their steps down the hall. “Angela Hope,” said Melrose, “I understand. But why are you so sure Nell Hawes was poisoned?”

“Because all three of them died.”

Melrose frowned. Was a question being begged here?

As they rounded the corner to the lift, Melrose was thinking how eerie it was, the world of this lab, a world in which there were no enigmas. He wasn't sure he liked it. All of these people could not
only strip you naked but could see, in the very garments shed, your history.

MELROSE COULDN'T
help himself.

While Macalvie was talking to the women in the quire, Melrose was inspecting the long length of embroidered cushions for messages. He tried to stop doing it; he couldn't.

What amazing handiwork were these rondels! The Blue Coat Schoolboy would be hiding no secrets, as there was also a statue of the schoolboy not far from the cathedral, in Princesshay. Most of the embroidered words were straightforward enough, certainly, names and dates and historical detail about men like Bishop Baldwin, church history and local history, kingships and credos and, running brilliantly through the length of the cushioning, the Te Deum. It was quite remarkable. But what about

THE WELLS RAN DRY

THEY USED WINE WHICH RAN OUT . . . 
?

Could that be a cleverly coded message? Oh, for heaven's sake! The whole thing was nearly spoiled for him because of Wiggins and Josephine Tey. He should have shown up at the hospital with Elizabeth Onions.
There
was an antidote for a fevered imagination!

He stopped for some moments to look down at the tiny figure of Saint Cuthbert, his gaze fixed on the drops of blood rendered in scarlet thread. Melrose studied this bit of red embroidery for some time, finally hearing in his mind's ear, not the voices of the angels, but the voice of Ellen Taylor speaking of her character Maxim: “
Who says it's blood
?” He winced; it was driving him crazy. Maxim, who had apparently been lying in a pool of his own blood at the end of
Windows
, now just as apparently had been resurrected in the second novel,
Doors.
“Apparently” must surely be the operative term here.

Maxim Redux, revived. Maxim engaged in one of his opaque and sophistical arguments with Sweetie, the heroine, protagonist, probably the alter ego. He pulled the manuscript pages from his inside pocket, rolled off the rubber band and smoothed out the pages. He read: “I
paint your portrait and who or what do you become
?”

Oh, hell's bells, he remembered this damnable argument. Maxim and Sweetie were sitting at the dining-room table, in that very dining room where he had been
apparently
lying in his own blood at the end of
Windows. . . .