Rainbow's End (45 page)

Melrose stopped by the black basalt effigy of some bishop or other, pondering Maxim's and Sweetie's situation. He moved up the nave and sat down on one of the chairs to turn his face up to the vaulted ceiling. Melrose loved ceilings. The colored bosses, the stone ribs. There was the Minstrel Gallery too, where angels held their harps and trumpets and cymbals.

Now Macalvie was sitting on the chair beside him. “What's that?” he asked, looking down at the manuscript.

“Oh, some pages of a manuscript a friend of mine sent to me. Weird story.” He told Macalvie about the end of
Windows
, where Maxim had been lying in a pool of blood, and then in the second book he appeared to be sending notes to Sweetie. Maxim up to his old obfuscating tricks. Melrose wanted to be gone from here, wanted to be back downing a pint at the Jack and Hammer, or sitting at his own dining table before one of Martha's roast beef dinners. But then his mind's eye travelled farther down the table and saw his aunt gibbering away. Melrose decided Maxim might not be such bad company after all.

To Macalvie, he said, “It's something to do with the difference between appearance and reality.”

“Most things are.” Macalvie was leaning forward, elbows on knees.

Melrose glared at him and changed the subject. “Any luck with the embroiderers?”

“No. But who knows when one of them might remember something helpful?” Macalvie folded his arms hard against his chest as if warding off spiritual rebirth. “Rush knows sod all, is my guess. How I would have loved to have a crack at that cousin who identified the body. Jury's been gone over forty-eight hours.” Impatiently, he said this.

Melrose asked him why he hadn't gone to Santa Fe himself. “You've always wanted to see the States.”

“Too much of a caseload. Anyway, he's better at getting things out of people than I am.”

Melrose was surprised that Macalvie would say this. He was also surprised that Macalvie was sitting still. Not just sitting either, but leaning forward, elbows on knees, palms fastened together in an attitude
that in anyone else would have looked prayerful. But Macalvie wasn't praying; he was thinking. Fingertips pinched his lower lip as he stared ahead, perhaps at the giant rood screen, or the high altar, or Nothing.

Then he said, “It's that cousin worries me.”

Melrose frowned. “How so?”

“She got over here in one quick hurry, didn't she?”

“Police had to have some family member identify the body as soon as possible, didn't they?”

“She was here within twenty-four hours. Less, really. So she must have caught that Albuquerque flight in record time to make her New York flight connection. All I mean is: that's bloody quick.”

“It does seem rather overeager. What do you make of it?”

“Nothing. Yet.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Melrose asked, “If you're sure they knew one another—I mean, the Hope woman and Helen Hawes—is it possible that Angela Hope got in the way? Could she have been killed by—well—accident?”

“Accident” wasn't normally a word in the Macalvie lexicon, not in a murder investigation. He just looked around at Melrose, over his shoulder. “The point is, they knew one another. So the deaths are related. Whether only one was the target, whether all three were the targets, maybe one of them or all of them knew something or had something someone wanted or didn't want them to be in possession of. The point is, you pull at one thread, you bring two other threads with it. At the moment, that's what matters.”

Melrose turned this over for a moment. “You sound a lot like Maxim.”

Again, Macalvie was getting up. “So let's go, Sweetie. I need a drink.”

CONTENTEDLY BREATHING
along with his recently uncorked bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape, Melrose tucked into his smoked salmon, provided by the kitchens of the Royal Clarence Hotel. He once again envisioned Lady Kennington's little parlor. He asked himself: why did the “regional” newspaper folded near the armchair have to be the
Stratford
region? My God, of course! Lady Kennington had
lived for a number of years near Hertford, in a village much too small to have a paper of its own, so why might that newspaper not be a Hertford paper, or perhaps a local paper printed in the market town of Horndean, which was even closer?

Melrose tossed down his napkin, and on his way back to his room and its telephone, told the maître d' to hold off on his entree and to decant the wine into a carafe so it could get a proper breath.

His old friend Polly lived in that same village, Littlebourne.

His old friend Polly mumbled a dark “Hello,” said she didn't care if it was only eight-thirty, she'd promised herself an early night and had just fallen asleep when he had had the nerve to
call.
She then ignored his question about newspapers and asked Melrose if he'd finished reading her manuscript.

Why, he wondered, was he the editorial sounding board for writers? Why would they put any credence whatever in what he might have to say? Was he missing something? No, he had not finished and that was
not
what he was calling about. He wedged Richard Jury's name into her whining questions as to why hadn't he, and she immediately came round.

“Oh. Is it one of his cases?”

Melrose could almost picture the eyelashes fluttering over her lavender eyes. “Yes. All I want to know is, have you got a recent local paper lying about?”

“You mean the
Hertford Blare
or the
Homdean Blab
?”

“Polly, I don't know
what
I mean. You live there; I don't.”

Melrose thinking of his wine patiently allowed her to go on at some length about his many (unkept) promises about visiting Little-bourne and how she had alerted its inhabitants of his coming, and how embarrassing it had been—

“Polly, would you please get the paper. Not the most recent, but the one that came out several days ago.”

“I have it. It's a weekly.”

Her efficiency startled him. “Look and see if it has a crossword—”

“It does; I always try to do them. The
Times
ones are too hard for me.” Crinklings and rattles came down the wire. “Okay, what about it?”

“What's two across?” he asked.

“ ‘Shout.' S-H-O-U-T.”

“ ‘Shout'?” Melrose considered. “Are you sure?”

“Well, I am about the T because five down is definitely ‘tired.' Which is what I feel.”

“Polly, what's the clue?” Silence. “Polly?”

“Huh? Sorry, I was just thinking maybe I'm wrong, maybe it isn't ‘tired.' Could be ‘trial.' ”

“I mean, the clue for two across. Read it.”

“ ‘Not a fox-hunt, but foxes hunting.' ”

That was it! “Yes. Clearly a ‘shout' of foxes.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Now, Polly, what's on that page? Besides the crossword?”

“Nothing much. Just a bunch of adverts. It's the—” she paused—“the Properties page. You know, sales, lettings, that sort of thing.”

Melrose frowned. That didn't sound very promising. “Read it, will you?”

“The whole
page
? But it's just lists of properties.”

“Read whatever's within, say, an inch around the crossword.”

Polly Praed sighed heavily, put upon once more by Melrose Plant. “There's the church fête—oh, I was supposed to bake a cake—they've got that in with the estate sales; then here's that cottage next the Bold Blue Boy, wasn't that for sale before when you were here years ago? Weren't you going to buy it?”

“Certainly not. Go on.”

She read off at least a dozen descriptions of properties, the usual glowing reports of vistas and views and amenities concocted by estate agents. Melrose sighed. He asked her directly, “Polly, do you remember Lady Kennington?”

“Of course I do. She's here.”

The receiver nearly slid from Melrose's hand. “
What
?”

“Staying at the Bold Blue Boy—Oh! Is
that
what you're talking about? Well, why didn't you say so, instead of making me read all those dumb adverts? It's way up here at the top. The Kennington estate, Stonington. It's back on the market again. I expect that's what she's here about. She's always loved—wait a minute! Are
you
the one?”

Confused, Melrose asked, “Am I the one what?”

“The one who's trying to buy it out from under her? It's the reason she came here in such a hurry, because of this ruthless bast—”

“Of course not, don't be ridiculous.”

“You were going to buy it once, remember?”

“I was not. That was merely a ruse, a cover. Listen, Polly, I can't thank you enough. You're a marvel!”

There was a brief silence as she coughed and reconsidered the Plant ruthlessness. “Well . . . uh . . . what about Lady Kennington? Did you want me to talk to her, or—?”

“No. No, I don't think so. It might be better if you didn't mention I was asking after her.”

“Why?” She was suspicious. Jenny Kennington was, after all, available and undoubtedly attractive.

“It's something to do with—” Smoothly, Melrose went on: “I might actually have to come to Littlebourne myself.”

That
pleased her! That is, he inferred it pleased her, for she wasn't about to say so, despite her earlier protests about his broken promises. Casually, she asked him when. “Bring my manuscript with you and we can discuss it over drinks.”

“Goodnight, Polly.”

Feeling exultant, Melrose headed back to the dining room and his dinner. Talk about a bit of sleuthing! He paused, saw he was near the desk, and asked the receptionist if he could send a fax. Of course, she said.

From his wallet Melrose drew the little scrap of paper on which were the phone and fax numbers of the hotel in Santa Fe and wrote that in at the top of the sheet of Royal Clarence Hotel stationery, debated his message, and then, smiling, decided to allow himself some literary leeway. He had always been rather fond of that line in the John Fowles novel where the poor devil of a protagonist receives a telegram from the detective after years and years of searching for his ladylove.

Chuckling darkly, he wrote (with a considerable flourish)—

She is Found!

PLANT

And if Richard Jury wanted to know
where
in hell she was found, he could damned well come home and find her himself.

Melrose marched victoriously back to his decanted Châteauneuf du Pape and his exquisite-sounding meal.

You deserve it
!

At the Welcome Break, Melrose broke.

These motorway cafes offered less by way of a relaxing “break” than they did of a devastated, trampled entrenchment, emptied in the wake of a city's teeming population in its hasty retreat from bombs or lethal gas. This retreat was made largely by motorcycle, from what Melrose could tell. He paused outside the restaurant complex to count twenty-eight of these shiny black monsters, ranged along one end of the car park, with several of their black-garbed monkish owners straddling the leather seats, smoking. Melrose was struck by a wave of nostalgic longing for John Wayne heading up a posse, and not one horse with a hole in its muffler. The posse of motorcycles began revving up, and soon the cortege was passing him as he moved through the door.

He quickly purchased and drank his cup of coffee, untempted by the plastic-wrapped buns and pies and puddings symmetrically arranged beneath a steel shelf displaying granite scones and dry rolls. Melrose wished there were Happy Eaters serving motorways; he shared Sergeant Wiggins's penchant for the bright orange restaurants, their bubble-wrapped atmosphere, their jolly waitresses, and their beans on toast. He deposited his cup and quickly left the restaurant.

On his way to the door this time, his eye was drawn to a machine such as he'd never seen before: its sign told him that he could print up cards of his own design. He was fascinated by the instructions. Two sizes of card were available, and a dozen different print types. But this was wonderful! For only three pounds he could get twenty-five personal cards. Didn't he need replacements for his old cards bearing the family crest and his title? Not really. Melrose hardly ever needed cards; he met new people at the rate of about one every two years
(except when he was travelling to places like Baltimore; but the people he'd met there—the cabbie, the homeless—he didn't think were interested in calling cards). Still, it would be great fun to replace his elegant, outdated cards with some cheap and flimsy new ones, new ones also advertising, perhaps, the number of a facsimile machine—wasn't Trueblood getting one? The real source of delight here was that Agatha would go bonkers seeing she was now related not to a line of earls and viscounts who dropped heavy, cream-colored and engraved cards onto silver salvers, but to a line of ne'er-do-wells reduced to poorly inked, machine-printed cards so flimsy and thin you could read the
Times
through them.

Melrose shoved coins in the slot and debated the selection of typefaces. Then he was struck by an absolutely singular idea, for he realized he could put on these cards
anything he wanted
! On the larger of the two cards, he could actually print up to six different lines.

Happily flexing his fingers, he began to stab at letters, pausing only briefly to think (for the machine allowed little time for thought) and realizing he could make up as many different cards as he had coins to feed in. But he decided that the first attempt was wholly satisfactory and he collected his twenty-five square cards and made for the car park.

THIS TIME
Melrose made sure he had his floral tribute in hand before heading towards Sergeant Wiggins's room. Though his arrangement was not precisely “floral,” as the large, shallow pottery dish contained a selection of herbs and one or two nasty-looking rootlike things for which he had invented incredible curative powers.