The Five Bells and Bladebone (35 page)

“He took the
car!
”

“No, he didn’t. You did. Since you’d told Crick and your grandmother he was going to London, naturally that’s what they assumed when they heard it leave. The last time Crick saw you, you were sitting at the dining table, drinking coffee.” When she again retreated into stillness, he went on. “You killed him. Not before you found out about the meeting at the Town of Ramsgate, though. I’d imagine it was a typical little argument between husband and betrayed wife and that Simon wasn’t too upset about it. He was sitting down, facing you; the thrust of the wound suggests that. Then you did three things: managed to get his body into that
secrétaire
in case someone, Diane, perhaps? came along. You then got in the car and drove to Wapping to that prearranged meeting at the Town of Ramsgate.”

She shook and shook her head, as if in utter disbelief, and smiled slightly. “Three things. What was the third?”

“You wrote that note.”

She looked at him with pure astonishment. “From the Firth woman? Good God, why wouldn’t I have said it was from this other person — Diver? is that her name? — why go the long way round?”

“For the same reason you burnt it, Hannah. Anything left out in the open, anything pointing
directly
to Sadie Diver, might have eventually made us wonder if, indeed, the signs weren’t rather conveniently clear. On the other
hand, the murder of a little hairdresser from Limehouse might have gone unnoticed. You wanted the two murders connected; otherwise, Hannah Lean would be the chief suspect for the murder of her husband. You have a more subtle mind than Simon had; and he wasn’t exactly stupid. But if he’d meant to burn that letter, he wouldn’t have waited months to do it, surely. That was a mistake on your part, to say that. Still, the joy of the whole thing was that he’d done all of the work for you.”

“You call it joy.” She looked away. “And how would I have known about Ruby Firth, then?”

“Your husband didn’t seem to keep his affairs a secret.”

Jury waited for a moment, hoping that Hannah Lean was the sort who took enough pride in her own cleverness in confusing police that she’d talk. Only he knew she wasn’t and that she wouldn’t.

“My husband didn’t confide in me,” she said dryly. “So it’s very unlikely he’d tell me all about this rather elaborate scheme he and his mistress had worked out in order to murder me.” Now she did turn her face to look at him, the smile uncertain, like someone who had just remembered how to smile.

Jury went on: “The necklace that was delivered to the house. Simon probably meant to collect it himself, but knew it wouldn’t make that much difference if you’d intercepted it. He could simply say it was a gift.”

She turned her profile to him again, looking toward the japonica, thinking. And then she said, “I have no idea what ‘necklace’ you’re talking about. Anyway, Simon wouldn’t have done that: he knew I don’t care for jewelry.”

“Then he
wanted
you to suspect this affair. A means of getting you to London for a confrontation with his ladylove.” Admitting nothing, she still had to defend her own plan, thought Jury. “That’s just why you were determined to find out, especially since he didn’t give it to you. On
your usual trip to Northampton, you stopped in at the goldsmith’s. He recognized you. And then you knew. Or at least enough that you suspected they might, or she might, have also gone to your solicitor. You could have called him under any pretext at all, and he would certainly have said something like, ‘It was so nice to see you, Mrs. Lean.’ Any number of things could have confirmed a suspicion that someone was playing your understudy.”

She set the basket of cuttings aside, got up and walked over to the statue. A robin fluttered away from the stone basket. She stood there, back to him, her hand on the rim of the bowl. Without turning, she said, “And you brought the boy Tommy here, hoping he’d recognize his sister.”

Did he?
Jury knew she wanted to add. He sat leaning forward, hands clasped, looking down at a patch of dead nettle. Of course, he couldn’t answer that unspoken question. He did say, “Your surprise wasn’t an act. Tommy looks like your grandfather at that age.”

“I must have been a real disappointment to him — my grandfather.”

Jury looked up, frowning. “Why would you say that?”

She shrugged. Her back was still to him. “Awkward, shy, plain —” Again she shrugged. “A rather frivolous thing to be thinking of, in the circumstances.”

Could she really have seen that portrait of herself every time she climbed the stairs and thought that? “You really loved your grandfather, didn’t you?”

Her head made a deep nod. “And Eleanor. I’m glad Simon’s dead. I’m glad we’re — both out of danger.” With her hands stuffed in the pockets of the tweed skirt, she turned and resolutely faced him. “Eleanor would have been next, Superintendent. Have you thought of that?”

Of course, she didn’t believe she was out of danger. “Many times, many times.”

For a while she said nothing, just stood there. “Then I’ll be charged, I take it, with murder. Hannah Lean would
have made an ideal suspect: no alibi, but opportunity, and enough motive for ten suspects.”

“You
are
Hannah Lean.”

She came to the bench, lifted the wicker basket, and said, “Are you quite sure, Superintendent?”

“A
ND ARE YOU?
” asked Melrose Plant.

They were sitting before the drawing room fireplace, Jury on the sofa, Melrose in his comfortable brown wing chair. The leather was so old it had lost its resilience and much of its patina.

But Jury wasn’t smiling. He wished he felt as comfortable as the aging dog Mindy looked. She seemed to do little but make rugs of herself at appointed places through the house. Now she was slumbering before the fire.

“It’s rather unsettling,” Melrose went on, when Jury didn’t answer. “To think that one could go about impersonating someone else impersonating one’s self. It’s like dealing off the top and bottom of the deck at the same time. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, if you know who anybody really is.”

Jury did smile at that. “Eleanor Summerston’s very words.”

Ruthven moved solemnly into the room, carrying a silver coffee service and a telephone. “Your sergeant wishes you to call him, Superintendent.” He handed Jury a slip of paper as he set down the tray. He went about plugging in the telephone and asking Melrose, “What time will you be requiring dinner, m’lord?”

“Oh, eightish, I think. All right?” he asked Jury.

Jury nodded and Ruthven cleared his throat, tapped his gloved fist against his mouth, preparatory to giving one of his Parliamentarian uppercuts. “Your aunt has informed Martha she will be joining you.” His tone was like a death knell. At the end of the room, the long-case clock bonged out the hour of six in sympathy.

“It would be nice if she would tell
me,
the merry host. What’s Martha cooking?”

“A very nice suckling pig, sir.”

“Jurvis’s?”

“Certainly, sir. Mr. Jurvis has the finest selection of meats for miles around. And reasonably priced, if I might add.”

Melrose reflected. “Well, we could take the apple out of its mouth and put a sign in front of it saying, ‘Special, seventy-nine p.’ On the other hand, a better idea would be to call my aunt and tell her she
won’t
be joining us.” He watched Jury watching the fire. “Tell her we’re both contagious, or something. You know how to handle it, Ruthven; you lie superbly.”

Ruthven bowed slightly. “Thank you, sir. I’ll just do that now, then.” Gravely he exited, but suppressing what Melrose was sure was a fit of glee.

 • • • 

Wiggins said he’d tried to call Jury at Watermeadows, but he’d already left. There was no response yet on the recorded delivery letter. “Mr. Crick said that Master Tommy was with Lady Summerston, sir.”

“Yes. We’ll have to take him back to Gravesend tomorrow. She was enjoying his company so much she asked him to stay for dinner. The last I knew they were singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ on her balcony.”

“He was Australian, you know.”

“Who was?”

“Why, Lord Summerston. We got to talking, Mr. Crick
and myself, about the heat there. How dry it was, and quite pleasant. So naturally, her ladyship would be very fond of that song, if her husband was Australian.”

“I expect you’re right,” said Jury, and hung up. In a way, it was merciful that Lady Summerston had retreated into the past. Or had she convinced herself that the gardens of Watermeadows over which she looked from her balcony were a grand scene in a play for which she had, in a sense, box seats. If she didn’t care for the performance, she could put down the binoculars, take out her stamps and cards.

 • • • 

Melrose was eating pâté on toast triangles when Jury returned. There was a small plate of pâté and truffles sitting on the floor beside Mindy, who nosed it about and went back to sleep, snoring on. “Ungrateful wretch of a dog.”

“How about dogfood? Ever try that?” Jury helped himself.

“But if Hannah Lean had been arrested as Sadie Diver? It would all come out, her real identity.”

“Double jeopardy. If not precisely double jeopardy, still, can you imagine what a circus a barrister would make of it in court? Coppers arresting a suspect under the
wrong
name? Do you really think the Crown would press for a second go at Hannah Lean? I doubt she’d ever have divorced him; I think she was wildly jealous and full of vengeance, and who could blame her? She knew she’d be the only real suspect. So she took over his plan. Ironic, isn’t it? Poetic justice.”

“I’d congratulate you, but you don’t look happy,” said Melrose. “You wouldn’t have preferred it the other way round, though.”

“No.”

Melrose raised his cup. “Hell, Richard, it’s spring. We can drink to that, at least.”

Jury gazed down the length of the room into the dusk and a trellis covered with climbing roses.

“To friendship,” said Jury, as he raised his coffee cup and watched the white petals drift down like snow.

T
HE MOONLIGHT
was almost viscous, lying across the walk. And across that part of the lake that Jury could see from the walk past the summerhouse, it was so bright it seemed to have crystallized and cast a sheet of ice along the water.

Because he liked the walk between the summerhouse and the main house, he had left the car in the lay-by and was at that point now where he could see the tag end of the pier. He stopped to breathe in air that was lush with the mingled scents of flowers, like potpourri. From the hedge came a rustle, a dark shadow fluttered off; somewhere an owl cried; a nightjar cawed.

His gaze trailed off to the end of the pier, where he saw the flash of white. It was the white cat, sitting like a beacon against the sky’s dark backdrop, stopped in its nocturnal rounds, apparently looking out over the lake.

One of the rowboats slapped against the pilings in a short stiff breeze that had come up. He didn’t see the other one.

Not until the moon had woven in and out of wisps of cloud, bringing into sharp relief the middle of the lake. Out there, the other rowboat drifted aimlessly on the water, turning in slow circles.

Police training, unless you were volunteering for Thames
Division, didn’t concentrate on swimming. He was a lousy swimmer and it took twice as long as it would have done Roy Marsh to reach the boat.

 • • • 

She was lying facedown, her hand making a wake in the water like a girl out for a pleasant punt on the Cam. Her head was thrown over the side, her hair trailing dark ribbons.

The boat was small, and Jury had to maneuver carefully to hoist himself up and into it.

Carefully, he turned her over, saw the massive spread of blood. On the wrist that fell across her waist there were only tentative, almost searching, slashes; it was the wound on the wrist he drew from the water that had done the real damage. There was the smallest flutter of life beneath the fingers that felt for the pulse in her neck. Her skin was so translucent he thought he might have seen lake water through it.

She seemed to be making an effort to say something and Jury leaned closer.