Richard Jury: The Stargazey Part 15

It looked as if Father Charles Noailles had gone to some trouble to make the room homelike or, possibly, churchlike. On the wall behind the priest hung a stylized wooden Madonna, her blue cowl rubbed back to the original wood. She was as long and thin as a Modigliani sculpture. Jury was always in awe of the transporting peacefulness in the expression of these figures.

Father Noailles was a tall man in his late forties with a manner practiced to put others at ease. When they arrived, he'd been standing by the window, which gave out onto the wide lawn in the front of the palace. This window overlooked the abundant trees planted there and eastward, towards the walled garden. Beneath the window was a chest, like an old seaman's chest, the wood burnt in some of the seams. For a moment, Jury wondered what seas Noailles might have crossed and what fires he'd been through. Probably, he'd picked it up for a few quid on the Portobello Road. That's where he could have come by the chest of drawers against the wall, worm-eaten oak that sat on the none-too-level floor. Something white-a book of matches or a squared piece of paper-was fixed under one of the fat round feet of the chest. There was even a narrow iron bed covered with a gray blanket against the same wall. Perhaps the most interesting object was a telescope fixed on its stand, pointed upwards at the window, trained on the sky.

"You really inhabit this office, don't you?" Fearing that sounded smug, Jury added, "I wish my own office were a little more habitable." He laughed. His office was plenty habitable; Wiggins had seen to that.

And Wiggins gave him a stare, not wanting to take verbal issue, that seemed to say, Well, what do you want? We've got our tea-making kit, and even a small sink, and just about any pill or powder you might need for your headaches or insomnia. Except crabbiness-we haven't got one for that. Wiggins sniffed, as if he had said this aloud and hoped the superintendent would take it to heart.

"I don't actually live here," said Charles Noailles, "although it looks as if I did. Please sit down, won't you? Here, this chair is good." He folded a stack of papers and quarterlies into his arms and dumped them on a table against the wall, already full enough to make the stack tilt.

Jury took this seat, old scratched and much-rubbed oxblood leather, worn but comfortable. He sank into it and found it surprisingly comfortable. "You're an astronomer, Father?"

Noailles seemed almost glad of the Scotland Yard intrusion, as if this released him from some wearisome occupation. "Amateur, strictly amateur."

Wiggins was making a circuit of the room, appraising a chair here, a bisque figure there, looking at this and that (as if he were searching for clues, which he wasn't). Jury knew he was making his way to the telescope, which he thereupon appropriated. He did this with all the stealth of a cat closing on a dish of cream.

"What about you, Sergeant Wiggins," said Noailles, "are you an amateur stargazer?"

"Oh, yes. When I was younger, you'd never find me far from a telescope."

Jury contemplated the ceiling for a moment, as if he were in a planetarium, as Wiggins made a brief circuit of the heavens. Finished, Wiggins announced, "There's a lot to be said for it." His tone was sententious.

"For what?" asked Jury.

"Why, for the night sky, the constellations, the moon-"

"Thank you, Wiggins. You don't have to tell us what's in it. We know at least that much." With a smile for Noailles, Jury said, "We didn't really come here to look at the stars, Father." Glancing around at the tiers of books and spilled papers, Jury apologized for interrupting him, as he was obviously very busy.

Noailles held up his hands. "Please, don't apologize. I'd sooner do almost anything than this writing."

"Are you referring to your book, sir?" Wiggins, true to the Wiggins health regimen, sat down in a hard-backed chair and took out his notebook.

"Lives of the Bishops, I'm calling it. The Fulham Palace bishops, that is. It's really a history of the palace. I guess I had the idea that the palace itself would be a good environment to work in. You know-inspirational."

Jury smiled. "And has it proved to be so?"

"No, of course not. No more and no less than writing on a bench in Montparna.s.se or Leicester Square. It doesn't really make any difference, does it, what surroundings you're in?"

Sagely, Wiggins nodded. "I've certainly found that to be true."

Jury blinked, once again wondering about his sergeant's many avocations. "How long have you had this office, Father?"

"Nearly a year. But I'm sure you didn't come here to discuss my writing."

Jury smiled again. "That's not what I was doing." Wiggins was opening his mouth to do just that, and Jury cut him off, saying, "You told my sergeant here that you know, or knew, Kate McBride."

"Possibly. I knew a Michael and Kate McBride in Paris. At least, I knew him. Michael was with the British Emba.s.sy."

Jury waited. "Go on."

"Actually, I met them in Aruba."

Jury nodded. Noailles was getting off the track, but Jury believed in letting witnesses tell a story as they wanted to.

"It was on one of those magnificent beaches that scalloped the entire island, pinkish-white sand and narrow; it looked like a string of pearls. They were having a brief holiday, and when we discovered we both lived in Paris in the Sixth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, we took it as Fate bringing us together, or at least Michael did. Anyway, we got to talking. It was good conversation, you know, the kind that doesn't bother with the standard questions: What do you do? and What do you do? That's why, I suppose, when they met me for dinner in the hotel, they might have felt they'd been duped."

Jury wondered. "Duped?"

"To find out I what I was. I was wearing my collar, see." He pointed at his neck, where no collar was tonight, as if to initiate the two policemen into the mysterious habits of the priesthood. "I hadn't been, obviously, at the beach."

"This made a difference to them?"

"Oh, I don't think so. Well, I know it didn't in the case of Michael. But his wife was never a talker to begin with. So I don't know about her."

"You got to know him but not her?"

"That's right. I don't think Kate was awfully knowable, anyway."

Jury thought this a queer thing for a priest to say but smiled at his saying it.

"As I said, it was really her husband I knew. My church was in Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Saint-Sulpice. They lived near there, had a flat just off the rue de Vaugirard in rue . . . " Noailles frowned, trying to bring it back.

"The rue Servandoni?"

"Ah, yes." Noailles registered surprise that the police would know this but said nothing. "That was it. Michael sometimes attended matins, quite early in the morning. He struck me as rather devout." Noailles paused awhile, scenes of Paris perhaps turning in his mind like pages in a book of photos.

"Yes?" Jury cued him to continue.

"Oh. Sorry. I was just thinking of Saint-Germain. I loved being in Paris. I told you I didn't really know her, I'd only really been together with her when the three of us first met, and after that I'd see her from time to time with Michael."

"Tell me anything you remember about her. On Aruba, for instance. I imagine that was the longest you were around her?"

"Yes." Noailles drew his hand over his chin, reflecting. "I do remember that big sun hat she wore. It had an enormous brim. It made an aisle of shade wherever she walked."

Jury thought he seemed to be taking pleasure in the memory of Kate McBride and wondered. All he said was, "Go on."

"Honestly, Superintendent, there's nothing to be going on with." His hand made a gesture of waving away smoke. "As I said, she kept herself to herself." He paused.

"Were you here this past Sat.u.r.day night?"

Noailles fumbled a bit with his answer. "Yes. I left for Paris on Sunday. I'm here most of the time, really. Most nights or evenings. It was evening, wasn't it, when this woman was murdered?"

"Somewhere between six and around ten. You were here all evening, then?"

"Yes. It was one of the nights I slept here, actually." Noailles got up, moved about the room, rubbed his shoulders as if they ached.

Jury watched him. "When you saw the photos of the dead woman, were you surprised?"

"You mean, did I think it was Kate? I thought I recognized her, yes."

Jury said to Wiggins, "Have you got the morgue shot?"

"Oh. Yes, sir." Wiggins drew a picture from a big raincoat pocket, pa.s.sed it to Noailles.

He frowned over it. "It does look like Kate McBride . . . but not quite." His eyes narrowed, as if a squint might help him identify her. But he shook his head. "I never really saw her that much to be sure." Noailles returned the photo.

"What about the other offices here? Did you see anyone else?"

"No-yes, I did see old Bread. Captain Bread, he calls himself. He was still here. He often is. Rather fanatical about this trust for seamen he runs."

"Do you know any of the other people who're letting offices?"

"A little. Enough to say good morning, good evening to, yes. But not much more than that."

Jury paused. "She didn't come to see you then?"

At first, the priest seemed not to grasp Jury's meaning. When he had, he paled, whether from anxiety or anger, Jury didn't know. "I've told you, Superintendent. I've told you what happened." His tone was cold.

Now Noailles was on the defensive, and it was doubtful he'd get any more out of him. Jury tried to recoup by saying it was merely a routine question. "We truly appreciate your coming forward." He rose. "We'll leave you to your work."

Wiggins rose too, seemingly reluctant to leave the far-flung planets.

At the door, Jury paused and turned. "What about the little girl? The McBrides' daughter. Did you know her?"

The priest shook his head. "No. Only him, Michael. He didn't talk about her, but of course there's no reason their children would have come into the conversation. It was his spiritual dilemma we talked about, not his family. Anyway, as I said, I didn't know his wife-"

"-very well." Jury finished it for him, smiled, and they left.

19.

Ralph Rees was not exactly what Melrose expected; he didn't put on the painterly ennui that often goes with absence of talent. He was dressed for the stereotype, though-black turtleneck sweater under a cream wool jacket with drooping shoulders and sleeves turned up a couple of times-and he rather cultivated the stereotypical artistic look: thinnish, a little peaked, with hair not quite to his shoulders and the nervous habit of shaking it back off his face.

There was, however, no question about his being glad to meet Melrose; in his enthusiasm for this British aristocrat, he crushed Melrose's hand between both of his. He was quite overcome with delight that the gallery had sold one of his paintings, more so that a customer had been able to appreciate it.

"The series gets a blank look from some people."

Including me, thought Melrose. But Ralph Rees seemed, in saying what he did, utterly ingenuous, and Melrose began to warm towards him, lackl.u.s.ter painter that he was. Ralph Rees appeared to have all the enthusiasm for his own work that a four- or five-year-old would have as he rushed to Mum with his latest finger-painted tree or house. Melrose wondered, then, and asked, "You've probably done other sorts of work, Mr. Rees?"

"Call me Ralph. I p.r.o.nounce it 'Rafe,' in the old way. Whichever." A smile beamed in Melrose's direction.

"Right. I was saying you no doubt have done other kinds of painting."

"Oh, yes. But, you know, derivative stuff."

Sebastian put in: "Portraits and Venetian ca.n.a.ls and the Swiss Alps." He discounted Rees's past efforts with a dismissive smile.

"Really? I've always had a liking for a portrait, and certainly J.M.W. Turner was never afraid of paintings of Venice being labeled derivative." He was grateful for the whisky in his hand that Olivia had seen he got immediately, and with a rather merry look that suggested it might be the only way to get through this dinner.

They laughed in different ways. Rees was sincere and Olivia appreciative. The Fabricant brothers were less so.

It was at this point that the living room door slid back and Ilona Kuraukov entered. Melrose knew it was she; it could be no one else, not from Jury's description. Nicholas and Sebastian both greeted her as "Mum." She was far from Melrose's idea of one. She looked rather as if she should be displayed on one of those Art Deco posters with a wolfhound at her side and a Pernod in her hand.

It seemed only reasonable that she should be wearing mink-or was it sable?-(which Nicholas was now helping her out of). Underneath it was a dove-gray dress of some soft material that draped easily across bosom and hips and made her eyes (that might be gray-blue) grayer. Her pale hair was pulled back in a French twist, a hairdo Melrose hadn't seen in some time, but Ilona Kuraukov could easily revive the fashion. And models would have killed for those cheekbones. It was very hard to imagine that Sebastian was her son; how could she be old enough? In her late sixties, even her early seventies? She might be as old as Agatha! How he wished he could take a couple of Polaroids back. Now, dear Aunt, how old would you say my friend Ilona Kuraukov is?

After the coat came the drink-vodka that had apparently been kept as frozen as an ice floe, the bottle shoved down in the ice. She took this straight from Seb (as she called him) and sat down by Nikolai (as she called him) and patted his knee. Then she sat back with her drink and took her time apologizing for her lateness. When she plugged a cigarette into an ornate holder, Melrose was up in a flash to light it. Her eyes regarded him through a curl of smoke.

He sat down again and, not wanting the subject of Rees's paintings to drop while they turned to other and more ba.n.a.l topics, said, "We've been talking about art. About Mr. Rees's-Ralph's"-Melrose inclined his head politely toward Rees-"Snow series."

"Ah, yes." Ilona Kuraukov nodded. "Quite different, quite a-how do you say it?-departure! Yes."

Melrose was interested in this departure. That is, he was interested in talking more about the art Ralph Rees was departing from. He was about to say something to this effect when the door opened again and a young girl entered: Pansy, the last of their household.

Melrose wondered if late appearances were Pansy's stock-in-trade, arriving late and last, thereby dramatizing her entrance and herself, though she hardly needed to. She was, in her own way, as dazzling in her youth as Ilona was in her age. The girl was her granddaughter. Melrose wondered which of them resented this relationship the most. He could imagine compet.i.tion among these people was fairly intense, if not absolutely insane.

And now here was Pansy, quite prepared to astound any newcomer but being outshone by Melrose himself, who was a newcomer with a t.i.tle. Yes, Pansy was gorgeous, a floral centerpiece, but Melrose was the guy the whole table had been set for, the one with the money, the t.i.tles, the land, and the privilege. She seemed not to know whether to disdain all that or try to get her hands on it. This amused him. Pansy would have to make an effort, which, he thought, might be uncharted territory for her. It amused him also, watching her size him up. Jury had said she was thirteen or fourteen, but she looked several crucial years older: seventeen or eighteen, perhaps. When she sat down on the end of the sofa nearest the fireplace, hence nearest him, she did so with a regal bearing she must have copied from her grandmama. Then she looked up at him and asked if he had horses on his land in Northamptonshire.

"No. There's only the house; there are no outbuildings, paddock, or anything of that nature."

"It's what I loathe about London, its not being country," she said, pleating her white silk skirt between her fingers and sounding as if she loathed every inch of the place. She looked around the room, challenging them to disagree.

Here was beauty unsullied by a shred of intelligence. "Yes, I've noticed that about London. Well, you'd find Ardry End pretty uncountrified, too, without horses and sharing the loathsome London aspect, so you'd better not come." He smiled brilliantly.

Had she missed something? Her eyes were wide with uncertainty and surprise, as if some invitation had been extended and she not made part of it. "I-"

Melrose simply cut across her. He had business to attend to, and it didn't include humoring a girl too much taken with herself anyway. "You mentioned Ralph's departure," he said to Ilona. "Is it the portrait-and-Venice thing he's departing from?"

Ilona regarded him coolly over the cigarette in the long black holder. His presence in their-or was it her?-house appeared questionable to her. "You're interested in the Siberian Snow series, then?"

Ralph Rees explained. "Madame Kuraukov, Lord Ardry-"

"Please call me Melrose. All of that 'lord' stuff gets to be boring."

"-Melrose here bought one of the paintings."

The holder in her hand stopped in midair. "But that's-quite marvelous." Then she inhaled and asked, "Which one?"

"Number four." He hoped he hadn't made it sound like a double-decker bus. But he couldn't imagine anyone but the artist and the gallery owners taking those canvases seriously.

"Mum paints," said Nicholas. "Or did, once upon a time. Very good, her stuff was, too. Why'd you stop?" It seemed just to have occurred to him to ask.

Ilona gave a little laugh. "Don't be silly, Nicky."

He accepted that as an answer.