Richard Jury: The Stargazey Part 29

He did not know what he expected to find or even what he was looking for. But Melrose was sure he had never seen so many exotic pieces collected in so small a s.p.a.ce. He picked up a Chinese jade horse from a sofa table inlaid with turquoise with jade and jet in its center.

The objects here spoke not only of money but of travel. Melrose doubted anyone would find that warrior's spear or that makishi mask at Harrods. Both were hanging on the wall to the right of the fireplace. If she had been to someplace like Zambia (probably the origin of the mask), then she had traveled widely.

Melrose started to look at other artifacts with an eye to their origins. He could not a.s.sign a provenance to the rug beneath his feet; that she could have obtained at Harrods, but it would have cost her. In the gla.s.s-fronted cabinet against the wall was a collection of porcelain and jade figurines that looked as if they would furnish the owner with income for the rest of her life. On the other side of the fireplace was a Russian triptych icon featuring several saints, who looked grimly out from under emblazoned haloes.

Everywhere there were photographs, not of people but of places. Here were a cl.u.s.ter of snapshots of a tropical place, black sand suggesting Tahiti. Others of groups of natives, three wearing elaborate masks, probably Polynesian. Another was of a wide river, with two figures as black silhouettes against a sun that cut a wide swath on the water, making its surface appear to be smoking. Melrose could almost hear the oars whish and the water break and the wind comb the palm fronds.

Still wearing his coat, Melrose sat down on the sofa, running his hand over the supple leather. It looked old but was probably just distressed. Nevertheless, it was as fluid as velvet.

He got up to look at the wall of paintings. Jury was right; she must have loved art to have arranged so many across one wall. His eye trailed over a row of paintings of various periods and styles and stopped at a gorgeous rendering of a city m.u.f.fled in snow. Russia, or perhaps Czechoslovakia. The onion domes floated above the snow-laden buildings, glowing like pearls. Framed in dark wood against a darker matting, the ice and snow seemed to rush out at him and he felt an actual chill. He looked at the bottom to see what was written there: Nevsky Prospekt. St. Petersburg.

Jury was right; it seemed to be everywhere.

He was a.s.sailed by the strong fragrance of vetiver. It smelled like ashes; it would be difficult to describe to someone else how the smell of ashes could be so seductive.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo."

He jumped when he heard the voice behind him, coming from the open doorway. The woman who stood there was holding a bag full of groceries that looked much too heavy for her. She was one of those elderly ladies who reminded him of paper valentines, the old kind one comes across in antique shops: hearts glued to doilies, lacy, gold-fringed, and faded.

Melrose immediately stepped to the doorway and took the heavy burden of groceries from her. "Let me help with this."

"Oh. Well, thank you. I only live just next door." She looked around the hall. "Where's Constable Beane gone?"

"I don't know; I saw the policeman outside, that's all."

She seemed amused and Melrose hoped he hadn't sounded patronizing with his offer to help; after all, she'd carried the bag this far, hadn't she? But she also seemed pleased, so there might yet be a place in the world for gallantry.

He followed her into her flat and took the bag into the kitchen, where she asked him if he would stay to tea.

"I'd love a cup of tea," he answered, suddenly thirsty.

She said it would just be a minute and for him to make himself at home. Given her flat, it seemed the right instruction, for it was a place where one could make oneself at home. This flat was in sharp contrast to Nancy Pastis's. The furnishings and fittings here were not luxurious, though by no means were they poor. The slipcovered sofa and easy chairs, the corner shelves that held not Chinese porcelain but souvenirs-A present from Brighton scrolled across a saucer, enameled boxes declaring love and friendship, several old fairings-all so trenchantly English that Melrose grew almost sodden with sentiment.

He sat down. He knew what the tea tray would look like and for some reason felt comforted. A flowered teapot with matching cups and saucers, a plate of biscuits and one of seed cake. (He had seen the cake poking out of the top of the bag.) Nancy Pastis, had she asked one to tea, would probably have used the samovar and gla.s.ses in metal holders.

The tea tray appeared, a large silver one, and he was pleased he had been dead on about its contents. Again, he rose to help. He set the tray on the oval table-which he was sure was the right place for it-and said, "This is awfully kind of you. I was on the edge of perishing."

She tucked a strand of hair back in the bun at her neck. "I hope the cake is all right. I've never used this particular pastry shop before, and I thought I'd just try it." She was pouring the tea. "Would you like some toast? At least that's dependable." She sliced the cake.

"No. This is fine. Wonderful."

She sat back from the tray with a little lurch. "I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Vera Landseer. Are you a policeman too?"

He laughed. "Lord, no. I'm Melrose Plant, the friend of one. He's already been here."

"That nice man, the handsome one? Superintendent, I believe. Drury or-"

"Jury. You've a good memory. He says people are always demoting him to Inspector status."

"I didn't."

"You made a hit, then. Yes, he told me about you."

She seemed to delight in this. "I only wish I could be more help in this awful business. Even though I lived next door, I saw little of Nancy. Once or twice she had me over to tea-"

Melrose almost asked if Miss Pastis had used the Russian samovar.

"-and once I had her here. The thing is, she was seldom around. She did a great deal of traveling. To the most exotic places! Places most people only dream about seeing. What struck me as strange was that she did this on her own. It seemed to me she was always on her own. That's quite brave and unusual, isn't it? Women do not like doing things on their own, do they? How often do you see a woman alone in a restaurant or the theater? Well, I expect I'm setting women's rights-or whatever it's called-back by decades."

Melrose chewed a biscuit, as he thought he didn't often go anywhere himself except to the Jack and Hammer or, sometimes, to places where Jury felt his presence could help. He rarely had occasion to dine alone in a restaurant and never occasion to go to the theater alone, as theater in his area was noticeably absent. But he did not say this, as he thought it might strike Vera Landseer as lacking bravery. "No, you're quite right. Hardly ever do I see women doing those things on their own. Miss Pastis didn't have many callers, I take it."

Vera shook her head. "Not that I was aware of. It feels strange talking about her like this. . . . I mean, when she's dead." A brief shudder gripped her.

Melrose frowned. It struck him that the police had turned up neither relations nor friends, not to mention lovers, of Nancy Pastis. Vera Landseer might be the only person who knew her on even remotely intimate terms. She had at least had tea with the Pastis woman. He found this lack of acquaintance strange. No matter how one kept oneself to oneself, it was unlikely one could get through life without leaving a trace, a trail of family and friends behind. How could it be otherwise? Even the resourceful Simeon Pitt had a relation of whom he was very fond, and numerous acquaintances, even though he rarely kept their company.

"Is something the matter, Mr. Plant?"

"What?" Melrose came out of his brown study. "No. No, I was just thinking."

"Deeply, apparently. May I ask, what of?"

"Yes. Nancy Pastis's lack of acquaintance. As you said, she did all this on her own, yet she clearly wasn't a recluse, not with all the traveling she did. You did talk to her, even if only in a superficial way." Melrose put down his teacup, picked up his plate of seed cake. "Did you form any opinion of her?"

Vera looked past him, out of the window at the failing light. "One does, I suppose, form opinions; one can't help it. But of her-I can only say she was remote. Hard to reach. I mean, one doesn't want to intrude or pry, so one senses-as with you, as with that pleasant Scotland Yard superintendent-one senses an invitation. Or not. I'm not talking, understand, about the overfamiliarity we're subjected to today. The new nurse in my doctor's surgery called me Vera the other day, when even the doctor still calls me Mrs. Landseer. Well, at least we haven't given ourselves over to the vulgar familiarity of that American habit of tacking on 'Have a nice day.' I'm not talking about that sort of thing. By invitation I think I mean accessibility. I'm being vague; do you understand?"

Melrose nodded.

"I found her to be superficially friendly but chilly. Cold."

"Was she misanthropic, do you think?"

Vera Landseer's gaze returned to the window, the tarnished sky beyond it. "That, or-" She shrugged, as at a loss to explain. "It's as if some faculty were missing. When we talked, I got the strange impression that she wasn't."

Melrose waited. When she didn't explain, he said, "Wasn't what?"

"Talking. Wasn't partic.i.p.ating, even though she asked me in to tea. It was as if this whole tea thing"-she waved her arm over the tray-"were a meaningless ritual-no, more of an anachronism. As if she weren't, as they say, on the other person's wavelength. Misanthropic, perhaps, or perhaps running. You know, fugitive."

An odd thing to say, thought Melrose, once he was back in Nancy Pastis's flat. He was in the room she apparently used as a study. As Wiggins had said, there were no clues here as to her movements. Circulars, bank statements, catalogs from Harrods and Liberty's, but no letters. And most of all, "no jumble, sir," the sergeant had said. No jumble-that was quite true. It was the most orderly place he had ever been in, short of a museum.

Something was missing. He looked from bookcases to desk to shelves back to the desk. That was it: a computer. Could one walk into anyone's study or look at anyone's desk these days and not see a computer? Perhaps there was a laptop. Melrose looked at all the shelves but didn't find one.

He stood there looking round for some moments, thinking about what Vera Landseer had said about Nancy Pastis.

He felt there was something else missing. She was.

38.

Nancy Pastis," said Ronnie Chilten, "died in 1960."

Jury waited, knowing Chilten was waiting too on his end of the telephone in the Fulham station. He was waiting for a reaction, a "what?" or "meaning what?" Jury, Chilten knew, was waiting for an explanation.

Silence. Without too many pauses, caesuras, enjambments, Jury said, "Okay, Ronnie, I'm mystified. Tell me." He pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and stuck his feet up.

"She was four years old when she died."

Jury moved the receiver away from his ear the way one does who's had confounding news. He brought it back, wishing Chilten weren't so fond of these f.u.c.king mind games. Blood out of a stone, getting information out of him. "You going to explain this, Ron, or should I come over to Fulham and beat it the h.e.l.l out of you?"

Wiggins, concocting something across the room that looked like blue mouthwash, raised his eyebrows at his boss's tone. He was too used to Jury's infinite (it sometimes seemed) patience.

"In other words, Rich, Nancy is not who Nancy says-pardon, said-she is. Or was."

"Go on."

Chilten didn't like to go on without teasing at least one gasp of surprise out of whoever he was talking to, particularly a higher-up. But he did. "Our background check turned up the usual records: bank, credit card records, mortgage-there isn't one, she paid cash-British Telecom, utilities, et cetera, et cetera. You'd be amazed what we can do."

(Jury himself not being a policeman.) "But then ran up against a brick wall. Dead. We couldn't take her back further than three years ago."

"Which was when she got the flat in Mayfair."

"Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada, nada, nada."

Jury sat, rocking back and forth in his swivel chair, one foot sc.r.a.ping the edge of the drawer. He watched Wiggins tapping his teaspoon against the viscous blue mixture. "The little girl who died: Nancy Pastis. . . . There must be a few other women by that name, Ronnie."

"There are. We found three, actually. Histories all present and accounted for back to birth."

"You're saying--"

"I'm saying our Fulham Palace lady isn't Nancy Pastis. She's someone else."

This time, Jury didn't think Chilten paused for effect. "Someone who needed a birth certificate to-"

"-to get a pa.s.sport, doc.u.ments. You're right with me."

"That far, anyway." Jury leaned over his desk, watched Wiggins drop another ingredient into his gla.s.s that blossomed into white froth; at the same time, Wiggins was absorbing Jury's phone conversation. "How about forward? I mean, what else did you find out about her in the three years? She needed a pa.s.sport; she was traveling, obviously. Russia, France-where else?"

"Argentina, Russia again, French Polynesia-Papua New Guinea-"

"That's Melanesia."

"Yeah, okay. Anyway, those were on the pa.s.sport you saw. The visits were brief. Few days, week at the most."

Jury said, "You've been in her flat. The woman must have traveled most of the time. In the three-year period covered by that pa.s.sport, I'd think she must have been in other places. Didn't the Landseer woman say she was just back from Northern Ireland?" Something bothered him now; he drew a hand over his forehead. He looked over at Wiggins and motioned for him to pick up the phone on his desk. "I'm having Wiggins listen to this."

"Okay with me. Does this suggest anything to you?"

"Come on, Ronnie, don't play games. What it suggests is that Nancy Pastis was traveling under a false name with an illegal pa.s.sport, for purposes we don't know but won't like when we do know. What else have you got?"

"Thing is, she must have had other pa.s.sports, so I'm a.s.suming she might have been issued them in the same way. So we're running a check, a cross-check. It's a big job for our equipment."

Fulham police had as easy access to the Yard's computer system as any other branch of the Metropolitan police. But Jury didn't say that. Chilten was, after all, being extremely forthcoming with information.

Jury thought for a moment. "You're trying to check what birth certificates have been applied for-kids, babies who've died-to see if you come up with the same thing? But, my G.o.d, that would take one h.e.l.l of a search, Ron. Do you have any parameters?"

"Women born in the sixties-more or less-who would have been her age now, if they'd lived. Her age being forty-one, according to the pa.s.sport."

"Check on stolen pa.s.sports."

"Am doing even as we speak. I don't get it. Say she had managed to get herself another pa.s.sport, maybe several. Why was this one left in her desk?" When Jury didn't answer, Chilten said, "There must be another pa.s.sport."

"Another name. Maybe the real one."

39.

Come on," said White Ellie, waving Melrose through the front door. "Tea's up." She motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen.

The house was almost funereal in its quiet. Glancing into the parlor (ordinarily the site of revel and carouse), Melrose thought he glimpsed a baby crawling out from under a great pile of laundry. He had approached the house guardedly and weighed down by the usual little screws of sweets. He'd been stunned to find the front garden empty of all but the signs of the last battle (clubs, stones, broken gla.s.s).

He sat down on a broken-legged wooden chair at the kitchen table as Ellie tossed a teabag into a mug, filled it with hot water, doused it with milk from a pint on the counter, and set it before him. A bit of ash from the end of her cigarette had dribbled down the side of the mug. She said, " 'Ere's sugar."

How can one improve on perfection? thought Melrose, shoving the bowl away from him with the tip of his finger. Not that he didn't take sugar; he was merely suspicious of some tiny thing he thought he had seen nose-diving into its center.

"So I sez t' 'im, 'Frankie, don't be takin' the p.i.s.s out, and don't be get-tin' Ashley into yer lockup.' Them rozzers do Frankie's garage ev'ry week, seems like." This last comment was to quicken Melrose's understanding of what Frankie got up to, whoever he was. White Ellie continued the story, begun, as usual, in medias res. "Why, last month, 'e come back wi' a t'ousand quids' worth o' them li'l enamel boxes when he visited one of them stately 'omes. You know 'im?" she asked, not really waiting on an answer, pretty much certain that any friend of hers must by now be a friend of Melrose. "Wide lad, our Frankie." As if Ash Cripps weren't wide enough himself to keep him out of anybody's garage. "But 'ere's what 'e does-keeps the good stuff in back covered up so Blind Ollie-'e's the Bill round where Frankie lives-so 'e's so taken with the stuff up front like these 'ere li'l box things that 'e don't look in the back. I gotta gi' Frankie credit for usin' the old bean-o. Anyways-"

While White Ellie rambled on, the thick-limbed baby-in-the-laundry had crawled into the kitchen and was paid no mind by Ellie, deep into her glutinous tale of Ash and Frankie. Considering the traps that awaited the child-de-limbings by that cleaver on the floor, scaldings by the kettle perched precariously on the hob, electrocutions by the several wires running into that dish of water (Ash Cripps's unpatented mousetrap), poisonings unlimited by the stuff in various containers easily grasped by little fingers and straightaway ingested-considering all this, Melrose was in awe of the child's having lived this long.

Ellie yelled-when the tot went for the lye-"Robespierre, get outa there!" The baby gurgled and headed for the cleaver.

Melrose commented on the wonder of Robespierre's having grown.

"Growin', ihn't 'e? 'E's nine, ten months. The spit o' Ashley, ain't 'e?"

Robespierre was the spit of everyone in the Cripps clan-they all had those gin-pale and lashless eyes, that yeasty skin, that compact, stubby, fireplug build-except for White Ellie, whose own build had earned her the sobriquet of Elephant (Ellie merely the shortening of same, and not her real name. Melrose had no idea what that was). Yes, it was definitely a signature look, even more than an Armani or Ralph Lauren or Issey Miyake. Yes, one could have picked out "the Cripps look" walking down the runway faster than one could a Versace.