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There were only ten or a dozen other passengers traveling to London, all engaged in reading or gazing out of windows at the Sussex countryside, or else plugged into earphones or mobiles.

Across the aisle sat a pretty woman in her late thirties or early forties. It was hard to guess ages anymore, especially of children, who these days seemed to peak at thirteen or fourteen and go downhill from there. Children looked older than they were, adults younger.

It wasn’t the woman’s face that had caught his attention, but her shoes. Strappy. What a great word. He wished there were some quality in a person that word would fit.

Strappy sandals. Jimmy Choo? Tod’s? Prada? No, he didn’t think so. She was nicely but not richly dressed, not enough to be wearing Jimmy Choo. The shoes were sea green, very graceful. He had never noticed women’s shoes before, unless he’d a reason to look; the ones he’d seen of late, the shoes, he had to admit were quite beautiful. More works of art than shoes-which was, of course, what the designer meant them to be. He shut his eyes and pictured Carole-anne’s shoes.

What he was doing here was deliberately distracting his attention from the case. He was trying not to go over the conversation with Shirley Husselby because he thought he should leave it for a while; if he could let it settle, maybe something would surface. It had certainly been worth the trip to Brighton: that Chris, or Crystal, Cummins had gone to school with Kate Banks yet hadn’t admitted how well she had known her.

There was a point in a case when Jury felt it was all there and finding it was rather like shooting a pinball machine; like a series of steel balls in the channel of a pinball machine, all waiting for someone’s hand to shoot them onto a field of possibilities, targets, numbered holes, rubber bumpers, and the players needing to exert just the right amount of pressure to send the balls into the holes.

Chris, or Crystal, had, in the end, married Davey.

Jury’s question was, why hadn’t David Cummins been more forthcoming about their having known Kate Banks, and known her well? David was a policeman; he knew that kind of information could be vital.

He must not have wanted it to be.

At Jury’s signal, the porter stopped and Jury asked for tea and a jam roll that he eyed but did not eat.

He rested his head on the headrest and sipped his tea while the train throbbed into Redhill station. A few people rose to get off, looking bleary-eyed, as if they’d just been hauled by the Trans-Siberian express instead of the Southern Railway from Brighton. A few got off, a few got on. He tried not to notice, trying to hold on to the pleasure of anonymity.

Soon to be breached. Through half-closed eyes, he watched a small, stout man settle himself opposite with a rustling and crackling noise that turned out to be a sandwich and a bag of crisps placed on the table between them. Then a slurp and smack that turned out to be coffee. His fellow passenger did not take closed eyes as a barrier to conversation or companionship. The train clung stubbornly to Redhill; he wished it would move. It did.

“Care for one?” He was holding the bag of crisps across the table.

Some people didn’t appreciate the finer points of train travel. Jury opened his eyes, smiled, shook his head. “No, thanks.”

“That looks good.”

Jury realized he meant the jam roll. “Got it from the tea trolley.”

The man looked over his shoulder but didn’t see the trolley. “Think I might have one myself when it comes by.”

“Might not be by again before London. We’re not far out. Have this one.”

“Oh, now-”

“Really. Go ahead. I’m not hungry. I don’t know why I got it.” He smiled. “Throwback to childhood, I guess. Jammies.”

The man pulled the jam roll toward him, smiling, too. “Thanks. Name’s Mattingly, incidentally.” Mr. Mattingly held out his hand.

Jury shook it. “Richard Jury.”

“Speaking of childhood. I’ve just been with my sister for two days. We had great times, we did, as kids. She’s in a bad way now. Real bad.” Looking away from the jam roll to the scenery sliding past, he sounded sad.

“I’m sorry.”

Mr. Mattingly nodded and went on. “It’s a trial, no doubt about it. She’s holding on. I don’t see how, and neither does she. Nothing but skin and bones now.” He wrestled the plastic off the jam roll.

Skin and bones. Which was probably why Mattingly was intent on stuffing down whatever he could. Not so much for himself, but in aid of his sister. He bit off half the roll. “Quite nice, this.”

Jury could think of nothing to say. He looked out at the building up of urban scenery, the gray, uneven edges of London’s outlying landscape.

Mattingly went on about his sick sister, dying sister, apparently. He finished his jam roll, drank his coffee, still talking ten minutes later when the train whined and screeched into Victoria.

Where had all the rest of these people got on? he wondered. Over twice as many as there’d been leaving Brighton. They stood in the aisle and managed to stumble forward as if they were being prodded with guns and bayonets. Jury didn’t know what brought this violent image to mind.

Behind him, Mr. Mattingly was still discoursing about life and death. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s not more merciful, the people that help you out of it… That’s what she said herself and asked me if I knew anyone. ‘Cora, where’d I ever meet up with anyone like that, my dear?’ Still,” Mattingly went on, “I could hardly blame the woman. God.”

They were down the “Mind the Gap” step and onto the platform now. “Sorry,” said Mattingly, switching his small bag to his other hand so that he could shake hands with Jury again. “Not much more boring than to have to listen to some stranger on a train talking at you.

It went through Jury’s mind then: Bruno.

Reminds me of Bruno, Jenkins had said. The steel ball was rolling across the surface of the pinball machine injury’s mind. He watched it fall into the hole and said, “No, I’m very glad you did talk to me, Mr. Mattingly.” It was the truth. “I’m terribly sorry about your sister.”

“Yes. Thanks. Well, I’ll be off. Thanks again for the cake.”

Mr. Mattingly swung on down the platform, while Jury stood in place and watched him go. No, he wasn’t really seeing anything except his own mental images.

That was what Jury had been trying to remember. Bruno. Hitchcock.

Strangers on a Train.

59

Instead of fighting his way through the underground rush hour, Jury stood in the queue for a taxi. It was long but manageable. While he waited, his mobile sounded and he grabbed it to hit the talk button, but not before he’d picked up a few smug smiles from those who’d recognized the ring. A grown man, imagine. He thought he’d done well by simply remembering to charge it.

It was Jenkins.

“We’ve got something here, Richard. I can’t say if there’s any significance. It’s a receipt for a book. From Waterstone’s. Date is the day Kate Banks was murdered. It was found by a uniform when he was helping to take down crime scene tape.”

Jury was next in line. He said, “Hold on, Dennis,” as the next cab pulled up. “I’m getting into a cab.” He gave the driver his address, climbed in, shut the door. “Right. Receipt found where?”

“Wedged down between pavement stones. Why didn’t forensic find it that night? Beats me.”

But not Jury. “Your SOCO people would have found it; they didn’t because it wasn’t there.”

Jenkins pondered this. “You mean it was planted?”

“Yes. What’s the book? Is it on the receipt?”

“It’s been rained on, wait a minute… Shoe-aholic, whatever that might be.”

Jury looked out the window; they were just passing through Clerkenwell. “I know about Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik because I know a ‘shoe-aholic.’ I’ll save you some legwork, Dennis. The person this is going to lead to is a detective with Thames Valley police. Detective Sergeant David Cummins. He bought the book when he was in London. You’ll want to talk to him.”