“We dug around in the past of the three victims and found nothing. Maybe that’s because we didn’t know what to look for. Now, I want you to look in on Myra Brewer. She knew Kate Banks all her life. I bet she has photos, albums of them, maybe stuff from her school days. I want to know if Kate knew either of the others.”
Jury was up and wrestling his arms into his coat. “Me, I’m off to have lunch with Harry Johnson.”
“You don’t mind my saying so, you seem a little obsessed with Harry Johnson, guv.” The blessed kettle whistled. Wiggins immediately popped a Typhoo bag in his mug and poured water over it.
Self-satisfaction steeped along with the tea.
Coat on, Jury went to Wiggins’s desk and leaned on it. “Harry Johnson was in Chesham the night Mariah Cox was murdered; he was at home, he says-his only witness being Mungo-the night Kate Banks was shot; he was supposed to be in the Old Wine Shades, which is but a few minutes from St. Paul‘s, around eight or nine the night Deirdre Small was murdered at nine o’clock. He showed up at the Shades nearer to ten. I was there.”
“But, sir-what’s his motive?”
Jury turned at the door with a wicked smile. “Because he could.”
The spot of lunch, more a spot of Château Latour, was overseen by Mungo, who unwedged himself from between the legs of Harry’s bar stool to stand at attention when Jury walked in.
“Mungo, how’s it going?” Jury scratched him between the ears.
Mungo sat with his tail threshing the floor.
“And how’s your case going?” asked Harry. Not waiting for an answer, since he knew he wouldn’t get one, Harry went on. “Remember the Poe story? ‘The Black Cat’? Do you believe in evil spirits?”
“Only you, Harry.” Jury nodded to Trevor, who then set a glass before him and poured the Burgundy.
“I’ll just get your lunches.”
“Ploughman’s okay?” asked Harry. “That’s what I ordered.”
“Excellent.”
Harry nodded to Trevor, who went off for the food.
“As I was saying, the cat may have more to do with the whole thing than you credit it with.”
Jury raised his glass and looked at the shifting grape red colors against the light. “Really?” He smiled.
“The cat disappears the night after what’s-her-name…?” Harry snapped thumb and finger together, frowned as if making a real effort.
“Stacy Storm.”
“What a ridiculous name. Anyway, after that night…”
Jury knocked back nearly half of the wine. “That night you were in Chesham. The Rexroth party. Ms. Storm was also meaning to attend but was, you could say, detained.”
Trevor returned with two white oval plates of cheese (cheddar, Stilton, Derbyshire), bread, Branston pickle, and pickled onion and set the plates before them.
Harry’s eyebrows rose. “Is that a fact?”
“But her gentleman friend attended, the one she was supposed to meet.”
“And you pulled him in and roughed him up and now you can leave me alone.”
Jury shrugged. “For all we know, her friend might’ve been you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Harry was arranging a pickled onion on top of cheese on top of the thick bread.
Trevor had come with fresh glasses and a fresh bottle of another Bordeaux Jury had never heard of, but then he’d never heard of most of them.
Harry nodded at the label, and Trevor uncorked the bottle and poured.
They had four glasses now on the counter. Fine with Jury, who was having a swell time. They ate and drank in a silence that might almost have been called companionable, when Harry said, “Let’s go back to ‘The Black Cat.’”
“The pub?”
“The story. What’s fascinating is the pure randomness of the crime.”
“By random, you mean lacking motive? Any crime that looks as if the perpetrator simply picked off the subject arbitrarily could be said to be motiveless, right?”
“I suppose that’s so. But there’s a sense of power in doing something just because you can.” He smiled and drank off the rest of his wine, then crumpled his napkin on his plate. “Ah, that was good. But now I really have to run. Sorry.”
Then Jury said, “Police want to talk to you, Harry.”
“You are.”
Jury hoped he could ruffle him, but apparently not.
“Will you be in later this afternoon? There’s a City policeman, Detective Inspector Jenkins, who might want to drop by. With me.”
“Fine with me,” said Harry.
“Oh,” said Jury, as if he’d only now thought of it. “I was in Chesham yesterday. At the Black Cat.”
Harry looked at him. “Oh, really?”
“There was a black cat there.”
Having finished his lunch, Harry was pulling keys out of his pocket. How did he make it appear like a rabbit out of a hat? He was off his stool and working his arms into the black cashmere coat that Jury coveted. He smiled. “It’s called the Black Cat. Would the presence of one be surprising?”
“No. But this was a second black cat. Actually a third, but we won’t go into that. No, this was a different one than was there before. Rather, they’re both there.”
“My God! The cat came back! That sounds familiar.” Twirling the keys on his finger, Harry smiled. He took a step nearer Jury. “You didn’t fuck it up again, did you?” Laughing, he was across the room and, laughing, out through the door.
Jury smiled at the remains of his lunch. No, you murdering sociopath, I didn’t fuck it up again.
In the Snow Hill station of the City police, some five minutes from St. Paul’s and some ten from the Old Wine Shades, DI Jenkins was considering what Jury had said and biting the corner of his mouth. “God knows I’m catching enough flak on this that any suspect, including the prime minister, would help.”
“What about Nicholas Maze?”
“I’m getting bugger-all from him. I mean, according to the journalists we’ve got a serial killer loose. You can imagine.” Jenkins folded his arms across his chest. “Is this enough to bring this guy in? Sounds a little”-he rocked his hand back and forth-“squishy. You think it’s enough he was in Chesham at the time of the Cox woman’s murder?”
“That’s not all. He was at the Rexroth party; she was supposedly on her way there. I don’t think Harry Johnson goes to many parties.”
Jenkins brought the chair in which he’d been leaning back down to the floor. “But if he intends to murder Mariah-Stacy, why in bloody hell would he show himself, especially at something as public as a party?”
Jury shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Jenkins scratched his ear. “The other two victims. He didn’t have an alibi either time. But just because he hadn’t an alibi…?” Jenkins shrugged.
Jury scraped his chair closer to Jenkins’s desk and leaned on the desk, arms folded. “Look: if Harry Johnson weren’t Harry Johnson, I’d agree, it’s too flimsy. But Harry Johnson murdered one of his lady friends in a place in Surrey. I couldn’t prove it. He also kidnapped two kids out there and put them in the basement of his Belgravia house-”
Jury paused. He didn’t want to tell Jenkins a dog had actually saved the kids. Here it was again: the absolute ludicrousness of the story. But he plowed on nonetheless. “He told me this involved story about his best friend’s wife, son, and dog-‘The dog came back.’” He heard Harry saying it right now in his head.
“The dog?” said Jenkins.
“The dog.”
The cat came back. Harry, you swine. Jury knew what had happened. He wasn’t going to tell Jenkins. That was the whole point: he wanted Jenkins to hear it from Harry himself. Now it was the cat; the cat was the alibi. Jury smiled.