“What’s funny?” Jenkins smiled, too.
Jury wiped the smile off his face. “Nothing. Look, it’s surely enough to bring him in for questioning, even if not enough to hold him.”
Jenkins nodded. “I expect so.” He rose. “But what was so funny?”
“Relentless bastard, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
48
DS Alfred Wiggins gave the impression of a man who would always tip his hat to a lady, had he been wearing a hat; indeed, he seemed to feel the lack of a hat because he couldn’t raise it.
“Why, Mr. Wiggins, how very nice!” said Myra Brewer. “How very nice of you to look in.”
“My pleasure, Mrs. B.” He walked in the door, which she had opened wider.
“Now, what can I get you? I just made tea and was about to pour myself a cup.”
“Tea would be welcome.” He was shaking free of his coat. “A bit nippy out there, all of a sudden.”
She had his coat folded over her arm and was smoothing it. “And it’s been so warm. But that’s weather for you. Well, you can’t count on weather, but you can on tea.” After putting the weather in its place and hanging his coat in the hall cupboard, she made for the kitchen. “You just make yourself comfortable; I’ll get down another cup and be back in a tick.”
If there was one thing Wiggins knew how to do, it was to make himself comfortable. He sat in the same armchair he’d occupied before. He sighed, shut his eyes briefly, enjoying the quiet of the parlor set off by the homey clatter coming from the kitchen. Yes, this was definitely his milieu, and he was happy to be in it.
He scooted down in the chair and crossed an ankle over a knee and looked around, not with his detective’s eye, but with the eye of a homebody. A little clock ticked on the mantel; a group of fairings sat on the inset bookshelves to the right of the electric fireplace. Above it hung a bucolic scene of cows in a field and sheep lounging beneath a big oak tree. The picture listed slightly. It probably needed two hooks, not just one. Put a hammer in his hand and he could fix it.
A rattle of crockery announced Myra Brewer’s return. He rose smartly to take the tray from her hands and to place it on the table between the easy chairs.
“Thank you. And I brought some of those Choc-o-lots you like.”
“Is that a seed cake there?”
“Fresh baked.”
That must have been what was scenting the air when he walked in.
There was more conversation that might have been considered desultory by anyone who couldn’t appreciate a cup of Taylor’s Fancy Ceylon or a cake as fine as lawn.
The reason why he had come, he said, “not to bring up the painful subject of your goddaughter, but-you remember Superintendent Jury?” But why should she, as Wiggins, sitting here, had nearly forgotten him? “He was interested in anything you might have that would help with her background. What I mean is…” Wiggins helped himself to a slice of seed cake and considered how to raise the subject of Kate Banks’s night work. “I expect you know, I mean, from reading the papers, as it’s been all over them, what sort of other work Kate was doing…”
But Myra Brewer was made of sturdier stuff than Wiggins supposed. Crisply, she nodded and said, “Yes. She was working for one of those escort places. Well, who am I to judge her? No, not Kate. It doesn’t take away from Kate one bit that she was doing that.”
Wiggins admired her attitude. “The point is, we’ve discovered that one woman at one of these agencies knew the third victim. Superintendent Jury thinks there might be other links amongst these women. This is the best seed cake I’ve ever eaten.”
She smiled. Her cup and saucer rested on her lap. She stopped smiling and studied it. “You mean, did Kate know the others?” Myra shook her head. “She might have done, but I don’t think so. There’s no way of telling now.” Her eyes returned to her cup.
“No, of course not. But we thought you might have some old pictures, photographs, snapshots of Kate with friends.”
“Well, now, I do have an album or two.”
“Is it possible she went to school with either Mariah Cox-she who called herself Stacy Storm as a professional name-or Deirdre Small? They were all pretty close to each other in years.”
“Kate attended several schools. I remember Roedean was one. If you’ll just wait a moment…”
“Roedean?” Wiggins was surprised. “But that’s one of our best schools.”
Myra had risen and now looked down at him, still sitting with his slice of cake. “You think a girl working at what she did, being an escort, do you think she couldn’t have the brains for a school like Roedean?”
“No, I wouldn’t have thought so.” It was always a source of delight to Jury that Wiggins was completely literal.
Myra shook her head at such intransigence. “I don’t care what’s said, Kate Muldar was a smart girl, a first-rate student. I told you she liked that big bookshop in Piccadilly, Waterstone’s. She loved to go in there and get books and sit in their café and read. That was what she loved-not pubs, not going dancing or anything like that-just stopping in that bookshop.” Myra sighed. “I’ll get the photograph album.”
49
The mobile was charged, but Jury had just shut it off, not wanting any disturbance while talking to Harry Johnson.
At the same time Wiggins was enjoying Myra Brewer’s seed cake, Jury was enjoying the view of Belgravia from the top of Harry’s steps, flanked by the two stone lions.
The door was opened by little Mrs. Tobias, Mungo by her side (or under her feet). Of course she remembered Superintendent Jury, then took a moment to study Detective Inspector Jenkins’s warrant card.
“I think he’s expecting us,” said Jury.
“Oh, yes, sir. Come in, please.”
She showed them into the living room, or, rather, Mungo did. He was in the lead.
Harry rose from a settee on the other side of a silver coffee service and welcomed them heartily.
Jury marveled that the scene in which he now found himself was an exact replica of the one in which he and DI Tom Dryer had turned up a month or so before to slap the cuffs on Harry. Metaphorically speaking, because the cuffs were never slapped on. It was uncanny, really, the similarity: the settee, the coffee, the Times, that silver cigarette box. In a moment, he would offer them coffee. And cigarettes.
“Coffee, gentlemen?”
They declined. Harry took a cigarette from the box and offered the box to DI Jenkins. He knew better than to offer it to Jury. “Please sit down.” He waved them into a couple of dark leather chairs. Jenkins took one; Jury didn’t. Jury remained in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb.
Jenkins spoke: “Mr. Johnson, I’m investigating the case of a young woman who was murdered two nights ago in St. Paul’s churchyard.”
“Ah, yes. I read about it.” Harry rattled the paper to indicate where.
“Superintendent Jury here is under the impression you knew her. Deirdre Small, her name was.”
Harry smiled one of his blinding smiles. “Superintendent Jury is under the impression I’ve known everyone murdered in London.”
“And have you?” asked Jenkins in a wonderfully affable way before he sat back and crossed his legs.
Jury would recommend him for a citation.
Harry laughed. “No, not all.”
“Including Miss Small? You didn’t know Deirdre Small?”
Harry shook his head. “No. Sorry.”
Mungo, who had left the room, now returned with Morris (sans blue collar, of course, which was in Chesham). Both were sitting at Jury’s feet, both staring upward, hard, in a breath-holding manner.
Jenkins said, “You didn’t know her, then?”
“Of course not. I’ve just said that.”
“And the other two murdered women-Stacy Storm and Kate Banks?”