“Uh-uh,” said Jury. “You go the hell home. Leave the family to me.”
“I can’t-”
“The hell you can’t. I’ll get the initial stuff out of the way; you can talk to them later.”
Sotto voce, Mickey said, “Look, keep this under your hat, Rich, will you? I mean, me being sick.”
Jury said, “Of course, I will. You know I will. Does the family know about Simon Croft yet?”
Mickey nodded. “Two of my people went over there, sergeant and WPC. They told them I’d be talking to them this morning.” Mickey checked his watch, shook his wrist. “Damn thing.”
“Get yourself a Piaget. Give me the details and I’ll go over there now.”
Mickey did so.
Eleven
Ian Tynedale was an intelligent, good-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties. At least Jury assumed that age, given he was a young child when his sister Alexandra was killed. He sat forward on the dining-room chair, elbows on knees. His eyes were red rimmed.
“It wasn’t suicide, if that’s what the gun being there implies,” Ian said. Pulling himself together, he sat back and took out a cigar case and dragged a pewter ashtray closer.
“You’re sure of that?” said Jury.
“Never been surer. Not Simon.” He thought for a moment. “Was it robbery? Were any of the paintings missing?”
“I don’t think so, but of course we couldn’t be sure. You’re familiar with his paintings?”
“Yes, I got a few of them for him at auction. Art’s my life. Italian Renaissance art, to be specific. I’m pretty passionate about that. There was one painting worth a quarter of a million on the wall behind the desk.”
“I think I recall seeing that.” Jury paused. “Mr. Croft was actually no relation, was he?”
“No. The two families have always been exceptionally close. Simon’s father, Francis, and mine knew each other from a very early age. They were boyhood friends, then they were business partners. They were quite remarkable, really. They were every bit as close as blood brothers. Maybe you could say the same for Simon and me. It’s a very close family. Living out of each other’s pockets, you could say.”
“Francis Croft owned a pub in the forties called the Blue Last?”
That surprised Ian. “Yes. How’d you know that?”
Jury smiled. “I’m a policeman.”
“Funny old thing to bring up, though. That pub’s been gone for more than half a century. Bombed during the war. Maisie-that’s Alexandra’s daughter-was a baby then. They were at the Blue Last when it happened. Rather, Alex was; Maisie, fortunately for her, was out with the au pair, Katherine Riordin. Kitty, we call her. She survived because Kitty had taken her out in a stroller. Not the best time for a stroll, you might say, but there were long, long lulls between the bombings and it was pretty safe for the most part. The bombings, of course, were mostly at night. You can’t keep yourself cooped up all of the time, can you? It was a pity, and perhaps ironic that Kitty’s own baby was killed in the blast that took out the Blue Last.”
“I understand she lives here with the family.”
Ian motioned with his head. “That’s right. In the gatehouse. Keeper’s Cottage we call it. You passed it in the drive. ‘Gatehouse’ seems a bit pretentious.”
“And she’s lived here ever since that time?” If Ian was curious about this interest in Kitty Riordin, he didn’t show it.
Ian nodded. “You can imagine how grateful my father was that the baby was all right. Her own baby-Kitty’s-was in the pub at the time. The wrong time. So was Alex.” Turning his cigar around and around as if it aided thought, he said, “That was a terrible loss, you know.”
“Your sister, you mean?”
He nodded. “Alex was… there was something about her…” He paused, as if searching for the right word and sighed, as if he couldn’t find it. “She was young when she married a chap in the RAF named Ralph Herrick. She was only twenty or twenty-one, I think, when Maisie was born.”
Jury changed the subject. “Was Simon Croft wealthy? He was a banker, wasn’t he?”
“Broker. There’s a difference. He was very well off. He inherited a great deal of money when his father died.”
“He himself had done well?”
“Absolutely. He was a brilliant broker. Thing is, though, the whole climate of banking and brokering changed in the eighties. Until fifteen years ago, the City was run on-you could say-gentlemanly standards. I don’t mean more honest, more scrupulous, or nicer, I mean clubbier-you know, much like a gentlemen’s club. They simply weren’t up to American and international methods of management. It was as if the City was run by Old Etonians. So when things changed, most of these people were left out in the smoke. Not Simon, though. He was one of those with a boutique sort of business and he saw it coming. He stayed independent and afterward was heavily courted by the big banks-God, why am I going on about money? He’s dead. I can’t really take it in.”
“Who will inherit this money?”
“Inherit? Oh, all of us, probably. More, of course, to Emily and Marie-France. They’re Simon’s sisters. Emily lives in Brighton in one of those ‘assisted-living’ homes. She has a bit of heart trouble, I think. Simon was married years ago but it lasted only a few years. No children, sad to say. Haven’t seen her in twenty years. I think she went off to Australia or Africa with a new husband.” He tapped ash from his cigar into the ashtray and looked up at Jury as he did it, smiling slightly. “You think one of us did it, is that it? For the swag?”
“The thought had crossed my mind. That’s the way it so often plays out. For the record, where were you in the early hours of the morning?”
“Asleep in bed. Alone, no one to vouch for me.” Ian smiled as if the notion of his shooting Simon Croft were so unlikely it hardly bore discussing.
“Mr. Croft had no enemies you know of? Any fellow brokers? Bankers? Businessmen? Anyone holding a grudge?”
Ian shook his head. “Nary a one, Superintendent, not to my knowledge. Christ…” Turning in the dining-room chair, he looked away.
“Yes?” Jury prompted him.
Ian shook his head. “Nothing, nothing. It’s still sinking in.” He put the heels of his palms against his eyes and pressed.
Jury said nothing for a few moments, and then decided on something that might not be so volatile a subject. “Apparently, Mr. Croft was writing a book. What do you know about that?”
Ian turned to face Jury, looking a little surprised. “That’s important?”
“Given that all traces of it seem to have vanished, yes, I expect it is important. His computer was taken along with the manuscript and ostensibly any notes he’d made. That’s why we’re wondering about it.”
Ian frowned, looked at the cigar turned to ash that he’d left in the ashtray. “He didn’t say much about it. Might have talked to Dad about it, though. Dad’s been keeping to his bed lately. He’s taking this very hard, Superintendent. Simon was like a son to him. Trite sounding, but it’s true. I hope you don’t have to question him today.”
“Not if you think I shouldn’t. I can come back.”
“I appreciate that; it’s so tough for him-” He knocked the worm of ash into the tray.
Marie-France Muir, Simon’s sister, sat at the head of the table in the chair Ian Tynedale had just vacated. Jury was on her right. The romance of her name was almost borne out by the melancholy air, the pale, nearly translucent complexion, the fine, forlorn gray eyes.
For Marie-France, the appearance, he was fairly sure, was the reality. That what one saw was what one got. So, looked at that way-her unmade-up face, her literal answers-it might be honesty at its most banal, but honesty nonetheless. He should at least be as direct in his questions.