Jury smiled. “She did, yes. She thought that you’d sent me.”
His mouth gaped. He seemed at a loss for words. “Me send you?”
“She needed a policeman, she said. She said somebody was trying to kill her.”
Dramatically, Benny slapped his hand to his forehead. “Gem’s not going on about that with you, is she?”
“I thought you might know something about all of this. Do you?”
“Yeah, I do: I know it’s her imagination, is what I know.”
“What else do you know about her?”
Jury thought from the way the boy wouldn’t meet his eyes that Benny was a little ashamed of not knowing more about Gemma.
“All I know about Gem is, she’s what you call a ward of old Mr. Tynedale. Kind of like being adopted, only it isn’t. Mr. Tynedale really likes Gemma.”
“The others don’t?”
“It’s more that they don’t pay any attention to her. Like she’s invisible.”
“You don’t think that’s her imagination, too?”
Benny shook his head. “No, because that’s even what Mr. Murphy says. He’s head gardener. ‘Like she’s invisible, pore gurl.’ That’s what he said. Cook likes her; so does the maid. And Mr. Murphy, of course. Gem goes up to Mr. Tynedale’s room-he’s sick, see, and keeps pretty much to his bed. She reads to him, reads a lot. Gem’s only nine, but she’s a good reader. She could read this stuff-” he extended his arms to take in the bookshelves “-as good as I could, and I’m pretty good.”
“Does she ever talk about her parents?”
Benny shook his head. “No, never. Sad, that.”
Benny, thought Jury, probably knew a lot about sadness. “None of them so much as mentioned her.” Jury looked around at the shadowy walls, the dull yellow of the wall sconces. This was a very restful little place.
Benny spread his hands. “Like I said, because she’s invisible.”
“I hope not.” Jury sat back, thinking, resting his eyes on the dog Sparky, who had been lying motionless beside Benny’s chair. Sparky, feeling eyes on him, looked up at Jury. Jury thought of the cat Cyril and wondered, not for the first time, if animals weren’t really the superior species.
Benny looked down at Sparky, too, and then at Jury. “I don’t know where she ever got this harebrained idea.”
“Your dog?”
“No, of course not. And he’s not a she.”
“Sorry.”
“I mean Gem. About somebody trying to kill her. She even has them doing it different ways.”
“I know: shooting, smothering, poisoning.”
“Well, it’s daft. I mean, I guess she could be, a little. Then I wonder if maybe it’s something she saw or maybe something that did happen to someone and she made all this up from scraps.”
Jury thought “Sigmund” mightn’t have been a bad name, after all, for Benny.
“Or maybe,” Benny went on, “being ignored or being invisible, well, being shot at or poisoned is just the opposite. You know, the most attention getting.”
“That’s a very smart diagnosis, Benny, except you’re forgetting another possibility.”
“What?”
“Maybe it’s true.”
Seventeen
He wanted to talk to Mickey and thought they must be on the same wavelength when Mickey called and suggested a drink and maybe dinner.
“Liza and I were kicking around the idea of drinks and a meal at the Liberty Bounds, you’ve been there; it’s near the Tower Hill tube station. They’ve got good food.”
Liza. Back then, years ago, he’d had feelings for Liza that crossed the borders of friendship. But she was married to Mickey, so… Jury said, “I haven’t seen her in years, Mickey. As I remember, she was very indulgent when it came to cop talk.”
“Hell, yes. You’ve forgotten she was one? Let’s meet at seven, seven-fifteen? That sound all right?”
“Definitely.”
Jury left the Tower Hill station and arrived at the Liberty Bounds at twenty to seven. He had a pint at the bar, drank that down, then ordered another and carried it over to a table in a window. It was the table in the window that made him think of the Jack and Hammer, though this pub was ten times larger. He pictured them there in Long Pidd: Melrose, Trueblood, Diane, Vivian-
It was while he was thinking of Vivian that he had raised his eyes to the door and seen them walk in-Mickey and Liza Haggerty.
He had forgotten how Liza Haggerty looked. He waved them over and thought his expression must have been rather sappy for Mickey laughed.
“What’s wrong, Richie? You drunk? Or have you forgotten Liza?”
“No way I could forget Liza.” Jury smiled. He also blushed.
So did Liza.
“Waterloo Bridge,” said Jury.
Liza laughed. “What?”
“Ever since someone brought that film up, I’ve been seeing that actress everywhere.”
“Richard.” She laughed and shrugged her coat off.
Jury shook his head. “I’d forgotten how pretty you were, Liza.”
“Oh, don’t let that worry you. He forgets all the time.” She tilted her head in Mickey’s direction. “I’ll have a martini, straight up, with a twist. And tell them I don’t want watered gin, either.” This last she called to Mickey’s departing back.
“Lord, but it’s good to see you both again,” said Jury.
“Yes.” That was all she said, but there was conviction in the word. “Friends shouldn’t lose touch, should they?” Liza’a smile stopped just short of glorious. It must have taken a hell of a lot of courage to smile like that. Serious now, she said, “Mickey told you?”
He nodded. “I’m-” Looking at her, he simply couldn’t say more.
Liza gave him the most sorrowful look he’d ever seen. “I try not to think about it. Having been on the Job once makes it a little easier. I mean, we deal with death so much. We haven’t spent so much time ignoring it; we’ve had to come to grips with it-” It was hollow talk and she knew it.
Mickey was back with the round of drinks.
Liza raised hers as if she were going to toast them, and said, “Don’t they know what a martini glass is?” She shook the stubby whiskey glass. “And there’s ice in it. Mickey? Now why’d you let him do that?”
Mickey threw up his hands in surrender. “I told him, baby, I really did. Just be glad he didn’t use the sweet stuff.”
She took a sip. “I’d say this was three parts vermouth to one part vermouth.”
Jury laughed. “You should have drinks with a friend of mine in Northamptonshire; she was born with a bottle of vodka in one hand and two olives on a stick in the other.”
Mickey said, “Not to change the subject-”
“But you will.”
Mickey smiled and looked at Jury. “You talked to Kitty Riordin. What do you think? Am I right?”
“I agree she could’ve done it.” Jury still hadn’t gotten over the way the woman had smiled, looking at her baby’s picture.
“What I wonder is, does Erin know about all this?”
“You mean Maisie. I don’t know.” Suddenly, he looked at Mickey and laughed. “Hell, Mickey, you sound more interested in this alleged imposture than in the murder itself.”
“Forget ‘alleged.’ You don’t see any connection?”
“With the murder of Simon Croft? Not at the moment.”
“Then maybe money wasn’t the motive.”
“That kind of money? Moneyed money? I’d say it’s always a motive. Few other motives could touch it. The Tynedale inheritance would be one hell of a motive.”
Liza said, “Mickey told me about this case. She would have to be the Medea of all mothers to carry this off for half a century. Now, would someone get me a real martini?” She pushed her glass toward them.
Jury smiled and took her glass and went to the bar, where he stood as the bartender poured a frugal measure of gin. He thought about his walk on Sunday. It had taken him past the site of the old Bridewell Prison, supposedly a “house of correction” for beggars, thieves and harlots. He tried to imagine the hopeless horrible life there. Bridewell was a scandal. The Bridewell orphans-what a way to begin a life. Orphans. He looked back at the table. Then the drinks came.