“Good lord, that’s a bit of a change of subject. Evacuated to where? This is the kind of place people got evacuated to. Anyway, no. I wasn’t born yet,” said Melrose.
“So you don’t remember?”
“That generally is the case with the unborn. Why?”
Jury was looking at the snapshot of Kitty Riordin holding the baby Maisie (if she was Maisie). “I’m just trying to sort the identity of someone born then. Whether the mother of this baby is one woman’s or another’s.”
“Offer to cut it in half. It worked for Solomon.”
“I knew you’d help.” Jury was looking now at the snapshot of Alexandra and Francis Croft. “Do you know what a screen memory is?”
“Yes, a recollection of Agatha walking through the door as she did just now. That’s a scream memory if ever there was one.”
“Not ‘scream,’ ‘screen.’ ”
“Screen? Oh. Isn’t that a Freudian concept? The idea being one throws up an image to mask another image too painful to be let into consciousness. Is this about the women and the unfortunate babe?”
“No, not really.” It’s more about me. “Look, I’ve got to be going-”
“You picked just the time. Agatha is heading for the telephone.”
“Right. Are you really going to Florence?”
“Yes, of course. As Diane says, see Florence and die.”
“Right. ’Bye.”
“Richard! Richard! Come away from there, love; it’s too dangerous!”
The street was barely recognizable, almost leveled, flattened, not a building remaining. Small fires burned all across this expanse of concrete and rubble, as if fallen stars had ignited.
“Richard!”
His mother’s voice. He should have left. But there were too many fascinating things out here, the dusk festooned with tiny winking lights. She still called. He still stayed, rooting through broken concrete, through rubble…
His mother called again…
Had that street, that building, that voice been a screen memory? But for what? The memory of finding his mother under all of that rubble, that was what should have been screened, shouldn’t it?
“Sir?”
Jury looked up from the snapshots and the file at Wiggins, who was setting newspapers down on his desk.
“You all right? You look kind of squiffy.”
“Squiffy? What’s that? Where’ve you been all morning, anyway?”
“Collecting these old newspapers you asked for.” Wiggins’s frown suggested his superior might be totally out of it.
“Oh. Sorry. I forgot.” He sorted through Danny Wu’s file again, closed it and tapped his chin. “Want some lunch? I mean something beyond that row of black biscuits, oat cakes, rye crisp and whatever liquid refreshment you added eye of newt to?” Jury nodded toward a glass of dark green stuff.
Wiggins looked hurt.
Jury smiled. “I was thinking of lunch at Ruiyi.”
The frown disappeared and Wiggins’s face lit up. There were few places he’d want to visit more than Danny Wu’s restaurant, an idea shared with a great many Londoners. Ruiyi was the best Chinese restaurant in Soho, and generally one of the best in London. There was always a line. For all of his health nuttiness, Wiggins really perked right up in the presence of MSG, at least Danny’s MSG.
While Jury was up and donning his coat, Wiggins crumbled half a black biscuit into his thickish, green, anodyne drink.
Telling himself not to ask, Jury asked, “What’s that?”
“Kava Kava, very good for relaxation, calming down. I should take some along to Ruiyi.” He shook his arms into his coat. “Danny Wu might like it. You know how these Asian gentlemen are about calm, peace, that sort of thing.”
“And tiger bone. This particular Asian gentleman would jettison calm, peace of mind and levitation for a Michelin two-star and a fast car any day.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, sir.” Wiggins laughed and followed Jury out the door.
“You don’t have to. I just did.”
Struck by the literalism virus.
Wiggins drove smooth as foam on a Guinness, turning from Victoria Street into Grosvenor Place toward Piccadilly. He asked Jury about Mickey Haggerty, whom Wiggins had known, too. Jury told him.
“My God, chronic myelogenous, that’s the worst kind of leukemia. It’s so aggressive, gets into the bones. There must be something they can do.”
“Mickey says not…”
“But-his wife, his kids. He’s got five, hasn’t he? How will they ever manage? I hope he has insurance. With five children-”
“Four. His oldest daughter died in that car crash, if you remember. And I have an idea he doesn’t have much insurance; I think he probably had to spend everything he made. One son’s supposed to be going to Oxford; there’s also a teenage daughter and two grand-children they’ve been taking care of since their parents were killed in the crash.”
“That’s a hell of a lot to have on your platter in any circumstances, but in these…” Wiggins could only shake his head. He added, “Wasn’t his wife with City police too?”
“No, with the Met. Detective sergeant, I think.”
“Move!” Wiggins shouted. Driving exerted a nonsalubrious effect on Wiggins. In front of them, an old-age pensioner whose gray head barely cleared the driver’s seat (so that the Volvo appeared unoccupied) was dithering about trying to decide on which exit to take from Piccadilly Circus. The ordinarily sanguine Sergeant Wiggins showed hidden springs of aggressiveness and hostility behind the wheel.
Finally, the Volvo turned off toward Leicester Square and proceeded to gum things up there, nearly plowing into a wave of pedestrians who (to do the old driver justice) couldn’t care less about the flashing red NO WALK indicator up there attempting to stop them. Wiggins turned off into Shaftesbury Avenue.
Ruiyi was on a heavily trafficked corner in Soho. Wiggins pulled into a handicapped parking spot, switched off the engine and rooted through the glove compartment. He pulled out a handicapped sign and stuck it on the rearview mirror.
“Where’d you get that?” Jury asked as they got out of the car.
Wiggins sniggered. “I am a policeman, after all.”
“Yes, and as one, you can pretty much park wherever you want to, anyway.”
The line was long and out the door of the restaurant. “Bugger all,” muttered Wiggins.
Jury shoved around Ruiyi’s patrons, followed by Wiggins, catching a few black looks, a few snarls and a temper tantrum from a man (who’d had the benefit of several pints before lunch) who had “a mind to signal that copper right across the street.” Upon which, Jury broke out his ID and shoved it up to the fellow’s face, saying, “I am the copper right across the street, mate.”
Through the door, Wiggins said, “We shouldn’t be doing this, sir, stealing a march on all of these people-”
Jury bestowed his own black look on the sergeant as they moved up undeterred.
The elderly waiter who always showed them to a table had been about to seat the couple at the head of the line. But seeing Jury and Wiggins, he held out one arm to bar the couple from stepping up and with the other arm hastened Jury and Wiggins to the only vacant table.
Jury sniggered (as had Wiggins, a few minutes ago) when he heard the couple demand to see the manager. As the manager was Danny Wu, a precious lot of good it would do them to complain about “those two” getting the table they should have had.
Wiggins opened the menu and sighed. It was the same copious list of offerings as always. It was tall and narrow and eight pages long. Wiggins always read it with the reverence a Hasidic Jew might read the Talmud. He listened to the specials the elderly waiter recited and couldn’t make up his mind. The waiter shuffled off to get the tea.