“Is this business or pleasure, sir? Is Danny Wu in more trouble?”
Jury shook out his red napkin and said, “Danny’s always in the same amount of trouble: up to his chest, but not his chin, leaving him plenty of room to maneuver. Haven’t you taken a look at his file?”
“Not since he came under suspicion when that murder occurred in Limehouse. D’ya think he might have Mafia connections?”
“He’s got connections to the Triads, to Whitehall, to Downing Street and most certainly to Victoria Street. I’m not suggesting he belongs to the Mafia or that he freelances for them.”
“You said Victoria Street: but that’s us.”
“ ‘Us’ is right. Not specifically you and me, but someone.”
“How do you-?”
A brown little nut of an old waitress set down tea in a burnt sienna clay pot and two little cups, into which she poured out molten amber.
“How do you work that out, sir?” Wiggins spooned two well-rounded teaspoons of sugar into his tiny cup.
“Have you ever seen this restaurant closed? I mean closed down?”
Wiggins’s brow furrowed as he sipped his tea. “Never, to my knowledge.”
“All anyone would have to do is shriek because a mouse skittered over her shoe and Public Health would come along and slap a CLOSED sign on the door. The obvious way to get Danny to ‘help with our inquiries’ would be to put him out of business. You wouldn’t even need the mouse; all you’d need is a bent Public Health inspector. Cheers.” Jury drank his tea.
Danny Wu was suddenly, almost magically, at their table, dressed with the usual elegance.
“Stegna?” asked Wiggins.
“Right,” said Danny. “How is it you are so conversant with Italian design?”
“From observing mine,” said Jury. “Oxfam.”
Danny laughed and said, “You’re a man clothes do not make, Superintendent.”
“Is that a compliment?” Jury smiled, remembering that this was a Carole-anne question: Is that one of your compliments, then?
Wiggins said, “I like to have a walk along Upper Sloane Street, pop into Harvey Nick’s occasionally.”
With a raised eyebrow, Jury said, “Harvey Nick’s, is it? Well, you’ve certainly picked up the Upper Sloane Street lingo, even if you haven’t picked up Hugo Boss or Ferragamo.”
Danny made his recommendations from that day’s specials-Crispy Fish with brown sauce and Jeweled Duck. Wiggins took one, Jury the other. Danny relayed the order in rapid-fire Cantonese to the little woman who’d brought the tea. To Jury exchanges in that language always suggested a show-down, as if the participants had whipped out Uzis and fired away. Danny turned back to them, asked, “Is this visit business or pleasure?”
“Both, you could say. I’m interested in the alleged theft of paintings in the Duncan collection. Formerly, I should say, in his collection. And the consequent murder of the chauffeur driving the limo used to transport the paintings. This occurred in Wapping near the Town of Ramsgate. Wapping Old Stairs is where the chauffeur was found by Thames police.”
“How do you know whoever stopped this limousine was after the paintings?”
“For the simple reason that they were gone.”
Danny shrugged, the barest movement of his Stegna-clad shoulders. “That could have been a mere cover. Maybe they were after the chauffeur.”
At that point steaming, silver-domed dishes were delivered to the table. Danny quickly lifted each dome and checked the contents, then, in another dialect blitz, sent back the duck.
“Is it time for me to complain about police harassment?” asked Danny, in his impeccable English
“It’s been time for a long time. Trouble is, my guv’nor likes you for the murder of that pimp in Limehouse last year.”
“Ah! So he’s the mastermind behind all this.”
“Not all. But some. What did you send the Jeweled Duck back for?”
“Diamonds were paste. You’ll pardon me?”
He was off across the room to the couple who’d complained when Jury and Wiggins had preempted their table. Even though they had by now been seated and were tucking into an array of dishes, they were still angry. After Danny said a few words, they smiled and went back to their dinners. Danny had no doubt said their meal was on the house.
Nineteen
The last time Jury had been to Newcastle was several years before (he hated to think how many) when he’d worked a case in Durham. Old Washington. Jerusalem Inn. Stop while you’re ahead. Each name hit him with its little hammer blow as he stepped from the train down to the platform. Today there weren’t many passengers. He thought he would go in the station buffet and have a drink. He knew he was fortifying himself and disliked the idea. But he did it anyway.
For years he had been sending his cousin sums of money, which did little to endear him to her. She would hate to be in some way dependent upon him; he, after all, had once been the interloper; he had been the charity case.
Brendan, her husband, really did exert himself to get a job. And it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t had work in over a year. Jury knew this. Jury had gone with him once to the joke shop to look at their scant offerings. Brendan told him he was always checking with the agencies, too, never passed one, with its job “opportunities,” the cards taped up in the window announcing jobs that seemed to dissolve once you put your foot across the sill. Brendan had worked for maybe one year out of the last five. He was a nice bloke, Brendan was, who managed to hold on to a sense of humor. He loved Jury to visit for it was someone to go to the pub with, someone with money. Jury was glad to pay for the drinks for he knew Brendan genuinely liked him. Jury, after all, was “family,” which meant he was someone Brendan could be honest with.
In the station buffet, Jury got his pint refilled.
Even leaving off how high ranking he was in the police, the ones sitting in this buffet would envy him every day of their bloody lives. Imagine that one at the bar eating a sausage roll, think how he would like having digs in London where he could come and go as he wanted, not a wife who keeps letting him know what a failure he is, and no screaming kids. Imagine being able to lock the door, or go down to the pub, money and then some, to come back on his own or with someone…
Jury smiled (sure), finished his pint and left.
His cousin’s flat was located in a big red-brick house. Above the landing outside the front door were affixed six mailboxes, one for each of the flats the renovation had squeezed from its formerly spacious interior. Brendan and Sarah occupied one of the two flats on the top floor, three flights up. There was no lift. The stairs were dark except for the landing between the first and second. Every time Jury had been here, he had replaced one or more burned-out bulbs that were supposed to light the landings. It was dangerous, he’d told her, for she could make a misstep, fall and break something.
“I live by missteps,” she’d replied. It had made Jury smile, that way of putting it.
He had hoped it would be Brendan answering the door, but Brendan was out, “Looking,” Sarah said. “Come on in.”
“At least be glad he’s looking. Most aren’t.” Jury removed his coat and let it fall on a nubby-textured dark green chair.
Sarah had picked up a pale blue pillow from a blue armchair. The pillow was embroidered iris and she stood clutching it to her breasts as if some attack were imminent. But she was always like this with him. Sarah was full of these defensive gestures. She was a tightly wound woman who must be by now in her early sixties, yet for all of the strain and stress life caused her, not looking that old. If time, like acid, had scored deep grooves around her nose and mouth, she was still blessed with a sort of silky hair that even in turning gray was the soft color of autumn smoke.