“Liza, listen. I think I can answer your question. This case, he needs it; he needs to be engulfed by it; he needs something larger than life. It isn’t just this case. It could have been any case. When I talked to him in his office he needed a case that would make him think because he didn’t want to think about himself.”
“He’s taking the case so personally, though.”
“His father was a good friend of Francis Croft. In that way, it is personal.”
“God, what the hell difference does it make if this woman is or isn’t who she says she is? He’s probably wrong anyway.”
“I don’t think so.”
Liza looked surprised. “You mean you think the woman isn’t this man’s daughter?”
“Granddaughter. I don’t think she is, no.”
She sat back, drank the brandy. “It’s just so consuming…” Her voice trailed off.
“So is the disease. Maybe he needs something outside of himself to match it.” It was what he’d said before, different words. He wasn’t convincing Liza, that was plain. He wasn’t convincing himself.
Thirty-five
To the frustration of the mini-cab driver, Boring’s, in its narrow Mayfair street, was identifiable only by its number and an old street lamp at the bottom of the steps. Its members apparently felt that if you didn’t know where Boring’s was, you probably shouldn’t be going to it.
Melrose paid the driver a monstrous sum for carting them all over the West End searching for the club and added a monstrous tip because he, Melrose, did not speak Senegalese; he had been quite obliging, at least, from what Melrose could make out.
It was by now a little after seven o’clock. He had his room on the first floor and took the stairs two at a time, feeling quite youthfully athletic after his afternoon in the open air. While he was slamming drawers around looking for his silver cufflinks, he reminded himself the afternoon hadn’t been entirely given over to exercise. There were the intervals around the pond and the beech tree.
In the Members’ Room, several elderly men sat in various stages of predinner expectancy, with their predinner whiskeys or gins. Melrose spotted Colonel Neame in his usual chair by the fire. The feet jutting out from the other wing chair undoubtedly belonged to Major Champs, Colonel Neame’s lifelong friend. He had met both of them last year at about this time; it had been in November. They were fixtures. But then all of the members were pretty much fixtures. A thin blade of fear creased Melrose’s heart as he wondered if he too would become one.
The old men were gazing dreamily into the blazing fire when Melrose walked up and said, “Colonel Neame,” and smiled down at the white-haired man with the rubicund face. “Major Champs,” he said to the other.
Both of them started and began their slow acceleration into speech: “Um… uh… wha… well… um… um. My boy!”
Colonel Neame, his monocle falling from his eye and suspended by its black cord, was the first to utter actual words: “I say-will you look who’s here, Champs! Delighted, delighted!”
Both of them rose to insist Melrose join them. Melrose, on his part, insisted on buying the drinks. This was met with happy-sounding umphs, ums, lovely. Melrose beckoned the young porter over, young by Boring’s standards, all of whose staff were fairly over the hill. His name was Barney and he had bright ginger hair.
Melrose took the club chair on the other side of Major Champs as Barney went off to fetch the drinks. While they waited, they settled down to talk about something or nothing as to health and well-being; it mattered little just as long as drinks were on their way and pipes and cigars were to hand and lighted. Then the drinks came and approval rose from the chairs like smoke signals. Thought need not play much of a role in all of this, but Melrose was about to do it when a familiar voice sounded at his back.
“Good evening, Colonel Neame, Major Champs, Lord Ardry.”
“Ah! Superintendent Jury!” Neame rose and Champs almost did, stopped in midrise by a laborious wheeze.
Neame went on. “We’re relieved it’s only dinner that brings you here tonight and not police business.”
“My presence reminds you of Mr. Pitt, I expect. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, don’t apologize, Superintendent. Everything reminds me.”
“Must you go through that ‘Lord Ardry’ business?”
Jury drank the wine Plant had ordered, a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet which was open and breathing on their table when they walked in. “That’s how those two know you. You’re the one introduced yourself as Lord Ardry. You don’t want to disillusion them, do you?”
Young Higgins tacked their way with a tray of soup.
“Oxblood.”
“No surprise.”
And they didn’t discuss the case until their bowls were empty, Jury ladling up his in less than a minute.
“I’m starving,” he said, then looked at Melrose, who was rummaging in his pockets. “You’re not going to smoke, are you?” His tone was vexed as a teacher’s on having discovered graffiti on her blackboard.
“No-o,” Melrose said, acerbically. “One doesn’t smoke between courses. It’s bad manners. But you always said somebody else smoking didn’t bother you.”
Jury frowned. “Well, it does. For some reason.” He was quite gloomy tonight.
“It’s your friend.”
“What?”
“Your friend, in the City police, this DCI Haggerty. You’re thinking about his smoking and his cancer, even if it is isn’t specifically lung cancer.”
Jury was silent, looking at Melrose. “You’re right. Why didn’t I work that out?”
“Because he’s your friend.” They both took a swallow of wine. “Boring’s wine cellar is up to snuff, I’ll say that.”
Young Higgins was back with their dinners, which he set before them. Roast chicken, peas, potatoes, cauliflower, the vegetables in a silver serving dish. They thanked him appreciatively.
Jury said, “I just had a drink with Liza-that’s his wife. She’s in a bad way.”
“Because of him.”
“Because of him, yes. Not just the cancer itself, but his emotional balance. She says it’s changed.”
“I expect mine would change too if I knew I was going to die in a few months.”
“That’s what I told her.” Jury swallowed the rest of his wine and set the glass down. “I don’t think it’s even going to be a ‘few’ months. I don’t think it’ll be that long.”
Melrose looked at him. “That’s-I’m sorry.”
Jury took a deep breath. “How did you get on at the Lodge?”
“Lovely. Spent a lot of my time with Gemma Trimm. She’s clearly taken with you. As usual.” Melrose sighed.
Jury laughed. “What the hell does that mean? ‘As usual’?”
“Nothing. Listen, little Gemma told me how she could get into the cottage-you know, Kitty Riordin’s-whenever our Kitty comes to Oxford Street for a spot of shopping. She offered to get me in there.”
“I hope you took her up on it.”
Melrose made a face. “No, not right then, at least.”
“You’re a poor candidate for a B and E.”
Smugly, Melrose said, “That’s just what I told her.”
“I see you started out on the right foot with a child. As usual.”
“What’s that mean? ‘As usual’?”
Jury smiled. “Nothing.”
Melrose speared a new potato. “Do you think it’s remotely possible that she could be related? I’m thinking of-”
“Great-granddaughter?” Jury sat back. “The thing is, Oliver Tynedale’s not the sort of man who’d hide the fact this little girl is his great-granddaughter. Whatever the reason for her abandonment-that she was illegitimate, or whatever-it wouldn’t bother him; he’d tell the world.”
“He couldn’t tell the world if he didn’t know it himself.”
“You mean someone maneuvered Gemma into the household?”