They had crossed the wide street, garnering a few curious glances from people in cars-why all this traffic?-but not curious enough to stop. They were right by Waterloo Bridge and, after descending a few more steps, right under it. Gemma was astonished to see all of these sleeping forms. People under the bridge. She thought she must be in the middle of a fairy tale. Then she wondered if these were the “homeless” she’d heard spoken of. About them she had always had a kind of shifting image of men and women wandering around dazed, looking for their houses, the places they had nearly forgotten, or been forgotten by.
The thing was, Gemma had scarcely been out in the wide world after she had first walked into Tynedale Lodge. The only person who’d have taken her out to parks and stores and films was too sick now to do it. The others most of the time didn’t seem to know she was around. But the staff did; Mr. Barkins didn’t like her, but Rachael the maid took her out to do Christmas shopping, which Gemma loved. That was how she’d found David Copperfield to give to Benny. Miss Penforwarden was just as nice as Benny said she was. She sat Gemma and Rachael down and gave them tea and some little cakes. She talked to Rachael while Gemma walked around the store, dazzled by all of the books. Mr. Tynedale had a library, it was true, but not all of these shelves with books front and back.
Christmas! It must be after midnight by now, so that meant today was Christmas Day! Sparky was rooting around one of the sleepers and when this person finally sat up Gemma was astonished to see Benny. She nearly dropped Richard. Was there no end to the astonishments of this night? Was it to be one thing right after another, horrible and wonderful in their turn?
“Benny!”
His voice was sleepy. “Gemma?” He shook his head, then looked from Sparky to Gemma and back again.
Now, faced at last with an actual person who could help her, Gemma felt a floodgate open and a squall of tears took hold of her. “Someone tried to kill me!”
Forgetting the very strange occurrence of Gemma’s appearing in the middle of the night under Waterloo Bridge, all Benny could say was, “Not again!” before he fell right back on his pallet.
Fifty-three
The knock on the door wrenched Jury from a sleep as deep and as soft as the down comforter that covered him and the Italian sheets he lay between. The knock was followed by Ruthven’s entrance, in robe and slippers, to tell the superintendent he had a phone call and to place a telephone by his bed.
Last night, Ruthven had brought him a nightcap on a silver tray and asked him if he required anything else. Looking around, Jury had said, “Only to stay in this room in my declining years.”
Ruthven had tittered and remarked that the superintendent offered no visible signs of any decline.
The room, Jury thought, as he’d looked around it, was an antidote to a life of lumpy mattresses, threadbare carpets, sprung sofas. One wall was filled with shelves of books and, at intervals along those shelves, small brass lamps were bolted, to cast light on whatever section one might want to explore. In front of the bookshelves sat a leather arm chair of a red so deep it was black in the shadows, and a table to hold one’s tea cup or one’s whiskey glass. It was an arrangement that all but begged the room’s occupant to pluck out a book and sit down. The wall opposite this was full of windows and velvet curtains. Jury had looked down at a white and crumbling statue in the rear garden by a small pool overhung with willows. All in all, this was the most romantic room Jury had ever seen, the most complete, the most becalmed. He thought, climbing into the sensuous bed the night before, that he could sleep for a year.
Instead, this telephone appeared at 3:30 A.M. with a call from the City police. It was Mickey, who told Jury what had happened-or as much as he knew-and to whom. “But she won’t tell anybody the details, except you or Ambrose. Who’s Ambrose?” asked Mickey.
“A friend. How can she be so cool about it? My God, she’s only nine.”
“Don’t forget the dog; he can’t be more than two or three.”
Jury was already standing by this time. He said, “I’ll be right there.”
“At Croft’s house. The kids are here. You apparently know these kids; they certainly know you. I’d like to get more than monosyllables out of the girl.”
“Ask the dog.”
“Very funny.”
“Miss Tynedale, a.k.a. Riordin, has been taken to hospital. Couple of bumps on the head, but nothing serious. She’s awake but not talking. The one I want to go after is her mother. What about the kids?”
“Right now I think they should go home, have some Horlick’s, go to bed. That poor little girl must be in a state.”
Mickey turned away from the phone; Jury could hear Gemma’s voice quite clearly, and clearly objecting. “She hates Horlick’s, wants a cup of black coffee. And they want to stay here until you come.”
“Okay, but tell them they’ve got to lie down somewhere in the house and get some sleep.”
Mickey laughed. “It’s obvious you don’t have kids, Richard.”
Jury felt oddly stung by that comment. But he didn’t answer, Yet it’s me they want to talk to, Mickey. All he said was good-bye.
Melrose Plant was not only awake, but dressed and with a pot of coffee when Jury got downstairs. “Ruthven told me it was the police.”
“Haggerty. Thanks.” Jury drank down the coffee in one go. “Gemma Trimm was abducted-”
Melrose started up from his chair.
“-but she’s perfectly okay now. She wants to see you and me.”
Melrose collected his car keys and his coat. “Let’s go, then.” He stuck his arms into the sleeves of his black cashmere overcoat.
Jury said, “You’ve got your black clothes on again.”
“Ah! But these are different black clothes.”
“Cool. Let’s go, dude.”
They headed out into the frosty predawn morning.
The house flooded the river with light and a strong police presence in the form of a dozen or more men and women, uniformed and plain clothes, stood near the house and down on the dock.
“Where’s DCI Haggerty?”asked Jury.
“Gone to Tynedale Lodge to collect the Riordin woman,” said a detective sergeant whose name was Knobbs and who didn’t like Jury. Or, at least, didn’t like New Scotland Yard’s presence.
Jury wondered-but not aloud-if picking up Kitty Riordin was premature.
“The kids are in the library. Here, I’ll show you-”
“No need, Detective. I’ve been here before. Thanks.”
Knobbs was giving Melrose Plant a careful scrutiny. Jury didn’t bother with introductions. “He’s mine.”
“Your what?” asked Melrose, as they moved off toward the library.
When they walked in, Gemma and Benny bounced up. Gemma was flinging black looks at Jury, sweet ones at Melrose.
Benny started in: “I never heard nothing like it, Mr. Jury. How Gemma here got off that boat-”
Jury knelt down and put his hands on her arms. “What happened, love?”
Looking mad as a hornet, Gemma said, “They were going to kill me is all. They made me their prisoner and gave me bread and water.”
“And cheese, you said,” said Benny.
“Benny, I’m telling it. It was only a little cheese. I was on that boat out there-” she pointed “-and I’d probably have died except for Richard.”
Jury smiled. “I’m glad I was some kind of help, though I can’t see-”
“You? You didn’t do nothing! You’d have just let me be killed. I mean Richard here. She stuck the doll in Jury’s face, and then, thinking better of it she started slugging Jury, giving him some whacks in the chest, then yelling, “You knew something bad could happen to me and you just left, you just left!” She was flailing, kicking Jury’s legs, pummeling his chest. Crying, tears flying everywhere. “You’re not any good. Ambrose helped me more than you did. Even Sparky helped save me!”