Hearing his name (what he recalled of it) Sparky rushed over and barked at Jury.
Jury pulled Gemma to him, arms around her, patting her back, saying she was right to be mad and he was sorry. He was terribly, terribly sorry he hadn’t been here, and yes, he should have been looking out for her. Finally, she quieted down, and he gave her his fresh handkerchief.
Melrose said, “I wasn’t here either, Gemma. How did I help?”
She shoved the doll Richard out again as testament to either success or folly. “You got him new clothes.”
“Black,” said Jury.
“And that helped?”
“Well, of course. Before he only had that awful old gown to wear. But his new black clothes make him think.”
“Cool,” said Jury, smiling.
“Way cool,” said Melrose.
And then they all sat down (including Sparky) and Jury and Melrose heard a whale of a good yarn.
Fifty-four
Mickey had taken her to the Snow Hill station. When Jury got there, the two of them were seated in a room furnished with a table and two chairs of tubular steel. The room was painted white, walls and ceiling. The effect was slightly disorienting: a bright, white, scarcely furnished world, absent of warmth, color, kith, kin. A vacancy.
Jury stood against the wall, arms crossed. Kitty Riordin looked up at him with an unreadable expression.
Mickey shoved his pack of Silk Cut toward her, at the same time telling the tape recorder that Jury had just entered. Then he asked, “When did you tell her? How long ago?”
“I didn’t; she found out, she suspected something-call it intuition shored up by old photos and maybe more important, the suspicion that Oliver Tynedale didn’t much like her. For him not to like his own grandchild would be simply impossible. No matter what he or she did. He was like that.”
She spoke not with the lilting grace of an Irish girl, but with the assurance of one long bred to wealth and privilege. It had rubbed off on her, the authority granted by money and power. Ironic that Oliver Tynedale didn’t see money and power in that light at all.
“He didn’t like Erin?”
“He didn’t like her much. Not the way he dotes on that child Gemma, who just walked in off the street.”
“That’s why you took a shot at her? You were afraid she would supplant Maisie-Erin, that is-as a major inheritor of your employer’s money?”
Jury smiled. Nice shot, Mickey. But he didn’t think it was the inheritance altogether; Kitty’s wanting to get rid of Gemma was prompted as much by Gemma’s supplanting Maisie in Oliver’s heart as it was by the Tynedale fortune. Imagine all of that effort-the initial danger of this impersonation, the ongoing anxiety that she might be discovered, the grooming of her daughter Erin, turning her into Maisie Tynedale and breaking into the Tynedale dynasty. The effort of proving that Kitty Riordin wasn’t “pig-track Irish.” Where do we get these notions of who we are? Jury wondered.
“Yes,” Kitty said in answer to Mickey’s question. “All Oliver Tynedale wanted was a granddaughter.”
“So Gemma Trimm comes from nowhere-”
Wryly, Kitty smiled. “What difference does that make? Gemma, you should be able to see, is more of a Tynedale than my Erin would ever have been. Gemma’s tough. I mean really tough. It would take a force of nature, a tidal wave, a tornado, to bring that child down.”
“That’s why you tried again tonight to get her out of the way?”
“She heard me talking to Erin. She heard the name. I had to see Gemma didn’t tell anyone, didn’t I? Erin’s too soft. She really hated leaving the child on that boat. She should have made sure the rowboat was unhitched and let it drift away. That’s what she should have done; instead, she rationalizes it, says there was no way that Gemma could have used it.”
Mickey was silent, looking at her. The silence lengthened; Mickey could be unnerving that way.
“And Simon Croft,” he finally asked.
“What about him?”
Jury’s antennae went up. He shoved away from the wall.
Mickey said, “He found out, right?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then why-?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you shoot him?”
“I didn’t.”
Mickey was half out of his chair, galvanized.
Kitty seemed actually to be amused. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. Simon might have found out something, but that wasn’t it.” Coolly, she dusted a bit of ash from her sleeve. “You’ll just have to start all over again sorting it, so.”
Mickey and Jury looked at one another.
“You said Simon Croft might have found something-?”
“Possibly. Something about Alexandra’s husband.”
“Ralph Herrick. You knew him.”
“Slightly. He was hardly ever at home.”
She stopped and Jury said, “Would you elaborate?” He was surprised that Kitty hadn’t asked for a solicitor during all of this.
“I can’t. I overheard Simon talking to Oliver one day, something to do with Ralph and this book Simon was writing.”
“So it could’ve been anything?” Mickey said this and got up to rove the room.
“Did Alexandra ever mention her other child to you?” asked Jury.
Mickey stopped pacing. He looked at Jury, surprised.
Kitty seemed surprised, too. “Yes. The baby was adopted.”
“What else did she say?”
“She said the experience was a calamity. The worst thing that had ever happened to her.”
“Did she say why?”
Mickey put in, “Maybe because an illegitimate baby would’ve been a hell of a lot less acceptable than it is now.”
“Yes,” said Jury. “But ‘worst thing’? ‘Calamity’? That’s pretty strong for someone in Alexandra’s position. Her father could have fixed anything. And unless I’m wrong about him, Tynedale would have wanted a grandchild.”
“All I know is she said she left for several months, told Oliver she wanted to go around France with a friend. The baby was born on Guy Fawkes night; she liked to pretend all the fireworks were for her. I got the feeling it was very hard on her, giving the baby up.”
They were silent for a while until Mickey said, “You never told Tynedale about this baby. Why not?”
“Why would I have? It would hardly be in my interests, or Erin’s.”
Jury supposed that was how she took the measure of everything.
“Now, haven’t I helped you enough?” She looked from Mickey to Jury. “Especially considering why I’m here.”
Mickey walked over to the door, looked out.
Jury said, “Just one more question. Did anyone else know about this? Did Francis Croft, for instance?” Emily Croft knew, but he didn’t mention that.
“I don’t know. I doubt it.”
Jury was still asking questions when a police constable, a woman, came into the room to take Kitty away. “How was this adoption handled?”
She didn’t answer that; she was led away by the WPC.
It had grown light as they’d been talking to Kitty Riordin. Jury said, “No one has mentioned the father of that illegitimate child. Has it ever occurred to you it just might be Francis Croft?”
Surprise pulled Mickey away from the door Kitty Riordin had walked through. “What? Oh, come on, Rich!”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? What would be the reason for keeping that pregnancy a secret? The only one I can think of is that the father would come as such a shock, be so totally unacceptable to Oliver Tynedale, that Alexandra couldn’t tell him.”