Martha Grimes - The Blue Last

Jury thought Simon Croft must have had quite a bit of money to live in this large house backing onto the Thames. Behind the house was a short pier jutting out over the river; fifty or sixty feet beyond it was a boat, anchored. How had the owner ever got the London Port Authority to permit a private boat to anchor there? The Thames was still a working river, after all. The boat looked as if it were drifting there in a gray mist.

Mickey Haggerty waited in what Jury supposed was the library, considering the books and the dark wood paneling. Bookshelves lined the walls, except for the wall behind the table, in which a bow window looked out over the river. Jury could see the boat through this window. There was a large walnut writing table inset with dark-green leather. Simon Croft’s body had fallen forward across this green leather. Blood had pooled on the desk, dripped down onto the floor beside his chair. His left arm was reaching out and beside his hand lay a 9mm automatic.

“It was the cook who found Croft when she came this morning-” Mickey had come up beside him and was flipping over a page in his notebook “-at ten A.M. I’ll tell you…”

But whatever it was remained untold; Mickey just shook his head. Jury said, “You look tired out, Mickey.”

“It’s the bloody medication.”

Jury put his hand on Mickey’s shoulder; he looked pale and exhausted.

Mickey shoved the handkerchief he’d used to wipe his forehead back in his pocket. “I got the call an hour ago. His cook rang the station. Mrs. MacLeish.”

“Where is she now?”

“At the station, answering some questions. She wanted to get away from here. She’s really the Tynedale cook, but comes over here to cook for Croft a couple of days each week.”

“Croft lived here alone?”

Mickey nodded. “He was a broker, very successful. Had his own small-what’s called boutique-firm. One of the few that didn’t get swallowed up by the banks in the eighties. Croft stayed independent. Smart man. He was writing a book about the Second World War. I think he was using the Blue Last as a symbol for the loss of the real Britain, which ‘real’ I think he equated with ale and beer. A slow erosion of the British spirit.”

Jury smiled. “That’s always been the sentimental view.”

“How cynical. Listen, I want a word with the doctor.”

This person had been talking to one of the crime scene officers. Mickey asked him how soon he could do the autopsy.

“Late this afternoon or tomorrow morning, early.”

“Early? I’d appreciate that.”

The doctor smiled fractionally. What Jury remembered about the way Mickey worked was that he never pushed people already pushed to the limit for favors. He often got favors as a consequence.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” said the doctor. “He died somewhere between midnight and four or five A.M.; the rigor’s fairly well established. Body temp and room temp don’t suggest anything delayed or sped up the decomposition. Still, you know how hard it is to fix the time of death. I’ll know better when I do the autopsy. And of course you know it’s no suicide. Whoever tried to make it look like one knows sod all about ballistics.”

“I figured. Thanks.” He nodded to the doctor. Then he said to Jury, “According to this Mrs. MacLeish, Croft was working on a book. He had a laptop and a manuscript and also a card index, notes for the book, which she said was always sitting on the desk. The manuscript sat on that table by the printer.” He paused. “Don’t printers have memory? Anyway, someone, presumably the shooter, nicked all that stuff. At the moment, that’s all I know that was taken.”

“You said before you knew him a little.”

“That’s right-I’ve got to sit down for a minute.” They moved to an armchair in front of an elaborate stereo system. “Not well,” Mickey repeated, again taking out his handkerchief and wiping what looked like cold perspiration from his forehead. “Croft knew me because-you remember? I told you his father, Francis, and my dad were such good friends. Simon there-” Mickey nodded toward the body of Simon Croft “-knew I was in the Job, so asked me if I’d just come by once in a while because he thought someone was trying to get at him. That’s how he put it, ‘get at me.’ But he couldn’t or wouldn’t say who or why. To tell the truth, he struck me as more than a little paranoid. Anyway, I did it; I’ve come by here maybe five or six times.” Mickey shook his head. “Obviously, I was wrong. Someone was trying to get at him. Someone did. It makes me feel bad, Rich, really bad. I should’ve taken it more seriously.” He shook his head. “Look over here.”

Mickey rose and Jury moved with him to the raised window behind the desk where Mickey pointed out chipped paint along the sill and obvious gashes on the outside that looked made by a knife. “Whoever did this is a real amateur. We’re supposed to think it was a break-in. But look at the way the marks go. It was done from inside, not out. Like I said, a real amateur.” Mickey moved to talk to the police photographer, and Jury looked at the CDs spread out across the table on which the stereo sat. Without touching them, he let his eyes stray over them. Simon Croft was not so careful about their arrangement as he was about his books. There must have been a dozen or more CDs out of their cases. Jury smiled. Vera Lynn, Jo Stafford, Tommy Dorsey’s band. All of the music was popular in the Second World War. “We’ll Meet Again,” “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” He’d been too little to take them in when they first came out, but later, yes, he remembered. “Yesterday,” yes, he certainly recalled that. But wasn’t that song much later? In his mind’s eye he saw again Elicia Deauville dancing by herself in her white nightgown. She was eight years old. Eight or nine? Given all the activity behind him in the room, it surprised him how well he could mute the sounds to an incomprehensible cloud of talk, and hear “Yesterday.” And see Elicia Deauville through that hole in the wall. It was her hair that was so astonishing. It was tawny, but several shades of it-taffy to gold to copper, amazing hair. He thought she had lived next door to them on the Fulham Road, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Had it happened? Was he there?

Mickey was beside him. “It’s meant to look like a robbery-” Mickey shoved at the glass slivers with the toe of his shoe “-yet the only thing of any value missing is a Sony laptop. The watch he was wearing was worth more than that. Not a Rolex, that other one that costs as much as a small car. You know?”

“Piaget?”

“That’s the guy. See those pictures?” Mickey pointed out a small painting propped against the books on one shelf. “Bonnard. That one-” he indicated another on the top shelf, ultramarine water, yellow so heavy it looked like the weight of the sun “-Hopper, no not Hopper-the other one-Hockney, that’s it. David Hockney. Those two paintings are easily transported. Who in hell would rob the room and leave those behind?”

“Did they take anything besides the computer? Computer-related stuff? Diskettes?”

Mickey called to one of the crime scene officers. “Johnny? Did you find any computer diskettes?”

“No,” said Johnny. “Not used, but there were some new ones, that’s all, sealed.”

Jury scanned the desk, the shelves. “No manuscript? No notes? Didn’t you say he was writing a book about the Second World War?”

“You think he turned up something someone didn’t want turned up?”

“Don’t you? Everything associated with the writing of it appears to be gone. And that’s all that’s gone. The man must have had hard copy, some, at least. A historical event calls for research; research calls for notes. You saw him-when? A couple of weeks ago?”