Martha Grimes - The Blue Last

“Still…” Mickey sighed.

“How is Liza?” She was Mickey’s wife when Jury met her. Liza had been with the Met herself, detective sergeant, and a very good one. She’d gotten pregnant and given up the Job.

“Wonderful. Liza knows what it is, what it’s like. She knows. It’s almost like she can read my mind; her intuition is almost magical. She knows what this is like, too.” Mickey fisted his hand and made light hammering blows against his chest. “And she doesn’t go on about my smoking. People do, my mates do, as if stopping the fags would save my life. They’ve given me a new painkiller which is an improvement on the other.”

Jury would have thought the doctors at least could eliminate pain, if nothing else. “Do you get a lot of pain?”

“Some.” Mickey swirled the dregs of his coffee.

Some, of course, meant a lot. As if, as if.

“Nothing’s gonna stop this. It’s everywhere now, in blood and bone.”

“I’m sorry, Mickey. I really am.” Jury felt it, too. What a loss it was going to be. What on earth would Liza and the children do without him? “How are the kids with all this?”

“They’re great. I’m proud of them, too.”

One of Mickey’s children was grown and married and gone to another country. Then there were the twins, a boy and a girl who’d lived after a car crash had killed both their parents, Mickey and Liza’s daughter and son-in-law. That had happened two years ago. Jury supposed the twins were no more than six or seven now. In addition, there were two others, one in her late teens, a boy readying himself for university. Mickey had too many responsibilities.

“Peter is going to Oxford next year. I’m really happy about that.”

Although you couldn’t easily tell it, Mickey had read literature there. He loved poetry, was always pulling out a line here and there.

“Beth, she’s already talking about London University. Clara and Toby-the twins-are in public school.” He moved his gaze from whatever lay outside the window to Jury. “Liza will probably go back to the Met; well, she’ll have to do something because my bloody pension sure won’t do it. Not as far as Oxford goes, that’s certain. I don’t like being forced to think about all this, know what I mean? Of course, I’d think about it anyway, but in the abstract, kind of. I’d think but I wouldn’t have to feel everything ending.” He pushed his cup away. “I really need a drink.” He barked out a laugh. “Well, at least I can stop worrying about whether I have a drinking problem. ‘Drinking problem.’ I love that euphemism. That last round I did with the chemo they thought might have stopped it. I went into remission for a while. I thought I might even have it licked. I didn’t.

“There’s a chilling side effect to this cancer. People don’t want to be around it; they feel they should do something but don’t know what the something is. They steer clear; they cross the street, metaphorically, and maybe even literally. It amazes me that my mates, my colleagues, who’ve seen every form of violent death, who walk with it every day-they can’t take this.”

“Because it’s a lot closer to home, Mickey. Because they’re your mates, your friends.”

Mickey looked at him, smiling. “You’re my friend, too, Rich, but you’re here. I love this fragment:

The world and his mother go reeling and jiggling forever

In answer to something that troubles the blood and the bone.

Written on the wall of an Irish pub, that was. The three of us should’ve been there together.”

The expression in Mickey’s eyes when he said this was so utterly confident of Jury’s friendship, Jury knew he would do whatever it took to help him.

Keeper’s Cottage was small but comfortable. Jury was standing in the living room beyond which he saw a kitchen; upstairs (he guessed) would be one large bedroom and a bath, not en suite.

Kitty Riordin invited him to sit down and offered to get him tea. He thanked her but declined.

A table at Jury’s elbow held several silver-framed pictures, together with a few pieces of milky blue glass. The pictures were of the Tynedale family, the largest of Maisie herself.

“You’re here about Simon Croft.” It wasn’t a question. Her expression went from soft to sober. “I was… I couldn’t quite take it in.” Her hand clenched and pressed against her breast in a gesture that was very much like Mickey’s had been. As if she were in mourning, she was dressed in black; around the collar of the dress was a bit of ocher ruffle, which softened the effect. The dress was old-fashioned, as was she herself, a cameo of a person.

She said, “It’s unbelievable that anyone could have murdered him.”

“Then you know of no one he’d had a falling out with?”

With an impatient gesture, she waved this away. “I’ve been with the family for over fifty years, Superintendent. Of course, I don’t know everything about their private lives-well, obviously I don’t.”

“How often did you see Simon Croft?”

“Not often. When he came here, sometimes.”

“And did he come regularly?”

“Hm. He’s very fond of Oliver Tynedale.”

“Who would inherit Mr. Croft’s money?”

Almost before the words were out, she laughed. “Oh, good lord, Superintendent. I hope you’re not looking for the murderer there?”

Jury smiled. “I often do. Nothing speaks louder than money, certainly not conscience.”

“In this case, you’d be wasting your time. Everyone in the family has money.”

“What about Maisie?”

Somehow she hadn’t expected this, Jury thought. She flinched. “Maisie has money from her mother. She inherited also from Francis Croft.”

“Does it work that way with these two families? The Tynedales and the Crofts bequeath money not only to the immediate family, but to the other family, too?”

“Yes. After all, they don’t think of themselves as ‘other.’ ”

“Then Simon Croft would have left Maisie and Ian money?”

Exasperated with his seeming obtuseness, she shook her head. “Francis Croft left Alexandra a small fortune, which of course went to Maisie upon her mother’s death. He was as fond of Alexandra as her own father was. I expect my point is, again, that if Simon Croft were murdered for money, it wouldn’t be a member of the family who did it.”

“But upon the death of Oliver Tynedale, Maisie will be a wealthy woman-”

“She’s already a wealthy woman, Superintendent. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Ah, yes. So you indicated. What about you, Mrs. Riordin?”

Kitty Riordin cocked her head. “Did I murder him, do you mean?”

Jury shrugged. “Not to put too fine a point on it, yes. Would Simon Croft have left you any money?”

“I seriously doubt it. But I expect we’ll know one way or the other when his will is read and you can come and arrest me.”

Jury smiled. “Bargain. Actually, what I really meant was, how about your own history? Your husband?”

“My husband, Aiden, was a very silly man. He walked out on me- us-so that he could cavort with the Blackshirts. Oswald Mosley’s followers. How utterly absurd.”

“A lot of people don’t think so. If Hitler had indeed invaded Britain, he would have wanted someone here in place. Who better as a puppet dictator than Mosley?”

“Perhaps you’re right. Anyway, I came over to look for Aiden, found him, took what little money he had with an absolutely clean conscience and never heard from him again.”

“You don’t like foolish people, do you?”

“Do you?”

Jury laughed. “I expect not. I think I’m just trying to make a point about you, Mrs. Riordin. You’re a very competent person. When you came back with Maisie after the bombing and found the Blue Last was smoking rubble, did you search for them? Erin and Alexandra. And Francis Croft?” Jury sat forward, closer to her.