Martha Grimes - The Old Silent

He rejected the usual openings-I hope you're not catching cold; I've just seen your father, your aunt; are they treating you well. Perhaps her own silences were infecting him.

He began to see the uselessness of that sort of talk. So he said, "I was talking to Commander Macalvie. You remember him, I know. There's probably no way he can avoid testifying."

Was that all? Her vague smile was a little dismissive. "With the Lloyd's banker dead and the superintendent in charge, you mean that he's the only one left who knows about the ransom."

"Knowing him, I don't think the prosecution will relish the testimony, even though they might think they're pulling a plum from the Christmas pudding. They'll be wrong."

She frowned. "Won't this have got him in trouble? To say nothing of you. I know Father called the Wakefield headquarters-"

"I'm always in trouble. At least with my chief."

"Commander Macalvie is very convincing."

"Very."

"And is he usually right?"

"Nearly always." You tell her, Jury. Go ahead . The shots of the boy's skeleton passed before his eyes. "Nearly," Jury repeated. He felt ill. The temptation to show her the magazine, to tell her about the lunch with Charlie, was strong. But he didn't; he couldn't. Partly, it was Macalvie, but partly something else. He couldn't pin down the something else.

"Is that what you came here to tell me?"

"No. I want you to tell me what happened."

Is that all? her little smile said. She had turned her head toward the window. Did she care there were bars? He doubted it. She was no more prisoner in here than she'd been that afternoon a week ago, standing and searching the crippled orchard.

"Friend of mine," said Jury, "was talking about the Greeks. Medea, Jocasta, Clytemnestra. You remember the tale of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon? I mean the whole of it? Agamemnon has always been considered the husband betrayed and murdered."

She seemed amused in his telling of this tale. "And that's true. Are you drawing an analogy with me? Does your friend think I'm as evil as Clytemnestra, then?"

"He was talking about Ann Denholme."

Her expression changed very swiftly, became impassive.

"You knew Abby was her daughter. You also knew Roger was her father. I'm not sure how, but you knew."

She actually smiled. "I murdered him in a fit of jealous rage. Is that it?"

"No. You murdered him because you thought he murdered your son. And not for the reason Agamemnon nearly sacrificed Iphigenia. In that case, it was a sacrifice demanded by the gods. Fortunately, the gods gave him a last-minute reprieve. In this case, there were no gods to appease. And no reprieve. Healey wanted the money."

Her mouth slightly open, she watched his face.

Nell just avoided stumbling as she took a step toward the nearby chair and put her hand on its back. She was too careful to stumble, too controlled to lean.

"Commander Macalvie always thought that you suspected something, that you came to that decision not to pay up with extraordinary swiftness and decisiveness. The kidnapper had to have been someone Billy would have gone with willingly; there wasn't a sound, not even from the dog. You never thought they were taken by force. But who would have believed you, given your husband's near-unimpeachable reputation and your own 'highly susceptible nervous condition'? Obviously, not even your own father. And I wonder who put that idea in his head? You're the only one in that family whose nerves are about as strong as nerves can get. There was no way you could be absolutely certain it was Roger who was behind the kidnapping, but that suspicion together with Commander Macalvie's advice made up your mind."

"You were fairly certain if you paid up, you'd never see Billy again. Or Toby. And you'd never be able to prove it," Jury added. "But if something went wrong, and Roger failed, Billy would be able to identify him. That must have occurred to you."

"Roger never failed," was her bleak response. "If he wanted something."

"Then why did you wait all of these years?"

She looked down at her hands. "It might sound-frivolous. But one reason was that Billy and Toby had been declared 'officially' dead. In that, there was something dreadfully final."

When she stopped, Jury prompted her. "You said 'one reason.' Was there another?"

"Oh, yes. It's the reason I met Roger at the Old Silent. He wrote to me from London, said he wanted to talk about Billy, and he thought it would 'be pleasant' to have dinner at the Old Silent." She raised her eyes. "Absolutely nothing incriminating in such a letter; he phrased it carefully."

"The letter that went into the fire?"

She nodded. "Obviously, he did not want to have dinner. What he wanted was a million pounds." She turned her head to look at the barred window. "In return for information about Billy. He thought he knew, you see, what had happened."

Jury frowned. "But surely the man wasn't reckless enough to admit-"

"Oh, no." With that she rose.

He looked at her for a long moment and said, "You were never, then, one-hundred-percent sure."

"Oh, no." Folding her arms across her breast she half-smiled. "But what would you do to a father who would extort money for information about the disappearance of his own son?"

They stood there with the pale sun throwing shadows of the bars across the table that separated them.

Jury didn't need to answer.

Marshall Trueblood was overjoyed.

He told Melrose over the telephone that all was well with Viv, that she'd forgiven them, that they were to consider themselves reinvited to the wedding. There were, oh, a few little stipulations… They were to promise they would not put into operation one or two of the plans that had apparently been hatching in "those chicken coops you and Melrose call your 'minds.' " That's the way she put it. She's merely polishing up a few ripostes for that epicene count she's intending to let drag her to an early grave… .

What plan? What was she talking about? They had hatched so many between the two of them, Melrose couldn't remember them all.

Vivian had apparently overheard that whispered conversation about "bricks" and "wine cellar," and, of course, since the wedding is during Carnivale, she put two and two together. I told her not to be silly, that I'd have to be a lunatic to try walling up Franco -" I rest my case." That's what she said : " Irest my case ."

… Dior, or Saint Laurent. The gown she's considering buying in London. I told her to wait until she got to Italy and go for an Utrillo. Now I, of course, shall have a right rave up in the Armani shop. You should get rid of those knobbly old tweeds and try Giorgio. Ah, his elegance, his understatement.

Understatement? Not when Trueblood got through with Giorgio.

Must they talk about clothes , for God's sakes? Melrose felt he'd been wardrobed to death this afternoon, listening to the Princess, who, with the Major (still spit-polishing his boots), was now waiting with her steamer trunk for the Haworth cab. Now how the devil was she to get that thing on the train in Leeds? She'd been trying all through breakfast to get Ellen into a perfectly divine frock that Ellen said would make her look as shapely as a tree trunk as she dropped Mrs. Gaskill's life of Charlotte Brontë on the table and pulled on her black leather jacket.

Melrose had helped a rosy-smiling Ruby take out the dishes and cutlery and had carefully arranged napkins round the two egg cups, dropped them in his pockets, and started toward the door. He stopped, pictured Jury's questioning look, and sighed. He went back to the table and wrapped Mrs. Gaskill in his handkerchief.