Martha Grimes - The Black Cat

Richard Jury, book 22, 2010

It was already in the bloody London tabloids, the case not yet three days old and his own face plastered all over the paper when it was really Thames Valley police, and not the Met, not he, who owned the case.

Superintendent Richard Jury, high-ranking detective with the Metropolitan police, but without much feeling for rank, and who’d climbed the ladder without much feeling for the rungs, found himself at the moment in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, in a mortuary looking down at the body of an as yet unidentified woman.

What had made it so fascinating, he supposed, was not simply that the glamorous girl (woman, surely, only “Glam Girl” made much better copy) had been shot dead in the grounds of a pub not far away, in Chesham, but that forty-eight hours on, they hadn’t discovered who she was.

Jury looked at her and wondered why the portrait of Chatter-ton came to mind; then he remembered Millais had also painted Ophelia, or his idea of her. And there was that larger concept that had looked so familiar-the Pre-Raphaelite period-that Romantic period of Rossetti, Holman Hunt, Millais, and rich fantasy, vibrant colors, and the death of youth. The Pre-Raphaelites were really into dying young.

Dr. Pindrop. Jury loved the name, although it didn’t suit the doctor. Silence was not the doctor’s milieu. He sputtered a lot, showing signs of being about to erupt but managing not to do so.

“Two shots,” said Pindrop, “one missing the vital organs-” Here he pointed at the badly wounded shoulder in case Jury was blind. “It was the second one in the chest that did for her.”

Jury nodded, said nothing, tried to memorize the woman’s classically sculpted face.

“Superintendent?”

Jury looked up.

“You’ve had a right good look. Can I cover her up now?”

Jury assumed the irritation was for the usual reason: why was New Scotland Yard sending people round? “No. Leave it for a moment.” Jury continued his “right good look.” A.38 had done the job, according to forensic. No gun had been found, a couple of casings had.

The doctor had shown him the clothes she’d been wearing, designer dress, shoes, small handbag.

“Label’s messed up. Looks like Lanvin. That’s the French chap.”

“No. Saint Laurent. The other one.”

Pindrop smirked. “Oh. You know this French lot, do you?”

“I know a lot of things.” Jury wanted to laugh.

The doctor gave a Dr.-Watson-as-played-by-Nigel-Bruce sort of grunt-laugh.

The dress was beautiful. It was sedate and yet not. The neckline consisted of layered ruffles. The sleeves were transparent as glass, reaching nearly to the elbow. The dress was the same color as her hair, a burnt orange. It was made of silk or air. He’d never seen a dress that looked so decorous and so sexy at the same time. The shoes were designed by Jimmy Choo. That name was writ large across the instep of a sandal of exquisitely crisscrossed, narrow leather ribbons of iridescent copper. The bag was Alexander McQueen. Jury didn’t know him but imagined he ran with the others, along Upper Sloane Street. All of this getup would run to a couple thousand quid, he bet.

“Expensive,” said the doctor. “Must’ve been well-fixed.”

“Or someone was.” He looked up. “Do you live in Chesham?”

“No. In Amersham. Old Amersham, not the one on the hill.”

A proud distinction, apparently. “You can’t say if she’s a local, then?”

Dr. Pindrop ran his hand through thinning hair. Jury figured him to be at the back end of his sixties. “I’d swear I’d seen her before.”

This surprised Jury, since the doctor brought this out with a bit of sympathy that he hadn’t shown until now.

“She looks familiar to you.” This at least was something.

“Yes, for some reason. Perhaps she is a local. If not Chesham, perhaps Amersham, Berkhamsted… well, you know.”

“I’m not familiar with the area.”

The doctor pulled up the sheet and dropped it over her face. “Then why did they want you?”

It was the same question Jury had posed and Detective Chief Superintendent Racer had answered, or rather half-answered. “Because they asked.”

Oh, well, thought Jury. He waited for Racer to embellish. Racer didn’t. “That’s it? That’s all? Who’s ‘they’? And why? Thames Valley is the best, certainly the biggest nonmetropolitan police force in the country, and they need us?”

Racer flapped his hand at Jury the imbecile. “No, no. Of course they’re perfectly capable. Chief constable’s a friend of mine. Discretion. You know how it is.” He started shuffling the papers on his desk, which wasn’t easy, as there were only three or four.

Again, Jury waited. The “why?” was still in abeyance, though he was the only one to realize this, apparently. He let it pass. “When did all of this happen?”

“You mean this woman’s murder? On the Saturday night, as far as they can make out.”

Jury looked at him. “Today is Monday.”

“I’ve got a calendar, man; I know what day it is.” Shuffle, shuffle.

And he also knew perfectly well how cold the trail was by now.

Racer glared. “I’m sorry we can’t have a perfectly fresh body for you, lad. But there it is. Enough time’s been wasted-”

As if Jury were the waster.

“So you’d better get your skates on. They’re putting her on hold.”

On hold. As if this poor woman had been making a phone call rather than being murdered.

“Chesham. Near Amersham in Bucks. I’ll give police there a jingle, have somebody pick you up.”

“That’s all you can tell me, then, about this murdered woman? But if Thames Valley police don’t know who she is, I fail to see the need to be discreet.”

“You’re no master of discretion yourself, man!” came the non sequitur.

Detective Sergeant David Cummins of the Thames Valley CID met Jury at the Chesham underground stop. The underground was a godsend for the residents here who worked in London. To be let off driving in London traffic was a miracle, in addition to the weary businessman’s being able to lead a bucolic life out here in almost-country.

DS Cummins had kindly darted into the café by the station to purchase tea for Jury. Cummins was obviously impressed, not only to get a CID man from New Scotland Yard, but a detective superintendent, no less. They don’t come much higher than that.

Jury didn’t bother telling him that his boss was higher than that. He wondered when the last time was that Racer had actually worked a case.

“What can you tell me?”

Cummins took a deep breath, as if he were going to let loose a long and intricate story. “Not much, sir. Taxi picked her up at Chesham station, said she had him drop her at the Black Cat. Told her he’d get as close as he could; it’s because the roadworks had burst pipes along the street and in front of the pub.”

Cummins went on: “According to him she didn’t say anything about a party or anything else. You’ll want to talk to him, I expect. The body was found by a woman who’d been walking this way with her dog, an Emily Devere.”

“A local?”