I Am the Only Running Footman (11 page)

Melrose looked off toward a small stream partly shrouded in ice that meandered close to the garden wall. “It sounds like this place. Was it meant for someone in particular?” He returned the book to his pocket.

Ned stood looking off toward the grove of beeches, frowning. “A writer never really knows who he means, does he? Perhaps that really is blindness, not to know.” He changed the subject. “If you knew David, you'd know it's impossible for him to have strangled that girl. Anyway, there's no reason, no motive. Ivy must've been killed by a mugger, someone
like that. Wouldn't you think that the obvious answer?”

Ned Winslow looked at him as if Melrose were a magician who just might pull the right rabbit out of the hat. “If that were the case, the killer certainly didn't want much. There appears to be no motive.”

“There's none with David, either. He had no motive.”

Melrose thought of what Jury had told him of the women, Sheila Broome and Ivy Childess. “ ‘Then glided in Porphyria —' ”

Ned reached out to pull a weed from between the stones of the wall. “That's an odd allusion. If you're thinking of David as a Porphyria's lover type —” Ned laughed. “Believe me, he hadn't any passionate attachment to Ivy Childess.” He turned those molten umber eyes on Melrose. “And what about Porphyria herself?”

“Porphyria? She struck me as being rather pathetic.”

“She struck me as being a bit of a tramp,” said Ned, with a smile.

“W
THAT
is
the matter with you, Dolly? You've been in a sulk — well, not that perhaps — on edge, more, ever since you came here.” And as Kate set the cup of tea and a toasted tea cake before her sister, she wondered once again why Dolly
had
come. Her visits up to now had been in the spring or summer, especially summer, the clement weather and quieter ocean allowing her to show off her near-perfect figure. “Job? Man? What?”

Dolly looked up at her sister. “Nothing's wrong. I'm just a bit under the weather is all.” She set about cutting up her tea cake.

“And speaking of being here . . . you know you're always welcome, of course . . . but why now?”

Dolly sighed. “I should think that would be obvious. It's the Christmas holiday, isn't it?”

Kate watched her lick the butter off her fingers, slowly, like a cat. Dolly moved with a languor that was also catlike and totally at odds with her temperament. The edginess of which Kate had just spoken was not unusual, except in its intensity.

“It's a man, isn't it?” With Dolly it usually was.

“No.” She said nothing else as she pulled up the glove-leather high-heeled boots. She fitted a magnificent white fur Cossack hat to her head and shoved the ends of her hair up under it. She reminded Kate of a photo of a Russian spring, cold light shining on ice and snow.

“Where're you going?” Kate was clearing away her tea things.

“Only to Pia's.”

That was another thing, thought Kate. Dolly was forever waiting for Fate to step in, always counting on the planets to tilt in her favor. Two years ago it had been the medium, and following her fall from grace, the astrologer and the reader of tarot. Pia, to whom Dolly was currently entrusting her future, was a clairvoyant with a reputation in Brighton for honesty. The astrologer had been safe. With all of the open doors in one's horoscope through which one's fate could exit, astrology generally
was
safe. Unfortunately, Pia Negra wasn't. She told her clients what she knew, good or bad. And in Dolly's case, Kate supposed it must be rather bad, for she often came back more nervous and anxious than when she'd left.

It must be a man, thought Kate once again. The wrong man, of course. Why was it Dolly, who could have probably any man she fancied, always chose the wrong one? Married, sometimes; too old, sometimes; sometimes both. Whenever she told Kate about one who sounded (at least to Kate) eminently suitable, Dolly sounded bored.

It occurred to Kate just then that it was Dolly, not she, who had been the loser, had been the unfortunate object of their father's obsessive love. He had left her a legacy of his two broken marriages, disastrous love affairs, frustrations. And then he had left her the means to get all of these things for herself. Dolly needed only to sit and be adored, like their mother, beautiful and, now, rich. Perhaps that was really the
reason that Kate did not resent his leaving everything but the house to Dolly. Kate had always thought of herself as the prisoner of this house; but wasn't Dolly a prisoner of the wider world? Had her freedom been bought with a fence around it?

At least she had her television work to steady her, although perhaps it offered Dolly too much celebrity for her own good.

In that little role of hers, Dolly had probably entered into the fantasies of most of the men in London.

T
HE
parlor of Stella Broome's terraced house had a view across the street of a launderette and a Chinese restaurant and take-away called Mr. Wong and Son.

Jury sat on one of a pair of armchairs slipcovered in a design of fading chrysanthemums; the rug was garlanded in the center and the corners with roses; the wallpaper was an endless repetition of pagodas, Roman columns, and hanging gardens down whose walls trailed roses and wisteria. The apron that Stella Broome wore was patterned with camellias, and the ashtray she held in her lap gave off a woodsy odor.

She had, he suspected, the beginnings of emphysema, given the way she hacked when she inhaled. He was glad Wiggins wasn't here to see her light one cigarette from the stub of another. She was a woman in her fifties, overweight and careless of her looks. Her face was round and the skin tight and slightly waxy, reflecting the camellia pattern of the apron.

It was depressing, this dead garden of a room, and as if to emphasize the fact that nothing moved or breathed, there
were vases spotted here and there on tables and mantel filled with either plastic or paper or dried flowers.

Stella Broome had been talking about the death of her daughter: “I told her, didn't I? I told her she'd get into trouble, hitching rides like she did. But she wouldn't listen, not her.” She shook her head and reclaimed her glass of sherry.

That she talked about the death as if it were an infraction of parental discipline suggested to Jury an attempt to bury the fact, to draw her daughter back — late perhaps, drunk perhaps, but back.

“No, I can't help. All I know is Sheila left here in the morning for work and said she'd got a ride to Bristol.”

“From all we've found, she didn't seem to know anyone there,” said Jury.

“Oh, that'd make no odds to Sheila. She just wanted to get away. She was always wanting to get away.” Stella Broome poured another glass of sherry, pulled a tissue from the box beside a silver-framed photograph of Sheila.

“What about her friends, Mrs. Broome? The fellow she was going about with, for instance.”

“I've told all this to police before. That commander or whatever he calls himself —”

“Divisional commander.” Jury had to smile. From the way she spoke, Macalvie might have been pulling ranks out of a hat.

“Whatever. Harassment, that's what I call it.” She lit another cigarette.

“Divisional Commander Macalvie is very thorough. And sometimes that might seem like harassment—” And sometimes is, he thought. “— but witnesses have been known to forget details that can come out if questions are asked over again.” Especially if they're lying first time around. Though Jury didn't think the mother was lying, necessarily.

“Maybe,” she said. She sounded doubtful. “Well, there's Gerald, Gerald Fox. That was her young man, such as he is.”
She sniffed. “Though I will say he was cut up over her —” Stella Broome pressed the wadded tissue to her mouth to forestall a bout of tears.

It could have been that glassful of sherry, he thought, but perhaps that merely helped release bottled-up feelings. He wondered if the flowery sentiments of the room were not some unconscious desire to express emotions she otherwise repressed. He thought Stella Broome probably prided herself on toughness. Her life must have been lonely; perhaps she had to marshal all of her forces in order to defend herself against this new onslaught. Hence the carping criticism.

“I wonder if I could have a little of that sherry?” asked Jury. It might afford her a bit of companionship. He filled her glass and went to the kitchen for another one. It gave her a few minutes to weep without being stared at by Scotland Yard.

“Thank you.” She blew her nose. “Don't know what came over me.”

“You should let go more, Mrs. Broome.” Inwardly, he smiled. He sounded like Wiggins. He asked again about Gerald Fox, feeling it was merely repetitive; Macalvie would have covered that ground thoroughly.

“Yes, well, he was devoted to Sheila and she treated him like he wasn't worth nothing. Felt sorry for him sometimes, I did. That's the only reason she went up to London — to make him jealous. Oh, I knew it was probably all lies, the men she said she went out with. An old man with plenty of money, used to call him her Sugar Daddy — that was one. She said he'd come round to the flat to pick her up in his fancy car. If that ain't something! Then there was a dancer in some West End musical, fairy I'd bet; and —”

Jury interrupted. “Did she ever mention any names?”

“Guy-somebody. That was the dancer. Had a fancy car, some foreign make. Anyone had a flash car Sheila'd just swoon over. Flash cars and flash men, that was Sheila's style.
Well, she didn't have a license herself; I mean, they took it away from her for drink-driving. Far as I'm concerned, they should. Too much drinking these days, anyway.” Mournfully, she looked at her glass. Perhaps she was thinking she hadn't set the best example; that she might have nudged Sheila off the straight and narrow herself. “If I'd of got married again, maybe Sheila wouldn't have been so wild. It needs a man to straighten out a girl like that. All those men she said courted her —”

Stella Broome pressed her fingertips to her forehead as if remembering gave her a headache. Finally, she shook her head. “All I know is Sheila'd talk and talk about these fellas, probably to Gerald, too, to make him jealous. I don't even know she was telling the truth. Why'd any rich man dance attendance on Sheila?”

Jury looked at the photograph sitting next to the sherry bottle. “She was very pretty.” Pretty, in a tartish way, he thought. Too much makeup, bleached hair. What had Macalvie said — “bottled-in-blond”? Jury frowned. “You said something about an older man. What about him?”

“Him? Well, I don't know, exactly. When she'd start in like that, I'd just stop listening, sometimes. All those men she claimed she'd got on a string.” Her forehead creased with the effort of thinking and she stopped rocking suddenly. “That lorry driver that picked her up. They let him go.” Stella Broome wadded the handkerchief under her nose again and shivered.

“A waitress at the Little Chef saw her get out of the cab, and the artic pull away. Commander Macalvie was satisfied he had nothing to do with it.”

“Well, it's past now. I don't know why police are raking it over again. It was some psycho picked her up. Some psycho.”

“Yes, that's perfectly possible. But I'll tell you why we're raking it up, Mrs. Broome. There was a woman killed in
London, killed the same way your daughter was, with her own scarf.”

She stopped rocking suddenly. “Oh, dear. Oh, that's terrible. You think it was the same person?”

“Because of the — method, it's just possible.”

“But then it must be like I said. Some crazy.”

“Did your daughter ever mention a David?”

“Not that I remember.” She had taken another plunge or two into the sherry bottle; by now she was on her fourth or fifth. The words slurred slightly as she said, “Don't think she ever said that name.” Stella seemed to be studying the wallpaper over Jury's shoulder; taking an imaginary walk through her botanical gardens, perhaps.

He waited for a moment to see if anything would occur to her. But she appeared to be rocking — and drinking — herself to sleep. Her head nodded like a flower on its stem. He got up and said, “Well, I'll be leaving now, Mrs. Broome. If you remember anything, anything at all, you'll get in touch, won't you?”

Her head snapped up and she shook herself. “Yes.” She got up with considerable effort, steadying herself on the arm of the sofa. “But I ain't calling
him
, that commander or whoever he is.” On their way to the door, she plucked the dried flowers from the table and ran her fingers over them, dusting them. “Where'll you be?”

Jury handed her a card. “New Scotland Yard. Just call this number, Mrs. Broome.”

Now she seemed as reluctant to let him go as she had first been to have him stay. She kept looking and looking at the card as if it might be a lucky souvenir.

He did not like leaving her alone, but he couldn't stop here all day. And anyway there would always be another day to be faced. Jury looked round the room, at the dried bouquets, the walled gardens. A fragment of a poem came to him . . .
Be
still, the hanging gardens are a dream . . . that over Persian roses blew to kiss . . . .
What had “kiss” rhymed with? He could not remember where the lines came from or for whom the kiss was meant. A queen, he thought. What Sheila Broome had wanted to be, perhaps.

“I like your wallpaper. It's very . . . pretty,” he added lamely, unable to find a proper word. “Good-bye, Mrs. Broome. Don't forget to call. You've been very helpful.”

On the pavement, he looked back. She was still there, clutching the fake bouquet. He wondered if the younger Stella had clutched her bridal bouquet that way. Probably she had forgotten the happiness of such a day. And Sheila would never experience it.