Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent (12 page)

No response; she became even stiller.

"Your husband didn't have that kind of money. You did. Although the
others acted as if it were their money, you were the one who had to
sign the check, so to speak. And you didn't; you wouldn't."

Her folded hands came up again to her mouth and her eyes were
squeezed shut, as if in this posture she might hold back whatever
threatened to come out: tears, words, feelings. Finally, her body went
slack again and she asked dully, "How do you know this? The
superintendent—" Quickly she stopped, probably aware she was confessing.

"Goodall promised Charles Citrine that the report would be slightly
altered? It would make no difference to police which one of you
decided, after all."

"The sergeant—" she said, looking at him again with astonishment.
"It was the sergeant who told you." Pulling her sweater closer—it was
much too cold now for just a sweater, but Jury doubted she noticed it
that much—she said, "I remember him very clearly. His name was
Mac-something. ..."

"Macalvie. He's not a sergeant any longer. He's very high up, a
divisional commander. Same as a chief superintendent."

"Then you're high up, too."

Jury smiled. "Not like Macalvie. God isn't higher up than Macalvie."

It amazed Jury that she was actually smiling. Not only because she
hadn't before, except for a tentative one, but that she could smile
over Brian Macalvie. "You don't hate him? For giving that advice so
bluntly."

That she might be expected to hate him seemed to puzzle her. "Why
should I? I didn't have to take it. And the advice was pretty much what
police had been giving all along; the other officer was saying the same
thing in a most unconvincing way. The sergeant had a great deal of
force and intensity; he was probably placing himself at risk, too. I
got the feeling he was absolutely sure he was right."

Jury smiled. "He'd be the first to agree."

"He didn't seem conceited."

"Oh, conceit has nothing to do with it. He's just very much in touch
with his own talents—and they're considerable, believe me. That you
didn't get Billy back doesn't mean he was wrong. But you must have
thought sometimes that if you'd paid that ransom ..."

She moved away from him and seemed to be concentrating on the black
bark of an oak. "It's all over. But it was over before; I haven't much
of a case, as you said."

Jury walked to the tree, leaned his hand against it. "I don't think
our knowing will make any difference."

She frowned up at him. "He'll be subpoenaed, and you're—"

"The official police report said the 'family' refused to pay the
ransom. The point is: Macalvie—and I—might be more interested in
justice being served. But you—" Jury shrugged. "—I'm not sure you're
interested in it that much. You give me the impression of someone who's
carried out a very difficult task, at last, and damn the consequences."

Since he had moved into her line of vision there and was big enough
and close enough to eclipse her view, she had to look at him. She
stared at his sweater, his raincoat, and avoided his eyes. "You think
I'm cold-blooded." Her expression was sad.

"No. 'Remote' isn't 'cold-blooded.'"

She stood looking at the twisted trees, saying nothing, drawing the
silence round her as she did her cardigan.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Healey."

"Good-bye."

He had taken a few steps down the path when he heard her say, "And
keep cold."

The woman at reception at the White Lion Hotel wore an expression
that suggested she must take full responsibility— was "most terribly
sorry"—for the hotel's not being able to accommodate him. When she
returned from an inner office, "just to make sure there's been no
cancellation," repeated her apology twice, and dabbed at her raw, red
nose, Melrose was concerned that his sudden appearance at the White
Lion and his subsequent leave-taking had caused some gust of tears,
some upheaval on the part of the hotel staff over the discomfiture of
prospective guests. But the chilblained nose and smudged eyes were not
owing to an emotional onslaught at Melrose's being turned out into the
cold. She had caught a chill and was feverish. She made suggestions:
the Black Bush across the street? No, he'd been there already. Stupid
of him not to book a room in advance.

"Whatever for? Haworth in January, the rooms generally go begging."
She seemed fearful that he would take upon himself the charge of
stupidity when his outcast condition was already a great deal for him
(and her) to bear.

Beginning to feel like the dying cast of
Les Misirables
,
Melrose tried to raise her spirits with assurances that the tourist
information center next door would find something for him. The clerk
looked despairing, and as Melrose smiled and smiled and then left, he
wondered if the people of Haworth had been more infected by Bronte
gloom than by virus or murder.

While the attendant at the information center was helping a
middle-aged woman, Melrose roved the small room and plucked up
pamphlets, a guide or two, and a few gloomy monochromes of the
surrounding moors and the village. One of these, the scene of Haworth
parsonage and graveyard, he thought he would send to Vivian just to
let her know the sorts of places he was hanging about in since their
last meeting. In his reconnoitering of the racks he was followed by a
pie-faced boy of perhaps ten or twelve, who was carrying a large bag of
crisps and licking a purple lolly enclosing a band of bilious green
that went round and round in an hypnotic circle, probably the
unwholesome child of the woman at the counter. The boy had
expressionless eyes, blank as coins, and, having nothing to do, meant
to occupy himself by getting this sticky sweet closer and closer to
Mel-rose's cashmere coat.

"Branwell Bronte?" asked Melrose, as if the lad had questioned him.
He then read, as loudly as he could, Branwell's commentary on the Lord
Nelson, which was appended to a photograph of that famous pub. " 'I
would rather give my hand than undergo again the malignant yet cold
debauchery which too often marked my conduct there.'" Melrose paused,
looked down at the ill-mannered lad, and, in a measured, distinct
tone, said, "Well, I don't know where he got his drugs, do I?"

The woman in the turquoise get-up, whose long, sallow face was
further elongated by the height of the black turban-like thing she
wore, turned quickly and said, "Malcolm!" in a deep, almost basso
voice. She gave Melrose a hooded look and clutched Malcolm to her side,
a grip from which Malcolm broke with alacrity, Melrose was more his
style.

On the wall above the counter was a huge blowup of a photograph of
the ruins of the old farmhouse Emily Bronte was said to have used for
her Wuthering Heights. The other woman, round-faced and with a yellow
bubble of hair and a tiny voice, was asking how good the road was to
this site.

When the patient woman behind the counter told her that there was no
road, that she'd have to
walk
the moor for perhaps a quarter
of a mile, she turned to Melrose, as if for reassurance and said, in
her whispery voice, "I can just look at the picture for a bit, then,
can't I?"

"Absolutely, madam. That is precisely the way I climbed Mount
Kilimanjaro. With my camp at its base, a large map, and some drawing
pins I went straight to the top. Read Hemingway for atmosphere. After
all, why have the reality when you can settle for its appearance? Why
substance when you can walk in its shadow? Why, for pity's sake, waste
time? It is all we have."

The cherub-faced lady looked moonily at him. "I never . . ."

Melrose was sure she hadn't. He walked to another turnstile of
postcards, followed both by Malcolm and the smoldering, suspicious
eyes of the Beastly Boy's mother.

"We're not going to that dump"—Malcolm nodded to the photograph of
Top Withins—"
we're
going to Hadrian's Wall, we are."

Melrose turned the stile and said, "Well, you'd better hop it then.
That particular dump's in Northumberland."

"Mum knows 'im."

Melrose turned from the picture of Haworth's cobbled street. "What?
Who?"

"Hadrian. The Emperor Hadrian." He mashed a handful of crisps into
his mouth and waited to see how the mountain-climber would take this.

Melrose walked away.

The Beastly Boy followed. "See, she sees things. She can read cards
and she sees ghosts. She's got like second sight."

Obviously not, or Malcolm wouldn't be here. Melrose stared. "Go
away."

The Beastly Boy stuck out his tongue, a purple and green surprise,
and was dragged off by his mum at the same time the beehive blonde
collected her maps and charts and smiled brightly at Melrose in a
good-bye look.

Melrose finally had his turn at the counter.

There were several places that she could suggest, all B & B's,
though. "There's Mrs. Buzzthorpe; she does a lovely full breakfast;
there's only the one room there and it would be quiet. If anything is
quiet round here now." She ran her hand across her unquiet brow. "I
expect you know—"

"I was really looking for something like an hotel or inn. There's
the Old Silent, I understand." At least, that's where Jury said he was
staying.

The poor woman clutched her sweater about her and said, "Ah, but
that's where that grisly
murder''
(she made a meal of the
word) "happened." Her voice had dropped to a hissing whisper as she
leaned across the counter. "Two days ago, it was. A man murdered there.
I expect that's why it's hard to get accommodation." She wrinkled her
nose in distaste. "Thrill-seekers."

"But is it booked?" asked Melrose, himself lowering his voice to a
whisper.

" 'Twas closed by Keighley police for a bit. I can ring up." She did
and had to report that its few rooms were taken. She went down her list
again. "Weavers Hall. That's very pleasant." Doubtfully, she looked at
his clothes, the silver-knobbed walking stick, and out the window at
the Bentley. Hopelessly, she smiled. "I'm not sure it's quite your
line, though."

"I'll take any line at all at this point. Where is Weavers Hall?"

That he was so amenable to what she seemed to regard as her starved
selection made her go about her maps and pencils with alacrity. "It's
just here, near the reservoir." She stabbed her sharp pencil at a point
in the map a short distance from the village. "That's the road off to
the right after Stanbury, which is a mile away. Altogether, not above
two miles."

"You're very helpful; thank you. Does this place do meals? Has it a
restaurant, that sort of thing?"

Her look was baleful, as if just having got him sorted out, she must
now disappoint him. She put in quickly, "But Miss Denholme does a nice
evening meal."

He smiled. The expression "evening meal" always made him think of
beef shin and creamed potatoes, for some reason. Well, he would dine
with Jury, anyway, tonight.

"Is her wine list extensive? Never mind," he said, when the brown
eyes rounded in surprise. "Only kidding."

The Beastly Boy was engaged in the torture of a gray cat when
Melrose came upon him on the grounds of Weavers Hall, directly after
he'd parked the Bentley. He cursed himself for a fool for not having
worked out that the lady at the tourist information center could well
have directed the family here, as it was one of the few accommodations
left.

Behind a large, flat rock, the center of a pile of smaller,
crumbling pieces of stone, the Beastly Boy was more or less sitting on
the cat, trying to force salt-and-vinegar crisps down its throat, at
the same time bonging its head with what appeared to be a rolled-up
poster. A huge bag sat up against one of the stones. The cat struggled
and whined miserably. The boy had his back turned, and a band of pale,
flaccid flesh showed where his Banana Republic T-shirt had ridden up
and his jeans had ridden down.

Probably owing to one of those portable stereos that sat against a
wire fence and from which blasted forth rock music, the boy didn't
hear Melrose's approach. Behind this fence, chickens scratched, ducks
weaved drunkenly, and a rooster walked about apparently baffled.

The stereo was one of those that the young seemed to walk like dogs
or carry about on their shoulders (having no other burdens). When he
heard one walk by him on a London pavement, he always thought of it as
a tribal call, one of the tribe on Regent Street signaling to his kind
over on Piccadilly, perhaps. This one was putting out a musical hash
consisting of (it sounded like) a couple of hundred cymbals and a
thirties Chicago shoot-out.

Sitting on the flat stone was a bottle of lemonade that the boy
reached up for as the cat tried to squirm its way from under him, and
Melrose saw that he meant to force this too into the cat's mouth. He
immediately pulled his walking stick from the leather straps of his
suitcase, flicked it under the wrist that held the lemonade, and sent
the bottle hurtling through the air, to land with a thud on the earth
by the fence. Some ducks, beating their wings, waddled over to see what
was going on.

The boy let out a yell, and the red flush across his face suggested
the onset of a tantrum. He was up and fairly twitching with rage. The
cat got up from its splayed position and shook itself.

"That's
my
lemonade!" But his eyes were on the
innocent-appearing walking stick, actually a cosher, a leather tube
filled with tiny pellets. Melrose was leaning on it looking at the
broken, crumbling stone pile.

"Been to Stonehenge, too?"

The boy glared as well as he could, considering the thick-lensed
glasses. The cat stopped looking muzzy and torpedoed down the road
toward the outbuildings—a barn, stables, and a small stone cottage. A
dog the color of bracken and snow like a border collie was barking at
the cat's approach, either urging it on or warning it off. Melrose
imagined a platoon of dogs would look safer to the gray cat than the
company of the Beastly Boy, who was now looking at Melrose and mashing
crisps into his mouth ferociously. Around them, he said, "You're
stupid."

"I'm also bigger." Melrose tapped the cosher against his palm.

As he took a step backward, the boy's spider-lashes fluttered
several times. He seemed to be thinking, and a hard job he was making
of it given the face twisting like taffy. "I'm telling Mum."

"Oh, do. Then Mum will come to me and / can tell
her
. Mum
and everybody else at this place."

The boy's eyes narrowed; he looked in the direction of Melrose's car
and said, "Our car's better than yours."

Melrose slipped the walking stick back through the flaps of the
suitcase and said, "Let's swap." He picked up his case and was about to
turn on his heel when the boy turned up the volume of his stereo and
shoved it toward the fence. The chickens were clucking and dithering
about and the ducks rushing to the other end of the fenced enclosure.

Oh, for the Lord's sake, thought Melrose. "Stop that," he said.

"Thought maybe they'd like a front-row seat for Sirocco. You don't
even know what they are, do you?" he asked smugly, over the blast of
music.

"A hot wind that comes off the Sahara. Good-bye."

"Stupid!" the boy yelled at his departing back. "It's one of the
best rock groups in the world!" He waved the poster. "I got front-row
seats!"

Melrose kept on walking. He hoped Peter Townshend and rock stars
like him were still breaking up their guitars, setting their drums on
fire, et cetera, so that the pieces and burning bits flew into the
front-row seats. As he was nearing the stone path, he looked to his
left and saw a small girl coming from the barn and stables. He
squinted. It was the Fury, the child he had seen at the vet's. Her
black hair glittered like a helmet; she was wearing a white shawl that
nearly reached her ankles and a dress too long for her.

If she saw him, she gave no sign of it. Given the determined walk
and the look on her face, he seriously doubted she saw anything else
but the object of her fury, there by the fence. She was carrying the
gray cat over her shoulder like a bag of meal.

Several ducks left the barnyard brawl and rushed over to a corner of
the fence nearest her as if they sensed something was coming,
preferably dinner; and the rooster staggered over, planting each claw
on the ground, digging in.

Seeing her, the boy let the stereo slide from his hands, music still
playing, and tried to back straight through the fence. No escape.
Melrose, like the ducks, could smell something in the wind as the girl
set the cat down by the pile of stones. The cat calmly washed its paw,
all threat of danger apparently forgotten under the protection of its
patroness.

Melrose dropped his suitcase and started toward her as the Fury
stepped closer to the boy. Did this little girl live every day on the
cliff's edge? he wondered.

Apparently so. Before he could reach out, the arm was winding up,
and she threw a lightning punch at the boy's chin that cracked when it
landed.

The chickens were going crazy; the rooster was stalking like
Frankenstein's monster; and from the stereo came fran-t'c applause,
whistling, and cheering voices that built to a roaring crescendo. The
boy slid down the fence and let out a howl that mixed rather well with
an ovation that should have broken the portable stereo to smithereens.

"Stop that!"

The voice pulled Melrose round as if by physical force and he saw,
running from the doorway of Weavers Hall, the turbaned woman in the
turquoise outfit, the Beastly Boy's mother. She startled the gray cat,
who sensed more danger coming and bolted down the road. The chickens
thrashed about, colliding, just as the venomous woman screeched at the
little girl. Melrose lost that precious moment in which he could have
strong-armed her or even tripped her—anything to stop her before she
gave the Fury a backhand slap that should have knocked the child to the
ground, but didn't even bend her. The child stood there, stubbornly
planted with feet apart and refusing to go down for the count.

He bent down beside the little girl. "Are you all right?"

She nodded, frowning at him, not in displeasure, but as if she were
trying to recollect where she'd seen him before. She did not have, as
he had first thought, brown eyes. They were a deep navy blue and, at
the moment, glazed with tears that didn't fall. She gazed off toward
the hills beyond, mindless of the scarlet splotch on her face, like the
ineradicable mark of a witch's hand. Her eyes were squeezed shut and
her mouth downturned.

"Yuk, yuk,
yuk
!" She stamped her feet as if they were
caught on hot coals. Then she whirled about and ran off in the
direction of the barn, her arms raised, the shawl fluttering like
wings. She'd stop and whirl like a dervish, then run again as if God's
wrath followed her, her white shawl flying, hair black as sin.