Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent (37 page)

"You wanna be Riley B. King, then you get your ass out of those
studio sessions and do the chitlin' circuit just like all the others,
the real blues men. If what you really want is just to gliss across the
stage at the Grammy awards and go mul-tiplatinum, okay, do it, but you
can't ride on anybody's coattails. You're not going to be Clapton, or
B. B. King, or Hubert Sumlin or Gatemouth Brown—"

Since Duckworth showed no signs of letting up, slowing down, or
discussing anything so mordant as a murder investigation, Jury said
quickly, "How do you rate Stan Keeler, then? I understand you know him."

"I rate him the best R-and-B guy they've got over here.

All you have to do is go to the Nine-One-Nine to see what I mean.
Stan can do anything: rock, jazz, fusion, blues. Blues, blues, anarchic
blues. Black Orchid, on a good day, could blow Sirocco away. But
Sirocco's good. I'd like to see a triple-axe threat with Raine,
Jiminez, and Keeler. The Odeon would orbit. Stan doesn't do concerts.
Part of it's the way he is; part of it's he knows the way
it
is:
it
is
underground
. Fans over here are
different; it's very personal. He'll go on forever. Hell, his dog's
more famous than Fergie's kid. The bands in the States, they think
England's the Pearly Gates because you can rocket to fame over here.
What they don't know is that when you go down you go down dead. It's
High Noon time. The press over here's a killer. In one column I could
demolish some poor metal band that hasn't got the fans yet. It doesn't
work that way in the States."

"So why was Roger Healey into your territory?"

"Because the creep was dying to trash Keeler is my guess."

"You didn't like Healey?" asked Wiggins.

Duckworth just shaved them a look.

"
Why
did this man have such a solid-gold reputation with
everyone else we've talked to? Including Martin Smart?" said Jury.
"He's no fool."

"He's also no musician. He gets these rags out and he's good at it.
Healey—okay, I give him credit for knowing his Bach and
Paganini—probably not as much as some guitarists I know. Healey was a
musician, not precisely a killer pianist from what I've heard, and I
think it drove him fucking crazy. You had to look close, reading his
reviews, to see some of those lines were etched in acid. He was a
weirdo. You been talking to our Mavie? So he was screwing her."

"Anyone else you know of?"

Morpeth Duckworth shrugged. "No one I
know
. He was
obviously more discreet than that."

"Where's this club Keeler plays?"

"Mostly the Nine-One-Nine. Quint Street off Shephards Bush Road.
It's a walkdown. You won't even see it unless you fall on the steps.
There's no sign, just the street number."

Jury rose; Wiggins pocketed his pen.

"Thanks for the help."

Duckworth pulled the chairs back over, stuck his feet up again. "No
problem."

As they were walking out, Jury turned and asked, "Who's Trane?"

Wiggins stared at Jury; Duckworth's feet hit the floor. "Trane."

"I heard someone refer to Trane the other day. Just wondered."

Dead silence.

"John Coltrane." Duckworth looked at him as if the superintendent
had lost his mind.

"Oh."

"He played sax," said Duckworth.

"Oh."

"Twenty years ago."

"Something wrong?" asked Jury, as Wiggins slammed the passenger
door. "You look like you could use a tourniquet; an artery's going to
burst."

Wiggins unglued his thin white hand from his mouth and said grimly,
"John Coltrane. John Coltrane just happened to be possibly
the
greatest saxophone player ever. Why didn't you ask
me
? It's
absolutely embarrass———" Wiggins looked down at the seat where Jury was
fiddling with a small machine. "What's that?"

"Sony Walkman." Jury dropped in a tape and some of the sweetest sax
music this side of heaven started up. "Research."

As the car tore away from the curb, the sound that came from Wiggins
was like a death-rattle and Jury was having his first real laugh in a
week.

Abby was furious.

If someone thought she was going to die out here on the moor, they
were crazy.

Snow had got down into her boots and was soaking her socks, but
she'd rather have her toes freeze than risk giving herself away by
making a lot of squelchy noises trying to yank them off. Anyway, with
only the low wall of the shooting butt to hide her, she didn't want to
do too much moving about.

It surprised her that Tim was managing to be so silent, lying here
beside her. Of course, Tim was used to lying about the barn, but he
seemed alert, the way he kept looking first to one side, then to the
other, then to her.

Abby knew nothing about guns, nothing at all except for the few
times she'd come out to these grouse butts with the Major and watched
him as he scrambled up, swung his gun quickly to his shoulder, took
aim, and missed an entire skein of grouse flying about two feet from
his cap. The Gun: that's what the Princess called him.

Until this evening, that had been her only experience with guns. But
she'd never forget the crack of the shot that had barely missed her and
ricocheted off the wall. How long ago had it been? Probably only a few
minutes because the sky had begun to darken as she'd been climbing the
stile. The shot had come as she'd got to the top and she'd fallen back
to the ground, sorting out her choices: either a dash to the stand of
trees or to the line of grouse butts. Knowing what she did about her
aunt's death, it didn't take long to drop the stand of pines as an
alternative.

They thought she didn't know her aunt was shot. Didn't they ever
stop to wonder if children listened outside doors and windows? She had
an idea that the Scotland Yard policeman did because he seemed to know
everything else about her. Abby had his card in her jumper pocket. She
pulled it out and read it again, though it was getting too dark to read.

Where was Stranger?
Where
? She knew he wasn't shot because
there'd only been the one.

Abby pulled at her damp hair, grabbed two fistfuls, and yanked it
down like a lid to keep her thoughts from leaping up like flames out of
control, as if she were a fiery furnace, which was what she felt like.
She had been mad all her life and she didn't see any reason to stop now.

She reached out carefully from the grouse butt, scooped up snow, and
rubbed it all over her face to keep the blood going. The Major liked to
talk to her about "survival in the wilds" because she loved to tramp
the moors.
He
wasn't in any danger of not surviving, she
thought. He always made sure he had three sandwiches and a little flask
of whiskey before he even put a foot out of the front door.

There was no sound, nothing now but a whisper of wind in the bog
rush and bracken.

Her waterproof was yellow. Yellow. Mrs. Braithwaite had made sure
she wore a bright waterproof when she walked to school so if a car came
round a bend it would see her. She'd argued the roads were too narrow
for any car to go fast and she'd rather have a black waterproof. This
one was like those reflecting lights on Ethel's bicycle. The moon was
like a spotlight, and in this bright yellow she'd be like a shooting
star if she tried to dart from the butt to the wall. She looked down at
Tim. A yellow slicker, a full moon, and a white dog. God hated her.

One of the reasons she'd liked Jane Eyre at first was be-cause she'd
thought God hated
her
, too; but then when Jane went to work
for Mr. Rochester, Abby knew what was coming and decided God didn't
hate Jane at all; he was just "trying" her.

Like Job. Her aunt made her go to church school where Abby had to
sit and listen to the minister talk about Job and his three Comforters
with crazy names. She'd just sat there thinking about Job, wondering
why he didn't get off his dung heap and beat the Comforters up. After
she'd said this and a few other things in church school, her aunt had
told her she didn't have to go back.

Abby lowered her head, thinking about Aunt Ann, trying to feel bad
about her. But she couldn't, and her mind wandered off to Stranger
again. Stranger had been trailing her and Tim, straggling after them,
exploring what was left of the snowbank against the far wall over
there, and had got way behind.

He was out there, somewhere.

And here she was with a crazy person with a gun,
the Gun
,
the same Gun that had killed her aunt, she was sure.

And here
she
was with nothing. Only her crook, which she
would gladly beat the Gun to death with, smash his brains all over the
moor; Ethel's dog, a heeler that she would gladly signal to rip the
heels of the Gun to shreds, and then all the rest of him. But her head
drooped, her fisted hands pressed her temples, and she knew neither of
those weapons could get close enough to save her.

Something glimmered in her mind and she slowly raised her head and
tented her hand over her eyes, squinting way off across the moor.

Sheep.

Where in heaven's name were they all?

The Hall was virtually deserted except for Melrose and the staff,
and with the exception of Ruby, they were in their rooms, Mrs.
Braithwaite having decided she could be as ill as Cook, as long as she
had the poor drudge Ruby Cuff to see to getting a platter of cold
chicken and cheese and salad on the luncheon table.

And following luncheon, the guests had scattered like buckshot; Mrs.
Braithwaite's cooking and murder had that effect on one, Melrose
supposed. It made no difference that Superintendent Sanderson had given
instructions that they were all to keep themselves available for
questioning. The constable who had been left behind (in his orphaned,
custodial position by the door) had been removed in the morning —with
some help from Ellen and her BMW. The Weavers Hall inmates seemed to
breathe easier.

Dinner the previous evening had consisted of some sort of stewed
chicken and mushy peas and overboiled potatoes. Today's lunch had been
a drier version of the dinner.

Major Poges had tossed in the towel—or the napkin—and announced that
he refused to eat another meal until Cook was up and about and said he
would dine at the White Lion, would anyone care to join him? Not even
the Princess cared to; she had a vicious migraine and retired to her
"rooms." She always made her part of Weavers Hall sound like a floor of
some splendid, if decaying, Venetian palace whose facade Melrose could
imagine reflected in the night-lit shimmering waters of the Grand
Canal. Vivian was always gondolaing by in these fantasies. He could see
Vivian's latest creation from some
couture
house as clearly
as he could imagine the Princess's room strewn about with silk and
bombazine, printed velvets and brocades.

Ramona Braine, throughout the meal, had remained rig-idly silent,
checking her turquoise watch every ten minutes, thinking, from her
expression, of their ruined holiday to Cumbria and her meeting with the
Emperor Hadrian— dashed now because his specter had already been
hanging about there (it being well past noon), come and gone as
specters do. Melrose's attempt to solace her with the suggestion that
"perhaps next year" was met with a furious glance that removed him
completely from the provenance of the spirit world.

Only Malcolm was making the most of things. He had exhausted the
topic of the murder of "the landlady" and been chillingly silenced by
George Poges. Thus what he saw as the bloody corpse was transplanted by
a long description of the bloody chickens he had watched Ruby throttle
and then chain-saw to death (to hear him talk). The remnants now lay
coldly on the platter before them; Malcolm described this slaughter
with all of the relish of Agamemnon's father, Atreus, serving up the
fatal pie to his brother that contained Thyestes' children. What was
impressive about the Greeks was that they never forgot anything, never
let a slur pass, never let a gauntlet drop without reprisals. For
family feeling, they could teach the Mafia a thing or two. The Greeks
reminded him of Commander Macalvie.

Melrose pushed the pale chicken piece about his plate and took a
bite of cold potato and thought of Agamemnon murdered by Aegisthus and
Clytemnestra. Next generation: Orestes and Electra. Yes, it went on
forever. Revenge really turned their cranks (as Ellen would probably
say).

He was thinking of this as he stared out of the window at dusk. He
frowned. Where in hell
was
Ellen, anyway? After breakfast she
and her bike had skittered down the drive, spitting up shale and rocks
on her way to some Bronte-research revel, this time in Wycoller. That
had been nearly twelve hours ago.

He walked over to the fireplace, kicked at the barely burning log,
looked at his reflection in the gilt mirror and found it less than
inspiring. And where was Abby? He'd been checking his watch as often as
had Ramona Braine and was looking through the window as if the specter
might appear in its shredded graveclothes and beckon him to the pile of
rocks.

Abby had been in the barn after breakfast and he hadn't seen her
since. His appearance hadn't resulted in anything but her playing her
Elvis record louder and stomping round the byre to medicate her cow.

He had decided to ask Ruby to fix Abby's tea, and been told, when he
wandered into the kitchen that it'd do no good; Abby always did her own
tea just the way she liked it.

"But she must at least come to the main house for
supplies
.
" Even Admiral Byrd had to get those, though Melrose had forgotten how.

"She be all right, sir; we never worry about the lass."

He thought this so peculiar that in his abstraction he picked up a
tea towel and began to wipe a platter. Ruby was doing the washing-up
from their earlier meal and wasn't happy about the extra work. Her
thick brows were working toward the center like burrowing moles.
Clearly, she felt put upon, what with both Cook and Mrs. Braithwaite
having fled the scene.