The Case Has Altered (11 page)

He didn't want to put words in Trueblood's mouth. Trueblood was too good at doing that himself. And he knew Trueblood would go along with this happily. He'd been looking for a few new windmills to tilt at.

Having stripped the jar clean of its thick-cut marmalade and the china plate of its scones, Agatha sat back and made little adjustments to her person. Fiddled with the collar of her blouse, rearranged a chiffon scarf, rubbed at the semiprecious center of a ring.

Melrose watched her as she did this.

Brooch, scarf, ring. Army and Navy Stores: ten pounds, twenty pence. At most.

H
e had got off the A17 on to one of the godforsaken B roads that was scarcely wider than a wrinkle on the face of the fens. It must have happened back there just beyond Market Deeping, where he'd taken the wrong road out and had wound up going round and round the tiny village of Cowbit. In his transit, he'd passed by a freshly painted cottage with the words written across its lintel in neat, black cursive:
The Red Last.
He'd stopped, idled there in his car for some moments, wondering what it meant. Probably been a pub once. Queer name.
The Red Last.

Finally, a few more turnings took him back to the A17. What he saw before and around him was fen country, stretching south and east into Cambridgeshire and the Black Fens. The ground was stiff with ice on either side of the road and the land was crisscrossed by canals and drainage ditches. Since the Lincolnshire fens were sometimes referred to as “Little Holland,” Melrose supposed that shortly these acres of cold brown fields would be a quilt of color. It must be glorious in the early spring with the bright reds, deep purples, yellows, shimmering in the sunlight across fields that looked like stained-glass windows.

Here was a directional sign, thank heavens: the way to Spalding was clear and simple. After seeing how fast Trueblood's van would go—eighty mph, not bad—he slowly put on the brakes because the welcome sign of a pub had just flown past an eighth of a mile back. He made a U-turn and drove back; he knew beforehand that directions would be needed to Fengate, and who better to supply them than a local pub. Having reached the car park, Melrose folded and pocketed his map. Crunching past the sign of the Case Has Altered, he once again ran over the details about the
pieces Max Owen wanted valued. Melrose was also mindful of the fact that Owen would want them authenticated, would want to know their provenance.

As he did this his spirits flagged. But the promise of conviviality inside the pub—customers with their pints and bottles, the low hum of conversation, the pleasant bartender, the long mahogany bar—that perked him right up. Once inside, though, he found the conversation of the regulars wound down, then stopped. Why did people clam up this way? They clammed up because watching a stranger, any stranger, in their midst was far more interesting than the same old crack.

The bar was blue with smoke, the effluvia of many hours of cigarettes. He took his pint of Old Peculier and wandered over to a dartboard whose riddled concentric rings testified to its popularity. Melrose wondered if he was still any good at the game; he had been once, at age fifteen or sixteen. Quite the champ, actually. Or did he only imagine that? Was that another element in his fictional past? He bent his head and looked down at the thin layer of foam in his glass. The malaise that overcame him whenever he thought of those far-off days settled again. He felt sleepy, but he knew that too was a protective layer.

He drank his beer and thought of his approach to the Owens. Trueblood had talked him into delivering this
table à la Bourgogne
as even further window dressing. He looked down at his clothes. He had decided to look country and wore an out-at-elbow wool sweater and his Barbour coat. He thought this would be the costume of the true aesthete, not a suit with a waistcoat. And he also wore a cap much like that group of flat-caps up there at the bar having their friendly argument. Were they old fenmen? Spin-offs from the ones in the sixteenth century who had raised such a riot over attempts to drain the area?

He decided it would be a good idea to join the group at the bar and stand a round. That had always proved an efficient icebreaker. Though given a double murder in the area, there shouldn't be too much ice to break. He mentioned to the bartender to stand everyone a drink and said to the knot of rather rough-looking men and one woman, “Afternoon, gentlemen.” Inclining his head, he added, “Ladies.”

They murmured greetings, nodded.

“You be Londoner?” asked one of them, as a fresh drink was set before him.

“Good God, no!” He hoped he got it across, his detestation of London and Londoners. “I'm from Northants.” That was a good solid part of the country—hardly worth envying a chap from Northamptonshire. He noticed, though, that their looks were a trifle severe and suspicious. These expressions relaxed into conviviality when the bartender set down the rest of the drinks.

The woman who wore a hat with plastic berries round the brim pulled down over her dishwater hair asked, “You be goin' to Spalding, then?”

“Not quite. A little village called Algarkirk.” He was glad he had real business here, and didn't have to fabricate his destination. Like most prevaricators, Melrose was sure his country getup and affable beer-buying maneuver were as transparent as glass. “Got a delivery to make to a place called Fengate. Furniture. It's out there”—he nodded in the direction of the car park—“in my van.” He wanted to get it across that he worked for a living hauling things about. But as the smoke from their several cigarettes curled upward to form a restive cloud below the ceiling, he found his announcement did nothing to stir them up.

“You be right on top o' it, then. This here's Algarkirk.”

Why weren't they fascinated that Melrose was going right to the scene of the crime? Why weren't they telling him about their famous murder? Melrose raised his glass. “Cheers!”

There was more desultory conversation about the weather and the coming flower parade and the price of feed. Melrose decided to bring up the house he had seen near Cowbit. He told them about the name. “ ‘The Red Last.' Odd that, isn't it? Was it once a pub, d'you think?”

One of the younger men, Malcolm by name, said, “Well, it's to do with shoes, ihn't?”

The others nodded. One said, “Aye, still, funny name for a pub. I ain't never heard of it . . . you, Ian?” He turned to the other younger man. He and Malcolm seemed to be mates. Ian shook his head.

“It's that thing they use,” said Malcolm, proud of being the one whose intelligence matched that of the stranger, “you know, that wood thing that's the shape o' yer foot.”

Some jocularity here about the various feet in attendance, until the one named Ian, probably tired of his friend's getting the attention, said, “Fengate House you're looking for? Ah, that be the place where that murder happened.”

About time
, thought Melrose, turning to the woman in the berry hat. “Murder?” he asked, wonderingly.

The woman put her hands around her throat and made ghoulish choking noises. “Found only wearin' a wrapper out on the fen.” She lowered her voice. “Interfered with, they say.”

One of the men, disgusted with the misreporting, said, “Warn't interfered with and warn't wearin' no wrapper, neither. They was one shot and one strangled, 'er and Dorcas.”

“Good lord,” said Melrose. “You mean you've had
two
murders here?”

They all nodded, pleased as punch that here was a beer-buying stranger they might be able to keep going until afternoon closing. “Aye, they was both of them from Fengate. There was poor Dorcas, and she used to work here too, am I not right, Dave?” One of the men addressed the bartender, who was probably the owner also. He smiled, nodded, went down the bar to fill another order. The old man picked up the account. “One was some woman who was guest there, she be the first to die—” Ah, the relish with which he said it! “Found her shot dead!”

The rest of them nodded solemnly.

“An' Dorcas, poor gurhl,” said the woman, though it didn't sound like sorrow she was expressing. “Only twenty, was Dorcas. Whyever would someone want to kill poor Dorcas? Harmless, she was.”

Fruitlessly, they argued over Dorcas's age. They each seemed to have a favorite number from nineteen to twenty-eight, until Dave came down the bar to join the talk and put paid to this disagreement by telling them Dorcas was twenty-two. They all deferred instantly to his age-assessment; Dave clearly had the respect of all of them on any subject from malt to murder.

When Melrose realized that he actually knew more about these deaths than the locals, he smiled and said he'd have to be on his way (but not forgetting to signal for one last round for his new friends). Then he asked Dave for directions to Fengate House, afraid if he asked the regulars it would start another argument.

Dave called across the room to a man who was passing the time leveling darts at the dartboard, “Jack! Someone here wants to know how to get to Fengate.”

Melrose watched the tall man named Jack approach. When he passed the table where he'd apparently been sitting, he picked up the glass he'd left and drank the rest of it off. “You're nearly on top of it, it's just the other side of Algarkirk.” He nodded his head in a westerly direction “Go on for under a mile and you're there.”

“You're sure? I mean, that it's that easy? I'm poor on directions.”

Jack laughed. “I should be sure. I live there. On the other side of Windy Fen out there. Here, I'll just draw it.” He plucked a pencil stub from his pocket, grabbed a paper napkin from a holder, and in a flat fifteen seconds drew a road complete with trees and roundabout and a tiny house at the end, pillars and all. Then he resumed drinking and when the glass was nearly empty, dangled it in his long fingers.

Elegant fingers, thought Melrose, wondering if Price might be an artist or a pianist.

“You've some business at Fengate, do you?” His tone wasn't especially curious.

“I have, yes. A delivery for the Owens. Antique
table à la Bourgogne.”
Melrose was, at this point, rather enjoying rolling that off his tongue.

“Never prove it by me; I'm thick as two planks when it comes to Max's stuff.” He held out his hand, smiled at Melrose. “I'm Jack Price, incidentally.”

Melrose extended his own hand. “Melrose Plant.”

Price shook his hand, asked, “You a dealer, then? Or simply a transporter?”

“Neither. Occasionally, I'm called in to appraise a piece.” That didn't sound quite right; he had made it appear that his might be the last word.
He cleared his throat, only too conscious of not being even the first word in determining value. “What I mean is—I'm not a professional, not at all. I have an amateur's interest in these things.”

“What is it you've brought, again?”

“A
table à la Bourgogne.
Quite rare.” He thought too late he should not be editorializing. However, if the table
weren't
rare, he imagined his error would be safe with Jack Price, whose interest in it was no more than polite.

“Sounds impressive. Sounds like something Max would kill for.”

Melrose waited on this with a mild expression of curiosity. He thought it a rather careless comment to make about someone in a household connected with two murders.

“Max Owen is my uncle.” His empty glass dangled from his hand.

When Dave appeared at Melrose's signal to collect the empty pint, Price thanked Melrose and handed over his glass. Then he offered Melrose a cigar, a thin panatella. Melrose thought that thin cigar between Price's fingers was the right touch for a figure in a Goya painting. It suited the rest of him so well: eyes of a brown so dark they were nearly black, longish dark hair that fell toward the side of his face when he bent the cigar over a match. In that light the irises sparked with pinpoints of red. Melrose wished he'd go on, say more. But he simply sat smoking his cigar, thanked Dave when his drink was set before him, thanked Melrose again.

Melrose said, “The table is something the Owens bought on approval. Since they wanted things at their house authenticated anyway, I offered to drive the van here.”

“Max, not Grace.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Not Grace Owen. It's Max's passion, that stuff, not hers. She cares sod-all for it.” Price dusted ash from his cigar into a metal tray. “I expect you must've heard about these murders we've had.” He made it sound like a bout of bad weather. “It was in the papers, London ones, too. Max is fairly prominent in the antiques and art world.”

“No, I don't recall reading about it.” He inclined his head toward the group at the bar. “But they were just talking about it.”