The Five Bells and Bladebone (12 page)

Jury closed the car door and leaned against it. “You know, you and your grandmother are putting guilt up for grabs. Are you competing for prime suspect, or something?”

She turned to look down the drive. “Who else would have done it? Who else had a motive?”

Jury laughed. “My God, you think we work fast, don’t you? It’s early in the day to be answering that question. But I can certainly toss out one or two possibilities: the women he knew. Or someone who had it in for
both
your husband and Marshall Trueblood.
Or
someone we know nothing about as yet. But go back to the women. The summerhouse is accessible to anyone, isn’t it? A disappointed lover — a disappointed anyone — could have come along that path without being seen.”

“But if he was in London —”

If he was
. Jury looked at her. According to the doctor, death probably occurred between nine-thirty and twelve. That would not have given Simon Lean time for a return
trip to the East End. Yet with all the factors that could affect the time span, there was some uncertainty even here.

And there were other considerations: that the last person to have driven the Jaguar was short, a woman, possibly.

She had been watching him carefully as these thoughts ran through his mind. “You’re thinking perhaps he wasn’t? In London, I mean? Simon kept a record . . . at least I think he did —”

“Oh, yes. The car had been driven the same mileage as before. On his other trips. The lab would know if the odometer had been messed with, or if any entry had been forged.”

They had been standing there, before the fountain, sun-drenched from the light reflecting from marble and Italian tiles. Her face lost all of that tint, went pale again, and she said, “Forged. You surely can’t believe that’s possible?”

Jury hated the anxiety on her face so much, he looked away, up toward the facade of the house, wine-gold in the late afternoon. A curtain dropped. Crick, he supposed, having little else to do, watched from windows, narrowed himself into corners, stood as if about to knock outside of doors. He saw nothing sinister in any of this, only sadness.

How could anyone, he wondered, have thought Hannah Lean marble-cold? He answered her question: “I don’t think it’s likely, no. The entries all looked to be in the same handwriting.”

He would have thought she hadn’t heard a word he’d said.

“It’s still me, isn’t it? I would have wanted police to think Simon had gone to London.”

For a moment, he was puzzled. “It wouldn’t have been an alibi, not one at least that could have saved you. If you killed him, Mrs. Lean, you could have done it when he returned.”

When she looked up at him, her complexion had regained
its translucence. Her smile was slight, but Jury felt its impact. “I think it’s very funny to talk to a possible murderess and call her ‘Mrs. Lean.’ I’d think such a dreadful suspicion would at least come on a first-name basis. My name’s Hannah; I don’t know what yours is.”

As she left him, as her small heels hit the tiles beneath in her hurry, Jury saw the curtain fall again.

The dry fountain, the elaborate loggia crusted with sun, the flowery walks and wind chimes, so many flowers they might have fallen from the sky.

And yet an inexpressibly lonely place. Jury drove away.

L
OOKING MORE
draped than dressed, Diane Demorney opened her front door.

The former owner, Lorraine Bicester-Strachan, had fit the doorway in much the same way as Diane Demorney fit it now. Both the past and the present mistress had much in common: dark hair, good bones, a haughty tilt to the head, and an equally wolfish desire to get Jury inside. That was certainly the impression he was getting, as she held the door wider even before he’d got out his warrant card.

The house had been completely revamped (as was its owner, he imagined, several times between dawn and dusk). The room into which she led him was now an Arctic glare, where before it had been full of horsey stuff and paintings of driftwood and Cornwall-like coastlines. Yet it had been just as chilly looking then as it was now, since there are some people who can suck the warmth out of anything. The only thing that had looked lived in was Diane Demorney.

In the case of the present owner, he detected something nearly humorous in the way she’d stuck herself in her setting: it was an ensemble look, the lady and the room, as if one would be lost without the other, like foreground and background. Everything was white — carpets, sofa,
chairs — right down to the painting on the wall, which was white on white. What didn’t look like Arctic snow looked like Arctic ice; the several tables were glass, with a vaguely blue tint. A martini pitcher and glasses nearly as wide as umbrellas waited on one.

Thus the foreground — Miss Demorney herself — supplied the only stroke of color. And it was quite a stroke, at that: her crimson dress was composed of folds of georgette. From the shoulder-padded top, resembling the hilt of a knife, the material draped across the breasts to an undefined hipline, and from there to the knee, in increasingly tighter folds. It narrowed like a blade, cutting a swath of blood-red across the white walls, as if the room had been stabbed.

As she poured a small Niagara of gin into the pitcher, Jury said, “I’m sorry. Were you expecting a friend?”

“Only you, Superintendent.” She filled the cap of the vermouth bottle, poured half back in the bottle, and added this breath of vermouth to the pitcher. “Olive? A twist? I prefer a bit of garlic rubbed round the glass myself. Or would you rather have vodka?”

“The search for the perfect martini, is that it?”

“The perfect martini, Superintendent, is a belt of gin from the bottle; one has to be slightly civilized, however.”

As she started to fill the second glass, Jury said. “Not for me, thanks.”

Diane gave him a pained look. “God, it’s not really true, is it, about not drinking on duty? I thought that only happened in those dreary mystery stories. ‘Thank you, Lord Badluck, but I’m on duty.’ How boring, though I’m sure Fielding would have approved, had you been a Peeler.”

“I’ll join you if you have a little whiskey. Pretend it’s vermouth and measure accordingly.”

She reached round to the end table, a thing composed of glass and mirrored doors, pulled out a bottle of Powers. “Will Irish do?”

“Fine. If you knew I was coming, then you know why.”

“Simon Lean. I knew him.” She handed Jury a tumbler so wide that the level of whiskey was deceiving. Then she crossed her legs, and the slit necessary to allow for walking gave him a pleasant view above the knee. She screwed a cigarette into a long white holder ribbed with thin, frosty-looking stuff.

A very glacial lady, thought Jury. Intelligent? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. He’d liked that comment she’d worked in about the Peelers and Henry Fielding. In her head, it probably passed for panache.

“As I understand it, you knew Mr. Lean rather well.”

Again, the beautiful wing of eyebrow moved upwards. “And
how
do you understand it, then? From
whom
do you understand it?”

“Mrs. Lean says she thought you saw him — rather often. I believe she said she’d seen you having a drink at the Bell in Sidbury.”

“Sitting in the bay window on a main street does not strike me as secrecy. Does it you?” Over the wide rim of her glass, she regarded him.

“I didn’t say you were being ‘secret.’ You could be having an affair and nothing secret about it.”

“Is
that
what she told you?” She didn’t stop for an answer. “Well, Simon was certainly attractive enough, but always broke. I believe
I
had to pay for the drinks.”

“What’s money have to do with it?”

“God, do you live on a star, Superintendent? Is there anything money
hasn’t
to do with?”

“Were you having an affair with Simon Lean?”

From pursed lips she blew a rapier-like stream of smoke and watched it float and disperse. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be answering your questions. Aren’t you supposed to warn me, or something?”

“Yes; I’m warning you to stop fiddling around and to
answer my questions.” Jury smiled. “Let’s leave Simon Lean for a moment —”

“Let’s.”

“I’m surprised someone like you’d choose a place like Long Piddleton to live.”

“ ‘Live’? Oh, but I keep my flat in Hampstead; insofar as ‘living’ is concerned, I do that in London. One must simply have a place in the country, also. For weekend parties, that sort of thing.” She poured herself another drink and drew her skirt up another inch with a casual twist of the hand.

“Must one? Do people still go to parties?”

He wanted to laugh at the instant look of alarm, as if she’d missed out on the newest trend. Then she pretended to misunderstand. “I don’t expect policemen have time for them, no.”

“So you party in London and more or less slop about here, that it?”

The look was so hard he thought the face would splinter, but it lasted only for the instant it took her to work out that any show of anger would disturb the carefully wrought façade of ennui. Ennui shot through with glints of humor, like the silver ribs on the white enamel cigarette-holder.

When she didn’t answer, he said, “Simon Lean?”

The look of ennui back in place, she said, “We met in London two or three times. Nothing serious.”

Jury smiled. “Your idea of ‘serious’ might be different from mine. Or Hannah Lean’s, for that matter.”

She was well into that second martini, which in these glasses, would make it easily her third or fourth. Jury got up, raised his own glass. “Mind? No I’ll get it.” He hadn’t drunk any after the first sip, but thought the act of freshening his drink (which he did with soda) might make her more convivial.

He resettled himself on the cool white sofa that seemed, like Diane Demorney, incapable of retaining body heat, and asked, “What about his wife, then?”

Shrugging, she turned away. “Well,
you’ve
seen her.”

In other words, one look at Hannah Lean should have sufficed to explain her husband’s infidelities.

“She’s pleasant; she’s attractive.”

Attractive?
Her glass poised in midair and then she waved it slightly, dismissively, as if Jury’s taste in women was to be pitied. “She’s dressed by the Army and Navy Stores.”

“Mmm.”

“The
only
reason she snagged Simon was because of the money. She’s got piles.”

Jury wondered if it had occurred to her that the only reason
she’d
snagged him was because of the money.

“And I wish you’d explain what you meant earlier about ‘indiscretions,’ plural.” She turned the lazy look on him. “I was under the impression that
I
was the indiscretion, if we still use that word. Are you married, Superintendent?”

“Would it disturb you if you weren’t the only woman in his life? Besides his wife, I mean.” Thus far Jury knew of three women in Simon Lean’s life. There were undoubtedly more. How many women, he wondered, did a man need? All he himself wanted was one.

“He could have had a little something going with Joanna the Mad, for all I know.”

“You mean Joanna Lewes? Where does ‘the Mad’ come in?”

That she absolutely relished giving him this nugget of information was clear: her eyebrows went up, her glass stopped at her lips. “Why, because of her ex-husband, Phillip. Phillip of Spain. You
have
heard of him? Drove his queen Joanna insane. She’s the one who calls
herself
that.”

One would almost think she’d read history. Jury doubted it.

“Why are you smiling, Superintendent? Brilliantly, I might add. That smile must make women absolutely incendiary. You didn’t answer me either.
Are
you married? Or just living with someone?”

“What makes you think I’m either?”

“What makes me
think
it? Well, if you’re not, I’m thoroughly ashamed of my sex. As to Simon — look, I know I should have met you at the door with a hankie wadded to my face and wearing an old bathrobe — the distraught mistress, the one left out of things, she who must bear her burden alone. Bloody hell, I wasn’t all that fond of the man. Nor would I mind if he indeed had ‘others’; heaven knows he had enough stamina for it. I don’t like the look on your face. Though I love the look
of
your face. You think I’m lying?”

“If you are, you’re doing it beautifully.”

“Ah. As long as I’m doing it beautifully, I don’t much care what I’m doing.”

Jury leaned forward, turning — almost caressing — the tumbler. “And what about murder? How would you do
that
beautifully?”

Her intaken breath was not prompted by fear, he knew, but by her liking for the star role —

“I certainly wouldn’t
stuff
someone in a Regency breakfront.”

“
Secrétaire à abattant
.”

“Pardon?”

“Not a breakfront.”

She seemed amused. “I
do
know antiques.”

“So do I.” The corners of Jury’s mouth twitched. Shallow as she was, and silly, he was developing a perverse affection for Diane Demorney. “How would you do it, then?”