The Grave Maurice (42 page)

“Yeah? So what else did she share?”

“Not a damned thing. I've got to hand it to you, Danny; you've got these women going in circles. Nothing could make them give you up. Nell Ryder got away, but I expect you know that.”

Danny said nothing for a moment; he just regarded Jury. Then he said, “Hate to tell you this, but you've got this wrong if you think I'd anything to do with Nell's getting nobbled. I'm a right bastard in a lot of ways, but not a total villain.”

“You weren't in this with Valerie Hobbs? That's what you're saying?”

Sara was back with the beer, no glass. Danny took it from her without comment. She sat—perched, rather—beside him.

“That's what I'm bloody saying, yes. As for Valerie Hobbs, I used to run into her at that flapping track outside of Newmarket. You know, Blaydon. Good sport, was old Val. Had a few drinks, a few laughs, but that's about it.”

“Tell me about your wife, your so-called widow, Danny, now dead. You heard about that, I expect.” Jury was sure he had not heard about his son, Maurice, nor did he want to be the bearer of that bad news. When Danny didn't respond right away, Jury said, “Sara
did
tell you about that? Or you read about her in the paper? You don't seem visibly upset by it.”

The gun seemed to have become a prop that could be dispensed with. Danny set it down on the coffee table and said, “I hadn't seen Simone in over a year. All that held us together really was the money. The insurance money. She was here to collect.”

“You shot her because she was in on the fraud.”

“
I
shot her?” His laugh was almost buoyant. “Why'd I do that? It makes no sense. She wasn't the only one knew it wasn't me took the fall in that race.” He hooked his thumb at Sara.

“By what sleight of hand did you manage that accident?”

“I can't take all the credit for that; it was fate slapped the cards down there. Black Jack. They got us down wrong, me and a jockey named Delacroix, they mixed us up in the lineup. That horse, Up All Night? That was
my
ride, not Delacroix's. He was supposed to be up on Bright Angel. It was dumb luck.”

“Not for Delacroix, it wasn't. What about his own family—wife, Mum? Didn't anyone wonder what happened to him? And didn't anyone recognize you? In the UK your face was well known.”

“Not in France, it wasn't. I never raced over there when I was working with Ryder Stud. All jockeys look the same in a race. You know the way they ride with their faces nearly mashed into their mount's neck.” Danny gave a short, hard laugh. “It was bedlam, with Up All Night going down like he did. In all the aggravation, I couldn't have found me own arse, much less somebody else's. And who knows? Maybe there wasn't any wife. But I do remember there was a bit in the paper that Delacroix hadn't weighed in for the eighth race. But who was going to question who the body belonged to? My own
wife
identified me right on the spot. So if any of Delacroix's relations or friends were there, why would they be upset? Nothing happened to him, as far as anyone knew, until his next race, like I said. Poor sod disappeared. Wouldn't be the first time, right? What'd you think happened? You think I managed to engineer the whole thing? Listen, that horse's leg was shattered, a triple fracture. Had to be put down then and there. You think I'd do that to a
horse,
boy-o?”

He actually cocked the gun that had been lying impotently on the table. It was as if he didn't care sod-all if Jury landed him in the nick, but he certainly cared if Jury was saying he could do serious damage to a horse. It would be laughable except Jury knew he was perfectly serious.

“Sorry, Danny, if I have trouble believing in your equine devotion—not if you could stand by and watch those sixty mares tied up.”

“What,” asked Sara, “is he talking about?”

Danny looked utterly confused. “What in hell are you on about? That's nothing to do with me.”

“Those mares were nothing to you? The jockey who could jump a horse over the moon without a whip? You're fabled for your uncanny way with horses, Danny. I'm astonished that you'd put up with what was going on in those barns.”

“I don't know what the bloody hell you're talking about.”

Jury knew then he'd got half of this whole thing wrong. Still, he was fascinated. “You mean those horses Valerie Hobbs kept—that wasn't your gig?” It was Dan Ryder's Achilles' heel, his feeling for horses. It was also the firing pin, apparently, the match to the fuse. Oddly, this might have been the key to Ryder's fatal charm: he did have one very real passion—horses. The women he was involved with must have mistaken this intense feeling as meant for them. Whereas, Jury bet Danny didn't give sod-all for any of them.

“Whatever Valerie Hobbs is up to, that's got nothing to do with me.”

He wasn't denying it because of Sara Hunt, that was certain. He was denying it because what he said was true.

“So now you think,” Danny said, “since I shot Simone, I'm going to knock off my girl Sara here because she also knows I'm alive?”

“Maybe not. But that wasn't the only reason you might want your wife dead. There was, after all, the money. Maybe you wanted it all. You waited until you got it, or Simone got it—I expect that they choked on that double indemnity clause. She had to collect it, of course. You waited until she did and then shot her.” Jury paused. “Why the Ryder training track, though? Why'd you meet Simone there? Or had she perhaps decided to have a meeting with your father—?”

Danny was getting increasingly irritated. Not enough, though, to make him aim the gun. “Oh, sod off, mate. You haven't a
clue.
”

The second person who'd told him that in the last twenty-four hours. He couldn't help but smile. “Perhaps not, but if you didn't do it, who did?”

“It could have been the whole fucking Jockey Club, for all I know. Simone wasn't known for her discretion.”

“That was it? You knew she'd give you away at some point?”

Danny flapped his hand at Jury, slammed the beer bottle on the table and said to Sara, “Get me a real drink, love, will you?”

Sara rose and went to the drinks cabinet, but kept her eye on them as she was pouring, as if one or the other might make a break for it while she was fixing drinks.

Jury realized how wrong he'd been. What was, after all, the point of Dan's killing Simone? The man was already risking identification with Sara Hunt. If Dan Ryder hadn't killed the woman, who had?

Dan was talking about Nell, now. “Always had a thing for that girl. Ashamed to admit it, but there it is. Always had a thing for her.”

Sara put the drink on the table. She said, “Is there any female you don't have a ‘thing' for?”

My God, thought Jury, the man's a liar, a swindler, possibly a killer, yet all she reacts to is mention of another woman. Ryder must be like a snake charmer: this one, at least, seemed to be mesmerized.

“She was only thirteen, fourteen last time I saw her—”

“Last time you saw her she was seventeen. She still is.”

Danny stopped the whiskey in midair. Slowly, he put it down. “What the bloody hell are you on about now?”

“I'm talking about taking Nell Ryder, Danny.”

“What? You think that's
me
.” He laughed, sat back and reclaimed his glass. “Well, you been wrong twice now, so you might as well go for three times.”

“Then who?”

“You ought to get me a job with the Yard, me. And you a detective superintendent.”

“Maurice—” Jury stopped, looked sharply at Sara, who looked away. He didn't want to tell him Maurice was dead; he'd leave that for Sara to do. Yet Danny had given the boy up, hadn't he, with this charade? And it struck Jury that perhaps Danny had given
everything
up—especially his riding career, his horses.

“What about Maurice?”

“I'm sure it was Maurice who got Nell out to that stable by lying about Aqueduct. I can't see his doing this for anyone but you, Dan.”

“Then he didn't do it. Because I didn't take her. Lord knows I never took Aqueduct.”

Jury had to smile. Taking Aqueduct, clearly, was even more unbelievable to Danny.

“But it was Maurice. It's the thing that explains his behavior.”

“What behavior?”

“The guilt. Imagine knowing he was responsible for Nell's abduction.”

“You're dreaming, friend.”

Jury didn't say the rest: why else would Maurice take such a chance as to jump those impossible walls at night? It would take someone with a hell of a lot of practice to make that trip after dark. The sort of person who abducted Nell. A jump jockey.

“You did go to Valerie Hobbs's place?”

“Yeah, I went there, but not more than a half dozen times in the months I've been here.”

“You went to see her, then?”

Danny nodded.

Sara asked again, “Who is this woman?”

Jury held up the shot of Valerie Hobbs, but said nothing.

Sara left her seat on the sofa beside Danny and moved to the fireplace, her back turned. In a way, Jury felt sorry for her; here she was, thinking she had the man all to herself, at last. Danny, he noticed, at least had the grace to look a little concerned.

Jury watched Dan Ryder sitting there in silence—his relaxed posture, leaning back into the softness of the cushions, one foot braced against the edge of the coffee table, dressed in flannels and a black cashmere sweater. Jury bet the sweater was a gift from Sara. There were a lot of gifts from Sara: her house, her bed, her unswerving loyalty, threatened now only by the chance of another woman. Danny's charm was a gift from whatever god had a sense of humor. His manner was disarming. Even Jury felt a liking for him, or some sort of empathy, which had kept him from telling the news of his son's death. There was a back-stage persona, something else going on in Danny Ryder that had nothing to do with hiding things; Jury was sure the man was hiding all sorts of things, but things not germane to the abduction of Nell Ryder or the murder of Simone.

“Then who took Nell, Danny? It would probably go a long way in reducing your sentence if I tell the police that you helped in this investigation.”

“You're so sure I'll be tossed into the nick?”

“Yes.”

Danny laughed as if this possibility concerned him not at all. “On whose say-so? You going to tell them you were around here for a deco and look who turned up? The jockey. The dead one.”

“That's pretty much the way I'd say it, yes.”

Danny reached out and picked up the gun, braced it in both hands and pointed.

Sara whirled around. “Danny!”

Jury said, “You won't shoot me, Danny. You're devious as hell, but you're not a killer. What you told me happened in Paris? I've no trouble believing it. You're emotionally lazy; not even the danger of being exposed would prompt you to kill anyone. You live by chance, Danny. Chance is almost a religion with you. The only thing you don't leave to chance is the course.”

For some reason, this seemed to dig at Danny more than anything. “You think I don't take chances in a race?”

“Of course you do, you have to. But that's not what I mean. You know every hoofbeat pounding around that course; you know exactly what your horse is doing and can do and will do. Horses are what you don't take chances with. Your women are chance women, met by chance, bedded by chance and maybe even married by chance.” He was looking straight at Danny, but Jury detected Sara stirring from her gloomy dream. Quickly she moved toward Jury and dashed the rest of her whiskey in his face.

Danny laughed as he put the gun back on the table.

Sara's face was splotchy with fury.

Jury pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “Shame to waste it.”

Danny laughed again. She looked daggers at him. “How can you let him go on that way? Maybe to you all this is bloody funny, but not to me!” In a second she'd put her hand on the gun, pulled it from the table and pointed it at Jury.

“No,” said Jury, “I can see it's not funny to you at all.”

Danny threw up his hands. “Easy, love. He's having you on; he's doing it on purpose; he wants to get you riled, girl; he might learn something.”

Which he had.

“You,” he said to Sara, “on the other hand, might just shoot me. You're more likely to do it than Danny, certainly. Because
you
are anything but emotionally lazy. Your emotions are incendiary.”

The room fell quiet. “How did you get Simone to the Ryder stables?”

Danny looked at her, eyebrows raised in what Jury took to be genuine surprise. “Sara? What the hell—?”

Her expression didn't so much change as resettle into that look she had just turned on Danny, now leveled at Jury. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Jury didn't bother speaking to that denial. He said, “It could have been Valerie Hobbs who shot Simone—even more likely since she's so close to the Ryder farm—but I don't think Ms. Hobbs is murderously jealous. Just jealous. No one thought—no one would have—that the murder of his wife had to do with Danny himself because Danny was dead. But you traveled all the way from here to Cambridgeshire to kill her. I can't get that part of it right in my mind. You didn't know her; it's a puzzle as to how you might have done all of this.”

Danny appeared more fascinated than anything else. He got up and took the gun from Sara's hand.

Jury went on talking. “Did you even know his wife was
here
? Did he even tell you it was Simone who was collecting the insurance money? Anyway, it would be a total waste of time to shoot me because I couldn't prove a thing.” He looked from one to the other, then reached over and slid his photos together and took them from the table.