The Old Wine Shades (31 page)

Stopping there, he was wondering how to tell Hugh Gault about his dead wife when Vivian’s question came to mind again:
Why didn’t they take Mungo?
What the hell did she mean?

Damn. He missed the light turning green until the car behind him tapped its horn. Jury jerked to and continued along the Fulham Road. He passed the Fulham/Broadway tube stop and another death-defying intersection and drove on up the Fulham Road. The night was black as tar, starless and cold.

He slowed a little as he passed the iron gates of Fulham Palace. Jury thought again of its gardens and what had happened there, and saw in his mind’s eye the knot garden with its medieval herbs, the dead woman lying incongruously in a pitch of lavender. He saw the gorgeous grounds full of trees—silver lime, holm oak, chestnut, redwood—and wondered if he would ever have reason or nerve enough to walk through those trees and gardens again.

The elegant Stoddard Clinic gave off that same rather comforting sense of having removed itself from the demands of ordinary life, somewhat in the manner of Hugh’s many dimensions and alternate worlds. For some reason. Jury thought of his delayed reaction to the light’s changing in front of the South Ken underground: he intuited—and it was high time his intuition kicked in—that Hugh Gault’s idea of time was far more like that complicated arrangement of lights and crossings than it was like tracks running parallel.

He had called already, and that and his ID had gotten him past the gatekeeper. Now he sat there in the clinic’s car park, under a massive oak, trying now not to think. The whole thing was unraveling like a frayed gown, and he didn’t want it to come undone too quickly. He turned the envelope holding the crime scene photos Dryer had supplied him with around in his hands, feeling a lot like he must have felt when he was a boy, slapping the book shut as the end of the story approached, even though it was a book someone had read to him many times before. He did not want the words at the end spoken. This, he thought, was a very strange analogy and he wondered what he meant by it. Instead of concern for the dead Glynnis Gault, was he concerned about the end of the story?

He pocketed his key, got out and stood looking at the clinic’s complicated Gothic façade. Everything was complicated, he thought. Everything. He smiled a little, thinking this whole case would be solved not by he himself—Jury the dimwit—but by Wiggins, Carole-anne and Vivian.

And Mungo. Perhaps Mungo most of all.

Jury crossed the entrance hall to Reception and told the sleekly suited receptionist with the black helmet of hair that he’d come to see Hugh Gault. Of course she would already know this, having been notified by the guard at the gate. Yes, he’d been here before. Jury showed her his ID, and she swept her hand back over her glossy black hair as if the warrant card were a camera. She wondered, was something wrong? Not at all. He merely needed some information from Mr. Gault.

‘He’ll be down in a minute anyway, if you’d care to wait?’ With a pen she pointed round to the same drawing room he and Harry had waited in before.

Then Jury turned back to the receptionist: ‘

‘Anyway’?’

‘Pardon?’

‘You said Mr. Gault would be down ‘anyway.’

‘Oh, yes. He’s already been told he has a visitor.’

The visitor, then, was either the amiable woman with the fading good looks who glanced up from her magazine and gave him a quick smile, or the gaunt young man holding a sheepskin jacket in his lap who looked at Jury and away, his brown eyes incurious.

Jury had no time to pursue the question of who was who before Hugh Gault walked in and the woman stood up and they embraced. No, hugged was what they did, and hard; they seemed to be gathering warmth from each other.

Hugh released her and held out his hand to Jury. ‘You’re Inspector . . . no, Superintendent Jury. It’s nice to see you again.’ He turned back to the woman, introducing her. ‘My wife, Glynnis.’

Things change as you look at them. One thing becomes two things.

He looked at Glynnis Gault.

He won’t solve it, you know. . .
.
Only if Fate steps in and takes his side.

Fate just stepped in.

40

Jury reached out his hand to Glynnis Gault with a peculiar feeling (though oddly pleasant) that he was getting too much water up his nose and coughing from it, and would she kindly pull him out?

She had a sweet voice and a warm hand. ‘My goodness, what’s Hugh been up to? I’ve been away for some time.’

Indeed you have. Jury wanted to say. About nine months. But he was so surprised he could only gaze at her. Then after a few seconds of this, he said, ‘Mr. Gault’s done nothing at all. I just wanted him to look at some police photographs.’ He was relieved that the reason for bringing the pictures would not now materialize, or worse, that he or DCI Dryer had come with the news that Glynnis had been found murdered before she herself had arrived here. It could so easily have happened.

‘Let’s have a look,’ said Hugh, motioning for all of them to sit. Jury drew out the two photos of the dead woman and cautioned them that the subject was dead, had been murdered.

They—Hugh and Glynnis—were of that rare breed of witness who thought before they spoke.

Hugh shook his head. ‘No, sorry.’

Glynnis also said no. ‘Who is she?’

‘That’s the problem. We don’t know. She was found asphyxiated in a house in Surrey that’s presently unoccupied. The woman had apparently disappeared nine or ten months ago, along with her son and the family dog.’

Glynnis laughed. ‘I’m sorry, but, the family
dog!
Jury nodded and watched both of them sit back, making themselves comfortable, ready for the story. Jury told the bare bones of it, reserving for the moment the dead woman’s masquerade as Glynnis Gault. And the boy’s as Robbie Gault. And Mungo’s as, well, Mungo. He was reserving this part of it—indeed, the most significant part of it—because the whole story was so incredible. Yet he had believed it, hook, line and sinker. ‘You’re a font of information, Superintendent.’

He said, wanting immediately to call it back: ‘The dog came back.’ He realized how strange the whole thing sounded. How
exceedingly
strange it sounded coming out of his own mouth, a Metropolitan policeman. A New Scotland Yard
detective.

They looked at one another. Hugh repeated it: ‘The dog came back?’

‘It’s an account that was given me by Harry Johnson.’ He waited for Hugh to seize upon this piece of news. He did.

‘Harry? You’re saying
Harry
told you this story?’ Hugh laughed.

His wife looked as if she thought it was too fantastic.

‘He did, yes.’

Glynnis laughed. ‘Please, Mr. Jury, this is some police trick, isn’t it?’

Jury felt his mouth going dry. ‘No.’

Hugh said, ‘I was more than a little puzzled when he brought you—’

Jury interrupted. ‘So that
was
Harry Johnson?’

‘Yes, of course it was. The man is highly intelligent, he really is. It’s too bad he can’t channel it into something a little more productive than this obsession with quantum mechanics and me.’

‘He told me the two of you are collaborating on a book about it.’

Hugh tilted his head as if in this position he could see more clearly into Jury’s fevered brain. But of course it wasn’t Jury’s; it was Harry Johnson’s brain. ‘This damnable book—is he still on about that? Harry’s not writing a book, although I expect he thinks he is.
We’re
certainly not writing a book together. I let him borrow my notes because they deal with the principle of complementarity. Niels Bohr, you know—with whom he has an endless fascination.’

There was a silence, uncomfortable for Jury, but puzzled for the Gaults.

Hugh said, ‘May I make a suggestion?’

‘Of course.’ It would not have surprised Jury at all if the man said,
‘Why don’t you check in here? I’m sure your work must keep you under terrific pressure. ‘

‘The dead woman. She could, you know, have been doing this on her own, couldn’t she? That is, she could have gone to the estate agent and simply asked to see property—’

Jury hated bringing it up, but he had to. ‘I’m sorry to mention it, but you had a son—’

Glynnis tried to be matter-of-fact. ‘We did. He drowned.’

‘The woman in these photos—she also had a son. Rather, there was a boy with her. The thing is, Mrs. Gault, the woman was using your name. She was impersonating you.’

‘What?’
In her chalk-white face, her eyes widened.

‘With a son named Robbie.’

Hugh said, ‘Robbie died last year. It was why—’ He didn’t finish. ‘It was a boating accident. We were sailing on a friend’s boat and things got rough and he was washed over the side.’ Hugh looked away.

Jury waited a few beats. He didn’t want the question to seem rather cruelly frivolous. ‘Do you have a dog?’

‘No. Hugh’s allergic to them.’

Jury nodded. ‘Does Harry Johnson have a dog?’

She looked at Hugh, puzzled.

Hugh smiled. ‘He does. I think his name’s Mungo. He’s smart, that dog. The clinic’s very relaxed in that way. You can bring pets in for the patients to see as long as they’re well behaved.’

Jury stared. Then he knew.
Why didn’t they take Mungo?
He knew the answer to Vivian’s question. What she had wondered was why, if other dogs—like that Irish wolfhound—were permitted in the clinic, then why didn’t they take Mungo in when the two of them went to visit Hugh? Mungo would have leapt in delight at seeing Hugh. A loyal dog, seeing his master after such a long time.

Because Mungo wasn’t Hugh’s dog. Mungo wouldn’t have made the expected fuss over his master. Mungo wouldn’t have done a damned thing. And Harry knew it.

He said to Glynnis, whose presence here he couldn’t quite get over, ‘I believe you just got back—’

She nodded. ‘Yes, from the south of France. I was in Aix-en- Provence with my father.’ She faltered, looked down at the rug. ‘I was just devastated ... I was. Sorry.’

Jury had a million questions which he felt he couldn’t ask at the moment. He rose, smiled. ‘Thanks for your help. I’m terribly sorry for your loss.’ But he was so relieved there hadn’t been yet another one for Hugh Gault that the ‘terribly sorry’ had little conviction. ‘I think I should be going.’

‘If we can help you more, don’t hesitate. Superintendent,’ said Hugh, rising. ‘Although I don’t think Harry’s so far gone he’d really have anything to do with this.’

He said this with the most sublime certainty.

Yes, Jury might be nuts, but Harry wasn’t.

Jury was about to thank them and take his leave, but that comment stopped him: ‘So far gone? Harry?’

Hugh was standing now, having risen when Jury did. ‘I mean, since he checked himself in, as I did, he was free to leave, of course.’

Can I be that stupid? Can I be that utterly, blindingly stupid? ‘Harry was a patient here?’

Hugh registered surprise. ‘Well. . . yes. Harry was here for a little over a year. It’s how I came to know him.’

‘This is where you met him?’

‘Yes. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.’

I’m not. Jury thanked him, both of them, and left.

41

Carole-anne was clopping her way down from the second floor as Jury was walking up to the first. Those dreadful shoes! What was she now? A Bruno Magli fanatic?

‘I forgot your key,’ she said.

Jury put his own key in the door. ‘Usually, it’s ‘I forgot
my
key.’’

‘Well, I didn’t, did I? Just yours.’

They both entered Jury’s front room or, as Carole-anne would no doubt put it,
their
front room.

‘And why this hunger to get into my flat?’ he asked.

‘I heard your phone. That answering machine’s not very dependable. You look knackered.’ She plumped herself down on his sofa.

‘I
am
knackered. Very knackered.’ Jury dropped his coat on the sofa and went to the kitchen, where he pulled a bottle of Foster’s out of the frig. He took it back to the living room.

She said, ‘If you want a drink, let’s go down the Angel.’

Jury sank into his easy chair. ‘I don’t feel like a pub.’

‘Oh, come on, Super.’ She flashed him a truly darling smile. ‘Everybody feels like a pub.’

‘I need to make a call. Will you excuse me?’

‘Oh . . .’ She grew anxious at his forays into privacy. But she got up.

She looked so sad. Jury had to say, ‘Don’t leave. But don’t listen.’

Saved, she sat down again on the sofa and picked up a magazine, probably last year’s issue of
Time Out,
and smiled again.

He shook his head. If only the stars shone so brightly.

Jury punched in the number for the Surrey police, though it was probably too late for Dryer to be in the office. Now where did he get that idea? As if provincial police kept regular hours, as London’s slaved on through the trough of night.

A copper named Delaney with an accent to match answered. Jury asked for DCI Dryer. ‘If he’s there. This is Superintendent Richard Jury of the Metropolitan police. I was with him earlier.’