The Old Success Read online

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  MARTHA GRIMES

  THE OLD SUCCESS

  A RICHARD JURY MYSTERY

  Copyright © 2019 by Martha Grimes

  Cover design by Daniel Rembert

  Cover artwork: Sea chart of LAND’S END & THE SCILLY ISLES.

  Lizard & Penzance. COLLINS c1774/Alamy; boat artwork created from photo by gary radford/Fishing Boats on Beer Beach/Creative Commons

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

  FIRST EDITION

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book was set in 12.5-point Garamond Premier Pro

  by Alpha Design & Composition

  First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: November 2019

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

  ISBN 978-0-8021-4740-0

  eISBN 978-0-8021-4741-7

  Atlantic Monthly Press

  an imprint of Grove Atlantic

  154 West 14th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  groveatlantic.com

  19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my great and gracious daughter-in-law, Travis Holland

  If I shouldn’t be alive

  When the robins come,

  Give the one in red cravat

  A memorial crumb.

  If I couldn’t thank you,

  Being just asleep

  You will know I’m trying

  With my granite lip.

  —Emily Dickinson

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Also by Martha Grimes

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART I: Hell Bay

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  PART II: Fixer

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  PART III: Soul of Kindness

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  PART IV: Bookaboy

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  PART V: Comeback

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  PART VI: Black Swan

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  PART VII: Sundowner

  Chapter Fourty

  Back Cover

  PART I

  Hell Bay

  1

  Brian Macalvie looked down at the body of the woman whose face, beneath the lattice of seaweed and wet hair, was oddly serene.

  The bay was not. The others who stood with him were soaked, or would have been had the island police not known to wear full-scale rain gear. Macalvie had brought nothing with him from the mainland of Cornwall except Gilly Thwaite, his scene-of-crime officer, and Detective Sergeant Cody Platt. Gilly stood there shivering despite the cape one of the Scilly policemen had settled around her shoulders. Shivering and cursing under her breath at her superior for being one of those who likes to take his time.

  It had taken Macalvie and his team less than an hour from the time he’d dropped the phone back into its cradle in Exeter to the moment the light plane landed on St. Mary’s, one of the Isles of Scilly, twenty-six miles from Land’s End. There was no airport on Bryher, the smallest of the populated islands, so from St. Mary’s they had taken the short boat ride with Detective Chief Inspector Whitten.

  All in all, Gilly was thinking, a fairly good clip. It was not that Macalvie couldn’t move quickly—he could move like lightning—it was that when it came to viewing the dead, he took his time. God, but did he ever take his time. He might as well have been frozen in it, and here was a good place for being frozen. His request to DCI Whitten (the one who’d rung him up) was that nothing be moved, nothing be messed with.

  I’ll tell the sea, Commander, not to move anything.

  Brian Macalvie had been looking at the body for fifteen minutes.

  “There are just too many variables, guv,” said Gilly. The “guv” was anything but obsequious. It was bad-tempered is what it was.

  He had finally kneeled down to study the face more closely, but without brushing aside the dead woman’s seaweed-laden hair.

  “I mean,” Gilly went fearlessly on, “your crime scene has been compromised again and again by the waves and wind.” As if to underscore this point, a wave crashed against the outcropping of rocky promontory. Then another. It was like thunder breaking at their feet.

  Macalvie looked at her over his shoulder and she shut up.

  The island police had already taken photos. Gilly knew her boss hated even the camera’s poking about over the scene, as if its seemingly random flashes were witchy, pulling from the dark things which would have been better left there. It was as if the camera were leaching soul from substance, as in the old supe
rstition that a picture captured the spirit and held it.

  At his side, DCI Whitten said, “Perhaps whoever did this did it and left—went back to the mainland. Maybe he shared the belief of those ancient people who buried their enemies on islands because that way they couldn’t come back and make trouble.

  “The irony,” Whitten went on to say, “would not be lost on anyone who knew the Isles of Scilly are proof against any disturbance, possibly the safest land in Britain.” He looked down at the woman who had been lying there now for two hours, lying still except for the water’s lapping at her side, very still and very beautiful, as if she had now become part of the granite of the islands that were declared an area of outstanding natural beauty. “Also designated as a Heritage Coast. Nothing cheap or tawdry.” Whitten spread his arms. “Do you see a Starbucks?”

  Macalvie snickered. “Not yet.”

  Gilly had not realized how much tension had built up until the laughter broke it. It was more than the death and the pale body. It didn’t stem from a turf war, a jealous guarding of his authority by DCI Whitten. What she saw was quite the opposite: relief. There was relief that this unprecedented crime should be turned over to the Devon-Cornwall constabulary—to Divisional Commander Macalvie.

  The mood was not helped by the ceaseless, thunderous crash of sea against rock. This little part of the coastline offered no protection from wind and water. Either the shape of the bay or the promontory seemed to make it worse, as if the rocks out there were a bulwark against the waves, which consequently built up into an even stronger force. It was like a fist beating and beating against a door.

  Macalvie, done with staring and breathing in this round of death, got up and motioned for Gilly to go ahead. She veritably fell on the body, as eagerly (she hated to think) as a necrophiliac.

  Macalvie looked up the coast and saw lights twinkling. “That the hotel?”

  “The Hell Bay, yes.”

  DCI Whitten had filled Macalvie in as best he could on the brief boat trip from St. Mary’s. The Hell Bay Hotel was the only accommodation on Bryher.

  They walked over wet sand. “It gets enough custom to stay open?” said Macalvie.

  “Indeed, yes. It’s considered one of the best small hotels in England, actually.”

  “Jesus. People are so fond of isolation?” To Macalvie, isolation was a pub shutting down when he was the last one in it.

  “Well, yes. I can see its attraction for anyone who has to drive the M2 into London during rush hour. Remember, too, you haven’t seen any of this in daylight, in sunshine. It’s quite beautiful. This sand is white.”

  Even in the darkness, it looked ghostly, ghost-sand.

  Whitten went on. “I showed our police photo round the hotel, but none of the staff recognized her. I thought I should get right on that without waiting.”

  “You should. Guests this time of year?”

  “A few. Four, I believe she said.”

  “The owner? The manager?”

  “The owners are gone for a bit. Holiday in the Virgin Islands. They left a Mrs. Gray in charge. Quite capable, she seems to be. Didn’t go bonkers at the news of a body on her doorstep, practically.”

  “Any joy there? I mean amongst the guests?”

  Whitten shook his head. “No one recognized her. Of course, with all that stuff webbing her face …? Anyway, it’s impossible at this inning to know who’s telling the truth, who isn’t.”

  Inning. Macalvie liked that. “Is it your coroner’s theory that the body had drifted there from somewhere else? One of the other islands, say?” Macalvie had stopped to run his finger round inside his shoe to get out some of the sand.

  “Oh, no. Listen: you can do much better on this sand if you just take your shoes off. That’s what I do. I mean, when nobody’s around.”

  They both looked a little furtively at the hotel ahead and the small band of police behind. Between, the little stretch of beach glimmered in the moonlight like crushed pearl.

  “More fun, too,” said Macalvie, taking his socks off also.

  Whitten shoved his socks into his shoes, tied the laces together, and hung the lot over his shoulder.

  They continued up the strand, the sand a balm to Macalvie’s tired feet. “You’re right; it is nice. I’d forgotten what it felt like—” Then he realized he’d forgotten because he’d tried to forget those long-gone summers with Maggs and Cassie. Twenty years and it still had the power to stall his feet, to nail him to the spot.

  Whitten stopped too. “Commander Macalvie? Are you all right?”

  “What? Yeah. Yes. I’m okay.” They walked on. It was the mention of the little girl who appeared to have found the body that had started it, he knew. Knowing he was going to have to talk to a little girl. He was not good with children. He seemed only to be able to do it if he got belligerent. There had been that child on Dartmoor, Jessica. He still remembered her, and the memory actually made him smile.

  Then the memories swam back again: himself, Cassie, Maggs. Maggie. She had been so beautiful. Where was she now? Was there anywhere in the world you could go once your child has been murdered?

  He shook his head, as if to get the sand out of that, too, and said, “You said the body couldn’t have drifted into this bay from somewhere else.”

  “I’m pretty sure not. Well, you see Hell Bay. The force of the waves and wind—I don’t see how a body could have gotten in. Even the waves pile up there along the promontory.”

  “Yes, I saw that.”

  “Which means that she was killed here.”

  In the dark, Macalvie smiled. He had worked that out. He looked ahead at the lighted panes of the hotel, grown larger now, the building more defined. “So what about comings and goings? The only way to the islands—to any of them—is the way I came, the last part by boat, right? No heliport, for instance?”

  “On St. Mary’s there’s one that’s the most used. Then there’s one on Tresco. In any event, you’d have to take the launch to get from either of those places to Bryher.”

  “In the last, say, thirty-six hours, has anyone used the launch?”

  “No one. No one’s left.”

  “Then we’re looking for either a very strong swimmer—though God knows how one could swim through those waters … Is it possible?”

  “Possible? Anything’s possible, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing it.”

  “Or,” said Macalvie, watching the windows, behind which he could make out curtains and behind the curtains, moving figures, “the killer dropped from the sky.”

  “Or,” added Whitten, “is still here.”

  “I was getting to that.”

  2

  “You said it was a kid who found the body.”

  “Two kids, actually: Zoe Noyes is the older one. Lives with her sister—I guess Zillah’s her sister—and their aunt, well, great-aunt to be precise. Cottage is over there.” Whitten nodded toward someplace in the distance, east of the bay.

  “Then I guess we should start there,” said Macalvie.

  Whitten walked over to say something to one of his men, as Macalvie told Gilly Thwaite where he was going.

  “I suppose she was pretty scared, was she?” Macalvie said as they set off.

  “The impression I get is there can never be enough dead bodies for Zoe.”

  “Swell,” said Macalvie, thinking maybe he wouldn’t have to do all of the hide-and-seek and cajoling it usually took to get the girl to come out from behind her aunt’s skirts.

  Far from having to be cajoled out of hiding, Zoe was all over the house, dragging another chair into the front room where Whitten and Macalvie stood, as if one of them might bolt if there wasn’t a chair. Then she ran to get a footstool from its position by the fire.

  On the hearth lay a big gray cat, bunched up, paws curled in under its chest. At first Macalvie thought it was sleeping, then decided it was spying, since he could see golden slits just beneath the lids.

  Hilda Noyes, the aunt, told Zoe to stop fussi
ng and to sit down if she must. It would clearly have been useless to tell Zoe to leave the room—to go to her own room or anywhere out of sight and sound of the police. Zoe knew a murder when she saw one, or its aftermath, and knew also that she was the star attraction.

  Another child, a little girl who looked several years younger than fourteen-year-old Zoe, was introduced as Zillah. That is, was pointed out, for Zillah, unlike Zoe, had no intention of joining the group. Zillah was sitting on the staircase and, upon hearing her name, inched herself farther back against the shadowed wall.

  Macalvie could barely make her out, sealed in shadow as she was. He could see clearly only her hair, fine and light as puffball filaments.

  Following the direction of his gaze, Zoe said, “That’s Zillah, but she won’t help.”

  Her aunt, unhappy with this version of things, said, “Zillah’s too frightened to talk, Zoe, as you perfectly well know. Don’t make it sound as if the poor child is being stubborn.”

  “She won’t talk, Aunt Hilda. She just won’t. You can see it in her eyes.”

  Hilda flapped her hand, brushing her niece’s comments away. “Anyway, about this murder, it was Zoe and Zillah that found her—”

  Zoe’s eyes widened in shock, not at the memory of the corpse but at her aunt’s stealing her thunder. “I can tell it!”

  Hilda seemed about to protest when DCI Whitten jumped in. “She can, you know, and best she does. I’d like Commander Macalvie to hear it firsthand.”

  Pleased, but giving Macalvie the once-over as if debating whether or not he was firsthand material, Zoe asked, “What’s a commander in the police?”

  Whitten answered, “Very high up. Much higher up than me. He works in Exeter.”

  Tongue literally in cheek, Zoe studied Macalvie. “Are you? Is that right?”

  “What? That I work in Exeter?”

  “No-o. That you’re really high up.”

  “Not as high as you’d like me to be. Not the commissioner. But let’s hear it anyway.”

  It hardly took persuading. “Okay.” Zoe’s gaze trailed off and over to a window, black-paned now in the darkness. “I was outside playing with Zillah and then we decided to go over to Hell Bay—”

  “Which,” said her aunt, “you are not supposed to do, you know that.”