Vertigo 42 Page 29

  He had also eaten a surprisingly good sandwich, and all the while he ate, he had thought about Mundy and his idea that she might have modeled that dress in the course of her afternoon’s work. Kenneth might have picked it out and asked her to model it. Customers could, he supposed, do that.

  No, he couldn’t believe the accomplice had been Mundy Brewster. She was not that stupid, and nor venal. And certainly she was not besotted with Kenneth Strachey. Dr. John McAllister was another story, but Jury doubted she would go along with murder, even for him. When his mobile twitched in his pocket, he pulled it out.

  “Sorry, boss,” said Wiggins. “It’s a nonstarter.”

  “What is?”

  “Veronica D’Sousa. The night Belle Syms was killed, the D’Sousas—both of them, daughter and mum—were at a charity bash at the Connaught. I’ve already tracked down a half-dozen guests who could verify different times in the evening that Veronica was present. Their statements covered the time from eight to midnight.”

  Jury was stunned. “You mean she has an alibi?”

  “Up to her earlobes.”

  Jury sighed. “Damn. Did you come across any other women he was seeing?”

  “No joy there, either. I put two DCs on his trail after I interviewed him. That’s the bad news; but there’s also good news: Madeline Brewster has an alibi that sounds solid, as soon as I can check on the people who saw her in this pub—”

  Jury was surprised at the relief he felt. While Wiggins talked, Jury signaled to Trevor by raising his empty glass.

  “Oh, and I had much better luck with the clinic inquiry. Private clinic that sounds pretty posh, even over the phone. Called the Oldham Clinic in Surrey, near Dorking. They had a Tess Hardwick there in the relevant window of time.”

  “I’m surprised they’d give you the information. Didn’t they balk?”

  “Of course. But you can really make headway if you threaten them. I just told them I could have a warrant and a black ops team at her door within twenty-four hours.”

  Jury laughed. “ ‘Black ops’? We have a black ops team?”

  “No, but it sounds really sinister. I just tossed it out.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Where is this place?”

  “Box Hill, just north of Dorking, A24. It’s only around twenty miles from London. I expect you can do it in an hour, hour and a half.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Wiggins.”

  Jury put his mobile back in his pocket as he thanked Trevor for the drink the barman was setting before him.

  “You look as if you’d lost your last case, Superintendent,” said Harry Johnson, pulling out the bar chair beside Jury.

  “Hello, Harry.” Jury looked down toward the floor. “You forgot Mungo again.”

  “Sorry, I don’t know your schedule. Trev!” Trevor turned and Harry nodded.

  “Nice to see you, Mr. J, as always. What’ll it be?”

  “Um. How about a good Sancerre, Trev? I’m in a flinty mood.”

  Trevor laughed and went down the bar.

  Harry turned back to Jury. “You’re here early. As am I. What’s the matter? Not making progress? No Hitchcockian solution? I assume you’re still working on the vertigo murder?”

  Jury nodded. “Actually, Harry, I followed up your suggestion of an imposter. Now I’m stuck with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m cornered. I’m fairly certain I’ve identified the killer, but the accomplice, the woman I was sure was his accomplice—she has an alibi. Ironclad. A dozen or more people saw her in London at the time this murder happened. The next woman we thought might be a contender for the role also has an alibi. She couldn’t have got to Northants and given her performance in the time frame set by the pathologist. The killer is probably gay, and that limits considerably the possible women who could have played the role. The list of women has struck out.”

  In the midst of this, Trevor had returned with the Sancerre, a glass of which Harry now held in his hand. He sipped it and said, “Who said it had to be a woman?”

  London and Box Hill, Surrey

  Friday, 1:00 P.M.

  55

  * * *

  Jury was too stunned to speak.

  Which made no difference, as Harry was still talking. “Your suspect certainly must have men-friends.”

  Jury thought of Austin—the languid, effeminate, “girl-y” Austin—and frowned. Was that possible?

  Harry still went on. “Of course, anyone you choose as an accomplice to a murder you’ll be bound to for life. You want to dump him? You can’t. You’re stuck with him. How hideous.” Harry shuddered.

  Jury sat, staring at his beer. Austin as Lady Bracknell. He tossed a ten-pound note on the bar and rose. “Thanks, Harry; for once. Or twice. Right now I’ve got to go to Surrey.”

  ____

  The Oldham Clinic sat on a few wooded acres near Box Hill overlooking the River Mole. This part of Surrey was only about twenty miles from London, and Jury made it easily in an hour.

  This clinic was a posh place to be sick in. A semicircular drive, both ends gated and pillared in stone, ran to and from an ivy-clad red brick building planted in the middle of grass so green it looked fake enough to be a film set. This was a private hospital catering for people who could afford to be upscale sick. Jury put his finger on the buzzer, and a bell toned inside, sounding gloomy.

  The door was opened by a well-groomed, expensively suited middle-aged woman. Her “May I help you?” could have been mistaken for a friendly inquiry, but it wasn’t.

  “You may.” Jury pulled out his warrant card and brought it up to her face.

  “Police?”

  “It would seem so. And you are?”

  “The charge nurse here. Mrs. Stewart-Stevens.”

  It could have been her husband’s first name, but Jury guessed it was simply one half of a double-barreled one. “Mrs. Stewart-Stevens, may I come in, please?”

  “As I told the other policeman, I don’t understand why you’d be interested in the clinic.”

  “It’s about a former patient, as he told you.”

  She stepped back from the door and nodded him in with great reluctance.

  The room was dull with old wood and old Oriental carpeting, but bright with fresh flowers. “I need to speak to the person in charge of records.”

  That astonished her even further. “Our records?”

  “Unless you’re holding somebody else’s records.”

  Now her look was smug, a “gotcha” sort of look. “For that, you would need a warrant.”

  “I will certainly return with one if the clinic refuses to let me see the records I need to see. Right now, I’m making a request, that’s all.” Jury smiled. “If you’re the charge nurse, I expect you yourself have the authority to do that.” He wasn’t, but she took him up on it. So far he had seen no sign of life here except for this woman, either inside or out.

  She was saying, “—but I don’t see any reason to do that. What records are you speaking of?”

  “Tess Hardwick’s. Thirty-five years ago she was a patient here.”

  Although the woman didn’t move, mentally she had taken a step back. “Yes, I was here then.”

  As if that solved all problems. “What was she here for? Was she pregnant?”

  “No. It was a nervous condition. She was treated by our psychiatrist then, a Dr. Samuels.”

  It was Jury who took a step back mentally at this: “You mean she did not deliver a baby here?”

  “As she wasn’t pregnant, that would follow, wouldn’t it?” was Mrs. Stewart-Stevens’s rakish response.

  “This Dr. Samuels, is he—?”

  “No, Superintendent, he isn’t here anymore. He passed away two years ago.” More helpfully, she added, “There was another patient named Thessaly, called Tess; pe
rhaps you’re confusing the two? Thessaly Durban was the woman who had the baby. She put it up for adoption. You might inquire at the adoption agency in Camden Town. That’s where the child was sent.”

  Jury was surprised. “You remember this right off the top of your head? Even though it was over thirty years ago? I’m impressed, Madam.”

  “It was my first nursing post. Here, I mean. I made a lot of mistakes. The reason I recall Tess Hardwick is that she was the soul of kindness and was always trying to buck me up. Tessa Durban I remember only because I connected the two women in my mind, probably because they both called themselves Tess.”

  “If you’ll give me the name of the agency—”

  “I’ll just get it. Wait here.”

  ____

  There was no problem in getting Eleanora Crick at the Camden Gardens Adoption Agency to divulge the name of the baby’s mother. Perhaps it had been a relief to people in Miss Crick’s line of work when the Adoption and Children Act was implemented because they wouldn’t have to stonewall anymore.

  “Thessaly Durban,” said Miss Crick in answer to Jury’s question. She had pulled an old ledger down from a stack on a shelf behind her.

  “The baby was a boy, correct?” That was Jury’s best guess.

  She nodded.

  “Tell me, have you had any inquiries about this adoption? I mean other than from police? And I don’t mean recently. I’m talking about seventeen years ago.”

  “Seventeen years—?” Eleanora Crick consulted a large ledger, with entries in various hands. Jury watched the pages turned. “I don’t see any note made to that effect.”

  “It would have been written in that ledger, I assume?”

  “Yes . . . only—” Her face clouded over.

  “Only what?”

  “You see, over the years we’ve sometimes been short of experienced staff and have had to engage people who weren’t. Experienced, I mean.”

  How much experience did it take to write down a name? But Jury didn’t bother asking her. Instead, he thanked her and left.

  A24 to M25

  Friday, 7:00 P.M.

  56

  * * *

  You were right, Wiggins, about the Camden Gardens adoption place. Only the baby wasn’t Tess Williamson’s. The mother was a woman named Thessaly Durban, also calling herself ‘Tess.’ ”

  Jury was on his mobile, calling as he drove the A24 to meet the motorway to London.

  “Then Tess Williamson wasn’t pregnant; she didn’t have a baby.”

  “She didn’t, no. I should have paid more attention to Macalvie’s postmortem report. Had she ever delivered a child, it would have shown up there. I guess I wasn’t looking for what wasn’t there.”

  “But the Oldham Clinic is for obstetrics, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But they take people with other conditions. Especially if the patient has the Hardwick money behind her.”

  “Then she couldn’t have been the mother of one of those adopted kids at Laburnum. Specifically, Kenneth Strachey.”

  “That’s right. Only, he didn’t know that. Imagine if you suspected a woman named Tess Hardwick was your birth mother and went looking for her and found a Tess Durban. Bingo!”

  There was a frown in Wiggins’s voice. “But that’s a different name, guv—”

  “Consider the difference, though. ‘Durban’ could so easily be taken as a short form of ‘D’Urberville.’ That Tess loved Hardy’s book was common knowledge. So ‘Durban’ would simply be the name Tess might have used in order to keep her identity secret.”

  The frowning tone was still there. “I dunno about that. Seems a bit of a reach.”

  “Of course it’s a reach, Wiggins. Kenneth Strachey is given to reaching. He can convince himself of anything he wants to. He’s an extremely disturbed man, as you’ve probably noticed. And an extremely plausible one. I think it’s time we charged Mr. Strachey.”

  “Tonight, sir?”

  “No, we’ll leave it till tomorrow morning.”

  “What’s the charge, guv?”

  “Three counts of murder.”

  “Three? Who’s the third?”

  “Tess Williamson.”

  Bloomsbury

  Saturday, 10:00 A.M.

  57

  * * *

  When Kenneth Strachey saw the two of them on his front step, he did not look as if he planned to cut them a slice of cake.

  Jury smiled pleasantly. “Good morning, Mr. Strachey. I hope we’re not disturbing you too much. May we come in?”

  “Yes, of course.” Strachey seemed trying to project the same goodwill he had managed when Jury and Wiggins had stood there separately. But he couldn’t muster the energy. He simply nodded, said “of course,” and waved them in. “I was just about to have tea. Care for a cup?”

  Fully expecting Jury to say no, Wiggins was in a hurry to say yes. Then they both said “Yes, thanks.” Wiggins looked at Jury in surprise as they followed Kenneth into the kitchen.

  “Why are you here?” The tone was hostile, but the expression tried to hide the hostility.

  Jury ignored the question anyway, saying instead, “You know what I’d really like with my tea?”

  Kenneth was moving the classy designer kettle off the hob and looked puzzled. “No, what.” He got some cups and saucers from a cupboard and lined them up.

  “A piece of that wonderful cake Sergeant Wiggins hadn’t time for.”

  This was not on the menu. Strachey just looked at him, saying nothing.

  “You don’t remember? This cake.” Jury drew a photo from his coat pocket and placed it on the butcher-block table.

  Wiggins was on the verge of making some comment when Jury stepped on his foot. Wiggins grunted.

  Strachey frowned. “When did you take this—”

  “That cake was baked by Tess Williamson twenty-two years ago. And that, of course, is Tess,” he added, pointing to a figure standing near the cake. Jury did not know that he’d ever seen, literally, blood drain from a face. But Kenneth Strachey’s did and left his skin waxy white.

  Wiggins picked up the picture as if he really did intend to see if it matched Kenneth’s cake.

  Jury snatched it out of his hand, and Wiggins moved his foot back.

  Strachey said, ”Is this a joke? If it is, it’s quite tasteless.”

  Strachey, remarkably (thought Jury), continued with his tea preparation. He put two tablespoons of loose tea into the pot and poured freshly boiled water over it.

  “Not a joke at all,” said Jury. “Murder rarely is.”

  The drama at this point was quite accomplished: too much hot water in the pot, and tea overflowing onto the table, cups unsettled in their saucers. Wiggins looked as if he might say, “What a waste.”

  “Murder? What in hell are you talking about?” Kenneth grabbed a roll of paper towels and started mopping up. He shoved the roll toward Wiggins.

  “A better question might be who, not what, in this case.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, as we’re dealing with three murders and three victims—Arabella Hastings, aka Belle Syms, Zachariah Syms, and Tess Williamson, I’d think you’d be interested in which one I’m talking about.”

  The mention of Tess Williamson had frozen Kenneth Strachey in place for three seconds, but then he was back to pouring more water over tea leaves with just that brief hiatus of spilled tea; Jury marveled at the man’s composure.

  “All right, who are you talking about?” said Kenneth.

  “All three.”

  “What? You’re saying that Tess Williamson was murdered?”

  “Yes. I thought I just did.”

  “The court didn’t think so. It was an open verdict.”

  Kenneth was pouring tea into the cups, sliding the milk jug and sugar bowl toward
them. Only Wiggins seemed less fazed by the real world encroaching on his teatime than did Kenneth. Wiggins added three lumps of sugar, a good dose of milk, and drank.

  “I know one of the detectives who was on the Williamson case. As far as he was concerned, the alleged accident wasn’t a compelling theory. I myself played around with the idea of suicide, but he found that even less likely.”

  As if Jury hadn’t spoken, Kenneth went on: “As for Arabella Hastings, she was one of us kids who Tess took to Laburnum, but what could she have to do with all of this? It’s absurd. Why would anyone go to the trouble of getting the woman to the top of that tower—?”

  “Oh, I expect the tower jaunt was already settled before you left. She apparently liked heights: Ferris wheels, the Swiss Alps, fire ladders, the lot. And the tower served as an excellent distraction.”

  “Hold it, please. ‘Before you left’ you said.”

  “You and Arabella.”

  “You’re serious? You think I killed Arabella? I did?” Kenneth half-laughed.

  “Yes. Didn’t we tell you that’s why we came? Sorry.”

  “Superintendent, have you forgotten I have an alibi? Austin has told you—”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten. Interesting to speculate, though, on why you thought you’d need one. I mean, why would police even think of you in terms of Arabella Hastings, given you’d had nothing to do with her since Laburnum; that is, beyond her unwelcome attentions? That, of course, turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it made her putty in your hands, poor girl.”

  “I was in London that night.”

  “If you were, and I’m not at all sure you were, it would have been for only part of that night, although Austin believed you were here for all of it. Either you killed Arabella before you left the Sun and Moon, or you got her up to the tower and then did it. In any event you waited until you got back to toss her body out of the tower window. You needed an accomplice, someone to take her place so as to fix the time of death much later and give you a chance to get back to London. But we found no woman you knew who couldn’t account for her whereabouts that Monday night.