The Old Success Read online

  He sighed. “Me, I’m really worried about Flora Flood.”

  “Well, Trueblood’s theory might worry you even more.”

  “It worries me that Trueblood has a theory. What is it?”

  “That she was the target, not her ex-husband.”

  That made Melrose’s eyes widen and got him to put down his glass. “How does he come up with that?”

  Jury explained the relative positions of the two, including Mrs. Withersby’s part in the little drama.

  Melrose laughed in spite of himself, said, “Does this make it even more baffling?”

  “Could it be? I got a call from Brian Macalvie.” He told Melrose about that.

  “The cathedral?”

  Jury nodded. “I expect I’ll be going to Exeter tomorrow.”

  “But Richard … you don’t really think there’s something to this theory?”

  “No. Except Macalvie thinks there’s some connection.”

  “But this depends on Marshall’s being right about Flora as the real target. I hate to think that. Did Macalvie come up with any motive in this cathedral shooting?”

  Jury shook his head. “Not yet.”

  Melrose slid down in his chair. “Oh, surely these are three random shootings. ‘Serial killer’? Cornwall, Devon and—over three hundred kilometers away—Northants? There’s got to be some other connection—if there’s any connection at all—between these three shootings. I mean, just look at the difficulty of access to two of them: the island of Bryher can be reached only by boat, and Watermeadows is a private estate outside of a little village in Northamptonshire. It makes no sense unless the three people were specifically targeted. And that still isn’t to say whether one of the three was Tony Servino or Flora Flood.”

  “I agree. All the same, this new shooting does make me wonder.”

  “Wonder away. But don’t go to Exeter to do it.”

  “Did Tom leave any number? I don’t have his mobile number.”

  Melrose frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I want to call him, obviously.”

  Melrose’s frown deepened as he rose and grasped the silk bellpull near the mantel.

  Ruthven was there even as the bellpull floated back against the wall.

  “He did indeed m’lord,” said Ruthven in answer to the question about the mobile number. He moved to a desk at the end of the room and brought back a small metal address book, clicked it open and handed it to Melrose.

  “Excellent, Ruthven. Surely you’re not thinking of driving to Exeter tomorrow morning? You just now got back.”

  “Surely, I am. Macalvie wants Tom, too.”

  “Well, if you insist on this hectic drive—nearly three hours it’ll take you from here—at least take the Bentley. It’s a bit faster than that police-issue thing.”

  “I couldn’t—”

  “Oh, yes, you could. Ruthven.” Melrose nodded at Ruthven.

  Who went immediately to another room, returned and put the keys in Jury’s hand.

  16

  Tom Brownell didn’t have to be persuaded to go to Exeter after Jury told him about Macalvie’s phone call.

  “Serial killer?” said Tom, as they drove a nearly trafficless M4 towards Devon. “I’d say that’s ridiculous.”

  “I agree. But he’s come up with a few ideas over the years that struck me as impossible. They weren’t. Do you know Dennis Dench?”

  “Forensic anthropologist? Sure. He’s brilliant.”

  “Macalvie once argued that the bones under study belonged to a certain boy, a murder victim. Denny said no, the kid would have been, or the bones were, too young.”

  “And Brian was right.”

  “Of course. He always is.”

  “It’s some kind of, I don’t know—imaginative grasp. Some combination of intuition and reasoning. I wish I had it.”

  “You? Come on, Tom, no one’s got a better grasp—”

  “But not intuitive. I go almost solely by pure reason.”

  “So it’s you, Macalvie and me—what are we? The three wise men?”

  “It’s the season for it, isn’t it?”

  The nave of Exeter Cathedral was the longest medieval nave in the world. Jury stood with Tom Brownell, looking at the vaulted ceiling.

  “The acoustics in this cathedral are so incredible I’d think a shot would have careened off these walls and that ceiling,” said Jury.

  “Fireworks,” said Macalvie.

  “What?”

  “There were fireworks. Not in the cathedral grounds, of course, but out there—” Macalvie jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The city decided to allow a little pre-Christmas celebration. Only for about half an hour. Could have muffled a shot.”

  “So I expect it was opportunistic,” said Tom.

  “The shooter might have followed the fireworks, but how could he have followed the woman?” said Jury. “Unless he knew that—”

  “That she was a regular, so to speak. And she was, according to the ladies I talked to. Very devout. Came here several evenings a week,” said Macalvie, “in addition to other times.”

  “He knew she’d be here. But that means he was looking for her, not some random target. That doesn’t sound like a serial killer.”

  As the three stood in the nave, Macalvie outlined it for them.

  “First, serial killings often look crazily unrelated—or even crazily related: it’s the craziness that counts. Remember that case you had where all three victims wore designer shoes—?”

  “That wasn’t a serial killing, Macalvie.”

  “I know. But it had the appearance of one because of the shoes and the escort services. I’m talking about appearance here.”

  “There’s still the constraint of geography. Here we’re dealing with three different counties. And one of them’s Northants. Devon and Cornwall are close together. But Northamptonshire? Come on,” said Jury.

  “Manon Vinet knew Daisy, and probably Flora Flood. Daisy possibly knew Flora. But now we have a fourth woman who seems completely unrelated to the other three.”

  “Except she wasn’t unrelated.”

  “How do you work that out, Brian?”

  “Moira Quinn was a maid for the Summerstons for a time. Her mother was the cook at Summerplace and got her the position.”

  Jury looked up. “So you think she knew Manon?”

  “Could be. It’s a connection nonetheless.”

  “You have my attention. Where was the body found?”

  Macalvie nodded toward a point farther down the nave. “Down there. Fifth bay, near the misericords.”

  They walked toward the east, Tom commenting, “That glorious east window.”

  “Fourteenth-century glass,” said Macalvie. “They dismantled it during the war, took out all the panes to keep them from being shattered.”

  “I can understand why.”

  They came to the place where the now-absent body was still outlined.

  “Moira Quinn,” said Macalvie. “Aged 38, lived with her mum in a flat on the Quay; worked at Debenhams as a cleaner. Here, as a matter of fact, as a holy duster.”

  Tom Brownell looked a question.

  “Just what it says. Donate their time to clean in the cathedral. I spoke to a couple of the ladies who work here. They said she was very, very good at it. And very devout. Said Moira used to live in London—Battersea, also with her mum. Worked in South Ken, Belgravia, Docklands, also cleaning. Mum’s destroyed, as the Irish put it.”

  “I’m sure the Irish are right,” said Tom.

  17

  The woman who opened the door to them was small, dark-haired, blue-eyed and inconsolable. That was clear to Jury even though her face was perfectly free of tears, and nor was there a sign of a recent bout of them. It was the way her gaze was fixed on Jury—

  But then it shifted to Tom Brownell, who said, “Mrs. Quinn, forgive us for bothering you. We’re police—”

  That voice that could melt ice caps.

  Her head
and her body moved sideways and she leaned against the doorjamb.

  For a moment, Tom did not disturb this position. The next minute he put his hand on her shoulder. “May we go in, Mrs. Quinn?”

  She moved then and turned back to them as if she had been Betsy Quinn, good hostess, all along, stretched her arm to motion them into a room with an unlit fireplace—unlit but not unlaid—and indicated an easy chair on either side of it. She herself took a seat on the small cream-linen sofa facing the fireplace.

  Tom said nothing, looking at Jury to start the questioning.

  He did. “Mrs. Quinn, we know it’s very hard for you right now, but it’s important to us to ask you about your daughter. You see, there’s at least one other death that appears to touch on Moira’s own.”

  “You mean that French nurse that worked at Summerplace when Moira was there. She had a funny name, French for Madeline, my Moira said. I don’t know much about her, but—”

  Jury held up his hand. “No, no. It’s Moira we wanted to know about.”

  “Who would ever do such a thing? The dear lass.” She looked down at her overlapped hands.

  Jury said, “That’s what we were hoping you might help us with. Had Moira been having trouble with anyone in particular? A man, perhaps?”

  Betsy Quinn looked from Jury to Tom, eyes wide, as if in surprise. “You think it was Moira they meant to kill? Oh, surely not. Surely the killer was just a bad shot.”

  Jury and Tom exchanged a glance. Then Tom said, “I don’t quite take your meaning, Mrs. Quinn.”

  “Well, it must have been the other girl.”

  “What other girl?”

  “Not ‘girl,’ either of them. But the other holy duster. She usually worked beside Moira. Name’s—Glynis something. And the ladies said she was there, too.”

  Jury, already lost, was lost again. “The ladies?”

  “The embroiderers, the Holy Dusters. You know.”

  Holy Dusters. Embroiderers. The secular seemed more and more swallowed up by myth. Or at least the mundane overtaken by metaphor. All Jury could think of was Heart of Darkness, with the little woman sitting by the entranceway knitting black wool.

  But Tom Brownell, once surprised, refused to be surprised again, and said, calmly, “So you’re saying that this other woman is the one the shooter aimed to hit and he shot Moira by mistake? I’m sorry to put it that way, but that is what you mean, isn’t it?” When Betsy Quinn nodded sadly, Tom said, “But do you know why anyone would want to shoot her?”

  “No. No more than someone would want to shoot my Moira.”

  “Mrs. Quinn,” said Jury, “your Moira got that job with the Summerstons because you were their cook, right? And you knew they were looking for someone to take care of Gerald Summerston?” He thought that sounded better than “wanted another maid.”

  She nodded, the handkerchief still bundled against her mouth.

  “Well, if you’ll pardon me for going off in a slightly different direction, it’s important to the case if you can recall anything about other members of the staff, and their relationship to your employers.” He was putting this very poorly, and looked at Tom.

  “What we mean is, whether they got along as well as you did with Lady Summerston. Of you, she speaks very highly indeed. She says no cook she’s tried since can begin to measure up.”

  At this, Betsy Quinn dropped the balled-up handkerchief in her lap and managed a tiny smile. “Yes, it’s true, she did like my cooking. But your question was …?”

  Tom said, “Whether she thought as highly of other staff members. Whether she had problems with them. Whether there was something going on in the house.”

  Betsy frowned and was silent.

  Tom rose. “We’re sorry, Mrs. Quinn, to have intruded at a time like this. Perhaps we could come back—”

  But Betsy, having been called away for a few moments from the pain of the loss of her daughter, preferred to be called away longer; also, there was the question of “something going on in the house” to intrigue her. And the company of these two men, even though they were police. The woman obviously needed a little company. There seemed to be no one else.

  “No, no. That’s all right. Please sit down. You’re saying—?”

  “Asking,” said Jury, “more than saying. In your position, you’d have been the most likely person to have heard, well … rumors or simple gossip about the behavior of, say, one or another of the maids?”

  She sat back. “Oh. Now, I wouldn’t want to—”

  “Believe us, Betsy, nothing you say about anyone will go beyond these walls,” said Tom.

  “We’re simply trying to work out how all of this, how what went on at that house could have affected your Moira.”

  “I remember,” said Betsy, “there was trouble with the housemaid, Anna.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Mr. Gerald.”

  Jury was surprised by the directness of this answer. “You mean something going on between the housemaid and Gerald Summerston?”

  “Yes.”

  Tom said, “Had she shown a little too much interest in him? Was that it?”

  “Or the other way round,” said Betsy.

  “So she was dismissed.”

  “She went, and I think that’s why. It’s too bad, isn’t it, that the servants have to pay a price for what their supposed ‘betters’ have done?”

  “It certainly is, Mrs. Quinn,” said Tom. “So then your daughter would have replaced the housemaid, right?”

  “Not that one. The one who followed.”

  “You’re not saying that she, too—”

  “Oh, no. She quit on her own. Edith. It was Edith that Moira replaced.”

  Tom leaned closer to her. “And Moira, herself?”

  “Did she have trouble?” Betsy smiled tightly. “Oh, no. Moira was much too smart for that.” Betsy seemed puzzled. “Anyway, she decided to leave. She was a little sick for a while. But then she got herself a job at Debenhams.”

  Jury liked it that a department store beat out Gerald Summerston.

  But he wasn’t sure he believed it. And nor did Tom, who said, “Seems unlikely that someone as pretty as Moira Quinn wouldn’t have been pursued by a man who couldn’t seem to keep his hands off any woman he fancied.”

  “I agree. And the fact that Moira was murdered along with Manon Vinet makes me wonder even more. Have you seen her medical records?”

  “No. I don’t know if they’ve been found yet. Why?”

  “She was a little sick after she left. I bet it wasn’t flu.”

  18

  On their way back, Jury and Tom stopped at a Welcome Break along the M4, collected some soup and salad in the food court and sat down in a booth.

  Jury brought up Sydney’s treatment of Aggrieved. “She’s really good. She seems to have an affinity for horses that’s almost—mystical. I don’t know why I chose that word.”

  “Because you’re too polite to say ‘obsessive.’ She certainly likes your friend, the ex-lord. He knows something about horses, does he?”

  “Nothing at all. You told me that she’d talk only to someone who did, so I told him to bone up, and I expect he learned enough to convince her.”

  Tom laughed and spooned up his soup. “Why don’t they know how to make tomato soup anymore?” He replaced the spoon on the plate. “Too acidic.”

  Jury smiled. He had an idea Brownell analyzed everything that came his way.

  “Mind if I smoke?” said Tom.

  Yes. “No,” said Jury. “What is it you think Sydney knows, Tom?”

  Tom had lit his cigarette and was blowing a stream of smoke away from Jury. “Perhaps something about Daisy’s death. I wish I could get her to talk to me, but she won’t. I expect I don’t know enough about horses.”

  Jury thought for a moment. “I might. I mean, know somebody. He’s connected with a stud farm in Cambridge.”

  “Owner? Trainer?”

  “Investments.”

 
“If there’s one thing Sydney’s not interested in, it’s investing.”

  Jury shook his head. “Of course. Only, this fellow’s the stepson of the owner and he knows a lot about horses. I mean a lot. And about people, too.”

  Tom was thoughtful. “Sydney seems to think people who do are on her wavelength.”

  “Maybe I can get him to visit Ardry End.”

  The long, winding drive up to the front of Heron House curved past the stable within which dull gold light threw the shadow of someone across the wide sill.

  “That must be John Ridgely. He’s stable master and general dogs-body, I guess. Slow down, Richard.”

  Jury slowed to a stop as Tom called out, “Ridge. Why’re you here at this godforsasken hour?”

  “Just to check on things. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Where’s Sydney?”

  “Up at the house. She was here for a few minutes. Saw my truck and thought something was up with one of the horses.”

  “But everything’s okay?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Tom said goodnight and raised the car window, and they drove on. “I don’t much care for it that he’s over here whenever he feels like it.”

  “Something to do with Sydney?” said Jury.

  “A lot to do with Sydney, if you ask me.”

  Jury didn’t question him. In another two minutes they were at the front door.

  “Front door” was an inadequate description of this Scarlett O’Hara entrance of vermillion, a wood one was not used to seeing, certainly not in a door. Jury had picked up his wood-knowledge from a forensic botanist in the art squad who had inspected a picture frame for him.

  “Magnificent house, Tom.”

  “I hate it. All show, no substance.”

  Jury had never thought of any house as “substantive.” But why not? Home meant substance to many people.

  The door was opened by a small, sad-seeming maid who looked fallen as a leaf—drifted. Strewn, rather than just standing there. Where had this strange image come from?

  From the cathedral. Standing in the square with the trees blowing in the crosswind that had chilled them.

  “I’m sorry, Sadie,” said Tom, “to drag you out here. I forgot my key.”