The Case Has Altered (41 page)

Jury smiled. “Parker keeps you well informed.”

Peter looked in Jury's direction and laughed. “Aye, he does that. If you'd ever spent a rough winter here you'd value a good fire and a chat, no matter who the listener or what the subject. I get to the point sometimes I'm talkin' to old Bob.”

Jury looked around. “Where is old Bob? Where's Zel, for that matter?”

“She's outside with Bob. See one, you see t'other.”

“Did you meet Verna Dunn through Major Parker?”

“Aye, but Fengate being so close, I'd've met her eventually, no matter who.”

Jury smiled. “Fengate being close, or Verna Dunn being a wanderer? This was some time ago when she was Mrs. Owen?”

Peter's face clouded over, visibly darkening. “That's right.”

“Do you know if Verna Dunn took a particular interest in Toby?”

Peter's face clouded. “Funny you'd ask that. I'll tell you this: Verna wouldn't care if the kid was fifteen or twenty years younger. He was a handsome lad. Looked like his mum . . . ” Peter leaned forward. “Why you asking these questions, then? Are you saying Verna did something to cause that accident?”

“Just wondering.”

Peter looked off in the direction of the windows and a failing light he could not see. His face was once again suffused with a dark anger. “I thought so,” he said in a low voice.

“Did you? But you didn't say anything about what you thought, though.”

Peter's short laugh was defensive. “Now, who'd've believed it if I did? And who was I t'say it to? Grace Owen? Would that have made her feel better?”

“No, but now, to the police—”

“Tell the police what? It's only my suspicion; I don't know anything. And it might make it look as if it was her killed Verna, as if it were Grace wanting revenge, and I'm not about to help police to thinking
that
.”

“It would certainly be a strong motive. But a motive far more likely to occur at the time the boy died, not years later.” Jury paused. “You have a .22 rifle, don't you?”

Peter nodded, getting up. “It's out back if you want to see it.”

“Yes.” Jury resisted the urge to help him. They walked back to the kitchen. “Police confiscated five different guns.”

Peter laughed. “Well, now, I wouldn't call it
confiscating
. They're legal.”

“Legal, all right. Shotgun and rifle certificates are thick on the ground around here. Max Owen has both. Can't imagine how he managed that.”

“Suggins does a lot of rough shooting.”

The room for rain gear and boots at the rear of the house looked much like the one at Fengate. Except here, the gun was locked into its steel box.
Without too much difficulty, Peter had the key out and had it open. He ran his fingers across stock and barrel, took down the rifle. “I expect in your line of work it's more handguns you see.” Peter broke the barrel, handed it to Jury.

Jury looked it over, slapped it together, and opened the mudroom door. He raised the gun to his shoulder and sighted along the barrel. It was dusk, almost dark at five in the afternoon. Through the sight he could see a patch of the footpath and, way off in the blue distance, what he thought was the stone gate of Parker's house. He lowered the gun, broke the barrel, said, “It was black as pitch, I'd think, on the Wash.” He paused. “You said Verna Dunn could shoot.”

“Oh, yes. A surprising good shot, she was.”

“You'd have to be to hit the target dead on in pitch-darkness.”

Peter smiled. “That or awful damned lucky. Or maybe God was with them.”

 • • • 

T
he air was as clear and sharp as glass. Zel was sitting on a log—lying, rather, across a section of bog oak that the farmers had dragged out of the ancient earth and hadn't got round to splitting for firewood yet. Her feet hung over one end, her head over the other. Her hands were laced across her stomach. Beside her sat the dog Bob, watching her and now Jury, who leaned against the crumbled wall, fallen into disuse.

Blood must be rushing to her head in that upside-down position. “Zel,” he said.

She half raised up, enough to make out someone standing there. When she saw it was Jury, she said hello and let her head drop back down.

“What're you doing?” he asked.

“Waiting for stars.”

The sky, a molten gray when he had entered the cottage, was turning quickly dark. “Mind if I sit down?”

Her head rolled from side to side.

“Can I take that as a No-I-don't-mind?”

“Uh-huh.”

Jury knew that all of this must be rough on her. Two murders almost in
her own backyard. Police come to question her uncle. Scotland Yard, even. How do kids deal with things like this? He sighed. The way they always have, he supposed. Deny it or turn it into something else.

At the moment, however, Zel appeared to be facing it head on. “I'm not sorry she's dead,” she said suddenly and quickly, as if wanting to get the words out before she could assess the risk she was taking in uttering them.

Given her topsy-turvey position, Jury couldn't see into her eyes. “Who? You mean Miss Dunn?”

Impatiently, she said, “No, Dorcas.”

“Did you know her well?”

For a moment she didn't answer. Then she raised her head again and said, “A little. She worked here some but then she stopped.”

Jury was surprised. He didn't recall Plant telling him this. But perhaps Plant hadn't known. “Worked at what?”

“Cleaning and cooking. She was an awful cook. She couldn't even do boiled eggs right. And Uncle Peter likes boiled eggs done just right. He likes good cooking.”

“You're certainly a good cook.”

“Better'n Dorcas, anyway.”

“But you didn't like her?”

Zel didn't answer except with a headshake.

“What was wrong with her? What didn't you like?”

“She was nosy. She—” Here she stopped, trying to puzzle out just what words would fit Dorcas's nosiness. “—wanted to
know
everything.” Jury didn't immediately reply and she added, “She was always asking questions.”

Nosy
was the word Annie Suggins had used in describing Dorcas. Then he recalled Plant had said that Zel claimed to have seen Dorcas headed for Linus Parker's house. “Did she ask you about Mr. Parker?”

“Sometimes. She asked me things about myself, too.”

“What things?”

“Where were my mum and dad.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn't know, did I?”

The little shrug of her shoulders, the implication that, of course, she wouldn't know, struck Jury as infinitely sad.

“She told me I was an orphan. I said I wasn't because there was Uncle Peter. She said uncles don't count. She laughed at me thinking they did. She said if my uncle dies, I have to go to an orphanage.” This had come out as though in one breath, hurriedly but with force. Then, on a less certain note, she added, “The Social can't make me do anything, can they?”

“No. Anyway, nothing's going to happen to your uncle.”

There was a heavy silence.

Jury said, “I was an orphan, actually.”

This
was news that she seemed delighted to hear, for she sat upright. If it could happen to
him
, a Scotland Yard man, it could happen to anyone. And look at him; he'd turned out all right. Even Bob liked him; he was napping at Jury's feet. Still, Jury could tell she wasn't completely convinced.

She said, “The Social could make me live with some people I didn't even know.”

“Zel, that's not going to happen.”

“How do you know? Uncle Peter'll probably have to go for a witness.”

“I don't think so, Zel. The people that the court wants as witnesses are more the ones who were at the house that night.” Jury felt he wasn't making much of an inroad on her fear.

“Anyway,” she said, her mind still locked on the dangerous doings of “the Social,” “the Social can't get me because Mr. Parker will let me keep on living here. I know he will.” She didn't sound so sure, though.

“You told Mr. Plant when he was visiting that day that you'd seen Dorcas go into Major Parker's house several times.”

“I guess I did.” She was sitting up now, batting a spitball-size piece of paper into the air. Bob had come sharply awake and was chasing the spitball.

“Why do you think that was? Could she have been doing the same work for him?”

“For Mr.
Parker?
Oh, don't be daft!”

Jury smiled. “That's daft?”

“But I just said she was a terrible cook! Do you think Mr. Parker would have her cook for him? She couldn't even make plum ice cream if her life depended on it.”

“What about cleaning?”

“Mr. Parker has a proper char, and she's Dorcas's auntie. So why would he want Dorcas?”

Why, indeed. Jury was puzzled.

They were silent for a few moments, checking out the sky together. Then she asked, “Do you ever have to shoot people?”

“What? No. I don't carry a gun. Sorry.”

She found this incredible. “You're a
policeman.”

“Sorry to disillusion you, but we only carry guns if we know we're facing a dangerous situation. And even then we have to sign out a weapon. Besides
that
, only certain of us are trained to use them. I'm in the Criminal Investigation Division. CID, we call it. There's a firearms unit and they're the only ones authorized to carry guns. And even
they
have to get permission from somebody higher up to use them.” Jury wondered unhappily how long it would be until all policemen, down to the patrolling constable, would be forced to go armed. He turned to Zel. She looked awfully disappointed at this news about police. “Trouble is, you've been watching too many American cop shows on the telly.”

Zel lay back again on the log, and Bob, wondering why the chase was done, came to sit again at Jury's feet.

Looking skyward at the stars, Zel pointed. “What's those ones?”

“Pleiades, I think.”

“What are they?”

Jury searched through his meager fund of star-knowledge and answered, “The daughters of some god. They were turned into stars.”

Zel was quiet, turning this fate over in her mind. She kept her gaze skyward. After a while she asked, “Where's that friend of yours?”

It was as if Melrose Plant were a constellation. “He had to stay in Lincoln.”

Again, she was quiet. Then she said, “He kept trying to find out my name. He thought it was a nickname. You probably think so too.” She
turned to look at him. “You think Zel's a nickname.” It was clear she expected better things from Scotland Yard than she did from her new garden-variety friend, Mr. Plant.

Silence fell as Jury discarded two or three obvious choices. Then he said, “Hazel.”

That merited her full attention. “Hazel?
Haz-el?”
She thought this very funny. “That's not my name. I never knew anybody called
Hazel.”
She said this with a fair amount of contempt.

“It's a London name. It's popular there.” Jury thought for a moment, then asked, “Did your mother have hair like yours, Zel?”

“Yes, only brighter.” She pulled a strand over her shoulder, inspected it, and tossed it back. She could hardly have seen the color sitting here in the dark, but displeasure still graced her face. Not as pretty as mum's.

Jury said, “It's hard to imagine any hair brighter. Impossible.” Carole-anne's perhaps, but then everything about Carole-anne was excessive.

“You're a policeman. You should be able to guess.”

“Guess what?”

The look she gave him could have stopped a bullet. “My
name
. What we were talking about.”

“I'll have to give it some thought.”

She sighed. “Nobody will ever guess it.”

Her sigh was truly disconsolate, as if the guessing of her name were the only thing to release her, as in the fairy tales she'd read, from the magic spell someone had wickedly cast over her.

M
r. Bannen, let's talk about Dorcas Reese now. What motive did the defendant have for getting rid of her?”

“That's even more difficult. Insofar as we know, the defendant and Dorcas Reese had never met before, and their relationship at Fengate was no more than that of guest and servant.”

“That suggests there was
no
motive, doesn't it?”

“I didn't say that. None that we've discovered. Which is different.”

“Do you believe the same person murdered both of these women?”

“I do, yes. Otherwise—”

Apted held up his hand, cutting Bannen off. “Then we should talk about Dorcas Reese, certainly, since, if we can show that Jennifer Kennington did
not
have any reason to murder Dorcas Reese, she would—according to what you've said—be innocent of the murder of Verna Dunn, is that not so?”

“I—”

“That is what you said, Mr. Bannen? That the same person committed these crimes?”

“Yes. I believe that to be true.” For the first time, Bannen's face looked tight.

“Let's talk for a moment about this mistaken pregnancy. Dorcas Reese told her aunt and a friend that she was three months pregnant. Whether she was or not, if the supposed father of this child believed it and didn't want it, or didn't want to marry her—this person might well have had a motive, isn't that true? Especially if he were already married?”

“Yes, certainly. We've had no luck in determining just who this man is, though.”

“I see. Then what about jealousy? Some other man who found Dorcas had been unfaithful?”

Bannen clearly didn't believe this, and said as much. “The Reese girl was not the sort who would attract many admirers, or inspire jealousy.”