The Winds of Change (26 page)

‘Lena Banks.’

Declan shook his head, then ran the heel of his hand across his forehead. ‘I was never really in love with her, it was feeling so empty after Mary’s death, if you know what I mean. You look as if you do.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t think anyone can take Mary’s place. I really loved her.’

It was such a simple declaration. And Jury supposed it was bad news for Patricia Quint. ‘No woman has to take her place. You just carve out another place.’

Declan smiled. ‘Of course, you’re right.’ He leaned over and flipped the album open. ‘What did you say her name really is?’

‘Lena Banks.’

‘Lena Banks.’ Declan rested his head on the back of the chair.

‘Paris. I guess it’s dangerous to go to Paris in the state of mind I was in.’

‘Anyplace would have been dangerous.’

‘Lena Banks.’ As if repeating it often enough might dispel the smoke. ‘It was all the effect of depression, emptiness, hopelessness. Failure. I really felt I’d failed Mary in not being able to get Flora back.’

‘How could you possibly? You didn’t know why she was taken and there wasn’t a footprint to lead anyone anywhere, to point anyone in any direction. No calls, no ransom demands. Nothing. If it was failure, then failure was inevitable.’ Jury leaned toward him, this man had gone through enough without being a pawn in one of Baumann’s games. ‘Listen: I want you to tell me whatever you told Lena Banks–or Georgina Fox. You talked to her about Mary and Flora, you must have.’

Declan nodded, his hand shading his eyes as if he were ashamed of the memory.

Jury said, ‘Why wouldn’t you? Talking about it probably eased the pain a little. It usually does.’

‘Ordinarily I’m reticent about my feelings. Sometimes I think I’m stuck in the past because of that. Or it’s the other way round: I don’t want to let the feelings go, so I hang on to the past.’ Jury looked around the room, its outer edges in near darkness.

The angel on the mantel with shaded eyes looked composed but almost desperately so, like Declan Scott.

‘My mother used to tell me I’m the youngest old fuddy-duddy she knows. But I think she appreciated that Mary didn’t want to make any big changes to the house. She had the nursery painted yellow for Flora and that was the extent of any sort of transformation.’

Jury leaned toward him. ‘What did you tell Lena Banks about Flora?’

Declan sat back. ‘I talked a lot about her. Georgina–I mean, Lena–listened. She was, she said, appalled by what had happened and asked if I suspected anyone. I said, yes. Flora’s father. He was a man with a lot of power and used to getting his own way–a megalomaniac, from what I’d heard–and he was the most likely person to have done it, or had it done. She thought it strange that there was no ransom demand. I agreed, but not if the father was the guilty party. ‘If he was,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t he have been clever enough to ask for money?’ I admitted there was truth in that. Or of course it could have been some complete stranger, someone who wanted a child. We talked about this off and on for the weeks I knew her. You’re right, it did help a little. I wondered, though, why she was so very interested in Flora’s kidnapping. I hardly know what to call it anymore. Yes, I did wonder. Anyway, then she was gone, without a word.’

‘She was gone because you convinced her you didn’t know what had happened to Flora.’

Declan looked puzzled.

‘She was sent by Baumann to find out what you knew.’

‘You mean he thought I had her?’

‘Or knew where she was. That he had Lena Banks strike up a relationship with you certainly indicates that. Remember, with Flora’s mother gone, he’d have custody.’

‘I see what you mean.’ Wearily, Declan leaned his head against the back of the wing chair. The fire had died down and his face was half in shadow. ‘Now we’re left with the unknown person who might have taken Flora for any number of reasons. I don’t want to think about that. I wish it had been for money; I almost wish Viktor Baumann had taken her.’

‘Believe me, you don’t.’

Declan sat up and looked at Jury, eyebrows raised.

‘Viktor Baumann, among other things, caters for pedophiles.’
 

Declan was almost out of his chair. ‘What?’

‘A colleague of mine has been keeping Baumann in his sights for a long time. He–Baumann–has set up house in North London where he traffics in little kids. Girls anywhere from four years old into their early teens. There are never fewer than ten little girls there.’

The blood drained from Declan’s face. ‘You’re not suggesting Flora–’ He stopped.

‘Probably not, but anyone who’s such a moral blank card as Viktor wouldn’t stick at using his own child.’

‘But when they–Mary and Flora–were living with him–’ Again he stopped as if words were hardly up to carrying this sort of meaning and weight.

‘Oh, not then. I very much doubt it. Her mother was there, after all. And Flora would have been too young.’ If there was, thought Jury, such a thing as ‘too young’ for these people.

‘Wait a minute, though.’ Declan shifted to the edge of his chair. ‘Awhile ago you said that Lena Banks was trying to find out Flora’s whereabouts and if that was so, it indicates Baumann didn’t do it. ‘Indicates,’ doesn’t mean ‘proves.’ Can you be sure he doesn’t have her?’

‘No, not absolutely.’

Declan set his head in his hands as if he were examining his own skull. ‘Don’t tell me this; don’t tell me this.’

‘I’m not; I’m not telling you this. I think there’s very little chance that Viktor Baumann has Flora. He wouldn’t have set Lena Banks on you if he had.’ Jury wished he was convinced of this.

‘If that was the reason for her attaching herself to me.’

‘Possibly. Or it could be simpler; it could be she was really in love with you. In case you saw her now, though, she wouldn’t want you to recognize her.’

Declan did not look up. He said through his interwoven fingers, ‘Mary and I had been married such a short time, but even so, I really felt Flora was like my own child.’

‘I know.’ Jury rose. ‘I need to stop at the police van.’ Declan got up, too, but rather slowly, as if the conversation had aged him. ‘You’ll want to go out by the French doors behind us and through the gardens. It’s quicker. Thanks for coming here first, Superintendent. It was very kind of you.’

‘I just wish what I had to say could have been kinder.’ As he walked Jury to the doors, Declan said, ‘No, in one way it helped, finding out the truth usually does, doesn’t it?’ Jury stopped on the dark patio, looked up at the stars and wanted to say No, give me lies any day, just let me get through one day without bad news. ‘Yes, I guess it does, Mr. Scott. Good night.’ He raised his hand in a good-bye gesture and walked off into the garden.

Cody Platt was sitting in front of one of the computers. When Jury appeared, suddenly, Cody made a hurried attempt to turn it off.

‘What was that racket?’ Jury asked

‘Just checking my e-mail.’

‘You must have a lot of e-mailers trying to bump you off. I thought I heard gunfire.’

Jury wondered about these subterranean night skills of Cody. But considering him, there were a dozen non-incriminating reasons.

Behind one of the three desks, Jury picked up a file of crime scene photos and leaned back in the old wooden swivel chair. ‘Where’s your boss? I’ve got some information for him.’

‘Went to his flat earlier, but he said he’d be back. He got your message. I’m here manning the equipment.’

‘Sergeant Wiggins, where’s he?’

‘To his digs in Launceston. Said he needed rest, said he was coming down with a cold.’

‘Same one?’

Cody’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Pardon?’

Nothing. Jury smiled.

‘Got anything new? I’ve never worked such a case. How can anyone like this vic have left not even a footprint? Forensics has gone over the whole bloody lot and come up with–’ He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. ‘It’s maddening.’

‘Not anymore, at least not that part of it.’ Jury took out the album and passed it over.

Cody looked at the snapshots of Lena Banks. ‘She’s gorgeous. Who is she?’

‘Look again.’

‘I could look for a long time, but, still, who is she?’

‘She doesn’t look familiar?’ Jury pulled over the file of police photographs lying on another desk, opened it and shoved it toward Cody.

Cody looked. Cody frowned. He bent closer. He shook his head.

Jury told him.

‘I’ll be damned! But doesn’t that mean that Viktor Baumann must not be the one who snatched Flora?’

‘It appears so.’

‘Why would they begin looking for her again?’

‘I doubt Viktor Baumann ever stopped looking for her.’

30

The little square cream-washed house at the end of a rutted lane, still looked to Jury more functional than, livable.
 

‘It looks exactly the same,’ said Jury. ‘I’m glad I’m alive to see it. You drove like a maniac; is there something about Cornwall that brings out this desire to go faster? Especially along narrow roads between drywall fences?’

Macalvie did not respond to this, but to what he was thinking about at the moment. ‘I swear I can’t believe this masquerade.’

‘Everyone, Brian, is masquerading. That’s what I said to Wiggins. It’s like a Restoration comedy. The whole thing turns on identity.’

‘It looks like it–why doesn’t someone answer? He knows we’re coming.’ When Macalvie raised his fist to do some pounding, the door swung open. The squinty-eyed housekeeper, who opened the small, thick door and who Jury seemed to remember was named Minerva, was there largely to discourage callers.

‘Hello, Minerva. Where is he?’ said Macalvie.

Minerva frowned but stood back so that they could go into the room where Dr. Dench was seated at a table. ‘I’m just having a late-night snack.’ He waved them into the room. ‘Come in, come in.’ The little house was some sentimental tourist dream of an English cottage–beamed ceilings, whitewashed walls, uneven floors.

Forget the cold and the damp, the ancient plumbing, the lack of garden front or back.

A table had been laid near the fireplace and a plate with the remains of several portions of cheese, cut from the several rounds on the table, were on Dench’s plate.

‘Sit down.’ Dench gestured toward the chairs opposite his own. He poured red wine into two more glasses. ‘Have some cheese. There’s some delicious Neal’s Yard cheddar, Wensleydale, Roquefort, apricot Stilton. Help yourself.’

The rounds and triangles of cheeses looked as if they’d been cut by a precision instrument, barely a crumb on the plate, except for the Wensleydale, which would crumble if you looked at it. As far as Jury was concerned, cheese in any circumstances tasted good, but cheese when one was really hungry was an onslaught of the senses.

Smoking a cigar, Denny Dench gave a ragged little laugh. ‘My God, when was the last time you ate, Mr. Jury?’

‘When I was six.’ Holding a heavily laden biscuit in one hand, with the other Jury pulled the album holding Lena Banks’s snapshots and put it on the table.

‘He’s been snacking,’ said Macalvie, ‘ever since he got to Cornwall.’

Jury said, between bites, ‘Yes, well, I haven’t seen Exeter police so lavish in their offers of snacks.’ Jury drank his wine.

‘I’m glad you brought along the brains of the outfit, Brian.’

‘Look at these, Denny,’ said Macalvie, who set the morgue shot beside the snapshots.

Dench took Lena Banks’s little album. ‘Hmm. Beautiful woman. Is this someone I know?’

Macalvie handed over the police photo of Lena Banks.

Denny held the picture at arm’s length and looked from it to the smaller picture. He studied the two for a moment. ‘Interesting.

Other than that they’re the same woman, or is that the point?’

‘That is, yes. How can you be sure?’

‘How? Because that’s what you came here for.’ Denny Dench snorted and got up. ‘Obviously, they’re the same. Bones. It’s all in the bones, Brian. You can muck about with anything else: hair, eyes, lips, weight, age. But you depend on the bones. Come on, see my new computer program.’

They went down the cellar staircase. Jury loved the Georgia O’Keeffe print hanging at the top of the stairs: one of a skull. At the bottom of the stairs stood a white, glass-fronted cabinet, holding a number of unidentifiable objects, including ropy-looking things that Jury sincerely hoped were not fingers; and sinister looking jars.

With all of the bones lying around, or parked on benches with little tags that had something to do with identification, the laboratory might have been an archaeological dig. But that’s what Dench was, wasn’t he? A forensic anthropologist. It might have been a graveyard that had turned out its bones, for bones were everywhere. There was a small skeleton that looked as if it had belonged to a child of twelve or thirteen.

Dennis Dench moved one of these bones a tiny bit to the right and regarded this fresh design.

‘Anyone I know?’ asked Macalvie.

‘Possibly, if you happened to be in Sidmouth in the late sixties.’ He had snapped a folded sheet open and was covering the bones as if he worried they might get cold. ‘These are the bones of a boy uncovered when a building contractor laid waste to an old pub called the Serpent’s Tooth.’