The Winds of Change (35 page)

‘Maybe.’

‘Bloody hell.’

Jury knew what was distressing him. He couldn’t go along. The Murchison woman would recognize him and that would queer the whole thing.

‘How much closer,’ asked Johnny, ‘will this get us to Viktor Baumann?’

It was the same question Jury had asked himself. ‘It won’t is my guess. On the other hand, it might. But that’s not the main issue, is it? The kids are.’

‘The thing is, you won’t get to first base, I mean, if it’s your plan to—’

‘It is.’

‘If you think... Look, anyone who sees one of those kids does so only with the blessing of Viktor Baumann.’

Jury smiled. ‘Well, I have been thus blessed.’

39

‘I want you to stay in the car until I give the word.’

Jury had told Cody about the warrant that morning.

‘If this DI–is it Blakeley?–if he couldn’t squeeze a warrant out of a judge after all the time and effort he’s spent on this Hester Street house, how did you manage?’

‘I didn’t.’

Cody frowned. ‘You’re going in without one?’

‘I am. Not the best career move, but it seems to be the only way to get in that house.’

It was an ordinary-looking terraced house of brown brick in a row of others, and the only differences between them were the window curtains–lace, muslin, cotton–and the color of the front door, in this case, blue. The car sat across the street and down four houses.

He had given Cody breakfast that morning or, rather, Carole-anne had. She loved doing fry-ups in Jury’s kitchen. It surprised him that Carole-anne liked to cook, liked to feed people and liked to eat. Boy, could she eat! Where those calories went to, God only knew. She must have had the metabolism of the cat Cyril. She could certainly bend herself into equally exquisite positions.

The kitchen was too small; they were eating in the living room, Carole-anne handing them their plates full of sausage, eggs and grilled tomato before cooking her own. Stone had followed Cody in and now lay at his feet, or, rather, at a point midway between his and Jury’s, uncertain of where his loyalty should lie.

That’s when Jury had told Cody about the warrant. Or lack of one.

Carole-anne had overheard this and said, ‘Don’t you have to have one of them?’ She stood, spatula in one hand, plate in the other.

‘What?’ said Jury.

Warrants.

‘Forget you heard any of this.’ Jury cut off a bite of egg.

‘But don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Cody. ‘You do.’ He broke off a piece of sausage and gave it to Stone.

‘Well, then, why’re you going in this place without one?’ Hand with spatula now on hip. She was indignant. In a sudden shaft of sunlight that fell across the room like a lance, her hair blazed as if it, too, would conflagrate under this outrage.

Jury sighed. ‘This is none of your business, Carole-anne. Forget it.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, just wait till you’re in the nick and wanting visitors. That’ll be none of my business, either.’ She wheeled and flounced back into the kitchen.

Jury called after her: ‘I could use some more sausage.’

‘Go kill a pig, then.’ Amid the clattering of pans and dishes she added, ‘It ain’t none of my business.’

Cody snickered and fed Stone another bite of sausage.

Then Carole-anne was back with the pan of sausages, two of which she rolled onto Jury’s plate. ‘To say nothing of when you lose your job!’ Now there was the segue into the hardscrabble lives here in Gerrard Road. Jury, Cody and Stone chewed their sausage and looked at her.

‘The thing is, if you go to prison, well, Mrs. Wasserman won’t set foot outside her door; you know how she is when you’re not here. Oh, I’d probably be all right except for who gets your flat. That’s really something to think about.’ Willing, apparently, to think about it right now, she sat down beside Jury, spatula still at the ready, raised like a little flag. ‘It could be somebody really dangerous, like a stalker, or some other crazy, like someone in a white jacket who says he’s an orderly at that hospital you were in, but he’s really the serial killer who’s been euthanizing patients-’

Cody was fascinated; Jury thought of Nurse Bell.

‘-who would probably do us in as we slept.’

‘Don’t change the lock, then,’ said Jury. ‘You have a key and that way you could come in and look around, go through the stalker’s stalking equipment or inspect the scalpels and hypodermics belonging to the hospital crazy.’

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Or it could be some old slag from Soho or King’s Cross with men popping in every ten minutes, or we might get a drug dealer that’d turn this place into a crack house. Well, we can’t depend on Stan as he’s away most of the time.’ Now she turned to Cody, busy eating his egg on toast.

‘And it wouldn’t surprise me’–here she shook the spatula at him–’if all this was your idea.’

Cody stopped chewing, eyebrows raised.

‘It isn’t,’ Jury said. ‘It’s totally my own.’ He smiled and then poked some fried egg in his mouth. ‘So forget what we were talking about. The less you know the better.’ That, he thought, was chilling enough.

‘Oh, nice.’ She got up and turned her head and started venting at the ceiling. ‘Bloody nice, that is, now I’m to be questioned and Mrs. Wasserman, too, I expect. So you’ve drawn us into your little scheme and now we’re to be accessories!’

Jury looked from her to his plate and back. ‘Any more sausages?’

Cody objected. ‘I’m coming in.’ He started to open the passenger side door.

Jury shook his head. ‘No. If two of us try it, we won’t get past the front door. Think about it, for God’s sakes.’

Cody nodded,’

‘You’re right. But–’ He turned almost beseeching eyes on Jury, as if this were something he had to do.

‘Don’t worry. You’ll know.’

The woman who opened the door he presumed to be Irene Murchison. He had formed in his mind an indistinct picture of this woman running along the lines of the thin, hard-looking, tight-lipped housekeeper of Manderley. But she wasn’t. Mrs. Murchison was portly, her complexion rosy, her eyes an unclouded blue. A cheap gold chain round her neck secured her glasses when she wasn’t wearing them. She had brown hair, going to gray, rolled back from her face and neck and secured by pins, one of which she reached up to affix in its place. She was such an ordinary looking woman, Jury thought it was almost scary. ‘Yes?’

The tone, Jury thought, was one of gentle inquiry. Beneath it there was no hint of misgiving. ‘Mrs. Murchison?’

‘Yes?’

Jury had to go deep inside himself for a response he had to force himself to make. He settled for a smile he had trouble getting any warmth into. ‘May I come in? Mr. Baumann sent me.’ That did get him through the door, but it did not get him recognition. She looked perplexed as she opened the door wider.

They stood in a dimly lit hallway where a long, ornate wooden table was pushed up against busy floral wallpaper of tiny flowers and vines. ‘I don’t believe I know the gentleman. Baumann, is that what you said?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘And you’ve come about–?’

Still playing the innocent. Well, he hadn’t expected her to acknowledge the company she and Baumann kept. ‘About your coin collection. I understand it’s quite something.’

She smiled. ‘Oh, that Mr. Baumann. The collector. Of course, of course. Won’t you come into the lounge?’

He followed her into the room at the left which was as ordinary as its owner. Unattractive furniture upholstered in dark brown and scorched gold, as if it had been rubbed too much by the sun. There were cups and saucers on one of the shelves that announced their provenance as Bognor Regis and Blackpool, PRESENT FROM... written in gold across their surfaces. On a round mahogany table were a number of framed pictures. What she had come in here for was a large velvet-lined box that held perhaps fifty or sixty coins on the top shelf, clearly more on deeper ones.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘if you were looking for any coin in particular.’

That was it, Jury thought, the coded question. He studied the coins, hearing Baumann’s voice: ‘I’ve only seen two of those since I started collecting.’ Centered on the top shelf was a coin identical to the one in the paperweight on Baumann’s desk. ‘I see you have a Greek Tetradrachms.’

‘Ah, yes, a handsome coin. Quite valuable.’

But it wasn’t, not according to Baumann. He was surprised she hadn’t been better schooled. This whole numismatist gig was what kept her running smoothly. On the other hand, why should she be as knowledgeable as Baumann? Nobody was coming for the coins.

Jury commented on the framed pictures. ‘Lovely girls.’

‘Do you mean my nieces?’

That’s what she was calling these girls, then. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ From his wallet, he pulled out the card that Baumann had given him to give his secretary, Grace. He wondered how Baumann had found the Murchison woman. And was it Baumann himself (who Jury was sure could be incredibly charming to women), or was it the money (which must be ample) or was it the power? Imagine having dominion over eight or ten children; imagine holding their fates in your hand.

All of this came and went in a flash in the act of handing over the card. She raised her glasses to her eyes and read it. Jury knew the brief directive by heart:

Give Mr. Jury whatever he wants.

VB.

And on the other side was the usual wording of a business card.

Mrs. Murchison looked up at him. ‘I see. Yes, I’d be happy to help you. Won’t you sit down for a moment while we discuss your, ah, preferences?’

Now she was smiling. He supposed she got a cut, a percentage, rather than a straight salary, or in addition to it. Considering the risks the woman was taking, it would be a sizable amount. But did she expect Viktor Baumann to come to her aid if the place was raided? Not bloody likely.

As he sat down on a love seat upholstered in a rough brown fabric, Jury said, ‘You seem to have a lot of responsibility here.’ She had taken a matching chair and now nodded, smiling.

Pleased as punch, thought Jury.

‘Yes, I’m wholly responsible; I’m on my own, except for a cook and someone who comes in every day to deal with problems. After all, a child can be, well, obstreperous. Do you have children, Mr. Jury?’

Jury tried to govern his expression, to make his face blank or bland, to freeze the little muscles around his mouth. Why this woman didn’t sense it, the all-but-engulfing desire to strike out at her, he didn’t know. It could be a total lack of both imagination and empathy. ‘No, I don’t.’ Thank God was his thought at this moment. ‘I’m wondering about your fee.’

‘That depends, really.’

On what possible what? How did one measure? He said nothing, merely waited.

‘It’s fifty pounds for the half hour, seventy-five for the hour.’ She smoothed her skirt, happy to have the transaction in her court. ‘Except if you want two girls, then add on another thirty.’ Like a cab ride. Extra fare, mate? That’ll be another quid, ta very much.

‘There’s age, too. What do you prefer in that regard?’ She leaned forward in her chair, looking at him with glittering eyes, looking in a beckoning way.

This transaction excited her. And he thought, of course, to take this sort of risk, one that could bring Johnny Blakeley to your door, anytime, day or night, prison looming, it would have to be for more than money, more than wanting to please Baumann. She would have to be attracted by the job itself.

Johnny had held forth at length about pedophiles and how they claimed what they felt for these children was love, pure and simple.

‘Perhaps we could have a look.’

He loved that ‘we.’

She reached to a little table beside the chair and picked up a small brass bell that actually tinkled. Jury heard the sound of something sliding and another of what sounded like furniture being moved around. In less than a minute a girl stood in the doorway of the lounge. She looked fifteen or sixteen, tallish, blond hair held back by a pink velvet band, and looking at Jury. Hard as nails. He wondered how long she had been here. Years, he bet.

‘Samantha,’ said Irene M~rchison, ‘let’s have April and Rosie in here.’

What benign names. He thought of gardens–Heligan, Angel Gate, even the rear garden of the Islington house, not a garden at all except for the little patch of iris that Mrs. Wasserman tended in the mellow months of spring and summer. He thought of that when he heard the name ‘Rosie.’

The girl said, ‘Yes, Mrs. Murchison,’ in a dead tone. She might have been sleepwalking.

Again, Irene Murchison leaned toward him with that glittering look. ‘Rosie just came to us. She’s our little one; she’s new. You know what I mean?’

The tall girl was back, one child on each side. The little one, who was probably five, perhaps six, looked at him curiously and stuck her thumb in her mouth. It was as if she had no inkling that the look of this man could snag her and cut her to pieces. Her look was almost expectant, as if there could be a treat for her in this transaction, that the man might have boiled sweets in his pocket.

The girl on the other side of Samantha, eight or nine, looked scared. For her to move even closer to the tall girl, who was without sympathy, affectless, only showed Jury how frightened April was. Samantha pushed her away and told her to stand up straight, which only made the younger one more frightened still. April mashed her face into Samantha’s side. Samantha shoved her off.