The Winds of Change (41 page)

‘Oh, I could find you.’

The boy looked dubious. ‘I think you’d stay lost. But I guess in Swansea you wouldn’t.’

‘No. You definitely wouldn’t.’ Jury looked down the aisle.

Here came the most authoritative figure of all, the one who had incontrovertible proof of the destination of this train. Jury was afraid the conductor would bark out the news that London was coming up next. ‘Here’s the conductor coming.’

The boy whipped his head round to see and then slid off his seat and returned to the window to gaze out on darkness. He spoke about the moon. ‘You should see it! It’s huge.’

The thing was to keep up one’s end. Winning was so far off the mark that the boy wasn’t thinking about it. He had London in his corner, but Jury had worldliness. He knew more about such things; age granted him power, perhaps enough even to divert the course of the tracks. So in a way they were equal.

In this sense they were, indeed, magicians. It was the rabbit popping out of the hat that was important, not how the rabbit got there in the first place. Children could do this better than adults: keep the balls in the air, the body suspended, the tiger at bay. For truth must be held in abeyance. No matter how slight a one, Swansea must still be a possibility.

The train was slowing, the buildings now creeping past, the stolid brick and cement of city buildings and spreading railroad tracks, and there was no longer a means of denying that here was London. Passengers were rousing themselves from magazines and papers. The boy’s mother was looking around with a baffled frown as if her child had disappeared largely to make her life more difficult.

The conductor was bellowing the destination as they chugged into King’s Cross. The boy looked around the back of his seat, over the armrest at the conductor, then turned back and clutched his red car.

He was wondering, Jury was sure, what could be salvaged. Oh, there was a pound in it for him, but reward for being right had gone out the window long ago. This was London pure and simple, and his mother was registering his presence with a nagging ‘Joey! Come on, love.’ She was cross and trying to get their things together.

Joey said, ‘Okay,’ glumly, and gave Jury a look that could only be described as imploring. Game over. They could have kept it going had the train not put them down here; he could have gone on forever, as long as a game could go on.

He stood in the aisle as his mother got their belongings sorted, some stuffed into a carryall. To Jury he said, in a totally disheartened manner, ‘I guess I won.’ Talk about a Pyrrhic victory! For winning was not the point, and Jury knew he’d best hold on to that pound somehow. He said, ‘You know, I’m not so sure you’ve won.’ He took out his warrant card and one of his business cards. He handed the card to the boy. ‘My name’s Richard Jury. I’m a policeman, Joey.’

As Joey’s mouth fell open, his mother said, ‘Well, come on, then. We can’t be stopping in the aisle all day.’ She started toward the front of the car, leaving Joey behind like a forgotten suitcase.

Jury rose, too. ‘Here’s the thing. Sometimes police have to divert trains originally bound for somewhere else–’

Joey’s eyes and mouth were perfect Os, as round as the moon.

He said in a wondering tone, ‘Like Swansea, you mean? This here train was meant for Swan’sea?’

Jury nodded. ‘Could be. So you hold on to your car and I’ll hold on to my money and we’ll see how this game plays out.’ He pulled out his small notebook, clicked his ballpoint into action.

‘What’s your last name ?’

Joey gulped it out: ‘Holden.’

Jury smiled and thought of Cody Platt. He wrote the name down, said, ‘When I get wind of the train’s actual destination, I’ll let you know. We’ll get this sorted, not to worry.’ They were moving up the aisle and Jury put his hand on Joey’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry; the game’s still on.’

What a willing suspension of disbelief was Joey’s! His sad look was brightened by a big smile as the three of them descended to the platform. Then Joey’s mum pulled him along, Joey pulling against her hand every dozen steps to turn and look back at Jury and wave.

In memory, Jury heard again the woman at the reception following the funeral, saying, ‘She was only your cousin; it could’ve been worse.’

Worse? No, there is no worse, unless maybe it’s on the moon.

And before King’s Cross station canceled out the night sky, he looked up and thought about the pull of the moon, the receding of tides, the place where the worst can be measured.

Ahead, the boy was little more than a stick figure. But then the figure paused, its tiny hand waving. Jury waved back.

And then he knew.

45

‘That’s impossible,’ said Macalvie, after a few moments of silence.

‘I don’t think so.’ Jury had called Macalvie as soon as he’d got back to Islington.

‘But Declan Scott surely would–?’

‘No, not necessarily. Think of Lena Banks. Scott hadn’t a clue who she was.’

‘True. But he hadn’t seen her for over a year.’ On his end, Macalvie turned from the phone to give directions to someone. He came back and said, ‘They couldn’t keep it up. Nor for all that time.’

‘I think they could.’

Again, Macalvie was silent. That was three times in one phone conversation. It had to be a record for Macalvie.

Jury said, ‘I’ll be back in Cornwall in the morning. With Cody.’ Jury smiled. It was almost as if everybody was a kid these days, doing kid things.

‘What’s going to happen?’

‘That’s my lookout.’

‘What about Cody?’

‘That’s both of ours. It’s mine for dragging him into it.’

‘When I talked to him he sure as hell didn’t sound ‘dragged’ into it. He talked about it as if it were his finest hour.’

‘Maybe it was.’

46

Pete Apted sat in his rich rosewood, mahogany, leatherlined office, finishing an apple. He was in his shirt sleeves, with his feet on the desk, and tieless, looking more like some rock group promoter than the barrister he was. Pete Apted had turned down a knighthood because (he claimed) it would make him appear unapproachable.

‘Well, you are unapproachable,’ Jury had once told him, ‘except by a few of us brave souls and the solicitors who bring you cases.’ Jury had first met up with Pete Apted through the largesse of Jenny Kennington (but that book would remain closed, which pained him), who had retained Apted to defend Jury in an absurd murder charge. And Apted had in turn defended Lady Kennington on a charge that was not absurd.

Pete Apted shied the apple core at a wastebasket strategically positioned for just that purpose. The core went in; Apted pumped his arms in victory. ‘I keep moving it back.’ He took his feet off the desk, some sort of bow to decorum. ‘Superintendent, you do have a way of turning up. Who is it this time? You? Her? Neither?’

‘Neither.’ Jury smiled. ‘Although it does involve me, but my part isn’t criminal. The girl’s name is Samantha Burns. She shot and killed a five-year-old girl.’

Nothing shocked Pete Apted, but a lot of things brought on that woeful expression. ‘Kids killing kids. Is that becoming the national pastime?’

‘She also shot a pimp named Eddie Noon. Saved my life, that did.’

‘Good for her. There’s sympathy, right there.’

‘There’s a house in Hester Street run by a woman named Murchison. Was run I should say, for she’s now in custody.’ He told Apted the story.

Pete Apted looked at him in silence for a while, said, ‘These little girls, where are they?’

‘Social services is looking after them at the moment.’ Jury hoped the girls would be kept together until something more permanent was arranged for each of them, but he supposed there wasn’t much chance of that.

‘Samantha had been in that house for how long?’

‘Since she was nine or ten.’

‘There’s even more sympathy. Now, what about you?’

‘I went in without a warrant.’

‘Oh? That was smart.’

Jury sat forward. He felt he had to explain himself to Apted; he always did. ‘This house has been under investigation for a long time. A DI named Blakeley who’s with the pedophilia unit has been trying to work up enough evidence for a warrant. He was sure, when the little girl was shot, that whoever did it came from that house. Once Blakeley managed to get into the place, but not past the Murchison woman. It’s very, very tightly run.’ Jury sat back. ‘I got in.’

‘Warrantless. None of what you discovered will fly in court, but you know that.’

‘Of course. The first order of business was getting those kids out.’

‘Exigent circumstances.’

‘But the ‘circumstances’ have been there for a long time.’

‘You didn’t know that.’ Apted got another apple out of the bag, got up and pushed the wastebasket farther back.

47

Lulu, who was tossing a ball to Roy, met up with Jury between the fountain and Melrose’s nicely turfed steps. Roy bounded ahead. ‘Hello.’ She pointed to what Jury was carrying. ‘What’s that?’

‘Mr. Plant’s gardening tool. The Black Diamond secateurs.’ Finding it to be a tool, she lost interest. Then she took Jury’s hand. ‘I was just helping with the mead planting.’

‘No you weren’t, you were playing ball, you and Roy.’ She disdained this ball playing. ‘Oh, that was only in between. Come on.’ She pulled at his hand and they walked along the path to the little interior garden. ‘See this ?’ She pointed to a deep purpleblue pansy. ‘I put this first because it’s got the most color. Then this, and this, and this.’ In turn she pointed out the paler shades, down to lavender.

Poor benighted pansies, Jury thought. Handled to within an inch of their lives. ‘That’s a pretty arrangement, but don’t you think Mr. Plant, as he’s the expert, should be permitted to keep to his own design?’

‘No.’ Lulu looked up at Jury as if she’d expected better from him. ‘His colors are all mixed up. Lie down, Roy.’

The dog paid no attention, just went on looking at them with his tongue hanging out.

Jury sat down on the bench and crossed his arms. ‘Tell me something, Lulu. Did you like Flora?’

Lulu, head down, was scuffing at the soil around the pansies.

She nodded. ‘You already asked me that.’

‘I know. But you might have changed your mind.’
 

She frowned. ‘Well, I haven’t. She was nice.’

‘You used to play with her at your aunt’s house in Little Comfort?’

‘Her mum brought her over.’ She stopped the scuffing and came to the bench and leaned on the arm. ‘We played cards sometimes.’

Jury sat there for a moment, his arms folded across his chest.

‘It’s been, I expect, all in all and despite what must have been the dreadful difficulty at the beginning, a lot of fun.’

She stopped swinging on the bench arm and stood still, frowning. ‘What’s been fun?’ Her tone was blank, unpuzzled and also unconvincing.

Jury opened his arms. ‘All of this: you and Roy and your aunt. Angel Gate. The gardens, the sky.’ It was a sterling blue. The place was gorgeous with the light streaming through the trees and spreading to the flower beds.

‘Oh, I don’t care,’ she said.

Had she caught on just then and, like Joey, was prepared to play it out? Jury smiled. Had she or hadn’t she? He felt as if he were being taken. It made him smile, really, that he was being handed a song and dance by a seven-year-old girl, that he was being hogtied, blindsided and swindled. ‘Did you usually win at cards?’

‘Always. I always won.’ Now she had grasped the arm of the bench and was leaning back.

‘You know what you should be?’

‘Uh-uh. What?’

‘A Vegas blackjack dealer.’

‘That’s funny. What is it?’

‘Well, as soon as you find out what it is, go be it because you’d be sensational. Everyone would be watching you. Las Vegas is a palace of games. You’re seven now. By the time you’re seventeen you’ll have the city at your feet.’

She looked down at her feet as if wondering whether she’d like a town at them. She pursed her lips. ‘What kind of games?’

‘The kind that require quick thinking and a poker face. The kind where you don’t give anything away.’ He leaned closer. ‘And the kind where, if you’re clever, you hedge your bets.’ Lulu was being acrobatic by turning her back to the bench and leaning over the arm, her face turned upside down. ‘I don’t know what you mean. What’s Lost Vegas?’

‘Las Vegas is a town where everyone gambles. You know, makes bets and wins a lot of money. Or loses. You can win thousands of pounds on one bet. Or lose it.’

‘Can you bet fifty p?’

‘Any amount. But what you could do is work the blackjack table. Probably, you’d want to change your name because Lulu doesn’t sound much like a Vegas name. You like French names. You named your dog ‘Roi.’ Yours could be something like Genevieve or Fleur.’

‘No. I’ve always hated that–’ Quickly, she stepped back, pressing her hands against her cheeks. Staring.

‘You’ve always hated Fleur? How’s that?’

‘You tricked me!’

Jury looked at the sky. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Entrapment, maybe.’