The Winds of Change (42 page)

‘Come on, Roy! We’re going!’

Jury rose before Roy did. ‘Oh? Where are you going?’

‘To the kitchen. For our tea!’

‘May I join you?’

‘No!’ She marched off.

Roy sat looking up at Jury in an uncertain way and then took off after her.

And Jury followed.

48

Had her aunt been there in the kitchen, the child would certainly have told her–warned her–but Rebecca Owen was nowhere about. But Declan Scott and Melrose Plant were about, both standing by the sink, both drinking mugs of tea.

Declan said, ‘Mr. Jury, I’ve had Commander Macalvie on the phone. He said he was coming over from Launceston. He should be here soon.’

Melrose raised his mug in a gesture of greeting, but said nothing.

Lulu was busy shaking dog food from two boxes into Roy’s little dishes. She added what looked like scraps of scrambled egg saved from breakfast.

Melrose said, ‘The way you feed that dog, he’s going to get fat.’

‘He needs lots of food. He’s had a terrible life.’ This came from the pantry, where she was putting back the boxes.

Declan looked at Jury and rolled his eyes. ‘I wasn’t aware of that, Lulu.’ When she appeared again in the doorway, he said, ‘I assumed Roy was fortunate. At least for a dog. You got him from a litter of royal puppies, or so you said.’

She hunkered down and shoved the dish with the egg on top (which the dog had been ignoring) directly under his nose. ‘I told you that Roy was taken away by Gypsies before he hardly had a chance to see the inside of the palace.’

‘Oh, sorry, I’d forgotten that detail.’

‘Yes, you did. You probably forgot’–and here her eyes looked daggers at Declan and Melrose, with an extra jab of them at Jury-’all of it. So Roy had to go around like a beggar’s dog, hoping someone would remember.’ This was a hands-on-hips pronouncement.

‘I’m sorry, Lulu. I am. I’ll try to treat Roy with more, uh, respect in the future.’

She looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘There’s three of you. You should’ve paid more attention to him. You should have remembered. Come on, Roy!’

Roy, remembrance of his fall from grace and favor not being as high on his list as it was on Lulu’s, went on chomping his food.

‘Come on, Roy! It’s your last chance!’

Roy didn’t care anymore about last chances as he did for first.

He chewed.

Huffily, she said, ‘I’m leaving!’ and turned and stomped from the kitchen.

Declan poured the remainder of his tea down the sink and said, ‘I think I should inquire as to the source of this trouble. We might avoid a beheading.’

‘You never can tell,’ said Jury. He looked at the pot and asked, ‘Any more tea?’

‘What happened? You were out there for a good twenty minutes with Lulu,’ said Melrose.

When Jury told him, Melrose first looked astonished, but then he laughed. ‘Of course, of course. It explains a lot of things, such as why Rebecca Owen would get so anxious at some of Lulu’s remarks. Afraid she was going to give the whole thing away.’

‘I’d have been anxious, too. That little girl likes to play at the edge too much.’

Melrose said, ‘Mum and dad and auto accident, that was one expert contrivance, right down to the newspaper. I should have wondered about the next of kin.’ He shook his head.

‘Incidentally, nice work with the gun. What put you on to the garden sculpture?’

‘It was the gardener, the old one–’

‘Mr. Abbot?’

‘Yes, yes. He was nattering on about the turf and said among other things ‘fire in a bucket.’ I was standing there with that bronze sculpture in my line of vision. I guess the penny dropped.’ Jury nodded. ‘They’re running it through ballistics.’

‘About Lena Banks–’

‘Ah, yes. ‘The poor plain thing.’ You said that several times.’

‘About Lulu.’

‘That’s the point, isn’t it? It could so easily have been said about Lena Banks. How dramatically different she looked from Georgina Fox. We had to get Dennis Dench to verify that they were one and the same. It was strange–’ Jury stopped when Rebecca Owen entered the kitchen, carrying two brown sacks of groceries.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said cheerily. ‘I’ve just got back from shopping.’

Melrose went to her and took the brown bags, heavy with cans and produce. After he’d set them on the counter, he said, ‘I’m off to see my turf one last time, then it’s to Northamptonshire this afternoon.’ He finished his tea.

‘Good. I’ll hitch a ride,’ said Jury.

Rebecca scraped a lock of hair back from her forehead and said, ‘I’m so sorry you’ll be going, Mr. Plant.’

‘It’s been my pleasure, Miss Owen.’ He turned and walked out into the gardens.

She picked up the cold teapot and asked Jury, ‘Did you have tea, then? Or shall I make some fresh? I’ll do that. I’d like a cup myself.’

‘Can’t I help you with those groceries?’ Jury moved to the counter.

‘Yes, if you could just reach these ones up to that high shelf. You’re so tall. I have to get a stepladder to do it. The rest can go in that cupboard.’

He deposited cans of beets and corn on the shelf, then took the sack to the narrow cupboard by the frig. As he was carefully placing them, and without looking at her, he said, ‘Miss Owen, you haven’t been quite straight with me, have you?’ He turned and smiled at her.

She was staring at him, the tin of tea in her hand. ‘Pardon?’

‘How did Lena Banks or Viktor Baumann discover who Lulu really was?’

‘Yes, how did they?’ The new voice was Macalvie’s. He stood in the kitchen doorway, Platt and Wiggins right behind him.

She looked first at Jury, next at Macalvie, then at Platt and Wiggins. Jury thought the poor woman looked not so much anxious as heartbroken, as if she knew this day was coming, but couldn’t believe it was here.

Macalvie went on. ‘Because we know you shot Lena Banks.’ He pulled the gun from his overcoat pocket and set it on the long table. ‘Mary Scott’s gun, isn’t it? Shooting Lena Banks, that would be the clear reason, indeed, the only reason you would have been driven to do that, to take such a hell of a chance.’

Jury put his hand under her elbow, steered her to a chair. ‘Sit down, why don’t you.’ She seated herself heavily, and he sat beside her, looking as if he too were under fire.

Macalvie waited, and when no word came from Rebecca, said, ‘She threatened to take Flora, didn’t she?’

Rebecca Owen nodded, cleared her throat, and said, ‘It was Mary’s idea. That day in London when she met Lena Banks at Brown’s. It was a kind of blackmail, really; the Banks woman said that for a considerable sum she might be able to keep Viktor Baumann from doing something about Flora.’

‘‘Something’ meaning what?’

‘She didn’t say; it was an insinuation. ‘Something’ probably like what was supposed to have happened–abduction. Ironically, it was what police thought he had done. Mary was terrified also because she had this heart condition and if she were to die, there’d be nothing to stop Viktor Baumann from gaining custody of Flora. After all, he was her father. Mary would have paid up if she’d had the money. The woman wanted half a million pounds, she said. So that day in Heligan Gardens Mary told Flora that I was to pick her up and take her to Little Comfort and she, Mary, would see her that evening and explain it all. Just to go with me and be a good girl. I went to the Crystal Grotto and kept out of sight–there were very few people there–until I saw the two of them. I changed her blue coat for a brown one and put a scarf round her head and we left by way of one of the service roads. It’s the way I got in. If any of the people working there saw us, we wouldn’t be able to go through with the kidnapping story, of course. We’d have to wait awhile and try something else.’

‘Flora wasn’t bothered by this. She has an amazing presence of mind for a child. She’s really very strong.’

Jury said, ‘You’d have no trouble convincing me of that.’

‘Well, she took it all as a game, didn’t she? Flora was to stay with me until Mary could decide what to do. Then she could go back to Angel Gate. But then Mary died suddenly. I really didn’t know what to do. Flora herself was afraid of her father; if playing this game would keep him away, well, she was glad to play it. She loves her stepfather.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Macalvie. ‘You said Mary Scott would have paid this money to Lena Banks if she’d had it. She might not have, but her husband certainly did.’

Rebecca shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t have done it. He would have got the police involved.’

‘And he’d have been right,’ said Jury. ‘So Declan Scott was never told?’

She shook her head,

God, whispered Macalvie. ‘You let him go on for all this time–? Considering how much the man has lost?’

Rebecca bent her head. ‘I felt I had to; it’s what Mary wanted. As long as there was any danger of Flora’s being found out, I was to keep her with me. So that’s what I did. But don’t think I didn’t feel for him. That’s why I decided to let her come here with me.’

‘But how could this little girl go along with this?’ Macalvie was baffled.

Jury said, ‘It was the game; it was keeping all those plates in the air.’

Macalvie frowned. ‘What in hell does that mean?’
 

Jury smiled. ‘It was seeing how far she could go. It was delightful–tempting fate. Once in a while Lulu would drop a little clue-right, Miss Owen?’ Rebecca nodded and half smiled. ‘Such as telling us there’s a place named after her. Which there is: Flora’s Green. Would we be smart enough to pick up on something like that?’

‘She made me very nervous; I was so anxious she’d give herself away.’

‘Yet here we were, policemen, detectives, who couldn’t sort it. Lulu would hold out until the last card was played. Literally. She’d make a great card sharp.’

Cody smiled. ‘I see what you mean. And I didn’t even see–’

‘Leave that.’ Macalvie glared at both of them.

Wiggins said, ‘But this Lena Banks, Miss Owen. What happened there? How had she, or they, found out that Lulu wasn’t Lulu?’

Rebecca turned away. ‘The white crosses.’

Jury frowned. ‘You mean the ones Flora painted on the trees out in front?’

She nodded. ‘They had a private detective following me for some time. Viktor knew me, you see. He knew how devoted I was to Mary. When Lulu and I were at Angel Gate, the Little Comfort cottage was empty. He couldn’t get inside but he could look around, which he did. Along a path in a little wooded area he found trees with white crosses on them. I didn’t even know it.’

‘Your private detective,’ said Jury, ‘was probably the itinerant tree man who came to the door one day and asked Declan Scott if he wanted those trees cleared, the ones marked with white crosses. And Declan laughed and told him, no, the white crosses were done by his daughter.’

‘I’ll be damned,’ said Macalvie. There was a pause. He asked, ‘Why would you shoot her here? This means you put Declan Scott in the frame for that murder.’

Rebecca shook her head, ‘I didn’t know that. I had no idea she was also this Fox woman. What I hoped was that you’d make the connection with Viktor Baumann.’

‘How did you know there was a connection?’ said Cody. ‘You didn’t know the woman; nobody here did.’

‘Lena Banks told me. There was no reason not to. The point is: I had to acquiesce; there had to be the appearance of acquiescence. I could have told you that Viktor is not a man who takes things by force. He wouldn’t kidnap Flora; he would never drive up and force her into a car. Of course he wouldn’t. The man’s a sociopath, isn’t that obvious? He needs to sustain the illusion that people know he’s right and go willingly.’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘The gun was Mary’s; I doubt Declan even knew she had one. You can imagine how she’d feel that she needed one, can’t you?’

Macalvie nodded. He looked, Jury thought, as if he hated the job, but still had to follow through. ‘You’ll have to come with us, Miss Owen.’

Cody dragged the handcuffs from his belt, unwillingly. But Macalvie shook his head and Cody put them away. The three of them walked through the dining room, Jury making a fourth, but following behind.

They sat at a table in front of the fireplace playing cards-Declan, Patricia Quint and Lulu. Jury couldn’t seem to think of her in any other way. She was Lulu. Pat Quint was laughing and giving Lulu a little swat with her cards. The three of them were so much at ease that Jury knew Lulu hadn’t told them. Yes, she would keep it up as long as she could, wouldn’t relent, wouldn’t show her hand, wouldn’t call. Jury had to admire her. Just like Joey.

Declan heard the approach of the others and looked around over his shoulder. He frowned. ‘Rebecca?’ He rose, as did Pat Quint and Lulu. She was pale; she rushed over to Rebecca and grabbed her hand. She was jumping as if in some attempt to find a supporting ground. Then she stopped and that determined look came over her face. It was sad to see a look hardening the face of a seven-year-old girl. She said: ‘Didn’t you tell them we just made it all up? You–we–never did anything?’

Jury marveled at Lulu’s quick inclusion of herself in the action.

‘We made it up. It’s only a story. I’m really Lulu and nobody’s after me. It’s a game!’ She flared at Macalvie but it was Cody she started hammering with her fists.