The Winds of Change (7 page)

‘She didn’t think there would be any reason to check up. She didn’t know there would be a murder on her grounds.’

‘No, of course.’ Macalvie shrugged. ‘So where’s Wiggins?’

‘He’ll be here.’
 

Macalvie had always liked Sergeant Wiggins, to Jury’s great surprise.

Macalvie called to Cody and slapped down a tenner. While the bartender made change, he said, ‘Let’s see how I relate, then, to the next one. A Dora Stout. She was the Scotts’ cook for thirty years.’

Platt had moved rather languidly to the bar and said, ‘You really want me to come, boss? I mean, three people, that might intimidate her.’

‘I’m sure. No, I want you to call her.’

Cody nodded and pulled a cell phone from an inside pocket. From his own pocket, Macalvie drew a crumpled bit of paper, smoothed it a little and handed it to Cody. ‘Tell her we’ll be there in five minutes.’

As Cody moved away to make the call, Macalvie and Jury headed for the door. ‘I don’t like this case.’

‘I’ve never known you to like any case. I’ve never known me to like any case. This woman, this former cook, any particular reason you want to talk to her?’

‘Background noise,’ Macalvie said as they got into the car.

Tiny Meadows was a clutch of houses in South Petherwin along the Launceston road and only a short distance from the pub. They could easily have walked; Jury said so.

‘Does that set the right tone, Jury? Police arriving on foot?’

‘‘Since when did you ever care about setting a tone?’ said Jury as they got out of another police-issue blue Ford.

The house was small and trim. A dog barked when Macalvie tapped on the door with the brass dolphin knocker.

Dora Stout and her dog came to the door. Jury couldn’t decide which of them was more eager to see police, given the wide smile and the tail wagging. Dora, true to her name, was a chubby woman, her round midsection set on her wide hips. Her thinning gray hair was brushed up in a cloud rather like a whipped custard. She did indeed make one think of food.

Both Macalvie and Jury pulled out identification, but Dora wouldn’t fuss over trifles such as that; she waved them in merrily and directed them to easy chairs covered in a pattern of wildflower bouquets. On the back of the chairs were antimacassars. The dog, whom she called Horace, lay down in front of the little gas fire, but kept his eyes moving from Jury to Macalvie, back and forth.

‘It was my arthritis, see,’ she said in answer to Macalvie’s question, ‘made me give it up. I can’t get around as I used to and my hands some mornings ache something fierce.’ She held them up as testimony. ‘So when they don’t hurt so bad, I like to get my baking done. I’ve just popped some scones into the oven.’

‘I know,’ said Jury, ‘I can smell them; they smell wonderful.’

At this point, Horace’s dinner would have smelled wonderful. ‘I hope they’re done before we leave.’ In this hungry frame of mind, Jury could understand Wiggins’s yearning after every Happy Eater they passed.

Macalvie just looked at him, but Dora was delighted.

‘If you don’t arrest me, I’ll give you the lot.’ She laughed at her joke.

‘I’d guarantee, said jury, you’ll remain a free woman.

‘Jury,’ said Macalvie, ‘do you mind?’ He shifted to Dora Stout.

‘We’re trying to identify this woman, Mrs. Stout.’ He slid the police photo out of the envelope. ‘She was, apparently, a friend or an acquaintance of Mary Scott.’ He handed her the picture.

Dora shook her head and looked pityingly at the victim. ‘Poor thing. Awful. Yes, I read about it. Shocking thing. You want to know if that’s the woman who came that one day to see Mary Scott. Yes, this is her.’ Dora leaned back, holding the picture at arm’s length, her glasses perched on her nose. ‘Not much on looks, was she?’ Dora handed back the picture.

‘You might tell Superintendent Jury what you know about her.’

‘It was over two years ago, no, nearer three, some months before Mary’ - Dora took a handkerchief from some hidden place – ‘before she died. Right before then. The only reason I saw this person at all was because I thought it was Miss Owen - the new cook - who rang and I was just going along the hall to answer the door. But Mary Scott was there herself. I just got a glimpse of her’ - she pointed to the photo - ‘before they turned and went out.’

‘Did they leave? I mean, drive off?’

‘They could’ve done, but I paid no attention. Now I wish I had.’

Hearing possible tears in his mistress’s voice, the dog shifted his eyes to her and then abruptly back to Macalvie and Jury, looking as if he meant to fix the source of her trouble.

‘That family,’ she went on, ‘had more tragedy than it needed, it did indeed. And now this.’

‘Flora, you’re thinking of?’ said Macalvie.

‘The poor little girl. And them never to know why. That’s an awful thing.’

They were in the Winds of Change again, this time drinking coffee. Cody was once again in the billiards room. There was still no food, evening meals not being up yet. Jury was working on a bowl of pretzels. He was talking about the shooting in Hester Street and Johnny Blakeley’s ongoing investigation.

‘Shot in the back. A little kid. Christ.’

‘There seems to be a field day with little kids where this Baumann is concerned.’

‘Blakeley’s a good cop. He’s tenacious.’

Jury laughed. ‘That’s just what he said about you.’ Macalvie was eating the pretzels. ‘Leave some for me, damn it. I haven’t eaten all day.’

‘Get Scott’s housekeeper to rustle you up something. She’s a hell of a cook.’

‘Yes, sure.’ Jury drained his coffee. ‘Scott’s a sad man but a great host.’

‘This is hardly host - guest stuff we’re doing.’

‘Go talk to him.’ Macalvie looked at Jury. ‘I mean, as soon as you’re finished with that pretzel.’

8

Ten minutes later, Jury and Cody Platt were back on the A30. As they passed the Little Chef, he felt exactly as he imagined Wiggins must feel, taunted by the promise of cups of tea and beans on toast. Except for Wiggins, it was more of a soul hunger than an actual one. Jury wasn’t about to split hairs over this; he told Cody Platt to stop at the next Little Chef or even one of those caravans set up by the side of the road.

Twenty miles later, Cody pulled into the car park of a Little Chef.

Inside, with a plate of nearly everything on the menu in front of him, Jury asked Cody about the investigation into the disappearance of Flora Scott.

Cody was drinking tea and occasionally taking a bite of toast.

‘Times I thought it was.’

‘Was what?’

‘A disappearance. It was like she vanished into thin air. It was like a magic act.’ Cody had pushed his dark glasses up on his head. It was the first time Jury had actually seen his eyes. They were a disconcerting stone color, as if light had leached the color from them. Yet they were neither cold nor hard; it was as if the eyes felt this loss of color, as one might feel the loss of a person, and were saddened by it.

The waitress - Joanie, according to the name on the button on her collar - came with more tea and coffee. She smiled as if this were the greatest thing that had happened during her shift. Jury returned the smile. Walking away from the booth, she stumbled into a table.

Cody went on. ‘The Scott family must have had a lot of pull in the county. The grandmother, Alice Miers, lives in London, and she came straightaway. She was like a rock, you know, one of those people every family should have. I think Mary would have flown into little bits if her mum hadn’t been there. Anyway, I’ve never seen so many police called to one scene. There must’ve been seventy-five, a hundred of us going over every inch of Heligan gardens and that grotto. We found sod-all, not a hair ribbon, not a kicked-off shoe lost in a struggle - there always seems to be a little shoe left behind in films, doesn’t there? Or a little blue purse the mother said she was carrying. Not even that turned up. I would’ve thought she’d’ve dropped something like that.’

‘Your abductor would have picked it up.’

‘I expect so.’ He shoved the plate of toast to one side and was leaning over the shiny surface of the table, hands folded, working his fingers, as if this account were told in deepest confidence. ‘I concentrated on the grotto, thinking that would be a good spot to grab someone because it’s not immediately visible. You remember three or four steps going down -’ Here he walked his fingers on the table, simulating the steps taken. ‘The grotto would have been the spot Mary Scott had just passed, maybe twenty, thirty feet behind her. I have my own theory about that, anyway.’

‘What?’ Jury was polishing off the last of his eggs.

‘Less than a couple of minutes had passed since Mary had been with Flora, had seen her, not more than that before she looked around, saw Flora wasn’t with her and retraced her steps. What she said was she remembered last seeing Flora on the other side of the grotto, so, of course, she hurried back that way. I think the villain was inside the grotto with Flora, Flora either being chloroformed or his hand over her mouth to shut her up.’

Jury frowned. ‘It’s not deep enough, is it, to hide a person? What’s Macalvie think about that?’

Codv sighed and sat back in the booth. ‘The boss would agree with you; he thinks they would’ve been seen. But not necessarily, I said to him, not if the mother was rushing by. It might have given this creep a better chance of disguising Flora, I mean, getting her into another coat, something different.’

Jury put his fork down. He was still hungry. He pushed back his plate and considered ordering more. His coffee cup was nearly full. All he lacked now was a cigarette. He had never experienced the advantages of not smoking. To hear the propaganda, the lungs would expand, the scent of roses and violets become denser, the taste of peppermint sharper, the air clearer, the rain more crystalline and the bloody fields more Elysian. The clouds, he supposed, fluffier. The only benefit that he could testify to was that he could say he was no longer killing himself with nicotine. Not that this wasn’t important; it was just abstract. And when, he wondered, had he become so obsessed with creaturely comforts?

‘Do you smoke?’

‘What? Smoke? No. I stopped a few years back.’ Jury very nearly lunged forward. ‘Horrible, isn’t it?’

Cody looked blankly at him. ‘Not really. After a few weeks, I hardly noticed.’ He shrugged. ‘Why?’

Jury leaned back in the booth, stymied. How could you trust a man who stopped smoking without a tremor, a man who could order a plain round of toast with his tea? You wouldn’t catch Sergeant Wiggins nibbling on a piece of toast without beans on it. Never. Did Cody Platt spearhead a new race of men who could cut themselves and not bleed? Who could expunge their bad habits without any sense of loss whatever? He bet Cody showed up bright and early at the gym to do his hundred pushups and an hour on the treadmill, then bench-press (was that the word?) several hundred pounds while he balanced a ball on his toes with a dog sitting on it.

Come on, come on, come on, man, Jury chided himself. Jury asked, ‘Did you have much contact with the Scotts after this search was over?’

‘With Mary - Mrs. Scott-yes, I guess I did. Keep up the contact, I mean.’

Jury noticed the given name correction. Throughout this conversation, Cody had been calling her Mary. What was that about?

Cody went on. ‘I never saw a woman more destroyed. The thing is she blamed herself, as if she should have been holding her daughter’s hand every second, but, well, you can’t do that, can you? You can’t hold your kid’s hand every step of the way.’

‘No, you can’t. What contact did you have with Mary Scott?’

‘I was assigned to the house with some others. You know-the aftermath of a kidnapping with calls being monitored waiting for the bugger to call. I didn’t man the phones. I was just general dogsbody, somebody to brew the coffee and run errands. Even the cook was put out of commission because of what had happened; even the maid was said to be prostrated because of it. She’s not there anymore, the maid. For God’s sakes, I always had the impression staff was supposed to carry on no matter what.’

‘A myth, I imagine. What about Declan Scott? Did he carry on?’

‘He did, actually. He did.’ Cody sat back, frowning, as if he were trying to work out how the stepfather could possibly have the presence of mind to ‘carry on.’

‘Somebody had to, Cody. There had to be someone who could answer questions, who could take directions if and when this person called.’

Cody thought for a moment. ‘I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, making coffee. She – Mary - came in. Their kitchen is huge; it’s one of those that seem designed for a staff of fifty to do enormous dinner parties. Anyway, she’d sit down on a high stool and tell me stories about Flora: Flora at two, somersaulting in the gardens; Flora at four, insisting Declan take the goat out of the farmer’s fenced-in acres. That sort of thing, on and on. Flora was so pretty. She had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Cornflower blue, as blue as the dress she wore.’

‘You must have been a godsend, somebody for Mary Scott to talk to.’

‘But it wasn’t, in a sense, real. Mary wasn’t all there. She was living on another plane altogether.’