The Blue Last (24 page)

“What's that?”

“Well, you see, what we know of the Pisa polyptych in its wholeness, we know only from Vasari's description. We haven't the advantage of seeing these parts in a catalog or as a print, have we? So if this is a fake, a forgery, what was it copied from?”

Trueblood looked befuddled. “A good question, a good question, Signore Prada.”

Prada sighed. “A good question, perhaps. But I think a better question might be, ‘Can you live without an answer?' ”

Trueblood considered. “I could; I'd just rather not.”

 

 

 

He was beating his head on the dashboard and loving it.

“Don't be so dramatic,” said Melrose, as they drove down the curving road away from the Prada house.

“Why didn't we think of what they were copied from? It's so obvious.”

Melrose was enjoying the feel of the car as they rolled through the Tuscan landscape, verdant even in December. They had been here for only three days and it felt like weeks, months, even. Travel had that sort of intensity; sights, events crushed together so that one wound up thinking, No, it surely must have taken me a week to see that, not merely an hour.

The fingers of his gloved hand upon the steering wheel (he was wearing his new gloves) tapped out a little tune. He was in good spirits. Trueblood was winched down in the passenger's seat, contemplating nothing except his own thoughts and turning now and then to look at the painting in the back, where it lay, now unwrapped as if it had no more to hide.

 

 

 

That night they dined at the Villa San Michele on an ambrosial fish netted in some heavenly stream. For dessert, there was a soufflé Grand Marnier. When they finished, Trueblood asked the waiter to bring their coffee and cognac out to the terrace.
“Fa caldo, Signore.”

“Sì,”
said Trueblood, not caring whether it was or wasn't. The waiter brought the drinks and withdrew.

“They're so ceremonial,” said Melrose, with a laugh. In the dark, they looked down on the city of Florence, its lights spread out across the city like drifts of fallen stars.

Trueblood uttered a giant sigh. “We leave tomorrow.”

They sipped their cognac, lighted cigarettes. Standing in the softly scented air, there came what felt to Melrose a mortal silence. Here he was in a place he had not wanted to come to, and which now he did not want to leave. He felt out here an awful longing; he felt like crying, really. Images flickered in and out of consciousness: the vine-wrapped towers of San Gimignano, its laddered, uphill streets; the conspirator's wink of the lad who was hurried away from the Museum of Torture; Siena, the color of warm earth; its purple-shadowed streets; the blue door of the house in Lucca; the echoing stairway of their little hotel.

“Maybe,” said Melrose, “Diane was right after all.”

“How so?”

“See Florence and die.”

A
s it happened, it was not Oliver Tynedale who had been prevented by ill health from attending Simon Croft's funeral two days before, but Simon's sister Emily; her heart simply could not accommodate either the travel or the stress. “He looked remarkably chipper,” Mickey had said of Oliver Tynedale. “Certainly doesn't look in his nineties.” Mickey had told Jury this; Mickey had gone to the funeral, but kept his distance, hanging back beneath the dripping trees.

Jury had hoped to speak to Emily Croft following the funeral, but since he couldn't, that meant a trip to Brighton.

 

 

 

Brighton in December, although still a fairly bustling city, bore little relation to Brighton in June or August. Jury often felt there were few things bleaker than a seaside town in winter. He walked across a beach less sand than shale and broken shells and stood listening to the hollow fall of waves, the hiss and whisper of the foaming tide coming in. He had come here as a child. It was a memory that now receded like the tide. He was no longer sure about memory.

Emily Croft was a thread that had loosened from the tightly knit Croft and Tynedale clans. Not that he expected or even wished that she'd spill all sorts of secrets about the others. It surprised him, though, that she lived here in Brighton in a “facility” such as this that could only be depressing.

Jury thought about this standing in front of a high window that looked over the edge of the bluff to the sea, pewter to dark gray farther out and rather quiet today. He had been shown into this sitting room with its cold and glaring marble fireplace to wait. The furniture was sound but homely, dark blue and brown, the armchairs bulbous with stuffing.

The door opened and Emily Croft walked in. She was wearing yellow, which made him smile. One so seldom saw it in clothes, not a pale, liquid yellow, but a sunny yellow dress and cardigan. She was thin and a little angular, but still, at seventy-three, in possession of skin and cheekbones a model would kill for. She did not look the least bit infirm, nor did she move as if she were ill. He wondered if this iron stamina which both Emily Croft and Oliver Tynedale had in abundance was characteristic of the rest of the families.

“Miss Croft.” He held out his hand. He had called from London and arranged to see her. “First, I'm very sorry about your brother.”

It was obvious she had been crying, but the Tynedales and Crofts were a resilient sort and he knew there would be little breaking down here.

She smiled. “Superintendent Jury,” she said, taking his hand.

“I really like your dress.” He rather blurted this out, realizing its in-aptness after he'd said it.

She laughed as if the compliment were unexpected. “Thank you. Let's go out here to the sunporch.” She extended her arm to indicate a glassed-in sunporch and led the way. “Please sit down.”

The furniture was white wicker, the carpet sisal. It was more relaxed out here, and with the sun slanting in, far more cheerful. A better background for a yellow dress.

“You came about Simon's death.”

“I'm very sorry about your brother, I truly am.”

“So am I, so am I.” Her voice wavered and she looked out to the sea, which the sun brightened momentarily. She cleared her throat. “Simon was a stolid person, but a good one. And very, very smart. The idea that anyone would want him dead is so alien to me—” She stopped again and looked out. “I've thought of little else since it happened. I've tried to come up with some reason or other. I can't.”

“When did you last see him?”

“About three weeks ago. Simon tried to come every week. Sometimes he didn't make it, but usually he did. Both he and Marie-France, though she doesn't come as often. Ian, too, visits me once in a while, and I know Oliver would if the doctor hadn't offered to chop off his feet.” She laughed, but the laugh broke in two. “Let me tell you what happened, since you must be wondering why I'm here and not in London. About five years ago I lived by myself in Knightsbridge. When I developed this heart problem, my doctor advised me to get someone in. People advise you to do that as if it's the easiest thing in the world, when it's really one of the hardest. Living in a two-bedroom flat with a stranger? Please. Oliver asked me to come to the Lodge where there were people around but where there was also privacy. I could have gone to Simon or Marie-France, but there goes the privacy for all of us. The Lodge was ideal; it was perfect. You could walk around for days without running into anyone if you chose.” She stopped and reached in the pocket of her dress for cigarettes. She turned the THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING sign backward. “That always makes me want to light up.”

Jury laughed and took the lighter from her and lit her cigarette. Lighters had such a satisfying little rasp and snap to them.

“You must have been a smoker once, Superintendent, the way you're looking so covetously at this.”

“You're right.”

“Well, be proud of yourself, though I doubt virtue is much of a reward for you. I've tried several times to give them up and can't.”

“And did you choose not to?”

She was puzzled. “Not to what . . . oh! You mean to bump into people at the Lodge?” She laughed again. “If you mean Kitty Riordin, yes. I'm not terribly fond of Maisie either, if it comes to that.” She looked at Jury, as if perplexed by his question. “I expect that's why I'm here and not there.”

“You didn't get along with Mrs. Riordin.”

“I've always thought her a cold fish. I'm rather surprised that Oliver didn't finally get tired of her.” She shrugged. “I expect having her there got to be a habit with him. He's a very good judge of character, Oliver. So was my father. He had presence; so does Oliver. But I don't think it comes from wealth and power—and believe me, Oliver has both in abundance. I think, rather, it comes from honesty. Both of them were—are—fueled by honesty. And perhaps we all inherited something of that. I hope so.”

“You did.”

Emily Croft smoked and rocked. Peacefully, Jury thought. He doubted she would put up with any constant irritation in her life; she would do something about it. “But if it was a choice between you and Kitty Riordin, he wouldn't choose her, would he?”

“No. But I certainly wasn't going to bother him with all of this. He's ninety-six or seven, you know. He's remarkable. As much as I love the Lodge and always have, I decided I'd give this place a try.” She looked around, walls and ceiling, as if assessing it for the first time. “You want to know about Simon, I expect.”

“I want to know about everybody.”

“Yes, of course. You know, I always got along with Simon. Remember, I was years older than Simon and Marie-France; I was eighteen, nearly Alexandra's age. We were fairly close, Alex and I. I expect that's why she confided in me. Did you know she had another child? I don't know if she told anyone else; perhaps she told Kitty, since she was close to Kitty because she took care of Maisie. But I know she told Oliver she'd decided to take a trip to the Continent.” Emily laughed. “I wonder how many trips to the Continent could be blamed on illegitimate babies.”

“Not Ralph Herrick's?”

“Oh, no. It was just before Ralph came along; they were married that Christmas and Alexandra got pregnant soon after. I've always thought that her sadness at having to give up that first child made her immediately want another.”

“She didn't tell you who the father was of that first baby?”

Emily shook her head.

“Tell me about Ralph Herrick.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Ah, Ralph. Yes, I wondered if anyone was going to get around to him. Simon and Ian idolized him, and no wonder. A handsome flier, a hero. Made to order for hero worship. Well, Simon was, what? Ten or eleven? I suppose it's understandable.”

“You didn't admire Ralph Herrick as much as the others?”

“Not even with the help of the Victoria Cross, Superintendent. Admittedly, he
was
daring, though ‘audacious' might be a better word. Ralph was an opportunist. I've always been a matter-of-fact person, not very imaginative. As I said, I admired Oliver Tynedale and my father because they're fueled by honesty. Ralph was running on empty.” She stubbed out her cigarette in a thin, aluminum ashtray and went on. “I really tried to warn Alex, but she wouldn't pay any attention. Neither would I had the situations been reversed.” She sighed. “Poor Alexandra. I don't think in the year they were married he turned up more than half a dozen times. If he had been present more, I think she would have discovered he was bad news. He was too plausible. I'm always suspicious of overly credible people. What surprises me is that Oliver and Dad were taken in. They were such cool characters themselves, I'd think they'd be alert to someone who reminds one of those old 1920s Chicago gangsters, one of those smooth racketeers one sees in old American films.” She shrugged. “Ralph would've made a wretched father. He hadn't it in him to be anything but.”

“What about Maisie?”

“I'm none too fond of her, obviously, since she engineered my leaving. Helped to, I mean. I think she's completely deluded when it comes to Kitty Riordin.”

Jury did not want to put words in her mouth. He sat back. “If you'll excuse the curiosity—and there is a reason for it—by the terms of Mr. Croft's will, was anything settled on Kitty Riordin?”

“No. There were no surprises in his will, Superintendent. The bulk of his money and his property come to my sister and me. There were bequests made to Ian and Maisie and—I thought this rather sweet—to Mrs. MacLeish. I understand it was she who found Simon's body, poor woman. You know she came to cook for him, of course. Oh, yes, and Simon left some money in trust for little Gemma Trimm. That was nice of him, I thought, as he had no reason to do it, especially in light of what I expect Gemma will inherit from Oliver. Simon was just a very generous man. Well, so was my father, so is Oliver. But regarding the will, no, as I said, there were no surprises.”

Actually, he did know because Mickey had found out. Jury simply wanted to hear what Emily Croft said about the will. He waited. When there was nothing else, he said, “You go up to London occasionally, I understand.”

“I do. It's one of the nice things about having money, Mr. Jury. You don't have to constantly disrupt your life. I didn't have to sell my flat in order to live at this place. Oh—is this by way of asking me if I was in London the day that Simon was shot?” Her smile was sad.

“Were you?”