The Blue Last (36 page)

Jury smiled.
Full circle.

 

 

 

In the kitchen, a tea party appeared to be in progress, with Sergeant Wiggins at the center of things. Around the table also sat an elderly but robust-looking woman who must be the cook, two young ones who were probably maids and a thin, acne-scarred lad who would have been a groom, if there'd been horses. Leaving that occupation, Jury imagined he was Archie Milbank, who did odd jobs under the gimlet eye of Barkins, who was not present at the table.

The kitchen was wonderfully massive and cozy at the same time, partly owing to an inglenook fireplace blazing away as if initiating the Great Fire of London. It was flanked by a large industrial-size Aga and a modern column which housed a microwave oven and what looked like a rotisserie. The cook was not hurting for modern conveniences.

When Jury walked in, Wiggins rose and the others looked at Jury with simple delight, as if he were one of the Wise Men come with a bucket of frankincense. (Jury had trouble getting that image of Melrose Plant out of his mind.)

Jury's smile only increased the general air of beneficence as Wiggins introduced him around the table. Here was Mrs. MacLeish, cook; Rachael Brown, maid; Clara Mount, cook's helper; Archie Milbank, “maintenance.”

Jury thanked Mrs. MacLeish for the mug of tea she was pressing into his hand and asked if he could have a word with her. Of course, of course. They went to Barkins's little sitting room.

“First,” said Jury, “I'm awfully sorry about Mr. Croft. You knew him from childhood, didn't you?”

Her eyes grew glassy with tears, against which she drew a handkerchief from her apron. “I did that, yes. Mr. Simon was a lovely man, just lovely. Like the rest of the family, scarcely ever a cross word.”

“It's been suggested he was afraid of someone or something. Did you get that impression?”

She frowned. “He did seem not to want to see people, or at least some people. I thought it was because of that book he was writing. Spending all his time on that, he was. Of course, I never did see him much as I went to the house only twice a week to do the cooking. Mr. Simon wasn't big on cooking for himself. Sometimes he got Partridge's to cater. I do know he got that policeman—a friend of the family, he was—to stop in every once in a while. So I expect he could've been afraid, couldn't he? Maybe it was for some of those valuable paintings and things?”

“Possibly, yes.”

Jury thanked her and rose.

 

 

 

They were in the car with Wiggins thumbing through his notes. As always, they were copious. “According to Mrs. MacLeish, who went to Simon Croft's house to prepare meals for him, the only people who got inside the house were the grocer and your DCI Michael Haggerty. Maisie Tynedale called. But Croft did not want her inside and told Mrs. MacLeish to say he was busy with work that couldn't be interrupted. He had taken to doing this several weeks before.”

“This is the paranoia we've been hearing about?”

“Yes. She says the policeman—meaning DCI Haggerty—had a cup of tea with her in the kitchen when he came round, and so did the grocer, a Mr. Smith. Anyway, they had tea—”

“Occupational hazard.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“—had their tea and a good chat.”

“About what?”

“Oh, the new millennium dome. I was telling you—”

“Yes, yes.” The last thing Jury wanted was for Wiggins to get stuck on that. He wondered if he'd last until the millennium.

“What it looks like is Simon Croft could have been suspicious of any of them, anyone in the family.”

“Good thinking on his part. So am I. You know, I don't get this: here's Croft with money enough to be catered for by Partridge's or Fortnum and Mason. Why would he be using Mrs. MacLeish to cook his meals?”

Wiggins gave a smart little nod and said, with authority, “I can answer that, sir, I believe. Mrs. MacLeish has cooked for the Tynedales and the Crofts for decades, ever since the older men were young ones. Simon Croft has always depended on her and wouldn't give it up, not for love nor money. He was spoiled. They're all spoiled, if I'm any judge. They get used to how things were done a long time ago and they're not about to change that.”

“It sounds almost incestuous. That's the trouble with closely knit families; they don't know when the hell to stop.”

D
ulwich always surprised Jury. It was a real village within the Greater London area, home of Dulwich College and one of the best picture galleries in the country.

The house Jenny Gessup lived in was a small, attractive, yellow painted-brick one, with front garden given over to winter despoilment: hedges straggly, earth stone hard, flowers gone, probably some time ago.

Jury raised the brass dolphin-shaped door knocker several times. Finally, a young woman opened the door. She was short, with a trim build and delicate cheekbones. She did not appear to be one to handle wheelbarrows and buckets, but apparently had, as Angus Murphy hadn't complained about her lack of ability, only her laziness. Her hair was a hybrid grayishbrown the color of tree trunks. She did not appear best pleased to find two strangers on her doorstep.

“Miss Gessup?”

“It's with a hard
G
like “guess,” not like “Jesus.”

Jury could tell she was delighted at being able immediately to take them to task. He smiled. “I'm Richard Jury with a
J.
Exactly like ‘Jesus.' ” He showed her his identification.

Jenny Gessup's face was red. “You're public servants; you ought not to get smart with those who pay your salary.” She flung the door wide and marched herself into her sitting room, leaving the two of them to find their way by following their noses. They did.

Jury made himself comfortable on a small sofa slipcovered in lavender linen. The color on walls and woodwork was a pastel, a faded peach; chairs were covered in stronger garden colors: delphinium blue, daffodil yellow. It was as if summer had retreated here, having lost its brief campaign with the winter outside, and here was its last ditch stand.

“Miss Gessup, you worked at Tynedale Lodge.” She pulled back and, Jury thought, became wary.

“You could say.”

Jury smiled. “I do say. But you weren't there long, were you?”

Defensively, her voice raised a notch or two. “I only took the job as a lark, anyway.”

“According to Miss Tynedale, you stopped coming.”

Jenny gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Oh,
her.
She acts like the lady of the manor.”

“She is. Why don't you like her?” Jury could almost see a door close in her mind. All she did was shrug and study her bitten fingernails. “Why did you quit, then?”

“I told you. I wasn't serious about that job.”

“Then why did you take it on in the first place?”

“Extra money, of course. I'm saving up to buy a car.”

“Are you working now?”

She shook her head.

“Have you since you left the Lodge?”

“Can't find anything that suits.”

The illogic of that answer, given she signed on as a gardener, which didn't suit either, Jury did not explore. She had quickly reached that point where her answers would be static or lies.

“You remember Gemma Trimm?”

“Gemma?” Jenny brightened a bit. “Yes, of course. We were kind of friends. I liked Gemma, but no one else paid much attention to her. Sad.” Her voice was wistful. “There was that shooting up at the Lodge. Southwark police said it was robbers first off and then said it was some boys acting up. Well, Gemma thought it was someone trying to kill her. That's daft.”

“What if the shooting wasn't random? What if the shooter was after someone else?”

Her fine brown eyebrows drew together in puzzlement.

“I mean, is it possible the killer thought it was you in the greenhouse?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, that's ridiculous.” Not meeting his eyes, she picked at a bit of skin around her fingernail.

Jury left the idea on the table. He said nothing.

“Anyway,” she went on, “if they were trying to shoot somebody besides Gemma, why not Angus Murphy? He was in the greenhouse a lot more than me.”

“Too big. No one would have mistaken him for you.”

“If you know something that might make you a danger to someone else,” said Wiggins, “you'd better say.”

Just then a woman appeared, holding branches of greenery of the sort one collects to make wreaths. Holly, perhaps. She stood in the doorway to a courtyard, smiling.

Jury and Wiggins both rose. Jenny stayed put on the sofa. “It's my aunt Mary.”

The aunt put the holly on a table by the door and held out her hand, saying, “Mary Gessup.” She pronounced it with a
J
sound.

Jury returned the smile and introduced himself and Wiggins. He brought out his ID again.

“Good lord.” She looked from them to her niece. “What's going on?”

Jenny said, “They're just asking about what happened at the Lodge. You know, about that shooting.”

“But that was over two months ago.”

“We're looking into the death of Simon Croft. He had a close association to the Tynedale family.”

“Croft. Yes, I read about that. He had something to do with finance in the City.”

“There may be a connection. We're simply trying to sort the details.”

“Do please sit down. Would you like some tea?” Before Jury could say no, they'd just had some, she went on: “Jenny, do go and make some, will you?”

Truculently, Jenny rose and walked out. Her aunt watched her go, then said, “I thought you might want to talk without Jenny around. There must be more to this than Jenny's working at the Lodge.”

“There is. We told your niece that whoever fired on the greenhouse might have actually had in mind to shoot your niece.”

Mary Gessup stared at him. “Jenny? But
why—
?”

“That's what we want to find out. Mind you, I could be dead wrong.”

“I know. She was scared, she said, which was understandable. But wasn't that a robbery attempt?”

Jury did not answer directly. “Has she been in trouble before?”

Mary Gessup hesitated. “Yes, but not seriously.”

“What was ‘not serious,' then?”

“Well . . . she was working for an old woman in the village and was discovered going through her things. I don't know what it is in Jenny that causes her to do that. She didn't take anything. The woman didn't press charges.”

“Is it compulsive?”

Mary looked a question.

“Compulsive behavior?”

Mary was standing by the fireplace. “It could be, yes.”

“Because that could be serious; that could be deadly. Even if she didn't take anything. I get the impression she isn't steady.”

“ ‘Steady'?”

“You know—dependable.”

Mary nodded. “She's scattered; she can't keep her mind on a thing for very long. More so than most girls.”

“She could have stumbled onto something at the Lodge and not known it.”

Mary Gessup looked beleaguered. She shook her head, not in denial, but as if to clear it. “Of course, that's possible, Superintendent—”

“I'm only saying that
if
she found out something she shouldn't have, it would be in her best interests to tell us. That's all.”

Jenny was back with the tea tray and seeming in better temper. Restoring, the prospect of tea was, thought Jury. No one knew that better than Wiggins, for whom this would make the fourth or fifth cup. Jury himself declined.

Jury said to Jenny, “You didn't much care for Miss Tynedale; what about her grandfather, Oliver?”

Immediately, her face brightened. She was holding the teapot in air as she said, “Oh, yes. Do you know what he said when I first met him?”

They did not.

“It was a poem. ‘Jenny kissed me when we met,/Jumping from the chair she sat in . . .' I don't remember the rest. But wasn't that lovely?”

Wiggins put down his cup, and said,

They all gazed at Wiggins, astonished, none more than Jury. He had never known his sergeant to quote poetry. “That's beautiful.” Then to Jenny, he said, “No wonder you liked him.”

“He was Gemma's and my favorite.”

And it occurred to Jury, and saddened him, that Jenny seemed to be putting herself in a category with Gemma Trimm. They were friends, Jenny had said, as if they were of an age together. Maybe that's what characterized Jenny Gessup: she seemed like a little girl.

When the others had drunk their tea, largely in silence, Jury thanked them and rose. “You've been very helpful. I hope we can clear things up.”