Dust E-Book

Martha Grimes

• Herausgeber: Grove Press UK
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

'Grimes's love of the offbeat, the whimsical and the absurd makes [the Richard Jury series] utterly unlike anyone else's detective novels.' (Washington Post) Billy Maples, former patron of London's finest art galleries and current tenant of Lamb House in Rye - the late Henry James's residence - is found murdered in an upmarket hotel in London. Richard Jury, Scotland Yard's finest, finds himself faced with yet another perplexing investigation. As Jury delves deeper into the fragments of the life Maples left behind, he finds himself entangled in a web of conflicting stories and false leads. Having enlisted the help of his faithful friend Melrose Plant, Jury must contend with both the case's lead detective, Lu Aguilar, and the surprise appearance of Maples's mysterious young nephew in order to crack the case.

Leseprobe

DUST

Also by Martha Grimes

Richard Jury series

The Man with a Load of Mischief

The Old Fox Deceiv’d

The Anodyne Necklace

The Dirty Duck

Jerusalem Inn

Help the Poor Struggler

The Deer Leap

I Am the Only Running Footman

The Five Bells and Bladebone

The Old Silent

The Old Contemptibles

The Horse You Came in On

Rainbow’s End

The Case Has Altered

The Stargazey

The Lamorna Wink

The Blue Last

The Grave Maurice

The Winds of Change

The Old Wine Shades

Dust

The Black Cat

Vertigo 42

The Knowledge

Andi Oliver series

Biting the Moon

Dakota

Emma Graham series

Hotel Paradise

Cold Flat Junction

Belle Ruin

Fadeaway Girl

Other novels, short stories, and poetry

Send Bygraves

The End of the Pier

The Train Now Departing

Foul Matter

The Way of All Fish

Memoir

Double Double

First published in the United States of America in 2007 by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Inc.

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Grove Press UK, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic Inc.

Copyright © Martha Grimes, 2007

The moral right of Martha Grimes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

E-book ISBN 978 1 61185 923 2

Grove Press, UKOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

www.groveatlantic.com

To the memory ofmy father, my mother, and my brother

This is just love. It’s nothing like the storm.

Clive James, “After the Storm”

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET

ONE

Benny Keegan whistled his way down the hall of the Zetter’s fifth floor, his small dog Sparky obediently at his heels. Benny hoisted the tray on one hand, as he’d watched Gilbert do. The French press slid a few inches and the cups rattled a bit, so he lowered it and held it with both hands. He needed practice.

Not that the hotel would ever hire him as a waiter; they’d said a sixteen-year-old would need a lot of “seasoning” to acquire that job. The ones who had interviewed him laughed at the word “seasoning”—food, get it? Benny got it and in his head went one better. He was only thirteen: I lied, get it?

Thirteen, but what he lacked in height and experience he made up for in depth—in his glance, his sober expression, his seeming seriousness, and his experience of the world.

And they’d gone on: “As you’ll be in the kitchen, mostly on the washing up, and the late shift too…”

Now here he was, with his unhired dog, pinch-hitting for old Gilbert Snow, bringing coffee on a tray.

He knocked at the door. No reply. Knocked again. What was the drill? Old Gilbert hadn’t gone into the finer points, given the guest had ordered coffee separately from his dinner; given that, this guest should be here. He knocked again. He had Gilbert’s key card. (“Keep that safe now, young Benny. No one needs to know; I’ll only be gone for a bit. Got to get meself topped up.” His laugh was phlegmy as he pulled on his coat.)

But the door had given in to the last knock, had opened a quarter inch, and now Benny pushed it delicately, again announced himself. “Room service.” No one answered. He hoped he hadn’t got the wrong room. He and Sparky were all the way into the dimly lit space and looking around. Right or wrong, it was posh—really modern, or modish. Not three-hundred-quid-a-night posh, but he wouldn’t mind stopping here for a night—sheets on the bed white as glare ice, towels you could pitch a tent with, wood polished to gleaming. Very nice.

A long ledge against the left wall that could be used as a desk or a table held the dinner service that Gilbert had delivered an hour or so ago. Heavy cutlery, good china. Remains of a hamburger, chipped potatoes, little pots of mustard and ketchup and pickle, their contents slathered around on chips and a half-eaten burger. Where was this person? Maybe gone down to the entrance to speak to the desk clerk or something. Not to the restaurant, hardly, if he’d gotten room service. The sliding door was open to the balcony—patios the hotel called them—and Sparky had gone out there to nose about. All the rooftop studios had them, and this one was really big. He might be out there, enjoying the April night.

Sparky started up barking, so Benny, still with his tray, stepped out onto the patio. There were a couple of metal chairs out here, and a table. Plants, big ones in big pots. That was when he saw him with Sparky sitting beside. The man was lying face up or face skewed in an uncomfortable position near the table.

Benny held fast to the tray, the French press shivering, the little cups clicking. The tray felt glued to his hands. He took some deep breaths, trying to start his thinking going again. He kept on clutching the tray and staring down at what he could see of the man’s face. Yung, kind of. Probably a nob; that was a really good jacket he was wearing. But it wasn’t so good now, not with that wide blood stain across it.

He finally managed to set down the tray. He pushed the dog aside and bent down to get a better look, only to see more he’d have to turn the body over and police didn’t like that, he knew. He had to call the hotel manager or someone, but not yet. After all the agro he’d gotten down in the kitchen, he wanted to be in charge for once, just a few minutes to be in charge of the situation.

He looked at the man, thought him young. He was certain he was dead; he’d seen dead and it looked altogether different than a coma or passed out. (He’d seen plenty of passed-outs under Waterloo Bridge.) Dead was a look of departure, of left, of the last good-bye, of gone. Still, he should check the signs—vital signs they called it. Like an artery in the neck? That was the best place. He knelt down and put his fingers on the spot where the neck met the shoulder. Nothing, no little throb or anything.

He heard his own heart hammering away.

The man was dead, no question. Benny stood and looked carefully around the patio for a sign of something, not sure what. But that’s what detectives did. They looked.

Your eyes might alight on something amiss or out of place like that. Hands on his hips, Benny slowly rotated his head, looking carefully around. But the balcony was swept absolutely clean.

Benny whistled for Sparky to follow and went back into the room. He noticed again that the nob’s supper was half eaten. Did that mean the shooter had interrupted him in the eating of it? Or had he not been all that hungry? Burger, potatoes with a couple lines of ketchup over them, house salad. So what this bloke had told Gilbert when he’d brought the dinner was he wanted coffee later for two.

Two. Well there you have it, plain as the nose on your face: man hears a knock, goes to the door, says hi, and his mate comes in. Maybe the dead bloke sits down to finish his meal and—Benny raised his hands, left gripping right and fired his imaginary pistol. Pow!

Sparky had his nose tucked in a corner by the telly. Benny bet he could pick up stuff your police K-9s left behind in the dust. He was smart.

Taking care, using the white napkin from the tray as a glove, he went through the man’s pockets—knowing he wasn’t supposed to touch anything, but bloody hell, he wanted to find some identification. There was a wallet in the hip pocket, which he drew out and opened carefully. There he was.

Benny took out his own tiny address book. It had once belonged to a big soft doll in the Moonraker bookshop, where he worked afternoons. The doll was called Traveling Girl and was all tricked out in coat and hat, and with a suitcase and this address book. When the owner said she might as well give the doll to Oxfam, as obviously nobody wanted it, Benny had asked for the address book. He didn’t want the doll. Well, actually, he wouldn’t’ve minded having it, but how would he look, a big lad such as he, carting a doll with a suitcase around?

He had listed two numbers in the address book. (He knew them by heart, but he still liked referring to his address book.) One was the Moonraker. He found the other one and went to the phone and dialed.

Richard Jury was sitting mostly dressed in his Islington flat in a very contented mood, listening to the shower in his bathroom spilling down over arguably the most beautiful shoulders in the Greater London area.

At the same time he hoped that the feet clattering down the stairs from the third-floor flat were not aimed at his door.

Do not stop here, Carole-anne. Do not knock. Do not come in and ask, “If you’re on the sofa, who’s in the shower?” Unlike the majority of prayers sent up, this one was answered. The noisy clodhoppers continued on to the front door, which opened and closed….

(Thank you, God…) …then thought better of it and started back.

(…for nothing. Yes, thanks for setting me up and then pow! Right in the kisser.)

Tap tap tap, heels on the floor.

Rap rap rap, hand on door.

Jury cupped his hands around his mouth: “I’m taking a shower! Come back later!”

Silence, then the feet moving off. Jury settled back into his former state of dazed contentment and picked up his tea.

Front door again. Different steps. Softer, slipperlike: flap flap flap. They stopped at his door.

This would be the tenant in the basement flat who rarely came to his door. Mrs. Wasserman. There was a gentle rapping of old knuckles.

This time Jury got up hurriedly and made tracks back to his kitchen to give his voice more distance to travel. “I’m in the bathroom!” In the bathroom, the water drummed down.

Muffled words came from the hallway. He crept back to the sofa and heard the slipper tread move away, the building’s front door open and close.

He sighed heavily and picked up his mug of tea.

A scrabbling sound on the stairs alerted him. The scrabble stopped at his door. Then silence. Then a brief thumping.

My God! Had he no private life? Was he the poster boy for Interruptions, Inc.? Was he the standard-bearer for “You-Have-No-Secrets-from-Us, Ltd.?” Was his personal hell going to be a hallway down which an eternity of footsteps come and go belonging to people he could not see?

Oh, the bloody hell with it! He got up and flung open his door. “Come in, come in, never mind your coming is unbelievably poorly timed! That’s my girl in the shower, smartening herself up. When she comes out you can ask her lots of questions about who she is and what she’s doing here in my shower. Our love life’s an open book. Come in. Come in. Can I get you something? Beans on toast? A quart of gin?” Jury stood aside and swept his arm from door sill to living room in a welcoming way. The dog walked in.

The dog plopped itself down and yawned.

“What? Bored already? Oh, I’m sorry we didn’t bring a doggy bag from the restaurant with that leftover caviar. Would you like me to rustle up a crème brûlée? Cadbury bar? Bone?”

Jury reached under a foot rest and pulled out a heavily chewed raw-hide number and slid it over to the dog.

“Who’re you talking to?”

Jury hadn’t realized the shower had stopped until he heard her voice.

“Stone. The dog from upstairs.”

Phyllis’s wet head popped out of the door. He could see the top line of a towel wrapped around her chest. She ducked back in. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Take your time. We’ve got all of Islington coming through.” But he said it to himself, for the bathroom door had closed.

So he talked to Stone for a while. Nothing earthshaking, just pleasantries, as they both settled comfortably back.

The phone rang. Of course! It was only half past ten; what was keeping people?

It was Benny Keegan on the other end.

Jury was astonished. “Benny! How are you? Where are you? What’s going on?” It was understood Benny could call him anytime, day or night. The boy never had before this.

“I’m at the Zetter; it’s this posh place in Clerk’nwell. Clerk’nwell Road it’s on. See, I got me this job here where I help in the kitchen some nights.” Benny lowered his voice. “Tonight they’re low on staff, on room service, and they asked me to take up a tray to this guest.”

Jury smiled. The last time he had checked, Benny Keegan was thirteen. The hotel must have rescinded the child labor laws. But this was hardly the time to bring up age. “Go on.”

“I take this what you call a French press—too many nobs in this place for my tastes—on me tray up to the fif’ floor. I knock and the door kind of opens. Still I knock and keep knocking but nobody comes. So I goes in and nobody’s in the room and I goes out to the balcony. See, rooms on this floor all have them. Then I see him. He’s dead, in’t he?” That last part was more or less squeaked out.

Jury sat forward suddenly. “Benny, are you okay?”

“Me? I’m okay, Mr. Jury. But I can’t say the same for this fella in Room 523. That’s where I am right now.”

“You haven’t called anyone?”

Benny sighed. “Yeah, I have. You, Mr. Jury. You tol’ me if there was ever any trouble—”

“You’re absolutely right. I’m glad you did. Now—”

Benny lowered his voice as if the dead were all ears. “Now, here’s the thing. I told ’em, the guy that hired me, I was sixteen. Small for my age, see. But I guess the hotel din’t much care as long as I was just hauling trash. But me findin’ dead people, well, it’d probably tell against me, you know, bein’ under the legal age.”

“Give me the address, Benny.”

“It’s in EC 1. 86–88 Clerk’nwell Road.”

Jury wrote it down, tore off the sheet of paper, said, “Look. Right now, you’ll have to notify the hotel. Why don’t you tell the cook, whoever sent you up there, what you found. Let him be the one to tell management and let them be the ones to call in police. It’d probably be Islington police there. It would leave you right out of it. Temporarily.” Very temporarily. “So do that, will you?”

“Sure. If you say so. Bloke’s name’s Maples. Says here on his license.”

“What?”

“The dead guy. His name’s Billy Maples.”

Jury stuck the pen back in his pocket. “Benny, you shouldn’t touch anything.”

An exasperated sigh came from the other end of the phone. “A’ course, I know that. I got at the wallet with a napkin for a glove. I could lift it outta this punter’s pocket.”

“Get the management up there, Benny.”

“But me, I’m first on the scene, Mr. Jury. They’ll be askin’ me all kindsa questions.”

“Not to worry. I’ll be there inside of twenty minutes.”

“What about a doctor, then?”

“I’m bringing one. Stay put.” He hung up.

Jury rapped on the bathroom door. “Phyllis?” He smiled. Even the air in the bathroom would be mistily covering her shoulders.

The door opened an inch and then another. She was still wrapped in the big towel.

“Dr. Nancy. We’re needed.”

Phyllis Nancy said, “Is this going to be another episode of The Avengers? Do I wear my Emma Peel wet suit? Or the backless black?”

The “backless black” was the silk confection she had worn that very night when they’d gone to dinner in the West End. The dress completely covered her front, but left her naked in back from her neck to her waist.

Jury had commented on the physics of the dress.

“It isn’t,” Phyllis had said, while peeling the dress downward, “exactly the uniform of a Scotland Yard pathologist.”

The black dress slid to the floor.

Now, as she opened the door wider, he hitched his fingers in the towel where it was folded over to tie. This too he watched fall.

“Get dressed. Billy Maples needs us.”

“Who’s Billy Maples?”

Jury started to slide his arms around her, thought of Benny alone with a corpse, and resisted. “Our next case.”

TWO

The Zetter, advertising itself as a “restaurant with rooms,” stood in the Clerkenwell Road. It had the spare, angular lines of an old warehouse, the spareness become sleekness and the angularity become minimalist. These things could be accounted for when simply renamed.

Jury wondered if the Zetter bespoke a trend. Probably, given the upswing of high-end restaurants in London over the last years. Unthinkable, twenty years ago, that London would have a kitchen, or a hotel, naming its restaurant as its primary attraction.

They couldn’t park in Clerkenwell Road, which even at this hour saw heavy traffic, so Jury pulled into a slot at St. James’s Green.

Phyllis had no coat, but claimed her black cashmere shawl could protect her from intemperate weather: hurricanes, cyclones, tidal waves. For a while now, rain had been falling hard and steadily, so they crossed the road at a run, and came upon an alleylike walkway called Jerusalem Passage. They took the cover gratefully.

Coming from the other end was a figure in dark clothes, perhaps running from the rain, but continuing to run through the passage, head down, bumping into Phyllis.

“Hey!” said Jury.

Over his shoulder, the man threw back an apology. Jury would have stopped him then and there had it not been for the dark clothes, the white collar that advertised his vocation. Running from an angry God? wondered Jury. Phyllis laughed and they went on.

As they stood at the hotel’s front desk, Jury saw that the death had had precious little effect on the restaurant, which, even at nearly eleven o’clock, appeared to be doing brisk business.

He produced his ID for the good-looking desk clerk, who, in a true, new voguish-hotel-with-murder calm, plucked up a house phone, spoke quietly, and then said, “You’re to go right up. It’s on the fifth floor, 523.” She smiled and nodded at Jury and gave Phyllis, in her brief black dress, a questioning look before Phyllis produced her own ID.

They walked into a room where the forensic team was already in the process of capturing whatever evidence it could. A youngish woman, a maid, perhaps, was being questioned by whoever was in charge. Her English was poor and she was having a hard time of it. Jury thought the detective’s back looked familiar. Then he turned.

“Ron Chilten!” said Jury.

Ron smiled his sphinxlike smile, hinting at a richness of disclosure that Jury knew was never coming, largely because there wasn’t anything to disclose. It was Chilten’s forte. “Richard, for God’s sake.” He simulated deep puzzlement. “I stand here and search my brain and can’t remember sending up an SOS.”

“Stop. You know you need me. What are you doing out of Fulham?”

“You make it sound like Dartmoor. Maybe it was.” Ron was too easygoing for full-blown rancor. Anyway, he had no need for rancor. It was all about the turf, the patch. Islington police would get on quite well without the rest of the Met horning in. “I ask again, what brought you here?”

“Your star witness.” Jury nodded toward Benny Keegan, who was talking to an older man, both of them anxiously watching and waiting. “I know Benny well, and I don’t think he’s on intimate terms with Islington police.”

They had stepped from the room out onto a patio, a huge wooden deck bigger than the room itself. At one end were a table, two chairs, and a body. And Dr. Nancy.

“Who’s this?” He looked down at Phyllis.

Phyllis was already kneeling beside the body, giving it a quick examination. She looked up. “Dr. Phyllis Nancy. Superintendent Jury asked me to come along.”

“We’ve got a doctor,” said DS Chilten, in a tone more uncertain than annoyed. The victim wouldn’t be needing one. He was lying on his back, shot in the chest, blood pooled at his side.

Phyllis looked at him. “Of course. I just happened to be there and came along. Busman’s holiday.” She snapped on latex gloves she’d borrowed from one of the technicians and turned back to the body. She had a manner that was so short on attitude it was all but impossible to view her as a threat. “I’d like to turn him over?”

With a slight frown, Chilten nodded.

She did this in a single neat movement. It wasn’t weight, it was leverage. It occurred to Jury that most things were. It was a thought, anyway. “We’ll be off in a minute; it’s your case, Ron.”

Chilten snapped his fingers at one of the crime scene operatives for a plastic bag, dropped something into it, and handed it to the technician. Then, in a considering sort of way, he folded first one, then another, stick of gum into his mouth and slowly chewed, as if that’s what the nights were made for. “Not exactly.”

Jury raised his eyebrows. “Not exactly what?”

“My case.”

“It’s Islington’s.”

“Yeah, I mean it’s Lu’s.”

Since he didn’t add to that pronouncement, Jury figured he was in for a night of Chilten’s little manufactured mysteries, smoke and mirrors mise-en-scènes. “Who the hell’s Lou?”

Now Chilten raised his brows. “Aguilar? You don’t know DI Aguilar?”

“Should I? Don’t make me dig all the way to China for the information.”

But Chilten was prepared to let Jury dig. He looked at the tray—the two trays—delivered that night by room service. Chilten turned to the waiters, Benny and the old man whose name was Gilbert Snow. “Now, is this tray of food what you brought up?” He was looking at Snow.

“That’s it, except it’s been half-et.”

Chilten nodded. “You didn’t take anything from it, did you, Young Benny?”

“What?” Benny looked aghast that he’d be asked such a question. “I’d know better’n to take somethin’ from a crime scene, wouldn’t I?”

“You didn’t know it was a crime scene, Young Benny. Did you?” Chilten’s tone was the condescending one grown-ups use with children, the “How-could-you-know-anything-that-mattered?” tone, you being only thirteen or ten, or six or eight. No wonder kids clammed up, thought Jury.

Benny said, “If it wasn’t a crime scene, well, he was pretty dead, wasn’t he?”

A crime scene technician stuck his head around the doorjamb of the bathroom. “’Scuse me, sir, but there’s a dog in the shower.”

Chilten frowned. “The victim had a dog? Why in hell hasn’t it barked or something? Why would he be—? Perhaps the villain wanted to get him out of the way.”

“Looks that way.”

Chilten took long strides toward the bathroom.

“Sparky?” asked Jury.

Benny cringed, nodded. “See, Sparky always waits for me in the alley. I was over an hour late because of this coffee delivery, and it was raining somethin’ awful. So I thought, well, no harm in him comin’ with me on this one delivery, so I got him into the lift and we come up here.”

Phyllis Nancy said, “Is this the Sparky who saved Superintendent Jury’s life?”

Benny’s chest puffed out a little. “Thass right.” He was happy to have Sparky’s role remembered.

Chilten was back, the crime scene fellow following with the dog.

Sparky, a small white terrier, was quiet until he saw Jury, whereupon he started barking and wriggling.

Chilten asked, “Was this mutt here when you brought the coffee?”

Benny looked at Jury, saw by his expression he’d just as well tell the truth. “Actually, Sparky’s my dog.”

“Your dog. Your dog? Did he carry the tray, or what?”

The technician chortled. Chilten looked at him. He stopped. Chilten went on: “What’s the story on this dog, Young Benny?”

Jury watched Benny cringe at being addressed in this manner. But he replied, “Like I said, I just had him along with me. We were to go home right after.”

“I’m sure the management likes your dog running round a crime scene—”

“We din’t know it was a crime scene, did we?”

Jury turned away. Benny was cutting a bit too close to DS Chilten’s bone, wasn’t he?

“Funny.” Chilten looked down at Sparky. “All we need, isn’t it? A dead body and a dog.”

As far as Jury was concerned, there couldn’t be enough dogs in the world for him: Arnold. Stone. Sparky. Mungo.

Benny said, “When I saw this dead man, well, I put Sparky in the bathroom there as I was afraid he might knock up against some bit of evidence.”

Skillfull, thought Jury. He put his hand on Benny’s shoulder. They all seemed to have forgotten that finding a dead body might be traumatic for a kid.

Chilten looked over at the door to the room. A man had just been admitted. “Mr. Lewis?”

“That’s right. I’m pinch-hitting for the manager, the manager not being here this evening. You wanted to know about the, ah, victim? His name is Maples, Billy Maples.” Mr. Lewis looked grim. He could have done without this murder’s happening on his watch. “All I can tell you is that he checked in this afternoon, about two o’clock. I did a quick computer search before I came up here. Well, I knew something bad had happened, didn’t I?”

Chilten nodded. “Go on.”

“Mr. Maples had listed his home address as Chelsea. Here. I wrote it and the phone number down for you.” Lewis held out a small piece of paper taken from a Zetter message pad. There was one like it by the telephone. He looked from Chilten to Jury, uncertain as to which one was in charge.

Jury inclined his head toward Chilten.

Chilten took the note. “One thing, Mr. Lewis. These rooms on this floor—you call them studios, right? They’re pricey, aren’t they?”

Lewis shrugged. “Yes, I expect they are. Superior studio is what this one’s called. Then there’s the deluxe, which is a little more. But they have some of the best views over London. Well, as you can see.” He swept his arm toward the patio. They stepped onto it and took in the Zetter’s view.

A view with a corpse, thought Jury. But it was still quite wonderful, the spire of St. Paul’s in one direction, the spire of the post office building in another. London at night and from this height was a knockout. He smiled at it, at London.

“I didn’t take the booking, but I can find out exactly what transpired.”

“If you would. I expect he could afford it, if that suit he’s wearing is any indication.” Chilten looked down at the body as if he’d call it back to life, just so he could ask about the suit. “I saw one like it in a window in upper Sloane Street. Get me any information you can, including telephone records. Outgoing, incoming calls. We haven’t spotted a mobile yet, though it’s hard to believe he hadn’t one, a sport like this.”

Jury smiled at the description. How long had it been since he’d heard “sport” used in that way?

Chilten nodded toward the assistant manager. “That’s all for now. Thank you.”

Mr. Lewis took his leave.

Phyllis rose, peeled off the gloves, shivered in the night air. “I’d say that’s about right, something over an hour. Two hours would be stretching it. Well, but we know the time frame, right?

“The dinner comes up around nine o’clock according to this Gilbert—”

“Snow, sir. Nine o’clock, right.”

“And the coffee comes up around ten o’clock.”

Ron nodded and flicked through his notebook.

How many pages could he possibly have accumulated if he’d only been here fifteen minutes before Jury?

“Okay. The waiter, Snow, brings up dinner at nine. Young Benny brings up the coffee—” Notes consulted again. “At ten or ten-ten. He’s not absolutely sure, but knows that’s close enough—”

“Excuse me, sir.”

Benny was standing at Jury’s elbow, together with the old waiter.

“Gil here says you’re missing somethin’ significant.” Benny brought that out as a dozen different syllables, probably to make sure Chilten and Jury understood the significance. “Tell ’em, Gil.”

The waiter, Gilbert Snow, looked to be in his sixties. He had sad eyes and a slightly sallow complexion, and although by no means corpulent seemed to have had his share of Zetter dinners.

“It’s this, like: the young gentleman orders his dinner be brought up, which is what I did. He then said he wanted coffee, but to be brought up around ten. He wanted coffee for two people, for two. He was very particular about that.”

Jury said, “He was expecting someone, then.”

Benny nodded. So did Gil. “I mean, well, that’s what you’d think, right?”

Jury wondered why Snow hadn’t brought the coffee up himself, but didn’t ask it. Save it for later. Unless Chilten asked. He didn’t. Maybe he already had. Gilbert Snow seemed all too aware that except for the expected guest, he might have been the last person to see the victim alive, and who wants that on his platter?

“Let’s say time of death was one and a half hours ago. That includes the time it took us to get here, of course.”

“Phyllis?” Jury looked at her. “Give or take how much?”

“I can’t say precisely. The time looks pretty fixed to me. You don’t often have a witness at both ends of a death—” Her frown deepened. “I can be a little more exact when—I mean when whoever does the autopsy—when that’s done. But I don’t see what you’re driving at.”

“Remember your Sherlock Holmes, Jury,” said Chilten.

“He’s never far from my mind. What?”

“The simplest theory is preferable. Is usually right.”

“That’s not Holmes. That’s Occam’s razor.”

Phyllis stepped on Jury’s foot and gave him a look. Then she said to them, “I’m leaving. I think I should give Benny a ride, don’t you?”

“Take the car.” Jury dug in his pocket for the keys.

She shook her head. “I’ll get us a cab. I’ll call down to the desk.”

“I think Benny’d better wait for the guv’ner,” said Ron.

Jury sighed. “Where in hell is this Detective Inspector Aguilar? He’s taking his own sweet time—”

“Right behind you.”

THREE

Jury had been standing with his back to the door. Quickly he turned and saw that, obviously, Chilten’s “Lou” wasn’t male. Detective Inspector Aguilar was a woman.

There would be no argument about that. DI Aguilar had walked in and sucked all the oxygen out of the air. Tall, willowy, black hair, nearly black eyes, a faint golden glow to her skin. Aguilar: could be Latino, could be Spanish, South American, even Indian. The Lu could be Louise, Lucille, Louella, hell, she could be Lucretia Borgia, for all he cared. She looked like she’d just come off a Paris runway with that shape, those cheekbones, and that hauteur, rather than out of an Islington police station. He wondered if her appearance always had this effect on her team. They stood, as if breathless and waiting. Except for Ron Chilten, whom Jury had never known to get breathless about anything.

Rather than ask who he was, in a gesture of utter disdain, DI Aguilar raised her eyebrows.

He almost laughed. “Richard Jury.”

This did not satisfy the eyebrows, which stayed up.

“Superintendent, New Scotland Yard CID.”

Still not satisfied, but she did use words. “And how do you come to be at our crime scene, Superintendent?”

Chilten—who was enjoying the little contretemps enormously, as Jury had known he would—offered: “The kid, Benny Keegan, called him. Benny found the body.”

She nodded. “Who’ve we got here?”

One of the crime scene technicians handed her a wallet. “His name’s Billy Maples.”

She looked through it, at the driver’s license, the credit cards, whatever bits and bobs were stuffed in it, then took out the license and handed the wallet to Ron.

DI Aguilar then turned to Benny, who, with Sparky, had been hovering by Phyllis. “You’re Benny,” she said.

“Yes, sir—uh—mu’m.”

“And you?” She was addressing Sparky.

“His name’s Sparky.” Phyllis said this. “And I’m Doctor Phyllis Nancy. Pathologist.”

Get over it. That’s what Jury heard Phyllis saying.

“And has the dog given up anything useful?”

Benny’s eyes narrowed. “On’y his dinner. We been here for a goodish hour, y’know.” Then he repeated what he’d told Jury and Ron Chilten.

Lu Aguilar thanked him quite simply. “You can go, Benny, but I may want to talk to you later. And I’ll expect you to keep mum about all this.”

Jury could imagine how mum Benny would keep once he got back to his friends and cohorts beneath Waterloo Bridge. “Mum” would take a dive straight into the Thames.

But the boy nodded obediently.

Phyllis said, “Come on, Benny; I’ll give you a ride home. You and Sparky.” She turned to Aguilar. Although Phyllis’s tone was frosty, her hair seemed to be on fire. “You’ll have your own pathologist. I’ve told DS Chilten my findings.”

He’d seen her hair spark before. He’d never seen it go up in flames. Her smile could have followed. Phyllis did not wait to be excused. She said to Jury, “I’ll see you tomorrow, I expect.”

“I expect so.” He felt quietly uncomfortable about his private life leaking into his public one. Then felt immediately remorseful for the thought. If there was anyone who respected privacy and knew the need to keep one’s work separate, it was Phyllis.

They left with Sparky.

Ron filled DI Aguilar in on what had been discovered up to that point.

“So where was the dinner companion?”

“Coffee companion, more, who might have been the murderer.”

He nodded toward Snow, who was sitting on a side chair. “That’s the waiter, Gilbert Snow, the one that brought up the dinner. Then Benny Keegan brings up coffee at ten-ten.” Chilten looked at his notes.

“Call him over,” she said, nodding toward the waiter.

Ron did.

She could, reflected Jury, have walked over to Snow.

The old waiter repeated to DI Aguilar the same story he had told Jury. Then he asked her if he could leave.

“Been a long day, I’m not up to this kind of thing.” He pounded his chest softly. “Dodgy heart, like.”

She smiled at him, nodded. He left.

Ron was talking. “I guess what I’m wondering is, if Maples was murdered between dinner and coffee, where was the shooter when Benny came along? I mean, could he still have been here?”

“If they’re all telling the truth,” said DI Aguilar, before turning to exchange words with the two crime scene technicians who had yet to leave. “Anything?”

“Things, yes, but nothing to nail down, m’um. We’re through here. I mean except for Connie. He’s in the bathroom putting the drain back together.”

Aguilar nodded and watched them go. They moved quietly, as if to keep from disturbing the air around her, as if it too might be needed for future examination. Then she turned back to Jury and Chilten.

Chilten frowned. “By they, you mean—?”

“The two room service waiters and the desk clerk,” said Aguilar.

Chilten flipped through his notes and it seemed to take forever.

“Okay. Snow brings up the food at nine, he said.” Ron stopped to indicate the remnants of the supper. “Hamburger, chips, whatever that salad is.”

“House salad,” said Aguilar. She’d picked up the room service menu, which she now opened and pointed to.

Jury smiled. Perhaps it was Aguilar’s moment of domesticity that made him smile.

Chilten went on: “Say Gilbert Snow left about nine, Maples had about fifteen minutes of eating, maybe more, when whoever he was to meet gets here. Presumably our shooter. Then Benny shows up at ten and finds the body. Desk clerk puts Maples coming in around eight-thirty. There’s confirmation between the two of them. I don’t think they could be lying.”

“The chef would have to be lying too,” Jury said. “Or whoever prepared this food. It’s only a burger but I still think it was carefully arranged, with all of those little china pots of condiments.” Mustard, relish, and ketchup had been laid on with a heavy hand.

Aguilar smiled. Or smirked. “Why’s that? It could have been anyone. Snow himself. It’s only a burger and chips.”

Jury shook his head.

Aguilar nodded. “Check with the kitchen, Ron. The restaurant here is supposed to be really hot, so the superintendent is probably right about the painstaking presentation. And bag this stuff.”

“The meal? Why?” asked Ron.

“Why not? You never know.” She turned to Jury.

“You’re afraid that Benny might have walked in on the killer? That he might still have been here?”

“Possibly.”

She said, “But the boy wouldn’t have stood around, surely. When he saw the body he ran out.”

“No. He called me. From here. Benny’s not exactly the type of lad to run.” Jury looked around the room. “The killer might have thought Benny had seen something, if he was still here, and that’s a big if. Our shooter might have forgotten something—but this is useless speculation.”

“That’s it, m’um,” said the technician who must’ve been Connie, coming out of the bathroom.

Chilten nodded. “If you don’t need me, I’m off.” He stuck a cigarette in his mouth, not lighting it. “You need a lift?”

“No, thanks, Ron,” said Jury. “I think I’ll walk for a while. Helps me think.”

“I’ll take him,” said Aguilar, looking at neither of them and dismissing Jury’s comment about walking. The ones remaining now were the two who were about to move the body into a body bag.

Ron Chilten gave Jury a brief salute and left the room, together with Connie. Conrad, probably.

What Aguilar was doing was having a long look at the food on the table. With a ballpoint pen she raised the uneaten half of the hamburger, let it drop. She looked at the potatoes, poked the salad. “I’ll bet that mayonnaise is homemade.”

The scene-of-crime fellows were still waiting for a signal to proceed, but she was still taken up with the food. “I’m surprised he got a burger and chips. I’m surprised he could get it, to tell the truth. Looking at what’s on the menu.” She shook her head. “Everything’s half eaten.”

“I noticed.”

She nodded and gave him a long, considering look.

But he knew it was a thought, not him, she was considering. “Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”

“No. He was interrupted.”

“But—” She frowned, made a foray again with the pen. Then she shrugged, and they moved out onto the patio. She looked down at the body and the two technicians looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. They zipped up the bag, moved it to a stretcher, and bore it away.

“Billy,” she said as if tasting the name for the first time. “That’s how he signed the card downstairs. Not William or Bill.” She was poking the ballpoint in a large ashtray that held coins, matches, and a room card. She slipped the pen through a matchbook cover and raised it. “Dust. It’s that club over the road there.” She tilted her head and made as if to look out over the dark balcony. “He’d been there, according to the desk clerk.”

“Tonight?”

She nodded. “After a gallery show he went to and before he came back here for his late supper.”