The Grave Maurice E-Book

Martha Grimes

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

Beschreibung

From the confines of his hospital bed, Inspector Jury is seeking refuge from Nurse Hannibal's constant speculations about his chances of survival when his friend, and partner in crime (prevention), Melrose Plant, arrives with a distraction. It's a story he overheard a young woman telling in The Grave Maurice about a girl named Nell Ryder - granddaughter to the owner of the Ryder Stud Farm in Cambridgeshire who has been missing for more than a year. More interestingly though, she is the daughter of Jury's surgeon. In the wake of this discovery, a woman is found dead on the Ryders' farm - a stranger to the Ryders, but not to Plant. She is the woman he overheard in The Grave Maurice. Together with Jury, Nell's family, and the Cambridgeshire police, Plant embarks on a search to find Nell and bring her home. But is there more to their mission than just restoring a fifteen-year-old girl to her family?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Epigraph

 

Day Trader

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

 

Night Rider

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

 

Love Walked In

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

FORTY-THREE

FORTY-FOUR

FORTY-FIVE

FORTY-SIX

FORTY-SEVEN

FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-NINE

FIFTY

FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-TWO

FIFTY-THREE

FIFTY-FOUR

FIFTY-FIVE

FIFTY-SIX

FIFTY-SEVEN

FIFTY-EIGHT

 

Go for Wand

FIFTY-NINE

SIXTY

SIXTY-ONE

SIXTY-TWO

Praise for the novels of Martha Grimes

The Grave Maurice

“Grimes’s writing has rarely been more lovely, especially when describing horses racing over fences at night or mares running for sheer joy.”

—Chicago Tribune

 

“Beguiling characters . . . [a] blissful setting.”

—The New York Times

 

“This satisfyingly old-fashioned detective tale pays homage to Josephine Tey’s famous historical mystery The Daughter of Time . . . vintage Grimes.”

—Booklist

 

“[Grimes is] a reigning queen in the realm of mysteries. . . . Delightful details and complex characterizations.”

—Hartford Courant

 

“Another ‘veddy British’ effort from Grimes’s wickedly clever pen. And fans will rejoice that Jury is eventually once more back in action.”

—Chattanooga Times-Free Press

 

“Grimes’s considerable narrative skills are evident in this compelling story. . . . Beneath the charming innocence are deeper psychological undercurrents. Obsession, greed, revenge, and loneliness are recurring themes and Grimes always manages to present believable villains.”

—The Tennessean

 

“A satisfying tale that should delight mystery fans.”

—Publishers Weekly

 

“Quintessential Grimes, with a rich canvas and suspicion bouncing from one quirky character to another like a pumped-up pinball.”

—Kirkus Reviews

 

The Blue Last

“[Grimes] excels at creating a haunting atmosphere and characters both poignant and preposterous.”

—USA Today

 

“A diverting, chilling mystery of the past. . . . [Grimes] is at the top of her form. . . . Profoundly affecting and hauntingly sad . . . [an] explosive cliffhanger ending.”

—Richmond Times-Dispatch

 

“[Grimes’s] gift for evoking mood and emotion is as keen as her talent for inventing a demanding puzzle and solving it.”

—The Wall Street Journal

 

The Lamorna Wink

“Atmospheric . . . an elegantly styled series.”

—The New York Times Book Review

 

“Swift and satisfying . . . grafts the old-fashioned ‘Golden Age’ amateur detective story to the contemporary police procedural . . . real charm.”

—The Wall Street Journal

 

“Charming, delightful. . . . Grimes fleshes out her characters with witty dialogue. Long may she write Richard Jury mysteries.”

—Chicago Tribune

 

The Stargazey

“Wondrously eccentric characters. . . . The details are divine.”

—The New York Times Book Review

 

“The literary equivalent of a box of Godiva truffles . . . wonderful.”

—Los Angeles Times

 

The Case Has Altered

“Richly textured.”—The New York Times Book Review

 

“Grimes is dazzling in this deftly plotted Richard Jury mystery.”

—Publishers Weekly

 

I Am the Only Running Footman

“Grimes at her best . . . more than mere suspense.”

—The New Yorker

 

“Literate, witty, and stylishly crafted.”

—The Washington Post

 

The Five Bells and Bladebone

“[Grimes’s] best . . . as moving as it is entertaining.”

—USA Today

 

The Old Fox Deceiv’d

“A good puzzle . . . unusually well written.”

—The Boston Globe

 

The Man with a Load of MischiefThe first Richard Jury novel

“For readers who value wit, atmosphere, and charm in their mysteries.”

—The Washington Post Book World

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 2002 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, 2002

 

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.

 

‘At Grass’ by Philip Larkin is reprinted from The Less Deceived by permission of The Marvell Press, England and Australia.

 

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 920 1

 

Grove Press, UKOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

 

www.groveatlantic.com

To little Will Holland, nearly a year, and his grandparents, Virginia and Scott

He told where all the running water goes,And dressed me gently in my little clothes.

—Robert Pack, “The Boat”

Do memories plague their ears like flies?They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.Summer by summer all stole away,The starting gates, the crowds and cries—All but the unmolesting meadows,Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,Or gallop for what must be joy,And not a fieldglass sees them home,Or curious stop-watch prophesies:Only the groom, and the groom’s boy,With bridles in the evening come.

—PHILIP LARKIN, “AT GRASS”

PROLOGUE

In the distance, the horse looked white, but nearer, one could see the white was muted, more the color of a winter dawn, a shadowy white, like blue snow. It was barely dawn, the boy’s favorite time of day. He loved all of the horses in the stable but this horse in particular.

The pale horse watched the boy coming toward him, bridle and saddle over his arm, walking through the mist. Not him. What had happened to that jockey who could really ride him? Where were the ribbons, the roses, the shouts and the cheers? Or that girl, for that matter, who handled him better than the boy, her fingers curled on the reins like chrysanthemum petals. If there was one thing the horse knew it was hands—the boy’s the trainer’s the jockey’s the girl’s. She must be a filly in disguise; she couldn’t be a human girl. For some reason.

The boy came up to him, patted and smoothed his neck, and handed over a couple of lumps of sugar. Then he threw the plaid blanket over him and they both walked off on the path through the trees, across the pasture, toward the track. The boy still carried the saddle, not wanting to mount until they’d reached the track, which lay at the bottom of a low-rising hill. This early-morning gallop around the stud farm’s training track was the high point of their day.

Your day.

The boy and the horse were only a couple of years apart—fourteen and sixteen—but the horse (the boy knew) was infinitely more talented, even though its racing days were past. Though he knew it wouldn’t happen, the boy hoped the horse would outlive him. The horse had outlived his father, who had been killed during a race, thrown from another horse. When he thought about his father, the boy found it hard to picture him in anything except his blue and gold silks. His father had been famous. But this horse, Samarkand, was fabled.

The boy, whose name was Maurice, often wondered if Samarkand missed the race, the hectic thrash of hooves, the cries and cheers of a summer afternoon, the excitement of the winner’s circle.

He remembered vividly a day when he was small, his dad up on Samarkand, winning the Gold Cup at Ascot. He saw himself and his little cousin Nell jumping up and down for joy like two corks popped from champagne bottles. The year before it had been Newmarket and the first time that Samarkand had astonished them all. In the back stretch the horse had opened up. Already running hard, Samarkand ran harder, leaving the entire field seven furlongs behind in his smoke.

His father’s surprise at this totally unexpected show had wiped his face clean of expression, even when they all got into the winner’s circle. The stud farm’s owner—Maurice’s grandfather—could find nothing to say. The trainer was the only one who seemed to take it in stride, as if he expected nothing less of Samarkand, but took no credit for himself when people slapped him on the back and said Brilliant, brilliant. People reached up to grab the jockey’s hand as wreaths of flowers descended on horse and jockey as if they’d fallen from the sky.

The one in the circle who was least vainglorious and most dignified was Samarkand himself.

Samarkand wasn’t just a horse; he was one of the greatest horses in horse history, was mentioned in the same breath as Red Rum or that American horse known for being a weight carrier, for winning no matter how much they piled it on—Forego. Forget it.

Samarkand had run every high-stakes race there was, won nearly every significant purse. Not just in his own country, but in America, Churchill Downs, New York, the Derby, the Belmont and the beautiful Hialeah Park.

Maurice often wondered about Thoroughbreds. Did things get imprinted on their minds? Events, races, the winner’s circle? This was not to wonder if Samarkand simply remembered the day-to-day rounds, but were important things printed, branded on his mind? Images of happiness, images of hay? Memories of Newcastle or New York, Doncaster, Cheltenham, Hialeah, the colors, the silks, the roses?

. . . the pink wading birds, the brilliant suns and colors rushing toward him, partly hidden from his blinkered eye, a whole vista of colors and faces, cheers and shouting. Forced to the rail (he hated that), he waited for an opening and when it came, he blew straight through it.

Freedom. Nothing ahead nothing beside. Even the cheers faded before they reached his ears.

Right now, they were doing a five-furlong breeze and Maurice knew Samarkand could do it in little over a minute; he’d done it before.

When they were coming out of the back stretch, Maurice noticed a figure with binoculars standing on the hill. It wouldn’t be their trainer; he didn’t come this early. It must be Roger. His uncle, Roger, sometimes came here to watch before he left for the hospital in London.

Not Roger. Wrong hands.

Samarkand did not appear to feel the loss of his old agility, his old gait, nor the loss of the nimble orchestration of his jockey’s hands and legs. The horse seemed as willing, if he’d been given rein, to pull out all the stops for this sixteen-year-old, too-tall lad as for the boy’s father. They galloped round the track at no record-breaking speed. It didn’t matter.

In memory, they flew.

Day Trader

ONE

Twenty months later

Melrose Plant looked around the rather grim environs of the Grave Maurice and wondered if it was patronized by the staff of the Royal London Hospital across the street. Apparently it did serve as some sort of stopping-off point for them, for Melrose recognized one of the doctors standing at the farther end of the long bar.

As Melrose stood there inside the door, the doctor emptied his half-pint, gathered up his coat and turned to leave. He passed Melrose on his way out of the pub and gave him a distracted nod and a vague smile, as if he were trying to place him.

Melrose stepped up to the place the doctor had left, filling the vacuum. He was looking at the woman close by, one of surpassing beauty—glossy, dark hair, high cheek-bones, eyes whose color he couldn’t see without staring but which were large and widely spaced. She was talking to another woman, hair a darkish blond, whose back was turned to Melrose and who drank a pale drink, probably a Chardonnay, whose ubiquity, together with the wine bars that loved to serve it up, Melrose couldn’t understand. The dark-haired one was drinking stout. Good for her. The bartender, a bearded Indian, posed an indecipherable query that Melrose could only suppose was a variant of “What will it be, mate?” The operative term was either “grog” or “dog,” as in “Want a bit o’ grog?” or “Walkin’ yer dog?” Having no dog, Melrose ordered an Old Peculier.

The Grave Maurice had its foot in the door of “hovel-like.” Melrose looked all around and made his assessment, pleased. For some reason, he could always appreciate a hovel; he felt quite at home. The incomprehensible barman, the patched window, the broken table leg, the streaked mirror, the clientele. The two women near him were a cut above the other customers. They were well dressed, the dark-haired one quite fashionably, in a well-cut black suit and understated jewelry. The blond one, whose profile Melrose glimpsed, appeared to know the barman (even to understand the barman) with his raffishly wound turban. After he returned, smilingly, with the refills and Melrose’s fresh drink and then took himself off, the dark-haired woman picked up their conversation again. The blonde was doing the listening.

They were talking about someone named Ryder, which immediately made Melrose prick up his ears, as this was the name of the doctor who had just departed and whom, he supposed, the one woman must have recognized. But he was rather surprised to hear him further referred to as “poor sod.” The second woman, whose voice was distinct while at the same time being low and unobtrusive, asked the dark-haired one what she meant.

Melrose waited for the answer.

Unfortunately, the details were getting lost in the woman’s lowered voice, but he did catch the word “disappeared.” The dark-haired woman dipped her head to her glass and said something else that Melrose couldn’t catch.

But then he heard, “His daughter. It was in the papers.”

The blonde seemed appalled. “When was that?”

“Nearly two years ago, but it doesn’t get any—”

Melrose lost the rest of the comment.

The one who had made it shrugged slightly, not a dismissive shrug, but a weary one. Weary, perhaps, of misfortune. If she was a doctor too, Melrose could understand the weariness.

Then she said, “. . . brother was my . . . killed . . .”

The blonde made a sound of sympathy and said, “How awful. Did—”

If only they’d stop talking clearly on the one hand and whispering on the other! Melrose, who kept telling himself he couldn’t help overhearing this conversation, could, of course, have taken his beer to a table, and he supposed he would if his presence so close beside them got to be a little too noticeable. But he wanted to hear whatever he could about this doctor’s daughter; it sounded fascinating. He thought the phrase “poor sod” suggested some unhappy tale and he was always up for one of those. Sort of thing that makes you glad you’re you and not them. How morbid.

He then heard something about insurance and the dark-haired woman was going on about South America and a warmer climate.

She appeared to be planning a trip. He didn’t care about this; he wanted to hear more about the person who had disappeared. The blonde occasionally turned to retrieve her cigarette, and then Melrose could pick up the drift.

“—this doctor’s daughter?”

The woman facing Melrose nodded. “So it never ends for him . . . closure.”

“I hate that word,” said the blonde, with a little laugh. (Melrose was ready to marry her on the spot. Inwardly, he applauded. He hated the word, too.)

“All it means is that something’s unended, unfinished. Why not just say that?”

The blonde was not in the mood for a semantic argument. “There never is, anyway,” she said, slipping from the stool.

“What?” The dark-haired woman was puzzled.

“Closure. Everything remains unfinished.”

The dark-haired woman sighed. “Perhaps. Poor Roger.”

Roger Ryder, thought Melrose. When the blonde caught Melrose looking and listening, she gave him a rueful half smile. He pretended not to notice, though it would be difficult not to notice that mouth, that hair. Melrose paid for his beer and slid off the stool.

His daughter. Two years ago something had happened to her, and it hadn’t been death. Death would have closed it. The girl had disappeared. Had something happened in South America? No, he thought that must be another story altogether. On the other hand, Ryder’s daughter’s disappearance—that had been in the papers. But Melrose wouldn’t have to search the Times.

Roger Ryder was Richard Jury’s surgeon.

TWO

Melrose had spent more time in Jury’s hospital room than out of it in the past week. For thirty-six hours, Jury had lain in a coma, which he dropped into just after Melrose had found him lying on that dock, as if able to relax his own efforts to hold on to life, now that someone else could do it for him. Melrose and Benny had found him. Melrose and Benny and the dog Sparky. Most definitely Sparky. For it was Sparky (one could say) who had found him and had saved Jury’s life. Sparky was the dog of the hour, a dog’s dog, a hero’s hero. Had Benny not been searching for Sparky along the Victoria Embankment, Richard Jury would be dead.

“No question of that,” Dr. Ryder had said. “Another twenty minutes—?” The doctor had shrugged away the outcome.

Jury’s nurse, Nurse Bell, had said (more than once), “Lucky, you are, my lad,” as she’d strong-armed Jury away from the pillows behind him so that she could plump them.

Which was, as far as Melrose was concerned, all she was good for. Melrose couldn’t abide that “lucky” response to disaster. Had his limbs been blown to smithereens and only one arm left—no, no, make that one stump of arm left, Nurse Bell would say, “Lucky you, at least you’ve got your stump. Could’ve been worse.”

As soon as she’d whisked herself off in a crackle of starched uniform, Melrose went over to the bed and messed the pillows about.

Crossly, Jury said, “What in hell are you doing? Isn’t it enough to have that simpering nurse about?”

“I’m just unplumping them. There.”

A sanguine Sergeant Wiggins said from his chair, “She’ll just be back and plump them again.”

“Rats,” said Melrose, returning to his folding chair. Wiggins had the only chair with armrests, and he was making the most of this find as he raked through a basket of fruit sent by some well-wishers in Victoria Street.

“What,” asked Jury, “are you in such bad humor about? You didn’t get shot.”

Melrose was looking out of the window. “Your nurse puts me in mind of one of my nannies.”

“So you’re reverting to nanny behavior. Well, that’s grown-up, that is.”

Wiggins’s rather condescending air was prompted by his having been in hospital himself not long ago (although certainly not from stopping a fusillade of bullets). Right now he was handing over a paperback book to Jury. “It was Mr. Plant himself who brought me this when I was in the Royal Chelsea.” He made it sound like an heirloom. “I think you might like it; it more or less deals with our predicament.”

Our? wondered Jury, who thanked Wiggins. “The Daughter of Time,” Jury said. “Josephine Tey.” He studied the cover. He wondered how this dealt with “our” predicament. “You know, you two are getting more mileage out of my hospital stay than I am.” He fixed first on Melrose. “You get to work out your childhood aggressions, and you”—he turned to Wiggins—“get to relive your hospital adventure in South Ken.”

“Now, now—” Nurse Bell was back already. “We mustn’t get excited and upset.” She handed Jury a plastic cup with a straw. “This will make you feel ever-so-much-better.”

“I already feel ever-so-much-better.” He made a face at the cup.

“I had a cup just like that,” said Melrose, “when I was three. Only I could drink without a straw.”

“And here your friends have come to see you—”

Swiftly, Jury looked around the room. “Where, where?”

Nurse Bell had another go at the pillows. “You do mess your pillows about, don’t you?” She left.

For Wiggins, his head lost—but unbeheaded—in the Tower of London, the last five minutes might not have happened at all. He was back there with Josephine Tey and The Daughter of Time. “You’ll be wanting something to chew on while you’re in here; you’ll want to keep your mind busy—”

“Why would I want to do that? It never was busy before.”

Ignoring this, Wiggins went on. “What it is, is the detective inspector in this book is laid up in hospital and a friend brings him some books, one of them about Richard the Third and the princes in the Tower. You remember all of them?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. It’s quite a popular tale.”

“This detective”—he pointed to the book—“reads about it and at some point decides the whole tale of Richard’s killing the princes is codswallop. So he does more and more research, getting his girlfriend to bring him books and finally comes up with a totally different solution. Clever idea, I think.”

“If I had a girlfriend, maybe I would, too.” He riffled the last pages. “How does it end?” Jury did not like detective stories, especially those starring royalty, so he cut to the chase.

Wiggins, however, wouldn’t follow. “You’ll just have to read it, won’t you?” Wiggins laughed as one might at an intractable, bedridden child. “What I thought was, I could bring you information about one of our cases and you could chew on that.”

“Ah,” said Melrose, tilting his chair back against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. “Why don’t you chew on this?”

THREE

Maurice was always up early, up at first light, when the world was waking. Cold as it was, rime on the panes, old snow still crusted at the roots of trees, stiff grass more like ice shards than pasture—still he loved it. Although he had to admit one of the reasons for this early hour was that he wouldn’t have to see or talk to, or be seen or talked to by, anyone. It was even too early for his uncle, Roger, who occasionally stayed over. When he did, he liked to come down to the track and watch Maurice exercise the horses.

A couple of nights ago, at dinner, Roger had said, “I’ve an interesting patient, a police superintendent. Scotland Yard, no less. Well . . . I was just thinking”—his laugh was artificial—“I might tell him the story. Of course he might already have heard . . . and it’s been almost two years—”

“Tell him,” Maurice interrupted, “the story.”

 

You can’t give up, Maurice thought now. You can’t give up trying. “Right, Sam?” He tossed the blanket over the horse, then the bridal and saddle. Samarkand nudged his shoulder as if to say Let’s go and Maurice led him out of the stall. This walk from stable to track was just about the best part of Maurice’s day—except, of course, for the ride itself.

No school because it was still the Christmas holiday, but that would end soon. He didn’t really mind school; he had always had a capacity for discipline. He thought it came from caring for the horses, from watching George Davison, the trainer, from watching exercise lads and jockeys, from watching his father, his father up on Samarkand years ago. That horse and Dan Ryder—this was what the sportswriters called the “racing dream team.”

He thought about his father. In no other way was Danny Ryder a “dream.” Too bad he ain’t a horse—it’s the only thing he’s good with, he’d heard the exercise boys say. No wonder she left. Maurice spent a fair amount of time trying not to hate his mum. She had not been a weak woman; she could stand up to his father when she wanted to. She had been—Maurice searched for a word—vague. Vague, yes. She had never seemed certain of what she wanted. It was, he thought, a peculiar flaw in character, maybe even a dangerous one. His mother had been small, pretty and American. She had been as indecisive about having a child as she had been about leaving New York or choosing a restaurant or a dress. Marybeth was definitely a wait-and-see person, lazy rather than careful. Certainly not reckless. No, recklessness was his father’s style.

It would appear she had left without a qualm. It was as if he were no more than a bad climate she wanted to get away from. He had heard a good bit of this from conversations between his granddad and his uncle. Maurice could sympathize with Roger. He was nice. Distant, but nice. And God knows the distance of these last twenty months was understandable. Maurice himself felt at a distance from everyone. And because guilt weighed so heavily on him, too, there had been no one to go to for consolation when Nell disappeared.

“Kind of queer, Dr. Ryder. Why was your girl sleeping out here?”

The skin around Roger’s mouth was very white, papery and pinched, and his indrawn breath sounded more like a gasp, as if he’d lost his source of oxygen.

Maurice had followed his uncle Roger and the detectives out to the stables. He had stood back by the door, in the shadows, listening, wanting to hear her name, as if its mention were hortatory and would call her back.

In the night his grandfather sat with Roger, an arm draped over his son’s shoulder.

Maurice hung back, sitting on the stairs and looking through the rails, listening for her name.

FOUR

“You’re looking remarkably well this morning, Superintendent.” Dr. Roger Ryder looked at Jury’s chart again and smiled. “You’ve got real stamina.” “Good,” said Jury, “but now aren’t you going to tell me I’m lucky to be alive? Nurse Bell reminds me of that a dozen times a day.”

Ryder laughed. “No, somehow I don’t equate three bullet wounds with good luck. You’re feeling okay, are you? I mean emotionally as well as physically?”

“Absolutely. When will you throw me back into the cesspool of police work?”

“Ah. As far as releasing you is concerned, I think another two or three days ought to do it. But as far as police work goes, uh-uh.” Dr. Ryder held up an admonitory finger. “Have to wait several weeks for that. Are you bored?”

Jury held up The Daughter of Time. “I’ve this to entertain me; it’s a policeman in hospital working on the historical case of Richard the Third. Unfortunately, as he solves it, it doesn’t leave me anything to do.” Dr. Ryder, Jury thought, was hesitating over something. He kept looking at the door and not leaving. “Something wrong?”

“I just wondered,” Ryder smiled, trying to contain his anxiety, “if you’d like a real case to think about. Fact, not fiction.” Ryder moved over to the one good chair and placed his chart on the floor.

“Of course I would. Tell me.”

“It’s about my daughter. You might have read or heard about some of this. It happened nearly two years ago. She vanished.”

For a second, Jury shut his eyes. Even though Melrose Plant had told him the story overheard in the pub, he was still unprepared. Vanished. Was there a word in any tongue, any language that was more affecting than that one? It chilled him. “My God. How old is she?” He would try to keep the girl in the present.

“Now she’d be seventeen. Then she was fifteen. And Nell didn’t run away.” Ryder, in a voice that Jury imagined would be forever tremulous when he talked about her, gave Jury an accounting of what had happened. “It was bad enough before, but it got to be worse when there was no demand for ransom. That threw us completely.”

“I can understand why. What about . . . Could you hand me some water? My mouth keeps drying up.”

“A reaction to the medication. It’ll soon go away.”

“What about her mother? Where was she?”

“Her mother’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.” Jury hesitated. “You’re quite sure your daughter didn’t leave voluntarily?”

“She didn’t run off, no.” Roger rubbed his hand over his cheek, a nervous gesture. “I know any parent would say that, but Nell was a very contented child. Unlike Maurice—that’s Danny’s son—who never got over his mother’s walking out. But why shouldn’t Nell be happy, given the life she led? For kids a stud farm would be, well, idyllic.”

Idylls, thought Jury, have a bad way of banging up against reality, if, indeed, they were idylls in the first place. Roger Ryder struck Jury as a doctor who took nothing at face value, but as a parent, probably everything. Such parents, well meaning and loving, weren’t unusual. And actually could hardly be blamed for not knowing what was in their kids’ minds and hearts.

Roger got up and walked over to the window, where he leaned his arm against the frame and bent his head toward the glass as if he hoped to extract some bit of knowledge from his reflection, but he said nothing.

“How did Nell react to her mother’s death?”

“She was quite accepting of it, quite cool.”

No she wasn’t. She only appeared to be.

“Your brother’s wife walked out.”

Roger nodded. “Marybeth’s leaving didn’t really surprise me. I don’t think it surprised Danny, either, to tell the truth. I think she was a token wife—you know, one more beautiful thing that sticks around for the winner’s circle, accepts some flowers, takes a bow and then departs. Danny always had plenty of women around. He had some sort of charisma that attracted women. He was flamboyant, probably trying to fill the emptiness most of us fill with food, booze, cigarettes. A jockey has to give all of that up, every habit in the book. Danny was always trying to lose that extra pound. It’s a hell of a life, so I guess you make up for it in other ways. Marybeth seemed totally indifferent to Maurice, who was and still is a very sweet boy. Just awfully sad. So much so it can be irritating.”

Jury thought he heard an undertone of something alien to sweetness and much more aligned to “irritating.” It could be jealousy or envy or even a well-tamped-down rage. His own child, Nell, was gone while his flamboyant, quixotic brother’s child was here. All of these feelings were darkly cloaked in shame or guilt. “Your daughter lived with her grandfather?”

“At his prompting. He could think of nothing better than having the grandchildren around. Danny lived in Chiswick, but Maurice spent nearly all of his time at the farm. The thing was that both of us had the kind of careers that just didn’t allow us to be home enough and the farm is such a wonderful environment.”

“What about you?”

Roger shook his head. “I have to live in London because of my work. But I go to the farm nearly every weekend.” Roger smiled. “ ‘Lucky you,’ as Vernon says.”

“Vernon?”

“Stepbrother.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“That Dad was taking over his sons’ responsibilities. Not that he really meant it.” Unoffended, Roger smiled and looked out the window again. “Vernon came as part of the package when Dad married again. Felicity Rice, an extremely nice but oddly colorless woman. Our mother had been quite beautiful. I never understood Felicity and Dad. Except I can say for Dad, it was no midlife crisis. Felicity wasn’t exactly one of your blond bombshells. She’s dead now, too.”

“You’re smiling, though. Why?” Jury saw the adolescent kid peering out from behind the doctor’s mask.

“Not about Felicity. About Vernon. He can say things without cutting you down, if you know what I mean. Vernon’s very smart, very ambitious and very rich. He lives in a classy penthouse in Docklands. And he’s generous. Dad got a loan from him a while back. We were—well, Dad was—assuming he had a buyer for one of the yearlings, a colt he was supposed to get one and a half million for and the buyer backed out. He knew he’d find another buyer, but he needed some money to tide him over—”

Jury interrupted. “One and a half million for a horse that hasn’t proved himself yet?”

Roger laughed. “Oh, hell, that’s nothing. Thoroughbred racing is a lucrative business. And the colt was one of Beautiful Dreamer’s. Ever heard of him? You would if you knew anything about racing. There was never much doubt this colt would perform.”

“It sounds like one hell of a gamble.”

“It always is. It’s a risky business. But one with huge rewards.”

“Your brother Vernon. What does he do, then?” Roger smiled broadly. “Money.”

FIVE

“A taped interview with Dr. Ryder,” said Jury, sliding the file Wiggins had brought him onto his tray table. “Interview conducted by DCI Gerard, Cambridgeshire constabulary. Gist of it is that Nell Ryder, fifteen years old, was abducted from Ryder Stud Farm on the night of May 12, 1994. Twenty months ago, that would be. The girl was sleeping in the same horse stall as a horse named Aqueduct. He was sick, feverish and Nell Ryder often spent the night in the stables to keep an eye on a sick horse.

DCI GERARD: You’re a wealthy man are you, Dr. Ryder?

RYDER: No, I’m comfortable.

DCI GERARD: Ryder Stud then. Your father is quite wealthy.

RYDER: Intrinsically? Yes. Depends on how you look at it. In terms of liquidity, I mean money lying around, no. In terms of the stock—the Thoroughbreds—very.

DCI GERARD: Could money be raised fairly easily?

RYDER: I don’t know. Probably. I know his stepson’s got a lot of money, and he’d certainly help.

DCI GERARD: We can expect a ransom demand.

“Questions follow relative to the doctor’s whereabouts; he was asleep, no witnesses. He’s incensed, naturally, to be taken as a suspect. Questions about Nell’s mother. She’s dead. About his brother, Danny Ryder, also dead.

DCI GERARD: Your brother was the famous jockey, wasn’t he?

RYDER: Yes. One of the best. He rode Ryder Thoroughbreds in every important race in this country and in Europe and the States. He was a great jockey.

DCI GERARD: He died—

RYDER: In France, a racing course near Paris. Auteuil. Thrown from his horse.

DCI GERARD: Hell of a life, it is. It seems to explode all over the place or thinking about food food food. Lester Piggot lived on champagne and a lettuce leaf. [Pause] Well, pardon me, Dr. Ryder. I get carried away sometimes.

Jury looked up, smiling. “ ‘Carried away.’ I like that. Apparently, Gerard has a cousin who’s a jockey. I like the description. Questions about the Ryders’ wives. The doctor’s is dead, her name being Charlotte. The jockey’s—Marybeth—is living somewhere in America. His first wife, that is. He married again after he went to Paris. Woman who lives in Paris but as none of the Ryders have met her, Ryder doesn’t know if she’s a Parisian or possibly an Englishwoman.” Jury closed the file and sat back against his pillows.

Melrose asked, “What about ransom? What happened there?” He had captured the one decent chair, leaving Wiggins to arrange himself on the unforgiving wooden one.

“Never was one, it seems.”

“What?”

“They just took her. End of story. I mean, insofar as Cambridgeshire police knew. Oh, they didn’t stint in looking for her; it’s just that nothing else turned up. And, of course, in the absence of any ransom demand, it would be treated as an abduction rather than a kidnapping.”

“Then maybe,” said Melrose, “it was the horse. What’s the name?”

“Aqueduct. Quite valuable, especially for breeding purposes. I wondered about that, too. I expect when you find an animal missing along with a human, you assume the target was the human.”

“They didn’t expect to find a girl along with the horse. Do you suppose they had to take her to keep her quiet?”

“Very possibly.” Jury looked again at the report from Cambridgeshire police. “A number of valuable Thoroughbreds: Beautiful Dreamer, Criminal Type—”

“Criminal Type, I like that name. Odd for a horse.”

“So is Seabiscuit,” Wiggins said. “Do you know how that name came about? Seabiscuit, I mean?”

Trust Wiggins to know the derivation of anything with biscuit in it. He was sitting there eating one right now.

“There was a horse named Hard Tack, which is what sailors are often left with to eat. See? Hard Tack/sailor.”

Both Jury and Melrose looked at him. Neither spoke. “Sea relating to sailor; biscuit meaning a lesser version of hard tack. It’s rather clever.”

Jury and Melrose still looked at him, neither commenting.

Wiggins was leafing up pages in his notebook. “Ryder Stud Farm has diminished somewhat since Nell Ryder disappeared. It’s almost as if she were the heart of the place. Perhaps she really was, to her grandfather. Then there was also Danny Ryder. Not only was that a personal loss, but a real financial hit. When he was up on this Samarkand, they were virtually unbeatable.”

“What’s the chief source of income? The purses?”

“No. Breeding. Ryder has a stable full of Thoroughbreds retired from racing, but worth a lot in breeding.”

“Owners take their mares to Ryder Stud and pay for the pleasure?”

“Pay a lot for the pleasure for a stud such as Samarkand. It’s the practice, I heard, to sell shares. An owner pays, say, anywhere from a hundred thousand to a quarter million for the privilege of bringing one of his mares one time a year.”

Melrose sat up. “A quarter million? For that price I’d do it myself.”

“Who’d pay that much for you?” asked Jury. “So a return on the stallions set to stud in a given year could be how much?”

Wiggins again thumbed the pages of his notebook, said, “In ’92, for instance, over five million.”

Jury sat up. “What? And that’s just the breeding part of it?”

Wiggins nodded. “Just from breeding, yes.”

“How much from the purses?”

“From Samarkand alone—this would be a decade ago—1.8 million.”

“No wonder they call it the sport of kings,” said Melrose.

“Of course, looking at the other side of the ledger,” said Wiggins, “it’s an exceptionally pricey operation. The people you need working for you, many of whom are highly trained—jockeys, vets, trainers, grooms—do not come cheap. Arthur Ryder wanted the best of them. His trainer alone got a quarter million a year, and that’s low for a trainer. It’s expensive and it’s very dicey, as much as farming is, and farmers don’t have to carry insurance on each cow and plot of swede. Insurance on Samarkand alone was two million. But Arthur Ryder hasn’t been in tip-top shape since first his son Danny and then his granddaughter Nell went. Financial reverses, accidents with the horses, troubles seemed to heap themselves on Arthur Ryder’s head.”

Jury lay back, closed his eyes. “ ‘Not single spies but in battalions.’ ”

“Sir?”

“Trouble coming. Claudius.”

As if to bear out Claudius, Nurse Bell entered the room. But only single spies, Jury thought. A blessing.

“I’d say you two”—here she crossed her arms and glared at Melrose and Wiggins—“have visited quite enough for one day. And I warned you he”—she smiled ungraciously at Jury, it was more of a sneer—“shouldn’t be listening to police business. He’s supposed to be resting, not listening to you two. You don’t seem to appreciate he was at death’s door, and though we snatched him back once, we mightn’t be so lucky again.”

If she once more told him how close he’d come to death, Jury swore he’d hit her. Having been saved by so slight a margin, the unfortunate patient would feel that margin vanish in a moment. “Not out of the woods yet, my lad. So you’d better say an extra prayer tonight.”

Melrose said, “That’s ridiculous. He’s never looked healthier. It looks as if he’d hardly got shot at all. It’s your brilliant care of him.”

That put Nurse Bell on the horns of a dilemma. She certainly did not want her role diminished. “Even the best of care can’t guarantee a patient will make it.”

Jury, Melrose and Wiggins sighed.