The Old Success E-Book

Martha Grimes

• Herausgeber: Grove Press UK
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 245

Beschreibung

When the body of a Frenchwoman washes up on a wild inlet off the Cornish coast, Brian Macalvie, divisional commander with the Devon-Cornwall police, is called in. With the only visible footprints belonging to the two girls who found her, who could have killed this mysterious tourist? While Macalvie stands stumped in the Isles of Scilly, Inspector Richard Jury - twenty miles away on Land's End - is at the Old Success pub, sharing a drink with the legendary former CID detective Tom Brownell, a man renowned for solving every case he undertook. Except one. In the weeks following the unexplained death of the tourist, two other murders are called in to Macalvie and Jury's teams: first, a man is found dead on a Northamptonshire estate, then a cleaner turns up murdered at Exeter Cathedral. When Macalvie and Jury decide to consult Brownell, the retired detective insists that the three murders, though very different in execution, are connected. As the trio set out to solve this puzzle, Jury and Macalvie hope that this doesn't turn out to be Brownell's second ever miss. Written with Grimes's signature wit, sly plotting, and gloriously offbeat characters, The Old Success is prime fare from 'one of the most fascinating mystery writers today' (Houston Chronicle).

Leseprobe

Praise for Martha Grimesand the Richard Jury mystery series

‘Delightful, surprising, even magical. They begin as police procedurals—someone is murdered, Jury investigates—but Grimes’s love of the off-beat, the whimsical and the absurd makes them utterly unlike anyone else’s detective novels . . . Original, civilized and witty novels that . . . truly are novel and, once come upon, they can become necessary.’

—Washington Post, on Dust

‘Delicious . . . A prime example of Grimes’s skill at balancing the serious with the lighthearted . . . Jury and his posse are terrific companions . . . Delightful.’

—Seattle Times, on Vertigo 42

‘Intricate and entertaining . . . A delicious puzzle’

—Boston Globe, on The Horse You Came In On

‘Wondrously eccentric characters . . . The details are divine.’

—New York Times Book Review, on The Stargazey

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

—Wall Street Journal, on The Lamorna Wink

‘The literary equivalent of a box of Godiva truffles . . . Wonderful.’

—Los Angeles Times, on The Stargazey

‘Read any one [of her novels] and you’ll want to read them all.’

—Chicago Tribune

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 the 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

Dakota

Biting the Moon

Emma Graham series

Hotel Paradise

Cold Flat Junction

Belle Ruin

Fadeaway Girl

Other novels

Foul Matter

The Way of All Fish

Memoir

Double Double

THE OLDSUCCESS

First published in the United States of America in 2019 by Grove Atlantic

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Grove Press UK,an imprint of Grove Atlantic

Copyright © Martha Grimes, 2019

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.

The events, characters and incidents depicted in this novel are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual incidents, is purely coincidental.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

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

Trade Paperback ISBN 978 1 61185 475 6E-book ISBN 978 1 61185 907 2

Printed in Great Britain

Grove Press UKOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

www.groveatlantic.com

To my great and gracious daughter-in-law,Travis Holland

If I shouldn’t be alive

When the robins come,

Give the one in red cravat

A memorial crumb.

If I couldn’t thank you,

Being just asleep

You will know I’m trying

With my granite lip.

—Emily Dickinson

PART I

Hell Bay

1

Brian Macalvie looked down at the body of the woman whose face, beneath the lattice of seaweed and wet hair, was oddly serene.

The bay was not. The others who stood with him were soaked, or would have been had the island police not known to wear full-scale rain gear. Macalvie had brought nothing with him from the mainland of Cornwall except Gilly Thwaite, his scene-of-crime officer, and Detective Sergeant Cody Platt. Gilly stood there shivering despite the cape one of the Scilly policemen had settled around her shoulders. Shivering and cursing under her breath at her superior for being one of those who likes to take his time.

It had taken Macalvie and his team less than an hour from the time he’d dropped the phone back into its cradle in Exeter to the moment the light plane landed on St. Mary’s, one of the Isles of Scilly, twenty-six miles from Land’s End. There was no airport on Bryher, the smallest of the populated islands, so from St. Mary’s they had taken the short boat ride with Detective Chief Inspector Whitten.

All in all, Gilly was thinking, a fairly good clip. It was not that Macalvie couldn’t move quickly—he could move like lightning—it was that when it came to viewing the dead, he took his time. God, but did he ever take his time. He might as well have been frozen in it, and here was a good place for being frozen. His request to DCI Whitten (the one who’d rung him up) was that nothing be moved, nothing be messed with.

I’ll tell the sea, Commander, not to move anything.

Brian Macalvie had been looking at the body for fifteen minutes.

“There are just too many variables, guv,” said Gilly. The “guv” was anything but obsequious. It was bad-tempered is what it was.

He had finally kneeled down to study the face more closely, but without brushing aside the dead woman’s seaweed-laden hair.

“I mean,” Gilly went fearlessly on, “your crime scene has been compromised again and again by the waves and wind.” As if to underscore this point, a wave crashed against the outcropping of rocky promontory. Then another. It was like thunder breaking at their feet.

Macalvie looked at her over his shoulder and she shut up.

The island police had already taken photos. Gilly knew her boss hated even the camera’s poking about over the scene, as if its seemingly random flashes were witchy, pulling from the dark things which would have been better left there. It was as if the camera were leaching soul from substance, as in the old superstition that a picture captured the spirit and held it.

At his side, DCI Whitten said, “Perhaps whoever did this did it and left—went back to the mainland. Maybe he shared the belief of those ancient people who buried their enemies on islands because that way they couldn’t come back and make trouble.

“The irony,” Whitten went on to say, “would not be lost on anyone who knew the Isles of Scilly are proof against any disturbance, possibly the safest land in Britain.” He looked down at the woman who had been lying there now for two hours, lying still except for the water’s lapping at her side, very still and very beautiful, as if she had now become part of the granite of the islands that were declared an area of outstanding natural beauty. “Also designated as a Heritage Coast. Nothing cheap or tawdry.” Whitten spread his arms. “Do you see a Starbucks?”

Macalvie snickered. “Not yet.”

Gilly had not realized how much tension had built up until the laughter broke it. It was more than the death and the pale body. It didn’t stem from a turf war, a jealous guarding of his authority by DCI Whitten. What she saw was quite the opposite: relief. There was relief that this unprecedented crime should be turned over to the Devon-Cornwall constabulary—to Divisional Commander Macalvie.

The mood was not helped by the ceaseless, thunderous crash of sea against rock. This little part of the coastline offered no protection from wind and water. Either the shape of the bay or the promontory seemed to make it worse, as if the rocks out there were a bulwark against the waves, which consequently built up into an even stronger force. It was like a fist beating and beating against a door.

Macalvie, done with staring and breathing in this round of death, got up and motioned for Gilly to go ahead. She veritably fell on the body, as eagerly (she hated to think) as a necrophiliac.

Macalvie looked up the coast and saw lights twinkling. “That the hotel?”

“The Hell Bay, yes.”

DCI Whitten had filled Macalvie in as best he could on the brief boat trip from St. Mary’s. The Hell Bay Hotel was the only accommodation on Bryher.

They walked over wet sand. “It gets enough custom to stay open?” said Macalvie.

“Indeed, yes. It’s considered one of the best small hotels in England, actually.”

“Jesus. People are so fond of isolation?” To Macalvie, isolation was a pub shutting down when he was the last one in it.

“Well, yes. I can see its attraction for anyone who has to drive the M2 into London during rush hour. Remember, too, you haven’t seen any of this in daylight, in sunshine. It’s quite beautiful. This sand is white.”

Even in the darkness, it looked ghostly, ghost-sand.

Whitten went on. “I showed our police photo round the hotel, but none of the staff recognized her. I thought I should get right on that without waiting.”

“You should. Guests this time of year?”

“A few. Four, I believe she said.”

“The owner? The manager?”

“The owners are gone for a bit. Holiday in the Virgin Islands. They left a Mrs. Gray in charge. Quite capable, she seems to be. Didn’t go bonkers at the news of a body on her doorstep, practically.”

“Any joy there? I mean amongst the guests?”

Whitten shook his head. “No one recognized her. Of course, with all that stuff webbing her face . . . ? Anyway, it’s impossible at this inning to know who’s telling the truth, who isn’t.”

Inning. Macalvie liked that. “Is it your coroner’s theory that the body had drifted there from somewhere else? One of the other islands, say?” Macalvie had stopped to run his finger round inside his shoe to get out some of the sand.

“Oh, no. Listen: you can do much better on this sand if you just take your shoes off. That’s what I do. I mean, when nobody’s around.”

They both looked a little furtively at the hotel ahead and the small band of police behind. Between, the little stretch of beach glimmered in the moonlight like crushed pearl.

“More fun, too,” said Macalvie, taking his socks off also.

Whitten shoved his socks into his shoes, tied the laces together, and hung the lot over his shoulder.

They continued up the strand, the sand a balm to Macalvie’s tired feet. “You’re right; it is nice. I’d forgotten what it felt like—” Then he realized he’d forgotten because he’d tried to forget those long-gone summers with Maggs and Cassie. Twenty years and it still had the power to stall his feet, to nail him to the spot.

Whitten stopped too. “Commander Macalvie? Are you all right?”

“What? Yeah. Yes. I’m okay.” They walked on. It was the mention of the little girl who appeared to have found the body that had started it, he knew. Knowing he was going to have to talk to a little girl. He was not good with children. He seemed only to be able to do it if he got belligerent. There had been that child on Dartmoor, Jessica. He still remembered her, and the memory actually made him smile.

Then the memories swam back again: himself, Cassie, Maggs. Maggie. She had been so beautiful. Where was she now? Was there anywhere in the world you could go once your child has been murdered?

He shook his head, as if to get the sand out of that, too, and said, “You said the body couldn’t have drifted into this bay from somewhere else.”

“I’m pretty sure not. Well, you see Hell Bay. The force of the waves and wind—I don’t see how a body could have gotten in. Even the waves pile up there along the promontory.”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“Which means that she was killed here.”

In the dark, Macalvie smiled. He had worked that out. He looked ahead at the lighted panes of the hotel, grown larger now, the building more defined. “So what about comings and goings? The only way to the islands—to any of them—is the way I came, the last part by boat, right? No heliport, for instance?”

“On St. Mary’s there’s one that’s the most used. Then there’s one on Tresco. In any event, you’d have to take the launch to get from either of those places to Bryher.”

“In the last, say, thirty-six hours, has anyone used the launch?”

“No one. No one’s left.”

“Then we’re looking for either a very strong swimmer—though God knows how one could swim through those waters . . . Is it possible?”

“Possible? Anything’s possible, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing it.”

“Or,” said Macalvie, watching the windows, behind which he could make out curtains and behind the curtains, moving figures, “the killer dropped from the sky.”

“Or,” added Whitten, “is still here.”

“I was getting to that.”

2

“You said it was a kid who found the body.”

“Two kids, actually: Zoe Noyes is the older one. Lives with her sister—I guess Zillah’s her sister—and their aunt, well, great-aunt to be precise. Cottage is over there.” Whitten nodded toward someplace in the distance, east of the bay.

“Then I guess we should start there,” said Macalvie.

Whitten walked over to say something to one of his men, as Macalvie told Gilly Thwaite where he was going.

“I suppose she was pretty scared, was she?” Macalvie said as they set off.

“The impression I get is there can never be enough dead bodies for Zoe.”

“Swell,” said Macalvie, thinking maybe he wouldn’t have to do all of the hide-and-seek and cajoling it usually took to get the girl to come out from behind her aunt’s skirts.

* * *

Far from having to be cajoled out of hiding, Zoe was all over the house, dragging another chair into the front room where Whitten and Macalvie stood, as if one of them might bolt if there wasn’t a chair. Then she ran to get a footstool from its position by the fire.

On the hearth lay a big gray cat, bunched up, paws curled in under its chest. At first Macalvie thought it was sleeping, then decided it was spying, since he could see golden slits just beneath the lids.

Hilda Noyes, the aunt, told Zoe to stop fussing and to sit down if she must. It would clearly have been useless to tell Zoe to leave the room—to go to her own room or anywhere out of sight and sound of the police. Zoe knew a murder when she saw one, or its aftermath, and knew also that she was the star attraction.

Another child, a little girl who looked several years younger than fourteen-year-old Zoe, was introduced as Zillah. That is, was pointed out, for Zillah, unlike Zoe, had no intention of joining the group. Zillah was sitting on the staircase and, upon hearing her name, inched herself farther back against the shadowed wall.

Macalvie could barely make her out, sealed in shadow as she was. He could see clearly only her hair, fine and light as puffball filaments.

Following the direction of his gaze, Zoe said, “That’s Zillah, but she won’t help.”

Her aunt, unhappy with this version of things, said, “Zillah’s too frightened to talk, Zoe, as you perfectly well know. Don’t make it sound as if the poor child is being stubborn.”

“She won’t talk, Aunt Hilda. She just won’t. You can see it in her eyes.”

Hilda flapped her hand, brushing her niece’s comments away. “Anyway, about this murder, it was Zoe and Zillah that found her—”

Zoe’s eyes widened in shock, not at the memory of the corpse but at her aunt’s stealing her thunder. “I can tell it!”

Hilda seemed about to protest when DCI Whitten jumped in. “She can, you know, and best she does. I’d like Commander Macalvie to hear it firsthand.”

Pleased, but giving Macalvie the once-over as if debating whether or not he was firsthand material, Zoe asked, “What’s a commander in the police?”

Whitten answered, “Very high up. Much higher up than me. He works in Exeter.”

Tongue literally in cheek, Zoe studied Macalvie. “Are you? Is that right?”

“What? That I work in Exeter?”

“No-o. That you’re really high up.”

“Not as high as you’d like me to be. Not the commissioner. But let’s hear it anyway.”

It hardly took persuading. “Okay.” Zoe’s gaze trailed off and over to a window, black-paned now in the darkness. “I was outside playing with Zillah and then we decided to go over to Hell Bay—”

“Which,” said her aunt, “you are not supposed to do, you know that.”

Zoe barely stopped in her stream of description and lowered her voice. “We went down to the water’s edge. We were collecting shells like we always do and it was dusk—you know, dusk.”

(Here was a word she apparently liked for its dark implications.)

“And the waves were really crashing on the rocks. And then I saw this . . . thing. Not up close yet, and I thought maybe it was a seal or something because the thing was so pale. Closer, paler still, like a ghost.”

There was a movement on the stair and Macalvie looked towards it. Was Zillah shaking her head in mute protest?

“And I grabbed Zillah’s hand and said we’d got to run to the hotel and tell them.”

“Where you should have run is straight home.”

Zoe didn’t bother to comment here. “We told the woman there, the one in charge.”

“Emily Gray,” put in her aunt. “Emily’s a sensible woman; it’s good she was there.”

“She gave us cocoa,” said Zoe.

The cocoa apparently ended the discourse. Zoe picked up the cat and sat down, the cat not at all pleased with this maneuver. He didn’t claw the air, but merely wrestled himself out of her arms and slid down to resume his position on the hearth.

Macalvie sat forward, arms on knees. “You didn’t see anyone else about?”

“Well, if I did I’d’ve said, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes, I expect you would.” Macalvie looked over at Zillah, who again scooted away from the bannister dowels to sit back against the wall. “What happened to your sister?”

Again, Hilda Noyes tried to take over. “She won’t say anything. They were out this evening going to—”

Macalvie stomped on this. “Let Zoe tell it, please.” Witnesses hadn’t a clue, had they?

Hilda dropped back in her chair, chastened. “It’s just that Zoe likes to add things on so much—”

“I do not. I just say.”

“Well, sometimes, dear, what you say is not the unvarnished truth.”

Macalvie said, “I’ll take it varnished.” He looked again at Zoe.

She was looking pleased as punch, legs crossed, hands hooked round her knee. “It’s Zillah’s birthday soon and we were walking over to this little shop that sells everything and I was going to let Zillah pick out what she wanted as long as it wasn’t more than two pounds forty. It was—nearly dark. I knew night would come soon, but I didn’t want to scare Zillah, so I didn’t mention it—”

Macalvie bet.

“—the shop is over near Hangman’s Island—”

Another succulent name. Macalvie thought he heard a whimper coming from the stairs.

“You’re upsetting Zillah,” said her aunt.

Tons Zoe cared.

“That’s enough,” said Hilda. “It’s past their bedtime, Mr. Macalvie—”

“Wait,” he said, sitting forward in his chair. “Just one more question.”

Hilda sighed, but sat back, resigned.

“Doesn’t it surprise you that Zillah would just remain silent after seeing, or partly seeing, this body on the beach? Something else happened, didn’t it?”

Zoe’s eyes widened; her look at Macalvie was apprehensive.

Hilda was on her feet now and mad as a hornet. “Now, you go. Please go because you’re just scaring my Zoe to death.”

Macalvie got to his feet. “Frankly, Mrs. Noyes, your Zoe was scaring me.” He tried on a smile, but that didn’t placate her. “Anyway, thank you, Zoe.”

As he walked to the door, he put his hand on her shoulder. But as he crossed the doorsill, Zoe came after him.

“Wait. Wait a minute.”

“Zoe!” her aunt called.

But Zoe pulled the door shut and they were standing outside in the dark. “Don’t pay any attention to Zillah. She’s all right.”

Macalvie thought this a strange injunction. “Why—?”

“Zoe!” Hilda had come outside. “You’ve got to come in. I’m sure the police can speak to us tomorrow if they have to.” She herded Zoe through the door.

When Zoe looked back over her shoulder at Macalvie, he had a good taste of those arctic eyes. They looked, he thought, hunted.

The door closed but he stood there looking at the cottage for a moment.

Zoe with her wild black hair (and possibly wilder imagination); Zillah, shocked into speechlessness.

Just what he needed in this investigation: two little girls.

“We’ve questioned all of them, boss—staff who’re here right now and four guests. No one seemed to know anything about the vic—”

“She has a name, now, Cody,” said Macalvie, snappish enough to make Cody Platt look up from his notebook.

“Sorry. Manon Vinet. Strange name. French, the manager said. They all had exchanges with her, but not about her history, that sort of thing. She didn’t talk about herself.” Cody stopped, looking rueful. “Failing that, they gave me nothing—nada, nil. Nothing.”

“Failing that” being one of Cody’s favorite phrases. Macalvie chewed a stick of gum Cody had given him and looked at him. “That’s it?”

“’Fraid so.”

“How many staff?”

“Four on site.”

“So out of those four and four guests you got nothing helpful?” Macalvie wasn’t really being critical; he simply found it strange that eight versions of the hotel stay of the victim yielded nothing.

“Nothing beyond the fact they all found her quite pleasant. ‘Pleasant’ was the operative term.”

“Cody, there must be variations on that theme.”

“I hear you.” Cody thumbed up page after page of notes, shrugged again and said, “I’ve got it all here, boss. But I can go back to them again—?”

Macalvie shook his head. It fascinated him that Cody never took offense, or if he did, he hid it well. “No, not tonight. It’s nearly ten-thirty.” He knew the notes were not only copious, but accurate. DS Platt might not have eliciting information down to an art, but his transcript of what was said, well, you could take it to the bank. None better. For all of Cody’s apparent (and sometimes real) lethargy, he had an uncanny knack for picking out the bullshit in witnesses’ statements.

They were seated at one of the tables in the Hell Bay Hotel dining room, looking out on darkness total enough to be oblivion, and listening to water smashing up against rock. Whitten had returned to St. Mary’s with what forensic evidence they’d collected that night; his men were still prowling the rim of Hell Bay.

“Where’s Gilly?”

Cody looked ceilingward. “Up in the vic’s—sorry, up in Manon Vinet’s room.”

Macalvie sat for another minute staring at the black glass of the window. Then he rose, saying, “OK. Tell them they can go to bed; tell them not to leave the premises. Get in touch with Whitten and tell him we’ll need the helicopter.”

Macalvie was through the door when Cody called, “We leaving?”

Over his shoulder Macalvie called back, “Let the DC who brought us over know we want to leave in twenty minutes.”

Gilly (Gillian, real name, but she hated it) Thwaite was on her knees, back turned to the door so that she didn’t see Macalvie come in. She held a small brush in her plastic-gloved hand and was dusting the squat leg of a heavy bureau.

The door was open; Macalvie rapped on the doorjamb. “What’ve you got? I hope more than Platt. He’s got sod all.”

Without even turning, she said, “Are you on his back again? He’s good; Cody’s very good.”

“He may be good, but he’s still got sod all.”

Gilly stood up and peeled off the gloves. “Which is about what I’ve got so far, too. Trouble is, I don’t think there’s much to ‘get,’ at least not here in her room.”

“Okay, come on, pack up. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes. Time for bed.”

“Thanks to whatever powers may be.”

“Who’re the others?”

As he turned, she said, “God, what conceit.”

Macalvie didn’t respond. She was always saying that.

* * *

Whatever he had said about going to bed, Macalvie had not gone. Instead, he thought again about interviewing the two girls. He was no good with children anymore. Fortunately, he rarely had to deal with a child as a witness. He had grown increasingly poor at handling them since that summer in Scotland. And if time is the great healer, why was it becoming more painful, rather than less, to deal with them? It was owing to no talent of his that Zoe had told her story at such length. He had not even found out why the girls were living with an aunt instead of parents.

Well, it wasn’t his case; it was Whitten’s. But he had agreed to help and he didn’t want simply to drop it back in DCI Whitten’s lap.

Maybe he would hand the next round of questioning the girls over to DS Cody Platt.

Or better yet, to Richard Jury. Whom he was supposed to have met an hour ago in the Old Success.

3

Richard Jury thought for a moment as he looked out over the formless water of the cove, then said to the man with whom he’d been sharing a table, “Brownell. That name sounds familiar.”

As his silence suggested Jury was really trying to chase the name down, Tom Brownell said, “Only if you were police.”

“I am police. Wait a minute. You’re not the Thomas Brownell, are you? Of the Metropolitan Police? London?”

“London is definitely the location. You really know the Met, don’t you?”

“Very funny. You’re Sir Thomas Brownell?”

“I try to avoid that.”

Jury laughed. “May I buy you another whisky, Tom? Your clear-up rate is legendary. A hundred percent.”

“No. More like ninety.”

Jury laughed. “Where did you go wrong?”

“Get me that drink and I might tell you. So, are you buying because I have a title?”

“Not at all. Because you don’t like it. You remind me of a friend. Once titled. Now not.”

“Oh? He did something terrible and got stripped of it?” Brownell sounded hopeful.

“Of them. Earl, viscount, baron, et cetera. No, he simply took advantage of the Peerage Act. He gave them back. He didn’t like being called ‘lord.’”

“Chap after my own heart. I’m profiling him: canny, straightforward, no-nonsense type.”

“That’s about right.”

“Tell me more about this untitled friend of yours.”

“Let me get you that drink, first.” Jury collected both glasses and headed for the bar, thinking about Tom Brownell’s reputation. Perhaps the man had missed solving one or two cases, but he was a legend. Retired several years ago; Jury wondered why. He took the refills back to the table.

Tom nodded toward the door to the bar. “This pub seems suddenly full of police,” he said, looking at the two approaching their table. “Friends of yours?”

“No.”

“Superintendent Jury?” said DCI Whitten. “Commander Macalvie regrets he’s not here.”

“Hell, he could have just rung me.”

Whitten laughed. “He sent me to take you to him.”

“That sounds ominous. Why?”

“Bit of trouble on one of the islands. He’d appreciate it if you’d helicopter over to St. Mary’s.”

“Why would I do that?”

“He’d like your help.”

“Get him on the phone.”

Whitten pulled out his mobile, punched in a number. In a few moments he held the mobile out for Jury.

Jury said into it, “This was your reason for meeting me, Macalvie?”

“It is now,” said Macalvie.

4

Whitten had shown him the police photos of Manon Vinet, and Jury had looked at them for longer than necessary. He was taken with the symmetry of a face that might have been constructed by a master architect.

They crossed the launchpad and got into a police vehicle driven by a constable. “They’re still organizing the boat trip to Bryher.”

As they pulled away, Jury asked, “Why not the helicopter?”

“Because St. Mary’s and Tresco are the only islands where a helicopter can land. To travel between the islands, it takes a boat. One usually leaves around early evening, but not today. Today, we requested that nobody leave.”

“How was that request received?”

“By the people who live there, with their unflagging equanimity.”

Jury smiled. “There’s a message there somewhere. What is it?”

Whitten said, “We live fairly undisturbed lives here. Especially those on Bryher. It’s the smallest of the lot and has the smallest population. Seventy-five, somewhere around there. Here we are,” he added, as the car pulled up by a ferry.

“Add the number of tourists to that.”

“We counted about a dozen. Only four at the Hell Bay, the others visiting residents.”

“You could monitor any private craft?”