The Dirty Duck Part 12

Melrose felt wedged between their looks. "Well, it isn't 'Inspector,' anyway, Vivian," he said heartily. "It's 'Superintendent' now."

"It certainly should be," she said with that sincerity that had always made even her most ba.n.a.l comments glow. "Franco and I, ah, are . . ."

Where she dropped it, Franco seemed only too happy to pick it up. "Engaged." With a disgustingly proprietorial gesture, Franco put his arm round her waist.

Everybody smiled.

Jury refused Giapinno's invitation to join them for luncheon. "Sorry, but I'm just on my way to London. The car's outside."

"Oh," said Vivian, weighting the syllable with sadness. "It's about . . . I heard there'd been a murder in Stratford . . . Is that it-?"

"That's it," said Jury, rather overcrisply.

The silly good-byes were like the silly h.e.l.los. Vivian and the Italian moved off. At least, thought Melrose, there hadn't been an invitation to the wedding.

There was a long silence as the two of them stood there. Melrose studied the floorboards, almost afraid to look at Jury, who was fumbling through the lighting of a cigarette.

Jury finally spoke through a haze of smoke rising upwards.

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world-she had to walk into mine."

II.

DEPTFORD.

"It strikes a man as dead.

As a great reckoning in a little room."

-As You Like It.

21.

Detective Chief Superintendent Racer slapped shut the folder and glared across his desk at Detective Sergeant Alfred Wiggins, who, being totally innocent of any prior involvement with this case, was therefore the most likely target for Racer's acrimony.

Wiggins did what he always did in difficult circ.u.mstances-blew his nose.

"Sorry to drag you out of sickbay, Sergeant," said Racer with mock-solicitousness.

With Wiggins, the sarcasm fell wide. Jury sat there thinking that Wiggin's long survival was owing to his ability to take everything literally. "Quite all right, sir. It's just this allergy. The pollen count this week has been fearful-"

Racer's face, already spongy-red from too many brandies for lunch at his club, grew redder with suppressed rage. Not suppressed for long, however. "I don't give a b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n about the pollen count. I'm not a bee. And put that d.a.m.ned packet away!"

Some men went for their guns under stress, some for their cigarettes. Wiggins went for his cough drops. He had just been stripping the cellophane from a fresh box. "Sorry, sir."

Jury yawned and continued to look out of the window of Racer's office at the sludgy gray sky above New Scotland Yard, at the small square of the Thames beyond the embankment. Racer insisted on a room with a view. All the better, thought Jury, if he decided to throw himself out the window some day. Racer's voice droned on at Wiggins, and Jury waited. He knew the Chief Superintendent was merely prepping for the real operation of dissecting Jury: pulling on the rubber gloves, lining up the knives, the scalpels, the forceps. Racer had missed his true calling with the Met. He should have been a medical examiner.

Having finished with Wiggins, who looked a bit pale (but then, Wiggins always did), Racer rocked back in his leather swivel chair, picked a bit of lint from his exquisitely tailored suit, adjusted the miniature carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole, and turned his thin-bladed smile on Jury.

"The Slasher," he said, looking at Jury as if The Slasher sat before him in all of his b.l.o.o.d.y glory. "It's really remarkable, Superintendent," (Racer had never forgiven Jury his promotion last year) "that you happen to go to Stratford-upon-Avon and manage to come back with two murders and one missing person to your credit." Jury might have been a collector, the way Racer put it. He rose from his chair to take his usual few turns about the room and added magnanimously, "Not that I can hold you personally responsible for this lunatic's activities-"

"Thank you," said Jury.

A pause. "Superintendent Jury, sarcasm is both unprofessional and unprofitable." He stood behind them, feeling perhaps a psychological advantage in talking to the backs of their heads. Wiggins, Jury noted out of the corner of his eye, took the opportunity to open his box of cough drops very quietly.

"However," Racer went on, "it's not enough, is it, that you insist on involving yourself in a case that rightly belongs to the Warwicks.h.i.+re constabulary-did they ask for a.s.sistance from us? No indeed, they did not! Leaving me to smooth over things and soft-soap the Chief Constable-"

Soft-soap? Racer? A bowl of acid in the eyes would be more like it. Padding behind them, a tiger without teeth, Racer droned on.

Metaphorically in his death throes, Chief Superintendent Racer still refused to die. Jury's colleagues at New Scotland Yard had all been looking forward to Racer's retirement last year. But it hadn't occurred; Racer was still slouching toward it as if it were terminal. Having been so sure the Chief Superintendent was on his way out, they had rallied round the coffin (again, metaphorically speaking) only to find the corpse had scarpered and been resuscitated at its desk on Monday, Savile Row trousers knife-creased, b.u.t.tonhole boutonniered.

"-not enough, oh, no! Then instead of quietly leaving it all to the Stratford boys, you bring the whole lot to London! Why, Jury? To London! To London!-"

"To buy a fresh pig." Jury couldn't help himself sometimes.

Silence. The padding stopped. Wiggins shot Jury a glance and then stared straight ahead, sucking stealthily on his cough drop.

Leaning over Jury's shoulder, breathing the effluvium of his brandy-and-sodas into Jury's face, Racer said, "What was that, lad?"

"Nothing. Sir."

The padding resumed. "Ever since you made superintendent, Jury-" Jury wished he'd kept his mouth shut. Now he'd deflected the lecture into even saltier streams of vituperation, for now Racer could get on Jury's roller-coaster career. "You got up, lad. You can just as easily go down. . . ."

h.e.l.l, at this rate they'd be here all afternoon.

Fortunately, Racer's secretary interrupted by walking in and dumping some papers on his desk. Fiona Clingmore was dressed today in what should have been a negligee, but was apparently a summer dress. It was black and layered with ruffles all down the front, the layers being the only thing that kept Fiona from absolutely showing through. She stood now, one hand leaning on the desk, the other on her outslung hip, scarlet fingernails drumming, and giving them all the benefit of her decolletage. Fiona had topped forty a couple of years ago, Jury knew, but she was going down fighting.

"Miss Clingmore," said Racer. "I would appreciate your knocking, if you don't mind. And get that mangy cat out of here."

"Sorry," she said, wetting her finger and replastering a curl against her cheek. "You're to sign these straightaway. The A.C. wants them." She flounced out, forgetting the cat, but not forgetting to give Jury a wink. He was fond of Fiona and her increasingly bravura performances. He winked back.

The cat snaked its way round their several legs and immediately leapt to Racer's desk, where it sat, solid as a paperweight.

Racer shoved it off, uttering expletives that cats were apparently privy to, and sat down. "Now what the h.e.l.l's this group you've got staying at Brown's? Are they implicated?"

"I don't know," said Jury. "I only know that the two who were murdered in Stratford and the missing boy were all on this same tour."

Racer snorted. "And did you tell the press that, Jury? They've been running up and down the M-40 like lemmings."

"I don't talk to the press. I leave that to you."

"Well, somebody d.a.m.n well talked! Probably those b.l.o.o.d.y swedes in Stratford."

Jury s.h.i.+fted impatiently in his chair, reaching down to pet the cat, who apparently shared their feelings about Racer. "I think it would be best if Sergeant Wiggins and I were permitted to get on with it before there's another murder," he said calmly.

"Another murder? What do you mean by that?"

"That the murderer isn't through yet. The message hasn't been fully delivered."

Racer's eyebrows knotted. "Explain that, will you?"

"Well, you've seen those lines of poetry. Two lines left with the Bracegirdle woman's body; two with the Farraday girl's. In that one stanza he's got three lines to go." And to send Racer's blood pressure up a bit, Jury added, "Then he can start a new stanza, of course."

The idea of a string of murders as long as a string of pearls or a twelve-stanza poem apparently could even make Racer see reason.

"You think there's going to be another murder." He looked from Jury to Wiggins and back again. "Then why the h.e.l.l are you two sitting here wasting my time? Get the lead out."

22.

Thought I didn't know what she was doing, didn't she? Amelia Blue Farraday stood outside one of Soho's more popular strip joints, looking at the lifesized posters. It's where she'd of wound up, place like this, thought Amelia, looking perhaps longer than she actually needed to in order to placate the devils of l.u.s.t and degradation walking the streets- " 'Ello, love."

"Just lookin'?"

The questions came from a lanky fellow with slicked-back hair and his chunky friend standing next to him cracking his knuckles. "Show you a good time, we could."

Amelia looked them over. Back in Georgia you stepped on this kind when it slithered across your shoe. Amelia did not bother to answer. Nor did she bother to try and walk around them; that would be like giving place. She simply reached out, pushed the two apart, and walked on down Soho Street.

Just as well she's dead, thought Amelia. Just as well. She'd've let those two crumbs take her for all she was worth. And with that unrepentant and unremorseful thought, Amelia stopped before another giant h.o.a.rding outside a cheap movie house. I'd of seen her plastered on posters all up and down Second Avenue. Good G.o.d, that child would stop at nothing. . . .

Bored with lemonade and beer on the veranda, bored with James C.'s clumsy lovemaking, Amelia had taken up with what she called "casuals"-just the first man who came along. But she'd done it for pleasure, not money-though of course there'd been the little gift here and there-not like Honey Belle, out there selling herself, no better'n a common wh.o.r.e. Honey Belle'd turned out just like her old man, that no-good, two-timing b.a.s.t.a.r.d that thought he was G.o.d's gift.

The seedy-looking crowd flowed around her as she did her drumroll walk on through Soho, and she knew some of the jostling wasn't accidental. She tossed her yellow hair-she still wore it long, no matter that little runt of a beautician told her, Sweetie, it adds years to you. Her hair'd always been white-blond and her crowning glory. No little London f.a.g hairdresser was going to fool with it. Toss it up on top of her head and put combs in it and she looked like a queen.

Amelia was bored with the strip joints and the blue-movie houses and the cheap c.h.i.n.k restaurants. It was just that she was d.a.m.ned if she'd sit through even one more play with those fools on Honeysuckle Tours and equally d.a.m.ned if she'd be chained to her room at that snooty hotel. White gloves and bowing and sc.r.a.ping. She was glad James C. had money but she was no sn.o.b. Glad he had money, but oh, the dear lord, if only he hadn't got those two kids. Not even his kids, that's what Amelia couldn't understand. Vaguely, she wondered where the boy had gone off to. Wished he'd stay away. She knew they both hated her guts but she could care less. She had James C. and the money and if they thought they could do her out of that, they were crazy. . . .

It looked like a whole wall of males walking toward her now-four of them, leering already, even before they got a good look. One big collective leer, and an a.s.sortment of obscenities, uttered in that guttural c.o.c.kney or whatever it was, that made them swallow their syllables (". . . look a' the k.n.o.bs o' tha' 'un, Jake. . . . Ooooo . . ."). They hardly had the time to get even this much out before Amelia's bosom plowed right through them, with a little help from an elbow in the ribs. She didn't bother to look back when the tone of the remarks changed; she was used to it. The whole exchange barely registered; she went on with her interior monologue regarding Honey Belle. . . .

When that awful little man who claimed he was a detective had tried to blackmail her, Amelia had paid him off, read the report on Honey Belle, and burned it. She never did know who put the man on the girl's trail, but G.o.d help her if James C. ever got wind of what that girl was up to: dirty pictures, dirty movies, the works. Though James C. hadn't much room to talk, that was for sure: not after she'd caught him nearly with his pants down, and Honey Belle right there in the bedroom. Alley cat, that's what the girl was. All her daddy's fault; she was-had been-just like him.

Amelia wasn't looking for action in Soho; she just felt like slumming for a bit before going to meet George. A private club off Berkeley Square. That sounded more like her cla.s.s of place, from the little she knew of the different London areas. Near the hotel.

Tired of walking, she hailed a cab, collapsed into the seat and tossed her shoes off. G.o.d, but walking in this city was hard on the arches. She ma.s.saged her feet. He let her out on the square, grumbled at her tip-Up yours, fella-and sped off into the night.

Christ, no manners, these Brits. Think just because you're American you can pick it off trees. . . .

Amelia started across the square, humming. Of course it was before her time, but hadn't there been an old song about a nightingale singing in Berkeley Square? Must've been First World War. Didn't her pa used to sing it, sometimes? Amelia heard bird-twitter and stopped to look up at the inky lace of the trees. On a bench by the walk, a drunk snored, huddled under his coat as if it were January instead of July. It had been a long time since she'd thought of her folks, thought of Pa. He was up in heaven somewhere, sleeping it off, like the drunk back there. Nothing but itinerant farmhands they'd been, though of course she'd made up a more suitable background when she'd met James C. Had to hand it to him, though; he wasn't a sn.o.b. But even James C. might stick at marrying what a lot of folks still called white trash. Amelia's chin went up. You had to survive in this world. And you had to have some fun while doing it. She swung along, the huge bag she'd got in Na.s.sau last year slung over her shoulder. Fun was what life was all about, wasn't it? Was it her fault if she couldn't feel sadder over Honey Belle's death? It was the hand of Fate, that's all. You die like you live, that's all. So some s.e.x maniac got loose in that twirpy little town and happened to pick on two females from the same tour-Amelia's skin went a little clammy. If her husband, if James C. had happened to find out about Honey Belle, or for that matter, Amelia-that was ridiculous. She walked on, more slowly. Still, how did she know she could trust that detective not to go to him and offer to sell the information? As a matter of fact, she thought, how do I know James C. didn't hire that man? . . . and maybe did the same to me? Once again, she stopped dead in her tracks. She took herself firmly in hand: Amelia Blue Farraday, you just got chiggers up your li'l ol' a.s.s, honey. Ridiculous. Her life force once more restored and flowing, she resumed her stroll through Berkeley Square.

Or started to. The square was deathly still, there was no one else taking the air this night, and that birdsong halted, started, halted again, almost as if it were noting her progress.

The arm that suddenly came round her throat and dragged her neck back was clothed in old wool. Before she felt something bite into her neck, she had time for one vagrant thought: You die like you live.

A small clutch of police officers stood in Berkeley Square.

Access to the park was cut off by barricades at the entrances and police constables directing the foot traffic. Told to move it along, pa.s.sersby naturally stayed. Within ten minutes, a necklace of the curious surrounded the square. In another fifteen minutes, they were six deep. Motorists were driving by slowly enough to create a h.e.l.l of a snarl; many were parking and getting out to rubberneck. Within twenty minutes after the police arrived, it looked as if half of London had descended upon Berkeley Square.

Jury looked down at the red pantsuit that had once been white. A proper job The Slasher had done of her, he thought. There wasn't much left that was recognizable except for that mop of pale yellow hair, which had, amazingly enough, escaped soaking, perhaps because of the slant of the head after the throat had been cut. The gra.s.s around was rusty-brown and still tacky. A long vertical slash ran from shoulder blade down the length of the torso exposing the stomach wall and organs.

Wiggins looked at Jury. "Same as the ones in Stratford, sir?"

Jury nodded. To the Scene of Crimes officer he said, "What have you found so far?"

The man turned to Jury, looking at him over the top of his notebook.

"Guts," he said calmly. He looked almost spiffy in a well-tailored, appropriately funereal dark suit.

"I can see that. The blood must have gone everywhere-"

The Scene of Crimes man nodded. "Including all over the killer." He nodded over his shoulder. "We found an old coat in the dustbin over there."

"Anything else? Some sort of message, maybe?"

"Good guessing, Superintendent. There was part of a theatre program. As You Like It. Give me a moment and you and the doc can have the lot." He finished up his note-taking and the photographer his pictures.

The pathologist was kneeling beside the body; he handed up a page torn from the front of the program, blood-smeared.

"What is it?" asked Wiggins.

Jury read the single line: " 'Dust hath closed Helen's eye.' "

"Is it the end of that poem?" asked Wiggins.

"No. There are two more lines."