The Blue Last (39 page)

“But it was worth it, wasn't it?” They walked toward the car. “We got a different picture of Simon Croft.”

“So eating all that cake was a kind of martyrdom that paid off?”

“You could say that. I'm pretty full. Now where to?”

Jury shoved himself into the cramped seat, thinking he'd be just as comfortable riding in the trunk. “Drop me off at the Croft house.”

“What would you expect to find? The crime scene people did a thorough check—”

“Yes. But sometimes it helps to look at things on your own.”

P
rivate residences on the Thames were rare, especially in the City, which had always been the financial and trading heart (if trade can have a heart) of London: the Bank of England, Mincing Lane, Lloyd's. Now, such conversions were seeping into the City as had been going on for years in Docklands, and continued throughout the areas of Whitechapel, Limehouse and Wapham. These were the old buildings that sentimentalists would still have preferred to be left standing, memorials to London's past, the docks, the stews. But what had been lost in the way of romance had been made up for in eye-catching livable space. The developers and builders were right for a change. The improvement really was an improvement, except to those sentimental souls who believed the past was inviolate and did not want change.

Jury knew he was one of those souls. So had Simon Croft been. This useless romance that Jury was caught up in did not profit his work, though for the most part he could set it aside. But then came a case that demanded one take a long look back.

Simon Croft's house was not the result of a conversion. It was Georgian, not terribly interesting architecturally, but its gray stone bulk was imposing, partly because of its age. It was flat fronted, with long windows on the ground and first floors, smaller sash windows on the two upper floors. In front was a small forecourt large enough for five or six cars. The only one presently here was Croft's own Mercedes.

When he had been here the night of Croft's death, he had noticed the house was full of stunning antiques, a fortune in furniture. He was standing now in a large, nearly empty drawing room or reception room. Against one wall stood a credenza, probably seventeenth century, on whose door and sides were painted fading flowers in pink and green. The only other furniture sat near the center of the room: a fainting couch, covered in deep blue velvet, and a Chippendale elbow chair with a silvery green damask seat.

The same feeling of emptiness Jury had courted outside came back to him now. It was the sort of emptiness one associates with houses whose occupants have suddenly packed and fled. It reminded him of his first visit to Watermeadows, that beautiful Italianate house and gardens which had Ardry End as its neighbor, despite their grounds extending over a quarter mile before meeting. He shut his eyes and thought of Hannah Lean.
Don't go there,
he told himself. But, of course, by the time you think of that, you're already there. That room in Watermeadows had been even larger than this one, emptier, with scarcely any furniture—a sofa, a chair—giving rise to that same baffled feeling that the owners had made a quick departure, and, as in war, as in an enemy occupation, had taken whatever transportable belongings they could and vanished. He left the room.

He walked down the black and white marbled hall, bisected by a wide mahogany staircase, to the library where Mrs. MacLeish had discovered Simon Croft and called City police. It was quite a different room, crowded with chairs and tables and books. Jury switched on the desk lamp, an elaborate one with a brass elephant as its base. He looked over what the police hadn't taken away in evidence bags. There was a chased silver inkpot, several Mont Blanc pens, a blotter and a stack of printer paper held down with a heavy glass weight, the printer itself on a small table in the window embrasure. There was a handsome rosewood piece that looked like a bureau but was really a filing cabinet. Chairs were the roomy sort, deeply cushioned and covered with linen or leather. Jury could almost feel the room embracing him.

Books were shelved floor to ceiling around three walls, two of them separated by narrow leaded windows. It was interesting to him that the killer had removed all trace of the book Simon Croft had been working on—manuscript, hard drive, diskettes—yet had forgotten intellectual content, or, given he or she had no time for inspecting the books, simply hoped that no one would think of searching Croft's bookshelves.

It had to have been here somewhere, the reason for Simon Croft's murder, and perhaps it still was. There was no sign even of the notes he must have made. No sign either of the pocket-size journal Miss Penforwarden had alluded to (
“He always carried it. ‘Never be without this,' he said.”
) And no sign of this year's diary, which he must have kept too, as there were diaries from the last fifteen years placed side by side on one of the shelves in such an orderly fashion the gap told of the absence of at least one, this year's.

Jury imagined that the books Croft had consulted most would be together rather than parceled out according to subject, author or alphabet. He took out his notebook and read again the titles Miss Penforwarden had given him, then looked for those two books. They were, as he had supposed, together on a section of shelf nearest the leather chair. It was a chair that would have suited Boring's. It was well worn, and Jury assumed it was Simon's favorite. He sat down to look at the books purchased from the Moonraker. He leafed through them and saw numerous markings and marginalia.

Solemn December,
although fairly recently acquired, was much read. There were scraps of paper and yellow Post-It notes on a number of pages. The subtitle of the book was
Britain, 1940.
As Miss Penforwarden had suggested, the book was unquestionably on his subject. A good third of it was composed of photographs, and the text itself dealt with the hardships and courage of the British people—the wardens, the volunteers, the shopkeepers and ordinary citizens. It was nostalgic, a hope and glory book. As such, Jury somehow imagined it was of limited textual value to Croft, not dense enough. The picture he had built up of Simon Croft was of a complex man. He was someone who could (and did) set great store by family and the past, but who would not, at the same time, be hoodwinked. “Hoodwinked” by what exactly Jury couldn't say. Certainly the identity of Maisie Tynedale was in the running.

Again he wondered: If the purpose of taking Croft's computer, journal, diary, notes and hard copy was to eradicate whatever knowledge Croft had stumbled on, why hadn't these books been removed, too? This next one, titled
Fourteen Days,
was very heavily marked up. Notes, marginalia. A much-used book which appeared to be, unlike the other one, sinewy, full of material.

Jury had to begin with what he knew about motive in this murder, and the only one he had yet sorted was the alleged motive of Kitty Riordin and her daughter, Erin. That Croft had unearthed this imposture (“
Simon talked about impostors”
) and confronted Riordin with it would have been motive enough for her to kill him.

Another point was the supposed attempt to shoot the person in the greenhouse. But were these two shootings connected? Perhaps not, but Jury hated coincidence.

A cigarette box inlaid with mother-of-pearl (
“I'm beautiful, Jury; have one.”
) sat on the table beside his armchair. He got up and walked around the room trying to think his way into Simon Croft's mind. Though he was loath to mix it into this brew because it widened the field so much, Jury knew he had to consider the likelihood that Croft's murder was related to his work as a broker rather than his family or his past, as Plant had suggested. Perhaps he had caused a loss to one of his clients; perhaps there was fraud. Perhaps. Jury doubted it. Croft just didn't sound the type. More than that, Croft's behavior during his last visit with Miss Penforwarden did not sound like that of a desperate man who'd been caught with his hands in the till. No. But then Miss Penforwarden's assessment of Croft's state of mind had been different from Mrs. MacLeish's, or Haggerty's, or the grocer Smith's or the Delphinium boys'. That was interesting.

Jury had made two circuits of the room, standing here and there, and now stopped before the rosewood filing cabinet. Bless the man for his orderliness. He removed a folder labeled “correspondence.” He guessed the order of the letters would be by date, the ones in front being the most recent, given Croft's meticulous disposal of papers. Jury went through them and found the whole lot disappointing. There were letters of appreciation from satisfied clients, acknowledging the good job Simon had done with their brokerage accounts; a letter inviting him to a weekend in Invernessshire; a few letters from his solicitors regarding “minor” changes in the wording of his will. That would hardly constitute changing beneficiaries, thought Jury. That was about all. Letters might, of course, have been removed.

He went back to his chair, sat down and picked up
Fourteen Days,
which sounded almost like the title of a thriller. He read about the hammering East London and part of the City had taken on the nights of December 19 and 20. He was surprised to read that Hitler had for some time before the blitzkrieg been convinced that Britain would come to its senses and simply capitulate. And given the German successes, it was a wonder Britain didn't. It was a blessing that his country had been totally unaware of the disasters suffered by the British Expeditionary Forces. France had been a disaster. Also, Germany had taken Holland, Brussels and, worst, had advanced to the English Channel.

There were a number of marginal notations, which was not surprising, considering how conscientious a note taker Croft was. In one margin was penned in RALPH (?). Not familiar with Herrick's wartime maneuvers Jury couldn't, of course, see the relationship between Ralph Herrick and the account in the book of the GAF daytime raids on aircraft fields in the southeast of England. The bombers were turned back or brought down by RAF fighter pilots. Then again, two pages later in the margin, RALPH (???). Here, again, several pages were devoted to accounts of Göring's near success in wiping out the RAF airfields, which would have meant wiping out the RAF. In other words, winning the war in the air. Winning, period.

For some reason, those three question marks disturbed Jury. The single question mark on the page before might simply have indicated curiosity. But here the marks suggested a real need to know. Know what? This entry was also cross-referenced: (CF. P. 208, F.H.).

“F.H.” A title, perhaps? An author? He went back to the bookshelf and ran his finger along the spines of the books Croft seemed to have used most for research and found the title
Finest Hours
(a borrowing of one of Churchill's titles). He thumbed up page 208 and read an account of German bombers over the Isle of Wight. In the margin was written “R
”
? What was Simon asking? Whether Ralph had participated in this particular battle? Or that Ralph had talked about it? What could Simon otherwise be alluding to? Jury went to the three other pages indicated in the margin, but the details of the combat meant little to him.

Except, of course, in his own private world, where they meant a great deal. Jury had not known his father except as the face in his mother's photographs, and whatever he himself had contrived to imagine about his father, a litany to repeat again and again before he fell asleep. Definitely handsome, undoubtedly brave.

He thought of photographs. Croft would probably have an album; anyone this precise, this organized, this dedicated to preserving memories would have pictures, snapshots and so forth. The book itself, wouldn't it contain photographs as studies of this kind so often did? He made a cursory examination of the shelves on which were kept the journals and diaries, but saw nothing.

Frustrated he went back to his chair and picked up
Finest Hours
again. What was Croft thinking about? Jury riffled the pages and stopped at more marginalia, this time a column of dates:

Jury skimmed the page in whose margin these dates appeared, in a neat row. There were no corresponding dates in the text of this page or the ones before or after. He went to every page where Simon had made marginal notes. No such dates appeared in the text, so there were obviously other sources he was using. But he could not find reference to them. How could he match up dates to events? How could he find the common denominator?

Was there one and was it Ralph? No one had talked very much about him, but, then, he'd been around so little that the family hadn't really known him well. Simon and Ian had idolized Ralph; that did not constitute knowledge. The marriage to Alexandra was brief and wartime. What all knew and mentioned was that the young flier had been awarded the Victoria Cross.