The Grave Maurice (18 page)

“I rather doubt the intimacy since none of them even knows this woman.”
Or say they don't,
Melrose didn't add.

“Or say they don't,” the detective did add.

 

“They wanted to know if I owned a weapon. A .22, to be more precise. I told them no, but they wanted permission to search my flat, anyway.” Vernon told Melrose this on the way back to London. “Who the hell
is
she?”

Melrose was watching the rain-slick road, now dark. “When did Dan Ryder die?”

“A little over two years ago.”

“Before Nell disappeared.”

Vernon turned in his seat to stare. “You think
that
comes into it?”

“Merely a thought. It's just that you've now had three terrible events occur in a short time. It's possible all three are connected, don't you think?”

Vernon shook his head. “Possible, but unlikely.”

Up ahead Melrose spotted the carnival red of a Little Chef, the black-and-white-checked trousers of its familiar logo. An icon of childhood. He would devil his parents to stop at every one. Even as a child he realized this was completely unreasonable, to expect them to keep stopping. But it was merely a step in a plan: for then he was almost certain they'd stop at every
third
one, and that made at least two stops per longish trip, often three. Melrose thought himself pretty cagy, even as a child, really good at working a room.

“Great, I could use some food,” Vernon said.

Without knowing it, Melrose had pulled off the road and into the Little Chef's car park. He laughed. He must have gone on autopilot. “Did you like these places when you were a kid?”

They were climbing out of the car and Vernon slammed his door with a flourish. “Hell, yes. Little Chefs and Happy Eaters, though they were clones of Little Chefs. Let's go.”

They walked toward what Melrose thought were impossibly lighted-up windows.

The tables, counter, mirrors were so cleanly bright they might have been scrubbed between each load of customers. The waitresses and waiters were as clean as nurses and doctors who had just scrubbed in. It was like having the hygienic benefits of an OR without the mortal consequences.

Melrose slid across the cool plastic bench in the long booth and grabbed the menu.

“Beans on toast,” Vernon said, barely glancing at the offerings.

Melrose ordered everything fried—eggs, sausages, bread, chips and a tomato.

Vernon said, “You wouldn't catch me eating beans on toast at home.” The waitress set down their coffee, smiled her clean smile and left.

“Of course not. It's what you eat at Little Chef. I know a detective sergeant who likes Little Chef but doesn't appear to connect it to childhood. He's not nostalgic so he loves it for its own sake.”

“A Little Chef purist.”

“Right.”

“Arthur likes to tell me I never grew up. I say, How would you know, you didn't even know me then? and he says I don't have to; I know you now.” Vernon laughed.

Melrose smiled. “You two get on very well together.”

“Oh, sure. He pays absolutely no attention to me when it comes to investing, though. He could be tripling his income if he'd listen to me.”

They were silent for a few moments, fiddling with menus that hadn't been plucked immediately from their hands. Melrose asked, “Was there some trouble between the family and Dan Ryder?”

“Arthur was pretty much fed up. And I don't think Dan and Roger ever really got along, despite being brothers. Totally different sorts. Roger is cautious; Danny was reckless,
really
reckless. He was always raising the bar. You know, to see how high he could jump—I mean, literally as well as figuratively. He took too many chances. His first wife, Marybeth, left him because of that, though she wasn't much of a treat to begin with. Danny was an addicted gambler. He died owing a ton of money to the wrong people, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason he left England. These are the kind of people who don't forgive debts for sentimental reasons like death. The kind who manage to get back at the family if that's the only way they can collect.”

“So did these people move on Arthur?”

Vernon nodded. “I paid off a lot of it to keep Arthur from knowing how much it was.”

“That was certainly decent of you.”

“Not really. It was just sitting around.”

Melrose smiled. “I doubt you'd leave money sitting around for very long.”

“Well, I had some stocks that weren't earning their keep. I hated the picture of Arthur's discovering his son was selling the farm, metaphorically speaking.”

“Did you know Dan?”

“Not very well. I met him once or twice when Ma and Arthur were, you know, getting together. I saw him at the races. He was brilliant, I'll say that. This was before they got married. I was pretty old—thirty-two—”

Melrose liked that definition of “pretty old.”

“—and had my business in the City. So I didn't get up to Cambridge very often. Not that I was giving it a pass, not at all. I liked it there. I liked Arthur and—the others.”

He didn't want to single out Nell, apparently. “But you seem to get up there quite a bit lately.”

Vernon looked down at his beans on toast. “Well, I should, don't you think? Arthur's suffered some terrible losses. Danny, Ma, Nellie . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Your mother was not a younger woman, was she?” Melrose cut off a piece of fried bread.

Vernon laughed. “No. They were contemporaries. Arthur never had a midlife crisis. My mother was a great person—very outgoing and at the same time private. They were married for only two years when she died.” His eyes still on the plate he added, “I really miss her, Mum.” He fell quiet.

Nodding at the untouched plate, Melrose asked, “Aren't you going to eat?”

Vernon sighed. “I didn't really want to eat this; I just wanted to look at it. Do you ever do that?”

Melrose thought Vernon looked hopeful that he wasn't crazy all by himself. “Oh, yes. Well, I eat at least a token bite when I feel that way. He held up the triangle of bread he'd been working on. He wondered how much of childhood Vernon still inhabited and also wondered how much emptiness could be appeased just by looking. As Vernon took a token bite of beans, Melrose said, “You said in the restaurant you didn't know Nell Ryder very well. How old was she when you met her?”

“Fifteen. It was only a few months before she disappeared.”

“She'd be seventeen now.”

Vernon fooled with his fork and nodded.

“I saw pictures of Nell. She seemed—I don't know—airy, ethereal, not quite of this world. Which is hard to do in one of those Barbour coats and muddy boots.” Melrose ate his sausage. “That's not a good description of her, though. She looked like someone with a purpose. Someone dedicated, but to what I don't know.”

“Horses, for one thing.” Vernon paused. “To tell the truth, I can't think of another thing.” He cut off a wedge of toast. “What you might be seeing in her is poise, a person poised on the edge of something and who manages to keep her balance.” Vernon's eyebrows inched upward as if asking Melrose to confirm this.

Melrose nodded.

Vernon went on. “When I met her I took her to be some years older. I told her this and she said it was from being around horses all her life; it gives you poise and confidence. If you don't have it, they may allow you to ride them, or feed them, or brush them down, but eventually they turn their backs. She wants to be a trainer. Davison thinks she's a natural.”

“Is the investigation ongoing?”

“No. But I've got a private investigator. He's still looking.”

“After nearly two years?” Melrose raised an eyebrow.

“After ten, if it's necessary.”

Melrose felt slightly abashed. He thought for a minute and then asked, “Was there a set time in the evening for seeing to the horses?”

“Yes, of course. Evening stables and then Davison goes around again before he leaves at night.”

“Which means that everyone knew when things were battened down for the night and no one around?”

“You're suggesting that the person would have been either one of us or someone else who knew the schedule?”

Melrose paused. “Not exactly.” He paused again. “Just a thought.” Vernon Rice didn't appear to question Melrose's extended interest in the Ryders' misfortunes, but, of course, the body lying in the Cambridge police station pretty much took care of Melrose's motive.

“This private investigator you've been paying for all this time—”

“Leon Stone?”

“What is he continuing to do?”

“He hasn't got a fresh lead, but at least he's looking; the police aren't. Not that I blame them. An abduction unsolved after nearly two years? The case isn't closed, but it's certainly resting. They think she's dead.”

He said this so matter-of-factly, Melrose would have thought he was indifferent to the case. “Why are you so certain she's not?”

“It's something you know, that's all.” Vernon shook his head.

Melrose said, “There've been no demands. There should be, if not money, for something. Surely.”

“Unless she went to save someone else.”

“But that would mean she herself was valuable to them.”

Again, Vernon shook his head. He shoved his plate away.

For a few moments they sat in silence as Melrose ate and Vernon looked bereft. Melrose was thinking. “Tell me: are there any high-stakes races coming up?”

“Yes. There always are. Here, elsewhere. It's not the purse of these races—although they can pay a lot—it's the boost they do to the reputation of the stud farm. Any horse that wins the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe or the American ones such as the Derby or, God willing, the Triple Crown—those races are pure gold when it comes to breeding. But such races are run every year.”

“Would Aqueduct have qualified?”

“Yes, but as I said before, he couldn't be entered as Aqueduct himself.”

“But he could win registered as Bozo the Clown.” Melrose paused. “Have you considered that someone wanted Nell dead? That she had enemies?”

“Leon Stone considered it.”

“An idea you jettisoned?”

Vernon nodded. “In that case stealing the horse was simply a smoke screen? Something like that?”

“Something like that, yes. What runs counter to that idea is that they've never found her body. The thoroughness of police when it comes to searches like that is legendary. The woods behind the house would literally have not a leaf unturned. Still, it's a theory in the running. Did someone gain from her death?”

“But no death has been reported. So what would be gained?”

“Something in the future? Anyway, if Ryder is having financial troubles, I expect he wouldn't be leaving a fortune to anyone.”

“That's where you're wrong. In terms of liquid assets, he hasn't a great deal. In terms of assets, period, he's got a lot. He's just not using the potential. He could, of course, sell the farm and realize a big profit. Anderson's been wanting to buy him out for years. But it would be far more valuable to keep Ryder Stud and simply syndicate the horses. And increase the breeding shares. Samarkand has sired a number of foals who've gone on to win in the six figures. In other words, Arthur could be making enough to pay Danny's gambling debts several times over. What he's resisting most is syndication. With a horse, for instance, like Criminal Type, say he sold off twenty shares—keeping another dozen for himself—at, say, fifty thousand a share, which would be low for that horse. There's a cool million just for the shares sold on one horse. He's got several that good or better. And that's not counting the shares in breeding rights. I've been trying to talk him into this for years, but here's where profit loses out to sentiment.” Vernon smiled.

“Somehow in his mind, he sees Criminal Type cut up into twenty pieces? Literally?”

Vernon was now eating his beans and toast, which must be stone-cold by now, with enthusiasm. “Exactly. Arthur can bring himself to selling breeding rights only by selling very few. Less than any other owner around. Can you imagine the profit from a horse like Criminal Type, whose progeny thus far have already won stakes races to the tune of eight or nine million? Ten colts, averaging, say, half a million apiece? And that's only up to
now
.”

“A horse such as Aqueduct would be worth a fortune, then, theoretically?”

The waitress was hovering, pouring a small waterfall of hot coffee into their cups. Melrose noticed a paler circle of skin where a wedding band had once been and wondered why she'd taken it off.

Vernon shook his head. “As I said, no one else could run him or breed him under the Aqueduct name.” Vernon drew a crumpled pack of cigarettes from an inner pocket, together with a lighter. It could easily have been traded for a share in Aqueduct. It was platinum. As Melrose took a cigarette and leaned over so Vernon could light it, he wondered just how much money the man had.

“Do Little Chefs have a no-smoking section?”

“It's not this one, wherever it is,” Vernon said.

“B
ack to square one,” said Melrose early the next morning as he sat in Jury's hospital room. “Abducted. Horse hijacked. Square one.” “Considering you actually witnessed this woman whom nobody knows talking to someone in the Grave Maurice, I'd hardly say we're back to square one. You might be the only person who has a line on her. You said she was talking about Nell Ryder?”