The Winds of Change (5 page)

Jury took it. lt didn’t surprise him that Baumann might feel some affinity with Alexander. The coin showed him wearing a lion’s head as a helmet. ‘Looks quite valuable,’ Jury said, handing it back.

‘Not really. It’s obviously extremely old, but that means little when it comes to value.’

Jury, having returned himself at least in small measure to Baumann’s good graces, said, ‘I got us off the subject. We were talking about Declan Scott.’

Baumann drank, set down the heavy glass. ‘I simply thought that one reason for Scott to lie might be to steer the relationship between himself and this woman away from himself by saying she was a friend of Mary’s. Then fabricating this story about having seen them together. There were no witnesses to this meeting, isn’t that what you said?’

‘We haven’t found one, no. But Declan Scott isn’t the only one who saw her - ‘

Baumann interrupted. ‘But you just said there were no wit-

nesses.’

‘Not to the meeting at the hotel, but later, when she came to the house. And it wasn’t Scott who saw her, it was the Scotts’ cook.’

The way Baumann turned his empty glass in his hands and regarded it, it looked as if he wanted another drink. ‘Well, is the woman one of those longtime retainers who’d do anything for the Scotts?’

‘Are you saying she might be lying for him?’

Viktor Baumann shrugged and set down his glass. ‘‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’

‘Highly improbable, though. I think this is an occurrence where Sherlock Holmes must be right: the most likely explanation is the simplest one.’

‘I couldn’t disagree more. You don’t seem to be open to all of the possibilities.’

Jury said nothing, just waited for him to go on, which he clearly wanted to do.

‘You’ve been taken in by him, Superintendent. Declan Scott is very plausible.’ Baumann slapped the arms of his chair as prelude to rising from it.

‘I haven’t met Mr. Scott.’

‘Well, if you do, you’ll see what I mean. I’m sorry, but I have an appointment at ten.’ He moved to a cupboard, took out a coat.

Jury had also risen and watched him buttoning the coat. It was a black chesterfield, single breasted, velvet collar. Jury hadn’t seen an overcoat like this in quite awhile, certainly not on his own back.

Still on the subject of Declan Scott, Viktor Baumann said, ‘He’s too smooth for my tastes.’

Jury laughed. ‘That’s just what someone said about you. The word used was ‘silky.’’

Viktor Baumann seemed to like that description of himself. But the man was so self-referential, Jury wasn’t surprised. ‘I might want to see you again, Mr. Baumann, if you don’t mind. I think you would want to know of any developments, in case this does have to do with your daughter.’

‘Absolutely, Superintendent.’

Jury bowed a bit farther into diffidence. ‘Do you think I could have a closer look at your coin collection?’

Baumann frowned, then brightened. ‘Oh, you mean the ones out there? Of course. I’ll just tell Grace’- he frowned -’no, on second thought ... ‘ He took a card from the small silver stand on his desk, then grabbed up the black pen in the holder, turned the card over and jotted a note. He handed it to Jury. ‘Grace tends to be a bit possessive. I’d rather not get into this with her. Just tell her what you want and give this to her. Otherwise she’ll spend ten minutes thinking up reasons why she can’t unlock the glass.’ Baumann opened the door. ‘I’ll see you again, Superintendent. Grace will see to it.’ He nodded and walked out.

Grace’s eyebrows did their little dance upward in question. Jury handed her the card. ‘I just wanted to get a closer look at some of those coins.’

The card having directed her to see to his wishes, she crimped her mouth, took keys out of a drawer, rose and went to the glass doors, which she unlocked. She handed him back the little card as if she had no interest in Jury’s curiosity.

Jury had absolutely no interest in hers, or in the coins. He had simply wanted to leave Baumann on a friendly note. She stood at his elbow as he looked at the coins.

‘I shouldn’t pick those up if I were you,’ said Grace. ‘Mr. Baumann is extremely careful of his coins. They’re quite valuable.’

Given that the card had told her to give him every assistance, Jury considered taking her to task but decided it would be a waste of his time. ‘Thank you,’ he said, stepping back.

She locked the doors in a self-important manner. Then the keeper of the coins smiled thriftily and showed Jury the door.

6

The anonymity of train rides had always appealed to Jury. There were few other passengers in his car and he sat awhile just enjoying the emptiness of the Great Western experience.

He had brought along the Emily Dickinson book and as he read the poems he wondered what it must be like to have the kind of perception she had. It must hurt like hell; it must be intensely painful; it must be like cutting your teeth on glass. But at least you were awake. There had been too many times in the last few weeks he felt as if he were sleepwalking through life.

When the train stopped at Pewsey, a tired-looking woman with three small children got on and settled them down in the four seats with a table between. The youngest of the three clamped his huge eyes on Jury, across the aisle.

Jury closed his own eyes, having marked his place in the book with his plastic tea stirrer. He hoped to discourage the staring child. He leaned his head against the window. He did not want to connect with anyone. He was tired. He stayed this way for a minute, uncomfortable with his head on the cold glass, then righted himself and opened the book again.

Physically, he had recuperated from the shooting. It had been two months, after all. But mentally he found himself too often still lying on that dock on the Thames, wondering what in hell had brought him to that pass. He read: ‘Of all the souls that stand create, I have elected one. When sense from spirit files away, And subterfuge is done.’

‘And subterfuge is done.’ What a wonderful line. Who Emily elected would remain forever a mystery. Now, if he were to elect one, who would it be? His mind went blank. Then into this blankness came a face that took him utterly by surprise. A woman he had never considered and now he wondered how he could have missed it, a woman extricating herself from the shadows on numerous occasions, then drifting back into them. Why would she, of all the women he knew, come to mind? He nearly laughed aloud at this discovery. He opened his eyes to find he was still the center of interest both to the boy and now the mother sitting across from him. He had never known such intransigent stares. And neither could be dissuaded by Jury’s returning their adamantine looks. Their faces looked struck in marble.

He could move. Yet it embarrassed him to resort to moving. He got a fresh cup of tea from the trolley server and tried to think about Macalvie’s missing child, but he didn’t have enough details to come up with anything. He could only think this child had been taken by someone, a woman, perhaps, who had lost a child herself and was desperate to replace hers. Either that or the ex-husband, Viktor Baumann. He hated to think of the alternatives. What better place to steal a child than an enormous, open series of gardens with plenty of places to hide?

He should stop speculating; he hadn’t enough information even to do that.

Instead, he thought about Emily Dickinson. ‘When sense from spirit files away, And subterfuge is done.’ To take off the mask, to forgo pretense, to put your cards on the table. To have done with smoke and mirrors .... He rested his head against the back of the seat and fell asleep.

He must have slept through Exeter, for the next thing he knew the conductor was coming through announcing St. Austell. Jury gathered up his coat, paper and book. Now that he was leaving, the woman across from him finally closed her eyes; the little boy turned away.

Jury stepped down to the platform, looked around and saw a young man walking toward him, tallish, wiry, wearing dark glasses.

‘I’m DS Platt, sir,’ said the detective and led Jury to a Ford Escort that, even in its lack of identification, seemed to scream police police police! Maybe Jury had simply ridden in too many Fords over the years.

‘Commander Macalvie thought you should see the place where the little Baumann girl disappeared - Flora. The Lost Gardens of Heligan it’s called. A fascinating place. The girl was taken somewhere around a part called the Crystal Grotto. Her mother had been ahead of her. She’d lost sight of her for only a few minutes.’

‘Fine with me, Sergeant Platt. Incidentally, what’s your first name?’

‘Cody.’ Then, as if it were a name to be explained, Platt said, ‘Mum was very fond of American westerns. ‘Cody’ was the name of some cowboy or other. I used to play at being a cowboy, had a silver gun and fringed jacket and boots. The boss likes to call me that, ‘cowboy,’ I mean.’

‘Sounds like him.’ Jury laughed.

DS Platt seemed to like that response. ‘Anyway, I think Commander Macalvie wants you to get the whole picture of these events. Chronologically, that is. For the London train, St. Austell’s a lot closer than anyplace else. And Heligan’s near Mevagissey. Launceston’s a good bit farther north. I’m to drive you; the boss said he’d be meeting you in a pub in South Petherwin. That’s just this side of Launceston.’

Jury did not take in this complicated geography, but he knew he would get here and there in good time. He pulled his door shut and Platt backed up and drove out of the car park, feeding the Ford Escort into one of St. Austell’s twisted and hilly streets.

Jury said, ‘The whole picture, you said. So he thinks there is a whole picture?’

‘The disappearance of little Flora and this murder? He does, yes.’

‘And what do you think?’

Platt seemed a little surprised at being consulted. ‘Do you mean, do I think it’s all part of one case? Well, yes. This woman who was murdered had gone to Angel Gate - the Scott estate before. Apparently, she was a friend of Mary Scott. Or an acquaintance. More likely, an acquaintance.’

‘Couldn’t the husband sort that?’

‘He doesn’t - didn’t - know the dead woman. Saw her once with his wife, he says, in London, but doesn’t know who she was.’

‘Hm.’ Jury sat back and sleepily regarded the scenery, pleasant enough, but unimpressive. But then with Cornwall it was the coast, wasn’t it? Not the interior.

They were soon pulling into the Heligan gardens’ large car park, which was posted with signs directing cars and buses to their correct parking areas. Jury was glad that it wasn’t summer. There’d be a mob. Tour buses, crowds. Platt parked beside a gray Plymouth. There were few cars.

They were out of the car now, standing there.

‘The mother died soon after the daughter vanished?’ Sergeant Platt nodded. ‘Six months later. She was only thirty-nine.’

‘What killed her?’

Platt looked around the car park as if he was hoping Mary Scott would step out of that old gray Plymouth over there, or the Morris Minor, or the sleek black BMW. ‘A broken heart, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He looked at Jury, sadly. ‘Of course, they say you can’t die of that, can you?’

His look was alarmingly sorrowful. Jury put his hand on Platt’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you believe it, Sergeant. You knew her, then?’

‘Yes. I kept in touch, see. I knew Mary - Mrs. Scott, I mean - pretty well. And Flora, too.’

Jury watched his face. ‘You were fond of them.’

Platt nodded, looking off across the car park, merely nodding. Jury said he’d like to see this Crystal Grotto on his own, if Platt didn’t mind. On the contrary, the sergeant seemed relieved not to have to accompany him and told Jury he’d wait in the cafe near the gift shop. He could do with a cup of tea, he said, reminding Jury of Wiggins, who was supposed to follow Jury here the next day.

He walked up a path to the kiosk where the tickets were sold and where a youngish man was puttering about. Jury took out his ID and the fellow looked wide-eyed at him, impressed.

‘I’ll need a map of the gardens. I expect you have them here. I’m looking for the Crystal Grotto - I think that’s the name.’

The ticket seller handed one over and gave him brief directions. ‘And you’ve got your map ... ‘ He looked at Jury as if he couldn’t quite believe he wouldn’t be whisked there on some magic carpet, but instead was going to find his own way. Strange.

Jury saluted, touching his forehead with the map and walked on. A mountainous rhododendron, ten times as tall as Jury, marked the entrance to the northern garden. In here, along the path, there was silence, deep silence, as if it too had been carved out of the garden ruins and restored. When he saw sunlight caught in the net of the branches he suddenly remembered the friend of his mother’s, the watercolorist who’d gone blind. He remembered sitting with her in the little park across the street from her terraced house. On a little farther, through the latticed opening of intertwining branches, he spied a sculpture of a small girl up on her toes, who appeared to be caught executing one of those difficult moves in ballet and his mind flew immediately to Elicia Deauvilleto her or to the false memory of her and her dancing on the other side of that wall of his terraced house, his childhood home. But his cousin had pretty much annihilated memories of his childhood, rendering them nugatory, or at best, suspect, memories to be taken out, exposed to the light of day to see how they held up. That wartime episode in Devon, the beach, the collapsed fences, the ginger-haired girl. Oh, but she had to have been real - the taunter, the teaser, the nemesis of all little boys-made, she must have been, for that purpose. And her hair, her flaming hair - surely, that had been real. He seemed to be going along in fits and starts, his mind stumbling, lurching in and out of these fretful scenes, trying to keep its balance. And he thought that’s what life was - trying to keep one’s balance.