The Anodyne Necklace(42)

That did not seem to bother Mr. Potts at all, who could be, when it came to anything not connected with surface stock and tube stock, a master of economical language. "Pleasure," was all he said, as he showed them to the door.

There, Wiggins turned and asked, "I was wondering, sir. How do they clean them? The tunnels, I mean. Don't they have to clean them?"

William F. B. Potts's chest swelled up, not with pride nor vanity, but to get plenty of air in his lungs. "Certainly. It's the tunnel cleaning train that does that, Sergeant. It's equipped with floodlights outside each one of the motor cars and behind the driver's cab, that's where the cleaning operator is. There's the filter car and the nozzle car. Nozzle car draws the dust into the filter car. It operates at various speeds. Built at Acton Works, it was sometime in the '70s . . . "

"Thanks very much, Mr. Potts. We'll be in touch," said Jury, steering Wiggins toward the stairs.

The door closed behind them and Sergeant Wiggins said, "It's good to know that, isn't it, sir? I've always wondered."

V

The grate was almost directly across from the spot where Katie O'Brien had slumped. It was at floor level and beneath the Evita poster. With the help of two London Transport security police, Jury found it.

The necklace had been wrapped in a thin, dark handkerchief, fed through the opening in the grate-something which would have taken hardly more than a matter of seconds-where it had lain on a ledge collecting the soot of the whole last year. Had anyone actually looked, the small bundle would have been easy to see. But why would anyone bother to look into a ventilation grate in a tube station?





TWENTY-THREE


"KILL you?" exclaimed Melrose Plant to the bedraggled bit of child standing before him in the Bold Blue Boy. It was true that she did look as if she'd spent the night in hand-to-hand combat with thorny thickets and bogs and hedgerows. Her ordinarily unkempt hair was even more tangled than usual; her face was muddy, her jeans ripped.

She nodded, frowning at the floor.

Melrose had been looking for her everywhere for the past forty-five minutes. Peter Gere was not at the station. Polly Praed had seen Emily around eight, she had said. The Bodenheims denied any knowledge of her at all. Her mother was not at home.

It was ten o'clock when he had settled down to wait with a pint of bitter and a cigar and had been scared nearly witless by the sudden appearance of the small white face at the casement window and the demand to help her crawl through. No, she refused to come through the saloon bar or the public bar. So crawl in she had done, Plant dragging her by the armpits.

Melrose got up from the window seat to look out through the top of the glass pane where the lamp just outside the pub illuminated part of the road. He could see her pony tethered to the lamp. It seemed to be munching at a bit of grass. Why was her coat hooked to the bridle?

When he asked her, the look she returned him was one of withering scorn. "To make them think I was still on Shandy, of course. Then I was afraid maybe they'd run into him. But when I went across the pasture and finally got to the High he was just walking round Littlebourne Green. Shandy's very smart." The look clearly added: More than some. "I want to find Mr. Jury." The mouth downturned, prelude, he thought, to a fit of tears, although it was hard to imagine her crying.

"At the moment, he's in London. I expect he'll be back very soon. As a matter of fact, he wanted me to keep an eye on you."

The look now told him what a bang-up idea she thought that was.

"Come on." He dragged her over to the turnstile of crisps, went behind the little bar himself, and got out the lemon squash. If her mouth was full, she'd forget her misery. "Who knew where you were?"

Emily shrugged. "Lots of people. I always feed the horses Sunday nights. Here." The colored map, now damp, muddy and wrinkled, had been in her pocket all along. She showed it to Melrose.

He looked from the map to her. "When did you do this?"

She told him while rooting out the last crisp from her bag.

"Did you show it to anyone?"

"To Polly. We figured out what it was. It's the Underground. Why would anyone want to do a map like that of the Underground? London's ever so exciting, though. I hardly ever get to go to London." She sighed dramatically and glared at Melrose as if he were personally responsible for her countrified existence.

"Did you tell anyone else?"

Emily had made a ball of the empty crisp bag and was bouncing it in the air.

"Stop that and pay attention!"

She frowned mightily and slid down in her chair. "You needn't be nasty. I only told Mrs. Lark."

The Bodenheim cook. Wonderful. She, no doubt, immediately told all of the family.

He looked at Emily, wondering what to do. Young ladies in distress had never been Plant's métier. He expected mothers, nannies or old cooks to present themselves for such emergencies. Emily's mother seemed to be, as usual, unavailable. He hadn't seen Mary O'Brien. Polly Praed? He suggested it.

"No!" The single syllable was explosive. "I don't want to talk to anybody." She had gone round behind the bar to find her coloring book and crayons. Having secured them, she returned to her stool, all kitted out, seemingly oblivious to the awfulness of the previous hours.

"You're talking to me."

"That's different."

Either that meant he wasn't anybody, or that he had been admitted to that very select company thus far comprised of Superintendent Jury and whatever horses happened to be about. "I'm glad to know you trust me."

Her look would have turned anyone more unused to her to stone. "Only because you're a stranger, and you don't ride horses, so it wasn't you."

Implying that in any other circumstances, he'd have all the makings of the born killer.

"You don't think it could have been Polly?" Emily didn't answer. "But that's-" He wanted to say ridiculous, but it stuck in his throat.
 
 

 

"It's why I didn't want to come in through the front. I don't know who's out there." From the other side of the wall came the warm if indistinguishable voices of the regulars, like something wrapped in cotton wool.

"Well, you can stay here the night. I'm sure Mary O'Brien can find you a nightie-"

"Nightie! I don't wear those! I sleep in my knickers." She finished up her green Bambi and slapped the page over.

Melrose got up. "I'm going to call the police."

"I'll only talk to that Scotland Yard man."

"He's in London. I'll call Hertfield. Maybe Peter's-"

She looked up from the blue squirrel she was coloring, with steel in her eyes. "Mr. Jury."





Part Three




MUSIC and MEMORY





TWENTY-FOUR


MR. Jury was, shortly after this exchange, talking to six other policemen-Wiggins among them-who had been routed from their Sunday evening activities to assemble in the Wembley Knotts Underground station. Since three of them belonged to the Flying Squad, it probably wasn't the telly which Jury had interrupted when he made his call to Scotland Yard. The other two were security guards with London Transport.

"Nasty," said Detective Inspector Graham. "But what makes you think this villain will come back here tonight?"

"Tonight, or early tomorrow morning. Tonight is most likely because there won't be the Monday morning commuters. No matter how early, you always seem to run into someone who has to be at work spot on six, or something."

"Still," said Graham, "if this necklace has been lying in that grate"-he pointed below the Evita poster-"all this time, why now?"

"Because our friend knows that there's not much time, that's why. Ever since Katie O'Brien found that map, the whole thing must have been pretty nerve-wracking. Two women dead and another one in a coma. Don't tell me this person's going to wait around for us to find the bloody necklace."

"Then he's got exactly one hour and thirty-three minutes before this tube stop closes down." Detective Inspector Graham stopped at the sound of the echoing footsteps coming round the curve of the wall.

It was Cyril Macenery, carrying a violin case. He kept his eyes down, as if he were searching for something.

Jury introduced him to the assembled company. "Our itinerant musician," he said. "We've cleared the place out-not that it took much clearing-and the only ones here now are you"-he looked the group over-"and Cyril, Katie's teacher. I think it should be business as usual, and the thing that will make our friend least suspicious is if there's someone playing down here. As far as I'm concerned," Jury added, grimly, "it's only poetic justice." He looked at Cyril Macenery, who did not reply. He'd agreed to do this, to play his violin, but with some resistance, answering Jury in monosyllables when Jury had got hold of him at the hospital.

Temporary Detective Constable Tyrrwhitt, who was leaning against the wall, dressed in leather coat, Hawaiian shirt and jeans, said, "So there's two of us on the platform-not counting you two-one of us in the tunnel and one on the moving stairs. You're sure this creep knows where that necklace is?"

"I'm pretty sure," said Jury.

"Pretty sure," echoed Tyrrwhitt, stashing his gum behind the poster of Evita. She still dangled, dreadfully insecure, but sticking it.

Jury liked Tyrrwhitt. He was a T.D.C. now; he'd be in Graham's shoes, or shoes like them, inside a year, Jury bet. The sarcasm went, Jury thought, with the persona, half-developed through the clothes Tyrrwhitt wore for cover. He would have beat out the leather jackets Jury saw earlier any day.