The Anodyne Necklace(20)

Her cigarette dribbled gray ash over the pan as she said, "Well, I tol' 'im, din't I? Brings in 'is li'l bit a stray, fer all the world t' see . . . "

She was accustomed, it seemed, to dealing with police, had even achieved a certain rapport with them. Jury smiled his thanks as he refused the proffered pot of mash. Wiggins took a step backward.

Beginning again in the middle of some conversation with herself, she went on, "Right under me own nose and bangin' 'er-" She pointed to some nether region at the rear of the house "-an' I'm not puttin' up wi' that, am I? Got me pride, ain't I? I just takes meself off t' the Labor Exchange. Bloody job only pays three quid a week and the Screeborough gang takes two a that just fer a kip on their bleedin' couch and one quid for me mornin' tea. I ast ya." She circled the table and dropped another dollop of potatoes in each bowl. "There an' that's gone, so shut yer mouths. An' keep yer darty 'ands off Sookey's bowl." Smartly she slapped a hand which had skulked toward its brother's mash with a spoon. She surveyed the ring of grimy faces and said, "Where's Friendly?"

"Over t' the schoolyard. Said 'e was goin' t' show it t' Fiona." Giggles all round and Sookey took advantage of this to flash out a grubby hand and hook up a spoonful of mash from Joey's bowl.

"I'll ‘show it' 'im, don't think I won't. Just like 'is Da, Friendly is."

Wiggins was studying the graffiti-covered and faded wallpaper where huge stalks of gladioli had been transformed into phalluses. Following this, he retreated with his notebook to the kitchen doorway.

"Mrs. Beavers said you're a friend of Cora Binns, Mrs. Cripps."

"Cora? Yeah, I know Cora. What's this in aid of? Ashley been at Cora again?"

"Gimme some Ribena, mam," yelled Sookey.

"Shut yer face. Ain't got none, 'ave we?"

"Ah, fuck."

"Cora Binns has been murdered," said Jury.

"What? What ya mean, murdered?" The expression on Jury's face told her it wasn't a joke. "Well, I never . . . " The cigarette dangled. The word was drowned in the cacophony of bowls and banging forks and whines. If the Cripps children heard it, they were more interested in their own affairs, and soon were scrambling down from the table. One of them-the girl with the dirtiest face and the stickiest fingers-paused in the doorway to look Sergeant Wiggins over.

"It happened," Jury continued, "in a village not far from London. Littlebourne. Cora was apparently on her way there to be interviewed for a job. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted her out of the way? Or boyfriends, perhaps? Jealousy's a pretty common motive." She could think of no one. She still seemed to be having difficulty in digesting this information. Jury took the picture of Katie O'Brien from his pocket. "Ever seen this girl, Mrs. Cripps?"

She wiped her hands down the sides of her frock, in deference, perhaps, for the dead, before taking the snapshot. "Pretty li'l thing. No, I ain't never seen 'er. What's she got to do with Cora, then?"
 
 

 

"I don't know she has. But she met with an accident in the Wembley Knotts Underground station about two weeks ago. The girl's from Littlebourne, same place the murder happened." Jury pocketed the picture. "Do you know where Drumm Street is, Mrs. Cripps?"

"Sure. That's just two streets over."

"This girl in the snapshot was taking violin lessons in Drumm Street from someone named Cyril Macenery. You wouldn't know him, would you?"

"The fiddler? Sure, we all know Cyril. What you want to do is go along t' the pub at the end of the street, there." She nodded her head to the left. "That's where they all hang out; Ashley, too. Right run down old place it be; you'll see it next the sweet shop."

Wiggins, who was trying to detach the fingers of the little girl who had his trouser leg in a viselike grip, looked as if even a rundown pub would be sanctuary, compared with the Crippses' kitchen. He closed up his notebook, tucked his pen in his pocket. "I can go along there, sir, if you like."

"We'll both go. Thanks very much, Mrs. Cripps."

"If ya see Ashley, tell 'im 'e's wanted 'ere. Bloody fool sits round that pub all day. 'E won't be much 'elp, I can tell ya. Can't even see straight once 'e's got an Abbot's in 'im."

"Okay. Thanks for your time. And I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention this to anyone, Mrs. Cripps."

"White Ellie's what they call me." She lay a finger against her mouth. "Me lips is sealed," she whispered.



"Did you see that skillet, sir?" asked Wiggins, as they walked up the street toward the pub. "There were tiny footprints in the grease." Wiggins shuddered.





ELEVEN


I

THE sign of the Anodyne Necklace creaked in the rain blowing down the dingy street. Its scabrous paint had once been green, but most of the color and detail were now washed out so that Jury could just barely make out the shape of the crude strand of beads which must have given the pub its name. It was an undistinguished, narrow building of dull burgundy-brown which the dusk turned to the color of dried blood. Windows frosted halfway up glowed yellow and obscured the shadow-life within. The pub shared the narrower end of the street with a tiny sweet shop, in which the only sign of life was a flickering telly, and a dusty-looking news agent's on the right. At one time the Anodyne Necklace must have been a coaching inn, though how coach and four could squeeze through the crumbling arch was hard to imagine. The name of the pub, which had been painted on the stone of the archway, was almost obliterated.

"I think it means ‘cure,' " said Jury, to Wiggins's muffled question about the name. No one looked more in need of one than Wiggins. His shoulders were hunched inward against the rain as he sneezed into his handkerchief.



The yellow glow in the windows had come not from the electric lights of the chandeliers but from the gaslight behind sconces on the wall. There were other remnants of a former Victorian elegance: the snob screen at one end of the bar which ran the length of the room; the antique frame of the mirror in need of resilvering. Other than this, there was sawdust on the floor, round deal tables, hard benches lining the walls. An incongruous string of Christmas lights looked either backward or forward to some more festive season. Middle-aged women, clustered in twos and threes, sat with their half-pints, sharp-eyed as overseers watching what their men were up to. Not much, it would appear. Most of them held onto their drinks as if to a past of broken promises. What there was of activity was divided between the dart game at the rear of the room, and one table where a group of some five or six-apparently lorded over by a fat man with pince-nez-seemed intent on some sort of game.

"Slumming, love?"

The girl who addressed Jury actually wore, above the blaze of a very low-cut red blouse, a velvet band round her neck and a beauty spot beneath an eye leaden with mascara and blue shadow. Jury couldn't imagine what custom she could scare up in here. Probably she lived in the street as well as on it.

The bartender, who turned from the optics to knife smooth foam from a pint of stout, seemed to know her well enough. "Go home, Shirl, and get your beauty sleep. You could use it, girl. What'll it be, mate?"

"Information," said Jury, watching Shirl move off, having taken the sting without flinching.

The publican cast a bored eye on Jury's warrant card. "It's Ash again, ain't it." He nodded in the direction of the men at the table. "Over there."

"Not him. It's about Cora Binns. Your name?"

"Harry Biggins." His eyebrows danced upwards in mild surprise as he set two pints before a couple of regulars who stared in the mirror behind the bar and pretended not to listen. "Cora, is it? She never seemed to do no harm."

"No. But someone's done her some. She's been murdered. What do you know about her?"

"Cora? Well, I'll be." Having just named her, Biggins was soon forgetting all about her, as he wiped down the bar and denied any personal knowledge at all of Cora Binns. Several minutes of questioning by Sergeant Wiggins elicited nothing.

Jury took out the picture of Katie O'Brien. "How about this girl, then?" He could not tell from Biggins's expression whether he was lying or not when he denied even more fervently any knowledge of the O'Brien girl. No, he hadn't heard about the accident in the Wembley Knotts station. That Jury found very difficult to believe, but he let it pass for the time being. "She had a music teacher who I was told comes in here. Macenery. Now, please don't tell me you don't know him or I'll have to wonder how you stay in business, Mr. Biggins, given the few people you seem to know. I shouldn't imagine you'd be in business long." Jury smiled.

"Never said I didn't know 'im, did I, now? That's 'im, over there at Doc Chamberlen's table. That ain't 'is real name, Chamberlen; he just uses it for the game. Cyril's the one with the beard."

"What game?"

"Wizards and Warlords, it's called. They're in 'ere all the time. Stupid game, far as I'm concerned. But there ain't no accounting for tastes, is there?" Harry Biggins flashed a gold tooth to let Jury know how cooperative he could be.

"Thanks. Now who in here might have known Cora Binns? Since you didn't." Jury returned the smile.

"Try Maud over there." Biggins indicated a woman whose yellow hair was rolled up on top of her head like a basket of lemons. She was sitting with two others, and all three were coated and kerchiefed.