FORTY-FOUR

It was Arthur Ryder who opened the door, surprised to see the two of them there in tandem. “Vernon!” He kept his face straight. “Have you got a warrant?”

“Ask him,” said Vernon. “He’s the Filth, not me.” Arthur shook Jury’s hand. “I expect you know already about the woman who was shot? Simone Ryder?”

Jury nodded. “I heard, yes.”

Arthur Ryder shook his head. “I don’t know if that makes the whole thing less or more mystifying.” He looked from one to the other. “It makes me anxious just to ask, but—have you got news?” They were still standing by the open door and as he said this, he was looking past them at Vernon’s silver BMW. “One of your people, Superintendent? Doesn’t he get to come in from the cold?”

“No,” said Vernon. “Look, Arthur, we do have news—”

“Christ!” The single syllable nearly broke in two, sounding both anxious and sorrowful. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

This reaction interested Jury. Vernon Rice would never have thought that. He’d always believed Nell was alive. He’d always known it.

“No, Arthur. She’s not dead. She’s alive.”

“You mean you’ve seen her? What—?” Then he was off the sofa and almost throwing himself across the room as if he meant to reach the door by the shortest way possible. He flung it open.

“Art!” called Vernon.

When Nell saw him, she sprang from the car and ran around it, ran toward him. When they met in the center of the courtyard she jumped up and tried to wind herself around him.

Vernon watched and sighed. “She bloody well didn’t do that when she met up with me again.”

Jury couldn’t help himself; he cuffed him one up the side of the head, laughing.

“What? What?”

Arthur and Nell, both laughing, both crying, reached the door.

“I just can’t believe it,” he said, releasing her from the grip of his arm. “Where’d you find her? How did you find her?” This was directed at Jury, naturally assuming it was police work.

“Don’t give me any credit for it. It was Vernon.”

“Pure luck. I was coming back from Cambridge, Art, and some instinct took me down that old road that leads to the compound you don’t use anymore. The horse barn, the exercise ring—”

“That’s where you were?” he said to Nell.

“Not for the last two years, Granddad, no. Only a few—days.”

Jury thought Vernon was right in not letting Arthur know Nell had sought him out in London. Vernon, being Vernon, didn’t take this as Nell’s preference for him, but just that he was the one who could be of the most help. And why he failed to conclude that the person who can help is the preferred person, Jury damned well couldn’t work out.

Arthur still held her hand, as if reluctant to lose physical contact, as if she might disappear if he didn’t hold on. “I’ve got to call Roger. Or have you?” he asked Vernon. “Have you seen Roger?”

Vernon shook his head. “This is the first place we came. Where’s Maurice? We need to tell him, too.”

“Don’t know,” said Arthur, absently. “Outside, probably the stable.”

“I’ll look for him,” said Jury. He wanted to talk to Maurice alone.

 

Outside, Jury found one of the stable lads, who pointed him off in the direction of the training track. He found it on the other side of a stand of oaks and elms, the path running through the trees. When he got to the track he saw that the crime-scene tape was down, but whether removed by Cambridge police or Maurice himself, Jury didn’t know.

Out there, blowing into the straight on the other side were Maurice and a horse Jury recognized as Samarkand. If that horse was running at this breakneck speed at his age Jury would love to have seen him as a three-year-old. He must not have touched the ground; he must have been wind.

And Maurice himself, bent in half over the horse’s neck, would have made one hell of a jockey. Continuing to grow as he had must have been bitterly disappointing to him. Jury wondered if Maurice hated his body. He filed that question away for future consideration.

Maurice saw Jury as he came out of the second turn and pounded on past. He then stood up in his saddle and slowed Samarkand, rode the horse from the track and dismounted.

“Maurice.” Jury held out his hand.

Maurice shook hands with him, tossing his head to get the dark hair off his forehead and out of his eyes. Jury thought it a gesture something like Samarkand’s shaking out his mane. “You must have been frustrated watching yourself get taller and taller. It took you out of the race.”

“I guess I was. Why are you here? Has something happened?” Anxiety raised his voice a notch.

Another five minutes of not knowing wouldn’t hurt him. “You told me you weren’t much of a rider. You were being modest.” Jury smiled. “You know, I’m still wondering about Aqueduct—” Jury paused and looked at him.

“Wondering what?”

“That night. Just how sick the horse was. You recall telling your grandfather he—Aqueduct—had a bad cough—what you called, I think, stable cough?”

“That’s right. It’s like an allergy; it could be a reaction to hay or straw.”

“And you told Nell this, too.”

Maurice nodded.

“Knowing Nell would stay with the horse, as she often did.”

Maurice said nothing. His normally pale complexion paled even more.

Jury waited, but Maurice wasn’t going to say any more. “Nell said she didn’t see any signs of it.”

Maurice started to answer this charge, but then did a double take. His eyes widened. “She said? What’re you talking about?”

“Nell’s come back. She’s up at the house.” Jury started to say something else, but Maurice jumped up on Samarkand (to the horse’s apparent dismay) and was off. Walking to the house from this spot would have taken three minutes, maybe four. But Maurice must have found even three or four minutes too long. That was going to be some reunion! Jury wanted to see it, yet he stayed here by the track.

Scene of the crime.