“Okay, get onto Thames Valley, to DS Cummins, and get this Simon Smith’s address, or, rather, get him to find out if the Rexroths have any idea who the ‘Smith’ might actually be.”

Wiggins nodded, turned away while punching in the number on his mobile phone.

Finding Ondine free of the gray-winged couple, Jury walked over to the counter. “Ondine.”

She looked up with a slightly mischievous smile.

“How did Stacy Storm pay for the dress?”

Ondine pulled over a large black ledger, opened it, and ran a red-coated fingernail up and down columns. “Barclaycard.”

“That must have been quite a credit line she had.”

“I don’t know, except it was approved.”

“All right. I won’t take up any more of your time. You’ve been a world of help, Ondine.” He handed her his card. “If you remember anything at all-”

“Including my name.” Big smile. “Believe me, I will.”

What a flirt.

“I have a friend who’d look terrific in that black gown in the window.”

Again, Ondine whispered, “Tell her to pop round. I might be able to give her a very nice price.”

“I’ll do that,” Jury whispered back.

The doorman or security guard or greeter at the door told them in chilly tones that the shop was just closing.

“No, it isn’t,” said Jury, holding up his ID and pushing past him into the light, bright air of Jimmy Choo.

Whereupon the man immediately went to get someone else, a lithesome-looking woman who had a way of standing with her feet crossed and her hands crossed inside out before her. He thought this difficult pose came naturally to her, and he wondered if she had been a model. Models seemed able to accomplish the most unusual and uncomfortable-looking postures.

In this clear and uncluttered interior, Jury thought he might be reassessing the common attitudes toward wealth and materialism. In the cathedral-like quiet, in their little niches, the artfully arranged jewel-toned shoes covered the walls like stained-glass windows.

These shoes looked both impossibly rich and flyaway at the same time. They were displayed, in their lit-up little alcoves, as works of art. And rightly so, Jury thought as he took in that metallic silver sandal with the jewels running all the way up the instep, or that silver snakeskin with its four-inch heel and straps twining up the ankle, or that glittery leather with its narrow straps impossibly entwined. The architectural detail of these sandals was remarkable. Wiggins was nearly inhaling them, he was so close to the wall. He was getting down with the shoes.

Jury made a guess and asked the saleswoman if she recalled a woman purchasing the shoes in the photo he held out, perhaps a week ago? He thought after buying the dress, Mariah might have walked across the street to Jimmy Choo’s.

He was right. The purchase had been made, but there was no phone call that she remembered. Yes, she’d paid with a Barclaycard.

He walked over to Wiggins. “You thinking of buying a pair for that cousin in Manchester?”

“Not bloody likely; do you see what these things cost? That’d be-” Wiggins’s mobile sounded, and he flipped it open, spoke his name, and listened. Then he thanked the caller. “That was Cummins. Simon Smith is probably Simon Santos. He knows Timothy Rexroth from his work in the City. Simon’s in mergers and acquisitions. And we’re in luck; he lives right around the corner.” Wiggins inclined his head in that direction. “ Pont Street. I’ve the number; should I call?”

Jury looked at his watch. It was nearly six, a good time for drinks before dinner. From whatever he did in the City, Simon Santos might just be relaxing over one. “No. Let’s surprise him.”

18

He answered the door with a drink in his hand, whiskey by the look of it, and in a cut-glass tumbler that cost a hundred pounds by the look of it. It was, after all, Pont Street, just steps away from Beauchamp Place and Harrods, high in the Knightsbridge heavens.

Simon Santos had his French cuffs rolled up, his silk jacket casually tossed over a rosewood banister, and his Italian leather shoes polished to mirror brightness.

Jury and Wiggins pulled out their IDs simultaneously, and Simon Santos regarded them, apparently unsurprised.

And, Jury noticed, apparently unresentful.

Holding the door open wider, Santos said, “I just got in.”

Not from work, surely, Jury thought. Nothing he could thus far see in this house looked as if it had done a day’s work in its life.

Santos invited them to sit down in a room that could serve as a template for any voguish magazine spread. A massive fireplace with all sorts of baronial brass fittings, above which hung a portrait of a truly beautiful woman dressed in green velvet with white skin against which her dark red hair burned. On the hearth lay two chocolate Labradors, their heads raised, and so alike that they could have been a pair of andirons. Well-mannered, too. After a brief scrutiny of the interlopers, they yawned and lowered their heads to their paws and resumed their snooze. Jury reached out his hand and ran it over the silky head of one, which made the dog sigh.

There was a lot of butter leather interspersed with damask furniture and a ton of dark green velvet dripping down the long windows and puddling on the floor. Jury and Wiggins sat in club chairs from which Jury wondered if they would ever rise. There was something to be said for money.

It was one of those rooms one could only describe in accents of taste: luscious, delectable, ambrosial, scrumptious. The room’s rich brown walls and creamy moldings made Jury feel as if he were sunk in a chocolate mousse.

“What can I do for you? Care for a drink?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Santos. We’re looking into the death of a young woman named Mariah Cox.”

Jury saw a muscle tighten in Santos ’s handsome face, then relax when he heard the name, which Jury supposed meant nothing to him.

“I don’t know anyone of that name.”

“No, but you do-or did-know Stacy Storm. That was Mariah’s professional name, so to speak.”

Tightness returned and went to every muscle, not just the one in his face. He killed a little time by rising to get himself a fresh drink: a cube of ice plinked; a siphon hissed. He returned to the sofa.

Jury wondered if he’d be stupid enough to deny all knowledge of Stacy Storm.

No. Santos took a couple of swallows of his whiskey, then he returned to the sofa and said, “That was terrible. Awful. I was…” He had been leaning forward, glass dangerously loose in his fingers (considering the plummage-swept rug beneath it), and now he sat back to consider what he was: “Devastated.”

Jury studied the man’s expression and what it told of devastation, but he couldn’t read it.

It was Wiggins who asked, “How well did you know her, sir?”

Santos ’s smile was tight as he looked from Wiggins to Jury and back again. “I expect you know, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“No, actually, we don’t, other than that you, ah, engaged her on several occasions as a Valentine’s escort.”

“I did, yes.” The tone was bitter, and he looked away.

“What we’re interested in, though, is whether you saw her at other times; that is, as Ms. Storm’s flatmate put it: ‘off the books.’ Not as a Valentine’s escort.”

“Well, I expect she won’t get in trouble now with Valentine’s.”

“No, Stacy’s in as much trouble as she’ll ever be in again.”

Santos regarded him. “You say that, Superintendent, as if you sympathize.”

Jury said nothing, just went on looking at him.

“So, yes. We saw each other any number of times ‘off the books,’ as you say.”

Wiggins said, “What’s ‘any number’?”

“Every week in the last three months. She was only in London on weekends. Now I know why. I mean, if she was also, or really, another woman. Mariah?”