20

At ten-thirty the next morning, Jury was standing in the door of his flat, waiting for the clump clump clump of Carole-anne’s Tod’s. Tod’s, she had told him (as if he wanted to know), were really hot at the moment and sturdy enough for work. Her job at the Starrdust in Covent Garden hardly needed “sturdiness,” but he let that pass.

Clump clump clump. Here she came.

“Super! You waiting for me?”

In that sunrise misty yellow getup with one sleeve off the shoulder, anyone would be waiting for her. The Tod’s were ankle boots with a pointed toe. Jury said nothing; he merely held up her unreadable telephone message with the heart.

She took it. Her pearly pink lips moved as she mimed the words. She handed it back, her aquamarine eyes (sunrise over the sea, this morning), said, “Better get Jason.”

Then down the stairs, clippity-clippity clop, quick as could be before Jury’s mouth could close around, “Get back here!”

Again in his flat, he tossed the bit of paper in the trash and sat on the sofa. Before him on the coffee table, in addition to his mug of tea, he’d laid out the photo of Mariah Cox, the snapshot of Morris that Dora had pressed on him, the Rexroths’ guest list, and the rough map he’d made of the area of the Lycrome Road between the Black Cat and Deer Park House. An easy walk, he’d make it inside of ten minutes.

Jury picked up the guest list again, noted the other names of men who’d gone unaccompanied by women, wondering if any of them had had experience with the Valentine’s escort service. Even though Simon Santos had already agreed that he himself was to meet Stacy Storm, still…

Still, nothing. He picked up the phone and rang Wiggins.

“Meet me at Valentine’s Escorts in half an hour, will you? The other men on the list, the single men Cummins said he’d spoken to. They’d been at the party all night from nine to midnight.”

“Why are you interested in them? She was there to meet Simon Santos.” Wiggins’s voice was frowning.

“I know.”

“He’s really the prime suspect, sir.”

“If he killed her, he was being pretty stupid about it, about not covering his tracks and not seeing he had an alibi somehow. Pretty stupid.”

“Most murderers are pretty stupid.”

“Right. Meet me there.”

Maybe they were, as Wiggins said, pretty stupid. He dropped the receiver into its cradle; he refused to trade the old black phone for one-as Carole-anne suggested-“you can take with you round the flat.”

“I’m not going anywhere; I don’t want to take a phone round the flat. I want to sit and talk or at least stand in one place. I don’t want to be in the kitchen frying up sausages whilst I’m talking about a serial killer.”

He was grumpy even in fantasy. He pulled his jacket from the back of a chair, picked up his keys, and left.

Mrs. Blanche Vann was gracious. Jury doubted many of the owners of escort services would be offering them bananas and cups of coffee, coffee made, for heaven’s sake, in a cafetière. Jury was never sure how long to wait before you pushed down the plunger. He didn’t much like these devices; he wanted to see coffee run from the little tongue of a pot.

“Thank you, Mrs. Vann. You’re very kind.” He left his banana on the small table she had pulled over between Wiggins and him. Wiggins had started in on his own banana.

Jury said, “I talked to Rose Moss-or Adele Astaire, as she calls herself-”

“Silly name,” said Blanche Vann. “I told her she might just do well to think up another.”

“Fred Astaire’s sister, that was,” said Wiggins. “Married the son of the Duke of Devonshire.” He peeled his banana down another inch.

Jury fixed him with an icy smile.

Said Mrs. Vann: “No? I didn’t know that!”

Neither did Wiggins, yesterday. Jury said, “I’ll call her Rose. She said Stacy had been living in her flat with her most weekends for the last six months.”

“That’s right, as far as I know.” Mrs. Vann stirred cream into her coffee with a tiny spoon.

“Rose has been with the agency how long?” he asked.

“Quite a few years. Six, eight. She looks younger than she is. One or two clients like a girl on the young side.” She sipped her coffee, showing no embarrassment at all at the implications of that statement.

“Were Rose and Stacy good friends?”

“Were they? Well, I’d think so, sharing a flat and all that.”

“But only on weekends. Did you know that Stacy lived in Chesham?”

Her mouth tight shut as if to emphasize her point, she shook her head, then said, “I did not. The address she gave was in Fulham, same as Rose’s. Well, I’d have no reason to doubt that, would I?”

“You would have had to reach her at times she wasn’t there, though, to set up appointments.”

“That’s right. Usually the girls called in. But if I needed to ring her, it was all done on her mobile; indeed, all the girls worked that way, since they’re so often not at home.”

“That makes sense.” Jury looked around the room again, at the dark moldings, the restful pale gray walls, the comfortable furniture, surprised the room could be so pleasant here in this nondescript office block in the Tottenham Court Road.

She said, looking thoughtfully at her cup, “Adele once said she thought Stacy a bit of a mystery.”

“I’d say that Adele is right.” Jury smiled at her and got up. “Thank you, Mrs. Vann. We’ll be talking to you.”

Walking to the car, Jury said, “You hungry, Wiggins?”

“Yes. That banana didn’t really fill me up.”

As if it were supposed to.

“It’s nearly two. I have to make my weekly check on Danny Wu.”

Wiggins broke out in a big smile as he opened the car door. “I’m with you; but it’ll be bloody crowded now.”

“Ruiya’s always crowded.”

“Right, boss.”

Jury rolled his eyes. So now it was “boss.”

21

The queue even at this late hour stretched out the door, nearly to the corner. Jury and Wiggins didn’t bother with it but went straightaway to the front.

When the old waiter saw them at the door, he held up his hand, fingers crooked, bidding them come back to where he was. The waiting lunch crowd, those who saw this, acted as if it were some sort of guerrilla takeover and objected strenuously until Jury whipped out his ID and said, “Police business.” That struck some of them as a poor excuse, and their reproaches followed the two detectives on the way to their table. Jury was used to it; it happened nearly every time he’d been here.

Theirs was the only table in the room with a “Reserved” sign. Ruiva didn’t take reservations; hence the crowd beyond the door.

“You’d think they’d learn, wouldn’t you?” said Wiggins, looking disdainfully at the line.

“Learn what? What choice have they unless they want to get here at five a.m.? Like a Springsteen concert, this is.”

The old waiter, who might or might not have understood these words, smiled and swept the plastic sign from the table, motioning for them to be seated. He bowed and went away. Jury and Wiggins sat down. Wiggins began immediately looking at the long, thin menu as he always did before he would order the crispy fish as he always did.

A little elderly woman replaced the old waiter now, probably kin. She came with tea and to take their orders.

Jury said he’d have the shrimp tempura.

Wiggins was still concentrating on the menu, brows knit together in rapt thought.

“And he’ll have the crispy fish.”

Annoyed eyes regarded Jury over the menu’s edge. “You might allow me to order my own lunch.”

“Might, but won’t. You always eat the crispy fish.”

The little woman looked amused, which was reward enough for the bulletlike glances still zinging their way, the long queue looking as if it hadn’t shortened at all. No one had moved a foot forward.