The woman must have been bound for the Deer Park House party, then, going to or coming back. Despite the hosts’ denying they knew her. It was quite possible they didn’t, but it was also possible she was a guest, invited or not, perhaps the lady friend of someone who was invited. It made sense. You don’t put on Yves Saint Laurent, Jimmy Choo, and Alexander McQueen, then take a train and a cab only to go to the Black Cat. Look: meet me at the pub before you go to the party. Or after, or during. Just slip away. I can’t go there, after all. Why would the killer want to meet the victim in a public place? Because the victim would not have agreed to meet otherwise? The Black Cat was a good venue. Even on a Saturday night, it wouldn’t have been crowded.

“Thank you, Sally,” said Jury. “I might think of something else and be in contact with you.”

“I’m sure you will; police always think of something else.” But she said it in a good-natured way, and they left by the same door they’d entered.

They crunched across the gravel, Jury saying, “My guess is she wasn’t involved; she hasn’t enough passion for it.”

“I dunno.” David Cummins sighed. “People can fool you.”

“Enough have.” Jury moved to the table and patted the cat’s head. “What about the Rexroths, then?”

“They own Deer Park House, as I said. There’s a Deer Park Road, but the house isn’t on it; it’s across Lycrome Road and back a bit. If the woman was headed there, the Rexroths say they’d no knowledge of it.”

“Let’s have a talk with them.”

Cummins got out his mobile.

The black cat looked up, its amber eyes staring intently into Jury’s gray ones.

Did you see anything?

Jury tried to send the cat a message.

Tell me.

The black cat closed its eyes and told him nothing.

4

The Rexroths, Kit and Tip (and it was a challenge to remember which was he and which she), were an elderly British couple in tweeds and cashmere and sensible shoes. One could tell they were given to stout walks along public footpaths, their complexions telling they’d been up and out, meeting every dewy morning of their long lives.

“You wouldn’t think, would you, I mean to look at us, that we’re the hub of Chesham’s social scene?” Kit Rexroth’s eyes were glittery as sequins.

The Rexroths were old and reed thin. Flutes could have been made of their limbs. “I can imagine it. You seem to be as lively as people half your age.” Jury hoped that didn’t sound condescending; people fell into condescension so often with the old, but not always with the old and rich, as if it were quite remarkable to find them alive at all and they had to be dealt with gently.

He was struck by the way Tip and Kit seemed to operate in tandem, a couple of tap dancers: their feet in perfect step, hats tilted forward, canes gliding smoothly over fingers. Jury smiled; he’d never seen a couple so synchronized. If one of them thought murder a good idea, both would commit it.

“You’re here,” said Kit, raising her coffee cup as if to toast the fact, “about the murder.”

“Yes, I am. Oh, no, thanks-” This was addressed to Tip, who was holding the coffeepot aloft. Cummins, though, accepted a cup.

“I know you’ve talked to Detective Sergeant Cummins, but I’d just like to get the picture clearer in my own mind. This woman was wearing a dress by Saint Laurent, an apricot color. Her hair was almost that same color, a darkish ginger. She was about five feet eight. Quite beautiful. The crime scene pictures don’t really do her justice. Are you up for having a look?”

They nodded with a rather inappropriate enthusiasm.

Jury set out the least morbid of the photos.

Kit Rexroth looked at it, bending across the hands hugging her knees and bringing her face nearly level with the table. Jury wondered if she was shortsighted.

“You know, she does look a bit familiar… Does she to you, Tip?” She pushed the photo toward him.

Tip grunted, looked again, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Don’t think so… still…” He turned the photo this way and that, looked hard at it. Then he shook his head. “No.”

Jury picked up the photo and said, “Yours appeared to be the only party in town, at least of the formal sort.”

“How enthralling,” said Kit Rexroth. “You’re thinking she was here.” Kit was shaking her head. “A woman like that, well, I think someone would have paraded her, not stuck her out on the terrace with a gin and a promise.”

Jury said, “How many people were here?”

“Oh, eighty? Something like that,” said Kit. “Though we only invited half that crowd.” She sounded extraordinarily pleased.

That comment only made it even more likely that the dead woman had been headed here, invited or not, for neither of the Rexroths seemed to be sure of who was at the party.

“We have the sort of brawl where people end up spilling out of windows.”

They both laughed.

“That could get messy, Mr. Rexroth.”

Now they looked startled, then saw Jury was joking and laughed again.

“What about the neighbors?” said Cummins. “Don’t you get complaints?”

“We would do,” said Kit, “except the neighbors were here!”

There was another peal of laughter. Jury wondered if the Rexroths were entertaining themselves to death.

“I wonder if I could have a copy of your guest list-”

Cummins broke in: “We’ve got that, sir. Sorry, I should have given it to you.”

Kit waved her hand. “Oh, that’s no problem. Here, I copied it for you.” She handed over pages that had been on the coffee table.

It was a sheaf of paper, rather than a sheet, with names written in longhand.

“It’s divided. Our friends and Tip’s colleagues in the City. He works in Cannon Street. First, there are the people we actually extended invitations to; next, the guests our guests asked if they could bring; next, the guests who brought people they hadn’t asked if they could bring; then, the people who dropped in that one or the other of us might have invited but couldn’t remember, or meant to invite… well, you know what I mean-”

Jury didn’t.

“-and then Tip’s drinking friends at every pub in the City; then, the people we didn’t know were coming but that we sighted in the course of the evening-” Here she put her hand over her eyes as if she were actually standing on a ship’s bow, searching the horizon.

Jury leafed through the pages. Were there this many people in London? “If this woman was bound for your party, perhaps she was in the category of a date invited by one of your guests. Was anyone looking out for someone who never came?”

Kit and Tip both frowned in thought. “No, I don’t recall… there was Neal, wasn’t there?” said Kit, looking at her husband. “Wasn’t he asking about some girl?”

“Um. Yes, I believe you’re right.”

Cummins said, “That’d be the Neal Carver you mentioned before.”

The Rexroths looked at Cummins. “Did we?” said Kit. “Well, then I expect that’s right. And Rudy… Rudy-what’s his last name?”

Tip thought about it but came up empty. “Should be on the list.”

Cummins said, “I believe you told me it was Lands, Rudy Lands.”

“Oh?” said Tip, eyebrows raised, as if it were Cummins, not he, who had invited Rudy.

Jury smiled. The Rexroths were a bit too vague and suggestible for his tastes. He glanced at Cummins, nodded. They both rose. “Thanks very much. We’ll be in touch.”

In the car, Jury said, “What about this Neal Carver and Rudy Lands?”

“We talked to both. The Lands fellow said his girl turned out to have gotten sick; Carver was supposed to have collected his date at her flat in Chelsea. A Miss Helen Brown-Headly. A short brunette who forgot completely about the party, et cetera. She’s not our girl.

“Also, I rang Emily Devere, the woman who actually found the body, and she’s happy to see you.”

“Is she enjoying this as much as the Rexroths seem to be?”