Wiggins sighed. “Be careful what you wish for,” he said darkly.

Jury raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m only thinking of all the extra responsibility. I mean, that’s what I found.”

Jury rolled his eyes.

“Come on, love,” said David. “Let’s get to the point.” To the other two he said, “Chris is one for the drama.”

“You bet I am.” She wheeled over to the end of the shelf, reached up, pulled out a chunky-looking dark brown snakeskin shoe.

“Manolo Blahnik!” she said, as if she’d been waiting all her life to cry the name.

Wiggins looked blank.

“Manolo Blahnik, the famous shoe designer.”

It was Jury, not Chris, who said this, earning a look from her of admiration and from Wiggins a look that wondered if his boss was daft, knowing stuff like that.

“My upstairs neighbor,” said Jury, “has a pair and cited chapter and verse on his shoes.” Carole-anne gave him bulletins on her wardrobe changes, too. To Chris Cummins, Jury said, “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Mrs. Cummins.”

“Chris, please. Lost you?” She looked from one to the other, including her husband in her head shake. “And you call yourselves detectives. All right, give us the photo, love,” she said to David.

Jury looked at Cummins.

David opened the same folder that had held the photo of the Jimmy Choo shoes and took out another. He passed it to his wife.

“Now, you see this?” She pointed to the imprint of a shoe, or rather the heel of a shoe. The rest of it was lost in the earth and leaves. “This,” she said, tapping the heel, “could have been made by this shoe.” Again, she held up the chunky Manolo Blahnik shoe.

David Cummins already had out a magnifying glass, which he handed to Jury wordlessly.

Jury compared the imprint with the heel he held in his hand, then passed glass and photo on to Wiggins. “Has a cast been made of this?”

Cummins nodded. “Yes.”

“If it is a shoe, where would the imprint of the rest of it have fallen, do you think?”

“I’d guess the sole was on the hard surface of the patio. The stone is pretty much flush with the ground.”

“Forensic thinks it’s a heel print?”

“It’s certainly possible. They’ve been rather stumped by it, think it might have been done by the roadworks equipment.”

Chris sighed impatiently. “It’s a Manolo Blahnik, I’m telling you.”

Jury was doubtful, but he smiled at her nonetheless. “Good for you, Chris.” Seeing how delighted she was with the results of her detection, he didn’t add that there were probably a dozen other things, including shoes, that could have fit the image in the photo. Actually, he was impressed; the lady had a very good eye for detail.

“You think the killer was a woman?” said Jury.

She said in a tone heavy with irony, “We do all sorts of things, Superintendent. Scrub floors, make cookies, kill people. Yes, that’s what I’m saying: a woman wearing Manolo Blahniks.”

Her husband said, “It’s not as tidy as that, Chris.”

“Still…,” said Jury, picking up the shoe. “Could we borrow this?”

“Yes, of course.” She looked over her wall of shoes, smiling. “I knew this lot would come in handy someday.”

“London, would you say?” He was rocking the shoe slightly in his hand.

“You couldn’t buy them in Amersham. I’d try Sloane Street first. There’s his shop there. Besides that, you might find shoes in some designer knockoff place or one of those consignment places. I’ve found several pairs myself at a shop called Design Edge. It’s in Kensington High Street. You could try those places.”

“You shop in London?”

“Oh, you mean this?” She gave the wheelchair a slap and smiled. “No. But Davey goes to London when he gets days off. Remember, he’s the one who brought back the Kate Spade.” She laughed.

And David, once again, looked grim. The Kate Spade shoe episode was wearing thin.

Chris wheeled back to the center table and picked up a largish book with a glossy cover sporting a pair of high-heeled emerald green shoes, looking as if they’d been carelessly stepped out of, one lying on its side.

The title was, Jury thought, pretty forced: Shoe-aholic. He said, smiling, “I take it you identify with shoe-aholicism?”

She laughed. “You rolled that right out, Superintendent. Yes, I do. Davey brought me this from Waterstone’s Friday. It’s luscious.”

“Not nearly so much as the real thing,” said Jury, looking at the wall of shoes. Then he got up. “Thanks so much for the Manolo Blahnik insight. And the tea, of course. We’ll look into it.”

She sighed. “My theory is being dismissed, I can see that.”

“Absolutely not. You ready to go, Wiggins?”

His sergeant was back at the shoes again, looking broody.

“What do you think of that heel business? Just her passion for shoes?”

“That’s a great deal of money tied up in that collection. Eighty pairs, I counted. Say between five hundred, a thousand a pair, you’re looking at around sixty thousand.”

Jury smiled. “You counted them. I thought you were just admiring them.”

“Don’t be daft. This”-he pointed to his head, presumably the brain-“is always ticking over. Where to next?” Wiggins tested the acceleration by gunning the motor and then releasing the pedal.

“The Rexroth house. The people who threw the party. It’s not far. It’s on this road just a short distance past the pub.”

As they pulled away from the curb, Wiggins said, “Speaking of shoes…”

Jury rolled his eyes. Were they again?

“I must say, I’ve a friend who’d look smashing in that sequined number.”

Jury wasn’t aware Wiggins had a “friend,” much less a friend who’d look smashing in sequins.

Wiggins went on: “A DS doesn’t make that kind of money.”

“No. But his wife’s family apparently has that kind.”

“Oh.” Wiggins frowned and drove on.

33

They found Kit Rexroth on her own, Tip, the husband, absent in the City, performing whatever financial wizardry had made them rich.

Wiggins produced his warrant card, holding it close enough to Kit’s face that she could have kissed it.

“Something else, Superintendent? I can’t imagine anything we didn’t tell you the other night. Will you sit down? Will you take tea?”

The question barely had time to leave her mouth before Wiggins stepped on it, saying, yes, they would.

“Not if it’s any trouble,” Jury tacked on, loving the accusatory look he got from his sergeant. Traitor.

“Not for me, it isn’t. I’m not fixing it.” From the table between them, she raised a tinkly little bell.

Jury thought the summoning bell was a fairy story, but apparently not. A maid entered as if she’d been at the door just waiting. Kit asked for tea and some of “those little cakes the cook is hoarding.”

A slight bow. An exit.

The myth of the English country house and its workings seemed to be right here in the flesh. But of course it didn’t really exist. Staff should hide their dissatisfaction, unlike the maid, who looked as if she were sucking a lemon. Would she spit in the tea?

“What is it, then, Superintendent?”

There was no hostility in the tone, just honest curiosity.

“Your party, Mrs. Rexroth…”

She looked off, bemused. “You mean the night of the murder? Whether I saw that young woman? Whether she was here?”

“No. You’ve answered that. This is about another guest: Harry Johnson.”

“Harry Johnson.” She again looked bemused. “I don’t believe… well, there were a lot of people here, as you know, friends of my husband or even friends of friends.”

“Still, you claim the dead woman wasn’t.”

“No. What I claim is I would have known her had she been. A very striking woman. But this Harry Johnson-”

“He was on your guest list. He’s tall, about my height, very blond hair, very blue eyes. He said that your husband often lunched in a pub in the City called the Old Wine Shades.”