“Fine with me,” said Harry.

“Oh,” said Jury, as if he’d only now thought of it. “I was in Chesham yesterday. At the Black Cat.”

Harry looked at him. “Oh, really?”

“There was a black cat there.”

Having finished his lunch, Harry was pulling keys out of his pocket. How did he make it appear like a rabbit out of a hat? He was off his stool and working his arms into the black cashmere coat that Jury coveted. He smiled. “It’s called the Black Cat. Would the presence of one be surprising?”

“No. But this was a second black cat. Actually a third, but we won’t go into that. No, this was a different one than was there before. Rather, they’re both there.”

“My God! The cat came back! That sounds familiar.” Twirling the keys on his finger, Harry smiled. He took a step nearer Jury. “You didn’t fuck it up again, did you?” Laughing, he was across the room and, laughing, out through the door.

Jury smiled at the remains of his lunch. No, you murdering sociopath, I didn’t fuck it up again.

In the Snow Hill station of the City police, some five minutes from St. Paul’s and some ten from the Old Wine Shades, DI Jenkins was considering what Jury had said and biting the corner of his mouth. “God knows I’m catching enough flak on this that any suspect, including the prime minister, would help.”

“What about Nicholas Maze?”

“I’m getting bugger-all from him. I mean, according to the journalists we’ve got a serial killer loose. You can imagine.” Jenkins folded his arms across his chest. “Is this enough to bring this guy in? Sounds a little”-he rocked his hand back and forth-“squishy. You think it’s enough he was in Chesham at the time of the Cox woman’s murder?”

“That’s not all. He was at the Rexroth party; she was supposedly on her way there. I don’t think Harry Johnson goes to many parties.”

Jenkins brought the chair in which he’d been leaning back down to the floor. “But if he intends to murder Mariah-Stacy, why in bloody hell would he show himself, especially at something as public as a party?”

Jury shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Jenkins scratched his ear. “The other two victims. He didn’t have an alibi either time. But just because he hadn’t an alibi…?” Jenkins shrugged.

Jury scraped his chair closer to Jenkins’s desk and leaned on the desk, arms folded. “Look: if Harry Johnson weren’t Harry Johnson, I’d agree, it’s too flimsy. But Harry Johnson murdered one of his lady friends in a place in Surrey. I couldn’t prove it. He also kidnapped two kids out there and put them in the basement of his Belgravia house-”

Jury paused. He didn’t want to tell Jenkins a dog had actually saved the kids. Here it was again: the absolute ludicrousness of the story. But he plowed on nonetheless. “He told me this involved story about his best friend’s wife, son, and dog-‘The dog came back.’” He heard Harry saying it right now in his head.

“The dog?” said Jenkins.

“The dog.”

The cat came back. Harry, you swine. Jury knew what had happened. He wasn’t going to tell Jenkins. That was the whole point: he wanted Jenkins to hear it from Harry himself. Now it was the cat; the cat was the alibi. Jury smiled.

“What’s funny?” Jenkins smiled, too.

Jury wiped the smile off his face. “Nothing. Look, it’s surely enough to bring him in for questioning, even if not enough to hold him.”

Jenkins nodded. “I expect so.” He rose. “But what was so funny?”

“Relentless bastard, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

48

DS Alfred Wiggins gave the impression of a man who would always tip his hat to a lady, had he been wearing a hat; indeed, he seemed to feel the lack of a hat because he couldn’t raise it.

“Why, Mr. Wiggins, how very nice!” said Myra Brewer. “How very nice of you to look in.”

“My pleasure, Mrs. B.” He walked in the door, which she had opened wider.

“Now, what can I get you? I just made tea and was about to pour myself a cup.”

“Tea would be welcome.” He was shaking free of his coat. “A bit nippy out there, all of a sudden.”

She had his coat folded over her arm and was smoothing it. “And it’s been so warm. But that’s weather for you. Well, you can’t count on weather, but you can on tea.” After putting the weather in its place and hanging his coat in the hall cupboard, she made for the kitchen. “You just make yourself comfortable; I’ll get down another cup and be back in a tick.”

If there was one thing Wiggins knew how to do, it was to make himself comfortable. He sat in the same armchair he’d occupied before. He sighed, shut his eyes briefly, enjoying the quiet of the parlor set off by the homey clatter coming from the kitchen. Yes, this was definitely his milieu, and he was happy to be in it.

He scooted down in the chair and crossed an ankle over a knee and looked around, not with his detective’s eye, but with the eye of a homebody. A little clock ticked on the mantel; a group of fairings sat on the inset bookshelves to the right of the electric fireplace. Above it hung a bucolic scene of cows in a field and sheep lounging beneath a big oak tree. The picture listed slightly. It probably needed two hooks, not just one. Put a hammer in his hand and he could fix it.

A rattle of crockery announced Myra Brewer’s return. He rose smartly to take the tray from her hands and to place it on the table between the easy chairs.

“Thank you. And I brought some of those Choc-o-lots you like.”

“Is that a seed cake there?”

“Fresh baked.”

That must have been what was scenting the air when he walked in.

There was more conversation that might have been considered desultory by anyone who couldn’t appreciate a cup of Taylor’s Fancy Ceylon or a cake as fine as lawn.

The reason why he had come, he said, “not to bring up the painful subject of your goddaughter, but-you remember Superintendent Jury?” But why should she, as Wiggins, sitting here, had nearly forgotten him? “He was interested in anything you might have that would help with her background. What I mean is…” Wiggins helped himself to a slice of seed cake and considered how to raise the subject of Kate Banks’s night work. “I expect you know, I mean, from reading the papers, as it’s been all over them, what sort of other work Kate was doing…”

But Myra Brewer was made of sturdier stuff than Wiggins supposed. Crisply, she nodded and said, “Yes. She was working for one of those escort places. Well, who am I to judge her? No, not Kate. It doesn’t take away from Kate one bit that she was doing that.”

Wiggins admired her attitude. “The point is, we’ve discovered that one woman at one of these agencies knew the third victim. Superintendent Jury thinks there might be other links amongst these women. This is the best seed cake I’ve ever eaten.”

She smiled. Her cup and saucer rested on her lap. She stopped smiling and studied it. “You mean, did Kate know the others?” Myra shook her head. “She might have done, but I don’t think so. There’s no way of telling now.” Her eyes returned to her cup.

“No, of course not. But we thought you might have some old pictures, photographs, snapshots of Kate with friends.”

“Well, now, I do have an album or two.”

“Is it possible she went to school with either Mariah Cox-she who called herself Stacy Storm as a professional name-or Deirdre Small? They were all pretty close to each other in years.”

“Kate attended several schools. I remember Roedean was one. If you’ll just wait a moment…”

“Roedean?” Wiggins was surprised. “But that’s one of our best schools.”

Myra had risen and now looked down at him, still sitting with his slice of cake. “You think a girl working at what she did, being an escort, do you think she couldn’t have the brains for a school like Roedean?”

“No, I wouldn’t have thought so.” It was always a source of delight to Jury that Wiggins was completely literal.