Soon to be breached. Through half-closed eyes, he watched a small, stout man settle himself opposite with a rustling and crackling noise that turned out to be a sandwich and a bag of crisps placed on the table between them. Then a slurp and smack that turned out to be coffee. His fellow passenger did not take closed eyes as a barrier to conversation or companionship. The train clung stubbornly to Redhill; he wished it would move. It did.

“Care for one?” He was holding the bag of crisps across the table.

Some people didn’t appreciate the finer points of train travel. Jury opened his eyes, smiled, shook his head. “No, thanks.”

“That looks good.”

Jury realized he meant the jam roll. “Got it from the tea trolley.”

The man looked over his shoulder but didn’t see the trolley. “Think I might have one myself when it comes by.”

“Might not be by again before London. We’re not far out. Have this one.”

“Oh, now-”

“Really. Go ahead. I’m not hungry. I don’t know why I got it.” He smiled. “Throwback to childhood, I guess. Jammies.”

The man pulled the jam roll toward him, smiling, too. “Thanks. Name’s Mattingly, incidentally.” Mr. Mattingly held out his hand.

Jury shook it. “Richard Jury.”

“Speaking of childhood. I’ve just been with my sister for two days. We had great times, we did, as kids. She’s in a bad way now. Real bad.” Looking away from the jam roll to the scenery sliding past, he sounded sad.

“I’m sorry.”

Mr. Mattingly nodded and went on. “It’s a trial, no doubt about it. She’s holding on. I don’t see how, and neither does she. Nothing but skin and bones now.” He wrestled the plastic off the jam roll.

Skin and bones. Which was probably why Mattingly was intent on stuffing down whatever he could. Not so much for himself, but in aid of his sister. He bit off half the roll. “Quite nice, this.”

Jury could think of nothing to say. He looked out at the building up of urban scenery, the gray, uneven edges of London’s outlying landscape.

Mattingly went on about his sick sister, dying sister, apparently. He finished his jam roll, drank his coffee, still talking ten minutes later when the train whined and screeched into Victoria.

Where had all the rest of these people got on? he wondered. Over twice as many as there’d been leaving Brighton. They stood in the aisle and managed to stumble forward as if they were being prodded with guns and bayonets. Jury didn’t know what brought this violent image to mind.

Behind him, Mr. Mattingly was still discoursing about life and death. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s not more merciful, the people that help you out of it… That’s what she said herself and asked me if I knew anyone. ‘Cora, where’d I ever meet up with anyone like that, my dear?’ Still,” Mattingly went on, “I could hardly blame the woman. God.”

They were down the “Mind the Gap” step and onto the platform now. “Sorry,” said Mattingly, switching his small bag to his other hand so that he could shake hands with Jury again. “Not much more boring than to have to listen to some stranger on a train talking at you.

It went through Jury’s mind then: Bruno.

Reminds me of Bruno, Jenkins had said. The steel ball was rolling across the surface of the pinball machine injury’s mind. He watched it fall into the hole and said, “No, I’m very glad you did talk to me, Mr. Mattingly.” It was the truth. “I’m terribly sorry about your sister.”

“Yes. Thanks. Well, I’ll be off. Thanks again for the cake.”

Mr. Mattingly swung on down the platform, while Jury stood in place and watched him go. No, he wasn’t really seeing anything except his own mental images.

That was what Jury had been trying to remember. Bruno. Hitchcock.

Strangers on a Train.

59

Instead of fighting his way through the underground rush hour, Jury stood in the queue for a taxi. It was long but manageable. While he waited, his mobile sounded and he grabbed it to hit the talk button, but not before he’d picked up a few smug smiles from those who’d recognized the ring. A grown man, imagine. He thought he’d done well by simply remembering to charge it.

It was Jenkins.

“We’ve got something here, Richard. I can’t say if there’s any significance. It’s a receipt for a book. From Waterstone’s. Date is the day Kate Banks was murdered. It was found by a uniform when he was helping to take down crime scene tape.”

Jury was next in line. He said, “Hold on, Dennis,” as the next cab pulled up. “I’m getting into a cab.” He gave the driver his address, climbed in, shut the door. “Right. Receipt found where?”

“Wedged down between pavement stones. Why didn’t forensic find it that night? Beats me.”

But not Jury. “Your SOCO people would have found it; they didn’t because it wasn’t there.”

Jenkins pondered this. “You mean it was planted?”

“Yes. What’s the book? Is it on the receipt?”

“It’s been rained on, wait a minute… Shoe-aholic, whatever that might be.”

Jury looked out the window; they were just passing through Clerkenwell. “I know about Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik because I know a ‘shoe-aholic.’ I’ll save you some legwork, Dennis. The person this is going to lead to is a detective with Thames Valley police. Detective Sergeant David Cummins. He bought the book when he was in London. You’ll want to talk to him.”

Jenkins sounded disbelieving. “Thames Valley police? A detective? You’re way ahead of me.”

“Not at all. I just happened to know about the book because I saw it in Cummins’s house.”

“This is pure gold, isn’t it.”

Jury smiled. “That, or at least plate. Worth the trip, I assure you. I’ll be going to High Wycombe headquarters tomorrow. Want to come?”

“Yes, but I can’t. I’ve got some bureaucratic nonsense to take care of.”

“I’ll fill you in later.”

Jenkins said he’d be waiting and rang off.

The cab pulled up to Jury’s house. Lights everywhere. Were they having a rave? Why were the lights on in his flat? Carole-anne could be in there teaching the salsa to a roomful of Mexicans. He paid the driver, gave him a big tip.

As the cab pulled away, Jury thought about the receipt left at the crime scene. He shook his head.

On the part of the shooter, that had been a huge mistake. That person should have let well enough alone.

He was right about Carole-anne. He was wrong about the Mexicans. She was talking to Dr. Phyllis Nancy, both of them standing in his living room.

Oh, Christ, he’d done it again-forgotten.

Yet she smiled at him. That was Phyllis. “Who,” she said, “would want to eat at the Ivy when they could dine here? Its charming ambience, its mood lighting, its early-detective decor.”

Said Carole-anne, “She’s being funny.”

“Phyllis, I’m so sorry.” He turned to Carole-anne. “I’m glad to see you’ve met Doctor Nancy. Which of you got here first?”

“Had to let her in, didn’t I?” Carole-anne’s tone was querulous. It would be. Jury would be hearing about this for weeks. She turned on her heel and went into the kitchen. “She brought food: sausages and eggs, cheese, bread, some red wine. Good. I can do a nice fry-up.” She reappeared at the kitchen door. “Okay with you, Super?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking if it’s okay with Phyllis?”

“It is. She brought the food, after all.”

Phyllis said, “It’s certainly okay with me if you’re doing the cooking.”

“Good,” said Jury. “Phyllis and I will sit here and drink wine. Sounds like a winning scheme to me.”

Carole-anne was reevaluating her KP duty. “I’ll have some wine too between turning the sausages.”

Jury pulled glasses from an old armoire he’d picked up from a sale of Second World War stuff held at the Imperial War Museum. They were used to hold guns, originally. This fascinated him. He set the glasses on the coffee table and looked at Phyllis. “This was really sweet of you, Phyllis.”