“Yes, it really was thoughtful,” Carole-anne called from the kitchen. “I’ve had it in mind all day to get eggs and sausages, and hash browns too. Only you didn’t get any hash browns.” She pointed out this weak spot in their menu when she carried in the bottle of wine.

“You’re right,” said Phyllis. “I should have thought of that.”

“Probably just as well. I’m watching my weight.” She appraised Phyllis, who was sitting not on the sofa but in a chair, making her hold on Jury speculative.

Carole-anne noticed this. She smiled.

Jury knew this small act of generosity on the part of Phyllis was beyond Carole-anne to work out. She wouldn’t understand it, much less perform it. Jury poured wine into three glasses.

Carole-anne said, “That’s a nice one, that. Had a glass at the Mucky Duck the other evening.”

As the wine was in a gallon jug-Phyllis had a keen sense of humor-Jury wasn’t surprised that the Mucky Duck featured it. “Maybe I should have Trevor taste it.”

“Who’s Trevor?” asked Carole-anne, taking a drink of her wine.

“The wine guy at the Shades. Knows everything.”

“Quite nice, this. Of course, I don’t purport to be an expert. Like Trevor.”

Jury laughed. Conversation could be a minefield for Carole-anne. It was so easy to put a foot wrong.

“How was Brighton?” asked Phyllis. “Worth it?”

Carole-anne, who, to her chagrin, hadn’t known about Brighton, went back to the kitchen as if she couldn’t care less.

“It was, definitely,” said Jury. “Except I missed our date,” he added sotto voce.

And sotto voce, Phyllis answered, “But we’re having it.”

An awful clatter came from the kitchen, as if a half-dozen pot tops were being bowled across the floor.

“Sorr-ee!” yelled Carole-anne, sticking her head round the kitchen door. “Dropped the skillet!” The head disappeared.

Jury leaned across the table, his hand stretched toward Phyllis. “Sit over here.”

Phyllis smiled but shook her head and was about to say something when another series of rattles came from the kitchen.

“Oh, God, but I’m clumsy tonight!” The ginger hair poked round the doorway. “A plate. Hope it wasn’t the good china!”

“It better not be the stuff I bought at Christie’s.”

Carole-anne shrugged as she studied their relative positions: a coffee table apart, good. She moved back into the kitchen. There came a bright sizzle from (Jury supposed) the reclaimed frying pan.

“I forgot, I forgot,” said Jury, putting his hands through his hair, “the uncle, Lu’s uncle. You said-”

“No, not yet,” said Phyllis quickly, reaching across the table. “He hasn’t done anything yet. There’s still a chance, you know, I think more of one than-”

“Here we are!” fluted Carole-anne, ushering in two plates filled with fried eggs, buttered bread, and sausages.

Jury frowned, taking the plate she held out. “That was awfully quick.” He inspected the sausages. “You sure these are done, Carole-anne? It’s only been a few minutes.”

“Of course it is. I’ll just get mine.” She hurried off, hurried back, carrying a nonmatching blue plate, and sat down beside Jury.

The phone rang. Jury rose to answer it, his plate in hand.

It was Wiggins. “Guv, Harry Johnson called several times today.”

“Out of jail, is he?” Jury sniggered and forked up a bite of sausage. He had the phone wedged on his shoulder.

“What he wants is, he wants to know what you did with his dog. You know-Mungo.”

60

“DI Jenkins sent it over. Said you’d want to see it,” said Wiggins.

Jury had just come into the office carrying a plastic bag and now looked at the receipt from Waterstone’s. He heard the voice of Kate’s godmother, talking about her love of books: that big Waterstone’s bookshop in Piccadilly. The date was the day of Kate’s murder. The time registered was 11:00 a.m. Chris Cummins had mentioned David bought it in London Friday.

“I was thinking about it, you know, being found at the crime scene.” Wiggins was stirring his tea slowly, as if the spoon were a divining rod. “It doesn’t have to be Cummins’s receipt. Other people bought that book.”

“Two other people, Wiggins. I was just over in Piccadilly. Water-stone’s sold three copies that day. Not many people would be that interested in a glamour book about shoes on any one day. It’s coffee table, a lot of photographs, pricey. On top of that, do you think one of the other two buyers, he or she, just happened to drop the receipt at the spot Kate Banks was murdered? I might be able to stretch coincidence that far if the book had been a best seller-but not this book.” He took out and held up the glossily jacketed book he’d just bought at Waterstone’s. He’d been standing since he’d come in; now he sat down.

“What does it mean?”

“It means the killer did a stupid thing-went back and planted the receipt.”

“You mean to make it look like Cummins-”

“Yes.”

“So what you’re saying is, Cummins didn’t kill Kate Banks.”

“No, he didn’t kill her; he loved her. According to Shirley Husselby, he was besotted with her.” Jury paused to look at Wiggins’s cup. “You must have added eye of newt to that tea instead of sugar the way you’re stirring. Get your skates on.” Jury opened the door and was through it before Wiggins could ask where they were going.

He didn’t drink his tea; he frowned at it. Eye of newt rather put him off.

Not much over an hour later, they pulled into the car park beside High Wycombe police headquarters. Jury had called David Cummins from the car and asked to see him there.

Cummins was in the muster room with a dozen other detectives and uniforms when Jury and Wiggins walked in. He looked pleased to see them, which wrenched Jury’s heart, really. He liked Cummins; he was sorry about what was going to happen.

“What’s all this about?” Cummins’s smile went from Jury to Wiggins. He pulled a couple of chairs around to the desk for them.

In proximity were three or four other detectives at their desks. Jury said, “Can we find someplace a little less public?”

The smile dimmed, but Cummins said, “Come on.”

They walked down a hall to an interview room, went in, and sat down, Wiggins off to one side, notebook out.

Jury said, “Have a look at this, will you, David?” He’d pulled out the copy of the receipt and placed it before Cummins.

“Yeah. For that book I bought Chris the other day. About shoes-but why…?”

“Police found this yesterday at the crime scene, on the pavement where Kate’s body was found.”

The head that had been lowered to look at the bit of paper didn’t rise. Jury left it for several seconds. He knew it was the mention of Kate. Cummins wasn’t a controlled-enough actor to put on a blank face at that.

Finally, Cummins picked up the receipt again, as if it would change by alchemy into a thing that would explain all of this. He just shook his head. “You lost me; you’ve completely lost me. But the receipt, I didn’t lose that. It’s at home. There’s a box Chris keeps receipts in.”

“No, I don’t think it’s there, David.”

There was a silence except for Wiggins’s pen scratching on paper.

David looked up at Jury. “You think I was there-where Kate was…” But he didn’t seem able to say “murdered.”

“How could this receipt have got there?”

David made the same point that Wiggins had earlier. “It belonged to somebody else who bought the book. That’s obvious. At least to me.”

“You were in Waterstone’s, weren’t you, on the Friday? You went to London on Fridays.”

He nodded. He was too much a detective not to see where this was going. Where, he knew, it had already gone.

“Two other copies of the book were sold that day, later in the afternoon. Of the three of you, how many would happen to be at the spot where Kate Banks was murdered?”