“See the sole?” Her forefinger tapped it. She pulled down another, this one of black suede, its vamp consisting of a twist of material running like a lattice up and above the ankle. “Red, always red,” she said. “I think that’s clever. It’s his signature-Louboutin’s.”

“They look pretty pricey.”

“They’re pricey all right.” She shoved back the black-and-sequined numbers and dragged out another, a jeweled slingback. “Over a thousand pounds, this one.”

Her husband winced. “Hell, Chris, the superintendent’s going to think I’ve been on the take.”

“What take? Is there anything around Chesham worth taking? There’s nothing to take.” As she pushed the red-soled shoe back, she sighed. “That murder is the most excitement we’ve had all the time we’ve been here.”

“How long have you?”

David Cummins stretched out his long legs and then pulled them quickly back. It was as if he didn’t want to call attention to his perfectly workable legs in front of his wife.

She hadn’t noticed anyway, sitting in her wheelchair, drinking her tea.

“Just three years. I was with uniform before. South Ken. I expect I liked London a lot more than Chris-”

“I expect you did,” said Chris with a small laugh. “It was never much good for a wheelchair.”

There was no rancor in her voice, but there was still a message there.

And the expression on his face was oddly like that on Bobby Devlin’s, as if David Cummins, too, missed a language that had meant a lot to him.

The cabbie who’d picked up Mariah Cox at the station told Jury no more than Cummins himself. Cummins had organized a meeting at the police station in Chesham.

“All dressed up like a dog’s dinner, why, right off I thought she was headed to that swank party at Deer Park House. Took several fares there from other parts of town. So I was a mite s‘prised when she said the Black Cat. Course, like I tol’ ’er, I couldn’t get to the pub’s door. There’s that roadworks out in front. Gone now, but it was a mess for a couple days, cars detourin’ and business at the pub a shambles, and how she could walk in them high heels-” He shook his head, and that was all.

It was on the way to the train that Cummins told Jury about Chris. “It happened in London, Sloane Square. There are a lot of zebra crossings there, and drivers just bloody hate them. You can’t assume they’re going to stop. Chris doesn’t assume, she insists. Pedestrians have the right of way, after all, so Chris just walks right on. Well, she did it this time, and the car didn’t or maybe couldn’t stop. It was going at a good clip. He hit Chris. But he did stop and call for an ambulance, so it wasn’t a hit-and-run. He got nicked for it, huge fine and served some time. The thing is, Chris was pregnant and she had a miscarriage.”

“God. How awful.”

“Worse, we can’t have kids now.” He sighed and pulled up to the station. “Why can’t drivers see that car crashes can be absolute bloody hell?”

Jury thought of Lu.

“We got a fairly hefty settlement out of it.” Wanly, he smiled.

“Does that explain the shoe collection?”

“Oh, no. Or not wholly. Chris’s family had money, quite a bit. She was always indulged, being the only child: nannies, good schools-that pricey one on the coast-and when she left there she could have gone to Oxford, Cambridge, you name it, but she chose not to. Instead, she married me.” Bleakly, he smiled. “Some trade-off, right?”

“I’d say she got the best of the bargain, David.”

That Jury’s saying this pleased DS Cummins no end was very clear.

They sat in the car awhile, a no-parking zone in front of the station. Jury asked him if he’d lived all of his life in London. Was that why it seemed home to him?

“No. Northumberland’s where I was born. We moved to the south, first to Portsmouth, then to Hastings. Mum loved the coast. Bit of a gypsy she was, liked moving. Hastings, Brighton, Bexhill-on-Sea, and back again. Drove poor Dad crazy.” Cummins laughed, apparently in tune with the craziness.

“What kind of work did he do?”

“Greengrocer. Funny, isn’t it? Back then I’d have done anything to get away from aubergines and apples. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“You made the move from London because of Chris, then?”

Without answering directly, David said, “Well, you have to make small sacrifices, don’t you? Like giving up my pack-a-day habit.”

Jury gave a short laugh. “That’s no small sacrifice. I know; I stopped three years ago myself.”

David said after a pause, “I’m afraid I haven’t done it yet. You know, the odd fag out behind the dustbins? Did you use any of the crutches-I mean, like those holders that let you down gradually? Or nicotine patches?”

“No. I always figured it was more than nicotine.”

“Me, I’m waiting for a Stoli patch. Or a Guinness one. Something that’ll really do me some good.”

Jury laughed.

David went on, apparently fond of the subject. “It’s hard for a woman, I mean, another person, a nonsmoker, to be around a guy who smokes. I guess a kiss doesn’t taste right; it tastes of cigarettes.”

Jury smiled. It sounded like a song by Cole Porter: Your lips taste of cigarettes… He said, “How romantic we once were about smoking. Remember Now, Voyager? Paul Henreid lighting up the two cigarettes? One for him, one for Bette Davis?” He looked at Cummins, assessing his age. “You probably weren’t born yet.”

“I’m no kid; I’m thirty-seven. But I’ve seen that film all right. It’s great, except in the end. She could have had him; why didn’t she take him?”

Jury thought but couldn’t remember. “Well, as I remember it had a pretty grandiose moral tone. Most films did back then. Probably it had to do with honor.”

“Bugger honor,” said David with a grim smile.

10

Fifteen minutes later, Jury was on the Metropolitan Line train bound for London and talking on his mobile to Wiggins.

“Somebody’s been spending a lot of money on Mariah Cox,” said Jury. “There’s got to be a well-heeled man in this mix somewhere.” He hadn’t meant the pun. “I’ve just been introduced to a world of shoes, Wiggins. By DS Cummins’s wife, Chris.”

“Shoes.” Wiggins said it contemplatively rather than with curiosity. “You mean the Jimmy Choos?”

“His and others. I had no idea there were so many gorgeous women’s shoes.”

“Some are rather extreme.”

Jury heard the sound of metal on metal. Spoon on kettle? No, Wiggins had gone off spoons. “Extreme? Which designer are you thinking of?”

Wiggins was silent for a few seconds. “Well, Jimmy Choo, for instance.”

Slowly, Jury shook his head. “As I was saying, some man’s been very generous with Mariah Cox.” Too bad she hadn’t just stuck to Bobby Devlin, he thought. “Or men.”

“A bit sexist of you, guv.” Before Jury could scathingly reply to that, Wiggins told him to hold on. “I’ll be back in a second.”

The train lurched for a moment, forcing the whey-faced child across the aisle back in her seat. She was probably eleven or twelve, and her empty brown eyes fastened on Jury like leeches. She should have been wearing a sign round her neck: “Nobody home.” Jury stared back at her. He wasn’t in the mood. “Wiggins? You there?”

No answer. The girl was chewing bubble gum and blew a big bubble right toward him, probably in lieu of sticking out her tongue.

The train shuddered to a stop at Rickmansworth. Wiggins came back from whatever expedition he’d been on. “I’ve liaised with all the divisional people. Talked to vice in case she’s a pro-”

“Bit sexist of you, isn’t it?” He smiled, and the smile accidentally took in the bubble-gum-blowing child, who stopped blowing and did stick out her tongue. “Anyway, I’m bound for London, going back to my flat. It’s gone seven, Wiggins; why are you still at the Yard? Go home.”