Cummins shook his head. “She was pretty rattled by the whole thing. She couldn’t raise anyone in the pub, so she called police on her mobile.”
“What way did she come onto the patio and tables?”
“She often came round from the footpath, walked behind the pub, and then up to the back and the patio through the trees. It’s not really a wood, is it? Just the trees behind the pub. Said she saw a cat, a black cat, run off into the trees. Probably the pub cat.” Cummins plowed on. “Now, as to the party idea: a well-to-do couple named Rexroth were throwing a pretty big one at their home, and it’s near the pub. Deer Park House. According to them, they’d never seen the woman, didn’t know anything about her. I’m pretty sure they were being truthful.”
“Just how big a party?”
“Eighty or more, probably more. On that score they were a bit vague.”
Jury smiled. “If I had eighty people around, I’d be more than vague; I’d be dead drunk.”
Cummins liked the levity. “There was plenty of that, too, they said. Good-natured couple, the Rexroths.”
“Then they’ll be glad to see us.”
The Black Cat was on the Lycrome Road, on the edge of Chesham. They were by then pulling into the small car park. The pub itself was pale yellow-washed, pleasant and unassuming. “Do Not Cross” tape cordoned off the back of it.
“Place has been closed off since,” said Cummins, “but I expect that’ll be taken down now. No reason to interfere with business any more than’s necessary. Owners are on an extended holiday, and it’s being looked after by a friend of theirs. Name’s Sally Hawkins and she lives in Beaconsfield but helps out if they need it. Her niece, I think the child is, lives with her.”
Jury turned from the small collection of trees to look at the pub. “Is Ms. Hawkins in?”
“Should be. I called to tell her you’d want a word with her. She wasn’t happy.”
“They never are. Show me where the Devere woman found the body.”
They walked across the car park and a patch of grass, wet and in need of cutting, to a patio where several tables were set out for the use of the customers in fine weather. Each had an umbrella on it, furled now. On one of them lay a black cat, also furled, thought Jury, curled tightly and peacefully sleeping. Jury ran his hand along the cat’s back. “Hello, cat,” he said. To Cummins: “Pub cat?”
“I shouldn’t wonder. Well, they’d have to have a black cat, now, wouldn’t they?”
The place looked deserted, but any place would, thought Jury, with a streamer of police tape across its car park.
“It was this table here,” said Cummins, moving to the table farthest from the car park. “She must’ve been sitting at it, we can’t be sure, but she was found sprawled behind it. Body was lying mostly on the patio, shoulders and head on the grass. It was as if she’d fallen off the seat at the impact. Forensic say the shooter was probably standing, given the path of the bullet, the way it hit the victim.” Cummins raised his hand, simulated a gun pointing downward.
“Drinks on the table?”
Cummins shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
“It would seem, then, they weren’t friends sharing a quiet drink together.”
Cummins looked at him. “It would certainly seem they weren’t friends.”
Jury smiled; he liked the mild put-down. “Suppose we have a word with Ms. Hawkins.”
They went through the door at the side, near the stone terrace, into a little hall and then into the bar. The room was long, narrow, not especially large, but certainly pleasant. Jury heard the tapping of high heels on stairs and a blond woman came into the room.
She wasn’t bad-looking, only a bit hard. Her eyes were like slate, her blond hair brassy, weighed down with the extra color that came out of a bottle. “Saw you two messing about outside, so I thought I’d better come down.”
DS Cummins told Sally Hawkins who Jury was. “He’d just like to put a few questions to you about the Saturday night.”
She tossed a lock of yellow hair from her shoulder. “Well, I told you what I know, which is sod-all. I’m having a drink, me. You want something?” Without much interest in the answer, she went behind the bar, expertly flipped a glass down from a rack, and placed it under the optic that held one of the lesser-quality gins.
Jury wouldn’t have expected her to be drinking Sambuca with coffee beans floating on top. He sat down on one of the bar stools. Cummins stood. “I’m sorry to be covering the same territory that you’ve already gone over, probably more than once,” said Jury. “But things can always use a fresh perspective.”
Her grunt said she didn’t agree, but she drank her gin happily enough.
“You’re here just temporarily?”
She nodded.
“You have a niece who lives with you?”
“Not a niece; she’s by way of being a ward.”
A vague designation, he thought, for a little girl’s life. He waited, but she didn’t enlarge upon “by way of being.”
“Is she here now?”
“No. She’s in Bletchley at her cousin’s. She’ll be here later tonight. I sent her off when that happened.” Here, Sally Hawkins dipped her head toward the car park.
“Bletchley?” said Jury. “I’m going there with a friend. Bletchley Park. I expect you know it.”
“Place where they messed about with codes during the war? Sounds bloody boring to me. What I want to know is, when are they taking down that tape out there? Don’t I ever get the gawkers, though?”
Cummins said, “It should be down this evening, I expect. But you can understand the need for it; we don’t want people trampling up the scene.”
“Well, who’s going to trample it, I’d like to know, what with that roadworks out there mucking about? Business is down over seventy-five percent because of that lot. No one could park until today. They’ve had it blocked off for nearly a week. I tell you.”
She shook her head at a world bent on making her miserable; then, with nothing left to complain about, she sank further into discontent, pulling a cigarette out of a pack on the bar.
Jury asked, “Had you ever seen the woman before or had any idea who she was?”
“Course not. It’s what I told the bloody police. I don’t know what she was doing out there.”
“There was a party Saturday night at…” Jury looked at DS Cummins.
“Rexroths’. Deer Park House, just up the road.”
Jury went on: “Given the way the woman was dressed, the thought is she might have been there, or been going there.”
“Funny old way to be going,” said Sally, giving Jury a big helping of smoke right in his face. “In those shoes. I don’t think so.”
“You’re right there. Jimmy Choo,” said Cummins.
“Ha!” said Sally. “Would you listen to him.” Her glass standing empty, she turned back to the optics.
Cummins’s face flushed a little. “It’s the wife. She’s really into shoes. Loves them.”
“Well, let’s hope she loves you more, dearie,” said Sally, back turned. “Those shoes cost the earth.” She turned back to them, her glass holding two fingers of gin.
“She could have been at the Black Cat to meet someone. Was there anyone in the pub, any stranger, on the Saturday night?” But if the “stranger” was planning murder, he’d have avoided putting himself on display.
Sally tapped ash from her cigarette into the aluminum tray. “Ha! Any stranger? Not even the regulars were here except for Johnny Boy and his old dog and Mrs. Maltese.”
When Jury looked at Cummins, the sergeant nodded. “Police have talked to them. No joy, no one saw a thing. No one was in the car park, no one sitting at the tables outside.”
“Was there any other function around that might have called for dressing up?”
“Not bloody likely,” said Sally.
The woman must have been bound for the Deer Park House party, then, going to or coming back. Despite the hosts’ denying they knew her. It was quite possible they didn’t, but it was also possible she was a guest, invited or not, perhaps the lady friend of someone who was invited. It made sense. You don’t put on Yves Saint Laurent, Jimmy Choo, and Alexander McQueen, then take a train and a cab only to go to the Black Cat. Look: meet me at the pub before you go to the party. Or after, or during. Just slip away. I can’t go there, after all. Why would the killer want to meet the victim in a public place? Because the victim would not have agreed to meet otherwise? The Black Cat was a good venue. Even on a Saturday night, it wouldn’t have been crowded.