“Sergeant,” said Jury mildly, knowing he could not dehypnotize Wiggins, short of shooting him in the back.
Was this what she’d wanted to see him about? To talk about shoes?
But Chris Cummins short-circuited whatever extraneous topic Jury might have been going for by saying, “Christian Louboutin. He’s my favorite.” Then she reached up and took down one of the high-heeled shoes, this one of blue satin, then its mate, perhaps the better to make her point, turning both over for Wiggins to eye. “Red soles,” she said. “Louboutin always does red soles.”
“I wonder what it’s like to walk on,” Wiggins said.
“That,” said Chris with perfectly good humor, “I couldn’t tell you.”
Unmindful of his gaffe, Wiggins plowed on, pulling out one of another pair, the last in the bottom row. They weren’t nearly as comely as the others, just unembellished black patent.
“Oh, not those. That’s Kate Spade; I never did like her shoes. They’re so… uninteresting.” She turned to look at her husband. “Sorry, dear.” Then back to Wiggins, with whom she seemed to have formed a sort of shoe bond. “David brought those back by mistake. He was supposed to get Casadei and he got Kate Spade.” She shoved back the uninteresting Kate.
David Cummins didn’t seem to appreciate his wife’s joking tone. Indeed, Jury thought he went a little pale.
Wiggins, sensing some condition in another he should attend to, changed the subject and said to Cummins, “You were with London police, were you?”
He nodded. “South Ken. I was a DC. Got a promotion when I came here.”
Wiggins sighed. “Be careful what you wish for,” he said darkly.
Jury raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m only thinking of all the extra responsibility. I mean, that’s what I found.”
Jury rolled his eyes.
“Come on, love,” said David. “Let’s get to the point.” To the other two he said, “Chris is one for the drama.”
“You bet I am.” She wheeled over to the end of the shelf, reached up, pulled out a chunky-looking dark brown snakeskin shoe.
“Manolo Blahnik!” she said, as if she’d been waiting all her life to cry the name.
Wiggins looked blank.
“Manolo Blahnik, the famous shoe designer.”
It was Jury, not Chris, who said this, earning a look from her of admiration and from Wiggins a look that wondered if his boss was daft, knowing stuff like that.
“My upstairs neighbor,” said Jury, “has a pair and cited chapter and verse on his shoes.” Carole-anne gave him bulletins on her wardrobe changes, too. To Chris Cummins, Jury said, “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Mrs. Cummins.”
“Chris, please. Lost you?” She looked from one to the other, including her husband in her head shake. “And you call yourselves detectives. All right, give us the photo, love,” she said to David.
Jury looked at Cummins.
David opened the same folder that had held the photo of the Jimmy Choo shoes and took out another. He passed it to his wife.
“Now, you see this?” She pointed to the imprint of a shoe, or rather the heel of a shoe. The rest of it was lost in the earth and leaves. “This,” she said, tapping the heel, “could have been made by this shoe.” Again, she held up the chunky Manolo Blahnik shoe.
David Cummins already had out a magnifying glass, which he handed to Jury wordlessly.
Jury compared the imprint with the heel he held in his hand, then passed glass and photo on to Wiggins. “Has a cast been made of this?”
Cummins nodded. “Yes.”
“If it is a shoe, where would the imprint of the rest of it have fallen, do you think?”
“I’d guess the sole was on the hard surface of the patio. The stone is pretty much flush with the ground.”
“Forensic thinks it’s a heel print?”
“It’s certainly possible. They’ve been rather stumped by it, think it might have been done by the roadworks equipment.”
Chris sighed impatiently. “It’s a Manolo Blahnik, I’m telling you.”
Jury was doubtful, but he smiled at her nonetheless. “Good for you, Chris.” Seeing how delighted she was with the results of her detection, he didn’t add that there were probably a dozen other things, including shoes, that could have fit the image in the photo. Actually, he was impressed; the lady had a very good eye for detail.
“You think the killer was a woman?” said Jury.
She said in a tone heavy with irony, “We do all sorts of things, Superintendent. Scrub floors, make cookies, kill people. Yes, that’s what I’m saying: a woman wearing Manolo Blahniks.”
Her husband said, “It’s not as tidy as that, Chris.”
“Still…,” said Jury, picking up the shoe. “Could we borrow this?”
“Yes, of course.” She looked over her wall of shoes, smiling. “I knew this lot would come in handy someday.”
“London, would you say?” He was rocking the shoe slightly in his hand.
“You couldn’t buy them in Amersham. I’d try Sloane Street first. There’s his shop there. Besides that, you might find shoes in some designer knockoff place or one of those consignment places. I’ve found several pairs myself at a shop called Design Edge. It’s in Kensington High Street. You could try those places.”
“You shop in London?”
“Oh, you mean this?” She gave the wheelchair a slap and smiled. “No. But Davey goes to London when he gets days off. Remember, he’s the one who brought back the Kate Spade.” She laughed.
And David, once again, looked grim. The Kate Spade shoe episode was wearing thin.
Chris wheeled back to the center table and picked up a largish book with a glossy cover sporting a pair of high-heeled emerald green shoes, looking as if they’d been carelessly stepped out of, one lying on its side.
The title was, Jury thought, pretty forced: Shoe-aholic. He said, smiling, “I take it you identify with shoe-aholicism?”
She laughed. “You rolled that right out, Superintendent. Yes, I do. Davey brought me this from Waterstone’s Friday. It’s luscious.”
“Not nearly so much as the real thing,” said Jury, looking at the wall of shoes. Then he got up. “Thanks so much for the Manolo Blahnik insight. And the tea, of course. We’ll look into it.”
She sighed. “My theory is being dismissed, I can see that.”
“Absolutely not. You ready to go, Wiggins?”
His sergeant was back at the shoes again, looking broody.
“What do you think of that heel business? Just her passion for shoes?”
“That’s a great deal of money tied up in that collection. Eighty pairs, I counted. Say between five hundred, a thousand a pair, you’re looking at around sixty thousand.”
Jury smiled. “You counted them. I thought you were just admiring them.”
“Don’t be daft. This”-he pointed to his head, presumably the brain-“is always ticking over. Where to next?” Wiggins tested the acceleration by gunning the motor and then releasing the pedal.
“The Rexroth house. The people who threw the party. It’s not far. It’s on this road just a short distance past the pub.”
As they pulled away from the curb, Wiggins said, “Speaking of shoes…”
Jury rolled his eyes. Were they again?
“I must say, I’ve a friend who’d look smashing in that sequined number.”
Jury wasn’t aware Wiggins had a “friend,” much less a friend who’d look smashing in sequins.