“I think I’ll have a word with the boyfriend if you don’t mind.”
DI Jenkins spread his hands in a don’t-mind gesture. “Nicholas Maze is his name.”
Jury thanked him and walked over to the bench past the ambulance whose horn was now being brought into play. It wailed out.
“Nicholas Maze? I’m Superintendent Jury, New Scotland Yard CID.”
“Look, is there any way to keep this business from getting into the papers?”
Always the first concern. Keep my name out of it. “It’s hard to say. But I’m sorry about your friend. How long had you known her?”
Nicholas Maze looked uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than sad. Collar unbuttoned and tie pulled off to one side, but still constricting his neck, he looked like a man who’d just tried to throttle himself. “Over a year,” he muttered.
“Then you’d met her often before this?”
A nod that was more a nervous tic came from Maze. “A dozen times, well, more like two dozen times. It was, you know, a convenience.”
Maybe for you, thought Jury. “You’re married?”
Again, that puppetlike nod, a jerk of the head, as if the movement cost him.
“Does your wife know about the escort service?”
“You mean about DeeDee? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.”
“You’re sure of that? That she had no suspicion?”
“Yes. She didn’t know-” Quickly, Nicholas Maze looked at Jury. “Ann? You’re thinking my wife-?” The man gestured around the courtyard. “Could have done this?” His laugh was short. “She’d be the last woman in London to shoot somebody in a jealous rage.”
“What did Deirdre Small tell you about herself?”
“DeeDee? More than I cared to know.”
This chilly response made Jury wonder.
“She was a chatterbox, DeeDee was.”
Jury waited for more, but it didn’t come. “If you could be more specific, Mr. Maze. What did she chatterbox about?”
“Well, she was born in London. Lived all her life here, she was fond of telling me. Cricklewood, I think she said. Not much education; she left school around sixth form.”
“Anything about her friends?”
“Look. Dee was a talker. Nonstop sometimes. I didn’t listen to most of it, frankly.”
“The thing is, you see, information about people she knew could be vital-”
Maze interrupted, surprised. “You’re saying you don’t think this was just an opportunistic killing? I mean, some crazy just murdered her because she was here?”
“That’s what suggests it was planned. Someone knew she’d be here. St. Paul’s isn’t the most obvious venue for a spontaneous shooting, is it?” Jury said nothing about the other murders in Bidwell Street and Chesham.
Nicholas Maze shook his head. “Can I go now? You’re the second one I’ve told all this to.”
“You’ll try to think back on what she said, won’t you?” Did they ever? Try to forget it as quick as possible, was more likely. “I’ll have to check with Detective Inspector Jenkins about your leaving.”
“Who’s he?”
The man really didn’t have the attention span of a flea.
SOCO had gone or was going, and only Jenkins and his young WPC and the uniforms keeping order remained. Most of the onlookers had dispersed. The crime scene tape remained. It would require police presence here tomorrow; St. Paul’s was a tourist draw. St. Paul’s and a murder even more.
“Cut him loose, Ruthie,” said Jenkins to the woman constable. “Tell him we’ll probably have to talk to him again and for him to stay close.”
“Guv.” She nodded and left. Pretty. Jenkins thought so, too, Jury guessed, from the way he watched her go.
He said, “Right now, I know sod-all.” He stashed a notebook in his coat pocket. “I’m sending my men round to this Smart Set place tomorrow. You’d say this was done by the same shooter, right?”
“I don’t know. The same as Bidwell, yes, but Chesham? If I could only work Chesham into the mix.”
“They all worked for escort agencies.”
“Yes, but it’s location that doesn’t make sense. Mariah Cox was in London nearly half the time. Why not kill her in London like the others? Then we’d get the serial killer syndrome.”
“I hope the newspapers don’t get hold of that angle. I can just see the dailies-” Jenkins drew a banner in the air: “‘Escorted to Death.’ That kind of thing. ‘Death Has an Escort.”’
Jury smiled. “You’re probably right. Did you notice her shoes?”
Jenkins frowned. “Shoes? That again?”
“Strappy sandals.” Jury checked his watch, although he didn’t need to, as the bells were hammering away at the hour of ten. Jury was thinking of the Old Wine Shades. It wasn’t far from here. It wasn’t far from Bidwell Street, either. He thought he would stop in for a drink. “You know a pub called the Old Wine Shades?”
“Hm. Yes. Martin’s Lane, near King William Street. The river?”
“That’s the one. Care to stop for a drink? I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got to get home. Take you up on that later, may I?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to meet your friend.”
“I think you really would. Good night.”
Jenkins gave him a small salute and they parted.
“Supposed to be here around nine. I mean, he usually is on a Monday night, but not tonight.” Trevor said this as he poured out a measure of wine into Jury’s glass. “On the house, Mr. Jury.” Trevor watched carefully to see how Jury’s mouth would receive this Haut-Médoc.
Jury definitely responded to “on the house,” considering what this glass would cost him if it were on him instead. “That’s very generous of you, Trevor.” He raised the glass. “Here’s to you.” He tasted the wine. “Wonderful.”
“One of Mr. Johnson’s favorites.”
“You’ve known him a long time, have you?”
Trevor had pulled out another bottle and was wiping it down, giving it a good rub. There were few customers tonight in the Old Wine Shades, two couples at tables and three men down at the end of the bar. He took Jury’s question to be rhetorical, it seemed. He said, “Knows his wine, Mr. Johnson does. He once rattled off the names of every premier cru vineyard in Bordeaux.”
The cork was now out of the bottle he’d just rubbed down, and he was taking it down the bar with two glasses he picked up along the way.
For the one millionth time, Jury would have given an ear for a cigarette. He could really understand van Gogh if the man had quit smoking.
Think. Three women. Three escort agencies. If the paper tried to make the case for a serial killer, if someone pulled in the Chesham murder to make three, the police would be faced with panic. The two women in London looked to have been done by the same person, but he wasn’t at all sure that this person had killed Mariah Cox in Chesham.
Trevor was back, refilling Jury’s glass.
“I can’t afford this, Trevor.”
“Oh, not to worry. Mr. Johnson told me to have this out for him tonight. Though he should have been in before now-and speak of the devil,” said Trevor, and Jury looked around. “You’re quite late, Mr. Johnson. What’ve you been up to?”
Harry slid into the tall chair beside Jury, smiling. “Nothing I wouldn’t want to run in the Times tomorrow, Trev.” He turned the bottle round. “Good. The St. Seurin. I see he’s had half the bottle.”
“Two glasses, Harry.”
“Set me up a glass, Trevor.” To Jury, he said, “God, but you’re looking less than lively.”
Jury thought Harry appeared to be the exact opposite. “Death does that to me. How about yourself?”
Harry had taken out his cigarette case and extracted a cigarette, which Trevor lit for him with a match from an “Olde Wine Shades” matchbook. Jury had never noticed the “e” on the end of that fussy “Olde” before. The pub was, however, very “olde.” It dated back to the Great Fire. Not many buildings standing in London could claim that antiquity.