Melrose continued to stare at Jury.
“Oh, for God’s sakes. I’ll go first.” Jury was certain that Rosie Moss knew more than she’d told him; now was as good a time as any to ring her. He did. “Rosie, hello. Richard Jury… yes, that one. Look, if you’ve nothing on, how about a drink tomorrow night… No?… Thursday night, then?” He danced his eyebrows at a leery-eyed Melrose Plant. “Okay, I will. Thanks.” Jury rang off. “See? Simple as that? Rosie’s with Valentine’s. So you take one of the others.”
“If you were actually talking to someone just now. You could have been faking the whole thing.”
Jury just gave him a look.
“Oh, very well. Smart Set. I like the name better.”
“Right.” Jury got out his mobile phone. “We’ll call that first.”
Melrose threw up his hands. “Wait a minute: you think I’m going to do this right now?”
“Why not? I did it right now.”
“You don’t trust me to do it?”
“No.”
“Hell.” Melrose reached over and grabbed the mobile. “What’s the number?”
Jury slid a page from his small notebook across to Melrose. “Don’t forget the London code’s just changed.”
Melrose glared. “I’m not a child.” He tapped in the number and waited for the ring. “Yes… hello… I was just wondering… I’m going to be in London-”
Jury held up a page on which he’d been writing. “-tomorrow and I’m interested in your, uh, service.”
Jury went on writing.
“And I was just wondering about the procedure… Yes… Yes.”
Jury held up his note: “They’ll want to know what kind of girl.” “Oh, I’m not particular-no, wait, I’d say a blonde, tallish, good-looking, of course, but then you wouldn’t have one that’s bad-looking, would you, a-ha?”
A twitter came out of the mobile.
“That sounds all right… Where will I be staying? At my club. Boring’s. It’s in Mayfair… Oh, cocktails and dinner, I think… At my club? Well… look, I’ll get in touch after I get to London to pick a place to meet… Yes.” He gave her his particulars, including a credit card number. He had to wrestle the card out of his leather billfold. “Yes. Good-bye.” Melrose gave the mobile and a dirty look to Jury, who smiled and stowed it in his pocket.
Dora was back again, sitting down beside Jury, ignoring Sally Hawkins. “When you go to London,” she said to Melrose, “will you go to this person’s house and get Morris?”
“No,” he said to her. Ignoring Dora’s crestfallen look, he turned to Jury. “Now, what are your instructions? I mean, about how to behave on a first date?”
“I don’t care what you do as long as you get the information.” Jury thought of the cabdriver who’d whisked him to the animal hospital, and smiled. The Knowledge.”
Jury looked at his watch. “Got to go. I want to make a few stops before I head back to London.”
“What about this infernal kidnapping of Morris? When am I supposed to do that?”
“After your hot date tomorrow night. So the day after. And don’t use the Rolls; take one of your other wrecks. The Bentley. It’s pretty old as I remember.’
“There’s the Jag.”
“You don’t own a Jaguar.”
“I could always buy one. I mean, we want to do this right.”
“Why are you sodden with money, whilst I just have to squeak along?”
Melrose shrugged. “Justice? You can have my Bentley.” “Thanks. And remember, this isn’t a kidnapping. Kidnapping is what Harry did. You’ll be going to London anyway for your date.” Jury smiled. “I’ll let you know the exact time to appear at Harry’s house. He lives in Belgravia. You know where that is.”
“‘You know where that is,’” Melrose mimicked. “Yes, sport, I know. What’s his address?”
Jury told him.
“So when Harry comes to the door-incidentally, I’m sure Harry will remember me after that drama in the Old Wine Shades.”
“Harry won’t be coming to the door.” Jury’s smile was even broader. “Harry will be elsewhere.”
44
“They’re calling them ‘the Escort Murders,’ subhead ‘Serial Killer on the Loose?’ At least they made it a question.” DS Cummins had turned the paper around so that Jury could see for himself the headline and the photos beneath it. There were two of the Valentine’s and Smart Set agencies, together with what looked like agency photographs, one of Deirdre Small and one of Mariah Cox using the name “Stacy Storm.” Kate Banks was missing, as was the King’s Road Companions agency. Beneath these photos was a smaller one of Rose Moss, who was “helping police with their inquiries.”
Jury and Cummins were sitting in the Chesham station.
Cummins went on: “I guess they’re all related, only…”
“Only what? I’m open to intuition.”
Cummins scratched his ear. He looked awfully young. Jury envied him the boyishness so close to the surface. He thought of Rosie Moss. He worried about her, to tell the truth. He hoped he wasn’t leading her on, making that date with her.
“Well, it doesn’t feel right, that it’s a serial killer.”
“Why?”
“I think it’s because… Mariah being murdered in Chesham, not London.”
“Exactly. Mariah Cox was murdered because she was Mariah Cox, or Stacy Storm, not because she was an escort. That it would be the same for the other two would follow, wouldn’t it? They’re connected, but not by escort services, by something else. We have to find out the something else.”
David Cummins smiled. “Chris thinks so, too, the escort business doesn’t have anything to do with the murders. Chris thinks it’s all about shoes.”
Jury really laughed for the first time in days. “Tell her I can send someone round to talk to Jimmy Choo.”
“And Louboutin, the red sole guy. Those shoes look like they stepped in blood.”
Edna Cox came to the door looking a little less worn out, but not much. She seemed, oddly, glad to see Jury, maybe because he was one of the few left who connected her with Mariah. He hoped he wasn’t the only one.
He was seated with a cup of tea, not speaking of her niece and the other victims until she’d stopped bustling around and was herself sitting down.
“These other two women, Mrs. Cox-Deirdre Small and Kate Banks-do those names mean anything to you?”
She shook her head. The paper, the same one Cummins had shown to Jury, was lying on a rust-colored ottoman. Edna Cox picked it up. “No. But I’ve seen her somewhere.” As Cummins had done, she turned the paper so Jury could see. Her finger was tapping the picture of Rosie Moss. “Adele Astaire, it says her name is.” A little hmpf! of disbelief followed.
Jury was surprised. “You’ve seen her where? I thought all you knew of her was the name.”
“That’s right. I’d never seen these girls. I mean, their pictures. No, Adele Astaire is a made-up name just like Stacy Storm is. You’d think”-pause for a sip of tea-“they could come up with better names than those, wouldn’t you?”
Jury thought he’d better not prompt her with Adele’s real name just now. “This Adele Astaire-do you recall where you saw her?”
She set down the cup and was prepared to really exercise her brain. “I’ve been trying to bring it to mind ever since I saw that picture.” She shook her head. “But I can’t.”
“Could she have come here at all, I mean, to Chesham, with Mariah?”
Edna Cox’s eyes shut tightly, as if squeezing the last drop from memory. “No. No, I’m sure not. At least that’s not where I saw her.”
Jury waited, but when she added nothing, he said, “Her real name is Rose Moss. Does that mean anything to you?”
Edna frowned down to study either the hands in her lap or the carpet of cabbage roses at her feet. Then she tilted her head a bit, as in the way of one trying to hear an indistinct or distant sound. Her eyes widened. “A film! There was a film long ago that I remember seeing with my sister, Mariah’s mum, when they lived in London. Mariah must’ve heard us talking about it, and laughed and said something like its being funny, the way the film had got the name the wrong way round. It was called Moss Rose. She thought it very funny.”