Melrose groaned and made to tear his hair when a young porter told him there was a call for him and could he take it in reception? Melrose excused himself. As Melrose walked out of the room Jury got up and went across to where Colonel Neame was sitting by the fire.
It was Trueblood on the phone, fixing the time for their drive to Heathrow. “Not that early, for God’s sakes.”
“Well, you know what it’s like with security these days.”
They argued and settled on a time. “How is Miss Ickley? What does she think of the alleged Masaccio?”
“Hasn’t made up her mind yet.”
Melrose rang off and returned to the Members’ Room where Jury had ordered seconds for them.
Jury said, “Okay, we’re still on starters. I’ll let you have the soup and I’ll take prawn cocktail… no, no… I’ll say avocado stuffed with Stilton.”
“Stuffed with Stilton? That’s rather elaborate for Boring’s.”
“Well, avocado like that’s all the rage in London at the moment.”
“Main course: Dover sole.”
Jury said, “I hope it is. I love Dover sole. But I’ll say… spring lamb. No, it isn’t spring yet, so just make it lamb.”
Melrose frowned. “A lamb is always a lamb, isn’t it? So it’s still spring lamb. Anyway, I’m changing mine. I’m saying jugged hare.”
“Jugged hare? Do they do that here? That’s sort of an acquired taste, isn’t it?”
Melrose swept his arm around the room. “What else have we to do here but acquire tastes?”
Jury grunted. “Anyway, you’re not supposed to switch from the thing you name first.”
“Good god! You’re such a stickler for rules. And anyway, when did we ever make up rules?”
“I probably wouldn’t like jugged hare. When I see a bunch of animal rights activists I get depressed. I think of Carrie Fleet. Remember?”
“How could I ever forget?”
They drank in silence for a few moments, both remembering Carrie Fleet, both on the edge of a monumental sadness. Melrose jerked around when the young porter (really young, a Dickensian youth with ginger hair) came to announce that dinner was being served and would they care for another whiskey? Both declined, Melrose saying they’d have wine with dinner.
It was a beautiful room-high windows, crown moldings, dark wood polished to such mirror smoothness you could almost see your reflection in it. Ceiling fans turned decorously overhead, a central chandelier tossed beads of light across the tables and chairs.
The sommelier twisted his key and went into a mild ecstasy when Melrose chose a Pinot Noir of clearly exciting (and expensive) vintage. Then he departed and soon Young Higgins settled before each of them the first course: avocado stuffed with Stilton and baked.
Astonished, Melrose asked Jury if this was some new fad.
“I told you, it’s very popular at the moment. Remember, I’m one pound seventy into your fiver. We forgot dessert. I’m betting treacle pudding. No, tart.”
“Gooseberry… no, I’ll say some sort of sponge roll.”
Said Jury, looking around the room, “I can think of worse places to spend one’s twilight years than here at Boring’s.”
“Your head on a spike at Tower Bridge, perhaps. You wouldn’t stand it here, not you. Now, I’m the perfect candidate for retirement.”
Jury made a blubbery, dismissive sound with his lips and waved away Plant’s candidacy.
“But I am. Just look at me, look at my life. I’m retired now. I can nip off to Firenze any time I take a fancy to do so. That was Trueblood on the phone.” When Jury looked blank, Melrose said, “That phone call I got. Are you engaged in short-term memory loss?”
“Long term, actually.” Jury looked off toward the black windowpanes.
“How so?”
The sommelier was there with the wine, which he presented for Melrose’s inspection. Melrose approved, and the cork was removed and Melrose declined the tasting of it, telling the sommelier to pour it. He looked slightly shocked, poured and left.
“Why do they do that? You know, show you the label? Would one be suspicious that it was really a bottle of plonk they were foisting off on their guests?”
“Show. Ritual.” They ate in silence for a few minutes.
Young Higgins was back, removing their avocado and announcing that the lamb would arrive in just a few moments.
Jury shrugged and raised his hands, smiling, while Melrose sat staring. He calculated. “That’s three pounds forty you owe me.”
“Let’s go to Vegas while your luck is running. Now, what were we talking about?”
“Memory loss. You recall when we were sitting here November a year ago?”
“Certainly, I do.”
“We were talking about the war. The Second World War, I mean.”
Melrose nodded, hardly shifting his attention at all to the plate of lamb and silver dishes of peas and potatoes Young Higgins now placed before him. “I remember. You said you’d been evacuated, your-cousin, is it?-up in Newcastle told you about it.”
Jury nodded. “But she said I wasn’t in the Fulham Road house when my mother died. And I was younger, too. Maybe no more than two or three. I’d much rather she died with me there.”
“Well, I wouldn’t, old chap. Because had you been, probably you wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I can understand your feeling, though.”
They ate in companionable silence, passing the silver dish of vegetables back and forth, drinking more wine.
Then Melrose said, “How about her memory, your cousin’s?”
Jury looked up from his plate, which he hadn’t touched much. “You mean hers could be faulty?”
“Of course.”
“She’s years older than I. She’d remember better.” Jury smiled. “Her husband, Brendan, thought she was winding me up. She doesn’t really like me.”
“Is she vicious?”
“Vicious… that might be too strong a word.”
“Okay, give me a weaker one.”
As Young Higgins came to clear their plates away, Jury said, “Resentful, maybe, of me getting so much attention from my uncle. It was my uncle who took me in. My aunt was kind, but not really too keen. And after he died, she didn’t feel she could keep me on, not with three of her own. The other two are dead now.”
Young Higgins cleared his throat and said, “Your treacle tart will be up in a moment. Would you care to have coffee in the Members’ Room?”
Melrose said, yes, they would and stared at Jury as Young Higgins moved off. “You win it all.”
Jury smiled and shrugged.
Back in the Members’ Room, in the same seats they had occupied, Jury said, “The thing is, she had pictures-snapshots, you know-of me and these other kids. They were kids I remember, too. But that was several years later, in Devon. They were foster children this woman was drawing stipends for-”
“Instead of the kids being the evacuees you thought you’d been among?”
“Yes.”
“Pictures may tell part of the truth but not necessarily all of it.”
A log split and fell, sparking. The flames sputtered, became no more than live coal and leaped once again into flame. He said, “Lately, that’s what I seem to be dealing with-pictures. Memories. Neither being completely reliable as a reconstruction of the past. I have a friend, a DCI in the City police, who showed me some pictures.” He told Melrose about Mickey’s suspicions.
“Why doesn’t he investigate this himself? I know you’re awfully good, but it seems odd bringing Scotland Yard into it.”
“It does, yes. We’re old friends, we go back a long way.”
“Still-”
“He’s dying.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“His father was a regular at the Blue Last. He knew the owner, Francis Croft, quite well. Oliver Tynedale and Francis Croft were like brothers. It’s impressive that they’d remain that close to each other and stay friends for that long, and also be in business together.”