Free The Winds of Change by Martha Grimes Page B

Scott know he was here and walked off. He waited.
    To the left and right were long halls. She wore shoes with a medium heel, and Jury could hear the tap of her heels as she walked down the hall to his right and turned a corner. They were opulent, these halls, marble floored. Without her footsteps, they were also silent. He stood there hearing only the note of a thrush outside, and then he walked around the foyer. Furnishings, antique and valuable, if somewhat worn. There was a certain seediness to that wall hanging of a stalwart military figure, helmeted and upon a horse. Coin-size pieces of the velvet fabric of the tall furry helmet and of the horse’s mane had rubbed off, as if the war had gone on too long, and soldier and horse were both fading. It hung above a secretaire of mahogany and stained maple and gilt, flecks of gold missing, some of the stain worn away. Nothing here wasted or wrecked, just suffering from the slow onslaught of time.
    She returned and led Jury across the foyer and along that same hall, where she stopped by the door of a large room, a library, apparently. Books lined three walls, the fourth occupied by a brownish-gold marble fireplace. A fire had been lit, fairly recently to judge from the size of the logs. She told him Mr. Scott would be here in a moment. This was accompanied by a rather tight little smile, enough of one for politeness’ sake. His first impression was that she was hostile and trying to hide it, natural enough, he thought, with police invading the household.
    Declan Scott walked in, handsome and haggard. He took everything over - the fire, the furnishings and Jury himself. Jury felt an immediate empathy; he liked Scott where he stood. Such empathy worried him for objectivity could go flying out the window; that kind of response to a witness could mean trouble. But he knew at a glance what Brian Macalvie had meant about the difficulty of staying in the same room with the man for more than a few minutes, although Jury thought he himself could last a good deal longer. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d come up against someone in whom emotion was so visceral. And this despite Scott’s strange air of insularity that could even pass as indifference if one hadn’t spent a lot of years learning how to read people.
    Declan Scott stood inside the room looking at Jury as if Jury were one more disappointment in a long list of them. Police, private investigators - all had failed to find the child Flora. Yet Jury suspected that Scott’s manner was not fully explained by that dreadful event nor did it account for that look that said he knew Jury would miss everything by a mile.
    Declan Scott reminded Jury of Angel Gate itself, its desolate gardens, echoing halls, opulent and frayed and nearly untenanted, as if its owner had already jettisoned part of himself and gone on with this remaindered half. He had a handkerchief in his breast pocket, and if it was there for show, it was doing a poor job of it, for the corner flopped over. But Declan Scott was not for show. Jury was sure of that.
    Scott held out his hand. ‘I’m sorry you had to wait; I was in the rear gardens seeing to things. Well, that’s what I call it. I’m sure my gardeners wouldn’t agree. I saw you there before. I didn’t want to disturb you.’
    Jury was reminded of the man’s respect for privacy. He smiled.
    ‘Didn’t you wonder who I was?’
    ‘Oh, I knew who you were. Commander Macalvie rang me.’
    He paused. ‘1 must admit to some surprise that Scotland Yard would get involved, I mean, after all of this time. Why have you?’
    ‘Let’s say at the behest of Commander Macalvie.’
    ‘Okay. We’ll say it.’ Scott smiled.
    So did Jury. He had the feeling that Scott would cut through anything that struck him as not to the point. Jury went on. ‘I’m working on a case in London that might be tied to -’ He hesitated over bringing up an issue so painful.
    Declan Scott helped him. ‘My stepdaughter, you