The Winds of Change

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Book: Read The Winds of Change for Free Online
Authors: Martha Grimes
occasions, then drifting back into them. Why would she, of all the women he knew, come to mind? He nearly laughed aloud at this discovery. He opened his eyes to find he was still the center of interest both to the boy and now the mother sitting across from him. He had never known such intransigent stares. And neither could be dissuaded by Jury’s returning their adamantine looks. Their faces looked struck in marble.
    He could move. Yet it embarrassed him to resort to moving. He got a fresh cup of tea from the trolley server and tried to think about Macalvie’s missing child, but he didn’t have enough details to come up with anything. He could only think this child had been taken by someone, a woman, perhaps, who had lost a child herself and was desperate to replace hers. Either that or the ex-husband, Viktor Baumann. He hated to think of the alternatives. What better place to steal a child than an enormous, open series of gardens with plenty of places to hide?
    He should stop speculating; he hadn’t enough information even to do that.
    Instead, he thought about Emily Dickinson. ‘When sense from spirit files away, And subterfuge is done.’ To take off the mask, to forgo pretense, to put your cards on the table. To have done with smoke and mirrors .... He rested his head against the back of the seat and fell asleep.
    He must have slept through Exeter, for the next thing he knew the conductor was coming through announcing St. Austell. Jury gathered up his coat, paper and book. Now that he was leaving, the woman across from him finally closed her eyes; the little boy turned away.
    Jury stepped down to the platform, looked around and saw a young man walking toward him, tallish, wiry, wearing dark glasses.
    ‘I’m DS Platt, sir,’ said the detective and led Jury to a Ford Escort that, even in its lack of identification, seemed to scream police police police! Maybe Jury had simply ridden in too many Fords over the years.
    ‘Commander Macalvie thought you should see the place where the little Baumann girl disappeared - Flora. The Lost Gardens of Heligan it’s called. A fascinating place. The girl was taken somewhere around a part called the Crystal Grotto. Her mother had been ahead of her. She’d lost sight of her for only a few minutes.’
    ‘Fine with me, Sergeant Platt. Incidentally, what’s your first name?’
    ‘Cody.’ Then, as if it were a name to be explained, Platt said, ‘Mum was very fond of American westerns. ‘Cody’ was the name of some cowboy or other. I used to play at being a cowboy, had a silver gun and fringed jacket and boots. The boss likes to call me that, ‘cowboy,’ I mean.’
    ‘Sounds like him.’ Jury laughed.
    DS Platt seemed to like that response. ‘Anyway, I think Commander Macalvie wants you to get the whole picture of these events. Chronologically, that is. For the London train, St. Austell’s a lot closer than anyplace else. And Heligan’s near Mevagissey. Launceston’s a good bit farther north. I’m to drive you; the boss said he’d be meeting you in a pub in South Petherwin. That’s just this side of Launceston.’
    Jury did not take in this complicated geography, but he knew he would get here and there in good time. He pulled his door shut and Platt backed up and drove out of the car park, feeding the Ford Escort into one of St. Austell’s twisted and hilly streets.
    Jury said, ‘The whole picture, you said. So he thinks there is a whole picture?’
    ‘The disappearance of little Flora and this murder? He does, yes.’
    ‘And what do you think?’
    Platt seemed a little surprised at being consulted. ‘Do you mean, do I think it’s all part of one case? Well, yes. This woman who was murdered had gone to Angel Gate - the Scott estate before. Apparently, she was a friend of Mary Scott. Or an acquaintance. More likely, an acquaintance.’
    ‘Couldn’t the husband sort that?’
    ‘He doesn’t - didn’t - know the dead woman. Saw her once with his wife, he says,

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