The Winds of Change by Martha Grimes Read Free Book Online

in London, but doesn’t know who she was.’
    ‘Hm.’ Jury sat back and sleepily regarded the scenery, pleasant enough, but unimpressive. But then with Cornwall it was the coast, wasn’t it? Not the interior.
    They were soon pulling into the Heligan gardens’ large car park, which was posted with signs directing cars and buses to their correct parking areas. Jury was glad that it wasn’t summer. There’d be a mob. Tour buses, crowds. Platt parked beside a gray Plymouth. There were few cars.
    They were out of the car now, standing there.
    ‘The mother died soon after the daughter vanished?’ Sergeant Platt nodded. ‘Six months later. She was only thirty-nine.’
    ‘What killed her?’
    Platt looked around the car park as if he was hoping Mary Scott would step out of that old gray Plymouth over there, or the Morris Minor, or the sleek black BMW. ‘A broken heart, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He looked at Jury, sadly. ‘Of course, they say you can’t die of that, can you?’
    His look was alarmingly sorrowful. Jury put his hand on Platt’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you believe it, Sergeant. You knew her, then?’
    ‘Yes. I kept in touch, see. I knew Mary - Mrs. Scott, I mean - pretty well. And Flora, too.’
    Jury watched his face. ‘You were fond of them.’
    Platt nodded, looking off across the car park, merely nodding. Jury said he’d like to see this Crystal Grotto on his own, if Platt didn’t mind. On the contrary, the sergeant seemed relieved not to have to accompany him and told Jury he’d wait in the cafe near the gift shop. He could do with a cup of tea, he said, reminding Jury of Wiggins, who was supposed to follow Jury here the next day.
    He walked up a path to the kiosk where the tickets were sold and where a youngish man was puttering about. Jury took out his ID and the fellow looked wide-eyed at him, impressed.
    ‘I’ll need a map of the gardens. I expect you have them here. I’m looking for the Crystal Grotto - I think that’s the name.’
    The ticket seller handed one over and gave him brief directions. ‘And you’ve got your map ... ‘ He looked at Jury as if he couldn’t quite believe he wouldn’t be whisked there on some magic carpet, but instead was going to find his own way. Strange.
    Jury saluted, touching his forehead with the map and walked on. A mountainous rhododendron, ten times as tall as Jury, marked the entrance to the northern garden. In here, along the path, there was silence, deep silence, as if it too had been carved out of the garden ruins and restored. When he saw sunlight caught in the net of the branches he suddenly remembered the friend of his mother’s, the watercolorist who’d gone blind. He remembered sitting with her in the little park across the street from her terraced house. On a little farther, through the latticed opening of intertwining branches, he spied a sculpture of a small girl up on her toes, who appeared to be caught executing one of those difficult moves in ballet and his mind flew immediately to Elicia Deauvilleto her or to the false memory of her and her dancing on the other side of that wall of his terraced house, his childhood home. But his cousin had pretty much annihilated memories of his childhood, rendering them nugatory, or at best, suspect, memories to be taken out, exposed to the light of day to see how they held up. That wartime episode in Devon, the beach, the collapsed fences, the ginger-haired girl. Oh, but she had to have been real - the taunter, the teaser, the nemesis of all little boys-made, she must have been, for that purpose. And her hair, her flaming hair - surely, that had been real. He seemed to be going along in fits and starts, his mind stumbling, lurching in and out of these fretful scenes, trying to keep its balance. And he thought that’s what life was - trying to keep one’s balance.
    Yet he hadn’t stopped; he hadn’t even slowed. His pace along the path was even. There was no one else; Jury’s feet alone crunched