Case Histories полностью

"More tea, Mr. Brodie?" Julia asked, pouring the tea without waiting for an answer, "And is there honey still for tea? Yes, there most certainly is and we shall have it on our scones. Milly, do you want honey on your scones?"

At least the tea in the Orchard Tea Rooms was decent, unlike Binky's. Julia's little finger had a scar, like a thin silver ring, that ran all the way round it. She had it crooked, in a very ladylike way, as she drank her tea. She caught Jackson looking at it. "Chopped it off," she said breezily. Amelia snorted. "Accidentally," Julia added. Amelia snorted again. "You'll turn into a pig if you carry on like that, Milly," Julia said.

It struck Jackson that he'd asked Binky Rain about the Land girls but he'd never asked the Land girls about Binky Rain. "Binky Rain," Jackson said, "your neighbor, Victor's neighbor?" Julia looked vague. "Cats," Jackson said.

"I was a tabby in the chorus," Julia said, "but I only lasted a few weeks, I got bronchitis, it was a shame, it was a number-one tour."

"No," Jackson said patiently. "Binky Rain, she keeps cats."

"The old witch," Amelia said suddenly, and Julia said, "Oh, her. We never went anywhere near her."

"We used to," Amelia said. "And then we didn't."

"Why not?" Jackson asked, but Amelia seemed to have lapsed back into her catatonic state.

"Sylvia told us not to," Julia said. She frowned with the effort of remembering. "That was after Olivia, I think. She said the garden was cursed and if we went in there we'd be turned into cats. That all her cats were people who'd gone into her garden. Sylvia was always a bit strange, of course. Mrs. Rain isn't still alive, is she? She must be three hundred years old by now."

"Almost," Jackson said.

There was something undeniably pleasant about being sprawled in a deck chair beneath the trees. The hum of insects and tourists was soporific and Jackson could think of nothing he wanted to do more than close his eyes and drift off, but Julia kept prattling on about neo-pagans and Wittgenstein and Russell.

"Weren't they all right-wing snobs?" Jackson asked.

"Oh don't spoil it by being all northern and socialist," Julia said.

Amelia remained a brooding presence, communicating in mono-syllables. "Brooke used to run around with no clothes on," Julia said. "Maybe nudism is some kind of Cambridge thing."

"Rupert Brooke was just a protofascist," Amelia said suddenly, from somewhere beneath her sun hat, and Julia said, "Well, he's dead and he was a terrible poet, so he's had his comeuppance," and Amelia said, "That's a specious argument if ever I heard one," and Julia said – but Jackson was asleep by then.

Jackson retrieved his car from where it was still parked, in front of Binky's house. A gold Lexus, not a vehicle (nor a color) that Jackson had any time for, was parked right up against the Alfa's bumper and Jackson felt pretty sure it belonged to Quintus. He had no idea what was going on between them. Surely Quintus hadn't attacked him?

He drove down Silver Street, listening to Gillian Welch's Hell Among the Yearlings album. His taste in music was getting more depressive by the minute, if that was possible. He was on his way to a meeting in The Eagle with Steve Spencer, not that he had anything to report about Nicola, but his mind was still on Quintus when all of a sudden he found himself driving straight into the back of a Ford Galaxie that was stationary at traffic lights by Fitz-billies on Trumpington Street.

The front of the Alfa Romeo came off a lot worse than the back of the Ford Galaxie, but things would have been more serious if Jackson hadn't already been easing up for the red light. That wasn't a fact that impressed the driver of the Galaxie, who leaped out and started yelling at Jackson that he had intentionally endangered the life of her children. Three small, inquisitive faces peered out the rear window of the Galaxie. When the traffic police rolled up, the woman was standing in the middle of the road, jabbing her finger at the child on board sticker on her rear window.

"The brakes failed," Jackson said to the older of the two traffic policemen.

"Liar! Bloody liar!" the woman shouted.

"Jeez, Jackson," the policeman said, "you really know how to pick them."

The crash had jolted something loose in Jackson 's head. His tooth felt less like a tooth and more like a knife being pushed through his gum. He didn't think his body could take much more punishment.

The traffic cops breathalyzed Jackson, took down details of the accident, and sent the Galaxie and its furious driver on their way. Then they called a police tow truck and had Jackson 's car taken to the police garage, where a mechanic looked it over. The older traf-fic cop owed Jackson a tenner from a derby sweep three years ago and Jackson reckoned it was a debt paid in full now.