Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent Read Online Free

in Cornwall when Billy Healey and his stepmother,
Nell Citrine Healey, had been on holiday, together with a friend of
Billy's named Toby Holt.
    Keeping his eye on the newspaper, Jury shook a cigarette from a
packet of Players and read Roger Healey's statement to the press. It
was formal, almost pedantic, full of catch-phrases of grief and
comments about his son's prodigious talent as a pianist, so that one
almost got the idea that if the kidnapper didn't see to it he practiced
every day, it would be similar to a diabetic going into insulin shock.
The usual "we will do anything in our power to see our boy is returned
. . ."; the usual ". . . police are working round the clock"; the usual.
    Except that the stepmother had made no comment at all.
    Jury tried to put himself in the place of a father whose child had
been kidnapped. He had never had children, but he had been close enough
to several that he could feel at least something of what it must be
like to lose one. Certainly, he'd seen enough grief-stricken parents
in his work. Some had been silent; some had gone in for marathon
talking. But none had given a Hyde Park speech. Jury wasn't being
fair, he supposed. After all, Healey was a music critic and columnist
used to putting thoughts into words; he was an articulate man, and
probably a composed one.
    The photo of Billy himself looked almost out of place amidst this
platitudinous talk. In the old shot of Billy Healey, the camera had
caught the boy in a moment when he must have been looking toward
something at a distance. His chin was raised, his mouth open slightly,
his eyes transfixed and somehow puzzled. The angle of light eclipsed a
portion of his face, bringing out the other in even bolder relief,
accentuating the straight nose, high cheekbone. He was handsome,
pale, his hair brownish and silky-looking. He looked, Jury thought, a
little other-worldly, unapproachable, and with the intensity of his
expression, unassailable. He looked more like his stepmother than his
father.
    And of her, there was only the picture in which she was being
escorted from the house, and where she must quickly have drawn part of
the paisley scarf she wore up over her face. Since her head was also
down, the reporters were getting a very poor view. And taking a poor
view, given the underlying tone of resentment that Mrs. Roger Healey
was unavailable for comment. Her husband had done most of the talking.
    The stepmother was good copy; she'd been the only one present,
except for Billy's friend, when the boys had disappeared. Given the
rather tasteless litter of photos and snaps this particular newspaper
had mustered, it was clear they'd like to keep a story of the
kidnapping humming along. There were several old snapshots of Billy,
angled down the side of the account, one of him with a couple of
schoolmates, very fuzzy. Another of him leaning against a fence with
the other boy, Toby Holt. Sitting on a big stone slab in front of them
was a small, dark-haired girl, squinting into the camera.
    "And the chief's not too happy, as you can imagine," said Wiggins,
following his own train of thought.
    "He never is, not where I'm concerned."
    "Wondering what you were doing in Stanbury, anyway."
    "It's next to Haworth. I'm a big Bronte fan."
    "When you were supposed to be in Leeds."
    Jury looked up. "What is this, a catechism? Baleful mumbles."
    "You might be witness for the Crown," Wiggins went on, relentlessly.
    "Would he rather I'd be witness against? He knows damned well I
won't be called as one. Sanderson will give my evidence. It's West
Yorkshire's case, not mine."
    Wiggins was making a little sandwich of two black hiscuits and
something slathered in between.
    "What's that thing?"
    "Charcoal biscuits and a bit of tofu and tahini. I'm a martyr to my
digestion, as you know." The whole thing crumbled as he bit down on it;
he wiped his mouth with the huge handkerchief tucked into his collar.
    Jury looked up from the files and down at the notes Wiggins