The Winds of Change Read Online Free PDF Page B

aluminum and leather so lightweight it could have levitated.
    Another office furnished with killer designer furniture, but this one was more spacious than the outer. Jury imagined the paintings were not only originals, but by contemporary painters he wouldn’t know.
    Jury said, ‘I’m with homicide, Mr. Baumann.’ Then, when Baumann fell back into his chair, Jury realized his error and quickly said, ‘No, not your daughter. I’m sorry. The murder is of a woman we can’t seem to trace.’ He removed the police photograph and reached it across the space between their chairs.
    Baumann glanced at it and looked away. ‘Sorry. I’m squeamish about the dead. And I don’t understand what this has to do with me.’
    ‘Probably nothing. But she did have something to do with your former wife, from the look of it.’
    ‘Mary? How do you mean?’
    Jury wanted to leave mention of Declan Scott out of this meeting if possible. ‘They were seen together in Brown’s Hotel having tea. According to your ex-wife, she was an old school chum.’ Jury kept his eyes on Baumann’s, gauging his reaction. That was hard to do with this sort of man who had trained himself not to react in his business dealings if he didn’t want to. Jury imagined business succeeded or failed thereby. It would be as hard to engage his involvement in the matter of this death as it would be the slickest of villains.
    ‘But you say you can’t find any connection between this woman and my ex-wife other than that?’
    ‘We haven’t so far. One would think the woman in this picture had appeared for this one purpose. Then disappeared.’ He had put the photo on the table, facing Baumann.
    Baumann said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there, Superintendent.’
    ‘You’re sure you’ve never seen her?’
    Baumann’s smile was a little unpleasant. ‘I’m sure. After all, the face isn’t exactly memorable, would you say?’
    That was cold-blooded enough, thought Jury. ‘Perhaps not.’
    ‘This was in the papers, wasn’t it? I don’t recall any photograph of the face, but I do recall the crime. It’s rather lurid, isn’t it? A dead body in the garden of a country estate?’
    He seemed also to be avoiding Declan Scott’s name. ‘Lurid, indeed. But so was the abduction of your daughter, who lived on that estate, and the death of her mother. Declan Scott’s estate is figuring rather too often in disaster.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Baumann, relaxing a little, and picking up a paperweight. He apparently made the mistake that Jury was on his side. Or at least, not on Declan Scott’s. ‘Then I suggest you look nearer home, Superintendent.’ He smiled archly.
    ‘That’s what I am doing, Mr. Baumann.’ To Baumann’s quizzical look he said nothing.
    ‘But you’re suggesting Scott must figure in all of this.’
    ‘But of course he figures in it. That doesn’t mean he orchestrated it. What reason would he have to kidnap your daughter, Flora?’
    Baumann was silent.
    Jury went on: ‘You, though, would be seen as having a motive. You’d been engaged in a custody battle with Flora’s mother. Declan Scott wanted to adopt her - ‘
    ‘Superintendent, Flora was - is-my daughter. Is there anything at all ominous in my wanting to keep her as mine?’
    ‘No, except that she disappeared. That’s the point, isn’t it? That you might have wanted her enough to steal her.’
    Baumann no longer looked relaxed. ‘So this isn’t about this murdered woman at all. You’re not here because of her. It’s about Flora, again.’
    ‘My reason for coming wasn’t Flora; it was this recent murder. But I think the two are connected, Mr. Baumann. It just seems to me that a stranger’s murder in the same house as the one from which your daughter disappeared and the one in which her mother died might be related. Especially as this woman had actually gone to the house. She knew Mary Scott and she meant to cause trouble.’
    ‘And just how do you know that?’
    ‘Because