“Do you mind if I get the whisky? Or do you want to do that too?”

“No, go ahead. Just don’t open any drawers.” Jury smiled, watched her as he got the fire going in the grate.

At the drinks table, she pulled over heavy tumblers, picked up the bottle of Glenlivet and turned, saying, “This suit you?”

“Admirably,” said Melrose.

She pulled the stopper from the bottle, and when Flora turned again, she had a gun in her hand.

“I don’t know what game this is, but I’m not playing. When Inspector Brierly’s car pulls up, we’ll all of us walk to the door, only one of us will have a gun in his back. You,” she said to Melrose. She crooked her finger. “Come on.”

Melrose heard a familiar clicking, not the safety on the gun, something else. When he heard it again, he started walking toward her. “Why don’t you put that down, Flora. You’re only making things worse for yourself.”

“For myself. That’s very funny.”

“You’ve already shot three people. We know about Manon Vinet and Moira Quinn.” Melrose took two more steps forward.

Jury called, “Melrose! Don’t—!”

The shot that didn’t hit him came just as the chandelier swung. The second shot went wild as Gerrard dropped to the floor, just a few feet from Flora, but the short distance was made up when he flew at her. They both fell, and Jury was on the gun as Tom went down on one knee.

“Tom!” yelled Jury.

“Nothing, nothing.” He took a bloody handkerchief from his leg. “Told you we’d get the evidence.”

“My God, Gerrard,” said Melrose. “I thought you could manage the chandelier; I didn’t expect you to come with it!”

“Yeah? So maybe I can get me a place with the Met?” Gerrard sported a huge grin.

“Or Cirque du Soleil,” said Melrose.

PART VII

Sundowner

40

“Bugsy Malone? Who the bloody hell’d you get to ride this horse?

Danny DeVito? Bloody hell, George! Bugsy?” Gerrard stared up at the pale blue sky.

“His first name is Burgess. Now, if you were a jockey, would you want to go by ‘Burgess’?”

“It ain’t any worse than ‘Gerrard,’” said Gerrard, chewing his gum fast. “He ain’t no Lester Piggott.”

“And this horse ain’t no Nijinsky,” said George.

Aggrieved wasn’t sure he liked that remark.

“Sorry,” said George.

“Oh, that’s—”

“I wasn’t apologizing to you.” George smiled.

This argument between Gerrard and George Jenks had ensued weeks before during a fruitless exchange between Gerrard and Sydney over which of them should ride Aggrieved in the Sundown Stakes in March at the Sundowner Racecourse, a little one-mile, three-furlong track not far from Northampton.