Deborah Crombie - Mourn Not Your Dead

“What does?” Deveney looked up from the notebook page he’d been scanning as they walked.

“The aunt’s funeral.” Kincaid put his hands in his pockets and kicked at a stone with his toe.

“What the hell difference does it make?” Deveney asked, sounding a bit frayed. “Do you always go round the mulberry bush like that in interviews? Talk about circumlocution.”

“I don’t know what difference it makes. Yet. And no, I don’t always waffle on, but sometimes it’s the only way I know to get under the skin of things.” He stopped as they reached the bottom of the lane and turned to Deveney. “I don’t think this is going to be a straightforward case, Nick, and I want to know what these people thought of Alastair Gilbert, how he fit into the fabric of the community.”

“Well, we’re certainly not making much progress on the vagrant theory,” Deveney said disgustedly. “We’ve one name left, a Mr. Percy Bainbridge, at Rose Cottage. It’s just kitty-corner to the pub, so we might as well leave the car.” As they crossed the road and walked along the edge of the green, he added, “This is our most recent report, by the way, just last month.”

Rose Cottage might once have been as charming as its name implied, but the canes arching over the front door were bare and sere, and only a few dying chrysanthemums graced the path. Deveney pushed the bell, and after a few moments the door swung open.

“Yes?” inquired Mr. Percy Bainbridge, wrinkling his nose and pursing his thin lips as if he smelled something distasteful. As Deveney made introductions and explained their mission, the lips relaxed into a simper, and Bainbridge said with fruity affectation, “Oh, do come in. I knew you’d be wanting a word with me.”

They followed him down a dark, narrow hallway into a sitting room that was overwarm and overdecorated-and smelled, Kincaid thought, faintly of illness.

Bainbridge was tall, thin, and stooped, with a chest so concave it looked as though it might have been hollowed out with an ice-cream scoop. Skin yellow as parchment stretched over the bones of his face and his balding skull. A death’s head with dandruff, thought Kincaid, for what was left of the man’s hair had liberally sprinkled the shoulders of his rusty black coat.

“You’ll have some sherry, won’t you?” said their host. “I always do this time of day. Keeps the evening at bay, don’t you think?” He poured from a decanter as he spoke, filling three rather dusty cut-crystal glasses, so that they could hardly refuse the proffered drinks.

Kincaid thanked him and took a tentative sip, then breathed an inward sigh of relief as the fine amontillado rolled over his tongue. At least he’d be spared having to tip his glass into a convenient aspidistra. “Mr. Bainbridge, we’d like to ask you a few-”

“I must say you took your time. I told your constable yesterday to send someone in charge. But do sit down.” Bainbridge gestured towards an ancient brocaded sofa and took the armchair himself. “I quite understand that you are at the mercy of the bureaucracy.”

At a loss, Kincaid glanced at Deveney, who merely gave him a blank look and a slight shake of the head. Kincaid sat down gingerly on the slippery fabric, taking time to adjust his trouser creases and finding a spot on the cluttered side table for his sherry glass. “Mr. Bainbridge,” he said carefully, “why don’t you begin by telling us exactly what you told the constable.”

Bainbridge sat back in his chair, his gratified smile pulling at his already too-tight skin until it looked as though it must melt, like wax under a flame. He sipped at his sherry, cleared his throat, then brushed at a speck on his sleeve. It was clear, thought Kincaid, that Percy Bainbridge intended making the most of his moment in the limelight. “I’d had my tea and finished with the washing up,” he began rather anticlimactically. “I was looking forward to settling in for the evening with my beloved Shelley”-pausing, he gave Kincaid a ghastly little wink-“that’s the poet, you understand, Superintendent. I don’t hold with the television, never have. I am a firm believer in improving the mind, and it is a proven fact that one’s intellect declines in direct proportion to the number of hours spent in front of the little black box. But I digress.” He gave an airy wave of his fingers. “It is my habit to take some air in the evening, and that night was no exception.”

Kincaid took advantage of the man’s pause for breath. “Excuse me, Mr. Bainbridge, but are you referring to Wednesday, the evening of Commander Gilbert’s death?”

“Well, of course I am, Superintendent,” Bainbridge answered, his humor obviously ruffled. “Whatever else would I be referring to?” He took a restorative sip of his sherry. “Now, as I was telling you, although the night was quite foggy and close, I stepped outside as usual. I had gone as far as the pub when I saw a shadowy figure slipping up the lane.” His eyes darted from Kincaid to Deveney, anticipating their reaction.

“What sort of figure, Mr. Bainbridge?” Kincaid asked matter-of-factly. “Was it male or female?”

“I really am unable to say, Superintendent. All I can tell you is that it appeared to be moving furtively, slipping from one pool of shadow to the next, and I am unwilling to embellish my account for the sake of drama.”

Deveney sat forwards, his notebook open. “Size? Height?”

Bainbridge shook his head.

“What about hair and clothing, Mr. Bainbridge?” tried Kincaid. “You may have noticed more than you realize. Think back-did any part of the figure reflect light?”

Bainbridge thought for a moment, then said with less assurance than he had displayed so far, “I thought I saw the pale blur of a face, but that’s all. Everything else was dark.”

“And where exactly was the figure in the lane?”

“Just beyond the Gilberts’ house, moving up the lane towards the Women’s Institute,” answered Bainbridge with more confidence.

“What time was this?” Deveney asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you.” Bainbridge’s thin lips made a regretful little moue.

“Can’t?” Kincaid said on a note of disbelief.

“I retired my watch when they retired me, Superintendent.” He tittered. “I lived my life a slave to the clock and the bell-I thought it time I had my freedom from such constraints. Oh, there is a clock in the kitchen, but unless I should have an appointment I don’t pay it much attention.”

“Do you think you could make an estimate as to the time on Wednesday evening, Mr. Bainbridge?” Kincaid asked with forced patience.

“I can tell you that it wasn’t too long afterwards that the first of the panda cars arrived at the Gilberts’. Half an hour, perhaps.” Having conveniently placed the sherry decanter within arm’s reach, Bainbridge wrapped his long fingers around its neck. “Care for some more sherry, Superintendent? Chief Inspector? No? Well, you won’t mind if I do?” He poured himself a generous measure and drank. “I’ve become quite a connoisseur since my retirement, if I say so myself. I’ve even put some bottle racks into the pantry-had young Geoffrey in to help me-as the cottage doesn’t have a cellar, of course.”

Kincaid felt the prickle of sweat under his arms and between his shoulder blades. The heat of the room had combined with the flush from the sherry to make him a bit queasy, and he felt an unexpected surge of claustrophobia. “Mr. Bainbridge,” he began, wanting to finish the interview as quickly as possible, “we want to ask you a few questions about the thefts you reported in-”

“Don’t tell me you’ve got on to this burglar business, as well? No, no, no, I tell you. It’s absolute twaddle.” Pink splotches appeared on Percy Bainbridge’s cheeks, and the knuckles wrapped around the stem of his sherry glass turned white. “I heard them last night in the pub, the fools. You don’t really think some stranger appeared in the village and just happened to bash the commander in the head, do you, Superintendent?”