Deborah Crombie - Mourn Not Your Dead

“I’ll agree it’s not very likely, Mr. Bainbridge, but we have to follow-”

“I’d look a bit closer to home if I were you. Oh, she’s a cool one, is Claire Gilbert, I grant you that. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But I can tell you”-he leaned towards them and put his finger beside his nose-“that our Mrs. Gilbert is no better than she should be. If I were you, I’d have a look at what she gets up to with that partner of hers, and I said as much to Commander Gilbert not too long ago.”

“Did you now?” said Kincaid, forgetting his discomfort. “And how did the commander receive your advice?”

Bainbridge sat back a bit and smoothed the fringe of hair behind his ear. “Oh, he was very appreciative, man to man, you know.”

Kincaid leaned forwards and dropped his voice, as if inviting a confidence. “I didn’t realize you were on such friendly terms with Alastair Gilbert. Got on together well, did you?”

“Oh, my, yes,” said Bainbridge, beaming. “I think the commander was much misunderstood by the hoi polloi of the village, Superintendent. He was a man of purpose, of direction, a man who counted in life. And I think he recognized a kindred soul when he met one.” One eyelid drooped in what might have been a wink, and Bainbridge finished off his sherry in one swallow.

“Did the commander ask you to substantiate your allegations about his wife?” Kincaid asked a bit more sharply.

“Oh, no, it wasn’t like that at all.” Bainbridge shook his head in aggrieved agitation. “I merely expressed my concern that his wife should be spending so much time alone with a man like that. Well, I ask you, what can they be doing all day? It’s not as if it were a real job, is it, Superintendent?” His enunciation became more absurdly precise as he compensated for the slurring effect of the sherry.

“And what did you do before you retired, Mr. Bainbridge?” asked Kincaid. He tried to visualize the man as a navvy and failed miserably.

“I was a teacher, sir, a molder of young minds and morals. At one of the best schools-you would recognize the name if I told you, but I don’t like to make much of myself.” He simpered and smoothed the lank fringe of hair again.

Kincaid let a note of severity creep into his voice. “Tell me, Mr. Bainbridge, could the shadowy figure you saw have been Malcolm Reid, Claire Gilbert’s partner? Think very carefully, now.”

The color drained from Bainbridge’s cheeks, leaving them more pinched than before. “Well, I… that is… I never meant to imply… As I told you, Superintendent, the figure was very vague, very elusive, and I couldn’t swear to anything at all.”

Exchanging glances with Deveney, Kincaid gave him a slight nod.

“Mr. Bainbridge,” said Deveney, “if you’ll just answer a few more questions, we won’t take up any more of your time. What exactly went missing from your cottage last month?”

Bainbridge looked from one to the other as if to protest, then sighed. “Well, if you must drag all that up again. Two silver picture frames with inscribed photos of some of my boys. A money clip. A gold pen.”

“Was there money in the clip?” asked Kincaid.

“That was the odd thing, Superintendent. He didn’t take the money. I found the bills lying neatly folded, just where the clip had been.”

“Nothing more valuable than that?” said Deveney with obvious exasperation.

Affronted, Bainbridge puffed out his thin chest. “They were valuable to me, Chief Inspector. Treasured keepsakes, mementos of the years devoted to my charges…” Reaching for the decanter, he refilled his glass, this time not bothering to offer them any. Kincaid judged that Mr. Percy Bainbridge had reached the maudlin stage and that no further useful information would be forthcoming.

“Thank you, Mr. Bainbridge. You’ve been very helpful,” he said, and Deveney stood up so fast he bumped the coffee table with his knees.

They hastily said their good-byes, and when they reached the end of the cottage walk, Deveney wiped beads of perspiration from his brow. “What a dreadful little man.”

“Undoubtedly,” answered Kincaid as they walked to the car. “But how reliable a witness is he? Why didn’t your constable report his ‘shadowy figure’ story? And could there be anything to this business about Claire Gilbert and Malcolm Reid?”

“Proximity’s made for stranger bedfellows, I dare say.”

“I suppose so,” said Kincaid, glad that the twilight hid the flush creeping up his neck.

They walked on to the car in silence, and when they’d shut themselves into the still-warm interior, Deveney stretched and said, “What now, guv? I could use a real drink after that.”

For a moment Kincaid gazed into the deepening dusk, then said, “I think you should give Madeleine Wade a call, ask her if Geoff Genovase has done any odd jobs for her. I’m beginning to get an idea about our village brownie.

“And feel out the village on the subject of Mr. Percy Bainbridge-the pub ought to do nicely for that. I’d like to know if he has a reputation for moonshine and how chummy he really was with Alastair Gilbert. Somehow I can’t quite picture that alliance. As for Malcolm Reid and his relationship with Claire Gilbert, we may have more success if we talk to him at the shop again tomorrow, rather than at home.”

“Right.” Deveney glanced at his watch. “I should think the evening regulars would be drifting into the Moon about this time. Will you be coming along with me, then?”

“Me?” Kincaid answered absently. “No, not tonight, Nick. I’m going to London.”

“All in order,” read the note the major had left on the kitchen table. “Will maintain routine unless notified otherwise.” Kincaid smiled and picked up Sid, who was rubbing frenziedly about his ankles and purring at a volume that threatened to vibrate the pictures off the walls. “You’ve been well looked after, I see,” he said, scratching the cat under his pointed black chin.

In the months since his friend Jasmine had died and he’d taken in her orphaned cat, he and his solitary neighbor, Major Keith, had formed an unlikely but useful partnership. Useful for Kincaid, as it allowed him to be away without worrying about Sid-useful for the major in that it gave him an excuse for contact with another human being that he would not otherwise have sought. Kincaid theorized that it also allowed Harley Keith to maintain a secret and unacknowledged relationship with the cat, a tangible evocation of Jasmine’s memory.

Putting Sid down with a last pat, he turned out the lamp and went to stand on his balcony. In the dim light he could see the red leaves on the major’s prunus tree hanging limp as banners on a still day, and pale splotches in the garden beds that would be the last of the yellow chrysanthemums. Suddenly he felt bereft, his grief as fresh and raw as it had been in the first weeks after Jasmine’s death, but he knew it would pass. A new family occupied the flat below his now, with two small children who were only allowed to use the garden under the major’s strictest supervision.

The cold crept into his bones as he stood a moment longer, irresolute. He had phoned Gemma from Guildford train station, then again from Waterloo, listening to the repeated rings until long after he’d given up hope of an answer. He hadn’t admitted how much he’d hoped he might talk to her, perhaps even see her, hoped that in the course of going over the day’s notes he might somehow begin to right whatever had gone wrong between them.

The burring sound came from a great distance, its insistent repetition dragging her up from the cottony depths of sleep. Her arm felt leaden, treacle-slow, as she freed it from the duvet and felt for the telephone. “Hullo,” she mumbled, then realized she had the handset wrong way round.