Deborah Crombie - Mourn Not Your Dead

“Becca?”

“Our vicar, Rebecca Fielding.”

Gemma saw an opening. She was willing to abandon Malcolm Reid for the moment in order to delve into the past. “I don’t suppose experience makes these things any easier. I didn’t know about your first husband when we talked the other day. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need for you to be-you couldn’t have known. And Stephen was always a great one for getting on with things. I tried to remember that on those days it didn’t seem worthwhile getting up.” Claire stopped and turned towards the river. Hands shoved in her trouser pockets, she stared into the water where it ran like molten pewter over the stones. “But that all seems a very long time ago. I’m not even sure I know her anymore, that distant Claire.”

“That was when you met Commander Gilbert, after Stephen died?”

Claire’s smile held no mirth. “Alastair thought I needed looking after.”

“And did you?”

“I thought I did,” answered Claire, walking again. “Stephen and I married very young, just out of school. Childhood sweethearts. He was a journalist, you know, a brilliant one.” With a glance at Gemma she added fiercely, “We had a good life. And after Lucy was born it was even better, but it wasn’t what you’d call secure, living from assignment to assignment.

“So there I was, my husband dead, my parents dead, no job skills at all, and a five-year-old daughter to care for. Stephen had a bit of life insurance, not enough to last more than a year or two even if we pinched every penny.” The path had narrowed and now stopped abruptly against a stone wall. Claire turned and started back. “Alastair seemed safe.”

Gemma followed her silently as they reached the road again and crossed over. They followed the lane leading to the church, skirting the tubs of bright flowers that half blocked the pavement.

What would she have done without her job and her parents’ support when Rob left? Would she, like Claire, have chosen security had it been offered her? “What about David Ogilvie?” she asked. “Was he in love with you, too?”

“David?” Claire stopped with her hand on the church gate and gave her a startled glance.

“We had to interview him as your husband’s staff officer. There was something in what he didn’t say that made me wonder.”

“Oh, David…” Claire said on a sigh that echoed the creak of the gate. As they picked their way through the tall grass surrounding the gravestones, she plucked a spear and twisted it in her fingers. “David was… difficult. At the time I convinced myself that I was just another of David’s potential conquests, a notch on his belt. He was very much against my marrying Alastair, but that I put down to peacock rivalry. You know how men are when they feel their territory’s threatened.” They had come to the river again, and stopping on the little wooden footbridge, Claire ran her fingers over the grass’s feathery head, stripping it bare. She watched the seeds drift down towards the water. “But looking back on it now I’m not sure that was true. I’m not sure of anything.”

“That must have caused friction between them, and yet they had to keep working together,” said Gemma, thinking of the bad blood Jackie had mentioned. “Did the three of you remain friends?”

“David never spoke to me after Alastair and I were married. I don’t mean that quite literally-when we were thrown together in social situations he made civil responses-but he never spoke to me again as a friend.”

It still hurts her after all these years, Gemma thought as she watched the tightening of Claire’s lips and heard the careful control in her voice. Perhaps she should have asked a different question-was Claire in love with David Ogilvie when she married Alastair Gilbert?

“Got the list?” Kincaid asked as they pulled into the empty pub car park. Deveney had asked to drive the Rover from the Yard pool, finding it a damn sight better than his heaterless Vauxhall.

Deveney patted his pocket. “Every last trinket. It does make an odd assortment when you put them all together.” He killed the engine and looked around as he unsnapped his seat belt. “The little van Brian uses for running about seems to be missing. Hope someone’s here.”

Getting out of the car, Deveney glanced in the window at the back of the pub, then said, “We’re in luck, at least as far as Brian’s concerned.”

As they made their way single file along the path that ran from the car park around to the front door, he added, “Okay if I handle him?”

“Be my guest,” said Kincaid.

The pub’s door and windows were thrown open to the mid-afternoon air. They found Brian whistling as he wiped down the bar, preparing for the evening customers. The room smelled of lemon polish. “You back for the night, Superintendent? And your sergeant, too?” He flipped his towel over his shoulder and began sliding clean glassware into the racks. “My son will be pleased. She seems to have impressed him no end.”

“It’s Geoff we want to talk to you about, Brian,” said Deveney. “Why don’t we have a seat?”

As gentle as Deveney’s words had been, he might as well have punched Brian Genovase in the gut. The color drained from his face, and he froze with one hand on the glass rack, his big body still with dread. “What’s happened? I just sent him over to the shop for some lemons-”

“Nothing’s happened to him, Bri. Just come sit down and let me explain.”

Brian followed him slowly to the nook beside the bar, the forgotten tea towel hanging jauntily over his shoulder. When Kincaid had pulled up a stool and joined them, Deveney said, “We have reason to believe Geoff may have had something to do with the string of thefts in the village. We need-”

“What do you bloody mean you have reason to believe? You’ve looked him up, found out about that shop business, and you’re persecuting him. Well, it’s not bloody fair and I bloody well won’t have it.” Brian pushed against the table, trying to rise, but they had boxed him in.

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Brian,” Deveney said. “We’d never have run a check on him if we hadn’t discovered that Geoff worked for everyone who reported things missing. He’s the only common factor. We have to follow through, if only to clear him.”

It dawned slowly on Brian. His eyes widened with shock and his lips went bloodlessly white. “You think Geoff murdered the bugger,” he said hoarsely.

“The sooner we get on with this, the better, Brian. We have a warrant, and we’ll have to search his room. If it turns out to be a coincidence, we can cross him off and no one need be the wiser. If you’ll just show us-”

“You don’t understand. Geoff’s had this problem since he was a kid. He takes things, but there’s no meanness in it. He doesn’t even do it for the money, he just keeps them.” Brian leaned towards them, entreating.

“What happened in Wimbledon, those two yobbos who clerked in the shop blackmailed him into helping them. They’d seen him take a tape that belonged to the owner, said they’d report him if he didn’t join in.”

“You’re telling me that Geoff is a kleptomaniac?” Deveney sounded surprised, but Kincaid merely nodded as Brian confirmed his suspicion. He’d come across the magpielike pattern once when he’d worked burglary-that time it had been an older woman in a posh neighborhood, who visited her neighbors regularly for tea.

“He saw a doctor while he was serving his sentence, and he’s seemed so much better since he came home.” Brian slumped in his seat as if all the fight had gone out of him.

“I’m sure they must have told you that the disorder is very difficult to treat,” Kincaid said. “You must have wondered when things began to go missing.”