Deborah Crombie - Mourn Not Your Dead

“You’re right,” Deveney said after a moment. “I don’t like it a bit. But it’s the nearest thing to a motive we’ve come up with so far.”

Kincaid yawned. “Then I suggest the first thing on our list tomorrow should be discovering if Brian can account for himself the whole of Wednesday evening. We’ll keep picking at Malcolm Reid, too. There’s something in that situation that bothers me. I just can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Let’s call it a night, then,” said Deveney. “I’m knackered. I’ve booked you a couple of rooms in the hotel on the High.” He put his hand over his heart and grinned at Gemma. “And I’ll sleep better knowing you’re near at hand.”

The hotel turned out to be presentable, if a bit fusty. Having bid the lingering Nick Deveney a definite good night, Kincaid followed Gemma up the stairs at a respectable distance. Their rooms were opposite each other, and he waited in the corridor until she’d turned her key in the lock. “Gemma-” he began, then floundered.

She gave him a bright, brittle smile. If she had allowed a chink to show in her defenses at the pub, she’d pulled her armor firmly into place again. “Night, guv. Sleep well.” Her door clicked firmly shut.

He undressed slowly, hanging up his shirt and laying his trousers across the room’s single chair as if his salvation depended upon a perfect crease. The combination of alcohol and exhaustion had produced a numbing effect, and he felt as if he were watching his own actions from a distance, knowing them to be absurd. But still he kept on, order his only defense, and as he hung his overcoat on a peg in the wardrobe a crumpled paper poppy fell to the floor.

He’d worn the poppy last Sunday, a week ago, when he’d walked up to St. John’s, Hampstead, to hear the major sing the Fauré requiem in the Remembrance Day service. The soaring voices had lifted him, stilling all worries and desires for a brief time, and as he climbed into the narrow hotel bed he tried to hold the memory in his mind.

It came to him as he drifted in the formlessness just before sleep. He scrambled out of bed, upsetting the flimsy lamp on the nightstand in his haste. When he’d righted the lamp, he flicked it on and began digging through his wallet.

He found the card easily enough and sat squinting at it in the dim light that filtered through the pink, fringed lamp shade. He hadn’t been mistaken. The telephone number on the business card he’d picked up at Malcolm Reid’s shop was the same as the one he remembered seeing penciled in Alastair Gilbert’s diary, next to the notation 6:00 on the evening before Gilbert died.

The press had decamped, the constable had been relieved of his post at the gate, and the lane seemed to dream peacefully undisturbed in the morning sun. As they let themselves through the Gilberts’ gate, Kincaid muttered something that sounded to Gemma like “this Eden…”

“What?” she said, turning back to him as he fiddled with the latch.

“Oh, nothing.” He caught her up and they walked abreast along the path. “Just a half-remembered old quote.” As they rounded the corner, Lewis stood up in his run, but his deep intruder-alert bark changed to an excited yipping when Kincaid spoke to him.

“You’ve made a conquest,” Gemma said as he walked to the fence and scratched the dog’s ears through the wiring.

He turned and met her eyes. “One, at least.”

Gemma flushed and cursed herself for having put her foot in it once again. While she was still trying to think of a suitable reply, the kitchen door opened and Lucy called to them. She came out on the step, visible in all the glory of her baggy red jersey, crumpled socks, and a tartan skirt barely long enough to earn its name.

“Claire’s gone to see Gwen before church,” Lucy said as they reached her, and on closer inspection Gemma could see goose bumps on the expanse of bare flesh between hem and sock.

“Gwen?” asked Kincaid.

“You know, Alastair’s mum. Claire always goes on Sunday morning, and she thought it a good idea not to break the routine. Do you want to come in?” Lucy opened the door and made way for them.

Once in the kitchen, she sat down at the table by a half-empty bowl of cereal but made no move to resume eating. “I’m glad you’ve come,” she said a bit awkwardly, clasping her hands in her lap. “I wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday, letting Geoff go home and all.”

“Geoff’s friends were responsible for that. He seems to have quite a few.” Kincaid pulled up a chair in the breakfast nook, and Gemma did the same, but she still found it odd to be sitting so casually in this room.

“I don’t think he realized until last night. He never thinks he deserves people caring about him.”

Watching the expression on the girl’s heart-shaped face, Gemma wondered if Geoff felt he deserved Lucy’s love-for she suddenly had no doubt that love him Lucy did and with all a seventeen-year-old’s capacity for passion.

“Lucy,” said Kincaid, “do you think you could help us out with something, since your mother’s not here?”

“Sure.” She looked at him expectantly.

Gemma wondered how Kincaid meant to handle this. When they’d stopped in at the station, a quick check of Gilbert’s impounded diary had confirmed Kincaid’s memory. When he asked, with exaggerated patience, why he hadn’t been informed of the connection, the constable in charge mumbled something about “just assuming the commander had rung his wife.”

“First rule of a murder investigation, mate,” Kincaid had said, an inch from his face, “which you should have learned at your guv’nor’s knee. Never assume.”

Now he tackled the other, unspoken, assumption first. “Is your mum in the habit of working late, Lucy?”

She shook her head, her hair swinging with the movement. “She likes to be here when I get home from school, and she never misses it by more than a few minutes.”

“What about the night before Alastair died? Was there anything unusual about that?”

“That would have been Tuesday.” Lucy thought a moment. “We were both home by five or so, and then later Mum watched an old movie with me.” She shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Kincaid straightened the table mat, aligning it precisely with the edge of the table. “Did Alastair ever ring your mum at the shop?”

“Alastair?” She looked baffled. “I don’t think so. Sometimes he’d have his secretary ring here and leave a message on the answerphone if he were going to be delayed. And sometimes he didn’t let her know at all. Alastair wasn’t one to put himself out for people,” she added. “Even when Mummy broke her wrist last summer, he didn’t leave work. Geoff went with me to pick her up from hospital. I only had my learner’s permit then.”

“How did it happen?” asked Gemma.

“Driving along the road that runs through the Hurtwood. She said she hit a monster pothole, and the wheel jerked so hard it snapped the bone in her wrist.”

“Ouch.” Gemma winced at the thought.

Grinning, Lucy added, “It was her right hand, too. I had to do everything for her for weeks, and she didn’t like it a bit. Poor Mum. Kept her from biting her nails, though.”

Kincaid glanced at his watch. “I guess we’d better not wait for her any longer. Do you mind if I make a quick call from Alastair’s study, Lucy?”

When he’d gone, Lucy smiled a bit shyly at Gemma. “He’s very nice, isn’t he? You’re lucky you get to work with him every day.”

Nonplussed, Gemma searched for a response. A week ago she would have agreed easily, perhaps even a touch smugly. She felt a pang of loss so sharp that it took her breath, but she managed a smile. “Of course I am. You’re quite right,” she said finally, trying for conviction, then did her best to ignore Lucy’s puzzled expression.