Deborah Crombie - Mourn Not Your Dead

Jackie’s death from an impersonal phone call. Such consideration deserved better treatment than she’d given him lately.

“The sun’s starting to sink,” he said. “Dusk will come on fast. We’d better start down while we can see where we’re going.”

They managed the last few hundred yards of the trail in gathering gloom, and by the time they reached the village, lights had begun to glow in a few of the houses.

Kincaid looked at Gemma hugging his anorak tighter around her as they faced into the wind. She hadn’t spoken on the way back from the tower, but he sensed no hostility towards him in her silence, only a withdrawing into herself. She had smiled at him and taken his hand willingly in the rough spots.

“Claire should be well back by now,” he said. “Let’s try the house first.”

“Like this?” Gemma gestured at her mud-spattered trousers and shoes.

“Why not? It will give us an air of country authenticity.”

The gate creaked as they let themselves into the Gilberts’ garden, and the shrubbery assumed shapes of unexpected menace in the dim light. Kincaid stopped when they rounded the corner into the back garden, not sure at first what felt odd. He held up a hand to halt Gemma and peered towards the dog’s run. Was that a shadow or a still, dark shape?

“Lewis?” he said softly, but the shape didn’t stir. Kincaid’s heart lurched in his chest. “Stay here,” he hissed at Gemma, but he felt her at his heels as he sprinted across towards the enclosure.

The dark shadow coalesced as he drew closer, became a sleek, black dog splayed on its side. Kneeling, Kincaid thrust a hand through the octagonal space in the wire, scraping the skin from his knuckles. His straining fingers touched the dog. The coat felt warm, and under his hand the flank rose gently.

“Is he…” Gemma didn’t finish her sentence.

“He’s breathing.” He saw a smudge on the concrete near the dog’s head. Kincaid looked up at the dark windows of the house. “Something’s wrong, Gemma. You stay-”

“I’m bloody not letting you go in on your own,” she whispered. “So don’t even think it.”

They crossed the lawn together. When they reached the kitchen door, Kincaid eased it open and they moved through the mudroom as silently as wraiths. In the kitchen they stood in the dark, just touching. Kincaid turned full circle, willing his eyes to adjust, willing his ears to pick up a sound over the thumping of his heart.

After a long moment his pulse began to slow, and beside him he felt some of the tension drain from Gemma’s body. The noise came just as she drew breath to speak. His arm shot around her and he clamped his hand over her mouth, feeling the bite of her teeth against his palm as she gasped in surprise.

He heard it again, the faintest suggestion of a creak. The hair on the back of his neck rose. “The mobile phone,” he breathed at Gemma. “In my jacket, in the car. Go-”

The voice came from the darker oblong of the doorway into the hall. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

“DCI Ogilvie, I presume?” Kincaid’s voice sounded easily conversational, but Gemma could feel the tension in the hand across her mouth. She reached up carefully and tapped his hand, letting him know she understood, and it dropped away. He took a small step away from her and continued, “You’ve saved us a lot of trouble looking for you.”

“Don’t move.” The man said sharply. A click, and the light came on in the hall behind him, silhouetting his body but leaving his face in shadow. The light sparked from an object in his hand-flat and compact, it looked like a toy. A gun. Gemma thought desperately of the firearms chapter in her criminal investigation text, trying to place the gun-semiautomatic, a Walther, maybe-while at the same time a small detached part of her mind wondered what difference it made. She couldn’t judge the caliber. From where she stood the opening at the end of the barrel looked big enough to swallow her.

He moved another step into the room, throwing the gun into darkness again, but Gemma kept her eyes fixed on the spot where she knew it must be. “The pair of you are too clever by half,” he said, mocking them. “Now, the question is, what do I do with you?”

“Why not slip out the front as we came in the back?” asked Kincaid. He might have been inquiring about tomorrow’s weather.

“I tried.” There was a trace of humor in Ogilvie’s voice, for Gemma had no doubt now that it was he. “Damn Alastair and his paranoia. The front door has to be opened with a key, and I don’t happen to have it. And the windows seem to be stuck shut. So you can see my predicament. You two are all that stand between me and a tidy exit.”

Gemma’s tongue felt as if it had been glued to the roof of her mouth, but she tried to match Kincaid’s matter-of-fact tone. “There’s no point in killing us, you know. We’ve turned everything we know over to C &D.”

“Oh, but there is, Sergeant. I’d intended to brazen it out, come up with some plausible excuse for my sudden absence. They’ll not find anything concrete on me. But now that you’ve seen me here-”

“Why are you here?” asked Kincaid. “Satisfy my curiosity.”

Ogilvie gave an audible sigh. “Bloody Alastair managed to acquire some rather damaging evidence of my activities. I thought it prudent to get it back, but unfortunately he seems to have been more devious than I gave him credit for, and I’ve run out of time.”

Gemma’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light well enough so that she could see the planes of Ogilvie’s face and the glint of teeth as he spoke. He’d traded his usual Bond Street attire for nondescript jeans and anorak, and he looked even more dangerous without the civilized veneer. The gun made a small arcing movement as he shifted his aim from her to Kincaid and back again.

Kincaid moved a step nearer and put his arm around her, his fingers resting lightly on her shoulder. He meant more than comfort, she was sure, but what did he want her to do? All the should haves ran through her mind. They should have called for backup when they found the dog. She should have stayed outside, but would she have known Kincaid was in trouble before it was too late?

She felt Kincaid’s hand tense, then freeze as Ogilvie drawled, “However, I’ve had a good run, and I have a considerable bit of money tucked away on the Continent. I think I might prefer to retire DCI Ogilvie and start afresh, rather than pop holes in you two. It makes such an unpleasant mess, and while I may have walked the other side of the line a few times, I haven’t resorted to murder. But I can’t have you raising the alarm too soon, can I? Sergeant-”

“What about Jackie?” Gemma burst out. “Doesn’t having her gunned down in the street count? Or was that all right because you didn’t get your hands dirty?”

“I had nothing to do with that,” said Ogilvie, sounding irritated for the first time.

“And Gilbert?” asked Kincaid. “Did you come here looking for the evidence before, and he surprised-”

There came the unmistakable sound of car tires on gravel, then the slamming of a door. Ogilvie swore, then laughed softly. “Well, I suppose we might as well turn on the lights and have a party. The more, the merrier.” Stepping forwards, he flipped the light switch, and Gemma blinked as Claire’s copper-shaded lamps came on. “Move!” he barked at them, motioning towards the far side of the kitchen with the gun. “Away from the door.” He smiled then, and Gemma shivered, for the light in his eyes reminded her of drawings she’d seen of Celtic warriors going into battle. David Ogilvie was enjoying himself.

Voices, then footsteps. The mudroom door opened. Claire Gilbert came through into the kitchen, saying, “What’s going-” She stopped as she took in the tableau before her. “David?” Her voice rose into a squeak of surprise.