Deborah Crombie - Mourn Not Your Dead

“I told you before. I had nothing to do with PC Temple’s death, and that’s all I intend to say on the matter.” Ogilvie’s mouth was set in a stubborn line.

Deveney moved restively in his chair. “Tell us about the day Commander Gilbert died,” he said. “What happened after you went to the bank?”

“The bank?” Ogilvie repeated, sounding unsure of himself for the first time.

Sweat, goddammit, thought Kincaid, and smiled at him. “The bank. The bank where you conned the manager into letting you see Claire’s file.”

“How in bloody hell…” Ogilvie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose.” He sipped at his water again and seemed to collect himself before continuing. “The problem with following Claire was that I couldn’t take a chance on her recognizing me, so I could never get too close. I’d seen her make stops at that bank several times, and I knew they did their personal banking at the Midlands in Guildford. For all I knew she was simply running errands for Gilbert’s mother, but I noticed that she always came from work and returned there, and that made me wonder. By that time the game had grown a bit stale, and I was intrigued.

“Oh, it was a game at first, I admit, a chance to use old skills, feel the edge of things again. And it was a challenge-give Alastair enough to keep him off my back, yet not enough to compromise Claire too badly. He should have blackmailed a less biased snoop.”

Deveney rubbed one thumb with the other. “I should think you’d have relished the opportunity to get even with her, after she threw you over for him.”

“And satisfy bloody Alastair Gilbert in the process? He wanted me to tell him his wife was cheating on him. He seemed to get some sort of perverse satisfaction out of it.”

Kincaid leaned forwards. “Was she?”

“I don’t intend to tell you that, either. What Claire did was her business.”

“But you told Gilbert about the bank account.”

“It seemed harmless enough. I called him that afternoon, told him I wanted to talk to him and that I’d meet his train in Dorking. I gave him the information and told him I was finished. In months of watching Claire, that was the only thing I’d come up with, and for all I knew she was saving up to buy him a bloody birthday present. I’d had enough.”

“And that was that?” Kincaid raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“He agreed,” said Ogilvie, his eyes shuttered.

Kincaid leaned forwards and thumped his fist on the table. “Bollocks! Gilbert would never have agreed. I know that for a fact, and I didn’t know him half as well as you. I think he laughed at you, told you he’d never let you off. And you believed him, didn’t you?” Kincaid sat back again and stared at Ogilvie, playing out the scenario in his head. “I think you followed him home from Dorking that evening, hoping for an opportunity. You left your car in the pub car park, where it would be unremarkable, or up at the end of the lane. You rang the doorbell and made an excuse, told him there was something you’d forgotten to mention, while you saw that no one else was home.

“And I think it was you Gilbert underestimated. He turned his back on you, and that was the end of it.”

The silence in the room grew thick. Kincaid imagined he heard their hearts beating in opposition and the sound of the blood pumping through their veins. Sweat stood out now on Ogilvie’s brow, glistening like oil.

Ogilvie moved, wiping his hand across his face impatiently. “No. I did not kill Alastair Gilbert. And I can prove it. I drove straight back to London, as I had an evening appointment with a painter to discuss the decorating of my flat.” He smiled. “An alibi from an unbiased witness, Superintendent. You’ll find it stands up.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Deveney. “Anyone is susceptible to a payoff. As you should know.”

“A dirty blow,” said Ogilvie. “Touché, Chief Inspector. But if we’re trading points here, I must say that in my old nick we at least gave the accused a cup of coffee. Do you think you could manage that?”

Deveney glanced at Kincaid, grimaced. “I suppose so.” He spoke into the tape recorder, giving the time and noting that they would take a brief recess, then switched it off.

When the door had closed behind him, Ogilvie gave Kincaid a considering look. “Off the record, Superintendent?”

“I can’t promise that.”

Ogilvie shrugged. “I’m not about to make a grand confession. I have nothing to confess, except that I’m tired. You seem like a sensible man. Let me give you a bit of advice, Duncan. It’s Duncan, isn’t it?” When Kincaid nodded, he went on. “Don’t let bitterness damage your judgment. I should have had Gilbert’s job. I was the better qualified, but he was better at sucking up to the powers that be, and he sabotaged me.

“After that I started to feel I deserved more, that the system owed it to me, and that was how I excused the little infractions. Then you begin to justify it in other ways-the stuff goes on no matter what we do, you say, so why not benefit from it?” Ogilvie paused and drained his water glass, then wiped his mouth. “After a while it wears on you, though, like a sickness. I knew I needed to get out, but I kept putting it off. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. That constable-how is he?”

“They say he’s in surgery, but it sounds as though he’ll be all right.” How easy it was to fall from grace by increments. Kincaid looked at Ogilvie, wished he’d met him a dozen years ago, untarnished. “But that doesn’t excuse what you did. And Jackie Temple-you may not have ordered her death, but she was killed because she asked questions about you. In my book that makes you guilty as hell.”

Ogilvie met his eyes. “I’ll have to live with that, won’t I?”

No matter how hard they tried to make the waiting room look comfortable and homelike, they couldn’t disguise a hospital. The smell crept under the doors and through the ventilation system, as pervasive as smoke. Gemma sat alone in the corner of the sofa, waiting. She felt very odd. Time seemed fluid, erratically arbitrary Her eyes trained on the pattern in the wallpaper, she heard the gunshot and saw Will fall, again and again, as if a film were looping inside her head.

She remembered a kind-faced sister ordering her down to the cafeteria for a supper she hadn’t been able to eat, but she had no idea how long ago that had been. Surely Will must be out of the theater soon, and someone would come.

Her trousers were splattered with mud and streaked with blood across the knees and thighs. Still huddled in Kincaid’s anorak, she was grateful for its warmth, but she kept fingering the stiff, stained cuffs, a voice in her head repeating Will’s blood, Will’s blood , like an incantation.

Her head jerked up. Had she been asleep? The voices and footsteps were real; she hadn’t been dreaming. She stood up, her heart racing, as Kincaid and Nick Deveney came through the door.

“Gemma, are you all right?” Kincaid asked. “It’s not bad news about Will, is it?”

Weak-kneed, she sat again, and Kincaid took the chair beside her. She shook her head. “No. It’s just… I thought it must be the doctor… Sorry. You didn’t see anyone as you came in?”

“No, love.” Kincaid glanced around the empty room. “Doesn’t Will have family?”

“He told me his parents died,” said Gemma.

Deveney made a face. “He won’t have told you how.” When Gemma and Kincaid looked at him expectantly, he sighed and examined his fingernails. “They were devoted to each other, his parents. And to Will. They took it hard when he was posted to Ulster. Just after Will came home his mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and a few months later, his dad with terminal cancer.