Deborah Crombie - Leave The Grave Green

Kincaid turned back to her. “Maybe Caroline insisted. Maybe his friend, the assistant commissioner, volunteered us, and he didn’t think he should protest.” Sensing her discomfort, he touched her fingers and added, “I don’t like this, either, Gemma, but we have to follow it through.”

They dashed for the house under the cover of one umbrella, and stood huddled together on the doorstep. They heard the short double ring as Kincaid pushed the bell, but before he could lift his finger, Sir Gerald opened the door himself. “Come in by the fire,” he said. “Here, take your wet things off. It’s beastly out, I’m afraid, and not likely to get any better.” He shepherded them into the sitting room, where a fire blazed in the grate, and Kincaid had a moment’s fancy that it was never allowed to go out.

“You’ll need something to warm you inside as well as out,” said Sir Gerald when they were established with their backs to the fire. “Plummy’s making us some tea.”

“Sir Gerald, we must talk to you,” said Kincaid, making a stand against the tide of social convention.

“I’m sorry Caroline’s out,” said Gerald, continuing in his hearty, friendly way as if there were nothing the least bit odd about their conversation. “She and Julia are making the final arrangements for Connor’s funeral.”

“Julia’s helping with the funeral?” asked Kincaid, surprised enough to be distracted from his agenda.

Sir Gerald ran a hand through his sparse hair, and sat down on the sofa. It was his spot, obviously, as the cushions had depressions that exactly matched his bulk, like a dog’s favorite old bed. Today he wore another variation of the moth-eaten sweater, this time in olive green, and what seemed to be the same baggy corduroys Kincaid had seen before. “Yes. She seems to have had a change of heart. I don’t know why, and I’m too thankful to question it,” he said, and gave them his engaging smile. “She came in like a whirlwind after lunch and said she’d made up her mind what should be done for Con, and she’s been putting us through our paces ever since.”

It would seem that Julia had made peace with Con’s ghost. Kincaid pushed the thought of her aside and concentrated on Gerald. “It’s you we wanted to see, sir.”

“Have you found something?” He sat forward a bit and scanned their faces anxiously. “Tell me, please. I don’t want Caroline and Julia upset.”

“We’ve just come from Tommy Godwin, Sir Gerald. We know why Tommy came to see you at the theater the night Connor died.” As Kincaid watched, Gerald sank back into the sofa, his face suddenly shuttered. Remembering the comment Sir Gerald had made to Tommy, Kincaid added, “You knew that Tommy was Matthew’s father all along, didn’t you, sir?”

Gerald Asherton closed his eyes. Under the jut of his eyebrows, his face looked impassive, remote and ancient as a biblical prophet’s. “Of course I knew. I may be a fool, Mr. Kincaid, but I’m not a blind fool. Have you any idea how beautiful they were together, Tommy and Caroline?” Opening his eyes, he continued, “Grace, elegance, talent-you would have thought they’d been made for one another. I spent my days in terror that she would leave me, wondering how I would anchor my existence without her. When things seemed to fizzle out between them with Matty’s conception, I thanked the gods for restoring her to me. The rest didn’t matter. And Matty… Matty was everything we could have wanted.”

“You never told Caroline you knew?” put in Gemma, disbelief evident in her tone.

“How could we have gone on, if I had?”

It had started, thought Kincaid, not with outright lies but with a denial of the truth, and that denial had become woven into the very fabric of their lives. “But Connor meant to wreck it all, didn’t he, Sir Gerald? You must have felt some relief when you heard the next morning that he was dead.” Kincaid caught Gemma’s quick, surprised glance, then she moved quietly to stand by the piano, examining the photographs. He left the fire and sat in the armchair opposite Gerald.

“I must admit I felt some sense of reprieve. It shamed me, and made me all the more determined to get to the bottom of things. He was my son-in-law, and in spite of his sometimes rather hysterical behavior, I cared for him.” Gerald clasped his hands and leaned forward. “Please, Superintendent, surely it can’t benefit Connor for all this past history to be raked over. Can’t we spare Caroline that?”

“Sir Gerald-”

The sitting room door opened and Caroline came in, followed by Julia. “What a perfectly horrid day,” said Caroline, shaking fine drops of water from her dark hair. “Superintendent. Sergeant. Plummy’s just coming with some tea. I’m sure we could all do with some.” She slipped out of her leather jacket and tossed it wrong-side-out over the sofa back, before sitting beside her husband. The deep red silk of the jacket’s lining rippled like blood in the glow from the fire.

Kincaid met Julia’s eyes and saw pleasure mixed with wariness. It was the first time he had seen her with her mother, and he marveled at the combination of contrast and similarity. It seemed to him as if Julia were Caroline stretched and reforged, edges sharpened and refined, with the unmistakable stamp of her father’s smile. And in spite of her tough mannerisms, her face was as transparent to him as his own, while he found Caroline’s unreadable.

“We’ve been to Fingest church,” said Julia, speaking to him as if there were no one else in the room. “Con’s mum would have insisted on a Catholic funeral and burial, with all the trappings, but it didn’t matter the least bit to Con, so I mean to do what seems right to me.” She crossed the room to warm her hands by the fire. Dressed for the outdoors, she wore a heavy oiled-wool sweater still beaded with moisture, and her cheeks were faintly pink from the cold. “I’ve been round the churchyard with the vicar, and I’ve picked a gravesite within a stone’s throw of Matty’s. Perhaps they’ll like being neighbors.”

“Julia, don’t be irreverent,” said Caroline sharply. Turning to Kincaid, she added, “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Superintendent?”

“I’ve just been telling Sir Gerald-”

The door swung open again as Plummy came through with a laden tea tray. Julia went immediately to her aid, and together they arranged the tea things on the low table before the fire. “Mr. Kincaid, Sergeant James.” Plummy smiled at Gemma, looking genuinely pleased to see her. “I’ve made extra, in case you’ve not had a proper lunch again.” She busied herself pouring, this time into china cups and saucers rather than the comfortable stoneware mugs they’d used in the kitchen.

Refusing the offer of freshly toasted bread, Kincaid accepted tea reluctantly. He looked directly at Gerald. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid we must go on with this.”

“Go on with what, Mr. Kincaid?” said Caroline. She had taken her cup from Plummy and returned to perch on the arm of the sofa, so that in spite of her small stature she seemed to hover protectively over her husband.

Kincaid wet his lips with a sip of tea. “The night Connor died, Dame Caroline, Tommy Godwin visited your husband in his dressing room at the Coliseum. He told Sir Gerald that he had just had a very unpleasant encounter with Connor. Although Connor was a little drunk and not terribly coherent, it eventually became clear that he had discovered the truth about Matthew’s parentage, and was threatening to make his knowledge public with as much attendant scandal as possible.” Kincaid paused, watching their faces. “Connor had discovered, in fact, that Matthew was Tommy’s son, not Gerald’s.”

Sir Gerald had sunk into the sofa cushions again, eyes closed, his hand only loosely balancing the cup on his knee.