Deborah Crombie - A Share In Death

“Mr. Kincaid.” Maureen Hunsinger spoke next, reproaching him with all the directness of a child whose feelings have been hurt. “You misled us.”

Cassie, who seemed to have temporarily abandoned her managerial distinction and banded with the herd, chimed in. “Oh, he’s full of surprises, is our Detective Superintendent Kincaid. All chummy with the local police, johnny-on-the-spot to the rescue. A real hero. Unfortunately, it was too late for poor Sebastian.” Her voice was light and mocking. She had recovered her control, all traces of the morning’s outburst erased. Her hair and make-up were exquisitely done and she wore rust, a matching skirt and blouse of some dull material with a webbing of fine, brown lines running through the solid color.

“I resent being treated like some common criminal, shut up together and then interrogated. And fingerprinted, for God’s sake. It’s disgraceful.” Eddie Lyle sounded aggrieved, as if Sebastian’s death had been designed merely to inconvenience him.

“You have no idea what it was like-” began Maureen, then blushed, remembering that Kincaid knew exactly what it was like.

“What have they found out? Your friends told us we were to ‘make ourselves available’ until cause of death is established. I must say it’s a hell of a way to spend one’s holiday,” said Graham Frazer. His flat, heavy face gave no hints as to what went on in the mind behind it, but his voice sounded somewhat less aggressive.

No one had offered Kincaid a drink, although they clutched theirs like protective talismans, so he answered Frazer over his shoulder as he walked to the bar and made himself a whiskey. “Look, I don’t know any more about this than the rest of you. It was purely circumstance that I happened to be first down this morning.”

“That’s all very well for you to say,” Eddie Lyle said querulously, “but you weren’t subjected to-”

“I had to make a statement just as all of you did, signed and sworn,” Kincaid interrupted as he rejoined them, then took a sip of his whiskey. No single malt scotch for the honor bar, this was the rawest of blends and it scorched his throat as it went down.

Kincaid noticed that Patrick Rennie hadn’t yet spoken, though he followed the conversation with interest. Watching which way the wind blew, thought Kincaid, with a politician’s prudence. The man looked more human than he had last night, in a pull-over and rumpled cords, his blond hair a little tousled, but how much was manufactured image and how much the real man Kincaid couldn’t tell.

Rennie stepped in now as mediator. “I’m sure Mr. Kincaid has had just as difficult a day as any of us, and has no intention of making this a busman’s holiday. I feel we’re all being rather unfair.”

“Thanks.” Kincaid met his eyes and was surprised to see a gleam of knowing humor. A smooth operator, no doubt, but perhaps Rennie didn’t take himself too seriously, after all. There was no answering spark in Marta Rennie’s eyes. She watched her husband, but unsmilingly, not privy to the brief connection between the two men. Kincaid sensed some tension between the Rennies, but unless his overactive imagination was playing him up again, there were strange little eddies and currents of unease running all through the group, more than he felt could be accounted for by the awkwardness following Sebastian’s death.

“How are the children?” Kincaid turned to John Hunsinger, who was hovering on the edge of the group as he had last night.

“More excited than upset, at least for the day. Their dreams may be a different story.” Hunsinger’s voice was deep and a little gravelly, as if unused to wear. “They said you-”

“You were very kind to them,” Maureen broke in, “They’ve put you right up in the ranks with Doctor Who. What’s horrible is that we didn’t even realize they were gone. They could have been…”

“Where are they now?” Kincaid asked.

“Emma MacKenzie’s taken them on a nature walk. Birdwatching. Can you believe it? They seem to have made friends this morning.”

The group was breaking up, drifting away in desultory conversation now that their attention was no longer focused on Kincaid. Janet Lyle still stood near them, quietly nursing her drink, while Eddie buttonholed Marta Rennie. “I can’t think why provision hadn’t been made for an occurrence of this sort. If this were a properly run facility-” a sidelong glance at Cassie “-things like this wouldn’t be allowed to happen.”

Kincaid resisted the temptation to ask him what on earth he thought might have prevented it, and turned to Jennet instead. “Janet, you have children, don’t you?”

She flushed, and spoke with a trace of the animation he had seen earlier in the day. “We have a daughter, Chloe.” In response to his slightly questioning look-he supposed he had expected a Cindy or a Jennifer-Janet said, “Eddie named her. He wanted her to be cultured, so he thought she should start off with a name that would suit her later.”

“Did it work?” Kincaid asked.

Janet’s eyes strayed to Eddie, who had moved off with Marta in the direction of the bar. “Not so you’d notice.” She grinned. “She’s a typical teenager, only her father’d never believe it. Chloe’s just about the same age as Angela Frazer, only she’s away at school and Angela’s… um, between schools, as I understand it.” Janet fell silent, her momentary energy dissipated.

Kincaid drained his glass in one swallow. The room felt stuffy and stale. The late afternoon sun beat upon the closed French windows and crumpled cigarette butts overflowed the ashtrays. Even Maureen seemed wilted by the atmosphere, not ready to charge into the gap in the conversation with her usual gusto. The tidying up, thought Kincaid, the airing and ashtray cleaning and magazine straightening, those had been Sebastian’s touches, the little bits of grease that made the whole house run smoothly.

Kincaid changed in record time, even for one who was accustomed to being summoned at inopportune moments. Shoving a tie in the pocket of his tweed jacket, he locked the door of the suite behind him and ran down the stairs, escaping into the cool forecourt with a feeling of relief.

As he nosed the Midget through the gate, he spotted Hannah walking down the road from the village. He waited, watching as she came toward him with her purposeful stride. She wore a long Aran cardigan, and the last of the sun lit the dark cap of her hair. When Hannah reached his car she opened the door and got in, without looking at him, without speaking. Kincaid drove on a half mile past the gate and pulled the car onto the verge.

“They interviewed us, Duncan.” She spoke into the sudden silence as the engine died, her face still averted. “One by one, in Cassie’s office. They asked if we were together last night. Corroborating your statement, they said. They seemed to assume that I knew you were a policeman, and Nash, the fat one, insinuated… all sorts of things.” She looked at him then, her color rising as she spoke. “Can you imagine what a fool I felt? ‘A policeman?’ I said, like some fatuous idiot. Why did you lie to me, Duncan?”

Kincaid stalled, gathering his thoughts. “Oh, he’s a right sod, our jolly Inspector Nash. I’m sure it’s his standard interrogation procedure, making the…” he hesitated over his choice of words, “person uncomfortable.”

“If you mean ‘suspect’, say so. Don’t bother to mince terms with me. Besides, I thought Chief Inspector Nash said it was suicide.”

“That’s the official line,” he said slowly. “But he has to go through the motions.” Kincaid shifted around in his seat so that he could more easily see her face in the fading light.

“But… I would have thought that we alibied each other.”