Deborah Crombie - A Share In Death

“The high temperature of the water is going to make establishing the exact time of death difficult. But I personally think it likely he was already dead when we were walking in the garden last night. Think about it. He would have gone to the pool between finishing up his duties and going home for the night, not too late, say ten or eleven.”

Hannah’s face had lost its quick color. “Before he went home for the night? You don’t think… it was suicide at all, do you?”

“I don’t think it likely, no.”

“Oh, god. You mean somebody… did that to Sebastian while we were talking just outside? And I was acting such a silly fool.”

“Quite probably, yes.”

“Now it all seems so stupid and inconsequential.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead with her fingers and sagged a little in the seat.

“We couldn’t have known. And your life isn’t trivial or inconsequential. If the things that matter to us every day weren’t important, no one’s death, Sebastian’s included, would be much loss.”

“Could we have done anything, helped him, if we’d known?”

Kincaid took her hand and held it in his, palm up, as if reading her fortune. “I doubt it. The shock would have been massive. His heart probably stopped almost instantly. Immediate resuscitation might have saved him, but there’s no way to be sure.”

She withdrew from him, and her voice came, sharply now, in the near darkness. “Of course, you know about these things. You’re the expert. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

He sighed and looked away, gazing out through the smeared windscreen at the dim forms of the moors. “I didn’t deliberately intend to deceive you. I suppose I just wanted to leave my work behind for a week, to be taken, for once, at face value. You should have seen them in the lounge a few minutes ago. They didn’t know whether to spit and snarl at me for putting something over on them, or suck up and pump me for information.” He smiled. “They’ll never see me as just an ordinary mug again. From now on I’ll be a spy in the enemy’s camp. I should have known it wouldn’t work. My job’s not shed so easily.”

“I think I see what you mean,” Hannah said, examining her fingertips. “And are you a spy in our camp?”

“I don’t think so. Neither fish nor fowl, really. I’m certainly a nuisance as far as Nash is concerned, and the fact that I outrank him doesn’t help.”

“What is it, by the way? Nash never said, only rather sneeringly referred to you as ‘your friend Kincaid.’

“Superintendent.” Her eyes widened in surprise. “I know, I know,” he said before she could speak. “Newly promoted, however, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. I went to Bramshill.” Seeing her expression of noncomprehension, he added, “Police College, near Reading. Special Course. It accelerates promotion to Inspector by about five years.”

What he didn’t add was that only “young officers of exceptional promise” were considered for Bramshill, and meteoric rise through the ranks was expected of its graduates. If Nash had checked his credentials he’d be aware of it, however, and would resent him all the more. “All I wanted,” he misquoted plaintively, “was a week’s holiday, and a little bit of butter for my bread.”

It brought a smile. “Weak. But nobody can be all bad who read Milne.”

“Truce, then?” he asked, extending his hand.

“Yes. All right.” She clasped his hand, briefly. “I feel like a ten year old.”

“That’s the idea.” He noted with satisfaction that some of the strain had left her face. “I’m running away.” He gestured toward his jacket. “Come to York with me for dinner, where no one knows either of us.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s been a shocking day. I think I’d rather be alone. Just drop me at the house as you go.”

Kincaid turned the car in the narrow lane and delivered Hannah as she asked, reaching across the Midget’s narrow passenger space to open her door and let her out. The lights glowed softly in the windows of Followdale House, as welcoming as death.

Sergeant Gemma James eased her Ford Escort into a space no bigger than a motorbike. Even her deft maneuvering couldn’t quite overcome the limitations of space-when she cut the engine and jerked up the handbrake, the car’s rear end stuck out into the street at an angle. Home early, an unusual feat, and still no place to park, because her neighbor’s teenage sons had cluttered every inch of the curbside with their clunkers. Even the baby had left his tricycle overturned in the middle of the path.

She unbuckled Toby from his carseat and lifted him from the car. Balancing the squirming toddler on one hip and her shopping on the other, she kicked the Escort’s door shut with unnecessary spite. She negotiated the path well enough until she caught her toe on the tricycle wheel, stumbled and swore.

An alliterative name and the mortgage on the semidetached house in Leyton were about the only things Rob had left her, and the house’s attributes were dubious-a view of Lea Bridge Road, red brick, peeling paint, a shriveled patch of front garden and next-door neighbors who seemed to be running a scrap yard.

Toby wriggled and shrieked, “Down, down,” kicking his feet against her thigh.

“Shhh. In a minute, love, in a minute.” Gemma bounced him on her hip and jingled her keys while she hunted for the right one. As she deposited Toby on the hall floor, she felt a large damp patch on the hip of her linen jacket. “Bloody hell. That’s torn it, now,” she muttered under her breath. Toby was soaking wet, and when she scooped him up again the odor of stale urine burned her nostrils. “Bloody day care,” she said. One of Toby’s blond eyebrows lifted in such a comical expression of surprise that she had to laugh.

“Bloody,” he repeated seriously, nodding his head.

“Oh, lovey.” Hugging him to her fiercely, sopping nappy and all, she whispered in his ear. “Mummy’s teaching you such bad habits. But it is bloody, it really is.” She carried him upstairs to his cot and stripped him off, then sponged his damp bottom with a wipe. “You’re too big a boy to be wearing nappies. Two already, aren’t you, love? A big boy.”

“Me two,” Toby repeated, grinning at her.

Gemma sighed. She’d taken her holiday earlier in the summer, and she didn’t see how she could possibly train him unless she could stay home with him for a few days.

She pressed her lips against his stomach and blew hard. Toby squealed and giggled with delight as she swung him down and slapped his bottom. He took off around the house, roaring like a freight train, chubby legs pumping, and Gemma followed him more slowly.

Fortified with a glass of Spanish plonk from the fridge, she put away her shopping and picked up the sitting room, tossing Toby’s toys and books in baskets. She had tried to brighten the place up. White, rice-paper globes from Habitat to cover the bare lightbulbs, rice-paper shades on the windows, printed cotton cushions on the dull three-piece suite, colorful travel posters on the walls-but the damp still seeped through the wallpaper and the cracks in the ceiling spread like ivy.

The dull thud of heavy metal rock started up next door and the walls began to vibrate. Gemma fetched a broom from the kitchen and banged the handle smartly against the connecting wall. The noise abated a fraction of a decibel. “If you don’t turn down that bloody racket I’ll phone in a complaint,” she shouted at the wall, even though she knew they couldn’t hear a word.

Then the absurdity of it struck her and she started to laugh. Just look at her-standing there screeching like a fishwife, red hair flying, broom in hand-a proper witch. Still smiling, she rescued her wine from the kitchen, sat down on the sofa and propped her feet on the trunk that served as a coffee table. Toby, unperturbed by the noise, pushed a plush teddy bear along the floor and made zooming noises.