Deborah Crombie - A Share In Death

Marta Rennie sat alone at one of the small, round tables in the bar area, its glossy faux-wood surface marred by moisture rings and cigarette ashes. She took a fierce drag on a cigarette. Under the table her foot tapped with a convulsive rhythm. Suffering a few pangs of jealousy of her own, thought Kincaid. Nothing made a better prospect for damaging slips of the tongue than the proverbial woman scorned, and Kincaid set out to take full advantage.

“Mind if I join you?” Kincaid gave her a smile.

“Suit yourself.” Her nasal vowels were as flat and disinterested as the look she gave him. Kincaid slid a stool back and eased onto it before drinking off some of his beer. Marta continued to smoke, her eyes fixed on some invisible point in the distance, and Kincaid took his time, studying her. In coloring and feature she might have been her husband’s sister rather than his wife, and Kincaid always suspected more than a hint of narcissism in those who chose physical mirror images of themselves as mates. But at close quarters Marta’s well-bred polish was marred by the stench of stale tobacco.

“I was surprised to see such a crowd tonight. You’d have thought the circumstances would have been a bit dampening.” Kincaid’s weak conversational gambit elicited no response at all. This night wouldn’t make records for boosting his ego. Marta ground her cigarette out in the cheap tin ashtray and sipped her drink with a not-quite-steady hand. It looked like pure gin, or vodka, and Kincaid realized Marta Rennie was well on her way to tying one on.

When she did speak it surprised him. “Fifteen years. Must have at least fifteen years on him.” Kincaid could hear the slight slur in her voice now, the exaggerated sibilants.

“Who does?”

“That scientist…” She lapsed into silence again. A pale yellow silk scarf had replaced the black velvet bow at the nape of her neck. The scarf’s soft bow had come half undone and hung, bedraggled, down her back.

“You mean Hannah?”

“He’s so bloody impressed. With her ‘accomplishments’.” Marta sneered the word. “But he didn’t want a professional wife. Oh, no, charity work… somebody to sit next to him at banquets and look nice. A wife to trot out on speaking platforms like a prize pony at a gymkhana. Bloody useless.” She held her drink up and squinted into its depths as if it, crystal ball-like, contained some redemption.

“I’m sure your husband appreciates what you do for him.”

“Like hell.” Marta lit another cigarette. “Though I dare say,” she continued through a cloud of smoke, “he does appreciate Mummy and Daddy pouring money into his campaign fund.”

Kincaid decided subtlety would be wasted on Marta in her present condition. “I hear,” he leaned toward her and lowered his voice conspiratorially, “that Inspector Nash isn’t happy with the suicide verdict on Sebastian. It’s a good thing you and Patrick were together that night. Now there’s a thing that could really cause him image problems with those conservative constituents.”

Marta focused on him, puzzled. “What could?”

“A murder investigation.” Kincaid dropped it gently, like a pebble in a pool.

Marta gave him a sly, sideways look. “I was asleep, wasn’t I? Very convenient. He was, too. Asleep, I mean. Aspiring politicians,” she stumbled a bit over the syllables, “shouldn’t run around at night when the wife’s asleep. Very stupid. Patrick,” she enunciated his name very clearly, “is never stupid.” Marta drained her glass and set it down with a thump. “Buy me a drink?”

“Sure. What are you having?”

“G and T. No T.”

Kincaid refilled her drink and took it back to the table. Angry as she might be, Marta Rennie was sly with a drunk’s cleverness. She hadn’t lost sight of the side on which her political bread was buttered.

Kincaid wandered back into the sitting room, half-drunk beer in hand, in search of more sober prospects. Enjoyment, it seemed, was contagious. The guests had gathered around Hannah and Patrick as if hoping some of the spontaneous pleasure would rub off. Eddie and Janet Lyle, Maureen Hunsinger and Graham Frazer. And Penny. Penny sipped her sweet sherry, her face flushed with excitement. Only Emma, John Hunsinger, and the children were missing.

Kincaid joined the fringe of the group. Hannah smiled at him and he returned her smile, infected by her apparent delight in spite of himself.

“What’s the joke?” Kincaid asked Hannah. “Have I missed something?”

“Patrick’s just been telling the most amusing story about one of his constituents-”

Rennie demurred. “Oh, it’s nothing really. My most loyal campaigner, but she can’t remember my name. She’s an old dear, active on every committee in the county, raises oodles of money. I wouldn’t dare suggest she let someone else introduce me. But I’ve got a very important by-election coming up, and I imagine she’ll stand up to introduce me at the final rally, open her mouth and stop, utterly without a clue.”

Rennie told his anecdote with charm and practiced ease, and Kincaid could imagine the ladies ‘of a certain age’ cooing over him, and fighting for his attention with the ferocity of ferrets.

“I forget things, too, sometimes,” said Penny, into the pause that followed. “Just the other night I couldn’t find my bag. I looked everywhere for it, and then I came downstairs and I’d left it right here on the table!”

“Those things happen to me all the time, too,” Maureen put in good-naturedly. “Sometimes I think I’d forget my children if they didn’t remind me.”

“Eddie’s mother forgot things.” Janet Lyle spoke quietly, with a diffident glance at her husband. “We were desperately concerned about her. We didn’t think it safe for her to live alone, but she wouldn’t agree to go in a home.”

“Very proud. Very independent to the last,” Eddie agreed.

Maureen responded with ready sympathy. “Oh, dear. What happened?”

“An accident. In the car.” Eddie shook his head. “We’d spoken to her over and over again about her driving. She wouldn’t listen. Our Chloe was heartbroken.” Kincaid fancied he heard a touch of satisfaction in Lyle’s voice, an ‘I told you so’ not quite conquered.

Patrick spoke into the chorus of concerned tut-tuts. “It’s very difficult, caring for an aging parent. I hear it from my constituents all the time.”

Now, thought Kincaid, are we going to hear the stock conservative solution, or is he genuinely concerned? His eyes swept the circle of faces, expecting expressions of kindly interest.

The response seemed quite out of proportion. Penny MacKenzie’s eyes had filled and tears hung quivering on her lower lashes. “Excuse me.” The whisper was almost inaudible. She thrust her sherry glass into Maureen’s hand and fled the room.

“What on earth?” Patrick spoke into the silence that followed the banging of the reception room door. “Did I put my foot in it, somehow?”

“I don’t know,” Maureen answered. “I believe Penny and Emma cared for their ailing father for a long time. Maybe the reminder upset her.”

“How difficult for her,” said Janet Lyle, and they nodded sympathetically. All except Hannah, who, Kincaid noticed, had gone very pale, and looked, for the first time since they had met, her age.

“I’d better be off, myself.” Hannah gave a brittle smile and left the room without so much as a glance at Patrick.

“Dear god, it’s catching,” Cassie spoke for the first time. “Poor Patrick. Let’s hope you haven’t the same effect on the voters.” Until then she had stood at the back of the group and left them, for once, to their own devices. Her tone was caustic.

Before Rennie could respond, his wife appeared in the doorway of the bar. She walked as if she were treading on egg shells, with the exquisite care of the very drunk. The yellow scarf trailed over her shoulder like a banner. “What’s the matter,” she said with great deliberation, “has someone got their feelings hurt?”