Deborah Crombie - A Share In Death

Edward Lyle entered ahead of his wife, and only remembered to offer her the chair when Raskin greeted her. Kincaid quietly fetched another stool and resumed his unobtrusive seat. Lyle seemed subdued, less bristly with righteous indignation than Kincaid had seen him before. “I don’t know what I can tell you, Inspector.” Lyle ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Most unfortunate, most unfortunate about poor Miss MacKenzie.”

Unfortunate? Kincaid thought it an odd word choice. The morning had been rather more than unfortunate. Raskin let the comment fade into silence before he spoke. “If you would just tell me what you and your wife were doing this morning, I’m sure that will be sufficient, Mr. Lyle.”

“Well, we breakfasted as usual-I like a proper breakfast, you know. Then I walked down to the village for a paper, left Janet writing some letters in the suite. After I returned I had a look at the paper, and we had begun going over some maps, planning the afternoon’s outing, when all the commotion began. That’s all, Inspector. I must say-” he began, his voice sliding into the querulous range, when Raskin broke in.

“Is that correct, Mrs. Lyle?” Lyle drew breath to protest, but his wife began to speak.

“Yes… of course. I was writing to Chloe, our daughter. She’s at boarding school. It’s such a shame we weren’t able to acquire time that coincided with Chloe’s holidays. She would have-” She glimpsed her husband’s disapproving expression. “Sorry. How stupid of me. I’m glad she’s not here.” Her brow furrowed and she took a breath, as though nerving herself to speak. “Inspector, this is terrible, what’s happened, but I don’t understand what it has to do with us.” She turned toward Kincaid as she spoke, including him in her appeal, the severity of her thick, dark hair softened by the lightest dusting of gray, her skin clear, her dark eyes expressive.

Kincaid thought suddenly what an attractive woman she was-or would be, if she didn’t wear that constant air of anxious diffidence. He remembered the burst of animation he’d seen as she sat in the tea shop with Maureen, and he wondered what she would have been like if she had not married Edward Lyle. And why had she married him? That, Kincaid considered, was the real question. Fifteen, twenty years ago, had she seen some promise, now dissipated, in this weedy, self-important man?

“Mrs. Lyle,” Raskin answered, interrupting Kincaid’s musing, “we must ask everyone the same questions, just in case they might have seen or heard something helpful. I’m sure you must understand that.”

“We’ve seen nothing out of the ordinary at all, Inspector,” said Lyle. “Nothing at all.”

Patrick Rennie, always the gentleman, solicitously seated his wife in the chair. Marta looked as if she needed all the support she could get-she was obviously not one of those lucky few who escaped hangovers. The flaxen hair hung limply, pulled back from her face with a plain elastic band.

“Marta,” Patrick explained, “spent the morning in bed, as she didn’t feel well.” His expression earnest and pleasant, he didn’t look at his wife as he spoke. He had gone down to the sitting room to work on a speech, he told them, so as not to disturb her.

“Did you stay there all morning, Mr. Rennie?” asked Raskin.

“Oh, I popped in and out. You know how it is. Said ‘hallo’ to Cassie. Ran upstairs for a book-quotations come in handy when you’re writing a speech. Lyle came in and waffled about for a bit. Ruined my concentration, just when I was getting to the good bit. Didn’t see anyone else. Oh, and Inspector,” there was just a hint of playfulness in his voice, “I did see you and your chief come through. Saw the car pull up through the sitting-room window.” Cocky bastard, thought Kincaid.

“Mrs. Rennie?” asked Raskin.

She hadn’t been able to keep her hands still, fretting for something more than her tea, Kincaid imagined. She licked her lips before she spoke. “I slept all morning, just as Patrick says. Felt bloody awful. Flu or something. I’d just got up and started coffee when Patrick came in and said there was a lot of running up and down stairs, slamming doors, something going on.” She fumbled in her bag for a cigarette. “I’m sorry about Miss MacKenzie. She seemed a nice person.” An inadequate eulogy if he’d ever heard one, thought Kincaid, but at least Marta Rennie had spared a thought for Penny.

“Miss MacKenzie seemed rather upset when she left us last night. She couldn’t have-”

“No, Mr. Rennie,” Raskin answered his unspoken question, “I’m afraid there’s no possibility the injuries could have been self-inflicted.”

“That’s the lot, then.” Peter Raskin yawned and stretched.

“And just as damned useless as the last time,” Kincaid said in disgust. “Five minutes, that’s all it would have taken. Any one of them could have nipped down to the tennis court and back up again. Except the Hunsingers, of course,” he corrected himself, “and I never considered them very seriously anyway.”

Raskin sat up in the swivel chair and studied Kincaid for a moment. “What about Miss Emma MacKenzie? And Hannah Alcock?”

“Oh, I suppose it’s within the realm of possibility. Emma could have followed her sister down to the tennis court-”

“A true domestic,” Raskin interrupted. “You know that sometimes it’s those years of togetherness that blow up-”

“Over what? The goats? And you know as well as I do that most domestic violence is precipitated by alcohol and occurs on the spur of the moment.” Kincaid’s words came more sharply than he intended. “Anyway, I don’t believe it. Emma was devoted to Penny. She’ll be lost without Penny to look after and worry over,” he raised his hand as Raskin started to speak, “and don’t give me that mercy-killing line, either. Not with a tennis racquet.”

“All right,” Raskin conceded. “I’ll admit it’s pretty unlikely. What about Miss Alcock?”

Kincaid shifted uncomfortably on the barstool. “I don’t like it, Peter. I doubt we’ll get a more exact time of death from the pathologist than the circumstances provide. According to Emma, Penny left the suite about half past eight. Miss Alcock came to see me about the same time, stayed for…” he trailed off, thinking, “maybe half an hour. My sergeant called very shortly after she’d left, and I looked at my watch then. It was five past nine. You bumped into Miss Alcock in the car park, coming to fetch us, at-”

“Nine-thirty. Half-hour news had just finished on the car radio.”

“So…

“She would have had time,” Raskin said quietly. “Just. And I saw her coming across the lawn from the tennis court path. The sensible thing for her to do would be to tell me she’d just found Penny’s body.”

“But I don’t believe it.” Kincaid stood and began to pace restlessly around the cramped office. “It’s too pat. And what possible motive could she have?”

“What motive could any of them have? None of it makes any damned sense,” Raskin said in exasperation. “And Chief Inspector Nash is not going to leave the issue, you know,” he added.

“I know.” Despite his opinion of Nash, Kincaid had a hard time defending his certainties even to himself. He just couldn’t swallow the idea that Hannah had sat confiding in him over coffee and then had gone down and cold-bloodedly murdered Penny. Was it his pride at stake, his judgement, or simply his belief in her basic human decency? Could he be depended upon to do his job thoroughly, if it were his show to run? He didn’t fancy explaining his reservations to Chief Inspector Nash. “Where’s your Super, anyway, Peter? A Chief Inspector in charge of a murder investigation isn’t normal procedure.”