Deborah Crombie - A Share In Death

Gemma recounted her interview with Helen North, then added, “I’d say that unless Mr. Lyle has an awfully good job, he might be a bit financially overextended-what with his mortgage and his wife not working and a daughter away at some posh boarding school. Sounds a right prig to me, besides,” she finished.

“Another model husband and father?”

“And devoted son.” Kincaid heard paper rustling as Gemma thumbed through her notebook.

“Where are you?”

“Call box in St. Albans. I haven’t been able to get on to Miles Sterrett at Hannah Alcock’s clinic. They say he’s ill…”

“Hang on, Gemma. I thought I heard someone at the door.” A ghost of a knock, so faint he thought he’d imagined it. When he opened the door there was no one in the hall. He returned to the phone. “Gemma? Must be hearing things. Listen, finish up what you can today and get up here as soon as possible. I feel uneasy about this whole business, melodramatic as it sounds.”

They rang off and Kincaid stood for a moment, debating. He decided it was about time he had another little talk with Angela Frazer.

Kincaid was halfway down the first flight of stairs when he saw a foot, a woman’s foot in a peach-colored sock, outstretched on the flight below him. A flat leather shoe lay overturned nearby. He skidded to a stop, then rounded the landing as his body began to function again.

Hannah Alcock lay crumpled beneath him.

Hannah lay sprawled head down, half on her back, her arms flung out as if she had tried to break her fall. While part of Kincaid’s mind reeled with shock, another part noted details-her sweater, the same soft peach as her socks, had ridden up and exposed a wide, pale slice of skin. Her ribs, so ungracefully bared, rose and fell rhythmically.

Relief rushed through Kincaid in a sickening wave. He closed his eyes and breathed a moment, steadying himself, then maneuvered into a kneeling position beside her. Although her head seemed twisted at an awkward angle, her color looked healthy and he didn’t think she was deeply unconscious. He touched her shoulder gently. “Hannah.” She made a soft sound and her eyelids fluttered. He tried again, more urgently. “Hannah.” Her eyes opened and she looked fuzzily at him, her expression blank. “Hannah. Hannah!”

A flicker of recognition moved in Hannah’s eyes. She turned her head a little and winced. “What…” She shifted again, feeling and cognizance returning together. “My head. Oh, my god. What hap-” She tried to lift herself and pain shot through her face.

“Careful, careful. Take it easy. What hurts?”

“My head… the back of it.”

“Not your neck?”

Tentatively, she rolled her head a little each way. “No. It seems okay.”

“Good. Can you move your legs?” She flexed each leg and nodded. “Okay. That’s good. No, wait,” Kincaid said as she struggled to pull herself into a sitting position. “Let’s do this a stage at a time.” He slid his arm beneath her head and supported it level with her shoulders. “Better?”

“Yes. I think I’m all right, really. I can feel everything, and move everything.” Hannah drew up her arms and legs again, demonstrating. “God, I feel like Humpty Dumpty.” She gave a ghost of a smile.

“I’m just glad you don’t look it,” Kincaid said with feeling. He hesitated to move her, but after a few more minutes of Hannah complaining about the blood running to her head, he temporized. Slipping his arm under her shoulders, he lifted and turned her so that she sat across the step with her back against the wall.

Hannah moved her head fretfully. “I’m all right. Let me get-”

“Wait.” Kincaid interrupted her. “Let’s assess the damage first.” He ran his fingers lightly over the back of her head. Near the crown a lump was already rising. “You’re definitely going to have an egg, but the skin’s not broken. What else?”

She clasped her right wrist in her left hand. “My wrist hurts like hell, but I can move it.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay. I imagine you’re going to have some bruising.” As he straightened up he found his hands were trembling, and his fingertips seemed to retain an imprint of the texture of her hair and the swelling of the lump beneath it. The reaction would pass, he knew, and he pushed away that first image etched in his brain-Hannah lying still and broken beneath him.

“Now, tell me what happened.”

For the first time Hannah looked afraid. “I was standing at the top of the stairs. The landing door opened-I remember wondering in a vague sort of way why I didn’t hear footsteps or the normal jingly noises people make when they walk. Then I felt a hand at my back.”

“Did you see-”

“No. There wasn’t time. Just a hard shove and that’s really all I remember.” She felt her wrist gingerly. “I must have tried to stop myself falling.”

Kincaid touched her arm. “Hannah, are you sure you don’t know who it was? Not even an impression?”

She shook her head. “No. Why would-”

The front door slammed and they heard quick footsteps crossing the porch. Patrick Rennie came into the hall, his color high as if with anger or excitement. He stopped when he saw them and looked from one to the other, puzzled. “Hannah? Why… what happened?” His tone shifted from bewilderment to concern as he took in Kincaid’s protective posture. “Are you all right?”

Kincaid, his hand still on Hannah’s arm, felt her stiffen. When she didn’t speak he answered for her. “She’s quite bruised and shaken.” He paused, studying Rennie’s face. “Someone pushed her down the stairs.”

Rennie looked at them incredulously for a moment. When he managed to speak he stumbled and stammered like a schoolboy. “Wh-Pushed? Pushed, did you say? Why in hell’s name would anyone want to push Hannah? She could have been…”

Kincaid thought nastily that for once Rennie’s aplomb had deserted him. “I thought you might be able to-” he began, when Rennie interrupted him.

“Have you phoned for the doctor? What about the police? They’ve been hanging about all day and now when they could be doing something useful-”

“Calm down, man. I hadn’t time to ring anyone. Perhaps-” Kincaid felt Hannah jerk beside him and she said softly, urgently, “Don’t Don’t leave me.”

“Perhaps,” he continued to Rennie, without looking at her, “you could go and ring them now.”

“You seem to be forever making me cups of tea.” Hannah gave a wan attempt at a smile.

“My lot in life,” answered Kincaid from the kitchen. “Born into the wrong era. I’m sure I would have made an excellent ‘gentleman’s gentleman’.”

“You as Jeeves? I don’t think so.” This time her smile was genuine, and it relieved Kincaid to see the lines in her face relax. With Rennie’s help he’d walked her up the stairs and into her suite, where they’d settled her on the sofa.

Rennie hovered around Hannah, obviously wanting to speak to her without Kincaid’s watchdog presence. Hannah seemed to have relaxed since her earlier, almost instinctive recoil from her son, but she hadn’t looked at or spoken to him directly. Kincaid had no intention of leaving as yet.

Rennie gave in, finally, with a return of some of his habitual grace. “Look, I can see I’m not wanted just now. But you will let me know if I can do anything?” He spoke to Hannah, not Kincaid, and when he reached the door he turned and addressed her once more. “I’m sorry, Hannah.” Kincaid had the impression he had not been referring to her fall.

Kincaid returned from the kitchen bearing a tray with two cups of tea and a plate of digestive biscuits. “Teatime.”