Deborah Crombie - A Share In Death

“I found her myself. She was unconscious!”

“Very convenient, as I said, to be discovered by a sympathetic policeman.” Nash clucked and said with great condescension, “And laddie, anyone can fake a faint.” Nash fluttered his eyelids and moaned.

Kincaid closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Have you any idea, Chief Inspector, why Miss Alcock would risk breaking her neck?”

“It seems to me that if you’re bumping off people right and left it doesn’t hurt to appear to be a victim yourself. It’s an old ploy.”

“What possible motive could she have for killing Sebastian or Penny?”

“What possible motive could any of them have? You tell me, laddie. You’re the one’s so chummy with her.” Nash smiled at him impishly, and Kincaid felt the exchange slipping into utter farce.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you, Inspector. You’ll have to ask her yourself.”

Kincaid plunged out the front door and shook his head as if the cold air would clear it. Even a small dose of Chief Inspector Nash made him feel like he’d wandered into a pea-soup fog. He had some questions to ask Patrick Rennie and he wasn’t inclined to invite Nash along and allow him to make hash of the interview.

He paced around the darkening garden, wishing he had Gemma or Peter Raskin to use as a sounding board. The first floor of Followdale House was broken into sections by fire doors-one divided the area containing his suite and the balcony door from the area containing Hannah’s suite and the main staircase. That area in turn was separated from the suites on the other side of the house by another door. As he had come through the door between his suite and the staircase he could have sworn he heard the far door closing.

He hadn’t thought anything about it at the time, not until Patrick Rennie had come in the front door, flushed and breathing hard, minutes after he’d found Hannah. Kincaid had no way of knowing how long Hannah had lain there, but it might have been only minutes. Rennie could have run down the back staircase and around the building to the front, anxious to judge the results of his attempt on Hannah’s life.

Kincaid returned to the house, hesitating for a moment in the front hall. Where was Peter Raskin? Had anyone tracked down the other guests and taken their statements?

He stood quite still, listening for some sound, some intimation of life or movement in the house. It amazed him that a house this size, with nearly a dozen people in it, could seem so utterly deserted. The noisy cocktail hour chatter of the first evening seemed almost unimaginable now-the guests had certainly lost their taste for one another’s company.

He walked through the darkened reception area toward the sitting room, where a dim lamp cast a solitary pool of light. A slight sound from the bar drew Kincaid to the door.

Patrick Rennie sat alone at a table, morosely sliding a glass in its condensate puddle. “Just the man I wanted to see,” Kincaid said, and Rennie’s head shot up.

“How is she?”

“Dr. Percy’s with her. I don’t think she’s badly hurt.” Kincaid retrieved a beer from under the counter and sat down opposite Rennie. “Where is everyone?”

“Holed up in their rooms expecting fallout, I imagine. Chief Inspector Nash sent that constable around to take statements. I don’t know if he’s rounded everyone up yet. Listen,” Rennie changed tack, not to be distracted from what was on his mind, “I behaved abominably toward Hannah today. And now this.” Rennie waved his hand vaguely toward the stairs, then met Kincaid’s eyes. “Did she tell you about me?”

“Yes.”

“And did she tell you what an ass I made of myself this morning?”

“She said you resented her barging into your life,” Kincaid answered drily.

Rennie rubbed long fingers across his forehead. “What she must have put herself through… and then I stomped all over her with all the sensitivity of an elephant.” His eyebrows lifted in the self-mocking little smile Hannah must have seen. “It was the shock, I think. All those years of wondering who she was, what she was like, why she let me go-it all came back to me. Is it too late, do you think, to start again?”

Kincaid didn’t relish the role of Miss Lonelyhearts under the best of circumstances, and particularly not when one party might have tried to hasten the other’s demise. “I couldn’t say.” He sipped his beer, then added easily, “A great deal would depend on where were you today just before you came in.”

Color flooded into Rennie’s face. “God, I’ve been an bloody fool. You were right about Cassie, you know. It started last year. Marta knew something was going on but I badgered her into coming here anyway. I thought Cassie cared about me, that she was even worth risking my future.” He shook his head as if bewildered by his own stupidity. “But nothing went right this visit. This afternoon I decided I had to pin her down, sort things out. I went across to the cottage and started to knock but the door wasn’t quite shut. Well, it’s the usual old story. Why should I have been so surprised?” He smiled, but his color was still high and his eyes didn’t quite meet Kincaid’s.

“Compromising?”

“Fairly.”

“And who was the lucky chap?”

Rennie looked away. “Graham Frazer.”

Kincaid paced the dimly lit reception area, listening, a little guiltily, for Anne Percy’s light tread on the stairs. He’d left Patrick Rennie nursing a drink in the empty bar, and he felt less sure than ever whether the man was genuine or a most sincere and plausible liar.

If Cassie supported Patrick’s story, would that give him a sufficient alibi? Hannah had told Kincaid she’d tapped on his door just before she started down the stairs. But it had been a very tentative knock, she’d said, as she’d thought better of it and decided to go on her own. Had that been the sound he’d heard while on the phone to Gemma? Or had he been on the balcony and heard nothing at all?

“Timing. All a matter of timing,” he muttered. If Hannah had lain on the stairs only minutes, could Patrick prove he’d come straight from Cassie’s into the hall? And for that matter, where did that leave Cassie and Graham? Safely locked in a lovers’ alibi? Or colluding in a foolproof murder attempt? Assuming, of course, that Hannah hadn’t been lying unconscious for half-an-hour or more-in which case it could have been any one of the three. But why would one of them, or anyone else, for that matter, want to kill Hannah?

And what had the rest of the cast been up to?

Kincaid smacked his fist into his open palm, grimacing in frustration. He might as well be tied up and blindfolded, for all he’d accomplished. He, who had so often complained of paperwork’s drudgery, would have given anything for a stack of neatly detailed statements taken by his efficient sergeant. Chief Inspector Nash had gone from being deliberately obstructive to a kind of sly evasiveness, but both tactics produced the same end result-Kincaid had no facts.

Some movement in the shadowy room, a current of air perhaps, made Kincaid turn toward the sitting-room door. The light shifted and he had a brief second’s vision of Sebastian Wade as he had first seen him in this room-propped nonchalantly with his shoulder against the door-jamb, hands in pockets, face split by an impish grin.

How the hell, Kincaid thought, did it all fit together?

Quick footsteps on the stairs drew him into the hall. Anne Percy met his questioning look with a smile as she descended the last few steps. “She’s doing fine. A bit done in, of course. Wrist probably sprained, and a good-sized bump on the head. I told her that she had good bones.” Anne’s lips twitched with amusement. “No sign of creeping osteoporosis.” She sighed and stretched, then said more seriously, “You will keep an eye on her, won’t you, Duncan? I keep thinking…” Frowning, she paused for a moment. “Whoever pushed her… they might have stayed and finished the job.”