Deborah Crombie - A Share In Death

“You’d been walking?” Kincaid rubbed the toe of his trainer across the gravel.

“Oh, yes. Lovely day up on the bank.” Lyle waggled his hand in the direction of Sutton Bank. “Janet was having her rest after lunch, and I wanted to give her a bit of peace and quiet. She hasn’t been feeling well, you know,” he added confidentially. “Since Mother died, she’s had these little tired spells. And now, with all these terrible things happening, she’s quite exhausted.”

“I’m sure.” Kincaid nodded sympathetically, sure only that living with Edward would be exhausting enough for anyone.

“But I told Janet that we would stay until our time ran out on Saturday.” Lyle jabbed his finger in the air for emphasis. “Not that Chief Inspector Nash would mind us going, of course, but I do like to get my money’s worth. And speaking of going,” he squinted at his watch, “the wife’ll have my supper ready and I’d not like it to get cold.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand toward Kincaid and trotted up the steps.

Kincaid’s stomach growled as if the word ‘supper’ had activated internal alarm bells. He couldn’t remember when he’d had a proper meal, and since he hadn’t a generic wife to prepare it, he imagined he’d have to fend for himself. He grinned in the darkness. Eddie Lyle didn’t know his own luck.

She couldn’t be gone.

Kincaid tried the door to Hannah’s suite, the knob slipping in his suddenly sweaty palm. Locked. He stepped back and looked out the landing window at the car park. The phone-box red paintwork on his Midget gleamed cheerily back at him, but the space beside it where Hannah’s green Citroën had stood was empty.

His stomach knotted as he told himself not to be an ass. No need to panic-she’d probably just gone down to the shops for some coffee or a newspaper. But no reasonable, rational explanation eased the dread that squeezed his chest.

He’d spent half the morning pacing the confines of his sitting room, waiting for word from Gemma, assuming Hannah was tucked up safely and obediently in her suite.

He should have known better. Hannah Alcock had lived by her own rules too long to do anyone else’s bidding. Kincaid stared down at the car park, wondering what had sent her out this morning.

The door from the opposite wing swished open. Kincaid turned to see Angela Frazer slide through it and stop, watching him. Cassie had been right. All vestiges of a normal fifteen-year-old had disappeared, camouflaged by punk-vampire. Her face and lips were artfully chalky, her eyes dark-ringed as Cleopatra’s, her hair mace-spiked.

As a defense mechanism he supposed it worked fairly well-she certainly looked unapproachable. What, Kincaid wondered, had driven Angela Frazer back undercover? He pushed his worry about Hannah aside for a moment and concentrated on Angela. The girl’s stare made him feel like a fly under a microscope. Hitching his hip on the window sill and folding his arms, he fumbled for the thread of their earlier rapport. “Where’ve you been hiding yourself?”

No answer. That didn’t surprise him. His opening sortie had sounded patronizingly cheerful even to his own ears. He tried a more combative tack. “What’d I do to deserve the silent treatment?”

The dark eyes disengaged as Angela ducked her head and moved around the wall toward him, running her finger along the molding top as if checking for dust. She halted just out of reach and her eyes flicked up at him again. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? Come on, Angela, what’s eating you? Nobody sees you for a couple of days and then you reappear looking like the Bride of Frankenstein. What’s happened?”

Angela’s eyes strayed toward her studded, black denim jacket and leather mini. Beneath the black skirt’s hem her knees looked absurdly pale and chubby-a child’s knees, even to the dimples.

Hug her or turn her over his knee and spank her-either option probably effective, neither available to him. Kincaid waited.

“You called me Angie before.”

“So I did. I thought we were friends.”

Her head jerked up at that and she said fiercely, “You didn’t do anything. You promised you would. Now no one cares what happened to Sebastian. I don’t mean,” she added, suddenly tangled in her middle-class upbringing, “that I don’t care about poor Miss MacKenzie and Miss Alcock. But Sebastian was…”

“I know. It’s right that you should feel that way.” Sebastian, whatever his faults, had deserved Angela’s loyalty. Kincaid reached out, taking advantage of the thaw, and gripped her shoulder. “I’ve been trying, Angie. I’m still trying.”

Angela’s face crumpled and suddenly she was sobbing against his chest, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Kincaid made soothing noises and stroked the back of her head, where her untreated hair felt as soft as duck’s down. He wished he could soak up her grief like a sponge.

Finally the sobs subsided to hiccups and she pushed herself away from him, wiping her hands across her eyes. Not possessing the snowy, white handkerchief the situation demanded, Kincaid dug a crumpled tissue from his pocket. “Here. I think it’s relatively clean.”

Angela turned her back to him and blew her nose, then said quietly, vindictively, “She made him do it.”

Kincaid felt like he’d missed a cue. “Who made whom do what?”

“Don’t be so stuffy.” Angela sniffed. “You know.”

“No, actually, I don’t. Tell me.” His pulse quickened but his voice reflected only mild, friendly interest-the wrong word or gesture could send Angela scuttling back to safe ground.

She hesitated now, pulling the zipper on her jacket back and forth. “That night Sebastian was… he said he didn’t go out, but he did. I heard him.”

“Your father?”

She nodded. “And the morning Miss MacKenzie died, I got up and he wasn’t there. He said he was there all the time.”

Kincaid pushed a little. “Angie, what do you think your father’s done?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice rose in a wail. “But if he’s done anything, she put him up to it.”

“Cassie?” Kincaid asked, sure of the answer. Angela nodded.

“Why do you think so?”

“They’re always meeting and whispering. They think I don’t know.” Kincaid heard the satisfaction beneath the censure. “They stop and move apart whenever I come in. With that look. You know.”

“But you haven’t heard anything specific?” Angela shook her head and moved back a few steps, the instinct to defend her father perhaps getting the better of her desire to accuse him. “It could be perfectly innocent, don’t you think? Maybe you’re blowing things out of proportion.” Kincaid spoke lightly, a little derisively, goading her.

“I heard him tell her he was going to fix my mum,” Angela snapped back at him, stung. “That she’d be sorry, and so would anybody else who tried to bugger things for him. What if…” Angela stopped, her eyes frightened. She had gone farther than she intended. “I have to go.”

“Angie-”

“See you.” She slipped out the far door and a second later he heard her soft tread on the main stairs.

Kincaid stared after her as the door sighed shut. Graham might have indulged in a little veiled bullying. On the other hand, what if… If only they could get a definite grip on the man, instead of a collection of rumors and second-hand accusations. Graham Frazer was as slippery as an ice cube and just as cold.

Kincaid met Maureen Hunsinger at the top of the stairs, her round face shining like a scrubbed apple, her hair frizzing damply as if she’d come straight from the bath. “I’d just come to find you,” she said, beaming at him, then sobered. “I wanted to tell you good-bye.”