Deborah Crombie - A Share In Death

“You’re leaving, then?” Kincaid asked.

Maureen nodded. “Chief Inspector Nash gave us leave to go.” She sounded almost apologetic. “It’s been too difficult for the children. No point in prolonging it. Besides,” she looked away, and Kincaid thought he detected embarrassment, “after what happened to Hannah yesterday, it could be… well, it could happen to anyone, couldn’t it? We dare not let the children out of our sight. It’s just too worrying.” Maureen sighed and brushed a stray hair away from her face. Kincaid found he hated to see even a dent in her robust cheerfulness.

“I’m sure you’re quite right,” he consoled her. “I’d do the same.”

“Would you? Maybe we’ll sell our week here, or trade it for somewhere else. I don’t think I could ever feel the same about this place. Have you…”

“No. Nothing definite.” Kincaid answered the question she hadn’t formed and asked the one worrying him. “Have you seen Hannah this morning, Maureen?”

“Not to speak to.”

“Wh-”

“We were taking the first loads to the car. Oh, it must have been at least an hour ago. You know how it is when you travel with a family-you can’t imagine how you ever got all those things in the car to begin-”

“Maureen.” Kincaid tried to nudge her back on track.

“Anyway, I was just coming out of the house as she pulled away. She waved at me and I tried to wave back, only I had my arms full of Lego.” She smiled. “Emma helped me pick them up.”

“Emma-”

“Was coming in as I was going out. Maybe she spoke to Hannah.”

“Thanks, love. I’ll see if I can find her.” Kincaid grinned at her fondly. “Good luck to you, Maureen.”

He had taken a step toward the stairs when Maureen stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Take care,” she said quietly, then stretched up on her toes and kissed him, her lips exerting a warm pressure against his jaw, her heavy breasts grazing his chest.

He felt oddly comforted.

Emma found him before he found her. Everyone, thought Kincaid, seemed to be looking for him this morning except the one he most wanted to find.

They met in the entry hall, Emma nodding at him briskly, as if he had appeared on command. The nod, however, seemed a last remnant of her gruff strength. She looked exhausted, and somehow-Kincaid searched for the right adjective-unstarched. Her spine slumped in a way he didn’t remember, and even her iron-gray hair clung limply to her head.

“Let’s go out, shall we?” Her voice, he noted gratefully, had not lost its resonance. Emma led him out onto the porch and lifted her face for a moment to the sun. “Yorkshire’s decided to give us one more day of glorious autumnal weather before we go. They’re forecasting rain for tomorrow.

“Did you know,” she turned to him, “that Sebastian’s funeral is tomorrow? And I’m having Penny’s body sent home, now that they’ve released it.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’ll be going home myself after the service tomorrow, to make what arrangements I can for Penny.”

Kincaid thought that more than grief weighed on Emma-added to it was her need to do what she felt necessary and proper for Penny, to say a final goodbye. “I didn’t know about Sebastian’s service. I’ll be there.” And he would make sure that Angela Frazer came with him.

“Emma, Maureen said you might have spoken to Hannah this morning, as she was leaving.”

“I did that.”

“What did she say? I mean,” he added impatiently, “did she say where she was going, or why?”

“I should think why would be rather obvious,” Emma said tartly. “If someone had shoved me down the stairs, I’d get farther away than that.”

“Than where?”

“She said she was going to see the falls, while the weather lasted. She was on holiday, after all, and the rest of you be damned. That’s what she said, more or less,” Emma finished with some satisfaction.

“What falls?” Kincaid kept his voice level.

“Aysgarth, I’d imagine. Up in Wensleydale. Only falls to speak of around here.” Emma reached for the door, then turned back to him, adding, “She moved pretty well this morning, I’d say, considering the tumble she took. Didn’t look a day over seventy.” She gave him a ghost of her ferocious grin and went into the house.

Kincaid had started toward his car for a map when Janet Lyle stumped around the corner of the house, head down, hands shoved in the pockets of her lightweight anorak. She was scowling, the first expression of bad temper Kincaid had seen in her. Her face cleared when she saw him and she quickened her step, changing course to intercept him. “Say, you wouldn’t be going into Thirsk, by any chance, would you?

“Hadn’t planned on it. Need a lift?”

“Oh, Eddie hared off in the car this morning.” Exasperation animated her gestures, and for the first time Kincaid could imagine her nursing with the necessary take-charge, no-nonsense manner. “Something about sending a fax to the office. The thing is, I’d ordered some boots for Chloe-there’s a marvelous bootmaker here. They were to be ready this morning, and the shop closes half-day on Friday. It’s very annoying.”

She did look put out, but without her usual mousy manner she looked quite chipper as well. “Your husband said you weren’t feeling well.”

“Oh, that.” Janet shrugged it off. “It’s just his way. When his mother died he made up his mind I was languishing and needed a regular holiday. Transference, isn’t that what it’s called?” She smiled at him, showing even white teeth against her olive skin. “If I’d been the one wanting a holiday, I’d have gone to Majorca.”

Gemma nosed her car carefully through the gates of Followdale House and let it idle while she looked about her. She knew she had the right place because the first thing to meet her eye was Kincaid’s Midget, angled jauntily on the gravel forecourt.

The next was the Super himself, standing beside it with a map spread on the bonnet. Cords and sea-green pullover, a tweedy jacket with elbow patches, toffee-colored hair artfully ruffled by the breeze-he made, Gemma thought, a pretty picture indeed. She pulled up beside him and climbed out of the car, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “My, we’re looking the country gent today, aren’t we? Planning your next hunt, or just posing for Country Life?”

He swung around. “Gemma!” The flash of pleasure on his face faded so quickly she thought she’d imagined it. “Where the hell have you been?”

“And greetings to you, too, ta very much. I’ve just busted my bum to get here and that’s all you can say?” Gemma answered him good-naturedly but a little prickle of alarm ran up her spine. Although Kincaid didn’t suffer fools gladly, it was unlike him to jump down her throat.

“Sorry, Gemma.” The familiar smile returned, though with less than its usual wattage.

Gemma touched a fingertip to his chest. “Been changing a tire?”

Kincaid looked down at the dark, irregular smudges across the breast of his sweater. “No. It’s mascara, I imagine.” He shaded his eyes against the sun and searched her face. “Now, tell me where you’ve been.”

She leaned back against the Escort, remembering too late that it needed a wash, and dug in her bag for her notebook. The pages fluttered as she flipped through it-they both knew she didn’t need it, but the routine prop allowed them to make a smooth transition to business. “I finally managed to see Miles Sterrett. That dragon of a secretary at his clinic guards him like the Crown Jewels, so I tried his housekeeper and easy as kiss your hand, I’m in. ‘A brief appointment after dinner,’ she says, ‘so as not to tire him’.” Gemma paused, closing the notebook over her fingers. “I did try to phone you last night. You didn’t answer.”