Deborah Crombie - All Shall Be Well

"What made you believe her?" asked Gemma. "Why didn't you think she was just trying to let you off the hook?"

Margaret's wide brow creased as she thought about it. "I don't know if I can explain, exactly. There wasn't any… tension in her. No screwing herself up for something, no excitement. Do you see?"

Gemma considered. "Yes, I think I do. She didn't ask you to stay?"

"Just for a bit. I did all the things I usually did for her- fed the cat, tidied up. Then I walked down to the Indian take-away and got a curry for her supper. She couldn't eat much, really, but she still made the effort."

"Margaret," Gemma said, treading carefully now, "didn't Jasmine ever talk to you about the legal implications of assisted suicide?"

Margaret nodded eagerly. "She said as long as I didn't actually touch her or give her anything, I'd be all right. And we didn't think anyone would ever know. Jasmine said we'd make sure it looked natural-she didn't want complications."

Had Jasmine simply made things easy for Margaret? Had her calm that day come from resolution rather than acceptance? Was she such a skilled actress that she had lied easily to the people who knew her best? And if so, why? Gemma thought of the girl in the photograph, with her delicate beauty and her closed, almost secretive, expression. A clever woman, an organizer, a planner-had her request to see Theo on Sunday been just an unnecessary bit of stage management? Gemma shook her head. She couldn't see Jasmine elaborating just for the sake of it.

And there was one question she hadn't asked Margaret. "Jasmine left a will, Meg." Gemma used the diminutive Jasmine had chosen. "Did she tell you about it?"

Margaret stared into her empty teacup as if the answer might lie in the tea leaves' random design.

Gemma waited, not offering any encouragement, not breaking the tension that grew in the silence.

"We argued." The tips of Margaret's fingers turned white as she pressed them against the cup. "I told her it was terribly unfair, but she wouldn't listen-she said she'd done all she could for Theo. I didn't want to benefit from her death. It made me feel awful, like I'd loved her for a price." She looked up at Gemma, her eyes reddening and glazing with tears. "You do understand, don't you?"

Reaching across the table and laying her fingers on the back of Margaret's hand, Gemma said, "Did you tell anybody else about the will, Meg, anyone at all?"

Margaret jerked her hand away from Gemma's and the empty cup rocked in its saucer. "No! Of course not. I didn't tell anybody."

Gathering up her handbag and cardigan, Margaret pushed her cup away, and after a moment Gemma caught the sharp, acrid odor of fear.

"Cut and dried."

"All right. Justify it." Kincaid pushed his chair away from his desk and propped his feet up on the open bottom drawer. He'd gone bleary-eyed from an afternoon's paperwork when Gemma, smelling of cold air and crackling with excitement, had charged back into the office.

"She's bloody terrified, poor little rabbit." Gemma stopped pacing and sat on the arm of the visitor's chair, hands beneath her bottom. "I don't mean I think she knew beforehand, but she let that boyfriend in on the will, and now she's sweating it." She leaned forward for emphasis, reaching up with quick fingers to tuck back hair that the wind had teased from the clip at the nape of her neck. "Let's say Roger was waiting for Margaret that afternoon when she left Jasmine's, and she told him Jasmine had changed her mind. They have a row, and Roger goes off to do his set-up. Later on he makes some excuse to push off early, then pops round to Jasmine's flat." "I thought he said he'd never been there." Shoulders lifting in a tiny shrug, Gemma said, "So maybe he lied. Who's going to contradict him? Margaret?" She paused for a moment, then continued more thoughtfully. "Or maybe he told the truth. That wouldn't have stopped him showing up at her door, making some kind of excuse. He could be very… plausible, I think."

Kincaid leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, and grinned. "Not immune to our Roger, then?"

Gemma shivered. "Like being locked up with a snake. Gave me the creeps, he did. I'd not put anything past him. What if," she stood and began pacing the small confines of the office again, "somehow he found out about Jasmine's will before he ever met Margaret? Why else would he chat up Margaret in the first place? He must have women queuing up to go out with him. And don't tell me," she added, coloring as she saw Kincaid smile, "that he sees the purity of her soul or something, because I don't believe it."

"I don't either, but it may not be that simple, all the same." Kincaid remembered the scene he'd witnessed in Margaret's room-Roger enjoyed displaying his sexual hold over her, and that was probably only the tip of the iceberg. "Just suppose you're right, Gemma, far-fetched as it is, how could Roger have known about Jasmine?"

"Bribed her solicitor?"

Kincaid shook his head, thinking of Anthony Thomas's gentle outrage. "Not likely. But what if you're right about the first part and Roger did go to Jasmine's flat that night? He's never met her, he makes some excuse for coming, and then what? Does he say 'Excuse me, let me give you an overdose of morphine'?" He jabbed a finger at Gemma. "I'd swear there was no struggle."

"Maybe he told her Margaret had just been using her, and then Jasmine decided to kill herself after all."

"All he had to do was wait. Why would he risk the final outcome?"

"Perhaps he thought he was losing his hold over Margaret, and made one last-ditch attempt," said Gemma, settling back into the chair and crossing her legs.

They looked at each other a moment, speculating, then Kincaid straightened up in his chair and kicked his desk drawer shut. "No evidence, Gemma. Not a shred. I'll admit Roger looks a likely suspect, but we'll have to keep digging. And I'm not at all happy about Theo." He looked at his watch and stretched, then pulled down the knot on his tie and unbuttoned his collar. "Let's call it a day. I'm knackered. Fancy a drink before you go home?"

Gemma hesitated, then made a face. "Better not. I've played truant enough lately. See you tomorrow." She went out with a wave, then stuck her head round the door again. "Don't forget to look after the cat, now."

The weather change had driven the weekend hordes from Hampstead Heath. Spring had flaunted her true colors and driven them scurrying back into pubs and parlors, except for a few solitary dog-walkers and resolute joggers. Litter left behind from the warm-weather festivities blew fitfully across the grass. Stopping at the flat only long enough to change into jeans and anorak, Kincaid crossed East Heath Road at the bottom of Worsley and plunged onto the Heath itself near the Mixed Bathing Pond. He felt a need to work the kinks out of mind and body. Running required too much focus, or at least that's what he told himself, so he turned north and walked, letting his thoughts wander where they would.

Gemma's theories worried him more than he'd admitted. He trusted her instincts, and if she said Margaret Bellamy was dead scared, he believed her. But he couldn't make a logical construction out of the rest of it-there were just too many holes.

He smiled, thinking of Gemma's arguments. Sometimes her enthusiasm amused him, sometimes it irritated him, but that was one reason they worked well together-she charged into ideas headlong while he tended to worry at them, and often together they came to a satisfactory conclusion.

The path crossed the viaduct pond and he stopped a moment, hands in pockets, admiring the view. New-leafed branches formed mirror images of themselves in the water, and to the west the spire of Hampstead's Christ Church rose above the still-bare fingers of the taller trees. Gemma had been different at the weekend, some of the fiery energy banked down to a lazy contentment. Bright cotton clothes against skin faintly flushed from the sun, an elusive scent of peaches when he'd stood next to her in Theo's dusty shop-Kincaid blinked and shook himself like a dog coming out of water.