Deborah Crombie - All Shall Be Well

"Nor I." The Major stood, crumpling his tweed cap between his blunt fingers. "Not fitting. Bad enough for her to be taken so soon, but to benefit by her death-" He stopped, looked round the room as if someone might give him the words to continue, then said, "Excuse me," turned abruptly and let himself out the door.

In the moment of silence that followed, Kincaid heard the vibration from the slam fade away.

Meg took a step toward the door. "Oh, can't someone do something? Talk to him? I'm sure Jasmine never meant for him to take it so… she only wanted to thank him for his kindness."

"Don't be daft." Roger's contempt was evident. "I'm sure he'll come to his senses soon enough."

Kincaid spoke to Felicity. "I don't know if you can legally refuse a bequest. You'll have to discuss it with Jasmine's solicitor. You would certainly have the prerogative of using the money as you pleased-donate it to a charity, perhaps, if that made you feel more comfortable."

"Nothing is going to make me feel comfortable about this. I simply will not accept it." Felicity's rising voice was the first crack Kincaid had seen in her professional demeanor.

Meg knelt before her chair and looked earnestly up into her face. "Jasmine talked so much about how good you were to her, how much she appreciated your honesty. "No nonsense" was the way she put it." Smiling at the memory, Meg continued. "She liked that. You were the one person she could trust to play it straight with her. Most of us failed her. It's much easier to pretend it will just go away." Meg leaned back on her heels and looked away, picking at the fabric of her skirt. "Even when she talked about killing herself, I never quite believed in it-couldn't make it seem real. It was like something in a movie or a play." She looked around at all of them except Roger. "Do you see?"

"Yes," said Theo. He had stopped the nervous fiddling with his braces as he listened to Meg, and now he slid into a chair at the other end of the table and leaned forward on his elbows. "It was just the same for me. I should have known, when she said she was better but she wouldn't see me. I should have insisted, come to London and camped on the doorstep until she let me in, done what I could for her." He lifted his hands in a helpless shrug. "I'm sure she knew I'd take the easy way-I always have. Jasmine was always there-annoyed with me, more often than not," he smiled, "but there, and I didn't want to believe things would ever change." Theo paused and studied Meg. "I'm glad my sister knew you, Margaret. You didn't fail her."

"Didn't I?" asked Meg, meeting Theo's eyes.

Roger rolled his eyes in disgust. "This is all just too sweet for words. I think I'm going to be sick."

The spell shattered. Meg looked away from Theo, then down at herself, and Kincaid could see her self-consciousness flooding back as she became aware of her awkward position. As she tried to rise, her heel caught in the hem of her skirt with a ripping sound. She fell back to her knees, grimacing.

Felicity said, "Here, let me help you." She seemed to have regained some of her composure as she listened to Meg and Theo, and now she moved briskly back into her familiar role. Kneeling on the floor, she gently extricated Meg's heel from the torn hem. "All right, now? I'm afraid it will take a needle and thread to put you completely to rights."

Roger folded his arms and said with exaggerated patience, "If you're quite finished, Margaret?" but he made no move to help her up.

Felicity stood, held out a hand to Meg, then gathered her handbag off the chair. She turned to Kincaid and spoke slowly and deliberately, as if she'd been rehearsing her words. "Mr. Kincaid. I'm sorry about all the fuss. It was unfair of me to lash out at you. I do realize it's not your responsibility, and I'll take whatever steps necessary to sort this out."

"You'll see Antony Thomas? Or perhaps your own solicitor?"

"Yes. Just as soon-"

"How long will it take?" Roger broke in. "Probate, I mean."

Kincaid raised an eyebrow. "Is Margaret in some particular hurry?"

"Will you all stop talking about me as if I weren't here?" Meg glared at them all. "No, I'm not in any hurry for Jasmine's money. I never wanted it in the first place and I don't care if I ever see a penny of it." She stopped, took a gulp of air, then delivered one last salvo. "And as far as I'm concerned, you can all just go to hell!" She stalked from the flat, her fury lending her a dignity even her trailing skirt hem couldn't spoil.

Roger gave a "what can you do?" shrug and followed, scooping Meg's copy of the will off the table as he went.

To Kincaid's surprise, Theo recovered his tongue first. "She deserves better than that. What does she see in that miserable sod?" As soon as the words left his mouth he turned as red as his braces and muttered, "Sorry. Rude of me," to Gemma and Felicity, then "I'd better be going as well." He did not, however, forget the will.

Felicity turned to Gemma and Kincaid. "You've been very kind," she said, the corners of her mouth lifting in a small smile, "although I'm not sure kindness figured in your motive. Mr. Kincaid, this investigation of yours is going to be very hard on Margaret and Theo-they have enough grief and guilt to deal with as it is-I don't suppose you're willing to drop it?"

Kincaid shook his head. "No. I'm sorry."

"I thought as much." Felicity sighed and glanced at her watch. "Well, I'll be off then. I've got patients waiting." She gathered her bag and coat and let herself out of the flat.

"And then there were none," Kincaid muttered under his breath. He sat on the edge of Jasmine's hospital bed. "Exit players. You faded admirably into the woodwork," he added as he looked at Gemma, who still stood with her back against the kitchen counter.

She stretched and moved to one of the dining room chairs. Sid, who had vanished like smoke with the first knock on the door, suddenly reappeared and jumped into her lap. Gemma stroked his head absently as she spoke. "I didn't expect darling Roger to be able to contain his glee, but Theo didn't kick up much protest either."

Kincaid raised an eyebrow. "And the others? Did they protest too much?"

Gemma's smile held a hint of mischief. "Your meek little Meg seems to be making an unexpected transformation into a tigress. Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall when she and Roger have a more private conversation?"

"Did it occur to you," said Kincaid, "that Meg seemed awfully well informed about Jasmine's intentions?"

Meg sat huddled on the edge of the bed, shivering. Even the remnants of last night's warmth had long since seeped away, and the room's single radiator felt icy to the touch. Mrs. Wilson's generosity did not extend to keeping her tenants' rooms warm during the day. She'd no patience with slug-a-beds, and she reiterated it often enough from the warm confines of her kitchen.

Of course, Meg wasn't ordinarily home in the middle of a working day. She'd taken a day of unpaid leave for personal business, and Mrs. Washburn's quick and silent acquiescence to her request left Meg little doubt that her days in the planning office were numbered. The prospect came almost as a relief.

On weekends when the room began to chill she left-to shop, to walk aimlessly in the streets, and in the last few months, to spend the days with Jasmine.

A crackle of paper drew her attention to Roger. He sat at the table, thoughtfully chewing the last of a meat-and-potato pasty-her pasty, in fact-he'd bought two at the bakery around the corner from the bed-sit. Meg had taken one bite of the cold, greasy, onion-flavored meat and forced back the impulse to gag.

Roger finished crumpling the grease-proof paper into a wad and tossed it in the direction of the waste bin across the room. It missed. He shrugged and left it lying where it fell.