Deborah Crombie - All Shall Be Well

"I want…" She looked down at her hands, extended toward him palm upwards, then balled them into fists again and tucked them into her lap. "I can't…"

"You don't have to explain." Theo smiled, and she read in it understanding, but not pity. "I'll make us some more tea, shall I? I forgot the biscuits before." He gathered up the tea things, and as he started toward the kitchen alcove a thought seemed to strike him. He paused, turning back to her. "I say, Meg. You don't happen to like old films, do you?"

He'd done all the Saturday chores-cleaned the flat, trundled the laundry down to the service laundromat on East Heath Road, brought in some groceries, even carried bucket and sponges downstairs and washed the Midget where it stood at the curb. A more glorious spring day couldn't be imagined-a day for drives in the country, sipping lemonade at cricket matches, picnics by the Serpentine-yet Kincaid stood in his clean sitting room, staring at the shoe-box that still stood accusingly on his coffee table. Beneath the grief that had dogged his morning like a hangover lay the knowledge that he had missed something yesterday. A connection, a word, a memory slumbered in his brain, awaiting the cue that would allow it to make the synaptic leap into his consciousness. He knew he couldn't force it, yet he couldn't rest.

He went downstairs, folded back the Midget's top, and drove to the Yard.

The corridor was quiet, lacking the weekday hum of voices and keyboards. He waved a greeting into the few occupied offices, then absently pushed open his own door. A familiar figure sat at his desk, copper head bent over a file. "Gemma!"

"Hullo. Didn't expect to see you in today." She smiled at him and he thought she looked tired and a little pale.

"What are you doing here?" He sat on his desk, taking in her jeans and trainers, and the bright blue pullover that made the color of her hair shine like a new penny.

Gesturing at the file, she said, "Hunting for needles in haystacks, I suppose." She pushed back the chair, propping her feet on the handle of his bottom drawer. "I spent yesterday learning more about Roger Leveson-Gower, and his friends, and his habits than I or anyone else ever wanted to know, and I came up with nothing. A big, fat zero. A couple of his yobbo friends swear he was drinking with them until the wee hours of the morning, when he supposedly fell into bed with Meg. And I turned up corroborating witnesses." Sighing, she rubbed her face with her hands, stretching the skin over her cheekbones. "How did you get on?"

"Dorset was a wash-out." He acknowledged her I-told-you-so expression with a grin. "And I talked to the Major," he added more seriously, finding himself reluctant to recount the Major's tale even to Gemma. "I don't think he could have killed Jasmine. Of course, he hasn't an alibi, but there is no physical evidence to indicate him, either."

"But didn't he leave practice early, an unusual occurrence for him?"

Kincaid shrugged. "I suppose he really didn't feel well. A coincidence."

Gemma raised an eyebrow. "You didn't ask him?"

"Somehow I didn't feel I could, after what he'd told me. And coincidences do happen, inconvenient as they may be," he added a little defensively.

"We're not getting anywhere, and you know the Guv isn't going to let us slide any longer. Our caseload has suffered this past week." She righted the chair. "The odd thing is that I've suddenly found I care in more than the ordinary way-I feel I've come to know Jasmine, through you, through Meg and the others, and I hate to think of her death going in the unsolved file."

"Anything useful come in overnight?" He tapped the open file with a forefinger.

Gemma shook her head. "Only for elimination purposes. There's not a breath of evidence that Theo Dent left Abinger Hammer by car, train, horse, bus, or bicycle on the night Jasmine died. And…" she hunted through the loose pages, "a reply came from the nursing school in Dorchester where Felicity Howarth did her specialized training. A clean bill of health, an 'exceptional student', according to a note from the dean. They included her transcripts." Gemma frowned as she read. "She must have been married twice. She applied to her initial training college as Felicity Jane Heggerty, nee Atkins, giving an address in Blandford Forum." Gemma looked up at Kincaid, puzzled. "Isn't that where…"

Kincaid didn't hear the rest. The pieces snicked into place in his mind with blinding clarity. "Gemma, call Martha Trevellyan and find out if Felicity's scheduled to work today." Gemma raised an eyebrow, but looked the number up in the file and complied without question. She replaced the receiver and said, "Felicity called in ill. Martha's just now found someone to cover for her, and she sounded very put out-said it was not like Felicity at all."

"I think I'll pay Felicity a visit, ill or not."

"Do you want me to call her first?"

He shook his head. "No, best not."

"I'll come with you." She stood and shrugged into a cardigan she'd hung over the back of his chair.

Kincaid stopped her with a hand on her arm as she came around the desk. "Go home, Gemma. You've done more than necessary already. Spend your Saturday properly, with Toby." He smiled. "And it would be discreet on your part not to be associated with this, because it's quite likely I've just lost every marble I ever possessed."

The April sun lent an air of industrious festivity even to Felicity Howarth's run-down street. The uncollected rubbish had disappeared, a few residents washed cars or worked in their tiny front gardens.

Kincaid rang Felicity's bell and waited, hands in pockets, until the echoes died away, then rang again. He had reached for the bell for the third time when the door opened. "Mr. Kincaid."

"Hello, Felicity. Can you spare me a few minutes?" She did indeed look unwell, wrapped in an old, pink dressing gown that clashed with the faded red-gold of her hair, her face scrubbed free of makeup and lined with exhaustion.

She stepped aside without speaking and he followed her into the sitting room. Pulling the dressing gown more tightly around her body, she sank into a chair, the crisp authority that he associated with her missing entirely.

"I called the service. Martha said you weren't well."

After a moment in which he thought she wouldn't respond, she said, "No. Poor Martha. She doesn't expect me to let her down."

Kincaid looked around the neat sitting room, checking details against his memory. There were no photographs among the ornaments and knick-knacks. "Felicity, how old is your son?"

"My son?" she said blankly.

"I understand from Martha Trevellyan that you have a son in a nursing home."

"Barry. His name is Barry." A trace of anger came through her lethargy. "He's twenty-nine."

"Why didn't you tell us you came from Dorset? You and Jasmine must have shared a common bond."

"I didn't think of it. I've lived in London for years, and Jasmine and I never spoke of it."

"But you were aware that Jasmine had lived in Dorset, even though you never discussed it."

Felicity pleated a fold of her dressing gown between her fingers. "She must have mentioned it, but I can't remember that we ever actually talked about it. I have a lot of patients, Mr. Kincaid. I can't be expected to keep the details of their life stories straight in my mind."

A little progress, he thought, pleased to have moved her from apathy to a more revealing defensive posture. "But surely the parallel was unusual enough to be remarked upon? After all, during the time you lived in Blandford Forum, Jasmine worked in the solicitor's office on the market square. Do you know the one, next to the bank? It's still there."

He left the sofa and shifted the chair from Felicity's desk around so that he could sit facing her, their knees almost touching. "Tell me exactly what's wrong with your son, Felicity. Why is he kept in a nursing home?" Kincaid held his breath, knowing he had not a shred of evidence, only a wild surmise that had blossomed suddenly in his brain.