Deborah Crombie - All Shall Be Well

"Sid. He wouldn't come for me." Kincaid sounded aggrieved.

"Maybe my voice reminded him of her," Gemma suggested.

Kincaid knelt and checked the food he'd left under the bed. "He's still not eating, though."

"No wonder." Gemma wrinkled her nose in disgust at the crusted food. "You'll have to do better than that." She put the cat down and rummaged through the kitchen cupboards until she found a tin of tuna. "This might do the trick." She opened the tin and spooned a little tuna into a clean dish, then set it before the cat. Sidhi sniffed and looked at her, then settled over the dish and took a tentative bite.

Kincaid had wandered back into the sitting room, touching objects absently before moving on to something else. "This won't do at all," Gemma said under her breath, remembering his normal assertiveness. "He couldn't find a haystack in the middle of the sitting room in this state, could he, Sid?" The cat ignored her, intent now on his food.

Kincaid stopped in front of the solid, oak bookcase and contemplated the spines as if they might reveal something if he stared long enough. Books were jammed in every which way, taking up every inch of available space.

Gemma joined him and scanned the titles. Scott, Forster, Delderfield, Galsworthy, a much worn, leather set of Jane Austen. "There aren't any new ones," said Gemma, realizing what struck her as odd. "No paperbacks, no bestsellers, no mysteries or romances."

"She reread these. Like old friends."

Gemma studied him as intently as he studied the books, deciding to take matters in hand. "Look. You start with the desk, all right? And I'll tackle the bedroom."

Kincaid nodded and crossed to the secretary. He sat in the chair, which looked much too delicate to bear his six-foot frame, and gingerly opened the top drawer.

Jasmine's small bedroom faced north, toward the street, and Gemma turned on the shaded dressing table lamp. The room held a narrow single bed with an old chenille spread stretched tightly over it, the dresser, a nightstand, and a heavy wardrobe-and unlike the sitting room, it reflected none of its owner's personality. Gemma sensed that the room had been used for sleeping and storage only, not inhabited in the same sense as the rest of the flat.

She started with the dressing table, working her way gently through layers of underclothes and bottles of half-empty cosmetics. Under slips and stockings in a bottom drawer lay a picture frame, face down. Gemma lifted it out and turned it over. A dark-eyed young woman stared back at her from a black-and-white studio photograph. Slipping the backing from the frame, she examined the back of the photograph itself. Neatly penciled letters read "Jasmine, 1962." Gemma turned the photo over again. The dark hair was long and straight, parted in the center, the face small and oval, the mouth held a hint of a smile at some secret not shared with the observer. In spite of the date on the back, the girl had an old-fashioned look-she might have modeled for a Renaissance Madonna.

Gemma opened her mouth to call Kincaid, hesitated, then carefully placed the photo back in the top of its drawer, facedown.

She moved to the wardrobe and swung open the heavy doors. It held mostly good business suits, dresses, and a few silk caftans. Gemma ran her hands appreciatively over the fabrics, then lifted the trousers and sweaters in the drawers.

The wardrobe's top shelf held rows of neatly stacked shoe boxes. Gemma slipped off her shoes, stepped up on the bottom shelf and lifted the top off a box, peering inside. Quickly she pulled the boxes off the shelves and laid them on the bed, removing the tops.

"Guv. You'd better come and look at these."

He came to the doorway, dusting off his hands. "What's up?"

"Composition books. Lots of them, all alike." Gemma opened one and showed him the pages covered with the same neat, italic script she'd seen on the back of the photo. She was suddenly very aware of his nearness in the small room, his quick breathing, the smell of aftershave and warm skin. She stepped back and said more loudly than she intended, "It looks like Jasmine kept a journal."

They sorted the boxes, checking the first page of each book for the date. "1952 is the earliest date I've found," Gemma said, rubbing her nose that itched from the dust. Her fingertips felt dry and papery.

Kincaid calculated a moment. "She would have been ten years old." They kept on in silence until Kincaid looked up and frowned. "The last entry seems to have been made a week ago."

"Did you find anything in the sitting room?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Do you suppose she stopped writing because she knew she was dying?" Gemma ventured.

"Someone with a lifetime's habit of recording their thoughts? Doesn't seem likely."

"Or," Gemma continued slowly, "did it somehow go missing?"

They sat in the garden at the Freemason's Arms, eating brown bread with cheese and pickle, and drinking lager. They'd had to wait for one of the white plastic tables, but judged it worth it for the sun and the view across Willow Road to the Heath.

Toby, having mangled a soft cheese roll and most of the chips in his basket, sat in the grass at their feet. He was pulling things from Gemma's bag, muttering a running catalogue to himself-"keys, stick, Toby's horsey"-here he held a tattered stuffed horse up for their inspection. Kincaid thought blackly of the listing of a victim's effects, then pushed the thought away. He pulled a chip from Toby's basket and held it out to him. "Here, Toby. Feed the birds."

Toby looked from Kincaid to the house sparrows pecking in the grass. "Birdies?" he said, interested, then launched himself toward the sparrows, chip extended before him like a rapier. The birds took flight.

"Now look what you've done," said Gemma, laughing. "He'll be frustrated."

"Good for his emotional development," Kincaid intoned with mock seriousness, men grinned at her. "Sorry." He liked seeing Gemma this way, relaxed and thoughtful. At work she was often too quick off the mark with assumptions, and he had more than once accused her of talking faster than she thought.

Good with Toby, too, he thought, attentive without fussing. He watched Gemma reel the toddler back in and plop him in the grass at her feet. She put a piece of her bread in the grass a few feet from Toby. "Here, lovey. Be very, very still and maybe they'll come to you." The sun had reddened the bridge of her nose and darkened the dusting of freckles on her pale skin. She became aware of Kincaid's scrutiny, looked up and flushed.

"You should wear a sun hat, you know, like a good Victorian girl."

"Ow. You sound just like my mum. "You'll blister in that sun, Gem. You mark my words, you'll look like a navvy by the time you're thirty"," Gemma mimicked. "It can't last, anyway, this weather." She tilted her head and looked at the flat blue sky.

"No." No, but he could sure as hell sit here in the sun as long as it did, not thinking, listening to the sparrows and the hum of traffic from East Heath Road, watching the sun send golden flares from Gemma's hair.

"Duncan." Gemma's tone was unusually tentative. Kincaid sat up and squinted at her as he sipped from his pint. "Duncan, tell me why you don't think Jasmine committed suicide."

He looked away from her, then picked up a scrap of bread from his plate and began to shred it. "You think I'm manufacturing this to salve my wounded vanity. Maybe I am." He leaned forward and met her eyes again. "But I just can't believe she wouldn't have left something-some indication, some message."

"For you?"

"For me. Or for her friend Margaret. Or her brother." The doubt he saw in Gemma's hazel eyes made him defensive. "I knew her, damn it."

"She was ill, dying. People don't always behave rationally. Maybe she wanted you all to think it was natural."