A Share in Death (6 page)

“No. What happened? What happened to him? He had no right. Oh, sod the little bugger.” Tears began to slip down her face, more anger and shock, Kincaid thought, than grief.

“Had no right to do what?”

“He’s killed himself, hasn’t he? Here. He had to do it here, didn’t he? Out of spite. Christ, what am I going to say … how am I going to explain …” The perfect BBC elocution had stretched with shock, the lengthened vowels betraying their South London origins.

“Explain to whom?” asked Kincaid.

“The management. It’s my responsibility, to see that things like this don’t happen. And you—” she looked at Kincaid for the first time—“you’re a bloody cop! That ox of a constable said you were a policeman and were ‘assisting them with their inquiries.’ You never said. What have you been doing—sneaking about and spying on us?”

“Cassie, I’m sorry. At the time it didn’t seem that it was anyone’s business what I did for a living.”

Her attention drifted away from him, back to Sebastian, and her voice rose alarmingly. “When are they going to take him away? Everyone will see. And why have they shut everyone up together like criminals?”

Anne Percy recognized the sound of imminent hysteria and came toward them, exchanging a glance with Kincaid. “I’m Dr. Percy. Can I—”

“I know who you are.” Cassie jerked her arm away from Anne’s touch. “I don’t need any help. I don’t want any sedatives.” She seemed visibly to gather herself together, closing her eyes for a moment and taking a breath.

P.C. Trumble, flushed and perspiring, clattered down the tile stairs and skidded to a stop at the glass door. Kincaid had to move Cassie gently aside so that the door would open—this time she didn’t flinch from his touch.

Trumble looked anxiously around for Inspector Nash, then gave a quick puff of relief when it seemed he might be spared immediate retribution. “You’re all right, Constable.” Peter Raskin’s quiet voice held a hint of amusement as he joined them. “He’s just gone out the back to direct the ambulance crew, now that Dr. Percy’s finished.”

“Miss,” Trumble drew himself up and faced Cassie, “you’re not supposed to be here. It’s restricted. You have to stay with the others until the Chief Inspector’s spoken with everyone.” To Raskin he said, by way of apology, “I didn’t know about the cottage, sir. The others told me, said somebody should inform Miss Whitlake. So I did, and she said she’d join the others straight away. It was only when she didn’t show I discovered she’d come over—”

“It’s my right. I’m in charge here. I’m responsible for
every … all right.” Cassie subsided, as she looked at the half-circle of implacable faces. “I’ll wait with the others, but it had better not be too long. I’ve phone calls to make.” She was calmer now, and Kincaid thought he detected a certain calculation returning to her manner. Trumble, with frequent mumblings and glances over his shoulder, hustled her off, and Kincaid noticed that Cassie didn’t look at Sebastian again. Well, what had he expected? A grief-stricken farewell scene over Sebastian’s prostrate body? Not bloody likely. Not from Cassie, anyway. Any tears shed for Sebastian would have to come from another quarter.

Peter Raskin drew Kincaid aside, keeping his chief in line of sight and lowering his voice so that it was audible only to Kincaid. “I’ll let you know the results of the p.m. And the lab reports, if you’re interested. To tell the truth,” he looked across the room at Nash, who was telling off one of the ambulance crew in vitriolic tones, “I’m not happy with this suicide business myself. It’s too pat. The neat ones usually leave a note, and choose something gradual, pills or injection. In my book, those who opt for the violent end take off, leaving everything in a muddle, and go out and have an accident cleaning the gun. The profile here just doesn’t seem to fit.”

“Right.” It was a shame about Raskin. He had the makings of a good copper—unobtrusive, alert, intelligent, and not so stuck on his opinions that he couldn’t see past his own nose—and he had to be saddled with a bugger like Nash. Kincaid wondered what Raskin would make of this disagreement with his chief. If Nash turned out to be wrong, as Kincaid felt sure he would, he’d take it out of somebody’s hide, and Raskin would be wise to keep his thoughts to himself until afterwards.

*   *   *

Kincaid took himself off to Thirsk, ignoring the niggling refrain “with his tail between his legs” that kept creeping unbidden into his thoughts. He thought it best to avoid any more confrontation with Nash until he had more ammunition.

A bench on the market square beckoned, along with a warm-from-the-oven pork pie, bought over the counter at a small bakery, some fresh Wensleydale cheese and a crunchy apple from a market stall. He disposed of his impromptu lunch and set off to explore.

By half-past three Kincaid had exhausted the sightseeing possibilities in the little market town. The day turned out to be as glorious as he’d predicted, the autumn air as rich and bright as a plum ready to fall from the tree. He strolled the town, resolute in his determination to be an uncomplicated tourist, shoving away thoughts of the morning’s events whenever they threatened his equanimity.

The lovely perpendicular church, with its eighty-foot-high battlemented tower, had been a sight worth seeing. The ground around it rose gently from east to west, while the church itself remained level. As a result, the whole tower end of the church seemed to be sinking gradually into the ground. It made him think of a huge battleship plowing into heavy seas and he felt momentarily unsteady on his feet.

His last stop was the local book shop on the square. He emerged with a paperback copy of James Herriot’s
Yorkshire
tucked under his arm, assured by the proprietor that it made a wonderful tour guide to the area, much more entertaining than those dry tomes intended for the purpose. Recent years hadn’t provided him many opportunities for browsing in small-town book shops, an
indulgence that always transported him back to his childhood in rural Cheshire and his parents’ small book shop on the town square. One more childhood indulgence would put a fitting period to the afternoon—across the square he saw a tea shop advertising cream teas.

The Blue Plate lived up to its name, with blue plates of various patterns displayed around the room on a plate rail, and cheerful yellow-and-white checked cloths on the tables. It was not until Kincaid was seated at a small table in the back of the room and had placed his order that he noticed the two women in animated conversation at a window table. Maureen Hunsinger, with her round, cheerful face and frizzy hair, wore a dusty blue garment that looked as if it might have had a previous life as a chenille bedspread.

It took him a moment to place Maureen’s companion as Janet Lyle, the ex-army man’s wife. Last night she had hardly spoken or smiled and had kept an anxious eye on her husband, glancing at him before she spoke, whether for reassurance or approval Kincaid hadn’t been able to tell. Possibly she was shy, or uncomfortable in social gatherings. Now, she was certainly at ease, talking and laughing, leaning forward and gesturing emphatically with her hands, her dark hair swinging against her shoulders every time she moved her head.

Curious, Kincaid thought, after the events of the morning. Was it Sebastian’s death they were discussing with such energy? Excitement would be a typical reaction, charged by the relief most people felt at remaining unscathed when death struck so near. But not the good humor they displayed, evident even from a distance.

He listened intently, their voices coming to him in snatches. “Oh god, I remember when mine was that age,
it’s awful, you don’t know how you’ll get through it. But you do … gets worse.” Janet laughed again. She must have an older child, Kincaid thought, not with them on holiday. At boarding school, perhaps? Her voice drifted toward him again. “… the best school, Eddie says, then University. I don’t see how we can …” They leaned closer together, their faces more sober, and he lost the thread of sound. He had no business eavesdropping anyway; their conversation was none of his concern. It was only his cursed cop’s habit that made him listen.

The two women had not noticed him, and when his tea and scones arrived he opened his book and buried himself in the pleasures of Yorkshire.

*   *   *

There was no more delaying it. He’d dawdled long enough over scones and strawberry jam, drunk enough weak tea to swamp a horse, and had incited the cheerful waitress to concerned looks in his direction. He paid his bill and retrieved the Midget from the public car park across the square. With the car’s soft top folded down to take advantage of the sun, he drove slowly back to Followdale House.

The house seemed hushed and shuttered. Not until he had parked the car and started toward the front door did he notice the small figure huddled at the side of the front step.

Angela Frazer’s dark eyes were bare of make-up, the skin around them red and puffy. Even the spiky, violet-streaked hair seemed subdued. She looked at Kincaid without speaking. When he reached the steps, he sat down a few feet away, said “Hullo,” and gazed out at the empty drive in what he hoped was a neutral silence. From the corner of his eye he saw her fingers fiddling
with the threads hanging from the torn knees of her jeans, and her feet, in dirty, white canvas sneakers, seemed ridiculously small.

After a few moments she spoke, her voice barely a whisper. “You liked him, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.” He waited, careful not to look at her.

“He said you were okay.” Her words were clearer now, gaining strength. “Really okay. Not like most of the others.”

“Did he? I’m glad.”

“They don’t care, not any of them. My dad’s been beastly. He said, ‘Good riddance to the little poof They’ve all been saying …” her voice wavered and he risked a glance at her face, restraining an impulse to touch her. Without meeting his eyes, she folded her arms across her stomach and hunched her shoulders a little lower—a hedgehog posture. “They’re saying he killed himself. I don’t believe it. Sebastian wouldn’t do that.” She curled up even further, resting her face against her drawn-up knees.

Jesus, thought Kincaid, what was he to say to this child that wouldn’t make her feel even worse? Had she considered the implications of what she was saying? That if Sebastian hadn’t killed himself, someone she knew, and quite possibly loved, might have killed him? Kincaid didn’t think so. It was more likely that she hadn’t been told enough to realize that Sebastian’s death couldn’t have been an accident. “Well,” he temporized, “I’m not sure anything’s definite yet. There will have to be tests and things to find out exactly how Sebastian died.”

“Nobody I knew ever died before. Except my grandmother, and I hadn’t seen her for a long time.” Angela’s
words were muffled by her knees. “They wouldn’t let me see him. My dad said not to be so stupid. But I can’t believe he’s dead. Gone, you know? Just like that. I feel like I should say good-bye.”

“It does help, sometimes, to see someone who’s died. A letting go. I think that’s why they have open caskets at funerals, except by the time the person’s been painted and fixed up at the undertakers they don’t bear any resemblance to the person you knew. It makes it worse, in a way.”

Angela thought about it for a moment. “Then I don’t think I’d want to see Sebastian that way, even if they’d let me. I’d rather remember him the way he was.”

“If I were you,” said Kincaid, slowly, “I’d have a private farewell. Do something you know he liked. Go somewhere he liked to go, or do something you did together.”

Angela lifted her head, her expression brightening. “Yeah. In memoriam. Isn’t that what it’s called? Maybe I will.”

“Angela,” Kincaid said, treading carefully, “you saw Sebastian last night, didn’t you?”

“At the party. That was when he talked about you. But I didn’t get to meet you, because you were so busy with them.” Her emphasis fell on the last word, and he guessed that the category included most adults. “Did Sebastian seem any different than usual?”

“You mean depressed? No.” Angela’s forehead creased in sudden concentration. “Except he left for a few minutes. And when he came back he seemed sort of … excited. He had this look he’d get sometimes, like the cat that ate the canary. Pleased with himself. But he
didn’t say anything. When I asked him, he just said ‘Never you mind, little one’—teasing me, you know, the way he did.”

“Did you see him later, after the party?”

“No, my dad took me to York, to some fancy restaurant. But he was so cross that it was awful. We had a terrible row on the way back.”

“Did your dad go out again?”

“No. Well, I don’t think so. I locked myself in the bathroom for hours, I was so mad. I went to sleep on the floor, and when I woke up, he was in bed asleep.”

“Must have been a pretty awful row. What was it about?” Kincaid delivered the question lightly, almost jocularly, afraid he’d breach her new-found confidence in him.

“Oh, you know. My mum. Me. He hates my clothes, my hair, my make-up. He said I looked like a slut at the stupid party last night and I embarrassed him. Well, I, hope I did. He’s embarrassed me enough times, making—” She broke off, dropping her head and twisting her fingers together, suddenly uncomfortable.

Voices came through the closed oak door behind them, followed by a bark of laughter. “That’s my dad, now.” Angela half stood, listening, like a hare poised for flight. “I’d better—”

“It’s all right. I’d better be off myself. Angela,” Kincaid said as she started toward the door, and she turned back to him, “Sebastian really cared about you, too. He told me so last night, before the party.”

“I know.” She smiled at him, and he saw what Sebastian had been astute enough to discover, the kernel of sweetness hidden beneath her usual sullen pose. “Can I call you Duncan? Mr. Kincaid makes you sound ancient.”
A hint of flirtation, now, in the smile, and in the dark eyes looking at him through the lowered lashes. Kincaid realized he’d have to be careful not to tease her. She was, after all, almost grown.

“Sure. See you.”

“Yeah.” She slipped through the door and he waited a moment before following. He had the feeling that Angela might like to keep their conversation just between the two of them, and that suited him as well.