Leave the Grave Green (18 page)

In the stillness she heard the same curious, high-pitched humming sound she and Kincaid had noticed before. She looked up, searching for power lines, but saw only more leaves and a patch of uniformly gray sky. Perhaps it was some sort of generator or transformer,
or—she smiled, her temper improving by the moment—UFOs. She’d try that one on the guv.

Her lips still curved in the hint of a smile as she rang the bell. Vivian Plumley opened the door, as she had before, but this time she smiled as she recognized Gemma. “Sergeant. Please come in.”

“I’d like a word with Dame Caroline, Mrs. Plumley,” Gemma responded as she stepped into the flagged hall. “Is she in?”

“She is, but she’s teaching just now.”

Gemma heard the piano begin, then a soprano voice singing a quick, lilting line. Words she couldn’t distinguish interrupted the singing, then a second voice repeated the line. Darker and more complex than the first voice, it possessed an indefinable uniqueness. Even through the closed sitting room door, Gemma recognized it instantly. “That’s Dame Caroline.”

Vivian Plumley regarded her with interest. “You have a good ear, my dear. Where have you heard her?”

“On a tape,” Gemma said shortly, suddenly reluctant to confess her interest.

Vivian glanced at her watch. “Come and have a cuppa. She should be finished shortly.”

“What are they singing?” Gemma asked as she followed Vivian down the hall.

“Rossini. One of Rosina’s arias from
The Barber of Seville
. In Italian, thank goodness.” She smiled over her shoulder at Gemma as she pushed open the door into the kitchen. “Although in this household that’s not the most politically correct thing to say.”

“Because of the ENO’s policy?”

“Exactly. Sir Gerald is quite firm in agreeing with their position. I think Caro has always preferred singing an opera in its original language, but she doesn’t express her opinion too forcefully.” Vivian smiled again, affectionately. The disagreement was obviously a long-standing family tradition.

“Something smells heavenly,” Gemma said, taking a deep breath. After her previous visit, the kitchen seemed as comforting and familiar as home. The red Aga radiated heat like a cast-iron heart, and on its surface two brown loaves rested on a cooling rack.

“Bread’s just out of the oven,” Vivian said as she assembled mugs and a stoneware teapot on a tray. On the Aga a copper teakettle stood gently steaming.

“You don’t use an electric kettle?” Gemma asked curiously.

“I’m a dinosaur, I suppose. I’ve never cared for gadgets. Turning her attention fully on Gemma, Vivian added, “You will have some hot bread, won’t you? It’s getting on for teatime.”

“I had some lunch before I left London,” Gemma said, remembering the cold and greasy sausage roll hastily snatched from the Yard canteen after her interview at LB House. “But yes, I’d love some, thanks.” She went nearer as Vivian poured boiling water into the pot and began slicing the bread. “Whole meal?”

“Yes. Do you like it?” Vivian looked pleased. “It’s my trademark, I’m afraid, and my therapy. It’s hand kneaded twice, and takes three risings, but it puffs up in the oven like a dream.” She gave Gemma a humorous glance. “And it’s hard to stay frustrated with life when you’ve done that much pounding.”

As they seated themselves at the scarred oak table, Gemma confided, “I grew up in a bakery. My parents have a small shop in Leyton. Most everything’s done by machine, of course, but Mum could usually be persuaded to let us get our hands in the dough.”

“It sounds a good upbringing,” Vivian said approvingly as she poured tea into Gemma’s mug.

A flowery cloud of steam enveloped Gemma’s face. “Earl Grey?”

“You do like it, I hope? I should have asked. It’s a habit—that’s what I always have in the afternoons.”

“Yes, thank you,” Gemma answered demurely, thinking that if she were to make a practice of taking afternoon tea in houses like this, she had bloody well better learn to like it.

She ate her bread and butter in appreciative silence, wiping the last crumbs from the plate with her fingertip. “Mrs. Plumley—”

“Everyone calls me Plummy,” Vivian said in invitation. “The children started it when they were tots, and it stuck. I’ve rather grown to like it.”

“All right, then. Plummy.” Gemma thought the name suited her. Even dressed as she was today, in a brightly colored running
suit and coordinating turtleneck, Vivian Plumley had about her an aura of old-fashioned comfort. Noticing that the other woman still wore her wedding ring, Gemma half-consciously rubbed the bare finger on her left hand.

They sat quietly, drinking their tea, and in the relaxed, almost sleepy atmosphere, Gemma found that a question came as easily as if she had been talking to friend. “Didn’t you find it odd that Connor stayed on such close terms with the family after he and Julia separated? Especially with no children involved…”

“But he knew them first, you see, Caro and Gerald. He’d met them through his job, and cultivated them quite actively. I remember thinking at the time that he seemed quite smitten with Caro, but then she’s always collected admirers the way other people collect butterflies.”

Although Plummy had uttered this without the least hint of censure, Gemma had a sudden vision of a struggling moth pinned ruthlessly to a board. “Ugh,” she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I could never stand the thought.”

“What?” asked Plummy. “Oh, butterflies, you mean. Well, perhaps it was an unkind comparison, but men always seem to flutter so helplessly around her. They think she needs looking after, but the truth of it is that she’s quite capable of looking after herself. Personally, I can’t imagine it.” She smiled at Gemma. “I don’t think I’ve ever inspired that desire in anyone.”

Gemma thought of Rob’s automatic assumption that she would provide for his every need, both physical and emotional. It had never occurred to him that she might have a few of her own. She said. “I never thought of it quite like that, but men haven’t fallen over themselves trying to look after me, either.” Sipping her tea, she continued, “About Dame Caroline—you said you were at school together. Did she always want to sing?”

Plummy laughed. “Caro was front and center from the day she was born. At school she sang the leading part in every program. Most of the other girls quite despised her, but she never seemed to notice. She might as well have worn blinkers—she knew what she wanted and she never gave a thought to anything else.”

“She launched her career quite early for a singer, didn’t she?” Gemma asked, remembering the snippets she’d heard from Alison Douglas.

“That was partly Gerald’s doing. He plucked her out of the chorus and set her down center-stage, and she had the drive and ambition to meet the challenge, if not the experience.” She reached out and broke a corner from a slice of the bread she’d set on the table, then took an experimental nibble. “Just checking,” she said, smiling at Gemma. “Quality control.” Taking a sip of her tea, she continued, “But you realize that this all happened more than thirty years ago, and there are only a few of us who remember Gerald and Caro before they were leading lights.”

Gemma contemplated this for a moment, following Plummy’s example and reaching for another slice of bread. “Do they like being reminded that they were ordinary once?”

“I think there is a certain comfort in it.”

What had it been like for Julia, Gemma wondered, growing up in her parents’ shadow? It was difficult enough under any circumstances to shake off one’s parents’ influence and become a self-governing individual. She washed her bite of bread down with tea before asking, “And that’s how Julia met Connor? Through her parents?”

After a moment’s thought, Plummy said, “I believe it was an ENO fund-raising reception. In those days Julia still occasionally attended musical functions. She was just beginning to make her mark as an artist, and she hadn’t completely left her parents’ orbit.” She shook her head. “It took me by surprise from the start—Julia had always preferred the sort of intellectual and arty types, and Con was about as far removed from that as one could imagine. I tried talking to her, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it.”

“And were they as ill-matched as you thought?”

“Oh yes,” she answered with a sigh, swirling the tea in the bottom of her cup. “More so.”

When Plummy didn’t elaborate, Gemma asked, “Did you know that Connor had been seeing someone?”

She looked up in surprise. “Recently, you mean? A girlfriend?”

“A young woman with a small daughter.”

“No. No, I didn’t.” With the compassion Gemma had begun to expect of her, Plummy added, “Oh, the poor thing. I suppose she will have taken his death quite badly.”

The words
unlike Julia
seemed to hang unspoken between them. “She’s moved back, you know,” said Plummy. “Julia. Into the flat. I told her I didn’t think it looked well at all, but she said it was her flat, after all, and she had the right to do whatever she liked with it.”

Gemma thought of the upstairs studio, empty of Julia Swann’s disturbing presence, and felt an unaccountable sense of relief. “When did she go?”

“This morning, early. She has missed her studio, poor love—I never understood why she let Con stay on in the house. But there’s no reasoning with her once she’s made up her mind about something.”

The exasperated affection in Plummy’s voice reminded Gemma of her own mum, who swore that her red-haired daughter had been born stubborn. Not that Vi Walters was one to talk, Gemma thought with a smile. “Was Julia always so headstrong?”

Plummy regarded her steadily for long moment, then said, “No, not always.” She glanced at her watch. “Have you finished your tea, dear? Caro should be free by now, and she has another student coming this afternoon, so we’d better sandwich you in between.”

“Caro, this is Sergeant James,” Plummy announced as she ushered Gemma into the sitting room. Then she withdrew, and Gemma felt the draft of cool air as the door clicked shut.

Caroline Stowe stood with her back to the fire, as had her husband when Gemma and Kincaid had interviewed him two days earlier. She stepped toward Gemma with her hand outstretched. “How nice to meet you, Sergeant. How can I help you?”

Her hand felt small and cool in Gemma’s, as soft as a child’s. Involuntarily, Gemma glanced at the photograph on the piano. While it had given her a hint of the woman’s feminine delicacy, it
hadn’t begun to express her vitality. “It’s just a routine follow-up on the report you gave Thames Valley CID, Dame Caroline,” said Gemma, and her own voice sounded harsh in her ears.

“Sit down, please.” Dame Caroline moved to the sofa and patted the cushion invitingly. Over white wool trousers she wore a long garnet-colored sweater. The soft cowl neck framed her face, its color the perfect foil for her pale skin and dark hair.

Gemma, who had dressed with particular care that morning, suddenly found her favorite olive silk skirt and blouse as drab as camouflage, and as she sat down she felt awkward and clumsy. A flush of embarrassment warmed her cheeks and she said quickly, “Dame Caroline, I understand from your initial statement that you were at home last Thursday evening. Can you tell me what you did?”

“Of course, Sergeant, if you find it necessary,” Caroline said with an air of gracious resignation. “I had dinner with Plummy—that’s Vivian Plumley—then we watched something on the telly, I’m afraid I can’t remember what. Does it matter?”

“Then what did you do?”

“Plummy made us some cocoa, that must have been around ten o’clock. We talked for a bit, then went to bed.” Apologetically, she added, “It was a very ordinary evening, Sergeant.”

“Do you remember what time your husband came in?”

“I’m afraid not. I sleep quite soundly, and we have separate beds, so he seldom disturbs me when he comes in late after a performance.”

“And your daughter didn’t disturb you when she returned in the early hours of the morning?” Gemma asked, wanting to shake Caroline’s polished complacency just a bit.

“She did not. My daughter is a grown woman and comes and goes as she pleases. I’m not in the habit of keeping tabs on her whereabouts.”

Bull’s-eye
, thought Gemma. She’d hit a sensitive spot. “I understand from Mrs. Plumley that your daughter has gone back to the flat she shared with Connor. Did you approve of her being on her own again so soon, considering the circumstances?”

Caroline seemed to bite back a response, then sighed. “I thought it rather ill-advised, but then my approval has never had much effect on Julia’s actions. And she has behaved very badly over Connor’s death from the first.” Looking suddenly tired, Caroline rubbed her fingers over her cheekbones, but Gemma noticed that she didn’t stretch the skin.

“In what way?” Gemma asked, although she’d had proof enough that Julia wasn’t playing the grieving widow to perfection.

Shrugging, Caroline said, “There are things that must be done, and people have certain expectations… Julia has simply not met her obligations.”

Gemma wondered if Julia would have done what was necessary if she hadn’t been sure her parents would step in and take care of everything. The fact that Julia seemed to resent them doing so only served to illustrate the perversity of human nature, and Gemma had begun to think that their relationship might be more perverse than most. She turned a page in her small notebook, running through her questions in her mind. “I believe Connor came here for lunch last Thursday?” At Caroline’s nod, she continued, “Did you notice anything unusual about his behavior that day?”

Smiling, Caroline said, “Con was very entertaining, but there was nothing unusual about that.”

“Do you remember what you talked about?” Gemma asked, and as she watched Caroline ponder the question, she realized she’d never before seen a woman capable of furrowing her brow prettily.

“Oh, nothing memorable or weighty, Sergeant. Local gossip, Gerald’s performance that night—”

“So Connor knew your husband would be in London?”

Looking perplexed, Caroline answered, “Well, of course, Con knew Gerald would be in London.”

“Do you know why Connor would have visited the Coliseum that same afternoon?”