Mourn Not Your Dead

CHAPTER

14

Gemma had Will drop her off in Holmbury St. Mary on his way back to the station, as Kincaid had told her he’d meet her in the village. It was almost two o’clock, and the sun had seared through the morning’s haze. She stood on the edge of the green for a moment after Will drove away, turning her face to the light until stars blossomed behind her closed eyelids. Mid-November was seldom so generous, and one couldn’t expect it to last. This was a day for sailing model boats on the Serpentine, a day for storing memories of warmth enough to last through the long winter days ahead.

She heard the whir of wheels on pavement, and, opening her eyes, she found that a jaunty little red Vauxhall had pulled up before her. The woman driving rolled down her window and leaned out. “You looked a bit lost. Can I help you?” She had a slightly husky, melodious voice, a bob of platinum hair, and the largest beak of a nose Gemma had ever seen.

Embarrassed at being caught standing about daydreaming like an idiot, Gemma stammered, “I’m not—I mean I’m quite all right, thank you. Just waiting for someone.”

The woman studied her until Gemma looked away from her penetrating gaze. “You must be the elusive Sergeant James. I’ve heard about you from Geoff, among others. I’m Madeleine Wade.” She put her hand out the window, and Gemma grasped fingers as strong as her own. “If you’re looking for your superintendent, I haven’t seen him lately Cheerio.” With a wave Madeleine put the car into gear and pulled away, leaving Gemma gaping after her.

She closed her mouth with a snap, wondering why she felt as if she’d just been unzipped and put back together again. And had she heard an emphasis on the your before superintendent, or was she imagining things? With a shrug she crossed the road and went round to the pub car park, but there was no sign of the Rover.

Slowly, she walked into the lane and stared at the Gilberts’ house. Would she be stealing a march on Kincaid if she took the opportunity to have a word with Claire Gilbert? She felt she and Claire had established a rapport of sorts and that perhaps she had a better chance of winning Claire’s confidence alone.

Letting herself in through the gate, she bypassed the dark, austere front door that seemed to her to symbolize Alastair Gilbert’s presence in the house, and took the path to the back garden.

The sight that greeted her might have graced a painter’s canvas. A white wrought-iron chair had been pulled out into a sunny patch on the green square of lawn. In it sat Claire, wearing a high-necked Victorian blouse and skirt like a drift of wild flowers. Lucy sat on the ground beside her, head against her mother’s knee. Lewis gamboled about with a tennis ball in his mouth, which he promptly dropped in his eagerness to greet Gemma.

“Sergeant,” said Claire as Gemma crossed the lawn, “get another chair and join us. It’s positively indecent, isn’t it, for November?” She turned a palm up to the flawless azure sky. “Have some lemonade. It’s the real thing, not the fizzy stuff from a bottle. Lucy made it herself.”

“I’ll just get you a glass,” said Lucy with a smile, and pushed herself up with graceful ease. “No, Lewis,” she scolded as she pulled over a chair for Gemma. “She doesn’t want to play with you just now, silly beast.” The dog cocked his head and panted, the pink of his lolling tongue bright against his dark muzzle.

“I feel an absolute layabout,” said Gemma, but she sank into the chair gratefully

Claire closed her eyes. “Sometimes it’s the best option, and we don’t take it often enough.”

“Everyone seems to be telling me that today. Is there a conspiracy?”

Claire laughed. “Did you grow up having ‘the devil finds work for idle hands’ drummed into you, too? Funny how hard it is to shake those things.”

Lucy returned with a glass of lemonade for Gemma and resumed her place beside her mother’s chair. “Shake what things?” she asked, looking up at them.

“Things we learned at our mother’s knees,” Claire answered lightly, running a hand through her daughter’s hair. “How to listen, how to please, how to do what’s expected of us. Isn’t that right, Sergeant?” She gave Gemma a quizzical glance. “I can’t keep calling you ‘Sergeant’—it’s Gemma, isn’t it?”

Gemma nodded, thinking of her mother’s outspoken independence (bloody-mindedness, her dad had been known to call it). Yet even with that influence, Gemma had tiptoed around Rob’s every whim as if he were royalty. The memory made her wince. Where did such behavior come from, and how did one guard against it?

“I’d better get ready,” said Lucy, breaking into Gemma’s reverie. “Dog drool doesn’t exactly suit the occasion.” She stood up and brushed at her shirt.

“Occasion?” asked Gemma.

“We’re taking Gwen out for tea and Mum says I have to wear something ‘appropriate.’ Don’t you hate that word?”

“It’s dreadful,” Gemma agreed with a smile. “How’s his mother coping, by the way?”

“I’ll be along in a minute, love,” Claire said to Lucy, then turned back to Gemma. “As well as can be expected. The shock seems to have made her a bit fuzzy. Sometimes she seems to forget what’s happened, but when she remembers she’s worrying herself over the funeral.” Claire gazed at the trees that climbed the slope behind the garden. When the kitchen door had banged behind her daughter, she said, “Since we have no idea when the coroner will release the body, Becca thinks we might hold a small memorial service without making a feast for the press.” With a hint of a smile, she added, “I think Alastair would have felt quite let down, actually, not to be shown proper respect. Black armbands and pallbearers, and all the gallant officers in uniform.”

Claire finished the last of her lemonade and glanced at her watch. “I suppose I’d better get into something more suitable myself before I drive to Dorking to pick up Gwen.”

“I did just want a word,” said Gemma, “if you could stay a bit longer.”

Claire sank back into her chair and looked at Gemma attentively.

“It’s about your bank account, Mrs. Gilbert. The one you opened in Dorking. Why did you have all the correspondence sent to you at work?”

“Bank account?” said Claire blankly, staring at Gemma. “But how—” She blinked and looked away, and after a moment smoothed down the fabric of her skirt where she’d bunched it with her fist. “I was a very well-supervised only child, and I married Stephen at nineteen, straight from my parents’ arms to his. Except for that short period of time after Stephen died, I have never lived alone.” She met Gemma’s gaze again, her eyes fierce. “Do you understand what it’s like to want something just for yourself? Have you ever felt that? That’s all I wanted, something no one else could touch. I didn’t have to ask permission to spend it, didn’t have to justify myself. It was glorious, and it was my secret.” Glancing down at the hands she’d balled into tight fists again, she took a breath. “How did you find out about it? Malcolm wouldn’t have told you.”

“No,” Gemma said softly, “he didn’t. We found the account number in your husband’s pocket.”

* * *

Gemma sat at the picnic table in the front garden of the pub, watching the life of the village revolve around her. Brian went by in the small white van; Claire and Lucy left in their Volvo; Geoff stopped and spoke to her as he went to help the vicar in her garden.

After a bit she closed her eyes, willing herself not to think—not about Jackie, not about Alastair Gilbert, not about … anything. The sun felt hot on her skin, and it was only the coolness of the shadow falling across her face that made her open her eyes with a start.

“Care to tell me about it?” asked Kincaid.

“Where did you—I didn’t see you drive past.”

“Obviously.” He raised an eyebrow as he slid onto the bench opposite her.

Nettled by his teasing, Gemma launched into an account of her trip to Dorking with Will, then, a bit more hesitantly, her visit to Claire.

Kincaid’s only comment was the raising of his eyebrow a fraction of an inch higher. In an expressionless voice he told her about his interview with the doctor.

When he’d finished she stared at him for a moment, then said flatly, “You’re not serious.”

“I wish I weren’t.”

“But how could he possibly hurt her? She seems so … fragile.” In her mind Gemma heard the sound of bone snapping, and she saw again Claire’s neck beneath her parted hair, delicate as the stem of a lily.

Kincaid looked down at his hands, fingers splayed on the rough wood of the table. “I can’t be sure, but I have a feeling that Claire’s illusion of fragility made her all the more appealing as a victim.”

The thought made Gemma feel ill, and she crossed her arms protectively over her stomach. “You have no proof.”

“That’s what Nick said.” He shrugged. “I’ve been wrong before. But I’ll have to confront her with it. I don’t think she’s told you the whole truth about the bank account, either. You think it was Ogilvie the manager met?”

It was Gemma’s turn to shrug. “Who else could it have been? No one would ever describe Gilbert as predatory. Maybe we’ve been wrong about Brian and Claire. She and David Ogilvie go way back; maybe they took up where they left off years ago.”

“But if Ogilvie were Claire’s lover, why would he be snooping into her bank account—”

“In either case, how did Gilbert come by the account number? Unless the two things aren’t connected at all, and Claire was simply careless. Maybe she left her checkbook in her handbag—people get careless when they’ve got comfortable with a deception—and Gilbert found it.”

“Or maybe Claire and Ogilvie planned to get rid of Gilbert, and Ogilvie thought she might be double-crossing him, so he checked up on her.” Kincaid looked quite pleased with himself at this last flight of fancy.

“I don’t believe that Claire Gilbert deliberately planned to kill her husband, no matter what he did,” Gemma said, feeling unreasonably irritated with him.

Kincaid sighed. “I don’t want to believe it either, but we have to consider all the options. If she did kill him, I don’t believe she could have done it alone. That’s what made us rule her out in the beginning. Whatever else you might say about Gilbert, he was no softie, and I don’t think she could have sneaked up and hit him in the back of the head without his reacting in time to save himself.”

Glancing at his watch, he said, “Look, Gemma, I have an idea. We can’t talk to Claire until she comes back from Dorking. I’ve just checked in with the Yard when I ran Nick back to Guildford and there’s no word on Ogilvie’s whereabouts, so we’ve reached a standstill on both fronts for the moment.” He squinted up at the sun. “Come for a walk with me.”

“Walk?”

“You know”—he mimed walking with his fingers on the tabletop—“locomotion with two legs. I think we have time before the light goes. We could climb Leith Hill. It’s the highest point in southern England.”

“I don’t have any boots,” she protested. “And I’m not dressed for—”

“Live dangerously. I’ll bet you’ve got trainers in your overnight bag in the boot, and I’ll loan you my anorak. It’s warm enough—I don’t need it. What have you got to lose?”

And so Gemma found herself striding along the road beside him, the nylon of his anorak swishing as she swung her arms. They left the road just past a tidy place called Bulmer Farm, and shortly they were climbing on the signposted path. At first, the land fell away on their right, the slope carpeted with russet leaves and punctuated by the skeletal trunks of pale-barked trees. Soon, however, the banks began to rise steeply on either side, and the path became a muddy rut.

Gemma hopped from dry spot to dry spot, rabbitlike, grabbing vegetation to steady herself and cursing Kincaid for his longer legs. “This is your idea of fun?” she panted, but before he could answer they heard a humming noise behind them. It was a mountain biker, kitted out in helmet and goggles, barreling full tilt along the path towards them. Gemma sprang to one side and scrambled up the bank, clutching a tree root as the biker whizzed by, splattering them with mud.

“Bloody bastard,” she seethed. “We ought to report him.”

“To whom?” asked Kincaid, eyeing the mud on his trousers. “The traffic police?”

“He’d no right—” Gemma said as she let go of the tree root and began a gingerly descent towards level ground. Then her feet shot out from under her. She twisted violently in midair and landed hard on one hip and one palm. Her hand stung like fire, and she snatched it up, swearing viciously.

Kincaid came and knelt beside her. “Are you all right?” The expression on his face told her he was biting back laughter, and that made her more furious.

“Don’t you know better than to touch a nettle?” he asked, taking her hand and examining her palm. He rubbed a smear of mud from her finger with his thumb, and his touch made her skin burn almost as fiercely as the nettle.

She withdrew her hand and pulled herself up, balancing carefully, then stepped for the next spot of dry ground.

“Look for a dock leaf,” Kincaid said from behind her, amusement still coloring his voice.

“Whatever for?” Gemma asked crossly.

“To stop the stinging, of course. Didn’t you ever have holidays in the country as a child?”

“My mum and dad worked seven-day weeks,” she said, standing on her injured dignity. Then after a moment she relented. “Sometimes we went to the seaside.”

It came back to her with the smell of salt air and candy floss—the bite of the water, always too cold for anyone sensible to bathe in, the feel of wet bathing dress and sand against her skin, the squabbling with her sister on the train home. But afterwards had come hot baths and soup and drowsing before the fire, and for a moment she felt a stab of longing for the unquestioned simplicity of it all.

When they reached the summit a half hour later, she sat gratefully on a bench at the base of the brick observation tower and let Kincaid fetch tea from the refreshment kiosk. Her thighs ached from the climb and her hip from her fall, but as she looked out across the hills she felt exhilarated, as if she’d reached the top of the world. By the time he returned with steaming polystyrene cups, she’d caught her breath and she looked up at him and smiled. “I’m glad I came now. Thanks.”

He sat on the bench beside her and handed her a cup. “They say that on a clear day you can see Holland from the top of the tower. Are you game?”

She shook her head. “I’m not very good with heights. This will do well enough.”

They sat for a while in silence, sipping the steaming tea and looking at the hazy smudge of London sprawling across the plain to the north. Then Gemma brought her knees up and swiveled around on the bench, tilting her face up to the sun.

Kincaid followed suit, shading his eyes with his hand. “Do you suppose that’s the Channel, just on the horizon?” he asked.

Gemma felt the tears smart behind her lids and leak from the corners of her eyes. She found she couldn’t speak.

Looking at her, Kincaid said anxiously, “Gemma, what is it? I didn’t mean—”

“Jackie …” she managed, then gulped and tried again. “I’ve just remembered. Jackie told me she meant to go there her next holiday. She’d always wanted to see Paris. She and Susan were going to the Chunnel train across to France. If I hadn’t—”

Kincaid took the cup from her shaking hands and set it on the bench. He put the flat of his hand against her back and began to rub in slow circles. “Gemma, it’s right to grieve, but you can’t go on blaming yourself for Jackie’s death. In the first place, we’re still not positive there’s a connection. And even if there is, Jackie was an adult and responsible for her own decisions. She helped you because she wanted to, not because you made her, and she went further than you’d asked because she was curious. Don’t you see?”

She shook her head mutely, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, but after a few minutes she relaxed against his hand and the tightness in her chest began to subside. Opening her eyes, she glanced at his face. His concern for her was evident in the crease between his brows, and it seemed to her that he’d acquired new lines around his eyes. She thought of him driving up from Surrey so that she wouldn’t receive the news of

Jackie’s death from an impersonal phone call. Such consideration deserved better treatment than she’d given him lately.

“The sun’s starting to sink,” he said. “Dusk will come on fast. We’d better start down while we can see where we’re going.”

They managed the last few hundred yards of the trail in gathering gloom, and by the time they reached the village, lights had begun to glow in a few of the houses.

Kincaid looked at Gemma hugging his anorak tighter around her as they faced into the wind. She hadn’t spoken on the way back from the tower, but he sensed no hostility towards him in her silence, only a withdrawing into herself. She had smiled at him and taken his hand willingly in the rough spots.

“Claire should be well back by now,” he said. “Let’s try the house first.”

“Like this?” Gemma gestured at her mud-spattered trousers and shoes.

“Why not? It will give us an air of country authenticity.”

The gate creaked as they let themselves into the Gilberts’ garden, and the shrubbery assumed shapes of unexpected menace in the dim light. Kincaid stopped when they rounded the corner into the back garden, not sure at first what felt odd. He held up a hand to halt Gemma and peered towards the dog’s run. Was that a shadow or a still, dark shape?

“Lewis?” he said softly, but the shape didn’t stir. Kincaid’s heart lurched in his chest. “Stay here,” he hissed at Gemma, but he felt her at his heels as he sprinted across towards the enclosure.

The dark shadow coalesced as he drew closer, became a sleek, black dog splayed on its side. Kneeling, Kincaid thrust a hand through the octagonal space in the wire, scraping the skin from his knuckles. His straining fingers touched the dog. The coat felt warm, and under his hand the flank rose gently.

“Is he …” Gemma didn’t finish her sentence.

“He’s breathing.” He saw a smudge on the concrete near the dog’s head. Kincaid looked up at the dark windows of the house. “Something’s wrong, Gemma. You stay—”

“I’m bloody not letting you go in on your own,” she whispered. “So don’t even think it.”

They crossed the lawn together. When they reached the kitchen door, Kincaid eased it open and they moved through the mudroom as silently as wraiths. In the kitchen they stood in the dark, just touching. Kincaid turned full circle, willing his eyes to adjust, willing his ears to pick up a sound over the thumping of his heart.

After a long moment his pulse began to slow, and beside him he felt some of the tension drain from Gemma’s body. The noise came just as she drew breath to speak. His arm shot around her and he clamped his hand over her mouth, feeling the bite of her teeth against his palm as she gasped in surprise.

He heard it again, the faintest suggestion of a creak. The hair on the back of his neck rose. “The mobile phone,” he breathed at Gemma. “In my jacket, in the car. Go—”

The voice came from the darker oblong of the doorway into the hall. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”