All Shall Be Well dk&gj-2

by Deborah Crombie

  Gemma left the car in the public carpark and walked to the shop, Toby holding her hand and pretending to hop like a kangaroo every few feet. The day's persistent drizzle had stopped, and by the time Gemma reached the shop some of her earlier unease had lifted. It was a few minutes before closing time and her mum was still behind the counter, busy with last minute customers.

  "Gemma! What a nice surprise. Toby, love, give Granny a kiss, there's a good boy." Vi Walters wiped a hand across her perspiring brow and said to Gemma, "Could you give us a hand, love? It's a bit of a panic just now."

  "Sure, Mum." Gemma always had to repress a smile at the thought of her grandparents' stubbornness in naming their carrot-haired daughter so inappropriately. Violet had become Vi as soon as she was old enough to express an opinion and had stayed so ever since, although the ginger curls were fading slowly into gray.

  "Where's Dad?" Gemma asked as she came round the counter and tied on a white apron. Toby headed straight for the toy basket kept for the purpose of entertaining him and his two small cousins.

  "In the back. Slicing bread for Mrs. Tibbit. You can stay for tea, can't you, love?"

  Nodding yes, Gemma took the last customer's order. Her parents' routine never varied—close the shop, have tea as soon as her mum could get it on the table, then settle down for the evening in front of the telly. Gemma found it both irritating and comforting.

  This evening was no exception, and half an hour after closing they sat at the red Formica table in the flat's kitchen, eating buttered toast, boiled eggs and jam-filled cake. Gemma had eaten her childhood meals at the same table, spilled her milk on the same lino floor. All her mother's time and energy went into the shop, not into what she referred to as "tailing the place up." The bakery's reputation reflected her mother's care, and Gemma supposed she and her sister hadn't really suffered as a result. Her sister—

  Gemma's thought came to a guilty halt. "How is Cyn?" she asked as she helped her mum with the washing up.

  Her mother gave her that sideways look of disapproval that could still make her cringe. "You could pick up the phone and ring her yourself. I hadn't noticed your fingers were broken."

  "I know, Mum." Gemma sighed. "Just tell me."

  "You just missed her, you know. She was here last night with the little ones. That new salon seems to be working out a treat for her. She's already had a raise, and the manager says…"

  Out of long habit, Gemma made interested noises in the proper places, her mind somewhere else altogether.

  "Gemma, you've not listened to a word I've said." Her mother looked more carefully at her, concern replacing the exasperation in her expression. "You've been quiet as the tomb all evening, come to think of it. Are you all right, love?"

  Gemma hesitated, torn between her need to confide and reluctance to give her mother ammunition. The fact that her marriage had failed while her sister's remained intact was a constant sore spot with her mum, although Gemma didn't see that her brother-in-law was such a prize—he was a lazy lout who spent more time on the dole than he did on the job.

  Need won out. "I think Rob's skipped out on me, Mum. It's been months since he's sent any money for Toby, and I don't know how much longer I can manage things the way they are."

  Instead of answering, Vi ran some water in the electric kettle and pulled two mugs off the shelf. "Sit down. We'll have another cup."

  Gemma almost laughed. Tea, the universal problem solver. Her mother never dealt with anything unless fortified by strong, sweet tea. From the sitting room she heard her father's voice and Toby's giggle, then the opening music from Coronation Street. Her mum was making a real sacrifice.

  "Have you looked for him?" asked Vi as she sat opposite Gemma and pushed her cup across to her.

  "Of course I have. I tell you he's done a skip, Mum. Left his job, no forwarding address, no phone number. I've talked to everyone I can think of who knows him—nothing."

  "His mum?"

  "If she knows anything she's not telling me, and it's her grandchild that's going to suffer, for god's sake. How could he do this to us? The bastard." Gemma felt her throat tighten, heard the threat of tears in her voice. She gulped down tea so hot it scalded her mouth.

  "Just how bad is it, Gem?"

  Gemma shrugged. "The mortgage is high, even if the place is a hole. One of Rob's great investment ideas—I'd lose everything if I had to sell it. But it's Toby's care that eats me up, not just regular days but nights and weekends when I have to work."

  Vi took a sip of her tea. "Could you find something less expensive?"

  Shaking her head vehemently, Gemma said, "No. It's not as good as it should be, even with what I'm paying."

  "Gemma," Vi said slowly, "you know we'd look after him. You only have to ask."

  She met her mother's eyes, then looked away. "I couldn't do that, Mum. I'd feel… I just couldn't."

  "Think about it, anyway, love. Even as a temporary measure."

  Temptation rose before Gemma. It would be an easy out, but it would mean a loss of independence that she didn't want to consider. She took a breath and smiled at her mother. "I'll keep it in mind, Mum. Thanks."

  Twilight was falling as Kincaid joined the North Circular Road. The journey back from Dorset had seemed interminable, and after miles of listening to his own thoughts make the same repetitive loop, jockeying for position in London traffic came as a welcome antidote.

  He escaped the main artery and crossed the relative quiet of Golders Green into North Hampstead. When he reached the junction of North End Way and Heath Street, he made an impulsive left turn. Spaniard's Road ran like a bridge across the top of the darkening Heath, isolated, empty of traffic. A white face flashed in his headlights—a solitary figure waiting at a bus stop—then the jut of the Bishop's tollgate into the road and he was negotiating the bustle of the Spaniards Inn carpark. As Kincaid pulled up the car, the door of the old pub opened, spilling a wave of light, warmth, and savory smells into the night.

  A few minutes later, balancing a plate of sausage, chips, and salad, and a pint, Kincaid squeezed his way into a seat at a single table. Back to the wall, he could watch the room as he ate. He was always more comfortable as observer rather than observed, and the mill of activity allowed his mind to wander.

  Had today brought him any closer to finding the real Jasmine? Tantalizing disconnected images ran through his mind—Jasmine's face framed in the window of the Briantspuddle cottage; Jasmine's dark hair swinging to cover her face as she bent over the typewriter in Rawlinson's office; Jasmine propped up in bed in the Hampstead flat, laughing as he told her some exaggerated story from work. If he dug long enough and deep enough, would all the little pieces finally fit together to make a whole? Was there any such thing as a definitive person—could one ever say that this was Jasmine, and not that?

  He realized that some of the melancholy restlessness that had been riding him since he left Dorset had to do with a growing reluctance to continue reading Jasmine's journals. Everything he learned increased his perception of her as an intensely private, even secretive person, and his sense of trespass became ever more pronounced.

  He found himself staring absently at two girls ordering food at the counter. One had orange hair cropped almost to her skull, the other a straight fall of fair hair halfway down her back. Spandex minis left their legs bare from the buttocks down, in spite of the chill, damp evening. He supposed vanity provided them sufficient internal warmth— what bothered him was not the likelihood of their catching a chill, but that he'd no idea how long they'd stood there before he noticed them. He must be getting old.

  The sight of the girl's long blond hair triggered the usual response—a deja vu of pain shut off almost before it became conscious. Vic. How odd to have this insight into Jasmine's innermost thoughts, when he had never known what his own wife was thinking. His relationship with Jasmine had in some perverse way become more intimate than marriage.

  Kincaid mopped up the last bit of chip and sausage with
his fork. Reluctant or not, he would go home and pick up the journals where he had left off. It was impossible now to leave the job unfinished, the life not followed to its conclusion. A feeling of urgency, almost of necessity, compelled him.

  For months after Jasmine's settling in London, the journal entries reminded Kincaid of the daybooks kept by Victorian wives. Bought curtains for flat. Spent ten pounds to furnish kitchen with necessaries. Enough left to pay rates? Gaps appeared, then finally the entries began again, undated, sporadic and disconnected. Kincaid skimmed the pages, stopping occasionally to read an entry more carefully.

  May's dead, just like Father now. Should feel something, I suppose, but I don't. Just blank. Did she know she was dying? Was she frightened, or did she stay starched as a preacher's drawers even at the end? Did she think of me? Was she sorry?

  Could I have loved her, if I had tried harder?

  Won't go back, not even for Theo.

  This city seems to breed solitude in its slick, wet streets, in the cold that inhabits the stones. You could pass your whole life here, faceless, unrecognized, unacknowledged. I walk the same way to work every day, stop in the same shops, but I'm still a stranger, just "Miss."

  The flat welcomes me home with its stink of old grease and I feed just enough coins into the electric fire to keep from freezing. Sometimes when I fall asleep I dream of India, dream I'm in my bed in the Mohur Street house, and I hear the early morning peddlers singing below my window.

  I never dreamed May had so much money. Or that she would divide it equally between us. She did try to be fair, even though she didn't feel it. I have to give her that.

  Why did she squirrel it away all those years? She lived like she couldn't buy the next day's milk, bitched about how she couldn't afford to keep me even when I was paying my share of the housekeeping, and all the time she had thousands of pounds sitting in the bank. The old cow.

  A new flat, a groundfloor in Bayswater. Small, but clean, with sunlight through the windows, and the tiny patch of back garden has a plum tree just beginning to bloom. Look forward to coming home to a simple meal I've made myself, a glass of wine, everything just the way I want it. Safe. For the first time I feel a sliver of hope that life here might not always be so dreary, then there's the nagging reminder that May's money made it possible. I used it for the down-payment, but I won't spend more. Determined to live off my wages, not use the principal. Theo's already asking for loans against his balance, can't say no to him. He seems so lost.

  The dreams started again. Woke up sweating and sick, didn't sleep the rest of the night. Wrote his mum again last week. No answer. There's no one else I can ask.

  I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. Shouldn't think, shouldn't remember, shouldn't write.

  Sometimes it seems it all happened to someone else, it's so distant and distilled, then the dreams come.

  A red-letter day today. My first day as junior assistant in the borough planning office. Pay's not much, but it's the first position with a chance for advancement.

  This morning I got off the bus a stop early and walked through Holland Park. Gusts of wind scooped the leaves along the walks, people gripped their coats tighter and scurried with their heads down, but I felt exhilarated, as if I owned the park, owned the city, owned time even, and could stretch it as much as I wished.

  Glorious as it was, at the same time I stood outside myself, aware of the experience, wondering if I could hold on to it, imprint it in my memory. Things fade so quickly. Already it's less intense, the edges are blurring, the joy bittersweet.

  Everything he touches turns to disaster. A club this time, the latest everything, a sure success. Only it wasn't quite the right neighborhood, or there wasn't enough cash to keep it afloat through the critical period, or his partner raked the profit off the top. There's always something.

  Am I to blame? If I hadn't left when I did… he wasn't strong enough to care for May when she got ill. She died in his arms. I didn't know. Theo said she looked so frightened. I couldn't have done anything for May, but I might have been some comfort to Theo.

  Think Theo might be using drugs. What to say? Better or worse that I meddle? All his money's spent, trickled away like dust. Minimum wage work in the packing room of a Chelsea gallery—some friend took pity. He asks me for painting lessons. What can I do?

  This is all there is. Told John to bugger off. Politely. Wasn't his fault. Nothing works. It's never the same.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dr. James Gordon opened his inquest into the death of Jasmine Dent at nine o'clock on Wednesday morning. The courtroom trapped the previous night's chill, and smelled faintly of stale cigarettes. Kincaid felt thankful that in London coroners were usually doctors with law qualifications and most of them could be counted on to conduct an inquest with dispatch. County coroners, often small-town solicitors with more knowledge of local politics than medical jurisprudence, were sometimes tempted to grandstand. Kincaid had dealt with Dr. Gordon before and knew him to be fair, conscientious, and more to the point, intelligent. Gordon's blue eyes, as faded in color as his thinning, sandy hair, were sharp with interest. He presided at a scarred oak table in the small room, facing Kincaid, Gemma, Margaret Bellamy, and Felicity Howarth. All except Gemma had been called to give evidence, and no one else was in attendance.

  They waited in silence as Gordon studied the papers spread in front of him. Kincaid glanced at the three women, thinking how clearly their postures reflected their personalities. Gemma looked both relaxed and alert, hands clasped loosely in her lap. In the gray light filtering through the courtroom's single window, her hair shone copper-bright against the dull olive of her jacket, and when she felt Kincaid's gaze, she looked up and smiled.

  Margaret, although reasonably well-combed and groomed, twisted a quickly disintegrating tissue between her fingers. When she'd first walked into the room, Kincaid had noticed that her skirt hem dropped in places as if small boys had swung on it as it hung out to dry.

  Felicity Howarth wore charcoal instead of navy, but was otherwise as neatly dressed as he'd first seen her the day of Jasmine's death. She sat finishing-school straight in the hard wooden chair, hands folded over her briefcase-like handbag. Her red-gold hair lacked some of its previous luster, however, and the lines around her eyes were more evident. Kincaid remembered Gemma telling him, when they had compared notes that morning, that Felicity was carrying a particularly heavy case-load just now.

  "Mr. Kincaid."

  Gordon's voice jerked Kincaid's attention back to the table. "Sir?"

  "Mr. Kincaid, I understand it was you who requested the Coroner's Office to arrange an autopsy?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Rather unusual circumstances, I should think, a senior officer with CID personally requesting an autopsy." Gordon's blue eyes searched Kincaid's face, but he continued before Kincaid could answer. "I assume you've sent the file to the Director of Public Prosecutions?"

  Kincaid nodded. "Yes, sir."

  "Grounds for bringing proceedings against anyone?"

  "Not as yet, no."

  Gordon sighed. "Well, there's not much I can do other than issue a burial order." He scanned their faces. "Next of kin here?" At Kincaid's negative shake of the head, Gordon raised his eyebrows, but said only, "I'll put the certificate of death in the post, then."

  Kincaid sensed a sudden easing of the atmosphere in the room. He hadn't been aware of any previous tension, and even now couldn't pinpoint the source. Meg or Felicity? Because of the nature of her work, Felicity might very well have been called to give evidence before. Meg was the least likely to have been aware of the brevity of an opening inquest, or to have known that the coroner had no legal power to accuse anyone.

  "But," Gordon said loudly, bringing all eyes back to his face, "I would like to clarify a few points to my own satisfaction."

  Crafty old devil's playing it for all it's worth, thought Kincaid, and smiled.

  "Mrs. Howarth," said Gordon, "you visited Miss Dent last Th
ursday, is that correct?"

  Felicity nodded. "In the morning. I helped her with her bath, checked her catheter, just the usual things." She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "There's not always a lot you can do for terminal patients while they're still ambulatory. It's more a matter of monitoring their progress, making sure they're comfortable."

  "Did her state of mind seem out of the ordinary to you? Was there any evidence of depression? Nervousness?"

  Felicity's smile held no humor. "Terminally ill patients are quite often depressed, Doctor. But no, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary that day. No indication that Jasmine might be contemplating taking her own life."

  Unperturbed by Felicity's barb, Gordon continued his questioning. "And this was your normal routine? One daily visit?"

  "Yes…" Felicity paused, her brow furrowing. "Although sometimes I would stop by on my way home in the evenings, if I'd had a case nearby. I told Jasmine I might be back that day. I'd forgotten."

  "And did you stop by again?"

  "No." She said it softly, regretfully. "It was too late by the time I'd finished my rounds."

  "Miss Bellamy." Gordon transferred his sharp gaze to Meg, and Kincaid saw her hands jerk convulsively in her lap. "I understand Miss Dent discussed suicide with you."

  "Yes, sir."

  Gordon had to lean forward to hear her. "Did you understand the seriousness of what she asked you to do?"

  Meg looked up at him, her face flushing blotchy red, her hands still. "She didn't actually ask me to do anything. She only wanted me to be with her. She didn't want to die alone. Can any of you understand that?" Meg looked at them all defiantly. No one held her gaze. After a moment she looked down, and said with her eyes fixed once again on her lap, "It doesn't matter. She was alone in the end, after all."

  "You saw her last Thursday as well?" asked Gordon, a hint of sympathy in his voice.

  "After work. I'd brought her a curry for her supper. I knew she wouldn't eat much, but she usually made an effort if she thought I'd gone to any trouble." Meg looked up at the coroner and spoke as if they were the only ones in the room. "I'd never have left her if I'd thought… never. She seemed… You would have to have known Jasmine. Even when she talked about suicide, she did it so matter-of-factly. She never said, "Meg, I'm scared," or "Meg, I don't want to be alone." Even facing death, she never let you breach that reserve. But that day, last Thursday, she was different. I don't know how to explain it." Face scrunched up in concentration, hands poised as if she might pull the words out of the air, Meg stopped and took a deep breath. "Open. The walls were down. I could feel her affection for me so clearly. And she was happy. I could feel that, too."