The air was thick with smoke, the noise level raucously high. Holding on to her position in the scrum near the door, she stood on tiptoe as she searched the crowded tables. She spotted Jimmy first, then Matt with his fluffy blond hair and drooping mustache, then Roger, with his back to her. The crowd didn't part like the Red Sea as she pushed her way across the room—she almost laughed as the biblical analogy flew through her mind, wondering at the strange sense of exhilaration she felt. Matt saw her before she reached the table, and said in his sneering way, "Hey, Rog, here's your bird come looking for you," but for once that didn't bother her. Jimmy smiled at her—he wasn't a bad sort, really—and Roger turned to face her, expressionless.
"Roger. Can I have a word?" Her voice was steadier than she expected.
"What's stopping you?"
She looked at Jimmy and Matt. "I meant alone."
Roger rolled his eyes in exasperation. There were no free tables, and every available bench and stool was jammed with bodies. He looked at his friends and jerked his head toward the bar. "Get us another one, will you, lads?"
They went, Jimmy with better grace than Matt, and Meg wedged herself past a heavy woman at the next table and sat on the bench they'd vacated.
Roger started before she could draw a breath, pushing his pint aside to lean across the table and hiss at her. "What do you mean, coming here and making a fool of me in front of my mates, you silly bi—"
"Roger, I'm leaving. I—"
"—should bloody well hope so. And don't—"
"Roger. I mean it's finished. You and me. I've given notice at work. I've left the bedsit. I've written to Superintendent Kincaid, letting him know how to reach me. I'm telling you good-bye."
For the first time she could remember she'd left him speechless—not sulking in deliberate silence, but mouth open, bereft of words.
He closed his mouth, opened it again and said, "What do you mean, you're leaving? You can't."
Meg could feel her body starting to tremble, but she hung on to the feeling of power that had flooded through her. "I can."
"What about the money," he said, leaning forward again and lowering his voice. "We agreed—"
Meg didn't bother to lower hers. "I never agreed to anything. And you'll not see a penny of it. You wanted her dead. Did you make sure, Roger? I don't know what you've done, but I'm finished covering up for you."
His eyes widened in astonishment. "You'd grass on me, wouldn't you? You bitch. You—" He stopped, took a breath and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was back in control. "Think about it, Meg. Think about how much you'll miss me." He raised his hand and ran a finger down her cheek.
She jerked her head back, turning her face away from him.
"So that's how it is," he said, the venom fully evident again. "Run home to Mummy and Daddy, then. You've got no place else to go. Work in your dad's garage, let every filthy old bastard that comes in pinch your bum; change your sister's brats' dirty nappies—you're welcome to it. And you can tell your precious Superintendent Kincaid whatever you bloody well like, because they'll not pin anything on me." There was nothing pleasant about Roger's smile. "You fancy the Superintendent, don't you, Meg? I've seen the way you look at him. Well, he's way out of your league, darling, and you're a bigger fool than I thought."
Meg felt the hot rush of color stain her face, but she refused to let him bait her. Standing, she squeezed her way clear of the table and stood close enough to Roger for his arm to brush her thighs when he moved. She looked down into his face, noted the way his eyelashes fanned against his cheek when he blinked, and she sensed the fear beneath his bravado. "So are you," she said, and turned away. She didn't look back.
"Ta, Charlie," Meg said to the driver as the bus groaned to a halt beneath the Abinger Hammer clock. It was the daily Dorking to Guildford run, and the driver one of her father's regular customers. She waved as the doors swished shut behind her, then watched the bus until it disappeared around the bend in the road.
The shop was across the road, unmistakable, just the way she remembered it. She brushed her hands down the front of her coat, discovering a stain where she must have spilled the pop she'd drunk on the train from London to Dorking. The stop at her parents' had been brief—she'd put her bags in her old room, refused her mother's offer of tea, and refused to answer any questions. "Not now, Mum. There's somebody I have to see."
The thought of the astonished expression on her mum's face made her smile. No one in her family ever expected little Margaret to be uncooperative, or to have plans of her own.
She crossed the street slowly, pausing again outside the shop. Lights shone through the French panes of the windows, but there was no movement inside. Her heart thumped against her chest and her fingers trembled as she touched the door handle. A bell tinkled briefly somewhere in the back of the shop as she stepped inside. Her heart sank as she looked around at the jumble of rubbish that passed for a display. Old farm implements, china, a rocking horse, moldy books, nothing arranged with a semblance of balance or order, and over everything lay an aura of neglect.
But as she moved carefully through the cluttered aisle, looking, touching, possibilities began to emerge. She had knelt to dip her hand into a basket of antique buttons when a door opened and she heard Theo's voice. "Can I help— Margaret?"
She stood, a silver-gilt button still clasped in her fingers. "Hullo, Theo. Why don't you call me Meg. Jasmine did, you know."
"What are you doing… I mean, it's nice to see you. I just didn't expect—"
"I've come to make you a proposition." Although her voice felt shaky, it seemed to sound all right, so she took a breath and plowed on. "Is there someplace we can talk?"
Theo seemed to collect himself. "Of course. We can go upstairs."
"I'm afraid it's not much," he said as he led the way. "I suppose I've got used to living out of boxes over the years. The bare necessities."
Meg surveyed the armchair and camp bed, the packing crates and hotplate. "I know," she said, thinking of her bedsit, "but you've made it cozy enough."
"Here, have a seat," he directed her to the armchair, "and I'll make us some tea."
She watched him fill an electric kettle in the little alcove that served as a kitchen, her tongue suddenly too frozen to make small talk. Dear god, what ever had possessed her to invent such a harebrained scheme? He'd laugh at her, at the very least, at worst reject her with well-deserved scorn—and then where would she be? No worse off than she'd been before, she told herself firmly, and still with the means to start a new life for herself.
Theo brought the tea on a lacquered tray, with china cups and matching cream and sugar. "Sometimes I do pinch nice things for myself," he said, seeing her expression. "Coal-port. I've always had a fondness for this pattern, and it's common enough not to be terribly valuable."
The china seemed to focus the light in the bare room, and its cobalt-and-rust, intertwining leaf-and-dragon pattern made Meg think of Jasmine. "Jasmine never lost her taste for the exotic, either."
Theo didn't speak until he had poured her tea and pulled up a seat for himself, then he said, "No, and it was in part an affectation, a vanity. It made her different." He smiled. "I, on the other hand, never wanted to be different, but I suppose I find things that remind me of my childhood comforting."
"You never knew your mother, did you?"
"No. Only Jasmine." Cup in mid-air, he gazed at some point behind Meg's head. "It's odd to look back on one's childhood from an adult's perspective. Jasmine was only five when Mummy died having me. I see now that taking complete responsibility for me must have been her childish way of dealing with her own grief and loss, but to me it seemed the most natural thing in the world. I thought all families were like ours." He sipped his tea and returned his cup to the saucer.
Meg gathered her courage. "Theo, it's Jasmine I've come about." Seeing his lips purse to form a question, she hurried on. "Or rather, it's Jasmine's money. You see, I want to help with the shop
."
He was shaking his head before she'd finished. "I couldn't let you do that. It wouldn't be right. Jasmine did what she thought best for both of us—"
"Theo, I'm not talking about a loan. I want to come in as a working partner. I'll have capital to invest from the sale of the flat, and I'm good with figures. I think we could—" She stopped herself, feeling an idiot. Theo's mouth had formed a perfect round "o" of astonishment, making his resemblance to a teddy-bear more marked than ever. "I'm sorry. It was stupid of me." She finished her tea and stood up, glad she hadn't taken off her coat. The awkwardness of getting into it again would have delayed her exit. "Thanks for the—"
"Wait, Meg," Theo said, standing so quickly he sloshed his tea into the saucer as he tried to set it down. He touched her arm. "You're quite serious, aren't you?"
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"I thought you were joking at first. You'd really be interested in this place?" His tone expressed his disbelief, and when she nodded again he said, "Why? What about your job? Your life in London?"
He meant Roger, she thought, but was too tactful to say it. "I quit my job. And Jasmine was the only thing in my life that really mattered." She struggled to find words that would make him understand what she wasn't sure she understood herself. They both sat down again without quite realizing it, Meg on the edge of her chair, Theo leaning forward on his stool. "I didn't count, Theo. Anyone could have done my job, rented my room—and Roger will find a better prospect soon enough. My family complained when I left because it left more work for them, but they didn't miss me."
"I want…" She looked down at her hands, extended toward him palm upwards, then balled them into fists again and tucked them into her lap. "I can't…"
"You don't have to explain." Theo smiled, and she read in it understanding, but not pity. "I'll make us some more tea, shall I? I forgot the biscuits before." He gathered up the tea things, and as he started toward the kitchen alcove a thought seemed to strike him. He paused, turning back to her. "I say, Meg. You don't happen to like old films, do you?"
He'd done all the Saturday chores—cleaned the flat, trundled the laundry down to the service laundromat on East Heath Road, brought in some groceries, even carried bucket and sponges downstairs and washed the Midget where it stood at the curb. A more glorious spring day couldn't be imagined—a day for drives in the country, sipping lemonade at cricket matches, picnics by the Serpentine—yet Kincaid stood in his clean sitting room, staring at the shoe-box that still stood accusingly on his coffee table. Beneath the grief that had dogged his morning like a hangover lay the knowledge that he had missed something yesterday. A connection, a word, a memory slumbered in his brain, awaiting the cue that would allow it to make the synaptic leap into his consciousness. He knew he couldn't force it, yet he couldn't rest.
He went downstairs, folded back the Midget's top, and drove to the Yard.
The corridor was quiet, lacking the weekday hum of voices and keyboards. He waved a greeting into the few occupied offices, then absently pushed open his own door. A familiar figure sat at his desk, copper head bent over a file. "Gemma!"
"Hullo. Didn't expect to see you in today." She smiled at him and he thought she looked tired and a little pale.
"What are you doing here?" He sat on his desk, taking in her jeans and trainers, and the bright blue pullover that made the color of her hair shine like a new penny.
Gesturing at the file, she said, "Hunting for needles in haystacks, I suppose." She pushed back the chair, propping her feet on the handle of his bottom drawer. "I spent yesterday learning more about Roger Leveson-Gower, and his friends, and his habits than I or anyone else ever wanted to know, and I came up with nothing. A big, fat zero. A couple of his yobbo friends swear he was drinking with them until the wee hours of the morning, when he supposedly fell into bed with Meg. And I turned up corroborating witnesses." Sighing, she rubbed her face with her hands, stretching the skin over her cheekbones. "How did you get on?"
"Dorset was a wash-out." He acknowledged her I-told-you-so expression with a grin. "And I talked to the Major," he added more seriously, finding himself reluctant to recount the Major's tale even to Gemma. "I don't think he could have killed Jasmine. Of course, he hasn't an alibi, but there is no physical evidence to indicate him, either."
"But didn't he leave practice early, an unusual occurrence for him?"
Kincaid shrugged. "I suppose he really didn't feel well. A coincidence."
Gemma raised an eyebrow. "You didn't ask him?"
"Somehow I didn't feel I could, after what he'd told me. And coincidences do happen, inconvenient as they may be," he added a little defensively.
"We're not getting anywhere, and you know the Guv isn't going to let us slide any longer. Our caseload has suffered this past week." She righted the chair. "The odd thing is that I've suddenly found I care in more than the ordinary way—I feel I've come to know Jasmine, through you, through Meg and the others, and I hate to think of her death going in the unsolved file."
"Anything useful come in overnight?" He tapped the open file with a forefinger.
Gemma shook her head. "Only for elimination purposes. There's not a breath of evidence that Theo Dent left Abinger Hammer by car, train, horse, bus, or bicycle on the night Jasmine died. And…" she hunted through the loose pages, "a reply came from the nursing school in Dorchester where Felicity Howarth did her specialized training. A clean bill of health, an 'exceptional student', according to a note from the dean. They included her transcripts." Gemma frowned as she read. "She must have been married twice. She applied to her initial training college as Felicity Jane Heggerty, nee Atkins, giving an address in Blandford Forum." Gemma looked up at Kincaid, puzzled. "Isn't that where…"
Kincaid didn't hear the rest. The pieces snicked into place in his mind with blinding clarity. "Gemma, call Martha Trevellyan and find out if Felicity's scheduled to work today." Gemma raised an eyebrow, but looked the number up in the file and complied without question. She replaced the receiver and said, "Felicity called in ill. Martha's just now found someone to cover for her, and she sounded very put out—said it was not like Felicity at all."
"I think I'll pay Felicity a visit, ill or not."
"Do you want me to call her first?"
He shook his head. "No, best not."
"I'll come with you." She stood and shrugged into a cardigan she'd hung over the back of his chair.
Kincaid stopped her with a hand on her arm as she came around the desk. "Go home, Gemma. You've done more than necessary already. Spend your Saturday properly, with Toby." He smiled. "And it would be discreet on your part not to be associated with this, because it's quite likely I've just lost every marble I ever possessed."
Chapter Twenty
The April sun lent an air of industrious festivity even to Felicity Howarth's run-down street. The uncollected rubbish had disappeared, a few residents washed cars or worked in their tiny front gardens.
Kincaid rang Felicity's bell and waited, hands in pockets, until the echoes died away, then rang again. He had reached for the bell for the third time when the door opened. "Mr. Kincaid."
"Hello, Felicity. Can you spare me a few minutes?" She did indeed look unwell, wrapped in an old, pink dressing gown that clashed with the faded red-gold of her hair, her face scrubbed free of makeup and lined with exhaustion.
She stepped aside without speaking and he followed her into the sitting room. Pulling the dressing gown more tightly around her body, she sank into a chair, the crisp authority that he associated with her missing entirely.
"I called the service. Martha said you weren't well."
After a moment in which he thought she wouldn't respond, she said, "No. Poor Martha. She doesn't expect me to let her down."
Kincaid looked around the neat sitting room, checking details against his memory. There were no photographs among the ornaments and knick-knacks. "Felicity, how old is your son?"
"My son?" she said blan
kly.
"I understand from Martha Trevellyan that you have a son in a nursing home."
"Barry. His name is Barry." A trace of anger came through her lethargy. "He's twenty-nine."
"Why didn't you tell us you came from Dorset? You and Jasmine must have shared a common bond."
"I didn't think of it. I've lived in London for years, and Jasmine and I never spoke of it."
"But you were aware that Jasmine had lived in Dorset, even though you never discussed it."
Felicity pleated a fold of her dressing gown between her fingers. "She must have mentioned it, but I can't remember that we ever actually talked about it. I have a lot of patients, Mr. Kincaid. I can't be expected to keep the details of their life stories straight in my mind."
A little progress, he thought, pleased to have moved her from apathy to a more revealing defensive posture. "But surely the parallel was unusual enough to be remarked upon? After all, during the time you lived in Blandford Forum, Jasmine worked in the solicitor's office on the market square. Do you know the one, next to the bank? It's still there."
He left the sofa and shifted the chair from Felicity's desk around so that he could sit facing her, their knees almost touching. "Tell me exactly what's wrong with your son, Felicity. Why is he kept in a nursing home?" Kincaid held his breath, knowing he had not a shred of evidence, only a wild surmise that had blossomed suddenly in his brain.
Felicity studied the fold of dressing gown now scrunched in both hands. After a moment she looked up and met Kincaid's eyes. "He's almost completely blind and deaf. He responds to very little stimulus, but he does know me."
"Martha Trevellyan said something about a childhood injury. What happened to Barry, Felicity?"
Her hands became still in her lap. "Now they call it DAI, diffuse axonal injury, but when Barry was a baby so little was known about profound head injuries that they were often misdiagnosed."
Kincaid sighed and sat back. "I think," he said slowly, "that you didn't need to be told that Jasmine came from Dorset because you remembered her very well. What I don't understand is Jasmine not mentioning in her journals that she knew you."
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