A Share In Death

by Deborah Crombie

  Kincaid nodded. “I’m afraid so. Do you think you could go to the office and ring the local police? Then perhaps you could wait and show them the way.”

  “But… what about the children?”

  “They’ve seen the worst, already. I don’t think a few more minutes will do any further damage. Someone must stay with the body. If I send them up alone their parents will be down in a flash, and the less disturbance before the police arrive, the better.”

  Emma considered briefly, absently hugging her folded towel against her body. “All right,” she said, her brisk competence once more in evidence. Her bathing sandals flip-flopped against the tiles as she left.

  She had accepted his authority without question. Well, Kincaid thought, things would get difficult soon enough. He had made a right fool of himself by pretending not to be what he was, and now he would have to face the music. His policeman’s instinct was too ingrained to stifle easily. He could already feel that addictive surge of heightened perception that marked the beginning of a case. Not his case, he reminded himself, with a fierce determination. It wasn’t his jurisdiction and the local lads would only consider him a nuisance, Scotland Yard sticking its nose in, uninvited. He didn’t know any of these people, except, perhaps, Hannah. He didn’t want to have more than a casual connection with them, and he would bloody well not get involved. His conscience pricked. He had liked Sebastian. Suddenly he felt drained and shaken.

  It came to him, in the quiet respite between discovery and official action, that he was suffering a degree of emotional shock. He always felt a surge of pity and anger when first confronted with a corpse, but he had learned to distance it, compartmentalize it. Never before had he faced the body of someone he had known, touched, spoken with just a few hours before. He felt a need to differentiate somehow, to make a personal gesture of acknowledgement. He knelt and touched Sebastian’s bare shoulder, briefly.

  He shivered, his own wet skin chilling now that the first adrenaline rush had passed. No matter what odd kinship he had felt with Sebastian, it didn’t alter the fact that his death wasn’t his responsibility, he had no more official power here than an innocent bystander. And as there was nothing more he could do for Sebastian Wade, he went in to the children.

  * * *

  The village constable arrived soon after, still buttoning his uniform tunic. He was a large young man, with a round, rubicund face and a slightly bovine expression. “Now then, what’s all this about a gentleman being drowned in the swimming pool?”

  “He wasn’t drowned,” said Kincaid. He motioned to Emma, who had followed on the constable’s heels, to stay with the children, and opened the pool-area door for the constable. When it had closed behind them, he continued. “He was electrocuted. With some sort of small appliance, I would imagine. I unplugged it from above, before I pulled him out of the water, but I didn’t check to see what it was.”

  “You disturbed the body, sir?” He took the sight of Sebastian, lying like a beached whale on the pool’s edge, in his stride, although Kincaid fancied that his face lost some of its rosy color.

  “Of course I moved the body, man. I had to make sure he was dead.”

  Kincaid’s exasperation moved the constable to assert his official dignity. He drew himself up to his full, and not inconsiderable, height, pulled out his notebook and pencil, and rocked a little on his heels. He cleared his throat, testing his voice for the proper resonance. “And who might you be, sir?” Unfortunately, he had licked his pencil before putting it to the pad, and that rather detracted from the impression of competence and authority he intended to create.

  “My name’s Kincaid. I’m a policeman, Detective Superintendent, Scotland Yard. I’m here on holiday and I just happened to be the first one down this morning, except for the children. And, thank god, they didn’t touch anything.” He had discovered that the children were named Bethany and Brian, and that they had let themselves out of their suite while their parents still slept.

  “To go exploring,” Brian had explained, a tendency to lisp exaggerated by the gap in his front teeth. “We thought the man was swimming, and he could hold his breath for the longest time. But he didn’t come up, and he didn’t come up…”

  “And he looked all wrong, somehow,” added Bethany. “We didn’t know it was Sebastian-we couldn’t see his… and then Brian started to cry.” She had given her brother a disgusted look, all elder sister superiority now that the horror was away in the next room. “Are we going to be in trouble?”

  Brian’s small face crumpled, tears imminent again, and Kincaid hastened to reassure them. “I think you both were very brave and very responsible. I’m sure your mum and dad will be proud of you, and as soon as the policemen get here someone will take you upstairs to them.”

  The constable seemed to have decided that Kincaid could do no more harm. After all, he had already been alone with the body for a considerable time. “Police Constable Rob Trumble, sir. I’ll have to telephone Mid-Yorks. If you wouldn’t mind-”

  “No. Go ahead.” Kincaid waved him off and stood irresolutely by Sebastian’s body. Just what the hell had been used, he wondered. Taking his dressing gown, he slipped into the warm water. Covering his hand with a fold of fabric, he reached down into the water and carefully pushed the object up from underneath. It was a portable electric heater, about the size of a ladies’ handbag, and unless he was very much mistaken, he’d seen it, or one very much like it, under Cassie’s gray metal desk.

  P.C. Trumble, flushed with excitement and authority, gave Kincaid permission to get dried and dressed, and Emma leave to return the children to their suite. Kincaid had no wish to face the officers of Mid-Yorkshire C.I.D. wet and half-naked, without identification. There was no sense in putting oneself at a definite psychological disadvantage. He had toweled his hair, pulled on jeans and a faded blue cotton sweater. Sneakers on, wallet and keys tucked safely in his pocket, he felt armored enough. Only when he was halfway down the pool stairs again did the hollowness in his stomach remind him that he had not eaten breakfast.

  He had been surprised on returning to his room to find it just on eight o’clock, the morning passing at its own measured pace. The calm promise of an hour ago seemed a universe removed. The house was beginning to stir. He heard the soft sounds of doors, sensed movement in the rooms around him. The local lads would have to be quick to contain the guests before they began their daily exodus.

  Kincaid joined Trumble in a silent vigil by the pool, and when Detective Chief Inspector Bill Nash arrived, accompanied by Detective Inspector Peter Raskin, Kincaid felt glad enough of his clothes. Nash was balding, rumpled and portly, a jolly elf of a man with a hearty Yorkshire voice and little black eyes as cold and opaque as tar pits. Nash flicked the proffered warrant card with a finger, and Kincaid had the feeling he’d been assessed and dismissed within the first five seconds.

  “Well now,” drawled Nash, “one of Scotland Yard’s fancy men, with nowt better to do than mess about in other folk’s affairs. How convenient for us. Just how did you happen to be so prompt on the scene, laddie?”

  Kincaid bit back a retort born of instant antagonism, forced himself to speak reasonably. “Look, Inspector, it was purely coincidence. I’ve no wish to intrude on your patch, but I would like to watch, if I won’t be in the way.”

  “Aye. Just you make sure of that.” Nash seemed to realize that it wasn’t politically expedient to order a senior Scotland Yard officer off the premises, but there was no welcome in his voice. He studied the body with ruminative deliberation. “Mr. Sebastian Wade, is it? Assistant manager. Late assistant manager, I should say.” He stood in silent contemplation a moment longer, then roused himself. “Peter, take Mr. Kincaid’s statement, then he can run along and play.”

  The emphasis fell on the ‘mister’, and Raskin looked askance at him, then pulled out his notebook and invited Kincaid to a seat on the wooden bench against the wall. He had not spoken since the introductions. Now, with a sideways glance to m
ake sure Nash was occupied, he gave Kincaid a sympathetic lift of his eyebrow. Raskin was a wiry young man, with a thin, dark, saturnine face and a Heathcliff-like lock of dark hair hanging over his brow. Kincaid answered his quiet questions with half his attention and listened to Nash with the other.

  Trumble was delegated to see the guests. “Trumble, isn’t it? Well now, you round them all up in the sitting room, whether they like it or not, and keep them there “I’ll I want them. And if any have left, you find out where they’ve gone and how long ago. Got that?”

  “Sir,” said Trumble, his enthusiasm subdued. Kincaid felt for him. The most exciting event of his short career, and he was relegated to babysitter and would miss watching the scene-of-crime team. He was too inexperienced to take advantage of the opportunity to watch the guests’ reactions to his news, or to listen carefully to what they said to one another when they were all gathered together. Nash didn’t enlighten him.

  Making, rather than taking, a statement proved a novel experience for Kincaid, and he tried to be as concise about his movements and the sequence of events as possible, all the while keeping an eye on Nash’s slow progress around the pool. Nash squatted beside Sebastian’s body, forearms resting on his heavy thighs, hands dangling loosely in front of him. He reminded Kincaid, unpleasantly, of a satiated vulture. He repeated the posture before Sebastian’s neatly folded pile of clothes, then moved to the pool’s edge and craned his neck up at the electrical cord.

  “Cut and dried,” he pronounced. “Decided to end things. Clever little bugger. Plugged it in up above there, dropped it over, then came down and jumped in. If the shock didn’t kill him it would be sure to knock him out long enough for him to drown.”

  “No.” Kincaid said it almost involuntarily. “No, he didn’t. Someone came when he was already in the Jacuzzi. He would have had his back to the balcony, that’s where the main jets are. Someone very carefully plugged the thing in and dropped it. Even if Sebastian saw it falling he wouldn’t have had time to climb out.” He didn’t add that the heater must have shorted itself out when it entered the water-the jolt of current wouldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds.

  “And just how do you know so much, laddie? You have the second sight?” Nash turned and gave Kincaid his beady glare. “Looks like a suicide to me. Look at his clothes, neatly folded. Typical.”

  “No. He was neat. I don’t imagine he ever left his clothes in a heap. It was probably part of his routine. He made no secret of the fact that he liked to come here last thing in the evening. I’d swear you won’t find his fingerprints on that cord or plug. Suicides don’t usually wear gloves. And he wasn’t a suicidal type.”

  He had Nash’s full attention now. “You’re very sure of your facts all of a sudden, laddie. I thought I heard you tell my inspector just now that you’d only been here a day. Got to know Mr. Wade here awfully well in a short time, seems to me.” His voice was soft now, weighted with friendly insinuation.

  Kincaid felt his fists clenching. He forced himself to hold his tongue-anything he could say about the time he had spent with Sebastian would sound feeble, ludicrously sentimental. There was nothing for it but to beat Nash at his own game. He smiled at him, and said evenly, “I’m very observant. It’s my job, Inspector, in case you’d forgotten.”

  Whatever Nash might have replied to this not-so-subtle bit of rank-pulling was interrupted by the arrival of the scene-of-crime team from district headquarters. Kincaid was relieved to see that Nash was competent enough to stand back and let them work without interference, although he didn’t hold out much hope for the results.

  The photographer set up his lights and equipment with practiced ease and began taking shots of the body. The forensic biologist was a fair man with rabbity teeth. He wore shorts, a stained sweatshirt and tennis shoes, and looked thoroughly incongruous pulling on his thin latex gloves. He squatted by Sebastian’s clothes, as Nash had done, and began going through them with deft fingers.

  There was no sign of a pathologist. Kincaid waited until Peter Raskin was free for a moment and questioned him. “Where’s your M.E.?”

  “Out on another call, apparently. They’ve called in a local doctor. Not usually a good idea, but in this case it probably doesn’t matter.”

  “You agree with your chief, then? That it was suicide?”

  “No. I didn’t say that.” Raskin was cagey, and Kincaid saw a gleam of humor in his eyes. “Just that a preliminary examination of the body isn’t likely to reveal much, and the district M.E. will do the postmortem when he can get to it. Look,” he inclined his head toward the glass doors, “there’s your doctor, now.”

  Only the black medical bag gripped in her right hand identified her. She wore kelly green sweats with trainers and damp wisps of hair curled around her heart-shaped face. Nash, occupied with the photographer, hadn’t seen her. Raskin went to greet her and Kincaid followed an unobtrusive pace behind, holding his hand out in turn for her firm clasp.

  “I’m Anne Percy.” She looked from their faces to Sebastian’s still form, and back again. “Are you ready for me? I came straightaway. I was running,” she gestured apologetically toward her clothes, “before morning surgery.” A small town G.P., Kincaid thought, used to officiating at family deathbeds, not murder scenes-her uneasy small talk served the same function as a police surgeon’s black jokes. “What happened here? Who was he?”

  She looked at Kincaid as she spoke, and after a barely perceptible nod from Raskin, he answered her. “Sebastian Wade, assistant manager here. Uh, suspicious death.” He caught Raskin’s quick lift of an eyebrow, a mannerism he was beginning to recognize as a sign of amusement. “Electrocution, or drowning due to electrocution. Sometime late last night, most likely.”

  “He was found in the spa?”

  Peter Raskin took up the story. “Mr. Kincaid found him when he came down for his swim this morning.”

  “Oh.” Anne Percy seemed momentarily nonplussed. “But I had the impression you were a policeman, too.”

  “I am,” Kincaid answered, “but on holiday. A guest.”

  “Well, I don’t know what I’ll be able to do for you, other than certify death.” She opened her bag and knelt beside Sebastian’s body. “Body temperature will be useless for establishing time of death, as will state of rigor.” After gently flexing Sebastian’s limp arm, she pulled on her thin latex gloves. “It’ll take the postmortem to give you anything concrete.”

  Kincaid felt oddly uncomfortable, as if it were indecent for him to watch Sebastian’s body violated, and turned away as Dr. Percy got down to business.

  Cassie Whitlake stood in the doorway, looking unkempt and disheveled. On her the mild untidiness became shocking disarray. The oak-leaf hair was uncombed, pushed back behind one bare ear. The tail of her blouse hung half out of her skirt and she had shoved her unstockinged feet into a pair of scuffed loafers. The normal pale cream of her complexion would have looked decidedly ruddy next to her present pallor.

  Kincaid had turned from contemplating the rear wall of the pool, feeling he’d been squeamish long enough. Besides, the sight of Anne Percy made up for the discomfort of watching what she was doing to Sebastian. He hadn’t heard the door swing open.

  Cassie held the door’s metal handle like an anchor, her dilated eyes fixed on the scene before her. Why the hell hadn’t they put a constable on the door, Kincaid thought as he crossed to her, simply to keep things like this from happening. He touched her arm. “Cassie.” She hadn’t looked at him, all her attention frozen on the little tableau by the pool. Anne Percy carefully slipped off her gloves and closed her bag, speaking a quiet word to Peter Raskin. “Cassie,” Kincaid repeated, “let me take you-”

  “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-”