A Share In Death

by Deborah Crombie

  “Sorry,” Emma said, “I was dripping. Been swimming with the children, the little monsters.” She continued rubbing her hair with a towel and it stuck up in dark spikes, making her look oddly young and reminding him for a moment of Angela. The bathing suit, however, was vintage post-war, black, with a skirt in the front that discreetly hid the tops of the thighs. Emma gave him one of her rare, surprising smiles. “If it’s Penny you want, you’re out of luck. Went out to do some early birding. Don’t know what got into her, usually she’s a lazy duck.”

  “No, Emma, actually it’s you I wanted. Could we sit down?” Kincaid wondered what universal formula required that a person should sit down to receive bad news. Was it merely a precaution against fainting or falling, or had it become a kind of foreshadowing, effective in easing the shock?

  “Of course.” Emma looked puzzled, but led him to the sofa without protest. She sat carefully in the armchair, spreading the towel under her damp suit, and Kincaid leaned toward her.

  “Emma, I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news.” She didn’t speak, but he saw the fear spread across her face. “It’s Penny.”

  Emma’s hand went to her chest, fingers clenching into a ball. “Dead?” The word came out in a whisper.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  Emma closed her eyes and leaned her head against the chair’s back, only the gentle rise and fall of her chest assuring Kincaid that she was breathing. After a moment he began to wonder if she had fainted, but then she spoke to him, without opening her eyes. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know yet, exactly. Hannah found her in the tennis court. Her head had been injured.”

  “Could she… could she have fallen? Hit her head?”

  “It’s… possible.”

  Emma heard the hesitation in his voice. She opened her eyes and transfixed Kincaid with her stare. “You don’t think so.” Kincaid didn’t answer. It had been a statement, not a question. Emma pulled herself upright in the chair and spoke again, her voice regaining some of its gruff strength. “I want to see her.”

  “Um… I’ll see what I can do. You’ll have to wait until the doctor and the police team are finished. If you’d like to get dressed, and collect yourself a bit, I’ll wait for you outside the front door. Emma,” Kincaid hesitated. Expressing condolences never became any easier, even with years of practice on strangers. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” Emma answered, and Kincaid thought he had never seen an expression so bleak.

  Inspector Raskin breasted the tennis court path and raised a hand to Kincaid, who stood irresolute in the gravel forecourt. They met on the lawn, Raskin puffing a bit from his quick climb. “Have to take up jogging again. Getting warm, too.” He ran a finger under his collar and moved his shoulders as if he’d like to shrug out of his jacket. “Mission accomplished?”

  “Yes. And Peter, I’ve been to see Miss MacKenzie.”

  Raskin’s habitual expression of sardonic amusement softened. “Thanks. You saved me that one. How did she take it?”

  “Quietly. You didn’t expect her to have hysterics, did you?” Kincaid paused. “But very hard, I think. She wants to see her sister. I told her I’d try to arrange it.”

  Raskin thought for a moment. “Dr. Percy’s here, you’ll be pleased to know.” He grinned slyly at Kincaid. “Scene-of-crime unit’s here as well.”

  “I gathered that.” Kincaid nodded toward several strange cars parked haphazardly on the gravel.

  “The Home Office pathologist is on his way, and the undertaker’s van. If Miss MacKenzie could see her before they load her up, it would save her having to make a formal identification at the undertakers. Don’t see why not. I’ll take statements as soon as they’re finished down below. You want to tag along? Or are you still neither fish nor fowl?”

  “Fowl, I think, by this time. But I told Miss MacKenzie I’d wait for her.”

  Kincaid left him and walked down the path until he could see the activity in the court. A uniformed constable stood sentinel at the gate and an area around Penny’s body had been marked off with white tape. Anne Percy knelt at Penny’s side, and Nash stood silently nearby, surveying the scene like a malevolent idol.

  Dr. Percy closed her bag, rose, and went to speak to Chief Inspector Nash. She looked up, saw Kincaid on the path and flashed him a brief smile. Kincaid thought she looked more professional today and even more attractive than before dressed in heather-colored sweater and trousers.

  She came up the path toward him, swinging her black bag. “I may get used to standing in for the police surgeon,” she said by way of greeting. “I’ve certified death, that’s about all I can do here.”

  “Will you wait for the pathologist?” Kincaid asked.

  “Yes. I understand Miss MacKenzie has a sister. Do you think I should see her?”

  “Would you?” Kincaid asked. “Although I’m not sure she’ll welcome it.”

  Anne Percy smiled. “That’s all right. I’m used to these situations.”

  The undertaker’s van stood with its rear doors open, waiting, and Kincaid stood waiting as well. He found it odd not to be directing the swirl of activity around him, or even performing an assigned task, as he had done often enough.

  The front door opened softly behind him and he turned to see Emma MacKenzie hesitating in its sheltered arch. She seemed to have shrunk, her take-charge briskness evaporated. The lines between nose and mouth cut sharply into her face.

  “Are you all right?” Kincaid asked.

  “Your Dr. Percy’s been to see me. Kind, but unnecessary.”

  It relieved Kincaid to find her voice as scratchy and acerbic as ever, although he thought she, in her gruff way, was acknowledging his concern. She looked past him at the waiting van, started to speak, then lifted her hand in a supplicating gesture. “Not long now,” he said gently. “I believe they’re almost finished.”

  Emma fixed her eyes on Kincaid’s face. “She seemed so resolute this morning. Purposeful. You know how Penny always flits… flitted from one thing to the next.

  Quiet, too. When I questioned her she just smiled. Silly goose, I thought, keeping secrets…” her voice faltered.

  “Miss MacKenzie, don’t. We’re both guilty of not taking her seriously.”

  A shuffling sound came from the garden. The undertaker’s attendants maneuvered the stretcher over the crest of the path and started across the lawn, followed closely by Inspector Raskin. Penny lay wrapped and taped in black polythene, as neat as a Christmas package.

  Kincaid took Emma’s arm. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Emma’s head jerked once in assent, but she didn’t brush away Kincaid’s hand as they started down the steps. The polythene’s final closure had been left undone, and Raskin carefully turned back the fold to reveal Penny’s face. Emma stared for a long moment, then nodded once again. Raskin refolded the polythene and sealed it with a roll of tape he carried in his hand. The attendants slid the stretcher into the van and closed the doors with the swift, fluid movements of long experience, and as the driver climbed into his seat Kincaid heard him say, “C’mon mate. We’ll miss our dinner if we’re not careful.” The van’s brake lights flashed as it turned into the road, and Kincaid realized that the day had grown overcast.

  “She did say something this morning,” Emma broke into his thoughts. “While she was collecting her things. It was almost… you’ll think I’m foolish.”

  “No, I won’t. Go on.”

  “It seemed almost like a litany she was repeating to herself. ‘One or t’other, one or t’other…’ It was something our father used to say to us when we were children. Whenever we had to make a difficult choice. One or the other.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Gemma stuck her head out the Escort’s window and called to the petrol station attendant. “Can you tell me how to find Grove House?” “Next left, miss, just round the corner. It’s the old manor house. You can’t miss it.” He was young, and nice looking, and his amiable response cheer
ed her, even though she must have missed the damned house. Three times she’d driven around the village, and she couldn’t tell by this time where she’d been and where she hadn’t.

  Villages gave her the pip, anyway, and this one made no exception. Deep in Wiltshire, surrounded on all sides by old gravel quarries, it was almost an island. No storybook high street here, with rows of neat shops-this one looked all higgledy-piggledy, with clusters of new houses that seemed to turn in on one another, and an occasional old place tucked in between.

  None of them the right one, though. Number Two, Grove House. No street name or number. How was anyone expected to find it?

  Gemma turned left at the pub, and before she knew it she found herself dead-ended in a cul-de-sac of newish homes. Working herself into a temper of frustration wouldn’t do a bit of good, she thought. She took a deep breath, carefully reversed the car, and crawled back along the curb.

  Ten feet from the corner pub, she found a gap in the hedge. A small metal plaque had been set into the open wrought iron gate. Grove House, Gemma read. The Escort’s tires crunched on the gravel as she pulled the car into the drive and stopped. The clatter from the road came only faintly through the high hedges, and the smell of newly turned earth drifted in through the car’s open window. A wheelbarrow and spade stood near a heap of compost on the lawn. At least, she thought, it must be compost-her expertise in gardening consisted of cutting the six-foot-square patch of grass the advertisement for her house had called ‘a spacious back garden.’

  The house itself gave a swift impression of gray stucco and slate and trailing green creeper, with a tangled hedge jutting out at a right angle from its center-the division between Number One and Number Two. She wondered how the house had looked new, and for a moment she imagined that the house had walled itself in, unchanging, as the village grew up around it. “A bit fanciful for you, love,” she said aloud, then shook herself and got out of the car.

  Number Two turned out to be the lefthand side, half hidden behind the central hedge. Gemma smoothed her hair with her hands and adjusted her shoulder bag before she rang the bell. Quick footsteps sounded on tile and a woman opened the door. She was slender, with a fair, faded prettiness and a tentative smile. “Mrs. Rennie?” asked Gemma. “My name’s Gemma James.” She handed the woman her warrant card. “With London C.I.D. I’d like to speak with you for a few moments if I could.”

  “Yes, of course.” Mrs. Rennie looked puzzled. “What can I do for you?” Her expression became slightly apprehensive. “It’s not about that awful business up in Yorkshire, is it? Patrick telephoned and told us-” Gemma saw apprehension spring to alarm in the woman’s eyes. “It’s not Patrick? Something’s happened to Patrick?”

  “No, no.” Gemma hastened to reassure her. “Your son’s fine, Mrs. Rennie. We’re just making some routine inquiries of all the guests at Followdale House.” She smiled her best encouraging smile.

  “Silly of me. Just for a moment-” Mrs. Rennie collected herself and her manners, ushering Gemma into the foyer. “Do come in. I shouldn’t have kept you standing on the step.” An enormous bowl of meticulously arranged flowers stood on a narrow table-that, and the softly lit oil portraits running along the hall and up the stair, were all she glimpsed before Mrs. Rennie led her into the drawing room.

  “Sit down, please. Would you like some tea?”

  “That would be lovely. I had quite a drive getting here,” Gemma answered, thinking that in this house she would not invite herself into the kitchen to help. Left alone, she examined the room. Like the rest of the house, it had an air of worn elegance-expensive things well used; the oriental rug under her feet had threadbare spots, the chintz-covered chairs and sofa sagged where most sat upon. There were books, and maps, and objects that she thought might have come from the Far East. And the room, with its shabby gentility redolent of good wools and sensible shoes, raised in Gemma a deep discomfort.

  She smelled the mingled scents of flowers and furniture polish and dusty book bindings, and thought of her own semidetached, where the smell of grease and cooked cabbage from next door seemed to seep through her walls, and no matter how much she threw open her windows and aired things it never quite went away. She thought of the matching beige suite in her sitting room, with its rough, cheap fabric, and her fingers stroked the smooth chintz. Well, she did the best she could, what with her salary, and Toby’s day care, and Rob’s not being too dependable with his child support.

  Clinking sounds from the direction of the kitchen broke into her reverie. She sighed, then straightened her spine against the chair’s soft back. Mrs. Rennie pushed open the swinging door with her shoulder and maneuvered the tea tray through it. When Gemma rose to help, Mrs. Rennie stopped her with a quick shake of her head. “No, don’t get up. I can manage,”

  Gemma took the cup offered her and balanced it carefully on her knees. “Mrs. Rennie,” she asked as she stirred her tea, “have your son and his wife been visiting Followdale House long?”

  “About two or three years, I’d say. Marta was quite keen on it at first, and they really looked forward to their visits.”

  “And they don’t, now?” Gemma sipped her tea. It was Earl Grey, which she didn’t like, but its flowery perfume seemed appropriate to the room.

  “Well, I suppose it’s become a bit old hat, as most things do. And Patrick’s so busy these days, with all his political commitments. But come to think of it,” Mrs. Rennie drew her brows together in a small frown, “it’s Marta who’s suggested they trade their time or spend it somewhere else.”

  “But they didn’t?”

  “No. No, Patrick wasn’t enthusiastic.”

  “You must be proud of your son, Mrs. Rennie. I understand he’s doing very well.”

  “Yes. Better even than we might have expected. They speak of his rise in the party as ‘meteoric’.” She smiled fondly, but Gemma heard in her voice some reserve, some hint that Patrick Rennie’s life might not be all it was cracked up to be.

  “Have your son or daughter-in-law ever mentioned noticing anything odd at Followdale House? Sometimes,” Gemma continued confidentially, “people comment on things and then forget all about it.”

  Mrs. Rennie considered for a moment. “Not that I can remember. Patrick is not one to say unkind things about people, or to repeat gossip.” Although the tone had been mild enough, Gemma felt she’d been rather subtly put in her place.

  Gemma finished her tea and carefully set her cup and saucer down on the polished wood tray. “Thank you, Mrs. Rennie. You’ve been very kind and I mustn’t take up any more of your time.” They rose, and Gemma hesitated as they started toward the door. “Um, I wondered if I might wash my hands and freshen up a bit before I go?”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Rennie led her into the foyer. “Up the stairs to your left.”

  “Thanks.” Gemma stopped before the first portrait. The boy gazed inquiringly back at her. His fair hair seemed just about to break free of its neat brushing, and the blue eyes in the slender face seemed friendly and interested. About twelve or thirteen, Gemma guessed, with the top of a school tie peeping from the neck of the blue pullover he wore. She wondered if her Toby would ever be that good-looking. “What a wonderful portrait. Your son, Mrs. Rennie?”

  “Yes, that’s Patrick. We had it commissioned. It is very good of him.”

  “The resemblance between you is quite striking.”

  Mrs. Rennie laughed. “Oh, yes. That’s our best family joke.” Gemma’s face must have registered her incomprehension, for Mrs. Rennie said quickly, “I’m sorry, I see you don’t know.”

  “Know what, Mrs. Rennie?”

  “That Patrick is adopted.” Her expression softened. “He was three days old when he came to us. It was all very quietly and discreetly done, none of the fuss of going through a national agency. My husband’s solicitor arranged it all. Of course, we explained it all to Patrick as soon as he was old enough to understand.”

  “No, I didn’t know.” Gemma s
tudied the portrait. “The resemblance is quite remarkable.”

  “A little divine intervention, perhaps,” Mrs. Rennie answered, and Gemma saw a quirk of humor in her smile.

  Gemma looked down into the drive from the toilet window. She’d heard the sound of a car as she dried her hands, and as she watched, a tan estate car disappeared into a carport around the side of the house. She didn’t dare snoop-the old wooden floorboards creaked and she felt sure the progress of every footstep would be audible downstairs.

  The voices came clearly to her as she descended the stairs. “Louise, they have no right. It’s completely-” Their heads turned as she reached the last landing. The man was tall and thin, with the small bristly mustache that was almost a badge of the retired military.

  “My husband, Major Rennie.” His wife rested her fingers lightly on his arm, a restraining gesture.

  “I don’t know how we can help you.” His face had flushed pink-no wonder, thought Gemma, that his wife tried to soothe him. “I’m sure this sordid business has nothing to do with us, or our son. If you have any further questions you can put them to our solicitor-”

  “John, I’m sure that’s not necessary-”

  “As I told your wife, Mr. Rennie, it’s nothing to be concerned about. These sort of questions are routine in a murder investigation.”

  Even softly spoken, the power of the word ‘murder’ silenced them both, and in their faces Gemma read the beginnings of fear.

  “I’ve commandeered Cassie Whitlake’s office.” Peter Raskin grinned. “I wouldn’t say it was graciously lent. Pick an inconspicuous spot and make yourself comfortable.” He surveyed the room from the door. “Only one chair this side of the desk.” He turned back into the bar and swept up a barstool with one hand. “This do?”

  “Admirably,” answered Kincaid, and settled in a corner of the small office. “Suits my precarious position.” He watched as Raskin tested the swivel of Cassie’s chair and gave it an approving pat. Raskin’s deft fingers shoved and patted the tumbling pyramid of Cassie’s papers until he’d made a neat stack in one corner of her desk. “She won’t be too pleased.” Kincaid nodded toward the desk’s now clear and orderly surface.