Leave the Grave Green

timber construction she’d seen in the nearby villages. The sun, which had chased fitfully in and out of the cloud bank, found a gap, making dappled patterns against the white limestone walls of Badger’s End.

“Like it?”

“I’m not sure.” Gemma rolled down the window as she turned off the engine, and they sat for a moment, listening. Beneath the silence of the woods they heard a faint, deep hum. “It’s a bit eerie. Not at all what I imagined.”

“Just wait,” said Kincaid as he opened the car door, “until you meet the family.

Gemma assumed that the woman who answered the door must be Dame Caroline Stowe—good quality, tailored wool slacks, blouse and navy cardigan, short, dark, well-cut hair liberally streaked with gray—everything about her spoke of conservative, middle-aged good taste. But when the woman stared at them blankly, coffee mug poised halfway to her mouth, then said, “Can I help you with something?” Gemma’s certainty began to waiver.

Kincaid identified himself and Gemma, then asked for Sir Gerald and Dame Caroline.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you’ve just missed them. They’ve gone down to the undertakers for a bit. Making arrangements.” She transferred the coffee mug to her left hand and held out the right to them. “I’m Vivian Plumley, by the way.”

“You’re the housekeeper?” Kincaid asked, and Gemma knew from the less-than-tactful query that he’d been caught off guard.

Vivian Plumley smiled. “You might say that. It doesn’t offend me, at any rate.”

“Good.” Kincaid, Gemma saw, had recovered both aplomb and smile. “We’d like a word with you as well, if we may.”

“Come back to the kitchen. I’ll make some coffee.” She turned and led the way along the slate-flagged passage, then stepped back and let them precede her through the door at its end.

The kitchen had escaped modernization. While Gemma might sigh over photographs of gleaming space-age kitchens in magazines, she knew instinctively that they provided no emotional substitute for a room like this. Nubby braided rugs softened the slate floor, a scarred oak refectory table and ladder-backed chairs dominated the room’s center, and against one wall a red-enameled Aga radiated warmth and comfort.

“Sit down, why don’t you,” said Vivian Plumley, and gestured toward the table. Gemma pulled out a chair and sat, feeling tension she hadn’t been aware of flow out of her muscles. “Elevenses?” added Vivian, and Gemma shook her head quickly, fearing they’d lose control of the interview entirely, seduced by the room’s comfort.

Kincaid said, “No, thank you,” and seated himself, taking the chair at the table’s end. Gemma took her notebook from her bag and cradled it unobtrusively in her lap.

The drip coffeemaker worked as quickly as its expensive looks implied. It was only a few moments before the smell of fresh coffee began to fill the room. Vivian put together a tray with mugs, cream and sugar in silence, a woman enough at ease with herself not to make small talk. When the coffeemaker had finished its cycle, she filled the mugs and brought the tray to the table. “Do help yourself. And that’s real cream, I’m afraid, not dairy substitute. We have a neighbor who keeps a few Jerseys.”

“A treat not to be missed,” said Kincaid, pouring generously into his cup. Gemma smiled, knowing he usually drank it black. “Are you not the housekeeper, then?” he continued easily. “Have I put my foot in it?”

Vivian clinked her spoon around twice in her coffee cup and sighed. “Oh, I’ll tell you about myself, if you like, but it always sounds so dreadfully Victorian. I’m actually related to Caroline, second cousins once removed, to be exact. We’re as close to the same age as never-mind, and we were at school together.” She paused and sipped from her cup, then made a slight grimace of discomfort. “Too hot. We drifted apart, Caro and I, once we’d finished school. We both married, her career blossomed.” Vivian smiled.

“Then my husband died. An aneurysm.” The palms of her hands made a slapping sound as she brushed them together. “Just like that, he was gone. I was left childless, with no job skills and not quite enough money to get by. This was thirty years ago, mind you, when not every woman grew up with the expectation of working.” She looked directly at Gemma. “Quite different from your upbringing, I’m sure.”

Gemma thought of her mother, who had risen in the early hours of the morning to bake every day of her married life, then worked the counter in the shop from opening till closing. The possibility of not working never occurred to Gemma or her sister—it had been Gemma’s driving ambition for the work to be of her own choosing, not something done purely for the necessity of putting food on the table. “Yes, very different,” she said, in answer to Vivian Plumley’s statement. “What did you do?”

“Caro had two toddlers and a very demanding career.” She shrugged. “It seemed a sensible solution. They had room, I had enough money of my own not to be totally dependent on the family, and I loved the children as if…”

They were your own. Gemma finished the sentence for her, and felt a rush of empathy for this woman who seemed to have made the best of what life had dealt her. She ran her fingers along the tabletop, noticing faint streaks of color embedded in the wood’s grain.

Watching her, Vivian said fondly, “The children did everything at this table. They had most of their meals in the kitchen, of course. As much as their parents traveled, formal family dinners were a rare treat. School assignments, art projects—Julia did her first paintings here, when she was in grammar school.”

The children this… the children that… It seemed to Gemma as if time had simply stopped with the boy’s death. But Julia had been there afterward, alone. “This must all be very difficult for Julia,” she said, feeling her way into the subject delicately, “after what happened to her brother.”

Vivian looked away, grasping the table’s edge with one hand, as if she were physically restraining herself from getting up. After a moment, she said, “We don’t talk about that. But yes, I’m sure Con’s death has made life more difficult than usual for Julia. It’s made life difficult for all of us.”

Kincaid, who had been sitting quietly, chair pushed back a bit from the table, mug cradled in his hands, leaned forward and said, “Did you like Connor, Mrs. Plumley?”

“Like him?” she said blankly, then frowned. “It never occurred to me whether or not I should like Connor. He was just… Connor. A force of nature.” She smiled a little at her own analogy. “A very attractive man in many ways, and yet… I always felt a little sorry for him.”

Kincaid raised an eyebrow but didn’t speak, and Gemma followed his cue.