out on the white tablecloth, complete with china teapot and a vase of pink and yellow snapdragons, he began to think he should feel grateful for Sir Gerald Asherton’s influence. His accommodations when out of town on a case were seldom up to these standards.
As he’d slept late, the more righteous early risers had long since finished their breakfasts and he had the dining room to himself. He gazed out through the leaded windows at the damp and windy morning as he ate, enjoying his unaccustomed leisure. Leaves drifted and swirled, their golds and russets a bright contrast against the still-green grass of the churchyard. The congregation began to arrive for the morning service, and soon the verges of the lanes surrounding the church were lined with cars parked end to end.
Wondering lazily why a church in a village as small as Fingest would draw such a crowd, he was suddenly struck by the desire to see for himself He pushed a last bite of toast and marmalade into his mouth. Still chewing, he ran upstairs, grabbed a tie from his room and hastily knotted it on his way back down.
He slipped into the last pew just as the church bells began to ring. The notices tacked up in the vestibule answered his question quickly enough—this was the parish church, of course, not just the village church, and he must have been living too long in the city not to have realized it. It was also most likely the Ashertons’ church. He wondered who knew them and if some of those gathered had come out of curiosity, hoping to see the family.
None of the Ashertons were in evidence, however, and as the peaceful order of the service settled over him, he found his mind drawn back to the previous evening’s revelations.
It had taken him a few minutes to calm her down enough to get her name—Sharon Doyle—and even then she’d taken his warrant card and examined it with the intensity of the marginally literate.
“I’ve come for me things,” she said, shoving the card back at him as if it might burn her fingers. “I’ve a right to ’em. I don’t care what anybody says.”
Kincaid backed up until he reached the sofa, then sat down on its edge. “Who would say you didn’t?” he asked easily.
Sharon Doyle folded her arms, pushing her breasts up against the thin weave of her sweater. “Her.”
“Her?” Kincaid repeated, resigned to an exercise in patience.
“You know. Her. The wife.
“You have a key,” he said, making it a statement rather than a question.
“Con gave it to me.”
Kincaid looked at the softly rounded face, young beneath the makeup and bravado. Gently, he said, “How did you find out Connor was dead?”
She stared at him, her lips pressed together. After a moment her hands dropped to her sides and her body sagged like a rag doll that had lost its stuffing. “Down the pub,” she answered so quietly that he read her lips as much as heard her.
“You’d better sit down.”
Folding into the chair across from him as if unaware of her body, she said, “Last night. I’d gone round to the George. He hadn’t rung me up when he said, so I thought ‘I’m bloody well not going to sit home on my own.’ Some bloke’d buy me a drink, chat me up—serve Con bloody well right.” Her voice wavered at the last and she swallowed, then wet her lips with the pink tip of her tongue. “The regulars were all talking about it. I thought they were havin’ me on, at first.” She fell silent and looked away from him.
“But they convinced you?”
Sharon nodded. “Local lad came in, he’s a constable. They said, ‘Ask Jimmy. He’ll tell you.’”
“Did you?” Kincaid prompted after another moment’s silence, wondering what he might do to loosen her tongue. She sat huddled in her chair, arms folded again across her breasts, and as he studied her he thought he saw a faint blue tinge around her lips. Remembering a drinks trolley he’d seen near the wood-stove as he explored the room, he stood and went over to it. He chose two sherry glasses from the glassware on the top shelf, filling them liberally from a bottle of sherry he found beneath.
On closer inspection he discovered that the stove was laid ready for a fire, so he lit it with a match from the box on the tiled hearth and waited until the flames began to flicker brightly. “This will take the chill off,” he said as he returned and offered the drink to Sharon. She looked up at him dully and lifted her hand, but the glass tipped as she took it, spilling pale gold liquid over the rim. When he wrapped her unresponsive fingers around the stem, he found them icy to the touch. “You’re freezing,” he said, chiding her. “Here, take my jacket.” He slipped off his tweed sport coat and draped it over her shoulders, then circled the room until he found the thermostat for the central heating. The room’s glass-and-tile Mediterranean look made for a pleasant effect, he decided, but it wasn’t too well suited for the English climate.
“Good girl.” He sat down again and lifted his own glass. She’d drunk some of hers, and he thought he saw a faint flush of color on her cheeks. “That’s better. Cheers,” he added, sipping his sherry, then said, “You’ve had a rough time, I think, since last night. Did you ask the constable, then, about Connor?”
She drank again, then wiped her hand across her lips. “He said, ‘Why you want to know, then?’ and gave me this fishy-eyed look, so I knew it was true.”
“Did you tell him why you wanted to know?”
Sharon shook her head and the blond curls bounced with the movement. “Said I just knew him, that’s all. Then they started a slanging match about whose round it was, and I slipped out the door by the loo.”
Her survival instincts had functioned well, even in shock, Kincaid thought, a good indication that she’d had plenty of experience looking out for herself. “What did you do then?” he asked. “Did you come here?”
After a long moment she nodded. “Stood about outside for hours, bloody well freezing it was, too. I still thought, you know, maybe…” She put the fingers of both hands over her mouth quickly, but he’d seen her lip tremble.
“You had a key,” he said gently. “Why didn’t you come in and wait?”
“Didn’t know who might come in here, did I? Might tell me I hadn’t any right.”
