Leave the Grave Green

“Connor may not have taken very good care of some parts of his life, but in others he was quite meticulous. He recorded every check he wrote—did you know that, Kenneth? You don’t mind if I call you Kenneth, do you?” Kincaid added, all politeness again. When Hicks didn’t reply, he continued. “He paid you large amounts on a very regular basis. I’d be curious to see how those amounts tally with what he owed your boss—”

“You leave him out of this!” Hicks almost shouted, sloshing beer on the table. He looked around to see if anyone else had heard, then leaned forward and lowered his voice to a hiss. “I’m telling you, you leave him—”

“What were you doing, Kenneth? A little loan-sharking on the side? Carrying Con’s debts with interest? Somehow I don’t think your boss would take too kindly to your skimming his clients like that.”

“We had a private arrangement, Con and me. I helped him out when he was in trouble, same as he’d have done for me, same as any mates.”

“Oh, mates, was it? Well, that puts a different complexion on it entirely. I’m sure in that case Connor didn’t mind you making money off his debts.” Kincaid leaned forward, hands on the edge of the table, resisting the urge to grab Hicks by the lapels of his leather bomber jacket and shake him until his brains rattled. “You’re a bloodsucker, Kenneth, and with mates like you nobody needs enemies. I want to know when you saw Connor last, and I want to know exactly what you talked about, because I’m beginning to think Con got tired of paying your cut. Maybe he threatened to go to your boss—is that what happened, Kenneth? Then maybe the two of you had a little scuffle and you pushed him in the river. What do you think, sunshine? Is that how it happened?”

The bar had begun to fill and Hicks had to raise his voice a little to make himself heard over the increasing babble. “No, I’m telling you, man, it wasn’t like that at all.”

“What was it like?” Kincaid said reasonably. “Tell me about it, then.”

“Con had a couple of really stiff losses, close together, couldn’t come up with the ready. I was flush at the time so I covered him. After that it just got to be sort of a habit.”

“A nasty habit, just like gambling, and one I’ll bet Con got fed up with pretty quickly. Con hadn’t written you a check the last few weeks before he died. Was he balking, Kenneth? Had he had enough?”

Perspiration beaded on Hicks’s upper lip and he wiped it with the back of his hand. “No, man, the horses had been good to him the last couple of weeks, for a change. He paid off what he owed—we were square, I swear we were.”

“That’s really heartwarming, just like good little Boy Scouts. I’ll bet you shook hands on it, too.” Kincaid sipped from his glass again, then said conversationally, “Nice local beer, don’t you think?” Before Hicks could reply he leaned across the little table until he was inches from the man’s face. “Even if I believed you, which I don’t, I think you’d look for some other way to soak him. You seem to know a lot about his personal life, considering your business arrangement. Looking for another foothold, were you, Ken? Did you find something out about Connor that he didn’t want anyone else to know?”

Hicks shrank back. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man,” he said, then wiped spittle from his lower lip. “Why don’t you ask that slut of his what she knows? Maybe she found out hell’d freeze over before he’d marry her.” He smiled, showing nicotine-stained teeth, and Kincaid found it no improvement over his sneer. “Maybe she shoved him in the river—did you ever think about that one, Mr. Bloody Know-it-all?”

“What makes you think he wouldn’t have married Sharon?”

“Why should he? Get himself stuck with a stupid little cow like that—take on some other bugger’s bleedin’ kid? Not on your nelly.” Sniggering, Hicks pulled another cigarette from the packet and lit it from the butt of the first. “And her with a gob like a fishwife.”

“You’re a real prince, Kenneth,” Kincaid said generously. “How do you know Sharon thought Con intended to marry her? Did she tell you?”

“Too right, she did. Said, ‘He’ll get shut of you then, Kenneth Hicks. I’ll make sure of it.’ Stupid—”

“You know, Kenneth, if you’d been the one found floating facedown in the Thames, I don’t think we’d have had to look far for a motive.”

“You threatening me, man? You can’t do that—that’s—”

“Harassment, I know. No, Kenneth, I’m not threatening you, just making an observation.” Kincaid smiled. “I’m sure you had Connor’s best interests at heart.”

“He used to tell me things, when he’d had a few, like.” Hicks lowered his voice confidentially. “Wife had him by the balls. She crooked her little finger, he’d come running with his tail between his legs. He’d had a hell of a row with her that day, the bitch—”

“What day, Kenneth?” Kincaid said very distinctly, very quietly.

Cigarette frozen halfway to his lips, Hicks stared at Kincaid like a rat surprised by a ferret. “Don’t know. You can’t prove nothing.”

“It was the day he died, wasn’t it, Kenneth? You saw Connor the day he died. Where?”

Hicks’s close-set eyes shifted nervously away from Kincaid’s face and he drew sharply on the cigarette.

“Spit it out, Kenneth. I’ll find out, you know. I’ll start by asking these nice people here.” Kincaid nodded toward the bar. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

“So what if I did have a couple of pints with him? How was I to know it was different from any other day?”

“Where and when?”

“Here, same as always. Don’t know what time,” Hicks said evasively, then added as he saw Kincaid’s expression, “Twoish, maybe.”

After lunch, Kincaid thought. Con had come straight here from Badger’s End. “He told you he’d had a row with Julia? What about?”

“Don’t know, do I? Nothin’ to do with me.” Hicks clamped his mouth shut so decisively that Kincaid changed tacks.

“What else did you talk about?”