She had slid down into the depths of the chair and sat quietly smoking with her legs stretched out, and as he looked at her he saw that her eyes were shadowed with fatigue. “Why did you give this up, Julia? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Studying him, she said, “You look different out of your proper policeman’s kit. Nice. Human, even. I’d like to draw you.” She stood suddenly and touched her fingers to the angle of his jaw, turning his head. “I don’t usually do men, but you have an interesting face, good bones that catch the light well.” Just as quickly, she sank into the chair again and regarded him.
He still felt the imprint of her fingers against his skin. Resisting the urge to touch his jaw, he said, “You haven’t answered me.”
Sighing, she ground the half-smoked cigarette into a pottery ashtray. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Try me.”
“You would have to know how things were with us, toward the end.” Idly, she rubbed the nap on the chair arm the wrong way. Kincaid waited, watching her. She looked up and met his eyes. “He couldn’t pin me down. The more he tried the more frustrated he got, until finally he started imagining things.”
Fastening on the first part, Kincaid asked, “What do you mean, he couldn’t pin you down?”
“I was never there for him, not in the way he wanted, not when he wanted…” She crossed her arms as if suddenly cold and rubbed her thumbs against the fabric of her sweater. “Have you ever had anyone suck you dry, Superintendent?” Before he could answer, she added, “I can’t go on calling you Super-bloody-intendent. Your name’s Duncan, isn’t it?” She gave his name a slight stress on the first syllable, so that he heard in it a Scots echo.
“What kind of things did Connor imagine, Julia?”
Her mouth turned down at the corners and she shrugged. “Oh, you know. Lovers, secret trysts, that sort of thing.”
“And they weren’t true?”
“Not then.” She lifted her eyebrows and gave him a little flirtatious smile, challenging him.
“You’re telling me that Connor was jealous of
Julia laughed, and the smile that transformed her thin face moved him in a way he couldn’t explain. “It’s so ironic, isn’t it? What a joke. Connor Swann, everyone’s favorite Lothario, afraid his own wife might be messing him about.” Kincaid’s consternation must have shown, because she smiled again and said, “Did you think I didn’t know Con’s reputation? I would have to have been deaf, dumb and blind not to.” Her mirth faded and she added softly, “Of course, the more I slipped away, the more women he notched on his braces. Was he punishing me? Or was he just looking for what I couldn’t give him?” She stared past Kincaid at the window he knew must be darkening.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” he said again, but this time gently.
“What?” She came back to him from her reverie. “Oh, the flat. I was exhausted, in the end. I ran away. It was easier.” They looked at each other in silence for a moment, then she said, “You can see that, can’t you, Duncan?”
The words “ran away” echoed in his mind and he had a sudden vision of himself, packing up only the most necessary of possessions, leaving Vic in the flat they had chosen with such care. It had been easier, easier to start over with nothing to remind him of his failure, or of her. “What about your studio?” he said, shutting off the flow of memory.
“I’ve missed it, but I can paint anywhere, if I must.” She leaned back in the chair, watching him.
Kincaid thought back to his earlier interviews with her, trying to put a finger on the change he sensed. She was still sharp and quick, her intelligence always evident, but the brittle nervousness had left her. “It wasn’t easy for you, was it, those months you spent at Badger’s End?” She stared back at him, her lips parted, and he felt again that frisson along his spine that came with knowing her in a way more intimate than words.
“You’re very perceptive, Duncan.”
“What about Trevor Simons? Were you seeing him then?”
“I told you, no. There wasn’t anyone.”
“And now? Do you love him?” A necessary question, he told himself, but the words seemed to leave his lips of their own accord.
“Love, Duncan?” Julia laughed. “Do you want to split philosophical hairs over the nature of love and friendship?” She continued more seriously, “Trev and I are friends, yes, but if you mean am I in love with him, the answer is no. Does it matter?”
“I don’t know,” Kincaid answered truthfully. “Would he lie for you? You did leave the opening that night, you know. I have an independent witness who saw you go.”
“Did I?” She looked away from him, fumbling for the cigarette packet that had slipped under the chair. “I suppose I did, for a bit. It was rather a crush. I don’t like to admit it, but sometimes things like that make me feel a little claustrophobic.”
“You’re still smoking too much,” he said as she found the packet and lit another cigarette.
“How much is too much? You’re splitting hairs again.” Her smile held a hint of mischief.
“Where did you go, when you left the gallery?”
Julia stood up and went to the window, and he twisted around, watching her as she closed the blinds against the charcoal sky. Still with her back to Kincaid, she said, “I don’t like bare windows, once it’s dark. Silly, I know, but even up here I always feel someone might be watching me.” She turned to him again. “I walked along the River Terrace for a bit, had a breath of air, that’s all.”
“Did you see Connor?”
“No, I didn’t,” she answered, coming back to her chair. This time she curled herself into it with her legs drawn up, and as she moved the bell of her hair swung against her neck. “And I doubt I was gone more than five or ten
