“Oh, aye, I’d agree with you on that. It’s too tailor-made by half. But I wonder if we won’t wish we’d found such an easy solution by the time this is all over.” He drained his pint and added, “And what about Percy Bainbridge’s mysterious shadow?”
Kincaid shrugged. “Could have been anybody.”
“More likely a product of Percy’s imagination, dredged up purely for the drama,” said Deveney.
“You’re not going to like this,” Gemma said slowly, “and I don’t like it either. But what if Gilbert went ferreting because he didn’t like his stepdaughter having a … relationship with Geoff? And what if he found out that Geoff was responsible for the thefts? And then what if Gilbert told Brian that he intended to turn Geoff in? Brian had good reason to hate him already. What would he do in order to protect his son?”
“You’re right,” Deveney said after a moment. “I don’t like it a bit. But it’s the nearest thing to a motive we’ve come up with so far.”
Kincaid yawned. “Then I suggest the first thing on our list tomorrow should be discovering if Brian can account for himself the whole of Wednesday evening. We’ll keep picking at Malcolm Reid, too. There’s something in that situation that bothers me. I just can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“Let’s call it a night, then,” said Deveney. “I’m knackered. I’ve booked you a couple of rooms in the hotel on the High.” He put his hand over his heart and grinned at Gemma. “And I’ll sleep better knowing you’re near at hand.”
The hotel turned out to be presentable, if a bit fusty. Having bid the lingering Nick Deveney a definite good night, Kincaid followed Gemma up the stairs at a respectable distance. Their rooms were opposite each other, and he waited in the corridor until she’d turned her key in the lock. “Gemma—” he began, then floundered.
She gave him a bright, brittle smile. If she had allowed a chink to show in her defenses at the pub, she’d pulled her armor firmly into place again. “Night, guv. Sleep well.” Her door clicked firmly shut.
He undressed slowly, hanging up his shirt and laying his trousers across the room’s single chair as if his salvation depended upon a perfect crease. The combination of alcohol and exhaustion had produced a numbing effect, and he felt as if he were watching his own actions from a distance, knowing them to be absurd. But still he kept on, order his only defense, and as he hung his overcoat on a peg in the wardrobe a crumpled paper poppy fell to the floor.
He’d worn the poppy last Sunday, a week ago, when he’d walked up to St. John’s, Hampstead, to hear the major sing the Faure requiem in the Remembrance Day service. The soaring voices had lifted him, stilling all worries and desires for a brief time, and as he climbed into the narrow hotel bed he tried to hold the memory in his mind.
* * *
It came to him as he drifted in the formlessness just before sleep. He scrambled out of bed, upsetting the flimsy lamp on the nightstand in his haste. When he’d righted the lamp, he flicked it on and began digging through his wallet.
He found the card easily enough and sat squinting at it in the dim light that filtered through the pink, fringed lamp shade. He hadn’t been mistaken. The telephone number on the business card he’d picked up at Malcolm Reid’s shop was the same as the one he remembered seeing penciled in Alastair Gilbert’s diary, next to the notation 6:00 on the evening before Gilbert died.
CHAPTER
10
The press had decamped, the constable had been relieved of his post at the gate, and the lane seemed to dream peacefully undisturbed in the morning sun. As they let themselves through the Gilberts’ gate, Kincaid muttered something that sounded to Gemma like “this Eden …”
“What?” she said, turning back to him as he fiddled with the latch.
“Oh, nothing.” He caught her up and they walked abreast along the path. “Just a half-remembered old quote.” As they rounded the corner, Lewis stood up in his run, but his deep intruder-alert bark changed to an excited yipping when Kincaid spoke to him.
“You’ve made a conquest,” Gemma said as he walked to the fence and scratched the dog’s ears through the wiring.
He turned and met her eyes. “One, at least.”
Gemma flushed and cursed herself for having put her foot in it once again. While she was still trying to think of a suitable reply, the kitchen door opened and Lucy called to them. She came out on the step, visible in all the glory of her baggy red jersey, crumpled socks, and a tartan skirt barely long enough to earn its name.
“Claire’s gone to see Gwen before church,” Lucy said as they reached her, and on closer inspection Gemma could see goose bumps on the expanse of bare flesh between hem and sock.
“Gwen?” asked Kincaid.
“You know, Alastair’s mum. Claire always goes on Sunday morning, and she thought it a good idea not to break the routine. Do you want to come in?” Lucy opened the door and made way for them.
Once in the kitchen, she sat down at the table by a half-empty bowl of cereal but made no move to resume eating. “I’m glad you’ve come,” she said a bit awkwardly, clasping her hands in her lap. “I wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday, letting Geoff go home and all.”
“Geoff’s friends were responsible for that. He seems to have quite a few.” Kincaid pulled up a chair in the breakfast nook, and Gemma did the same, but she still found it odd to be sitting so casually in this room.
“I don’t think he realized until last night. He never thinks he deserves people caring about him.”
Watching the expression on the girl’s heart-shaped face, Gemma wondered if Geoff felt he deserved Lucy’s love—for she suddenly had no doubt that love him Lucy did and with all a seventeen-year-old’s capacity for passion.
“Lucy,” said Kincaid, “do you think you could help us out with something, since your mother’s not here?”
