but he’d be damned if he could see how they all came together.
He took the Greensand Way, walking easily at first on the sandy path, studying his surroundings. An evocative name, Hurtwood, bringing to mind images of injured trees, but one of his garrulous lunchtime friends had informed him that the name came from the old word for bilberries. He wondered if the thickets of brambly plants he saw were indeed hurtberries.
One usually thought of autumn as crisp, but this wood was a soft symphony in greens and browns. The heather lining the path had dried to a crumbly brown, yellow and brown leaves carpeted the path under his feet, and the bracken had dried to the color of new pennies. He shied away from the comparison with Gemma’s hair that came to mind and picked up his pace a bit.
Soon the path narrowed, and the ground dropped away on his left; through the gaps in the trees he could see all the way across the Surrey Weald to the South Downs. He made a deliberate effort to stop his mind circling, and for the next half hour he just walked, climbing more and more often as the path become steeper.
Rounding a bend, he came to a halt, balancing on his toes from the abrupt change in momentum. A giant splay of tree roots grew out of the hillside, blocking the path. Surely this was not still the Greensand Way. He must have missed a signpost somewhere. Suddenly aware that he had neither map or compass, he decided that retracing his steps would be the wisest course, but first he picked a dry spot on one of the roots and sat down for a moment’s breather.
As his breathing slowed, the quiet closed in, broken only by birdsong and the occasional rumble of a jet taking off from Gatwick. No sound reached the forest floor from the gently swaying treetops, but when a leaf drifted down from a branch above his head, he could have sworn he heard it rustle as it touched the ground.
Kincaid ran his fingers over the lichens on a gnarled stick, wondering if Alastair Gilbert had ever taken time to feel the texture of bark or listen to the leaves fall. Strict agendas for professional and social success usually didn’t leave much room for contemplation.
He’d tried hard not to let his personal feelings about the man cloud his view of the case, but perhaps he’d have been better off starting with his own judgment. That was the key, after all—what kind of man Gilbert had been and what consequences had unfolded from his actions. For he had no doubt that Gilbert’s murder had been committed by someone who knew him, had in fact never given the intruder theory more than a cursory consideration.
What had Brian Genovase been about to say when Meghan opened the door? Had Gilbert not suspected Brian of having an affair with his wife? Thinking about it, Kincaid felt fairly certain that Valerie Reid had steered them in the right direction, whatever her motives. Brian had never asked him the obvious question of an innocent man wronged by gossip—Who the hell told you that?
But if Brian and Claire were lovers, and Brian had killed Gilbert in a confrontation, why had he been so worried about Lucy and Claire? Shaking his head, Kincaid crumbled bits of bark off the stick with his fingers. Could Brian have murdered Gilbert in the few minutes he’d been away from the bar and disposed of the murder weapon? The lads had searched the premises thoroughly, looking for Claire Gilbert’s missing earrings, and hadn’t turned up anything that fit Kate Ling’s description of the instrument.
It seemed to Kincaid that this was exactly the scenario they’d constructed for Geoff. Only if the crime had been premeditated and carefully planned could either Geoff or Brian have pulled it off, and he felt sure that Gilbert’s murder had been committed in a moment of rage. It had been a passionate crime. A crime of passion, in fact.
That left Malcolm Reid. If one assumed that Valerie was covering up for him, then Reid would have had the time to commit the murder and the leisure to dispose of the weapon and anything else incriminating. But since Reid seemed to have been open with his wife about Gilbert’s accusations, what had he to gain by killing him? And besides, Kincaid, like Gemma, had difficulty seeing either of the Reids as consummate liars.
He’d stripped his little stick down to the bare, smooth wood, but he felt no nearer to uncovering the truth. Tucking the stick in the pocket of his anorak, he stood up and brushed off the seat of his trousers as he started back down the path. The only thing for it was to intensify the search of the paper trail, go back over every bit of information once again.
It was then, having explored all the apparent options, that the thought came to him. And as little as he liked it, he knew he’d have to follow it through.
When he came again to the junction of paths in the clearing, he chose the right fork, hoping it would bring him down at the other side of the village. A few minutes walk proved him right, as the gentle descent brought him out into the clearing at the top of the Gilberts’ lane. Before him lay the village hall, still ornamented with the colored lights left over from Guy Fawkes night. The announcer’s wooden platform remained as well, but the bonfire’s ashes were long cold. The wind brought the dank scent to him, and he gave the scorched grass a wide skirting.
With resignation he returned to the pub kitchen and questioned John and Meghan about Brian’s movements on Wednesday evening. He didn’t expect them to contradict Brian’s story, but procedure must be observed.
Meghan, wiping her sweaty face with the tail of her apron, declared that Brian couldn’t have been away from the bar for more than three or four minutes, and had come back, whistling, with a case of lemonade. John said that, frankly, it had been a bugger of a night, and he hadn’t noticed Brian’s absence at all.
Kincaid thanked them, and as the sun had by that time definitely disappeared over the yardarm, wandered into the bar and ordered a pint of Flowers bitter. He carried his drink to the nook by the fire and sat quietly, watching the evening customers trickle in. Brian ignored him quite successfully, while John, a rangy, graying man who wore waistcoats with his jeans and boots, gave him an occasional, curious glance.
The warmth from the fire’s embers felt good, and he stretched his legs out beneath the table, enjoying the pleasant tiredness that results from physical exercise. Looking about him, he wished suddenly that he were here on holiday, that he could enjoy this village and its inhabitants, without ulterior motive, and that he might be accepted simply as himself.
Smiling at the futility of his desire, he thought he might just as well wish for a case in which the victim had been a saint, and he disliked all the suspects equally. Things would be so much simpler, but in his experience, saints seldom got themselves murdered.
Through the bodies clustered at the bar, he caught an unexpected glimpse of Lucy. She must have come in the back way or down from upstairs, as he couldn’t have missed her if she’d come in the front door. She was speaking to someone, and as the crowd shifted he saw that it was Geoff.
In jeans and a flannel shirt several sizes too large, she looked innocently childlike, but as Kincaid watched she moved a step closer to Geoff, putting her hand on his waist in a gesture both provocative and possessive. Geoff smiled down at her, but did not return the touch, then at a summons from Brian they both disappeared into the kitchen.
