“It’s all right, darling,” said Claire, rousing herself. With an apparent effort, she pushed herself to the edge of her seat. “Lucy’s right, Superintendent. It’s not—it wasn’t Alastair’s habit to share details about his work. He didn’t tell me whom he intended seeing.” She stood up, then swayed. Lucy reached out to support her, and as she was the taller of the two, her arm fit easily around her mother’s shoulders.
“Please, Mummy, do stop,” she said, then she looked at Kincaid. “Let me take her upstairs now.” Her voice held more question than command, and she seemed to Kincaid very much a child playing an adult’s part.
“There must be someone you can call,” said Gemma, standing and touching Lucy’s arm. “A neighbor? A relative?”
“We don’t need anyone else. We can manage,” Lucy said a little abruptly. Then her brief bravado seemed to dissolve as she added, “What should I do about the house … and things? What if…”
Deveney answered her gently, but without patronizing her. “Please don’t worry, Miss Penmaric. I’m sure that whoever did this won’t come back. And we’ll have someone here all night, either outside or in the kitchen.” He paused for a moment, and they heard a faint whimpering. “Why don’t you take the dog upstairs with you, if it makes you feel more comfortable?” he suggested, smiling.
Lucy gave it grave consideration. “He’d like that.”
“If there’s nothing else …” Claire’s speech had begun to slur, yet in spite of her exhaustion she still maintained a semblance of graciousness.
“That’s all for tonight, Mrs. Gilbert. And Lucy. Thank you for your patience,” said Kincaid as he stood beside Deveney and Gemma, and they all watched silently as mother and daughter left the room.
When the door had swung shut, Nick Deveney shook his head and ran his fingers through the early gray streaking his hair at the temple. “I’m not sure I’d have held up as well, under the circumstances. Lucky for them, isn’t it, that they have each other?”
The scene-of-crime team was still busily at work in the kitchen, but Alastair Gilbert’s body had been removed. The drying blood had smeared in streaks and swirls, like a child’s exercise in finger paints. Excusing himself to speak to one of the SOCOs, Deveney left Kincaid and Gemma standing in the doorway.
Kincaid felt the adrenaline that had sustained him for the last few hours ebbing. Glancing at Gemma, he found her studying him. Her freckles, usually an almost imperceptible dusting against her fair skin, stood out in sharp contrast to her pallor. He suddenly felt her exhaustion as if it were his own, and the familiar, intimate awareness of her ran through him like a shock. As he lifted a hand to touch her shoulder, she started to speak, and they both froze. They had lost the ease of it, all their carefully established camaraderie had gone, and it seemed to him as if she might misconstrue even his small gesture of comfort. Awkwardly, he dropped his hand and shoved it in his pocket, as if removing it from temptation.
As Deveney came back to them, Gemma abruptly excused herself and left the kitchen by the mudroom door without meeting Kincaid’s eyes again.
“Dr. Ling said she’d schedule the postmortem first thing tomorrow at Guildford Mortuary.” As he spoke, Deveney slumped against the doorframe and watched with an abstracted expression as one of the civilian techs scraped up a blood sample from the floor. “Can’t be soon enough, as far as the brass are concerned. I’ll have the plods out door-to-door at first light—” He paused, and for the first time his expression was wary as he glanced at Kincaid. “That is, if it meets with your approval.”
The chain of command when the Yard was called in to work with a regional force could be a bit tricky. Although technically Kincaid outranked Deveney, he had no wish to antagonize the local man at the outset. Nick Deveney seemed an intelligent and capable copper, Kincaid thought as he nodded assent, and he’d be more than happy to let him run his end of things without interference. “You’ll be following up on this intruder business?”
“Maybe at daylight we’ll find he’s left half-inch-deep footprints all over the garden,” Deveney said, grinning.
Kincaid snorted. “Along with a set of perfect prints on the doorknob and a previous a mile long. We should be so lucky. How early is first thing, by the way?” he asked, yawning and rubbing his hand across the stubble on his chin.
“Sevenish, I would imagine. Kate Ling doesn’t seem to need sleep. Exists on a combination of coffee and formaldehyde fumes,” said Deveney. “But she’s good, and we were lucky to get her on the scene tonight.” As Gemma rejoined them, Deveney included her with a quick smile. “Listen, why don’t you send your driver back to London with your car. I’ve made arrangements to put you up at the local—you did come prepared to stay?” When they nodded, he continued. “Good. We’ll send someone to take you to the mortuary in the morning. And then—” He broke off as a plainclothes officer beckoned him from the mudroom door. With a sigh he pushed off from the wall. “Back in a tick.”
“I’ll see to Williams,” said Gemma a little too quickly, and left Kincaid standing alone. For a few moments he watched the technicians and the photographer, then he edged around their work area until he reached the refrigerator. Opening it, he bent over and examined the contents. Milk, juice, eggs, butter, and, tucked haphazardly onto the bottom shelf, a package of fresh pasta and a plastic container of Alfredo sauce, bearing the Sainsbury deli’s seal. Neither container had been opened.
“I found some bread and cheese. Made the ladies some sandwiches,” said a voice above his head.
Kincaid stood and turned, and still found himself looking up at the rosy-cheeked visage of Police Constable Darling. “Ah, the minder,” he murmured, then at the constable’s blank look he added more loudly, “Very thoughtful of you …” He couldn’t quite bring himself to add the surname.
“Add hunger to shock and exhaustion and they’d have been in a right state,” Darling said seriously, “and there didn’t seem to be anyone else to look after them.”
“No, you’re quite right. Usually, helpful and nosy neighbors materialize out of the woodwork in this sort of situation. Relatives too, as often as not.”
“Mrs. Gilbert said both her parents were dead,” volunteered Darling.
“Did she now?” Kincaid studied the constable for a moment, then gestured towards the hall door. “Here, let’s have a word where it’s a bit quieter.” When they reached the relative calm of the passageway, he continued. “You sat with Mrs. Gilbert and her daughter for quite some time, didn’t you?”
“Several hours, I’d say, in between the chief inspector’s comings and goings.”
