A lamp on the telephone table lit Darling’s face from below, revealing a few lines on his brow and crinkles at the corners of his blue eyes. Perhaps he was not as young as Kincaid had first thought. “You seem to have taken this in your stride,” Kincaid said, his curiosity piqued by the man’s self-possession.
“I grew up on a farm, sir. I’ve seen death often enough.” He regarded Kincaid for a moment, then blinked and sighed. “But there is something about this one. It’s not just Commander Gilbert being a senior officer and all. Or the mess, exactly.” Kincaid raised an eyebrow and Darling went on, hesitantly. “It’s just that it all seems so … inappropriate.” He shook his head. “Sounds stupid, I know.”
“No, I know what you mean,” Kincaid answered. Not that
Darling settled his broad shoulders against the wall and focused on a point beyond Kincaid’s head for a moment before replying. “Now that you mention it, I can’t say that they did. Or only a word or two. But they both talked to me. I offered to ring someone for them, but Mrs. Gilbert said no, they’d be all right on their own. She did say something about having to tell the commander’s mother, but it seems she’s in a nursing home and Mrs. Gilbert thought it best to wait until tomorrow. Today, that is,” he added, glancing at his watch, and Kincaid heard the beginnings of fatigue in his voice.
“I won’t keep you, Constable.” Kincaid smiled. “And I can’t speak for your guv’nor, but I’m about ready to salvage what little sleep I can from this night.”
Late as the hour was, a few lights still burned in the pub. Deveney rapped sharply on the glass pane of the door, and in a moment a shadowy form slid back the bolts.
“Come in, come in,” the man said as he opened the door. “Take the chill off. I’m Brian Genovase, by the way,” he added, holding out a hand to Kincaid and Gemma in turn as they crowded in behind Deveney.
The pub was surprisingly small. They had entered directly into the right-hand alcove, where a handful of tables surrounded a stone hearth. To their left the length of the bar occupied the pub’s center, and beyond that a few more tables were grouped to make up the dining area.
“It’s kind of you to wait up, Brian,” Deveney said as he went to the hearth and stood rubbing his hands above the still-glowing embers.
“Couldn’t sleep. Not with wondering what was going on up there.” Genovase tilted his head towards the Gilberts’. “The whole village is buzzing, but no one quite had the nerve to brave the cordon and bring back a report. I gave it a try, but the constable on the gate persuaded me otherwise.” As he spoke he slipped behind the bar, and Kincaid saw him more clearly. A large man with dark hair going gray and the beginnings of a belly, he had a pleasant face and quick smile. “You’ll need something to warm you up from the inside,” he said, pulling a bottle of Glenfiddich from the shelf, “and while you’re at it you can tell me all that’s fit to print. So to speak.” His flashed a grin at them and favored Gemma with a wink.
They’d followed him to the bar, unresisting as lemmings drawn towards the cliff. As Genovase tilted the bottle over the fourth glass, Gemma suddenly put out a restraining hand. “No, thank you, but I don’t think I can manage it. I’m just about out on my feet. If you’ll just tell me where to put my things—”
“I’ll show you,” Genovase said, putting down the bottle and wiping his hands on a towel.
“No, please, I’m sure I can manage,” Gemma said firmly, shaking her head. “You’ve put yourself out enough as it is.”
Shrugging good-naturedly, Genovase gave the appearance of recognizing a stubborn set of mind when he saw it. “Round the bar, up the stairs, down the corridor, last door on the right.”
“Thanks. Good night, then.” Focusing on the empty space between Kincaid and Deveney, she added, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
A dozen excuses to call her back, to go up with her, froze on the tip of Kincaid’s tongue. Anything he did would make them both look foolish and might arouse the very speculation they couldn’t afford, so he sat on in miserable, silent frustration until she disappeared through the door at the far end of the bar. Deveney, too, had watched her, and seemed to have trouble drawing his gaze from the empty doorway.
Genovase raised his glass. “Cheers. This is on the house, Nick, so you’ll not get me for breaking the licensing laws, but I expect to be paid in kind.”
“Fair enough,” Deveney agreed. Then he said, “Ah, that’ll do nicely,” as the first sip of whiskey went down. “You heard that someone did for Commander Gilbert, I take it?”
Genovase nodded. “But Claire and Lucy—they’re all right, aren’t they?”
“Shocked, but fine other than that. They found the body.”
Relief and distress battling in his face, Genovase said, “Oh, lord,” and rubbed at an invisible spot on the bar with his towel. “Was it bad? What—?” The small negative movement of Deveney’s head stopped him. “Out of bounds? Sorry.”
“We won’t be releasing full details for a bit,” said Deveney with practiced diplomacy.
It would be difficult to keep anything under wraps for long in a village this size, Kincaid knew, but they’d try until the house-to-house queries were finished, just in case someone let slip they knew something they shouldn’t.
“You were friendly with the Gilberts?” Deveney asked Genovase, sliding forwards on his stool so that he could rest his elbows on the bar.
“It’s a small village, Nick. You know how it is. Claire and Lucy are well liked.”
Kincaid took another sip of his drink and said casually, “And the commander wasn’t?”
Brian Genovase looked wary for the first time. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, you didn’t.” Kincaid smiled at him. “But is it true?”
After a moment’s consideration, Genovase said, “Let me put it this way—Alastair Gilbert didn’t go out of his way to make himself popular around here. Not one of the beard and wellie brigade, not by a long chalk.”
