bungalow in Spain. He sends us a postcard occasionally.” Byrne raised his pint to Kincaid. “Cheers. May we someday do the same.”
“I’ll drink to that.” For the first time in years, Kincaid had a brief
Byrne shook his head. “No, she left a few years before I came up, but I heard the occasional odd thing about her. I remember the case well enough, though. Just about this time of year, wasn’t it, five years ago? She died from an overdose of the medication she took for her heart arrhythmia, leaving everything to her ex-husband. It seemed a fairly obvious suicide, and it at least got her a mention on the local news. You know—’tragic death of award-winning Cambridge poet’—that sort of thing.”
Kincaid pulled his notebook from his breast pocket and flipped it open, then drank off a bit of his pint. He’d taken the bench, putting the wall at his back, and from where he sat he could see the day’s specials carefully lettered on the chalkboard over the bar. “Mushroom stroganoff,” it read, and “Courgette flan.” It followed, he supposed, that a smoke-free pub would also be vegetarian. Glancing at the notebook, he said, “I understand that Brooke had a history of more violent suicide attempts.”
“She had a reputation as a bit of an hysteric, if I remember correctly. All part of the artistic persona.”
“What crap,” Kincaid said. “In my experience, artists are more likely to be driven like furies, and are a hell of a lot more disciplined than your average accountant.” He sat back and lifted his pint once more. “Do you remember the details of the previous attempts?”
Byrne shook his head. “Not really, except that they seem to have been rather elaborately staged, as was this one.”
“Yes … except there were one or two things about this one that seemed a bit odd to me. Her clothes, for instance.”
“Clothes? I don’t remember that there was anything unusual about them.”
“That’s the point. Lydia Brooke seems to have had a heightened sense of the dramatic, I will give you that.” Kincaid smiled at Byrne, then glanced again at his notes. “According to her file, there was music repeating on the stereo when her body was discovered, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, to be exact. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the piece at all, but I’d say it’s probably the most wrenchingly sad music I’ve ever heard.”
“I know the piece,” Byrne said. He closed his eyes for a moment, then hummed a few bars, keeping time with his finger. “And I’d be inclined to agree with you. It’s quite powerful stuff.”
“So picture this,” Kincaid continued. “She lay on the sofa in her study, arms crossed on her breast, a candle burning on the table beside her. In her typewriter there was a fragment of a poem about death, and the music playing.” He pushed his pint aside and leaned forwards. “But she was wearing khaki trousers and a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Eat Organic Food.’ She had dirt under her fingernails. For Christ’s sake, Alec, she’d been gardening. Are we to surmise that Lydia Brooke had a particularly difficult encounter with her herbaceous border and decided to end it all?”
Byrne tapped his long fingers on the tabletop. “I take your point. After she went to so much trouble to set the scene, you’d think she’d have worn something more suitable to the occasion. But I think you’re stretching it a bit— suicides aren’t always so logical.”
Kincaid shrugged. “Perhaps. It just struck me, that’s all. I don’t suppose anyone checked to see if she’d left her gardening tools out?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. I wouldn’t be willing to wager on it.”
“Do you remember the statement of the man who found the body?”
“No,” Byrne answered, beginning to sound a bit exasperated. “I can’t say that I ever actually read the file. I only know what was circulating in the department at the time.”
Consulting his notes again, Kincaid said, “His name was Nathan Winter. He was a friend, apparently, as well as her literary executor. Brooke had rung him and asked him to come round, but when he arrived later that evening he found the porch dark. She didn’t answer when he rang the bell, so he tried the door and found it unlocked. Do you know if anyone ever found out why the light was out?”
Frowning, Byrne studied Kincaid. “I suspect where you’re going with this, and I think I’ve contained my curiosity long enough. Why this interest in a straightforward case that’s been closed for almost five years? Do you think we’re not capable of doing a job properly?”
“Oh, bollocks, Alec. You know perfectly well that’s not true, so don’t come the injured provincial with me. Besides, it wasn’t your case. You were the new boy on the block then, remember? And isn’t it just possible that old Bill was more interested in looking at travel brochures than in doing much digging on a case that came all wrapped up in a pink ribbon?”
For a moment Byrne seemed to be concentrating on placing his tankard in the exact center of his beer mat, then he looked up at Kincaid. “Even supposing you’re right—and I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far, mind you— why are you sticking your nose in?”
It was Kincaid’s turn to fiddle. He drew rings in the moisture on the tabletop, wishing he’d started as he meant to go on. Finally, he said, “It’s personal.” When Byrne merely raised his brows expectantly, Kincaid went on. “My ex-wife—her name is Victoria McClellan—is working on a biography of Brooke. She’s at All Saints’—a Fellow—and she lectures at the University as well,” he added quickly, as if Byrne had questioned her credentials.
“I see,” Byrne drawled. “She asked you to ferret out the details so she could use them in her book. And you agreed?”
Kincaid bridled at the mildly amused censure. “Not at all. I’d not have agreed to it, for one thing, and for another, I think scandal value is the last thing on Vic’s mind. Look, Alec, I know how it sounds, but Vic isn’t given to flights of fancy. I daresay she knows Lydia Brooke down to the color of her knickers, and she doesn’t believe Brooke committed suicide.”
“Murder?” Byrne laughed. “Tell that to the AC, with bells on. Just let me be there to see his face turn that lovely apoplectic purple.” His mirth subsiding, he looked pityingly at Kincaid. “Duncan, I can tell you now, you don’t stand a hope of getting the AC to reopen this case unless you come up with some new, absolutely incontrovertible physical evidence—or you get a confession.” He shook his head and eyed his friend ruefully. “And I’d say your chances of doing either are about on a par with the proverbial snowball’s.”
