Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 09 - Now May You Weep

“Would keeping an affair from Louise be worth the risk of being charged with murder?”

“People have killed for less,” Kincaid reminded her.

“Maybe Donald threatened to tell Louise that John was having an affair,” suggested Gemma. “But why would Donald have done such a thing? And I still can’t see John as the Casanova type. He’s much too domestic.”

“You think men who cook don’t have affairs? That’s very sexist of you.”

Gemma refused to take his bait. “None of this is getting us any further forward.”

“So what would you do if you were Ross?”

Gemma considered for a moment. “I’d have another word with Callum MacGillivray. There’s something not right there, although I’ll be damned if I can see what it is.

But for one thing, he was very slippery about what he was doing on Sunday morning.”

“Then why don’t we pay him a call, first thing after breakfast?”

*

By the time they had taken turns squeezing in and out of the tiny shower, Gemma could hear the hum of conversation from downstairs, and the tantalizing smell of frying bacon had begun to drift in under their door.

Not having packed for more than a weekend, she stared at the meager selection in her bag, attempting to decide which of her outfits to recycle. She had glanced out the window, trying to assess the temperature, when she saw Hazel in the back garden.

Pulling on a nubby, oatmeal-colored pullover without further deliberation, she told Kincaid she’d meet him in the dining room. She wanted to have a word with Hazel before breakfast.

Hazel stood at the edge of the lawn, looking out over the wood and, beyond it, the meadow where Donald had died. The crime scene tape still fluttered in the chill little gusts of wind, and the clouds massing in the west were the color of old pewter. Hazel clasped the edges of her cardigan together, as if she were cold.

“The weather’s changing,” Gemma said as she joined her.

“The Gab o’ May. That’s what they call it in the Highlands—the return of bad weather in mid-May.”

“It’s not unusual, then?”

“No. I can remember snow in the Braes in May, when I was a child.” Hazel turned to her. “Gemma, I had the dream again last night. Well, not exactly the same dream, but the same sort of dream.”

“The one where you were at Carnmore?”

Hazel nodded. “But this time there was a man, as well.

It wasn’t Donald, but there was something about him . . .

Oh, it’s such a jumble. It’s as if the pieces of someone’s life were put in one of those cheap kaleidoscopes we had as children, and shaken. I get fragments of experience, but I can’t make sense of them.”

“I’m not surprised, after what you’ve been through these last few days.” Putting her arm round Hazel’s shoulder, Gemma gave her a brief hug. “But it’s just a dream—”

Hazel was already shaking her head. “I know that shock—and grief—do odd things to the psyche. But there’s an urgency to these dreams that stays with me. I feel her fear— It’s as if there’s something I should do—”

A car door slammed behind them, interrupting Hazel.

Turning round, Gemma saw Pascal getting out of his BMW. He moved stiffly, as he had for a moment the previous evening, but now he looked as if he were in real pain.

Gemma and Hazel hurried towards him. “Pascal, are you all right?” asked Gemma. “You don’t look at all well this morning.”

He grimaced. “It’s my back again, I’m afraid. Yesterday I was helping Heather with Donald’s things. I must have lifted too heavy a box. It’s an insult to my vanity.”

“Have you pulled a muscle?” Hazel asked, sympathet-ically.

“No, I have a bad disk,” Pascal admitted. “Usually, it’s manageable, but sometimes I have to take medication, and I seem to have misplaced my tablets. I thought perhaps I had left them in my room.”

“Duncan and I had that room last night,” Gemma told him. “But I don’t recall seeing anything of yours left behind. We should ask John and Louise—” She broke off as another car came down the drive and pulled up behind the BMW. Gemma recognized it instantly as belonging to Chief Inspector Ross.

“A good day to ye,” Ross called out as he and Sergeant Munro climbed from the car. He sounded too pleasant by half, thought Gemma, immediately wary.

“Something’s happened,” she whispered as Ross approached them.

“Sleep well, did ye?” Ross smiled, showing an expanse of teeth. “Mr. Benoit. Mrs. Cavendish. Inspector James.” He nodded at each of them in turn, as if bestow-ing a pontifical blessing. “And where are the others this morning?”

“Just gathering for breakfast, I should think,” answered Gemma, after glancing at her watch. It was getting on for half past eight. “Chief Inspector—”

“Why don’t we go inside for a wee chat,” interrupted Ross before Gemma could ask any of the half-dozen questions on the tip of her tongue.

Hazel grasped his arm as he turned away. “My husband, Chief Inspector— Have you—”

“I havena heard anything from London yet this morning, Mrs. Cavendish,” Ross said more gently than Gemma would have expected. “Now, perhaps we could impose on Mr. Innes for a cup of coffee.”

Hoping for enlightenment, Gemma glanced at Munro as they followed Ross towards the scullery door, but the sergeant’s long face remained impassive. She had a suspicion that Ross was planning some sort of “gather the suspects in the library” interrogation—but why?

Ross did gather them all together, but in the dining room rather than the library. “I like to think of myself as an economical man,” he explained, sitting down at the table and nursing his coveted cup of coffee. “I thought it would save me repeating myself if I talked to ye all at once—

time management, I believe it’s called.”

Gemma doubted Ross’s imitation of a naive rustic de-ceived anyone. Glancing round the room, she found Kincaid watching the detective with interest, while the others

looked as if they had unexpectedly encountered a cobra among the coffee cups. Pascal had eased himself into a chair. Martin had been seated when they came in, having already started on his cereal, while Louise had been helping John with the cooked breakfast in the kitchen. No one other than Pascal seemed inclined to join Martin and the chief inspector at the table.

Sergeant Munro had unobtrusively occupied the position he’d taken during their formal interviews, in the chair next to the sideboard.

“Now, then,” Ross continued after taking another appreciative sip of his coffee, “there’s been an interesting development since last night. I thought I should have another word with your neighbor”—he nodded at John and Louise—“Mr. Callum MacGillivray, as he was a bit vague as to his movements on the Sunday morning. Just in case he had seen more than he’d led us to believe, ye understand. Now, imagine my surprise this morning when I found, not Mr. MacGillivray forking hay into the horse troughs, but Mr. MacGillivray’s aunt.

“She had just come back from the hospital in Inverness, where her nephew was admitted in the wee hours of the morning.” Ross paused, appearing to savor the fact that he had their full attention. “It looks very much like someone tried to poison him.”

“Poison? How? What happened?” asked Gemma, curs-ing herself for not acting immediately on her instincts.

She’d felt sure that Callum had been hiding something.

“Is he— Is he all right?” Louise put a steadying hand on the sideboard.

“From the doctor’s report, and a quick look round the cottage, it looks as though someone put a hefty dose of opiates in his whisky—a terrible thing to do to a good bottle of Lagavulin.” Ross shook his head disapprovingly.

“The forensics laddies will be able to tell us more when they’ve had a go.”

“But is Callum all right?” said John, echoing his wife.

“Weel, now, that’s verra kind of you to be concerned, Mr. Innes. Especially as Miss MacGillivray told me you and your wee brother here paid a call on Callum early yesterday afternoon . . . and although Callum was out at the