just one of those boys that attract bad luck, and unsavory friends, and it began to tell. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time, if you know what I mean.'
Kincaid smiled. 'I've heard that once or twice before. And how did May react to Theo's little escapades?'
'She defended him at first, but after Jasmine left, the escapades became more serious than setting pastures alight and joyriding in other people's autos.' Leaning forward, Alice took a biscuit from the plate and nibbled at its edge. 'Chocolate digestives. My one vice,' she added apologetically. 'May stopped talking about sending him to university. It was a pipe dream, anyway, he'd never done well enough at school to merit it.'
'Do you know why Jasmine left?' Kincaid asked, treading delicately now.
'No. But I always wondered. She just quit her job and disappeared. Literally here one day and gone the next. May was absolutely furious. Called her an ungrateful bitch, which was strong language for May. Of course, from the time Jasmine left school May had done nothing but complain about her, what a burden she was and how anxious she was to be rid of her-though I think Jasmine began paying her share of the housekeeping as soon as she found her first job. And it wasn't as if May couldn't afford to keep her.'
'So you'd have thought May would have been thrilled.'
'Exactly. But that was May for you. Never satisfied, especially when she got what she wanted.' Alice stared into the fire, and Kincaid waited, not interrupting. 'There was something, though… I would have put it down to malicious gossip and forgotten all about it, if Jasmine hadn't disappeared so soon afterwards.'
'A rumor?'
'Yes-that Jasmine was going around with that boy from over in Bladen Valley, the one who wasn't quite right. Did you come through Bladen Valley?' She gestured to the west. 'Another experiment, that. Built during the first War, though, to house the estate workers. A fitting place, I suppose, for a war memorial.'
'Is that what that is? The stone cross?'
Alice nodded. 'Done by the sculptor Eric Gill. It's supposed to be one St. Juliana, a fifteenth-century mystic. What she had to do with war I never discovered.'
'Mrs. Finney,' Kincaid led her gently back, 'what was wrong with the boy?'
'I'm not sure. Not retarded. More unbalanced, mentally ill, perhaps. Given to sudden fits of violence, if the stories were true, but it's been a very long time ago.' She sighed.
'I've tired you,' Kincaid said, instantly contrite. 'I'm sorry.'
'No, no, it's not that.' Alice Finney straightened up, some of her crisp demeanor returning. 'I'm aggravated with myself, if you must know, because I can't remember the boy's name. I don't like not being able to remember things-makes me feel old.' She smiled. 'Which I'm not, of course.'
'Of course,' Kincaid agreed.
'All his people are gone now, too, I think. The boy's mother had him institutionalized, not long after Jasmine left, I believe. And she's been dead for a good fifteen or twenty years now. There was no other family that I know of.'
'What happened to Theo, after Jasmine left?' 'He did finish school, if I remember rightly, but couldn't seem to find his feet afterwards. Couldn't find work, got into a bit more trouble all the time. And then May died. Took pneumonia and was gone, just like that. Jasmine never came back, not even for the funeral, and after May's affairs were settled and the cottage sold, Theo disappeared, too. And I never heard another word of either of them, until this day.'
'Did May leave them anything, do you know?' 'She must have had quite a tidy nest egg. Tight as an old trout, May was. Managed her inheritance a sight better than her brother managed his, apparently, but I've no idea how she divided it between the children-there was no other family. She could have left everything to a home for wayward cats, for all I know.' She paused, her brows drawing together in concentration. 'You might try the solicitor's office in Blandford Forum.'
'The one where Jasmine worked? It's still there?' 'It was the only one at the time, so naturally they handled May's affairs. Old Mr. Rawlinson's dead, and the son may not remember Jasmine, but it might be worth a try.'
Kincaid rose. 'You've been a great help. I never meant to take so much of your time.'
'Nonsense.' She stood, shaking off Kincaid's proffered help. 'Do you think I have better things to do than take tea with an attractive young man who's interested in everything I have to say? It's an old woman's dream, my dear.'
Kincaid had the sudden urge to do something very improper, very un-English. Placing his fingertips on her shoulders, he said, 'You're delightful. Your Jack was a very lucky man, and if I were a few years older, Alice Finney, I'd marry you myself.' He leaned over and kissed her cheek, and her skin felt as soft as a young girl's lips.
Blandford Forum, Alice had informed him, had burned nearly to the ground in the summer of 1731. The fire had started in the tallow-chandler's house and spread quickly from one thatched roof to another. Tragic as the destruction must have seemed at the time, Blandford Forum had risen from its ashes as a Georgian gem. The offices of Rawlinson and Sons, Solicitors, had been housed in a Georgian building in the rebuilt Market Place as long as anyone could remember.
Peering through the frosted glass of the inside door, Kincaid could make out only fuzzy shapes. He pulled open the door and the lumps resolved themselves into ordinary waiting room furniture, a desk, and behind it, a receptionist.
She swiveled away from her typewriter and smiled at him. 'Can I help you?'
'Uh, I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. Is Mr. Rawlinson in?'
'He's in court this afternoon.' Glancing at her watch, she added, 'I'm afraid he may be a while yet. Would you like to make an appointment?'
She diplomatically didn't add, thought Kincaid, that any self-respecting idiot would have made one in the first place. The nameplate on her desk read 'Carol White,' a good, solid English name. It suited her. Middle-aged and well-built, with an open, friendly face and a glorious head of wavy, shoulder-length chestnut hair-in a few years she would begin the slide toward matronly, but she was still very attractive indeed.
'Would that be young Mr. Rawlinson?'
She stared at him, perplexed, but still polite. 'Old Mr. Rawlinson passed away ten years ago. You're not from around here, then?'
'London, actually.' Kincaid again fished his warrant card from his pocket, and extended it to her.
'Oh.' Her eyes widened and she glanced up at his face, then back at the folder. 'Fancy that. What would Scotland Yard want with us?'
Kincaid heard the sharp, little intake of breath-the ordinary citizen's response to the copper's unexpected appearance-and he hastened to reassure her. 'Just some very dusty information. Is there any chance Mr. Rawlinson might remember a girl who worked here almost thirty years ago? Her name was Jasmine Dent.'
Carol White stared at him, then said slowly, 'No. Mr. Rawlinson would have still been away at school. But I do. I remember Jasmine.'
Unasked, Kincaid picked up a visitor's chair and swung it around next to the desk, never taking his eyes from Carol White's face. '
Still hesitant, she continued. 'I know it's a bit silly of me, but I hate to admit I've been here as long as I have. I came here straight from leaving school, same as Jasmine, but she was a couple of years older.'
'Mr. Rawlinson needed two secretaries?'
'You could say that.' She smiled, showing even, white teeth. 'Mr. Rawlinson liked pretty young girls, and we were both that, if I do say so myself.' Holding up a hand to forestall Kincaid interrupting, she added, 'Oh, I don't mean he was a real dirty old man-never tried anything on, as far as I know-he just fancied himself a bit of a rogue. And since he paid us the bare minimum in those days, I guess he could afford us.'
Having moved around to the side of Carol's desk, Kincaid discovered that what he had thought to be a dress was actually a thigh-length tunic, beneath which she wore skintight, black, stretch trousers, and high-heeled sandals. Following his appreciative gaze, she laughed. 'Dressed courtesy of my teenage daughter, who can't stand for her old mum to go out looking like a frump.' Then sobering, she said, 'Truthfully, I think Mr. Rawlinson intended from the beginning to groom me as Jasmine's successor. She must have made it as clear to him as she did everyone else that she didn't intend to stay in this poky town any longer than she had to. Jasmine was ferociously
