It took him a moment to place Maureen’s companion as Janet Lyle, the ex-army man’s wife. Last night she had hardly spoken or smiled and had kept an anxious eye on her husband, glancing at him before she spoke, whether for reassurance or approval Kincaid hadn’t been able to tell. Possibly she was shy, or uncomfortable in social gatherings. Now, she was certainly at ease, talking and laughing, leaning forward and gesturing emphatically with her hands, her dark hair swinging against her shoulders every time she moved her head.
Curious, Kincaid thought, after the events of the morning. Was it Sebastian’s death they were discussing with such energy? Excitement would be a typical reaction, charged by the relief most people felt at remaining unscathed when death struck so near. But not the good humor they displayed, evident even from a distance.
He listened intently, their voices coming to him in snatches. “Oh god, I remember when mine was that age, it’s awful, you don’t know how you’ll get through it. But you do… gets worse.” Janet laughed again. She must have an older child, Kincaid thought, not with them on holiday. At boarding school, perhaps? Her voice drifted toward him again. “… the best school, Eddie says, then University. I don’t see how we can…” They leaned closer together, their faces more sober, and he lost the thread of sound. He had no business eavesdropping anyway; their conversation was none of his concern. It was only his cursed cop’s habit that made him listen.
The two women had not noticed him, and when his tea and scones arrived he opened his book and buried himself in the pleasures of Yorkshire.
There was no more delaying it. He’d dawdled long enough over scones and strawberry jam, drunk enough weak tea to swamp a horse, and had incited the cheerful waitress to concerned looks in his direction. He paid his bill and retrieved the Midget from the public car park across the square. With the car’s soft top folded down to take advantage of the sun, he drove slowly back to Followdale House.
The house seemed hushed and shuttered. Not until he had parked the car and started toward the front door did he notice the small figure huddled at the side of the front step.
Angela Frazer’s dark eyes were bare of make-up, the skin around them red and puffy. Even the spiky, violet- streaked hair seemed subdued. She looked at Kincaid without speaking. When he reached the steps, he sat down a few feet away, said “Hullo,” and gazed out at the empty drive in what he hoped was a neutral silence. From the corner of his eye he saw her fingers fiddling with the threads hanging from the torn knees of her jeans, and her feet, in dirty, white canvas sneakers, seemed ridiculously small.
After a few moments she spoke, her voice barely a whisper. “You liked him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.” He waited, careful not to look at her.
“He said you were okay.” Her words were clearer now, gaining strength. “Really okay. Not like most of the others.”
“Did he? I’m glad.”
“They don’t care, not any of them. My dad’s been beastly. He said, ‘Good riddance to the little poof They’ve all been saying…” her voice wavered and he risked a glance at her face, restraining an impulse to touch her. Without meeting his eyes, she folded her arms across her stomach and hunched her shoulders a little lower-a hedgehog posture. “They’re saying he killed himself. I don’t believe it. Sebastian wouldn’t do that.” She curled up even further, resting her face against her drawn-up knees.
Jesus, thought Kincaid, what was he to say to this child that wouldn’t make her feel even worse? Had she considered the implications of what she was saying? That if Sebastian hadn’t killed himself, someone she knew, and quite possibly loved, might have killed him? Kincaid didn’t think so. It was more likely that she hadn’t been told enough to realize that Sebastian’s death couldn’t have been an accident. “Well,” he temporized, “I’m not sure anything’s definite yet. There will have to be tests and things to find out exactly how Sebastian died.”
“Nobody I knew ever died before. Except my grandmother, and I hadn’t seen her for a long time.” Angela’s words were muffled by her knees. “They wouldn’t let me see him. My dad said not to be so stupid. But I can’t believe he’s dead. Gone, you know? Just like that. I feel like I should say good-bye.”
“It does help, sometimes, to see someone who’s died. A letting go. I think that’s why they have open caskets at funerals, except by the time the person’s been painted and fixed up at the undertakers they don’t bear any resemblance to the person you knew. It makes it worse, in a way.”
Angela thought about it for a moment. “Then I don’t think I’d want to see Sebastian that way, even if they’d let me. I’d rather remember him the way he was.”
“If I were you,” said Kincaid, slowly, “I’d have a private farewell. Do something you know he liked. Go somewhere he liked to go, or do something you did together.”
Angela lifted her head, her expression brightening. “Yeah. In memoriam. Isn’t that what it’s called? Maybe I will.”
“Angela,” Kincaid said, treading carefully, “you saw Sebastian last night, didn’t you?”
“At the party. That was when he talked about you. But I didn’t get to meet you, because you were so busy with them.” Her emphasis fell on the last word, and he guessed that the category included most adults. “Did Sebastian seem any different than usual?”
“You mean depressed? No.” Angela’s forehead creased in sudden concentration. “Except he left for a few minutes. And when he came back he seemed sort of… excited. He had this look he’d get sometimes, like the cat that ate the canary. Pleased with himself. But he didn’t say anything. When I asked him, he just said ‘Never you mind, little one’-teasing me, you know, the way he did.”
“Did you see him later, after the party?”
“No, my dad took me to York, to some fancy restaurant. But he was so cross that it was awful. We had a terrible row on the way back.”
“Did your dad go out again?”
“No. Well, I don’t think so. I locked myself in the bathroom for hours, I was so mad. I went to sleep on the floor, and when I woke up, he was in bed asleep.”
“Must have been a pretty awful row. What was it about?” Kincaid delivered the question lightly, almost jocularly, afraid he’d breach her new-found confidence in him.
“Oh, you know. My mum. Me. He hates my clothes, my hair, my make-up. He said I looked like a slut at the stupid party last night and I embarrassed him. Well, I, hope I did. He’s embarrassed me enough times, making-” She broke off, dropping her head and twisting her fingers together, suddenly uncomfortable.
Voices came through the closed oak door behind them, followed by a bark of laughter. “That’s my dad, now.” Angela half stood, listening, like a hare poised for flight. “I’d better-”
“It’s all right. I’d better be off myself. Angela,” Kincaid said as she started toward the door, and she turned back to him, “Sebastian really cared about you, too. He told me so last night, before the party.”
“I know.” She smiled at him, and he saw what Sebastian had been astute enough to discover, the kernel of sweetness hidden beneath her usual sullen pose. “Can I call you Duncan? Mr. Kincaid makes you sound ancient.” A hint of flirtation, now, in the smile, and in the dark eyes looking at him through the lowered lashes. Kincaid realized he’d have to be careful not to tease her. She was, after all, almost grown.
“Sure. See you.”
“Yeah.” She slipped through the door and he waited a moment before following. He had the feeling that Angela might like to keep their conversation just between the two of them, and that suited him as well.
Graham Frazer’s hearty voice met him as he entered the sitting room. “Well, if it isn’t our resident narc.” Kincaid was beginning to share some of Sebastian’s antipathy for Frazer.
Angela was nowhere to be seen. The circle of faces turned toward him, a parody of last night’s innocent social gathering. Hannah was missing, as were Emma and Penny MacKenzie, but the rest seemed to draw together in a hostile shield.
“Mr. Kincaid.” Maureen Hunsinger spoke next, reproaching him with all the directness of a child whose feelings have been hurt. “You misled us.”
Cassie, who seemed to have temporarily abandoned her managerial distinction and banded with the herd, chimed in. “Oh, he’s full of surprises, is our Detective Superintendent Kincaid. All chummy with the local police, johnny-on-the-spot to the rescue. A real hero. Unfortunately, it was too late for poor Sebastian.” Her voice was light and mocking. She had recovered her control, all traces of the morning’s outburst erased. Her hair and make-up were exquisitely done and she wore rust, a matching skirt and blouse of some dull material with a webbing of fine, brown lines running through the solid color.
“I resent being treated like some common criminal, shut up together and then interrogated. And fingerprinted, for God’s sake. It’s disgraceful.” Eddie Lyle sounded aggrieved, as if Sebastian’s death had been designed merely
