Mourn Not Your Dead

by Deborah Crombie

  Rob hadn’t cared for any of Gemma’s friends, especially those in the force, and after a bit she’d lost the energy to face the inevitable arguments that followed her contacts with them. Nor had he liked her to talk about her life before she met him, and gradually even her memories seemed to fade from disuse. “I seem to have lost bits of my life in the last few years,” she said slowly. “Maybe it’s time I made an effort to find them again.”

  “Come have dinner with us sometime soon, then,” said Jackie. “Susan would love to see you, too. We’ll drink a bottle of wine to our misspent youth-and remember when all we could afford was the worst plonk imaginable.” She stood up and went to the window. “How odd,” she said a little absently, “I’ve just remembered that I thought I saw Commander Gilbert someplace else recently. It must have been the plonk brought it to mind, because I’d just come out of the wine shop in the Portobello Road, and there was Gilbert talking to this West Indian bloke who’s a known informant. At least I thought it was Gilbert, but a lorry came between us then and by the time the light changed, they’d both disappeared.”

  “You didn’t check it out?”

  “You’ve been in CID too long, love,” said Jackie, clearly amused. “Just who was I supposed to ask? Commander Gilbert himself? I know enough to keep my nose out of my elders’ and betters’ business, ta very much. Still”-she turned back to Gemma and smiled-“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to put in a word or two in certain quarters. I’ll let you know if anything interesting turns up, shall I?”

  Gemma hated the escalators at the Angel tube station. She was sure they must be the longest and steepest of any in London, and the prospect of facing that dizzying descent every day had almost deterred her from taking her flat. At least, she told herself as she hugged the rail, going up wasn’t nearly as bad as going down-as long as you didn’t look back.

  A plastic bag wrapped itself around Gemma’s legs as she emerged from the station. Disentangling herself, she saw rubbish blowing all along Islington High Street. A sheet of newspaper clung tenaciously to a nearby lamppost, and a plastic bottle rattled discordantly along the pavement. The rubbish collection had failed again, Gemma thought, frowning in irritation, and she certainly didn’t have time to complain to the council about it.

  The sight of the black man sitting on the bench beside the flower stall snapped her out of her bad temper. Dwarfed by the towering glass office building behind him, he cradled a paper-wrapped whiskey bottle against his thin chest and sang to himself as he smiled up at her. His ragged clothes looked as though they had once been of good quality, but they offered little protection from the wind that made his red-rimmed eyes water.

  She stopped and bought a bunch of yellow carnations, then handed her change to the drunk before sprinting across the zebra crossing. Looking back, she had a glimpse of his head bobbing like a mechanical toy as he gabbled something incomprehensible after her. When she’d started in the force, a rookie constable, she’d almost unconsciously shared her parents’ disdain for those who could “better themselves if they made the effort,” but experience had quickly taught her that the equation was almost never that simple. For some the most you could do was try to make their lives a little more comfortable, and if possible leave them a bit of dignity.

  To her right as she entered Liverpool Street lay the Chapel Market. It was closing time, and with an occasional cheerful curse the vendors were tearing down stalls and packing up boxes. Too late to pick up anything there for supper, she’d have to stop in Cullen’s or brave the crush in the enormous new Sainsbury’s across the street.

  One thing drew her to Sainsbury’s, much as she disliked its sterile, gleaming interior. The busker stood on his usual patch outside the doors, his dog watchful beside him. She always had a few coins for him, sometimes a pound if she could manage it, but this ritual was not motivated by pity. Tonight she stopped as she usually did and listened to the liquid notes spilling from his clarinet. She didn’t recognize the piece, but it made her feel sweetly sad, leaving a gentle melancholy as the sound died away. The heavy coin clinked satisfyingly as she tossed it into the open case, but the young man merely nodded his thanks. He never smiled, and his eyes were as aloof as those of the mongrel lying quietly at his feet.

  Laden carrier bags bumped her leg as she emerged from the supermarket and hurried up the Liverpool Road with her collar pinched together against the wind. Her anticipation built as she thought of catching Toby up in her arms, hearing him squeal with delight as she nuzzled his neck, breathing in the warm smell of his skin. Turning into Richmond Avenue, she passed the grammar school, gates shut against the darkening day, play yard still except for the movement of an empty swing. Before she knew it Toby would be old enough to join the children there. Already his plump softness was melting away, little boy sturdiness emerging in its place, and Gemma felt a pang of loss for his babyhood. Thrusting back the guilt that always hovered near the surface of her mind, she assured herself that she did the best she could.

  At least the move to the Islington flat had brought with it an unexpected benefit-her landlady, Hazel Cavendish, had offered to keep Toby while Gemma worked, and Gemma no longer had to depend on her mum or indifferent child minders.

  Thornhill Gardens came into view and Gemma slowed, catching her breath so as not to arrive on the doorstep panting. Almost home, and lights were coming on in the houses along the gardens now, offering a tantalizing vision of comfort and warmth behind closed doors. The Cavendishes’ house backed up to the gardens, and Gemma’s adjoining flat faced Albion Street, almost directly across from the pub.

  She let herself into the back garden by the gate at the side of the garage, not stopping to leave the groceries in the flat. She’d called ahead so that Hazel would be expecting her, and as she reached the back door she squinted at the small sticky-note fluttering in the dimness. IN BATH, H., it read, and Gemma smiled as she looked at her watch. Hazel ran an orderly house, and by this time the children would have had their tea and been bustled upstairs to the tub.

  A wave of warmth and spicy smells greeted her as she opened the door, a sure sign that Hazel was cooking one of her “vegetable messes,” as her husband affectionately called them. Hazel and Tim Cavendish were both psychologists, but Hazel had taken an indefinite leave from her lucrative practice to stay at home with their three-year-old daughter, Holly. They had absorbed Toby into their household effortlessly, and although Hazel accepted the going rate for child minding, Gemma suspected it was more balm for her pride than a financial necessity for the Cavendishes. Following the distant sound of voices, she deposited her purchases on the kitchen table and dodged the toys littering the floor as she made her way upstairs.

  She tapped on the bathroom door, and hearing Hazel’s cheerful, “Come on in,” she slipped inside. Hazel knelt by the old-fashioned claw-footed tub, the sleeves of her sweater pushed up over her elbows, her chin-length brown hair forming curly tendrils from the steam.

  Both children were in the tub, and when Toby saw her he shrieked, “Mummy!” and smacked his hands palm-down against the water.

  Laughing, Hazel jumped back from the spray. “I think you little munchkins are clean enough. Welcome home, Gemma,” she added, wiping the sudsy droplets from her cheek.

  Gemma felt a sudden spasm of jealousy, but it faded as Hazel called out, “How about giving a hand with the towels?” and she soon had her arms full of wet and giggling children.

  When the children had been dried and dressed in their footed pajamas, Hazel settled them with some toys on the kitchen rug and insisted on making Gemma some tea. “You look knackered, to put it tactfully,” she said with a smile as she waved away Gemma’s offer to help and busied herself with kettle and cups.

  Gemma sank into a chair at the kitchen table and watched the children as they cranked toy cars up and down in the lift of a plastic garage with complete absorption. They played well together, she thought. Dark-haired Holly had inherited her mother’s sweet disposition as well as
her dimples. A few months older than Toby, she ruled him with a bossy kindness that he tolerated good-naturedly. Just now, though, with his still-damp fair hair sticking up in spikes, he looked a proper little imp.

  “Stay to dinner,” said Hazel as she set a steaming mug before Gemma and slid into the chair opposite. “Tim’s got a therapy group tonight, so it will just be us and the kids. And as a further enticement, I’m making Moroccan vegetable stew with couscous. And besides,” she added with a pleading note, “I have selfish reasons-I could use some adult conversation.”

  “But I picked up some things at the supermarket…” Gemma made a halfhearted gesture in the direction of her carrier bags.

  Wrinkling her snub nose, Hazel expressed her opinion of that. “Macaroni and cheese out of a box, I’ll bet, or something equally ghastly. You need something that hasn’t been thrown together at the last minute. Food is comfort for the soul as well as the body” The last she intoned with great weight, then laughed. “So says the philosopher of the kitchen.”

  With a shamefaced smile, Gemma confessed, “It was the first thing I saw on the shelf.” She stretched, relaxed now from the warmth of the room and the tea, and looked around the pleasant kitchen. The old glass-fronted cabinets had been rubbed with a soft green stain, the walls were covered with peach paper, and any spare spaces on counters and table held Hazel’s baskets of jumbled knitting yarns. Suddenly finding herself loath to leave, she said, “It does sound lovely. Are you sure we wouldn’t be imposing? I’m always afraid we’ll wear out our welcome.” Seeing Hazel’s emphatic reassurance, she added, “And I’ll admit it’s been a hellish week.”

  “Rough case?” Hazel asked sympathetically.

  “You could say that.” Cradling the hot cup in her hands, Gemma told her about Alastair Gilbert.

  When she’d finished, Hazel shuddered, concern evident in her expression. “How awful. For them and for you. But there’s more than that, isn’t there, Gemma?” she asked, with the direct gaze that must have made her patients squirm. “You disappear for days without notice, show up again, then leave Toby without a word of explanation-what’s going on?”

  Gemma shook her head. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I’ll be all right.”

  Shaking her head, Hazel leaned forwards earnestly. “Who are you trying to convince? You know it’s not good to bottle things up. You don’t have to be superwoman all the time. Let someone else share a little bit of the burden-”

  “I don’t need a therapist, Hazel,” Gemma interrupted, then instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s got into me lately. I’ve been sniping at everyone. You didn’t deserve that.”

  Sitting back with a sigh, Hazel said, “I don’t know-maybe I did. Old habits, you know. I’m sorry if I overstepped your boundaries, but I care about you, and I want to help if I can.”

  The kindness in Hazel’s voice brought an ache to Gemma’s throat, and she felt a sudden longing to pour out her troubles and be comforted. Instead, she swallowed and asked tentatively, “How could you bear it, Hazel? Giving up your job like that? Weren’t you afraid of losing yourself?”

  Hazel watched the children for a long moment before answering. “It hasn’t been easy, but I haven’t regretted it, either. I’ve learned from experience that it’s a great emotional risk to ground one’s identity entirely in one’s work. Life is entirely too tumultuous for that-you can lose a job or a career tomorrow, and then where are you? The same is true of marriage and motherhood. You have to rely on something deeper than that, something inviolate.” She looked up and met Gemma’s eyes. “Easier said than done, I know, and I’m not avoiding the personal question. I waited until fairly late to have a child, and as much as I enjoyed my work I decided that being with Holly the first few years of her life was an experience I wouldn’t have a chance to repeat. I sometimes feel guilty about that, knowing so many women who don’t have that option-like you.” Hazel’s dimples appeared as she grinned at Gemma. “But then I’m not sure you’d take it if you could.”

  Brow furrowed, Gemma studied her mug as if the contents held an answer. “No way, I’d have said in the beginning. I saw being pregnant and having a baby as a bloody nuisance, to tell the truth-just another way I’d let Rob’s carelessness spill over into my life. But now…”

  Toby, perhaps sensing some current of unease in his mother’s voice, stopped his play and came to stand beside her, butting his head against her arm.

  Gemma cuddled him and tousled his hair. “But now I don’t know. There are days when I envy you.” She thought of Jackie Temple’s unexpected revelation. Was anyone ever satisfied with her lot?

  “And there are days when I think I’ll go mad if I hear another toy advert,” countered Hazel, laughing. “So I cook. That’s my defense.” She stood up and carried their empty mugs to the sink. “And I think it’s time to switch from restoratives to sedatives.” She pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge. “This Gewurztraminer’s lovely with the spices in North African food.” Retrieving a corkscrew from a drawer, she started to peel the foil cap off the bottle, then stopped and turned back to Gemma. “Just one more thing. I’ll not push you, but I want you to know that I’m always here if you want to talk. And I’ll not let the therapist get in the way of the friend.”

  Gemma fell asleep that night in the curving leather chair in the flat, Toby sprawled across her lap, only to wake in the wee hours, chilled, numb from the weight of her son’s relaxed body, with Claire Gilbert’s face burnt into her mind like the bright afterimage of a flare.

  CHAPTER 7

  The doorbell pealed as Kincaid and Nick Deveney waited on the steps of Dr. Gabriella Wilson’s creeper-covered cottage, a few doors up the lane from the Gilberts’.

  Escaping gratefully after a morning of meetings at Guildford Police Station, they’d left Will Darling to collate the still-incoming reports. When Dr. Wilson’s name had appeared on the list of burglary victims gleaned from yesterday’s house-to-house of the village, they’d made her their first priority.

  As they drove into the village, Deveney had mumbled something around the cheese roll he clutched in his right hand while shifting with his left. Swallowing, he said more clearly, “Kill two birds. And make Gemma happy, at any rate,” he’d added with a cryptic glance at Kincaid.

  They’d begun to feel the cold by the time the door swung open. A small, competent-looking, middle-aged woman studied them. She seemed to have taken up where Kincaid and Deveney left off, for she held half a sandwich in her left hand, a perfect half-moon-shaped bite missing from its edge. “You’ll be the police, I expect,” she said equably. “I wondered when you’d get around to me again. Come in, but you’ll have to be quick about it.” Turning, she led them down a passage towards the back of the house. “I barely manage a bite as it is, between morning surgery and afternoon calls.”

  Passing through a swinging door, they entered the kitchen and she gestured towards a table cluttered with papers and periodicals. Kincaid pulled out a chair, gingerly removing another stack of papers before he sat down. “Dr. Wilson, if you could-”

  “I’m just ‘Doc’ to everyone except the hospital administrators. They like to maintain a certain distance.” She chuckled as she sat down and picked up a cup of coffee that still had steam rising from the top. “Ah, there’s Paul now. My husband,” she added as a man came through the back door, wiping his hands on a towel.

  “Hullo.” He shook their hands as they introduced themselves. “Sorry if I’m damp. I’ve had Bess out for her walk and it’s a bit mucky. Had to hose her down just now in the garden.” Paul Wilson was dressed much like his wife, in serviceable trousers and pullover, but the resemblance went further than that. Short, stocky, and balding, he had about him the same friendly, no-nonsense air.

  “Paul does mostly consulting now, so he’s home quite a bit during the day,” volunteered Dr. Wilson. “Now what can we do for you?”

  “According to the statement you made, you were out on Wednesday night, D
octor,” said Kincaid, consulting his notes. “You left the house about half past six?”

  “Patient went into labor. First baby, too, took most of the night.”

  “And you didn’t notice anything unusual at the Gilberts’ as you were leaving?”

  She swallowed the last bite of her sandwich and flicked a glance at the wall clock before answering. “I also told your nice constable that I saw nothing out of the ordinary, but I suppose you have to be thorough. I have no idea if Alastair was at home then. It was fully dark, of course, and you can’t see the Gilberts’ garage from the lane in any case. What I do know,” she said before Kincaid could interrupt her, “is that if I’d got home before all the commotion died down, I’d have insisted on seeing Claire Gilbert. It’s unthinkable that she hadn’t any-one with her.” She thumped her coffee cup on the table for emphasis.

  “She’s your patient, then?” asked Kincaid, jumping on the lead.

  “They both were, but that’s really not pertinent. I’d do the same for anybody.” She glanced at her husband and some of the starch seemed to go out of her. “What a dreadful business,” she said on a sigh.

  “And you, Mr. Wilson?” asked Deveney. “You were at home?”

  “Until about half past two in the morning, when my wife called me to pull her out of a ditch. It’s not the first time,” he added affectionately “I’ve considered that a part of my job description for years, always keep a tow rope in the boot of the Volvo.”

  “And you heard nothing unusual, either?” Deveney’s voice held a touch of exasperation.

  “No, I had the telly on in the back. It was only when I took Bess for her bedtime outing that I saw the lights flashing and went to investigate. I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely apologetic.

  Kincaid let the silence linger a moment, then said softly, “I understand that you had a disagreement with Commander Gilbert recently, Dr. Wilson.”