But she must get help or he would freeze, and she with him.
Gemma eased her thigh away from its damp contact with the knee of the young man sitting next to her, giving him a bland smile. Not that he was flirting with her—at least she hoped he wasn’t flirting with her. But in honor of the weekend’s cookery class, the small, square tables that would normally have seated the guests from each bedroom in the B&B separately had been joined, leaving the six people assembled for dinner closer together than Gemma found comfortable. The room was overwarm, as well, and although the coal fire blazing in the dining room’s hearth added a convivial note, the ring of faces round the table all sported a faint sheen of perspiration.
No doubt a good bit of that glow could be attributed to the amount of whisky drunk before dinner, and the liberal consumption of wine with the meal. Considering that they hadn’t reached the pudding stage yet, Gemma groaned inwardly. Paper-thin crepes with wild mushrooms had preceded tenderloin of venison in a red currant glaze, surrounded by heaps of perfectly roasted potatoes and crisp haricots verts. Now Gemma eyed the remaining slice of venison on her plate with something akin to despair. It was too good to leave, but she’d burst if she took another bite. With a sigh, she pushed her plate away and looked round the room. Hazel, she noticed, had artfully rearranged the meat on her plate without actually eating any of it.
Following the sporting theme evidenced in the entry hall, delicately colored paintings of fish swam round the circumference of the white-paneled dining room walls. At first Gemma thought the fish were painted on the paneling itself, but as she studied them she realized they were paper cutouts. The sizes varied, as did the quality of the artwork, but all were game fish of some sort, trout or perhaps salmon. Having never seen either except on a dinner plate, Gemma could only guess.
“They’re all hand painted, you know,” said the young man beside her, following her gaze. He had been introduced to her as Martin Gilmore, John Innes’s much younger brother. “It was a household tradition before John bought the place. Anyone who catches a fish weighing more than eight pounds has to trace it exactly, then paint it.”
“Is one of these yours, then?” Gemma asked, nodding at the wall. Martin had the look of an artist, with his thin, ascetic face and cropped hair that emphasized the bony prominence of his nose. In one nostril Gemma saw a puncture, telltale evidence of an absent nose stud. Perhaps Martin had been afraid John would disapprove.
“Not on your life,” Martin answered, grimacing. “I’m a city boy, brought up in Dundee. I’ll pass on the shootin’ and fishin’, thank you verra much.” His accent, at first more clipped than his brother’s, had begun to slur as the level in his glass dropped.
“Oh,” said Gemma, confused. “I had the impression John was from this area, but I must have been mistaken—”
“No, you had it right,” confirmed Martin. “We’re half brothers. Our mother remarried, and I was the child of her dotage.”
Not quite sure how to respond to the latter part of his comment, Gemma concentrated on the former. “But you’re close, you and John?”
“First time I’ve seen him since I left school.” Martin glanced round the room, as if assuring himself of his brother’s absence, and leaned nearer Gemma’s ear. “To tell the truth, I thought I’d never wangle an invitation to this place. Couldn’t believe my luck when he rang up and said I could come along this weekend for the cookery class.”
Gemma edged away from his warm breath. “You’re interested in cooking?”
Martin’s reply was forestalled by Louise’s entrance with an empty tray. “The ice queen herself,” he muttered, then busied himself finishing his venison.
“Did everyone enjoy their meals?” Louise asked, smiling brightly at them.
A hearty chorus of assents rang round the table. Louise spoke quietly to each guest as she removed his or her plate, giving Gemma an opportunity to study her tablemates.
Across from her sat Heather Urquhart, who had also greeted Hazel as if they were well acquainted. The woman was in her thirties, tall and thin, her face lightly pockmarked with the scars of old acne, but her most striking feature was the rippling curtain of black hair that fell below her waist. She had kept up an animated conversation all through dinner with the man on her right, a Frenchman named Pascal Benoit.
Benoit seemed to have some connection with the whisky business, but Gemma had yet to work out exactly what he did. He was short, balding, and slightly tubby, but his dark eyes were flat and cold as stones.
That left Hazel, seated next to Heather, and at the table’s far end, the man in the red kilt, who had been introduced to Gemma as Donald Brodie. The awkwardness of his entrance into the sitting room had been quickly smoothed over by the arrival of the other guests, but before Gemma could draw Hazel aside with a question, Louise had called them in to dinner.
Now, as she watched Brodie lean over and speak softly in Hazel’s ear, Gemma was more curious than ever. Hazel seemed flushed, animated, and riveted on her companion. Clearly, she knew Donald Brodie. And just as clearly, she had not been surprised to find him at Innesfree. What was Hazel playing at?
Was Brodie an old flame, and Hazel trying to make the best of an embarrassing reunion for the sake of the cookery weekend? Or—Gemma frowned at the thought—was there more to it than that?
Surely not, thought Gemma. Hazel and Tim were happily married, a wonderful couple. Then, uncomfortably, Gemma began to recall how little she’d seen of Tim the past few months—in fact, even before Gemma had moved out of the garage flat, Tim had been absent in the evenings more often than not. And Hazel’s distress over Gemma’s move had seemed odd in one usually so serene, as had the plea in her voice when she’d invited Gemma to accompany her for the weekend.
Gemma gave herself a mental shake. Rubbish. It was all rubbish. The very idea of Hazel having an affair was absurd. That’s what police work did for you—gave you a suspicious nature. She found herself suddenly missing Kincaid’s presence and his unruffled outlook. He would, she was sure, tell her she was making a mountain out of a molehill.
Determined to put Hazel’s behavior from her mind, as well as the small ache of homesickness brought on by the thought of Duncan, Gemma handed Louise her plate. “That was absolutely super,” she told her. “A few more days of this and I won’t be able to do up my buttons.”
“Wait until you see the pudding,” Louise answered. “It’s a chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis—John’s specialty. Would you like coffee with it?”
Gemma murmured her assent, but her mind had gone back to Hazel. Why, if she were carrying on with Donald Brodie, had she wanted Gemma to come with her?
As if sensing her interest, Brodie broke off his conversation with Hazel and turned to her. “Gemma, I understand you’re not much of a whisky drinker. We’ll have to remedy that while you’re here.” His voice was Scots, but well educated, and pleasantly deep.
“Is that a necessary part of the Highland experience, Mr. Brodie?”
“It’s Donald, please,” he corrected her. “And from my point of view, it’s a necessary part of everyone’s experience. I own a distillery.”
Gemma thought back to the predinner drinks, and John Innes’s rather sly comment about the whisky he’d served. “Benvulin, is it?”
Brodie looked pleased. “Hazel will have told you, then. It’s a family enterprise, started by one of my Brodie forebears. You might say it’s in Hazel’s family, too,” he added, with a quick glance at Hazel, “in more ways than one. Heather’s now my manager.”
“Heather?” Gemma asked, lost.
“Heather and I are cousins,” Hazel put in, with an embarrassed duck of her head towards the other woman. “Our fathers are brothers. I’m sure I must have told you…”
Gemma couldn’t recall Hazel ever mentioning her maiden name. She glanced at Heather Urquhart, saw no wedding ring on her long, thin hand. Urquhart, she was sure, she would have remembered. Thinking of Hazel’s daughter, she said, “H
azel, Heather, Holly—”
“A family penchant for female botanical names.” Heather Urquhart’s voice matched her looks, sharp and thin, and her tone was challenging. “I’m surprised Hazel hasn’t regaled you with tales of her eccentric Scottish relations.”
“Give it a break, Heather,” Hazel said sharply, and Heather gave a cat-in-the-cream smile at having drawn a retort.
Gemma gaped at her friend in astonishment. She had seen Hazel occasionally get a bit cross with the children when they tried her patience too far, but never had she heard her snap at another adult.
“You have been a number of years in the south, I think,” Pascal Benoit said diplomatically to Hazel in his faintly accented English. A twinkle of malice livened his black eyes.
Hazel turned to him with obvious relief. “Yes, London. My husband and I live in London, with our four-year-old daughter.”
Turning his attention to Gemma, Benoit asked, “And you, Miss James? You are also from London?”
“It’s not miss, actually,” Gemma answered, feeling suddenly contrary. “James is my ex-husband’s name.”
Benoit smiled, appearing not at all discomfited. “Ah, one of the more difficult questions of manners in modern society. How does one refer to the divorced woman, without using the abominable Ms.? In French it is easier. Madame implies a woman mature, past her girlhood, but not necessarily married.”
“And I take it that in France, to refer to a woman as ‘mature’ is not an insult?” Gemma was beginning to enjoy herself. Benoit was proving a much more challenging verbal partner than Martin Gilmore, who sat silently beside her, hunched over his drink.
“Mais oui.” Benoit smiled, showing small, even, white teeth. “We French appreciate women at all stages in life, not just the boyish ingénue. Unlike the British, who have no more refined taste in women than in food.”
Gilmore flushed and straightened up, as if to protest, but was forestalled by a chuckle from Donald Brodie.
“Ouch,” said Brodie. “I might be inclined to take that personally, Pascal, if I didn’t know how fond the French are of generalizing about the British. But if I were you, I’d be careful of repeating those opinions to our host, when you’ve just enjoyed his cooking.”
This time it was Benoit who colored. “There are always exceptions, are there not? Perhaps Mr. Innes is a Frenchman at heart.”
“That might be taking things a wee bit too far,” said John Innes, who had come in silently, a tray on his arm. The rich smell of chocolate filled the room. “Although the French and the Scots have a long and mostly harmonious association, you’ll not find a Highlander gives up his identity so easily.” He smiled cheerfully at them and nodded towards the hall. “If you’d care to have your dessert in the parlor, Louise and I will join you. I thought we might discuss a few things before tomorrow’s class.”
Gemma rose as the murmur of assent went round the table, glad enough to quit the dining room’s claustrophobic atmosphere. She caught up to Hazel at the door, meaning to whisper a private word in her ear, but found Donald Brodie’s large form suddenly insinuated between them. He smelled faintly of cologne, wine, and warm wool; and just for an instant as they moved into the hall, Gemma saw him place his hand on Hazel’s shoulder.
Duncan Kincaid squeezed himself through the crowd coming off the train at Notting Hill tube station and ran lightly up the stairs. Reaching the shop level, he came to an automatic halt in front of the flower stall, eyeing the multicolored masses of tulips. Often on a Friday, he stopped on the way home to buy Gemma flowers, and these were her favorites.
But Gemma was away for the entire weekend, he reminded himself, going on. He and the boys would have the house to themselves—a good opportunity for male bonding, Gemma had told him teasingly. And he meant to make the most of it; a video with Kit that evening, football in the park tomorrow, and on Sunday, Toby’s favorite outing, a trip to the zoo. The weather promised to be fine, and he had left his paperwork at the office with his sergeant, Doug Cullen.
All in all, not a bad prospect, he thought as he exited the tube station into the street, but that didn’t stop him from feeling a pang as he passed the Calzone’s at the junction of Pembridge and Kensington Park Roads. It was Gemma’s favorite place in the neighborhood for a relaxed dinner, on the few occasions they managed to get out without the children.
He walked along Ladbroke Road, enjoying the soft May evening, and the sense of suppressed excitement that always seemed to hum in the London air before the weekend. The trees were in full leaf, the pale emerald of spring now deepening to the richer green of early summer, but a few late tulips still graced flower boxes and tiny front gardens.
As he passed Notting Hill Police Station, where Gemma was now posted, he thought about how difficult it had been to adjust to working without her. Of course, the change had allowed them to live together, which had deepened their relationship in many ways, but he’d also found that cohabitation did not provide quite the same sense of challenge and unity as working a case together.
Well, he told himself, life was full of change and compensations, and given a choice, he wouldn’t trade the present state of affairs for the former. Shaking off the small shadow of discontent, he turned into St. John’s Gardens and quickened his pace towards home.
The evening sun lit the house, picking out the contrast of white trim against dark brick, illuminating the welcoming cherry red of the door. He retrieved the post from the letter box and let himself in, stopping for a moment in the hall to identify the unusual odors wafting from the kitchen. Caribbean spices—Wesley was still there, and cooking, by the smell of it.
The case Kincaid and Gemma had worked the previous winter had brought them personal loss, but it had also introduced Wesley Howard into their lives. The young man, a university student with a passion for photography, supplemented his income by working at a neighborhood café, and in the past few months he had also become an unconventional and unofficial part-time nanny to the children.
The click of toenails on tile flooring heralded the arrival of Geordie, their cocker spaniel—or rather, Kincaid amended to himself, Gemma’s cocker spaniel. Although the dog had been Gemma’s Christmas gift to Kincaid and the boys, it was Gemma whom Geordie adored.
“Hullo, boy,” Kincaid said, stooping to stroke Geordie’s silky, blue-gray head. The dog’s stump of a tail was wagging enthusiastically, but his dark eyes seemed to hold a look of reproach. “Missing your mum, already, are you?” Giving Geordie a last pat, he straightened and went into the kitchen.
Wesley stood at the cooker, a tea towel wrapped round his waist as a makeshift apron, his dark skin glistening from the heat of the pan. “You’re early, mon,” he greeted Kincaid. “Thought they’d keep you at the nick on a Friday night.”
Kincaid stopped to tousle Toby’s fine, fair hair. The small boy sat at the kitchen table, drawing with crayons, his feet wrapped round the chair legs and the tip of his tongue protruding as he concentrated. “Skived off,” Kincaid said to Wesley with a smile. “That smells brilliant. Chicken, is it?” As if he had understood him, Sid, the cat, got up from his basket with a languid feline stretch and came to rub against his ankles.
“Jerk chicken, with some herbed rice.” Wesley gave Sid a warning look. “Would’ve had cat steak, if he’d got any further with the chicken wrapper.”
“Jerky chicken.” Toby giggled. “Look,” he added, pointing to his paper. “I’m drawing Mummy on the train.”
Absently, Kincaid deposited the mail on the table as he studied Toby’s artwork. The cars were black oblongs with round wheels and large, square windows; from one of the windows a stick figure with red, curling hair waved out at him. “I see Mummy,” he agreed, “but where’s Auntie Hazel? She’ll be cross with you if you don’t put her in.”
As Toby bent to his page again, Kincaid went to the cooker and peered over Wesley’s shoulder at the sizzling strips of chicken, sniffing appreciatively, then the kitchen clock caught his eye. “Shouldn’
t you be at Otto’s?” he asked. “I didn’t mean to keep you this late. And where’s Kit?” His son was usually to be found beside Wes in the kitchen, a hand in everything.
“I gave Otto a ring; he be fine without me. Café’s slow tonight. And Kit, he came home and went straight up to his room. Not like him.” Wesley’s dreadlocks bounced as he shook his head. “I didn’t like to leave. Thought maybe he missin’ Gemma already.”
“I’ll go have a word,” Kincaid said easily, but he felt the stab of concern that dogged him now whenever he thought something might be wrong with one of the children.
Glancing in the dining and sitting rooms as he passed, he thought they looked unnaturally neat; books and toys put away in baskets, sofa cushions fluffed, the keys of Gemma’s piano covered. All a result of Gemma’s tidying that morning, he supposed, as if she were going away for a month instead of a few days.
He climbed the wide staircase, one hand brushing the banister, and knocked at the half-open door of the boys’ bedroom. Across the hall, the room they’d meant to use as a nursery stood empty, but Kit had declined the offer of it, insisting he preferred to keep sharing with Toby.
His son lay curled on his narrow bed, a book in his hand, his small dog, Tess, nestled against him. As Kincaid entered, Kit sat up and let the book fall closed. The terrier lifted her head expectantly off her paws.
“What are you reading?” Kincaid asked, sitting down beside them. Experience had taught him to avoid the usual parental gambit—How was school today? did not elicit voluble replies, especially from Kit, who tended towards reticence at the best of times.
Had Kit always been that way, or was his quiet and slightly wary approach to the world a direct response to the trauma of his mother’s death? Kincaid found it difficult to reconcile himself to the idea that he would probably never learn the answer. He’d come too late into his son’s life, and the fact that he hadn’t known Kit was his son until after his ex-wife’s death did nothing to absolve him of his guilt.
Now May You Weep Page 3