Leave The Grave Green

by Deborah Crombie

  Kincaid sat at the table nearest the window in the tea shop. The tin pot had leaked as he poured, and his cup sat in a wet ring on the speckled plastic tabletop. At the next table he recognized the woman who had stopped at the gallery window a few minutes before-middle-aged, heavyset, her graying hair tightly crimped. Although the air in the shop was warm enough to form faint steamy smudges on the windowpanes, she still wore a waterproof jacket over her bulky cardigan. Perhaps she feared it might rain unexpectedly inside? When she looked up, he smiled at her, but she looked away, her face frozen in an expression of faint disapproval.

  Gazing idly at the river again, he fingered the key in his trouser pocket. Gemma had acquired Connor’s key, address and a description of the property from Thames Valley along with the initial reports. Until a year ago Julia and Connor had lived together in the flat he thought must be just along the terrace, near the willow-covered islands he could see from the window. Julia might have stopped in here often for a morning coffee or a cup of afternoon tea. He imagined her suddenly, sitting across the booth from him in a black sweater, smoking jerkily, frowning in concentration. In his mind she rose and went out into the street. She stood before the gallery for a moment, as if hesitating, then he heard the door chime as she opened it and went in.

  Shaking his head, Kincaid downed the remains of his tea in one gulp. He slid from the booth and presented his soggy bill to the girl behind the counter, then followed Julia’s phantom out into the lengthening shadows.

  He walked toward the river meadows, gazing alternately at the placid river on his left and the blocks of flats on his right. It surprised him that these riverside addresses weren’t more elegant. One of the larger buildings was neo-Georgian, another Tudoresque, and both were just a trifle seedy, like dowagers out in soiled housecoats. The shrubbery grew rankly in the gardens, brightened only by the dark red dried heads of sedum and the occasional pale blue of Michaelmas daisies. But it was November after all, Kincaid thought charitably, looking at the quiet river. Even the kiosk advertising river trips and boats for hire was shuttered and locked.

  The road narrowed and the large blocks of flats gave way to lower buildings and an occasional detached house. Here the river seemed less separate from the land, and when he reached the high black wrought-iron fence he recognized it from the scrawled description in his pocket. He grasped two of the spiked bars in his hands and peered through them. A commemorative ceramic plaque set into the wall of the nearest building informed him that the flats were quite recently developed, so perhaps Julia and Connor had been among the first tenants. They were built to look like boathouses, in a soft-red brick with an abundance of white-trimmed windows, white deck railings and white peaked gables adorned with gingerbread. Kincaid thought them a bit overdone, but pleasantly so, for they harmonized with both the natural landscape and the surrounding buildings. Like Prince Charles, he found most contemporary architecture to be a blight upon the landscape.

  Dodging an array of parked boats and trailers, Kincaid walked along the fence until he found a gate. The flats were staggered behind a well-tended garden, and none was quite identical to the next. He found the house easily, one of the three-tiered variety, raised above the ground on stiltlike supports. Feeling suddenly as if he were trespassing, he fitted the key in the lock, but no one called out to him from the adjacent decks.

  He had expected black and white.

  Illogically, he supposed, considering the intensity of color Julia used in her paintings. This was a softer palette, almost Mediterranean, with pale yellow walls and terra-cotta floors. Casually provincial furniture filled the sitting room and a fringed Moroccan rug softened the tile floor. On a tiled platform against one wall stood an enameled wood-burning stove. A small painted table in front of the sofa held a chess set. Had Connor played, Kincaid wondered, or had it been merely for show?

  A sport jacket lay crumpled over the back of a chair, an untidy pile of newspapers spilled from sofa to floor and a pair of boat shoes peeked from beneath the coffee table. The male clutter seemed incongruous, an intrusion on an essentially feminine room. Kincaid ran his forefinger across a tabletop, then brushed off the resulting gray fuzz against his trouser leg. Connor Swann had not been much of a housekeeper.

  Kincaid wandered into the adjoining kitchen. It had no windows, but opened to the sitting room with its view of the river. Unlike the sitting room, however, it looked immaculate. Cans of olive oil and colored-glass bottles of vinegar stood out like bright flags against the oak cabinets and yellow countertops, and a shelf near the cooktop held an array of well-thumbed cookbooks. Julia Child, read Kincaid, The Art of Cooking. The Italian Kitchen. La Cucina Fresca. There were more, some with lavish color photographs that made him hungry just looking. Glass jars filled with pasta lined another open shelf.

  Kincaid opened the fridge and found it well stocked with condiments, cheeses, eggs and milk. The freezer held a few neatly wrapped and labeled packages of meat and chicken, a loaf of French bread, and some plastic containers of something Kincaid guessed might be homemade soup stock. A pad beneath the telephone held the beginnings of a grocery list: aubergines, tomato paste, red-leaf lettuce, pears.

  The descriptions Kincaid had heard of Connor Swann had not led him to expect an accomplished and enthusiastic cook, but this man had obviously not resorted to zapping frozen dinners in the microwave.

  The first floor held a master bedroom and bath done in the same soft yellows as the ground floor, and a small room which apparently served as an office or study. Kincaid continued up the stairs to the top floor.

  It had been Julia’s studio. The wide windows let in a flood of late afternoon light, and over the willow-tops he could see the winding Thames. A bare table stood in the center of the room, and an old desk pushed against one wall held some partially used sketch pads and a wooden box filled with odds and ends of paint tubes. Curiously, Kincaid rummaged through them. He hadn’t known that professional watercolors came in tubes. Windsor Red. Scarlet Lake. Ultramarine Blue. The names ran through his mind like poetry, but the tubes left the fine dust of neglect on his fingertips. The room itself felt empty and unused.

  He slowly retraced his steps, stopping once more at the door to the bedroom. The bed was hastily made, and a pair of trousers lay thrown over a chair, belt dangling.

  The sense of a life interrupted hung palpably in the air. Connor Swann had meant to shop for groceries, prepare dinner, put out the newspapers, brush his teeth, slide under the warmth of the blue-and-yellow quilt on the bed. Kincaid knew that unless he came to an understanding of who Connor Swann had been, he had little hope of discovering who had killed him, and he realized that all his knowledge and perceptions of him were filtered through Julia and her family.

  This was Julia’s house. Every room bore her imprint, and except for the kitchen, Connor seemed to have only drifted across its surface. Why had Julia left it, like a commander who held all the advantages retreating from the citadel?

  Kincaid turned from the bedroom and went into the study. The room contained nothing but a desk and chair facing the window, and a wing-backed chair with a reading lamp. Sitting in the straight-backed chair, he turned on the green-shaded desk lamp and began picking desultorily through the clutter.

  A leather-bound appointment book came first to hand. Starting with January, Kincaid flipped slowly through it. The names of the racetracks jumped out first-Epsom, Cheltenham, Newmarket… They rotated regularly through the months. Some had times written beside them, others sharp exclamation points. A good day?

  Kincaid went back to the beginning, starting over more carefully. In between races he began to see the pattern of Connor’s social life. Dates for lunch, dinner, drinks, often accompanied by a name, a time and the words Red Lion. Bloody hell, thought Kincaid, the man had kept up an exhausting social schedule. And to make it worse, pubs and hotels called the Red Lion were as common as sheep in Yorkshire. He supposed the logical place to start would be the plush old hotel here in Henle
y, next to the church.

  Golf dates appeared often, as well as the notation Meet with J., followed by a dash and varying names, some cryptic, some, like Tyler Pipe and Carpetland, obviously businesses. It looked as though these weren’t all social engagements, but rather business appointments, entertaining clients of some sort. Kincaid had assumed that Connor lived off the Asherton income, and nothing in the Thames Valley reports had led him to think otherwise, but perhaps that hadn’t been the case. He closed the book and began shuffling through the papers on the desktop, then had a thought and opened the diary again. Lunch at B.E. appeared every Thursday, regular as clockwork.

  The stack on the desktop resolved itself into ordinary household bills, betting slips, a set of racing-form books, a corporate report from a firm in Reading, and an auction catalogue. Kincaid shrugged and continued his inventory. Paperclips, paper knife, a mug emblazoned with HENLEY ART FEST, which held a handful of promotional pens.

  He found Connor’s checkbook in the left-hand drawer. A quick look through the register revealed the expected monthly payments, as well as regular deposits labeled Blackwell, Gillock and Frye. A firm of solicitors? wondered Kincaid? An interesting pattern began to form-he returned to the beginning of the register, double-checking. The first check written after every deposit was made out to a K. Hicks, and the amounts, although not the same, were always sizable.

  Lost as he was in speculation, it took a moment for the soft click from downstairs to penetrate Kincaid’s consciousness. He looked up. Dusk had fallen as he worked. Through the window the outline of the willows showed charcoal against a violet sky.

  The sounds were more definitive this time-a louder click, followed by a creak. Kincaid slid from the chair and moved quietly out into the hall. He listened for a moment, then went quickly down the stairs, keeping his feet carefully to the outside of the treads. When he reached the last step, the light came on in the sitting room. He listened again, then stepped around the corner.

  She stood by the front door, one hand still on the light switch. The glow from the table lamps revealed tight jeans, a fuzzy pink sweater in a weave so loose it revealed the line of her bra, impossibly high heels, blond hair permed into Medusa-like ropes. He could see the quick rise and fall of her chest beneath the sweater.

  “Hullo,” he said, trying on a smile.

  She took one gulping breath before she shrieked. “Who the bloody hell are you?”

  CHAPTER 5

  Disoriented, Gemma reached out and touched the other side of the double bed, patted it. Empty. Opening her eyes, she saw the faint gray light brightening the wrong side of the room.

  She came fully awake. New flat. No husband. Of course. Sitting up against the pillows, she pushed the tangle of hair away from her face. It had been months since she dreamed of Rob, and she had thought that particular ghost well laid to rest.

  The hot water had just begun to gurgle through the radiator pipes as the automatic timer switched on the central heating. For a panicked moment she wondered why the alarm hadn’t gone off, then relaxed in relief. It was Sunday. She closed her eyes and snuggled down into the pillows, feeling that luxurious laziness that comes with waking early and knowing one doesn’t have to get up.

  Sleep, however, refused to be coaxed back. The thought of the interview she’d managed to schedule later in the morning at the Coliseum niggled at her consciousness until finally, with a yawn, she swung her feet from under the duvet. The opera had seemed the logical place to start checking out Gerald Asherton’s story, and she found herself looking forward to her day with a tingle of pleasure.

  When her toes touched the floor they curled involuntarily from the cold, and she fumbled for her slippers as she shrugged into her dressing gown. At least she could take advantage of the time before Toby awakened to have a quiet cup of coffee and organize her thoughts for the day.

  A few minutes later the flat was warming nicely and she sat at the black-slatted table in front of the garden windows, cradling a hot mug in her hands and questioning her sanity.

  She had sold her house in Leyton-three bedrooms, semidetached with garden, a symbol in brick and pebbledust of Rob’s unrealistic plans for their marriage-and instead of buying the sensible flat in Wanstead she’d had in mind, she’d leased… this. She gazed round the room, bemused.

  Her estate agent had begged, “Just have a quick look, Gemma, that’s all I ask. I know it’s not what you’re looking for, but you simply must see it.” And so she had come, and seen, and signed on the dotted line, finding herself the surprised tenant of the converted garage behind a square detached Victorian house in a tree-lined street in Islington. The house itself was unexpected, standing as it did between two of Islington’s most elegant Georgian terraces, but it occupied its space with the confidence of good breeding.

  The garage was separate from the house, and lower than the garden, so that the hip-high windows which lined one entire wall of the flat were actually ground level on the outside. The owners, a psychiatrist who worked from a shed in the garden, and his Dutch wife, had done up the garage in what the agent described as “Japanese minimalist” decor.

  Gemma almost laughed aloud, thinking of it. An exercise in “minimalist living” would be a fitting description of what it had become for her. The flat was basically one large room, furnished with a futon and a few other sleek, contemporary pieces. Cubbyholes along the wall opposite the bed contained kitchen and water closet, and a storage room with a small window had become Toby’s bedroom. The arrangement didn’t allow much privacy, but privacy with a small child was a negligible quality anyway, and Gemma couldn’t imagine sharing her bed with anyone in the foreseeable future.

  Gemma’s furniture and most of their belongings had been stored in the back of her parents’ bakery in Leyton High Street. Her mum had shaken her faded red curls and tut-tutted. “What were you thinking of, love?”

  A quiet, tree-lined street with a park at its end. A green, walled garden, filled with interesting nooks and crannies for a little boy to hide in. A secret place, filled with possibilities. But Gemma had merely said, “I like it, Mum. And it’s nearer the Yard,” doubting her mother would understand.

  She felt stripped clean, pared down to essentials, serene in the room’s black-and-gray simplicity.

  Or at least she had until this morning. She frowned, wondering again what had made her feel so unsettled, and the image of twelve-year-old Matthew Asherton came unbidden to her mind.

  She rose, put two slices of brown bread in the toaster that stood on the tabletop and went to kiss Toby awake.

  Having deposited Toby at her mum’s, Gemma took the tube to Charing Cross. As the train pulled away, the rush of wind down the tunnel whipped her skirt around her knees and she hugged the lapels of her jacket together. She left the station and entered the pedestrian mall behind St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and rounding the church into St. Martin’s Lane she found the outside no better. A gust of north wind funneled down the street, flinging grit and scraps of paper and leaving tiny whirlwinds in its wake.

  She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and blinked several times to clear them, then looked about her. Before her on the corner stood the Chandos Pub, and just beyond it a black-on-white vertical sign said LONDON COLISEUM. Blue and white banners emblazoned with the letters ENO surrounded it and drew her eyes upward. Against the blue-washed canvas of the sky, the ornate white cupola stood out sharply. Near the top of the dome, white letters spelled out ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA rather sedately, and Gemma thought they must be lit at night.

  Something tugged at her memory and she realized she’d been here before. She and Rob had been to a play at the Albury Theatre up the street, and afterward had stopped for a drink at the Chandos. It had been a warm night and they’d taken their drinks outside, escaping the smoky crush in the bar. Gemma remembered sipping her Pimm’s and watching the operagoers spill out onto the pavement, their faces animated, hands moving with quick gestures as they dissected the performance. “It m
ight be fun,” she’d said rather wistfully to Rob.

  He had smiled in his condescending way and said, light voice mocking, “Old cows in silly costumes screeching their lungs out? Don’t be stupid, Gem.”

  Gemma smiled now, thinking of the photo she’d seen of Caroline Stowe. Rob would’ve fallen over himself if he’d come face-to-face with her. Old cow, indeed. He’d never know what he had missed.

  She pushed through the lobby doors, feeling a small surge of excitement at her own entrance into this glamorous fairy-tale world. “Alison Douglas,” she said to the heavy gray-haired woman at the reception desk. “The orchestra manager’s assistant. I’ve an appointment with her.”

  “You’ll have to go round the back, then, ducks,” the woman answered in less than rarified accents. She made a looping motion with her finger. “Round the block, next the loading bay.”

  Feeling somewhat chastened, Gemma left the plush-and-gilt warmth of the lobby and circled the block in the indicated direction. She found herself in an alleylike street lined with pub and restaurant delivery entrances. With its concrete steps and peeling paint, the stage entrance to the London Coliseum was distinguished only by the increasingly familiar ENO logo near the door. Gemma climbed up and stepped inside, looking around curiously at the small lino-floored reception area.

  To her left a porter sat inside a glass-windowed kiosk; just ahead another door barred the way into what must be the inner sanctum. She announced herself to the porter and he smiled as he handed her a sign-in sheet on a clipboard. He was young, with a freckled face and brown hair that looked suspiciously as if it were growing out from a Mohawk cut. Gemma looked more closely, saw the tiny puncture in his earlobe which should have held an earring. He’d made a valiant effort to clean up for the job, no doubt.

  “I’ll just give Miss Alison a ring,” he said as he handed her a sticky badge to wear. “She’ll be right down for you.” He picked up the phone and murmured something incomprehensible into it.